eat sleep and farm

First week of July, all of our surrounding Community Groups got together for a BBQ at the park. We had a blast and it was awesome to see how many of us there are! I've never actually seen all of the Community Groups in our city or cities in close proximity to us, in one place together... just us. We see each other at church on Sunday, but that's with everyone else there as well. It was really exciting because someday we're going to have a church campus out in our city and so this was kind of a future glimpse of what that will look like. Especially since there were 100+ of us just at the BBQ! The time spent together was great and the fellowship was sweet. I realize that many of you have no idea who most of these people are.  Lets just put it this way... this is our family up here :)  I'm serious.  Not only are we brothers and sisters in Christ, but in many ways, these dear  people have become like family to us. And all in different ways, just like fa...

 Several weeks ago we went to one of the best birthday parties I've ever been to! Our friends from church, Parker and Dylan {best buddies from different families} had a joint 4th birthday party and it was, "out of this world" with fun! I put quotations because the theme was a outer space theme :) We had yummy snack food, cakes with sparkler rocket candles, slip-n-slides, decorate-your-own-cookie table and more! The weather was perfect and the day was a total blast. I still can't believe its been a year since the boys turned 3, but I guess its more proof that time is flying by. This is the post from Parker's 3rd party last summer. I think its safe to say, his parents are pretty great party throwers :)  here's the birthday boy, Parker!   Ethan :)        me and Miss Maggie Pie      the awesome candles on the cakes!      Parker and his Daddy {Josh} get the rocket ready for launch... ...

My little sister is a fan of all things peanut butter. She hates mushrooms, but I have a feeling if you told her they were dipped in peanut butter, she'd suddenly find a reason to love them. Okay, maybe not, but you get my point. I found this recipe years ago; probably 5-7 years back and introduced it to the ladies at our church in Brentwood. Several of them were on gluten free diets and so this thrilled them. Everyone else raved about how amazing the "melt-in-your-mouth" taste was, and I agreed. This recipe is the easiest and the shortest I've ever used, but its so far my favorite cookie recipe ever. all you need is: 1 cup sugar 1 cup peanut butter 1 egg {I always double it, just FYI} only makes about a dozen cookies if you don't double it.  Set your oven to 350 and grease a cookie sheet and then combine all 3 ingredients in a bowl.  when you're done mixing, it should look like this. I use an electric mixer. drop teaspoon amounts of dough...

Took this back in early July & just now learned how to upload video on here :)  If your speakers are playing my music AND the video sound at the same time, go to the bottom of my page and hit "pause" so the music will stop while you play the video.   I was in the house doing dishes after dinner one night and looked out the window and saw Kara riding a big girl bike! I didn't know she could do this, so it thrilled me. About 2 months ago she wanted to ride this bike - it used to be Rachel's, but now that Rache is too tall, we're passing it onto Kara. She had so much difficulty riding it a couple months ago; kept peddling backward and suddenly stopped and then falling, etc...  So it completely surprised me to see her just doing it flawlessly by herself!  Typical Kara... she tends to learn things at her pace and  on her own.   Two things I loved about this video:  1.) Ethan is on the small trike and Kara is on the big bike  2.)...

{if you have your speakers on, the first song playing is the one we sing at church, where I got this title from} Sometimes my life and my heart feel more like a garden than an actual body. I feel like God has to weed through areas, kill off other areas, start completely from scratch in some areas, and do more day-to-day pruning in most. Its amazing to me that when I rest in Him, trusting Him as my 'Gardener', as it were, knowing He is doing a perfect and complete work, the end result is going to be fabulous. When I'm stubborn and want things my way and insist upon understanding  the entire garden layout that He's planting, I can so often be like those stubborn weeds that come and choke out the beauty that's growing. A flowerbed and an entire garden do not bloom and take beautiful form in one day. It takes seasons. Lots of time and just the right amount of sun, weeding, watering and day-to-day tending. I don't want to be a weed.  I want to flourish and...

{I love this song. Hopefully its playing for you, if your speakers are on. I'm not quite sure how to set my music so certain songs play in certain order. I think I figured it out... but we'll see} "You Give and take away,  for my good. For who am I to say what I need?  For You alone see the hidden parts of me that need to be stripped away.  And as You begin to refine, I'm learning to let go and rely on One who walks with me,  as hard as it may be.  You're teaching me all the while to say....  Bless the Lord, O my soul! All that's in my bless Your name.  Forget not Your power un-told, not Your glory or Your fame,  For You came to heal the broken, to redeem and make me whole.  Bless the Lord, O my soul!"

I log into Pinterest probably once a month... if even that. Its fun for a few minutes, but I'm telling you, I still don't understand that website. Is it really just a place for us to go get ideas? Either way, I'm using it to laugh at funny sayings and go "oh, neat! What a great idea" and then move on. So here's a few of my July picks.... This is something I will try and replicate. It fits our home quite well.  If we had a closet to dedicate to laundry baskets... I would do this.  ha! I love it. Read, repeat and repeat again. All day long. why do all the good quotes have to be anonymous?!  okay, this I might just find space for.  Its true.  such a sweet & simple idea!  it was her something blue :) yes, it surely is.  if our new home had stairs, I would try so hard to get  this feature added. But I am thankful for a 1 story...  I'm not gonna wait for a holiday to do this one....

Rachel turned 5 today. Just typing that makes me want to cry. F-I-V-E! When Ethan turned 5 it felt natural. He's the oldest and so when he turns a new age, it feels like that should be happening. But Rachel? That's a whole different story. She and Kara feel like they should stay in the baby stage much longer... but its going by so fast. She woke up today not realizing it was her birthday. Came into my room and climbed into bed with me; wanting to talk about her dreams. She does this pretty much every morning. Its either "I had a beautiful dream about nice things." or "I had a dream that would freak even a scary person out!" and then she proceeds to tell me {every detail of} her dream. After she finished I said, "Five years ago, right about now, I was starting to push, getting ready for you to come out of my tummy." And her face lit up... "Is today my birthday?!" Kara and I sang to her, she grinned ear to ear and then we talked ab...

Pictures are what I love. I like reading what people have to say too, but pictures are so fun. I think its neat how a picture can tell its own story. Even if its not the real story, it can tell one.  I've not had my camera on me much this past week though, so none from me tonight.   My mind has complete randomness that is my life lately and so I decided I'm going to post some of it. Its made me LOL over the past couple of days, maybe you'll find humor in it too. We went to Costco today. I received their coupon book a few weeks ago and thought it was odd that it wasn't valid until August 7th. I was venting to a friend about this and she sent me a note later saying "actually, they begin on July 14th and end on the 7th!" So today I went down there, aiming to use my coupons, only to finish ALL my shopping {with mainly only coupon items} to be told by the cashier "these don't apply until tomorrow, Ma'am." Oh... yeah... the 14th isn't ...

 I took a lot of these pics with my cell phone on that Hipstimatic setting. Not sure I like this setting {at all} but I didn't feel like spending the time changing it to one I liked. We started off the day last Wednesday heading out to run some errands and then meet up with our friends at the park and then go to the beach with them. One reason I love where we live is, we're far enough from Seattle to be away from the busyness of city life, but we're close enough to Lake Washington to roll down there for an hour or the day, any time we want.  I love how even in the middle of the hot summer days, you can still see snow capped Cascades and Mt. Rainier covered in luscious snow. Its beautiful, but also plays some weird tricks on your mind :)  see the lake behind the park? that's right near where my future brother-in-law proposed to  my little sister. Just a random fun-fact :)       Kara and Lilly discover "very dirty ocean" and...