My Favorite Things

Friday Randoms :)

Hellooooo there!  

I figured it's been a little while since I shared pictures of our sweetie boy with you.  Windsor is 11 1/2 months old now (and weighed 82 lbs at last check)....I can't believe his birthday is just around the corner.  He's seriously the friendliest boy ever and can't wait to get to the dog park each morning so he can PLAYYYYY.  He has to greet each new dog (and owner!) that arrives....you never know when someone might want to pet him or wrestle with him!  (He wrestles with the dogs, not the people!  Haha.)  

We got him a soccer ball because someone brought one to the park one day and he promptly grabbed it and carried it around like a trophy!  After I managed to wrangle it away from him, I called Bart and said Windsor needed his own soccer ball!  (Anything to keep in his mouth, to keep him from attempting to eat half of the park while we're there!!  The boy would eat ANYthing if we let him!)  Today, he found a partially full bottle of water in the woods, which he quickly poked holes in while he was crunching it (did you know water bottles make an awesome crackle sound when you crunch on them?!) and then discovered that he could shake it around like he was killing it, thus making water spray out of the holes and all over his face and head!  It was like the greatest toy ever!  LOL.  Meanwhile, mama (that'd be me) was chasing after him like a crazy person, trying to get him to DROP IT so that he didn't EAT IT.  Fortunately, he ran right for a sweet friend of ours and paused long enough that I could grab him by the tail (yes, the tail....sometimes you have to take what you can get) so we could take the water bottle away from him.  Ahhh.....dog park adventures.  :)

So back to the soccer ball....we took our new soccer ball to the park, but of course it wasn't nearly as exciting as the deflated one we found when we got there.  ;) 

Here he is on our back deck.....he may or may not have been contemplating eating that geranium.  He looks much too innocent here....I think he might have been up to something!  Haha.

A close up of said geranium.  Things are blooming like crazy around here.  I keep my iPhone on me at all times, because it seems like there's always something pretty to snap a picture of.

I've told you before that we have 11 clematis plants, all planted along one fence row.  With the mild winter we had, they've all just gone crazy this year!  It seems like each week, they take turns showing off!  Last week, it was these beauties below.....the flowers are smaller than some of our other varieties, but this is the most spectacular this particular plant has ever been.  It's been so fun to watch!

And this week, it's these dark purple beauties that are putting on the big show....

Even the thistles at the park are gorgeous right now.....and that's saying something, for a thistle!  :)

I've been cranking out the crafty projects in the studio this week.  Can't share any of them just yet, but here's a pic of some new Mister Huey's sprays I've been getting acquainted with.  Fun, huh?  I die cut a bunch of tags with Papertrey's tag sale #6 die and spritzed and splattered the tags, and then labeled them with the color name, so I'd know what they look like when used.  So pretty!

     

Since I don't have any crafty projects to share with you today, how about some shopping tips?!  In case you hadn't seen it yet, the super cute new 9 to 5 collection from October Afternoon is now at Two Peas and Ellen Hutson!  It looks like there are different items at each store, so be sure to click the links to view everything from this line, that each store has at the moment!  Such fun goodies....I can't wait to get some of these myself!

Well, I'm off to play with paper for a bit.  

Hope you have a fabulous day, Dearies...

Annual Planting Day at the McVey Ranch ;)

I suppose technically, it should be called Planting WEEKEND because it takes more than a day to get it all done.  We've got a good system down now.  We head to the nursery Friday afternoon, as soon as Bart gets home from work.  The nursery is much less crowded on a Friday afternoon, than on Saturday morning.  PLUS, if we get all of our plant shopping out of the way on Friday night, that leaves all day Saturday to dive right into the planting instead of having to shop first and then plant.  AND, we don't have to rush thru the shopping part, which I kind of love.

 

If you've been hanging around here for very long, then you probably know that this is an annual event at our house.  Planting day (weekend) is kind of a big deal around here.  I love, love, love planting day (weekend) and always have to take Laverne, the Nikon, along on our trek to the nursery because who can resist rows and rows of gorgeous flowers all in one place?!

Above is a peek at some of what we brought home.  

Here's what we planted in the back, in all the pots on our deck.  I loooove sitting out on our deck, rocking in my chair, surrounded by gorgeous colors!

In addition to all the flowers we planted, we also planted 8 heirloom tomato plants....some are our favorites from last year that we chose to double up on, and the last three on the list are brand new to us this year.  Here's our list of tomato varieties...

2 Black Krims
Carbon
2 Cherokee Purples
Pineapple
Brandywine
Yellow Brandywine 

And now we begin the hard part.....the 2-3 month wait for those babies to grow til we can eat them!  

