More pomegranates?

Hannah loves doing the monkey bars. Last year in kindergarten, she got several blisters on the palm on her hands...I remember the same thing happening to me, when I was a bit older. She is so athletic and muscular. I hope she stays so healthy and I wish I could be a bit more like her. Thankfully, we all get to spend time outside together and can really have fun, playing hide and seek or whatever. Most of the time, I play as I am, run as fast as I can and play to win, after all, it isn't fun if you know someone LET you win. But no one wants to be the loser all the time, I understand that. I also don't want to be competitive, there is so much of that in the world today, who is better dressed? who has more money? who is smarter? all that stuff is ridiculous. It's all about learning and doing your very best, that's it.

It's almost pomegranate season, well, maybe in a month we'll see them in the store! Last year, we got a few of them in November, they provide me with inspiration, they're so good for you and we love to snack on them (I do LOVE to eat). This started in high school, I drew a series of 9 little drawings in colored pencils of the pomegranate whole and as I started to open it, recording what I saw at each stage, the seeds, the white membrane, the juicy flesh... I have painted quite a few lately and really want to paint pears, too, but the deep red really gets me. Colors are wonderful...today it rained quite a bit, we needed the rain, but when the clouds parted the the bright blue shone, I caught myself looking at it in awe, grateful for the beautiful natural colors God has put into our world.

The last day of summer!

I painted another painting for the silent auction at Starbucks. Last month, it was to benefit Juvenile Diabetes, this time proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. I will have to take a photo of it.... Our "Artist Trading Card" swap on the Creative Keepsakes message-board is officially over, and I'm waiting on the rest of the cards. Basically it's a 2.5 x 3.5" card, like a playing card, that you can collage onto, paint, doodle, paste pretty paper or stamp onto, miniture works of art, just for fun!

After church tonight, we went to Starbucks. Andrea made me an iced Pumpkin Spice Chai tea...yum! Although it was pretty cool last week (we got out sweaters), it's warmed up again this week and we had a beautiful last day of summer. We cooled off from the heat in the hot tub (which is pretty cold, unless you turn on the heater and let it warm up for about 2 hours).

It was a nice day to just hang out with family. Since I'm working again (I haven't worked this many hours since before the girls were born), I'm happy for the time we have to be together. All 4 of us. On a regular day, I got to work at 8:30am now, Rob brings Olivia at 12:15 for the afternoon pre-school class and he does homeschooling lessons at home with Hannah, then Olivia and I come home about 3:15 and Rob heads out to work at 4pm. Last year, he hurt his back pretty badly at work and it took him about 4 months to heal, so I worked a few temporary jobs and was working as a substitute teacher, but we needed to have a steadier back-up. Thank God we are all healthy now!

Rob surprised us by bringing home a dozen Dunkin Donuts! I remember as a child, my dad bringing the same treat early Saturday mornings! Sometimes, if I woke up early enough, I'd ride my bike with him, so we really earned it! I've never been a late sleeper. I'm an early bird.

Today, Rob put up a mesh over our gutters in the heat of the day. Grungy and all...I love this guy. See those green "crocs"? He got those out of the trash at Pep Boys, isn't that funny? Brand NEW, with the tags on, his size!

I missed my camera...

...and I'm so happy to have it back! Today Olivia had ballet class and I only took a few photos. I will definitely take more next time, but the parents aren't invited into the room, so it was not the greatest photo opportunity.

In today's mail, came an issue of Good Housekeeping, which was a free magazine subscription through Kroger's and I have grown to love it, it's a decent magazine and has interesting articles for me, here's a recipe that is included: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/recipe/New_York_Pumpkin_Crème_Caramel/rf/2693

Oh, boy, I can't wait to try that out! Mmm!

Yesterday, I did a Pampered Chef show at Mary's house. We made Molten Chocolate Mini Cakes in the Silicone floral cupcake pan. I LOVE that pan, everything comes out beautifully and I can pop it in the dishwasher afterwards!!! She served it with ice cream, don't you just LOVE warm goodies fresh from the oven with a scoop of something chilly? I do! All our cookbooks are on sale for just $10 this month, no limit!!!!

Sunday, we went to visit Maggie. Hannah was thrilled that she had a lot of leaves in her yard, and asked if we could rake...and the fun ended in 5 bags! I do love raking leaves, especially when you're not alone, it's sure great to have family and friends helping. Our yard doesn't have any large trees in it, unfortunately, but the neighbors large trees might give us some leaves to rake!

