Just call me Homemaker Heidi

I was in the workforce since I was 16 and I feel like I have missed out on a lot of other opportunities. Now that I don't work anymore I have made it a goal to do all the "homemaker-ish" things that I can think of. Summer started soon after my last day so I decided not to start these projects until after taking the my 1st summer break since I was about 14. I started working at CE at 16 and before that I babysat everyday during the summer so this break was much needed!!

1st project - paint the kitchen

I really wanted to do a yellow color. I have learned that people either love yellow or hate it. Cirdan and I went to the paint store and after going back and forth for about 30 minutes Cirdan won and we got the paint he wanted. Even though if you ask him it was my choice. When we got home I immediately started to paint and learned pretty quickly that it was not what we had wanted. Example...

It was too bright and looked like a nursery. The picture doesn't really show how bright it was in real life. Since I was pretty bummed that I couldn't start painting that night Cirdan told me that he would wake up first thing to go back to Home Depot to see if they could lighten the paint. The paint the he brought home was much lighter but I like it. You can hardly tell that the walls are painted but its just enough to warm up the house. For some reason I haven't taken an 'after' shot. Guess I have been a little busy.

2nd project - Canning fruit

When I was young I remember every year my mom canning fruit or green beans (I'm sure she did more but I cant remember). I think watching her every year it made me think that all moms that stay home with their kids did that. I got the opportunity to buy a bunch of fruit so I jumped on it and thankfully my mom agreed to teach me. We first made peaches which were super easy...I was surprised how easy it was. Then we did pears. Not as easy but still not as hard as I had thought. Then we bought some boxes of apples to do apple pie filling...YUM! I also learned and made pear, peach, raspberry and strawberry jam. I have been busy canning all week (my house shows it) and am so excited about my family being able to enjoy the fruits of my no pun intended...lol....in the months and years to come.

The night that we canned the apples we ended up with some extra so it was only obvious that we had to make a pie. Cirdan made the crust from scratch and the pie turned out to be one of the best I have ever had.

My not so helper helper...Ella...

My friend Kristel wanted to learn how to can also so last week she came over to learn how to do peaches.

A little bit of this....A little bit of that....

My friend Lori was in town from Colorado a couple weeks back. We were able to meet up for lunch at Taco Time (they don't have TT in Colorado). It was so good to see her and get the chance to catch up. Ella went with me and she had not had a nap all day so the experience with her was not so great. It was great to see you Lori!!

I hate the blackberry bushes surrounding our house nine months out of the year, and the other three I love them. We have made a few blackberry cobblers and I have learned to appreciate these big sticker bushes (kind of). Ella went outside with Cirdan one night to pick some berries for a cobbler. She was right up there with the thorns and it didn't t bother her one bit.

We started the summer off by going to Chuck E Cheese with Stacey and Casey so we thought it was only appropriate to end the summer off with the way it was started (that and I happened to see the coupon in the newspaper ads)! Casey wasn't walking when we went in June but this time he was able to walk around and enjoy the toys more. Kaiya had fun gathering up as many tickets as she could find.

Ella was trying to get out of the little kid section to go be where Kaiya was playing. Good thing she was unsuccessful.

GOODBYE SUMMER....

Having fun at the park

Northwest Trek

Ava came for a visit the end of August. The 1st day she was here she hung out with Cirdan. She went with him to get a hair cut. Then the girls and I came home and she got to play with Kaiya. They were playing detective or something which was really cute.

On Thursday we decided to use our NW Trek passes . We bought a year pass and wanted to make sure we get our moneys worth! It was a nice warm day. I thought that you just ride in a car the whole time and didn't realize that they have trails that you walk around to see some animals. I wore the most uncomfortable shoes... The girls had fun and it was exciting to see animals that aren't at the other zoos.




This big wolf scared the girls...

We had good luck when we went on the tram. There were a lot of animals out. We saw moose, bison, mountain goats, deer, elk, others that I cant remember and a wild skunk that the tour guide said she had never seen before.

The buffalo scared me to death. When I was little I went to Yellowstone with my family and Gramee. I was so scared of the buffalo that just walk around on the road next to the cabins were we were staying. I even had a dream that one came through the window and licked me. I still remember being so afraid of those animals. This part of the tour was not fun for me. It didn't help much that we pulled up right in the middle of them and they were so close we could touch. A couple of them had a baby and they weren't looking too happy about us being there. Another stood in the front of the tram so that we had to sit there and wait for him to decide to slowly walk out of the way. That was one of the longest 5 minutes of my life. Thankfully we made it out alive.

We were kind of worried how Ella would do on the 45 minute tour but she did great! She loved looking at the animals and being outside.

I was sitting next to Ava and all the sudden I felt a head against my arm. About 30 minutes into the tour she feel fast asleep.

Since we passed Sonic on the way home we HAD to stop.

Ava flew out on Friday but we got that morning with her. We drove down to Tacoma where her Grandma lives and took the girls out to Ihop for breakfast. We played at the park.... by then it was time to take Ava back to her grandmas. It was really good to see her again. She didn't want to leave so soon...which was heartbreaking.