While we were planting in the front flower bed, we made a little discovery in the tree that's also in the bed.  See that bird hiney sticking out of that nest?!  It's a robin...or rather, it's a robin's hiney.  

Side note: Don't you think it's interesting that God chose to take a pretty ordinary looking (some might even say, boring) bird and gave it one of the prettiest colors of eggs??  I love that.  Robins' eggs are so pretty.  And don't you remember as a kid, what a treasure it was to find a robins' egg shell on the ground?!  Score!

And now let's talk about this one.....clearly worn out from all of the {insert air quotes} assistance {end air quotes} he gave us throughout the day.  LOL.  He just decided to stretch out in the front yard for a bit....you know, to watch the neighborhood.....make sure he's available, should any of the neighbors want to come and give him some lovin'.  :)

I think I've told you before that he LOVES to have a 'job'.  So sometimes he gets to "be my helper" and carry empty cereal boxes or toilet paper rolls out to the recycling bin for me.  Or he gets to carry a REALLY IMPORTANT piece of {junk} mail back to the house, all the way from the mail box, and deliver it to daddy or mama.  Or as was the case on planting day, I gave him the spade and asked him to carry it from the back yard to the front yard to give it to his daddy.  He was more than happy to help.  ;)

Side note: His head is all wet in the photo above, because he's recently discovered how fun it is to get drinks out of the hose while his daddy is watering!  Hahaha.  He 'bites' at the water as it's coming out of the hose and then shakes his head like crazy, when he gets all wet.  It's actually very entertaining to watch.  LOL.  Unfortunately, most of his head ends up soaked in the process.....but at least he had fun!  

This concludes the annual retelling of our annual planting day (weekend).

Have a goodie!

P.S.  How about a crafty link before I go?  

Two Peas has a special right now, on these darling Amy Tangerine hand-stitched tags -- buy 2, get 1 free -- while supplies last!  

Stop and Smell the Lilacs...

That's my current motto!  Stop and smell the lilacs.  Windsor and I make a trek out to at least one of our three lilac bushes, at least once or twice a day so that I can stand there smelling, smelling, smelling that gorgeous fragrance.  And then I usually say to Windsor, "OH MY GOSH, these smell soooo goooooooood!"  And then I sniff again.  And then I say something like, "Can you SMELL these???"  And he ignores me.  And then I sniff them again, being careful to suck in as much of that fragrant air as possible.  And then I say, "Windsor, these just smell amazing!  Can you SMELL THEM???"  And he ignores me while hunting around for a stick or other contraband item to pick up and chew on.  And when I turn back to smell the lilacs again, he snoops around some more.  And then I see that he's got something in his mouth AGAIN and I say, "Windsor, DROP IT!"  And then we come inside.

And then we do it all again later in the day.  :)  It's just how we roll.   

I snapped this beauty in our front flower bed a few days ago too.....I couldn't resist.  I mean, tulips?  That are purple?  With fringe??  That's just begging for a photo.

I hope your week is going well.  I'm totally supposed to be paper crafting at the moment (there's a little thing called the Papertrey Countdown that is fast approaching - *wink*), but couldn't resist popping in to chat with you for a minute.  If you were here, you could come sit in the studio with me and chat while we worked.  Wouldn't that be fun?  Except that neither one of us would probably get anything done other than chatting and then it'd be lunch time.  But that's ok because I like lunch.  Don't you?

Oooh....also, did you see the Deal of the Day at Two Peas??  It's 50% off all remaining Copic items!  Holy smoke....there are tons of Copic markers and such, for 50% off!!  Can't beat that!

All righty, I suppose I've stalled long enough....time to get my crafty rear in gear.  Oh darn.  I just realized it's lunch time.  I'd better take care of that first.  ;)

Hope you have a fabulous day, friends!

Treeeeeeees :)

Well, it's that time of year again.  That wonderful time when I take pictures of all the spring flowering trees in our neighborhood (or yard) and make you look at them.....yet again!  Haha.  I know I say every year that they're sooooo pretty but this year?  Well this year they're prettier than ever.  I mean it this time.  For reals.  :)

Because of the majorly mild "non-winter" we had this year, the trees are the fattest and fluffiest that I've ever seen them.  They've just been busting with flowers like you wouldn't believe.  Just look....

These first two photos are of the Purple Leaf Plum in our front yard.  Just LOOK at all those blooms!!!  GAH.  Plus, aren't they just cool looking flowers?  I love those orange spikey thingys (that's the technical name) poking out of the centers???  Very cool.

