24 Olive Street

holiday cruise

Last night we headed over to Couer d'Alene, ID to go on the "Journey to the North Pole" cruise. I had found - excuse me, my husband found! - a great deal on groupon (for 1/2 off!).

Addie has been a little sick since Sunday night but we already had reservations (you know how that goes!) and she managed to make it through alright.

It was very cold. We spent part of the ride at the top of the boat and part inside. The lights were pretty neat. The Grinch was at the dock with all of his holiday grumpiness ;)

The only bummer was that since this was the first time we did this we didn't know that when we got to the "North Pole" we were supposed to head to the front of the boat to hear Santa and his elf do their little thing & read off the names of all the kids who were on the nice list...my kids made it :)

(Got this photo of Santa as the boat was pulling away.)

You would think that some of the adults could have moved toward the back so the kids could see. I mean, that is one of the main parts of the cruise.

Despite that it was still a fun cruise filled with Christmas lights and hot chocolate :)

After we headed over to Texas Roadhouse...since, for some reason, Spokane doesn't have one??!! Still trying to figure that one out!

Their Christmas decorations cracked me up...

If we do this again next year I'm definitely going to try and do it a bit earlier in the season...when it's not quite so cold!

Today we're going to hang out at home, eat some Christmas cookies & finish up some projects...including Christmas decorations, a vanity I'm painting and my December Daily :)

holiday open house

Today's the day! If you're local to Spokane or the surrounding areas be sure to head down to Monroe Street for their holiday open house! All of us vendors over at Paint In My Hair have all been working on their booths and there's so much Christmas-y goodies & great sales!!! Most of us were at the shop last night setting up and there are so many great things to see!!!

Several vendors are having specials in their booths. All furniture in my booth is 10% off - today only. I have a couple great dressers along with some smaller pieces and a new bookshelf I just took there last night. I've also marke down all of my fall items.

Here's just a few things from my booth that I'm pretty excited about :)

I love this wreath! I took a lighted wreath, added some vintage ornaments, a few silver glitter swags, & the 'merry' sign. I really need to make one for myself now :)

The photos are a bit dark...it was about 9pm when I took them last night :)

I found this vintage punch bowl a while back. It has all of the cups along with the hangers for the bowl...and some vintage ornaments to dress it up!

I also replenished my flower clips & added some new clips as well. Those seem to be pretty popular. I love 'em cause you can put them in your hair or on a hairband but you can also clip them on a bag, purse, whatever you want to dress up.

My favorite is this old sled. And on it is a wreath made with red chevron burlap ribbon.

So be sure to head down to Monroe Street today! It'll be sure to get you in the Christmas mood!!

apples, pumpkins & pony rides...oh my!

Saturday we headed up to Green Bluff to do some apple & pumpkin pickin'.

I love it up there. Love.

So first we went to Walter's Fruit Ranch do some apple pickin'. I had ulterior motives for this as I knew they would also have pumpkin donuts ;)

And Addie got to take her first pony ride...she loved every minute!

We picked red & golden delicious and granny smith apples. About 60 pounds worth!

After that we headed over to Eleven Acres to go pumpkin pickin'. We go there every year because they have a huge pumpkin patch. But in hindsight we probably should have just stayed at Walters since a lot of the pumpkins were already picked over & many were rotted. I guess that's what we get for waiting til the weekend before Halloween!

But there were still some good pumpkins to be had & we found some great ones. And now I have lots (and lots!) of apples to skin, core & package in bags for the freezer along with some freezer apple pies.

And tonight I think we'll carve up those pumpkins!

farmers market & peach pickin'

Saturday I headed out with my favorite 2 yr old to the Liberty Lake Farmers Market. It's been on my list all summer & I needed some down time (aka time wtihout the bickering older siblings!)

It was a bit smaller than I expected but I still managed to find lots of fresh goodies including some tomatoes, potatoes, raw honey, lettuce, fresh flowers & a beautiful potted morning glory with purple & pink flowers (which is going to be perfect in my yard climbing up the wooden ladder I just found at a yard sale the day before!)

We also got to enjoy some yummy wood fired pizza. Yum!!

After that I headed up to Green Bluff for some peach pickin'. Cherry Hill is one of my favorite farms. This year we didn't make it up there for cherries but that's ok because I still have some in my freezer from last year (frozen ones are great in smoothies!)

Addie enjoyed picking some peaches for me. And the ones she couldn't reach she helped put into the box :)

She also enjoyed petting all of the farm animals!

