Morning Walks

Our days tend to follow a routine. Every morning after breakfast we head outside for a walk. It's often just for a jaunt in our neighborhood but at times, especially now with the cooler temperatures, we walk at one of the county parks.

The park certainly offers a bit more excitement - for Grace there are treasures to find and feathered friends to feed, for Sophie there's the yummy scents to smell and squirrels to chase and for me, the change of scenery is refreshing. The only downside is the time it takes us to get there (oh and the crazy barking that occurs when we pull into the parking lot). Those things aside, our walks in the park are well worth the extra effort - in fact we have a second trip planned for Thursday.

No matter where we find ourselves walking, it's the perfect start to our day!

Lunch, Doggie Chairs and Soup

It was time for my annual health screening at work, which meant a special trip to St. Petersburg was in order. To make the trip a bit more exciting I thought it would be fun for Grace and I to meet Meme at Mazzaro's Italian Market for lunch. So that's just what we did. We had a delicious lunch together and then spent time looking around the market, adding yummy looking items to our basket along the way.


After our wonderful time with Meme, Grace and I headed off to work for my screening. While waiting for our turn Grace discovered these adorable dog seats in the lobby - have you ever seen a chair soooo cute? Needless to say when we arrived home I "Googled" the chairs and found them (here). They come in four sizes - the largest will fit an adult. The only downside to the doggies are their steep price tag, so we'll have to add them to our "keep dreaming" list!


Now to totally change the subject, for dinner we had our first soup of the season. I made a pot of shrimp bisque (recipe here) and paired it with a tasty loaf of artisan bread from Mazzaro's. Oh how I love soup and bread - it's a perfect combo for a chilly evening meal if you ask me!

Ornament Swap

Back about a month ago, while in blogland, I came across a handmade ornament swap (here). I instantly knew that I wanted to participate. After brainstorming awhile I decided to make little gingerbread houses. Here's what the front of the finished ornaments look like (Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the back. I used a coordinating fabric that had peppermint candy and swirls - just like a gingerbread house)....


And who could possibly be hidden behind the closed door?


Well, a cute gingerbread cookie of course.

Now the ornaments are packaged and ready to mail. I'm looking forward to the first week of December - that's when I'll receive my box of swapped goodness. Oh what a fun day that will be!

Happy Faces

Grace got a bit creative with her Haba play food - her table was filled to the brim with plates of smiling faces.

Here's to a happy week!

Book Inspiration :: Leaf Art

Thanks to a recent trip to the library, Grace's book bag is brimming with fall themed books. After reading the book, "Fall Leaves Fall" written by Zoe Hall and illustrated by Shari Halpern, Grace was inspired to create leaf art.

We decided that a park would be the best place to collect leaves in a variety of shapes and sizes for our project. So this morning we headed to a local park in search of leaves, among other treasures such as acorns, pine cones, and moss. Once all the items were collected Grace chose the "perfect" picnic table, then quickly got to work on her creation - an ocean scene. The little leaves were the fish, the big leaf was the shark and the moss was the coral reef, quite cleaver indeed.



We had a wonderful time creating leaf art together (yes, I made a picture too) in the great outdoors!

Another Quilt

This past week I finished yet another quilt - it's for the current Craft Hope project benefiting Margaret's Hope Chest. This project helps children a bit closer to home than the other projects I've participated in. The quilts are going to be distributed to homeless children in the state of Michigan during the holidays. If you would like to participate too, just click the "button" on the sidebar - you have until November 15th.

My goal for this project was to use materials that I already had on hand, meaning no trips to the local quilt shop. That sent Grace and I sorting through the fabric in my stash. We happened to find a yard of a farm animal print, perfect for a child. So that fabric, along with some white muslin and a few blenders became the bright and happy quilt below.



This was one of those do good, feel good projects for me - a perfect start to my holiday crafting. It was the last quilt that I had planned on completing prior to the holidays. But....then I fell upon this post (here), so I may have changed my mind. Oh how nice it would be to finish my two "UFO's" in time for the New Year.

Happily off to start the next project on my list......

Halloween

Our Saturday night was filled with Halloween fun. As you can see from the pictures, Grace was a panda bear. She came up with the idea just a week before she needed a costume for her school parade. With a bit of fabric and felt a handmade panda costume was born - including a headband, shirt, skirt and bamboo tote. And what a cute little panda she was....




We hope your treat bags were filled to the brim with Halloween goodness too!