Thursday, October 27, 2011

Week 43 - Adoption Day Happenings

This past weekend we celebrated Grace's adoption day. It always seems as though we head away from home to share this special day with her. But this year we stayed close to home, allowing her to choose the activities she wanted to do most - which happened to be camping in the backyard and finding her way through a corn maze.

In order to fulfill Grace's desire to get lost in a life-sized maze, we headed to Hunsader Farms for their annual Pumpkin Festival. The weather was perfect, making it tolerable to wait in long lines for such things as hayrides and a bag of freshly popped kettle corn. Long lines and crowds aside, we had a great time.






Being lost in a maze of corn, while watching pumpkins being shot from a cannon sounds like a perfect way to celebrate an adoption day don't you think? We certainly do!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Week 40 - A Week in Fall

We've just finished off a pretty productive week around here. Perhaps it had to do with cooler temperatures or the fact that I had five days off in a row from work - regardless, I'll take it. Here's some of what we accomplished....


The fall decorations are up and a few new projects were completed too - like the colorful leaves above.


The cooler weather garden is nearly finished. Grace and I worked each morning and afternoon adding compost, sowing seeds, watering, etc. In the photo above she's sowing the peas around the bamboo trellis we made.


While gardening, Grace became the backyard lizard charmer. Two small lizards have made their home amongst our eggplants and Grace got each of them to climb upon her arm. To say she was excited is an understatement.


Thirty five pounds of apples were made into applesauce. I must say that all the peeling, coring and slicing was worth it - you just can't beat the taste of homemade.


And lastly, there was a fair amount of quilting done. Since I didn't take any pictures while sewing, I thought I'd share a photo of Grace surrounded by pumpkins instead - happy autumn everyone!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Week 36 - Making Moon Cakes

It always seems as though the Mid-Autumn Festival sneaks up on us - this year was no exception. The holiday is officially celebrated this coming Monday, but with a full day of school, the associated homework and open house night, we opted to celebrate early.

Grace and I spent our morning making moon cakes. We follow the recipe from this book, with the exception of the filling. Since the traditional fillings not considered edible around these parts, we fill our cakes with chocolate fudge instead (as seen peeking through the baked cake in the last photo).





A dinner of Chinese take-out, finished off by yummy homemade moon cakes made for a happy celebration indeed!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Week 35 - Horse Love

While searching for a lost memory card, I came across these pictures of Grace from her wee days.






Perhaps her love of horses dates back farther than I remembered!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Week 34 - First Day of School

On Monday Grace started back to school. To say she was excited to begin first grade is an understatement. But now that the homework has started, I do believe she wishes that it was still summer vacation. Overall though, everything is going along smoothly and she appears quite content with the new routine.



So here's to another wonderful year of learning!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Week 33 - Kentucky

We're just returning from a wonderful week-long vacation to Kentucky. In my efforts to share as many photos as possible (I believe we took over 200) I created my first ever photo mosaic. Despite a few oddly cropped photos, I'm happy with the results.


Descriptions of photos from left to right......

1. A barn located at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, where we stayed for two nights 2. Grace weaving potholders in the car to pass the time 3. On a tour of the Woodford Reserve Bourbon Distillery 4. The paddocks of Three Chimneys Farm, where champion racehorses are bred 5. Feeding a carrot to one of the retired racehorses at Old Friends Farm 6. On a riverboat ride along the Kentucky River 7. With the chickens at Country Girl at Heart Bed and Breakfast - Grace even got to collect their eggs 8. Crawling through Mammoth Cave 9. Dipping bottles of Maker's Mark Bourbon in the signature red wax as souvenirs 10. My favorite dessert while there - bread budding with bourbon sauce 11. At the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory 12. Watching an early morning training session at Churchill Downs 13. Sketching a group of goats on the hillside 14. A family photo in front of one of the many limestone walls we came across 15. A horse animal cracker 16. One of the local restaurants we ate at, this one was in Hart county.

Ah yes, it was a fun filled week indeed!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Week 31 - Hat Making

Grace had been waiting all summer long for the release of the new Smurf movie (which she saw yesterday with Meme and Pop). I'm not quite sure where her interest in those little blue creatures came from, but she was excited none the less. In fact, she was so excited that she had her outfit selected weeks in advance. There was an issue however, a vital piece of the ensemble was missing - the hat!

After much discussion related to the lack of a proper Smurf hat, I suggested we attempt to make one. And believe it or not, she was quite smitten with the idea.

So with an old white t-shirt and a bit of creativity, Grace made herself (with just a little help from me) a hat that she couldn't have been prouder of.

Here she is working away......



And the result of all her hard work......


Ah yes, the proper attire makes all the difference, right?