Tomorrow I'm taking the kids to Portland for a couple days. Just a quick little getaway before school starts. We all need a change of scenery for a few days!!

mini day trip

Yesterday we took a little trip to visit Forget Me Not up in Colville which is about an hour north of us. I've been wanting to check out that shop ever since I was a vendor at Junk Drunk up there back in April (they were the ones that hosted the show).

I also wanted to sign up for the Scrapbook Retreat they're hosting in October. It's been over 3yrs since I did a crop...back when I lived in GA and I was 6 mos preggo wtih Addie!

Guys....seriously, if you're local to the area you need to check out this shop. So stinkin' cute. Vintage goodies, scrapbook goodies and everything in between. And since we don't have a local scrapbook shop anymore it was so nice to be able to browse all of the scrappy goodness :)

After that we stopped in a Cafe 103 for some lunch. Super yummy sandwiches!!

On the way back we had to stop to see the beautiful sunflowers we spotted on the way up...all 80 acres of them!!!

I seriously need to go back with my good camera. I can't even begin to tell you how pretty they were!!!

Back at home, I'm still waiting for my sunflowers to bloom. They're now taller than me & I can see the blooms emerging. Any day now!!!

sunsets

I've taken many pics of the sunsets here.

They're always so pretty.

TGIF :)

spring break

Our spring break was not about some wonderful exotic vacation. Instead, it was spent hanging around town doing some fun stuff (and some ordinary stuff)...

quick dentist appt to check Ben's spacer

We got the answer to "I wonder what Tucker (the dog) would do if Rhino (the hamster) got out??"

Somehow she got out of her ball...not sure if the lid came loose or Tucker somehow managed to get it open.

When you hear your husband walk into the hallway & say "Rhino got out!! Tucker NO!!!" you don't think it's gonna end well. She was covered in dog slobber but thankfully she's ok :)

I guess she's living up to her name (couldn't help but thinking of the scene in the movie where Rhino is in the dog pound in his ball inside the dogs mouth with all the slobber! hehe)

Much needed clothes shopping (and lunch at A&W!) for 3 growing kids!

New shoes!

Amazing how happy new shoes/clothes makes my little one...I may be in trouble when she's a teenager!

And Payless had a BOGO sale so I got Ben some play shoes for 6 bucks! Oh how I love a good deal :)

driving the kids nuts with the satellite radio... ;)

Cat Tales Zoological Park

I {love} white tigers...then again, all tigers are pretty cool

big teeth!!

The big kids got to feed a couple of the animals. Very cool!

Olivia fed Tuga the Bengal Tiger, who is 5 yrs old and weighs about 650lbs.

Ben got to feed Oscar the black bear.

Oscar loves apples :) He was found as a cub severely malnourished & has lived at Cat Tales every since.

Feeding them was definitely worth the extra cost...especially when you know the money is going to taking care of these animals.

We took a little time to hit a couple estate sales...much easier to do when I have the big kids to help with the little one!

This is usually the scene when we're out junkin'...my son being cramped in the back row with all my finds :)

Canceled baseball practice due to cold rainy weather (pic was from last week). Games start next week! It has definitely gotten a bit colder from last week.

Jurassic Park at the IMAX in 3D

So cool! When I heard this was being re-released I had to take the kids.

Can't wait til May 17th...

Oh yeah, new Star Trek! There's going to be some good movies this summer...

Monsters University, Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2, and I'm sure more I can't remember. And Man of Steel...oh man, that looks good. Too bad we have to wait til next summer.

And now I'm going to spend this weekend getting ready for Junk Drunk next week!

modeling contentment

So how was your Thanksgiving? Ours was wonderful...spent watching the parade & some Christmas movies. All of the new recipes I tried turned out great...with the exception of one. The french silk pie had a weird texture. It had a good taste but something just wasn't right. Plus, I pulled it out of the fridge and after sitting on the counter for about 10 min it got a bit watery in the bottom of the pan. Weird. So I won't be making that one again.

Bummer.

Maybe it's better frozen like they did in the recipe??

Didn't go out shopping on Black Friday. I don't like it. People pushing & shoving each other to save 10 bucks on a video game. I shopped a little online for some things I wanted to get the kids for Christmas but that's about it.

Instead we stayed home, just hanging out. Later that evening I took the kids to see Rise of the Guardians. GREAT movie.

I did go out on Saturday with my oldest daughter to support a few small businesses in my area. First we hit Top Stitch for some red chevron fabric for a few Christmas projects. Then over to Fergusons Cafe for lunch. Great food, awesome people. And they filmed the diner scene from Vision Quest there...one my all time favorite movies from the 80s :) I had no idea how much of that movie was filmed in Spokane til I moved here!