And then, of course, we have the annual redbud photos....these trees are at the entrance to our subdivision.  Windsor and I get the pleasure of seeing these every morning on our way to the dog park, although I think I'm a little more interested in them than he is.  He's usually trying to find a stray stick to eat along the way.  ;)

I took these the other morning when it was nice and gray outside....seriously, the colors just pop when it's gray out.  I love gray days for taking photos.

Dripping.  Just dripping with blooms, I tell ya.  Happy sigh.

 

And of course, you have to see them up close.  Pretty amazing, right?  This is the same variety of tree that we planted in our back yard last year, as a memorial to our sweet Riley dog.  I'm happy to report that Riley's Redbud is growing nicely.  It's still very small but it's blooming like a little champ and it's already got leaves busting out on it too.  I can't wait until it grows big like these in our subdivision.

Even these Sunset Maples at the entrance to our subdivision, had these really cool orange seed ball things on them (another technical term) last week.  I totally wouldn't have noticed them either, if it weren't for walking under them every morning to go to the dog park with my puppy-boy.  

I really do think I enjoy our walk & trip to the park each day as much as Win does.  It's good to get out and enjoy some of God's handiwork.  

What sort of things are blooming where you are?

P.S.  There's a big warehouse sale going on over at Ellen Hutson....close to 1,000 items on sale.  Happy shopping!  :)

CARDS Magazine Pub, etc.

Hey there,

Just popping in today to wish you all a very happy weekend and to share a card that was published in the October issue of CARDS Magazine.  This card features the Background Basics: Twinkle, Think Big Favorites #2 and Tiny Tags stamp sets as well as a Tiny Tags die.

 

I also thought I'd show you an updated photo of Blaze, our Autumn Blaze Maple.  You may remember a couple of years ago when I told the story of how we lost a beloved tree in the backyard, during a crazy storm.  And I further chronicled our tree adventures when I told you all about how I'd always wanted a really pretty red (in the fall) maple, so we went shopping to find the perfect tree.  And then later that year, I documented the day that "Blaze" was planted to replace the tree we lost.  I showed you this picture of what Blaze looked like when she was first planted...

 

And here she is now......

As you can see, she's gotten quite a bit taller in two years.  I took this photo a couple of weeks ago.  She was in the process of turning red.  She didn't end up turning quite as bright red this year as she did last year, and now her leaves have mostly fallen off, but I thought it was time for an update, just the same.  :)

I wish you all a fabulous weekend!

Take care,

Orange, Glorious Orange

Hello there, dear friends...

Happy Halloween to those of you celebrating today!  I'm super excited for tonight!  I've told you this before, but I'm not big on Halloween in and of itself, however, we see Halloween as a great chance to be a blessing to our neighbors......a chance to fill up little ones' candy buckets with treats......a chance to chat with moms and dads that happen by.  And this year, more than any other in recent history, we've got the perfect opportunity to really interact with our neighbors because we happen to have the cutest puppy in the 'hood, who has become quite popular around these parts!  Haha.  Windsor "knows" lots of our neighbors now and whether he knows them or not, he's alllllways willing to lovingly lick a hand or sniff a shoe or stand not-quite-still while you pet him and give him some lovin'!  He's a very social little boy, that puppy of ours, and so we're excited to dress him up in his basketball player costume (which, admittedly may only stay on him long enough to snap some pictures), and take him outside with the giant candy bowl, where we'll sit outside this year and let him be a part of all the action.  Usually, we'd stay inside and let the kiddies ring the doorbell and say "trick-or-treat", but this year since the weather's so nice, we've decided to sit outside and let him watch as the kids parade around the neighborhood, from house to house.  He looooooves to sit and watch people's comings and goings.  Kind of cracks me up, how long he can sit and just watch the neighbors.  So tonight, he'll be in hog heaven, getting to not only watch lots of people walking around, but also getting to interact with so many as they come to our house.  Should be a fun, fun night for Win, the puppy!  And that, my friends, means that it'll be a very fun night for Dawn, the mama!  :)

Bart fixed his famous chili last night, for the first time this season, in preparation for tonight.  We'll have chili for dinner -- it's our tradition -- we usually have chili on Halloween.  Fixing it last night, means that tonight we can just be outside for awhile with Win tonight and not have to worry about "making" dinner once we come in.  Plus, let's face it, chili's usually better the second day anyway, right?  :)

So all of these pictures I'm sharing with you today, are of our neighbors' tree.  I LOVE this tree.  As in, it's currently my favorite tree in the neighborhood.  And how blessed are we, that we get to go outside and look at it every single day?  (or 14 times a day, depending on how many times we have to take Windsor out!)  :)

This tree is spectacular right now -- the orange leaves in all their glory, are practically glowing.  I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it seems to me that the trees around here that usually turn red in the fall, didn't get quite as bright red as they usually do.  But the oranges?  Ohhhhh, the oranges.  They're magnificent!  Truly.  And this tree is the most magnificent of them all.  I hope we see those particular neighbors tonight so that I can tell them how much I love their tree and how happy I am to live next door.  

