just because he loves me :)

johnny-jump-up revamp :)

back towards the beginning of summer i picked up this tigger johnny-jump-up for free :)

it was all good except that i wasn't a big fan of whole tigger thing, so i got myself some fabric and went to work...

BEFORE

AFTER

it was a lot more work than i thought it would be, but i'm happy w/ the final product :)

holly comes to visit :)

i was so blessed the other week to have my dear dear friend and cousin come all the way from Greenwood, DE, to visit me!!!

we had beautiful weather while she was here...the last of our Indian summer (it's been snowing now for the past couple of days!!!)

i don't have many pictures, but i'm hoping to get a few more from her sometime in the next week

one day she taught me how to make sugar cookies with glace icing :) a very time consuming process, but you sure do end up w/ some pretty cookies!!!

find the recipe here

you first have to pipe around the edges with a thicker icing, and then you fill the middle of the cookie w/ a fairly runny icing.

holly spend a few days w/ me here in Red Lake, and then we drove to Arborg, MB, to visit our 2nd cousin kara :) such a treat! well worth the 6 hrs. it took to get there!

it's amazing the distances you will drive up here to see people you know ;)

me - holly - kara

holly is my 1st cousin - our moms are sisters

kara is both holly and my 2nd cousin - our grandfathers are brothers

one evening we made delicious caramel apples :)

find this recipe here or look it up in the Esther Shenk cookbook :)

thank you so much holly and kara for such a fun and relaxing week!!!!

i am coming to realize more and more the blessing of family :)

and to end, a few snapshots that i took while driving home from dropping holly off at the airport (had to do something to keep myself occupied for the 10 hr. drive!!!) - sorry they're not the best of quality, but i was in a hurry to get home to my hubby so i didn't take the time to stop...thankfully my windshield wasn't too dirty ;)

we had a beautiful fall :) the gorgeous leaves made for a lovely drive home :)