After that we headed over to a local bakery for some candy cane cake pops. YUM! Then we went over to Lollipop Lemondrop, a kids consignment shop, & got a few goodies there. Btw, they have the best lollipops :)

It was a very stress-less Saturday afternoon with my daughter...the kind of Christmas shopping I like!

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With all of this shopping craziness of Black Friday it reminded me of a post from Dave Ramsey earlier this month. Dave Ramsey is one of my favorite financial guys. I have a Finance/Accounting background & I love his envelopes concept. I use them every day and so do my kids :) Such a different (but simple!) way of looking at budgeting money. Cause sometimes budgets can be boring...even for a Finance major ;)

Anyway, he had a post recently about modeling contentment (found here). I absolutely agree with everything in that post.

We live in an area where there are many families who have more than us. And by 'more', I mean the 'tangible' stuff. Things. Toys. Fancier homes. The stuff that, to me, isn't really all that important in my life.

And what's sad is that some (not all) of these people are teaching their kids that these things are important in life. My daughter recently took her ipod nano (that she used her own money to buy last year) to school for a class party. When one of her classmates saw that it wasn't a 'touch' ipod she then said 'oh, yours sucks'.

Spoiled much??

My kids see that some of their classmates have a Kindle, or ipad, or cell phones.

Don't get me wrong, that stuff is fun! But I'm ok living without it. And I want my kids to know that it's ok to live without it. And if you want nice things in life you work for them...and save. You don't just charge up your credit card to have nice things. A lesson that is sadly missed on most people these days.

My life is good. We have a nice home. A few nice things. I'm ok with not having more. I'm ok that my countertops aren't granite. I'm ok with not having an ipad. I'm ok with my trusty pick-up truck that's 11 yrs old and still going strong. I'm ok with not having the latest Vera Bradley bag, or latest electronic gadget, or whatever.

Because when I do get something nice from time to time, or we're able to splurge on a vacation, it's that much more special to me.

And I teach my kids that every day, especially at Christmas time. My kids have always been limited to 3 items on their Christmas list to Santa. And quite honestly it's never been an issue of 'why can't I have more??'. Now that doesn't mean that's all they get. I just don't think it appropriate to take a list of a ton of 'gimme' stuff to the big guy in red. Just my personal opinion.

We pick families off a giving tree & we shop together for those people. My kids get involved in the shopping, wrapping, & delivering of these items.

We donate to the Salvation Army buckets when they're out during the holidays. And my kids donate some of their money. I don't ask them to. They see me giving and it encourages them to give...even if it's just some change.

This year since they've been doing the Financial Peace Junior they are saving the money in their 'give' envelopes for Toys For Tots. In December we'll head out to do some shopping and they can pick out what they want to buy & donate it.

It empowers children when they give.

I'm a firm believer in showing your kids that you don't have to have a bunch of 'things' to be happy. And when they see that all year long it's not really a big issue when Christmas rolls around :)

pig out!

Last weekend my friend Becky came here to celebrate my birthday weekend with me :) We've been friends since my sophmore year Science Fiction Literature class.

so, a long time!

she can't visit without a trip to Rock City Grill for some black & white pizza

Mmmmmm.....

for dessert they brought me a birthday creme brulee

would you believe I've never had this before??!

it was yummy :)

Sunday we headed over to Riverfront Park for the Pig out in the Park

oh man

talk about some goooood food!!

pumpkin donuts anyone?? with cinnamon/sugar?? yes please!!!

these were my favorite

Addie loved everything...including the gyro's!

I was good about what I ate...for the most part

and then we saw it....

fried twinkies!!!

i have never had one of these before

if you never have a fried twinkie...you have not truely lived ;)

it was really good!

check out the names of those shishkaberry's! hehe

you can't leave Spokane without posing with the runners! hehe

it was a great afternoon filled with great food

and although I spent the rest of the night sick to my stomach...it was worth it!

and I have declared this my new birthday tradition :)

simply beautiful

I managed to catch a few great shots of nature yesterday. On the way to pick up my daughter from a friend's house I spotted a deer. I know, we've all seen deer. But then I spotted her baby!

Oh man, it had cute little spots just like Bambi :) And it was drinking from it's mama...how sweet is that??!

The mama just kept looking over at me like 'I'm ok with you right there but if you get any closer we're outta here!"

And then, on the way home from doing some errands we managed to spot a wonderfully awesome sunset. The rays of sunshine were breaking through the clouds and it was just ah-mazing.

What's funny is that I wasn't the only one stopping to admire God's beauty. I spotted several people on our way home standing outside and just staring at it, too.

Nature is so cool :)