Seriously......just look at that color!

And when you stand underneath and shoot up thru the leaves???  Magic.

I hope that whatever you're doing tonight, you stay safe and you have fun with your family!  I certainly plan to have a great evening with my little family.

I'll pop back in as soon as I can (maybe even tonight) with pictures of Win the basketball player and Bart the referee!  Haha!  Can't wait.

I'll also be back late tonight with my Senior Design Team post for Papertrey.  I hope you'll join me!

Much love, Dearies....

OH, almost forgot...... in case you didn't see it, there are tons of Studio Calico goodies on sale for 25% off at Two Peas today!!  Happy shopping!

Tomatoes - The Final Rundown

As promised and before the summer slips any further into the past, I figured it was high time I give you the final run down on how our tomato plants did this year.  We planted 6 plants and while it felt like the actual harvest part of the season was rather short this year, we still ended up with lots and lots of tomatoes to eat so we can't complain too much.  We chose a couple of regular red varieties as well as several heirloom varieties.  Those heirlooms......they sure are tasty tomatoes!  We chose the varieties that we did because we like them to first of all, be very flavorful.  But we also like for them to be very meaty, not have very many seeds and to have a fairly thin skin.

Here's a bit about how each plant did....

1. Black Krim (greenish-red) -- 29 tomatoes totaling 10 lbs., 1 oz.

2. Carbon (greenish-red) -- 13 tomatoes totaling 3 lbs., 9 oz.

3. Giant Belgium (red) -- 12 tomatoes totaling 3 lbs., 8 oz.

4. Cherokee Purple (greenish-purplish-red) -- Our favorite of them all.....very meaty, not many seeds, delicious flavor! -- 19 tomatoes totaling 4 lbs., 14 oz.

5. (another) Cherokee Purple (dark greenish-purple) -- 15 tomatoes totaling 3 lbs., 3 oz.

6. Kentucky Beefsteak (red) -- zippo, zilch, nada tomatoes

The Kentucky Beefsteak totally pooped out on us, very early in the growing season.  We have no idea why.  It just up-and-died one day.  Boo.

I always think it's interesting to look at the numbers at the end of a season, to see which plants might have produced less numbers of actual tomatoes, but perhaps each one was larger, resulting in more overall volume.....or which plants produced a bumper crop of tomatoes but maybe they were smaller.  I just think it's interesting to see how they all did and it gives us a good idea about which varieties we may want to plant again next year and which ones (ahem...Kentucky Beefsteak) we might want to avoid!  Haha.  As you can see above, the Black Krim was the big producer this year!  It did WELL.  The other 4 were all pretty similar in how well they produced.  

Bartley is the one who watered and cared meticulously for the plants all summer and while it was a lot of work for him, he would also be the first to tell you how rewarding it is to be able to grow veggies to eat, that we otherwise would have bought at the grocery store.  We bought 6 little tomato plants in the spring (+ paid for the water to keep them alive) and harvested over 25 POUNDS of tomatoes!  Love that!

Anyhooooo......that's our tomato run-down for 2011.  Did you plant any tomatoes this year?  If so, how did they do?

Weekend Chit Chat (& a little pupdate)

Hello there, Friends....

I've got a whole lotta random to share today.  A bit of this, a bit of that.  You know, a little chit chat with my friends (that's you).  First off, can we just talk about mums?  We've got some mums in the front flower bed, but last year, we planted a row of red beauties in the back.  They were pretty, but they were maybe 12" pots last year, so not all that big.  Well this year, they are HUGE!  Oh my Lordy bees.....one plant alone, is about 4 feet in diameter!  So, above is a photo of the pretty scene that greets us every time we walk out the back door to take Windsor out.

I've taken way too many photos of the mums -- I just can't seem to resist them -- so here are a few for you......

See what I mean?  That's a whole lotta flowers!

Then, when you go around to the front of the house, we've got some pinky-purple varieties (you're shocked, aren't you?) as well as some white ones.

