I did it!

One year ago Kari introduced me to the POTD concept.

Actually it was more of a friendly challenge.

POTD = Picture of the day

What this would mean is that each day we woud post a picture and blog about it.

When I first started I didn't think that I could last 2 weeks.

I was willing to try but really didn't think that I would be able to commit and keep up with this for a whole year!  That sounded crazy.  A huge commitment that I really didn't know if I was capable of.

Well, here I am 12 months later with 358 posts for the year. 

I did it!

When I tell people about my blog they all say the same thing "That is quite the commitment.  How do you find the time??".    I usually respond the same way each time too "It is a commitment and time consuming but it is worth it."

I feel like I should be pouring my heart out about how blogging makes me feel or why I am so happy that I stuck with it but does it really need to be said?  I think it is pretty obvious. 

I do have to give credit to my sisters, my parents, my friends, and my family for actually taking your time to visit to read what we are up to.  Without the positive feedback and comments it would have been easy to stop.  I love the feedback and I love the fact that my family and friends are interested in our story.

I also love that Tammy told me about Blog2Print.com.  This is a site that allows you to turn your blog into a book.  It is so cool and now that the year is over I will be ordering a few of these to hang on to to give to my girls when they get older. 

I am still scrapbooking.  This doesn't replace scrapbooking but it does give me a place to log all those special things about my girls.  The scrapbooks will be the very best of the moments, the very best of the pictures, and my very favorite moments.  I haven't been scrapbooking as much as I want to be and I am thinking that this year it will be the thing that I work on.  Putting serious effort into the task.

I am happy to see that others have decided to blog as well.  I hope you get everything out of it that I do!

Who is raising this child??!

We have our moments.
We also have our fair share of evidence that messes don't always get cleaned up.

We also have our fair share of moments like these.
I was washing dishes and Hannah came to me asking to use a towel so that she could help clean up the kitchen.  She brought the dishes to the sink, tossed the trash in the garbage can, washed and dried the table,  and filled Nash's water dish.  Such a big helper!

Baking day

Tammy, Stacey, and I spent the day baking.

We made cream wafers, peanut butter blossoms (the ones with the Hershey kiss), Chewy Surprise (Milk Dud ones), pumpkin with icing, Jingle Bell Butterfinger cookies (like a chocolate chip cookie but with crushed butterfingers instead), and homemade caramels (my favorite).


Homemade Caramels
1 cup butter
1 lb brown sugar (yes, that does say one pound)
dash of salt
1 cup light Karo syrup
14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter over medium heat.  Add sugar, salt and Karo syrup.  Gradually add milk.
Stir continously until temp reaches 245 degress (firm ball-use candy thermometer).
Remove from heat and add vanilla.

Pour into 9 inch pan.
I like to use a disposable pan so that you can bend the pan around the caramels to get them out.
Cut, wrap, and enjoy!

That is if you don't eat the whole pan while you are cutting them

Page-a-Week, Week 3

This week I finally completed a page for Hailey's scrapbook!

I am not in love with how it turned out but it is complete and that is what is important to me today.