On Saturday we celebrated our 5th anniversary! We didn't do anything extraordinary to celebrate, but we are still thankful for the great years we've had together so far - and we pray God will give us many more! We were talking about our marriage the other night, and trying to choose some of the best memories we have so far...there are lots to choose from! (Some funny... some more "normal"). We both decided that our backpacking trip to Mt. Assiniboine (in the Rockies) is at the top of the list! Another thing we have really enjoyed in our marriage are the times that we just end up sitting and chatting like best friends - usually over supper... We are blessed with a wonderful marriage and friendship, and we are thankful. These are some pictures that my sister, Stef, took of us a couple of years ago. I put them onto these 8x8 canvas' (from the dollar store) and they hang in our room. They're just a fun way to remind us often of the vows we made!
I made this little "thinking of you" card a few days ago. I had seen a this contest on the weekend, and was hoping to get the card finished in time for it, but that didn't work out. I just couldn't sit inside working on the card on Saturday when it was so beautiful outside!! The contest required that you use 4 specific colors for the card - there were no other specifications... so this is what I came up with. I was pretty happy with the result!The colors were Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise, Gable Green and Soft Sky. I didn't have the exact colors by the company but I found my own that worked pretty closely. I liked what the muted pattern on the green paper added to my card. The little flower stamps are from a set from wal-mart I think, and the butterfly is from a Close to my Heart set. I inked the edges of the white cardstock before mounting them on to the colored paper. I punched some orange eyelets through the green strip across the top and then tied the little squares to that. The "thinking of you" sentiment was just printed on the computer, and then I inked the edge of that too. Each piece that's placed on the light blue is attached with a little piece of double-sided foam tape (I get mine from the dollar store in the hardware section) - just cause I like the effect of the paper being slightly raised. At one point, I asked Martin if I should use green or orange eyelets for the top (I just wanted another opinion) and he was at a loss - this card thing just isn't for him :)
I love to scrapbook and make cards. I don't always take much time for it - but I still love it! Most often, I find my ideas online from other creative people who share their projects... just so you don't think I have all these wonderful ideas on my own. For this project, I wanted to give a family that we babysat for a few days a little memory book of our time there. I was looking through the Taylored Expressions blog, and found this idea. You can find the instructions here. Each section has a pocket in it, and inside the pocket, I 
put a few pictures. Some are just single matted pictures, but for the "nice" and "silly" girls sections, I used little accordian-folded strips of paper with several pictures on them. It's an easy way to tuck lots of pictures into a small space! I marked each item that could be slid out of a pocket with a little piece of ribbon. I had a lot of fun with this project... I'll for sure be making one of these again sometime!
Yesterday was Martin's birthday! He likes the celebration to be on the simple side... so we did just that. My parents took us out for dinner one night, and then we had Martin's family over for Sunday dinner last night. Seeing the strawberries out lately, I decided to make a Strawberry Mousse Cake. I combined a couple of recipes for that - one for the cake - and one for the mousse. Martin thinks I'm crazy to be taking pictures of everything these days, but I just think they're fun things to share. Tomorrow I'll share a little project I made for someone a little while ago! Here's the links to the recipes I used: For the cake: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/242107 (this whole recipe actually looks good too - maybe someday I'll try it!)For the mousse (& the cake assembly): http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/print?id=8393 (if I could master sponge cake, I'd use this cake recipe too... but for some reason, mine never turn out - that's why I used the other cake recipe)
I got a new violin! I used to play (when I was 7 or 8), but haven't really thought about it since then. Until this past Christmas. We went to the Micheal W. Smith concert - it was a classical Christmas concert including a 60-some piece orchestra. I didn't know I liked that kind of music!! Anyways, I saw the violinists, and it really made me want to pick it up again. So, after thinking about it for a while, we decided I could rent one for a month. I got the first Suzuki book in the series, and just started playing. I love it!!! Martin is patient with my amateur playing, and we've even played a few songs together! (He has a keyboard that he loves to play.) I'm trying to be patient with myself; as with everything else, I want to be good at it right away! I might eventually get a few lessons to improve my technique - but for now I'll just go on teaching myself. Anyways, since the month went good, we decided that I could go ahead and buy my own... it's just a really basic one - but it will do the trick for now.
I'm so excited for spring to come! Last week, when we saw some sunshine, I couldn't resist going to the greenhouse to buy a few flowers for the planters by the front door. It was fun to work with flowers again! Our window 
boxes all sit empty still... I'm looking forward to be able to fill those again - they're one of our favorite things about our house! This year, we added some brackets to the window boxes - we really like the look of them - they're very simple, but that's the way we like it!
Hi!I'm new to this whole thing, but I so enjoy reading other people's blogs... so I thought I would try it out myself. Sounded like a fun way to keep people updated about what we've been up to. Hopefully I'll post something fun and interesting soon! Thanks for looking!
On Saturday we celebrated our 5th anniversary! We didn't do anything extraordinary to celebrate, but we are still thankful for the great years we've had together so far - and we pray God will give us many more! 
