Rainy Day Playtime

Peek-a-Boo!

Where've you been lately?? Well, it's been a little busy around here...thanks for asking. We've been making so many 'family' memories....that I haven't had as much to post publicly ;)

So here's one...a smattering of crafty ideas for a rainy day:

A couple of weeks ago we had some friends over on THE wettest day of the year.

I prepped some crafts to keep us busy. Though these nine kids tend to entertain themselves when they're together.......it's always nice to have something organized to do as well!

A handful of craft items and painted cups turned into a crowd of crows.

Then we read a book about making an apple pie.....which lead to whipping up THE EASIEST apple pie EVER!

And if you don't know this about me yet. I Sooooo don't like to bake.....

but when you have a handful of the world's greatest stirrers, the job comes together quickly!

The key to this recipe was to use a store bought crust....and then Microwave the apple filling before placing it in the crust.

This cut down on the cooking time dramatically! And it was warm and yummy this side of 15 minutes!

We enjoyed Apple Pie.......crow crafts.......tortilla soup.....girlie convos.....and this last craft is my favorite.

The kids drew a barren tree......then we placed a bunch of leafy confetti under a clear plate and hot glued it down.

Poof! A 'snowglobe' effect complete with 'falling' leaves when you shake the picture.....

or is it a TreeGlobe?

It's as adorable as that lady bug crawling up the trunk, if you ask me.

I say, let it rain, we'll chat and play again til my hubby comes home.

Besides I love the way the earth smells after a good washing!

Kinda like kids after a bath....when they've played hard all day.......

Mmmmmm......happy smells.

Are you Salty?

The drive to Salt Lake City is BOR-ING.....
.....and they know it too.....check out these signs:
Drowsy drivers are warned all along the way....and even encouraged to pull over!
Well for us Northern Californians....it's a 10.5 hour drive on paper....but we did it in 12 hours with pit stops and coffee runs.


As a family, we LOVE road trips so that wasn't a problem. But I certainly wasn't prepared for the strange sights.....good Ol Maggie (our Magellan) showed us driving through a Lake for like 60 miles!

And all around us appeared to be either water or very moist ground. Doesn't it feel lunar...with just a touch more color?

Welcome to the Salt Flats.

Toward the end we just had to pull over and check out the texture.

Would we sink? Was it pure salt?

Many other curious folks had left their marks.....daring to drive out onto the smooth surfaces....or to make rock formations.

Our marks were primitive but personal.

....and the texture? Like stiff, wet sand. But dustier. It coated our shoes and you can see how my heels sunk in when I lost my balance.

We didn't see actual water for miles.

It was SO interesting! Those crazy Utonians....they're surrounded by this stuff.

Can you imagine all this salted earth...landlocked.

Simply odd.

And so began our journey into Salt Lake City. But you'll have to go to our family blog to read more about that.

:D

PS- they obviously don't have a problem with Mark 9:50....."Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? You must have the qualities of salt among yourselves and live in peace with each other."

God likes salt....it's in you, it's in me....and He put it ALL over the earth.

To my detriment. I love to eat it.......

and I even walked on it!

.....I just can't stop pondering the stuff.

Hmm...I feel a Bible Study/History Lesson coming on :)

The entry hall

Our house has been called eclectic.

And it's true....

We aren't ones for matchy-matchy furniture and buying complete sets of anything.

If we own it, it's probably been refurbished, recovered, painted, or otherwise reinvented (ie., the three tupperware drawers that hold dog food and double as a lampstand)

So tonight while we were at our first concert of the weekend (yes, there will be more than one....)

I saw this background and fell instantly in love.

I'll go with the artist title, in that I feel like I have a creative mind, but as far as technique...well I'm a bit of a novice. Thus the eclectic house. I may have a wide variety of styles I like, but I have a hard time pulling them together. But if our house felt like a piece of art, with little pockets of unique beauty at every turn, then I'd be a happy woman :D

Thus the picture of the tree above. I'm going to paint that on the wall that faces our front door. I've tried SO many wall hangings, frame arrangements, pictures, and art pieces without being satisfied. And I have a thing for swirls. Like the plaster ones we made on our ceiling when I was pregnant with our firstborn.

So, I'm posting my intentions here with the hope that I will jump to it and 'get 'er done' as I've heard it said. :)

Because I have absolutely NOTHING on my plate right now. That's when I especially like to start a project. Oh yes indeedy.

So stayed tuned. So far Jarrod likes the idea. He's such a good sport about my experiments....

but we'll see how long I can draw out this project and annoy us both!

Ack, pray for a steely resolve and an extra hitch in my 'giddyap.'

Who knew those phrases were even in my vocabulary ;)

Plastic fundraising

Some have asked what we've been up to lately.....well thanks for asking!
A lot of it is school...I've been alternately out of steam over organizational things in our education dept ;) and just plain uninspired in the picture taking department.

It must've been my run in with Picture Gal. Did I tell you about her?

Well, I'll have to keep you in suspense....maybe another time.

For now I'll let you see a glimpse of one of the projects I spearheaded for our co-op. This picture will make sense in a minute....

I decided to lead a program called Push the Pedal -it's an offshoot of Gospel for Asia.

GFA is a fantastic organization that trains native missionaries to bring the good news to countries in the 10/40 window. Something like 500,000 villages in India alone, have never heard of the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.

So GFA has set up Bible Colleges, and training facilities to help eager new believers dive into the Word, and then helps send them out to unreached people in remote villages. These missionaries usually carry Bibles, literature, and video equipment on foot. At that rate they reach one or two villages a day.

Push the Pedal is a fundraising program where kids can take the initiative to raise monies to buy a bike for a native missionary. They treat their bicycles like gold....for with this one simple piece of equipment their outreach multiplies to several villages a day, not to mention the added safety of not having to walk home in the dark.

So I've headed up the fundraising for our co-op....and the kids are having a blast!

GFA put together such an informative packet, so atleast once a week the kids get to hear a story of how a missionary would use their new bike, as well as take home crossword puzzles and coloring pages to keep the cause fresh in their minds.

This week the various classes collected cans and bottles for recycling.

Don't ask me why we didn't take the truck....but it was quite humorous piling the bags in with the kids.

It's the little things in life that keep me entertained.

And it's all for a good cause.

So now you know....we're fundraising over here. And riding around covered in garbage. It's never a dull moment.