the cutest pig farmers...

you've ever seen:)



That is, if the sun isn't too bright!



Slone loves taking care of these pigs. Last night, they fed them some apples that I had that had gone soft. They feed them the parsley that has overtaken my little garden. But the pigs won't touch the mint that we give them. I don't really blame them. The mint I have stinks.



The pigs are probably one of the best things we've done for the boys. They are learning responsibility. There isn't much to it though, just enough for a 6 and 4 year old. The pigs have their own self feeder and water. The boys just check it everyday to make sure everything is in working order. 



We are going to have some tasty porkchops and hams though!

a custom bag

I got a custom order awhile ago for a bag with a squirrel print:) The one giving the bag knows the one getting the bag hates squirrels! I couldn't find any fun squirrel print material so I thought I'd improvise! I didn't want the girl getting the bag to absolutely not want to carry it...here's what I came up with:)



I hope I changed her mind about squirrels...



I appliqued him on out of some leather that I had. Suede side up, to give him a little more detail.

I really love this bag! Even with the squirrel! Something different!

a closet redo

I cleaned out the closet in my office. It was packed full of trucking papers, mops crafts that I never put away, photography stuff, and bunches of craft books. It was so bad the bulky sliding doors that were on it wouldn't lay flat, they were literally bulging at the seams. I should have taken a "before" picture. But it would've been so embarrassing to show you. So you only get the afters:)

The boys really needed a place to do their "homework". The table and chairs were sitting out in the office. They really can't keep their stuff together, so it was always a big mess. I thought putting it in the closet and be able to hide it, might make the office seem cleaner.



The top shelf are all of my craft and sewing reference books. The shelf is sagging. Tell me, have you ever seen a shelf of books not sag eventually? I had the other white shelves in the closet, not hanging up. So I put them up in there. The filing cabinets hold all the trucking stuff I need, so do the scrapbooking shelves on top of them.



The boys got the calendar for Christmas and it was taped to my wall before. Now they have a place for all their Lego, Nat Geo, and Zoobook magazines. Their stencils, coloring books and drawing books are in the wooden organizer on the desk. That lamp I already had too. It just accidentally and happily fit perfectly in that spot.



I saw on Meg's Whatever blog, that she keeps her kids crayons and markers in one of those cool glass jars. I have one but I was worried about Bo and the glass lid. Can you imagine? {shudder} I don't want to. But I did have a large plastic jar of cheese balls from Sam's. I washed it out and now we have lots of room for our art supplies!



Slone took it upon himself to do a little of his own decorating. He got all of these cards from VBS. Both the boys loved VBS. The pandas were a big hit.



This is the office supply shelf. These are Mommie's, not for kids, hence the flower pot of sharpies. The w is from Target (surprise:), maybe 4 years ago.



A little work in progress. 



I did go to Target and bought this shower curtain to hide everything. The doors limited the space. The curtain was the only thing I bought new for the project! So quite a transformation for a little elbow grease and $20.

running

Let me just tell you this, I have never been a runner. Nope. Boring. Too much work. Too much sweat. My face turns really red. I can't breathe. No thanks.

That is until my shorts were too tight on Memorial day. Enough is enough. I had definitely had enough food. And my previous post was about easy burritos...see my problem?!

So the next morning I got up and ran. Well, not so much running as walking but at least I got up. But I was armed with my little nike+. It works with an ipod or your iphone. I love little techie stuff and this thing measures your speed, distance and average min/mile. I had bought it last year thinking running was my thing and used it once:) oh brother.  I have been getting up and running at least 4 times a week since.

I still don't jump up in the morning ready to run. My brain still screams all those thoughts up there to me while I'm running. But I really do like running in the morning before 7. There is nobody on our road and it's still cool. Plus I don't listen to music, I can't keep the stinking ear buds in my ears so I just run.

I haven't seen a ton of physical results yet but they'll come. The shorts are more comfortable now. But nothing beats that feeling after a run, because I feel like this:

Source: etsy.com via Heather on Pinterest

And I'm buying this print for myself. You can personalize it to say your own name. I think I deserve it:)

freezer meals

The other day I mentioned freezer meals. I have been reading a cookbook I got on amazon called "Fix, Freeze, Feast". Well, I did two meals all on my own yesterday. I made a honey chicken that is good for three meals. And I made beef and cheese burritos. They were awesome! (if I do say so myself:)

I'll tell ya about them, cuz I know you are dying to find out:)

First you need wax paper, tortillas, salsa con queso, taco meat, and some shredded cheese. Here's a pic just in case you are having trouble visualizing what any of those things are.



First, I tore off 12 -12x12- sheets of wax paper. They really could be smaller than that if you didn't want to waste it. But I wanted to make sure all of my burritos were covered, because there is not much I hate more than freezer burnt food.

Then you make a taco. Salsa con queso, meat, cheese. Oh, I had made my taco meat earlier in the week. I didn't have any taco seasoning so I used a can of Rotel and some water. I actually like that taste way better than any taco seasoning I've tried. There is about 5 pounds of hamburger there.



Roll her up like a burrito, then roll the wax paper around her the same way.



I placed 12 in a gallon freezer bag. Labeled them. And did 3 more gallon bags of them.



That's right, I ended up with 48 burritos:)



The best thing about these is that you can take one or two right out of the freezer and heat them in the microwave for about 1.5 mins and you're ready to eat! Therefore this makes them great for lunch time at our house! The boys like them a lot too!

Where have I been? What have I been doing?

Well, taking some engagement pics:)



And some one year pics!



Making some cards...

And we have been doing a bunch of normal summertime stuff.

We had a garage sale. I made $150 and got tons of crap out of my house!

We've been swimming at Lyn's. Slone is already tanned up. He has skin like his dad. Poor Bo burns like his mama.

I think I'm going to start doing freezer meals. I would really love for that to work out! I'm sick of trying to figure out what's for dinner every night.

We went to the Kickapoo car show. Really, that sentence sums it up. Short.

Oh, yeah. I started running. My first reaction to that...Barf. It's really not as bad as I thought. I get up at six am, four times a week and run two miles. Well, there are small bouts of walking in there. But at least I'm doing it.

I've been reading Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst. If you don't know who she is, you really need to check out some of her books.

What's been going on in your summer? Hopefully I'll be back to regular blogging. It's just it's been way to nice out to play on the computer!