Counting in Japanese

My karate kid: Hannah! She is attentive and eager to learn from her sensei. I'm so proud of her. She earned a green star this week and today she earned a red stripe on her belt! We've been practicing counting to 10 in Japanese, they do this in class while making different moves...

ichi
ni
san
shi
go
roku
shichi

hachi
kyu
ju

My little sister got the "ungame" and one of the questions was exactly what I polled, just out of curiousity...what color do you associate with happiness? So the majority here, although I don't have large numbers to PROVE anything, says that yellow and blue are the happy colors!!! Personally, a shade of blue (turquoise or sky blue) is my favorite color, but when asked that question the first thing that popped into my mind was yellow, as I visioned the sun in my mind! And I LOVE the color of the sky today, it definitely makes me happy! Tell me if you have any associations with specific colors.

Juliana is just 2. Isn't she just a little trend setter? I love the long shirt styles that are coming back...my sister wasn't sure if this outfit, which was a birthday present was a shirt or a dress and I totally understand. She's wearing it with jeans here, but I think it would also look cute with leggings!

Last night, I baked the Russian meat-stuffed bread "piroshki" and they turned out beautifully. They taste great too. I'm helping with "trapeza" (coffee hour, but more of a lunch) at church tomorrow. I just made a pumpkin roll (with cream cheese filling, it's so delicious. Hannah and I just licked off the beaters. Yum. Olivia went with Rob this morning to Fountain City, Indiana. He grew up there and they always have a festival the 3rd weekend of September. I hope they got to see the house where he grew up, it's a really great place, we went there 3 or 4 years ago around Christmas just to look. It's a gorgeous day today, perfect blue sky, a gentle breeze and the temperature is about 60'F...so about 20'C (because I know that is 68').

Grandma Greene

Here are a few photos we took of Grandma's beautiful Victorian house. She passed away in 2002, it's hard to believe it's been 5 years, we saw her a few months before, though, we flew to Vermont to spend Thanksgiving with her, and it was her first time meeting Hannah, her 1st great-grandchild, now she has 5...all girls.

A really nice woman named Valerie now owns the house, she runs a hair salon in the front room (on the left side in this photo) that has LOTS of windows, Grandma's piano used to be there, I remember singing many songs with her on Thanksgiving, like "We Gather Together" and "All things Bright and Beautiful."
We also lived there for a month before we moved into our house in Connecticut. We showed her Pacman and she was really addicted...she was always fun, very pretty, even as she grew older, enjoyed art of all sorts, loved to travel and play scrabble.

It is still summer...

...but in two weeks it will be fall. Today, however, is seems like fall... the wind is blowing, leaves are falling from the trees (it's very dry, we need rain) and I expect it to rain soon. I love the seasons, it seems that God knows when to change them, when I'm tired of the heat and humidity, the cool weather takes over. I look forward to picking apples, but the orchard we went to last September (Rob took a nice photo of me and our girls) doesn't have u-pick this year, I am assuming because of the lack of rain they have a small crop. I will make some phone calls to see if there is another nearby place to pick apples. Last year, I borrowed my mom's Chinoise food strainer that had a wooden pestle (the set is now called "vintage" but she's had it since I was very little) and left the apple skins on when I cooked them, so the applesauce was PINK! It was so good. Rob made a scrumptuous apple pie! And I still have pumpkin pulp from our pumpkins last year, in the freezer, so I will bake something with that well before Thanksgiving. Everyone likes fresh ingredients.
We're going to go outside and play hide-and-seek, before it gets dark. It's 7pm already!

Memories of my childhood

My camera is at my sister-in-laws house (2 hours away) and I miss it. There are so many moments I wish I could capture, but in reality, I have too many photos anyhow, so I will just have to remember these...

For vacation this summer, we went to Vermont. We crossed Lake Champlain on a ferry (going from New York to Vermont). The girls asked if it was the ocean. Olivia made up a song "It's a beautiful day, when the wind blows and the sun shines..." and that's exactly what it was! The waterfall is in Middlebury where my grandma lived. It was so much fun to explore the area, I remembered it, I lived there almost 20 years ago, but it was totally fresh territory for Hannah and Olivia (and my husband, too)! It's hard to believe it's been so long...

You know, I may be 30, but I still feel like a little girl in an adult body. I love crayons, colored paper, jumping on the trampoline, swings, merry-go-rounds, paint, water balloons, chalk on the driveway, dressing-up...

Tonight, we're going to catch a karate class and see if we like it. We are homeschooling Hannah this year, so we are trying her to get involved in some social activities. She wants to take ballet, tap dance and do the Lowe's workshops every other Saturday!