We've also got some pumpkins and lots of dry crunchy leaves out front.  A sure sign that fall is here in full force.  I wish you could have seen Windsor the first time he started hearing those dry crunchy leaves blowing and scraping their way across the driveway.  There are a lot of fantastic mature trees in our neighborhood and with that comes a lot of leaves.  So when they get to blowing around, they're a little loud at times.  Something I never really thought about, until I watched Win discover them.  He was completely puzzled by the sound as he sat with his little head cocked to one side, ears alert.  It was adorable.

Ahhh.......this picture makes me think of sweet Riley boy.  Riley used to watch me out the front door like this.  Win is following in his "brother's" footsteps, I guess.  He laid down and watched me taking pictures of the flowers.  I heard him thru the door, whining at the injustice of having to stay inside while mama was outside.  Life's rough when you're a puppy.  ;)

So a couple weeks ago, the neighbors in our cul-de-sac had a block party out in the cul-de-sac.  It was so fun!  We really have a lot of great neighbors and feel so fortunate in that.  There was tons of food, lots of laughter, some games and even some of the neighborhood doggies.  Windsor got to attend the party too.....that is, until it was time for his nap.  Hee.  

He was super excited to meet Mattie-dog.  Mattie is suuuuper sweet and mellow.  I think poor little Mattie is also rather terrified of a certain rambunctious puppy who just wants to jump on and play with any dog he meets, regardless of his or the other dog's size! 

I think she was a little traumatized by Win, the poor little girl.  She's a sweetie.  

Windsor also got to see Charlie-dog again.  Charlie's also a very good boy.  Charlie wants absolutely nothing to do with that pesky little puppy who always wants to jump on him and play.  Ha.  Charlie's definitely not a fan of Windsor, the cul-de-sac puppy!

I'm always happy when I get assigned to bring an appetizer to an event.  This is the platter we put together.......lots of veggies/hummus, castelvetrano olives (our favorite -- you should totally try them), a variety of cheeses/crackers, and some summer sausage.  Mmmm.

Before I go, I thought I'd also give you a book recommendation.  It's been awhile, hasn't it?  For one thing, a certain puppy was taking up quite a bit of my reading time so I hadn't read much for awhile and secondly, I've also read a couple books that I was just sort of "meh" about.  I don't share them here unless I really enjoy them.  With that being said, this book is one that I thoroughly enjoyed.  

Hope Rekindled by Tracie Peterson

This is the 3rd in a series, so the story continues with another member of the family taking center stage.  I love a good book series.  :)

I've started another book recently which seems rather promising so far.  I'm already kind of sucked in so we'll see.  Ha.  I've been reading a bit more now that Win tends to be napping while I eat lunch every day.....something I was really missing.  I love to read.  

Have a great weekend, friends.

Happy Thursday

Hey-oh...

Just poppin' in with a bit of this and a bit of that.  I get frequent requests for more puppy pictures, so here's one I snapped with my iPhone the other night.  If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, then you've already seen this one.  :)  (If you aren't following me but want to, click on the previous link for Twitter or search Instagram for my username: dawnsing)

My boys.  Look how tall Windsor's getting!  

You may have also seen these but I just had to share them here at the blog-o.  It's October.  October, for Pete's sake, and 5 of our 11 clematis plants are still blooming!  Amazing.  I can't resist snapping more photos of these beauties.  They just make me smile.

I hope you're having a great week.  I'm crafting the days away, here in the Raspberry Suite studio.  Lots of goodies to share soon.  In fact, tomorrow I'll be back bright and early with a crafty Papertrey post for you.  I hope you'll stop back by for a little visit.  

Have a goodie until then,

Pretties -- From the Yard

We're still in California for a couple more days, but I have a few photos to share with you today from around our yard.  I've tweeted these in the past couple weeks so they may look familiar to some of you, but they were too pretty not to share here at the blog-o.

The above photo is some humongous hosta in our back yard that's currently blooming up a storm.

We've also had a few other really late bloomers like this one....a clematis.....

 

.....and this rose bush.....

I also managed to snap this piccie of a gorgeous butterfly with shimmering blue on it's wings, while outside waiting on Win the other day.  I couldn't believe how close it let me get to it!

And of course, we've finally been enjoying lots of these.......delicious heirloom tomatoes right off the vine!  YUM.  Tomato sandwiches, tomato salads, sliced tomatoes.......it's all good!  At the end of the season, I'll give you the full run-down on which of the 5 varieties performed the best for us, and our favorites in terms of flavor and such, in case you want to plant some yourself next year!

Hope you're having a great day!

Toodles,