Happy Mother's Day 2012!

Just wanted to take a few minutes to wish Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mamas out there!

 

I am the little baby in the picture being held by my Daddy and that's my very young Mama to the right.

This is my Dad's side of the family - my Dad's Mom is in dark blue, the rest of the family includes 7 brothers and sisters - that's right there were 8 kids.....however my Mom's Mom grew up in a family with 12 siblings!

 

This is my Mom & Grandma! Both my Mom & Grandma are out of the state visiting with my Sister so I don't get to celebrate Mother's Day with either one of them (we'll save it for when they get back).

My Kiddos......

The Oldest

 

My son, the oldest and the only boy!

The Middle Child

 

My oldest daughter

The Youngest

 

The baby....growing up too fast!

My Other Babies

 

Bella (on the left) and Jasper (on the right). I am firmly convinced that they believe they are siblings!

I hope you all have a very Happy Mother's Day, blessing to you and yours!

Thank you for stopping by The Mix Gal! Comments validate my blogging efforts, so I would love to hear from you. Take care and Keep Life Simple by Mixing It UP!
~♥KerrieLynn

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Happy Friday Photo Montage!

The sun is shining and it is a beautiful Pacific Northwest morning, what more could a person ask for? O.K., I know that is a rhetorical question, but for now life is good and I thought I would celebrate by showing off some great photos!

 

This is a free image that I got from dreamstime.com and with a little computer "magic" it makes a great impact!

 

My favorite morning beverage is COFFEE and I love these colors!

 

I just wish I had the magic touch or the knowledge to be able to grow something this beautiful!

 

There always has to be at least one Ferris Wheel ride or it's just not summer! That's my youngest in the middle - she is much braver than I!

 

Remember these slides? You just don't see too many of them any more - at least where I live. We have a family picnic every year at this park and the kids (some of the adults too) love going down this slide. It is about 15 or so feet up from the ground at the top!

 

The same park that has the slide (above) has quite a few fruit trees.

 

The "Kool-aid" stand.....a standard feature in our driveway each summer! I tried to talk her out of the $1 each price tag - she must have known what she was doing however, as she made $20 that day. It did help that the neighbor's had a bunch of guys over to work on a remodeling project!

 

One of my dreams realized......we finally got that big, four foot deep and twenty foot across above ground pool last year! I can't wait to put it up again this year - the first 80 degree day you will find me in the pool floating around on my air mattress!

That's it for today, hope you enjoyed my photo montage ~ I am so looking forward to summer!

Thank you for stopping by The Mix Gal! Comments validate my blogging efforts, so I would love to hear from you. Take care and Keep Life Simple by Mixing It UP!
~♥KerrieLynn

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May Day

Courtesy of PaperMatrix

Does anyone still celebrate May Day? I may be dating myself, but growing up I remember that we celebrated May day at school by making May Baskets and filling them with flowers to take home (usually for our Moms) and I also remember doing the May Pole Dance (we usually used a tether ball pole decorated with streamers). I don't think any of my kids have celebrated May Day in school -my oldest is 24 so the tradition went away quite a while ago! I thought I remembered that May Day was traditionally based upon a pagan celebration so I wonder if that has anything to do with why it is not celebrated in our local schools anymore. I did a Google Search to see if I could find more information on this celebration and this is what I found on Wikpedia:

Traditional May Day celebrations

May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations. As Europe became Christianized, the pagan holidays lost their religious character and either changed into popular secular celebrations, as with May Day, or were merged with or replaced by new Christian holidays as with Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and All Saint's Day. In the twentieth century, many neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival again.

Origins

The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane. Many pagan celebrations were abandoned or Christianized during the process of conversion in Europe. A more secular version of May Day continues to be observed in Europe and America. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the maypole dance and crowning of the Queen of the May. Various Neopagan groups celebrate reconstructed (to varying degrees) versions of these customs on May 1st.

The Tip Junkie has a great post on making all different kinds of May Day Baskets - from simple to more involved. While searching for the woven paper baskets that I remember making I discovered a wonderful new blog - PaperMatrix! The paper crafts on her blog are simply beautiful and she gives us step by step instructions on how to create each one. There is also a section of printable paper dolls and clothes! I love tradition and I am disappointed that my kids are not bringing me home their decorated May Baskets - I think I just might have to start our own tradition and make May Baskets at home. Do you celebrate May Day and what do you do to celebrate?

Thank you for stopping by The Mix Gal! Comments validate my blogging efforts, so I would love to hear from you. Take care and Keep Life Simple by Mixing It UP!
~♥KerrieLynn

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Surviving the Spray Glue

M ondays, we all have them and for the most part we all hate them! Well maybe "hate" is a strong word, but I don't know a single person who likes Mondays. For me, Monday means that I have to go back to the Monday through Friday work grind, the kids go back to school and the normal chaos of the week is about to resume! The chaos includes, but definitely not limited to - homework battles, trying to listen to two kids tell me about their day while simultaneously cleaning up the house, feeding the dog, figuring out what's for dinner, making dinner and then if I am lucky squeezing in a little time for myself. Of course all of this is occurring before Daddy gets home from work.....it's no wonder I drink too much coffee each day! .....It's no wonder I drink too much coffee each day!

Our weekends are usually spent gearing up for the week ahead by washing clothes, doing the housework that was missed during the week, working in the yard (weather permitting), but for the most part the stress factor and "gotta get it done now" attitude is reduced by at least 50% - plus there is normally no homework on the weekends! I don't know about other parents but in our house homework is usually a battle and it is a battle that always seems to feature Mama because the kids always want the Mama to be their helper! I am sure that you are thinking, well why can't the kids just come home from school and do their homework right after school? That is a great plan, but in the real world (mine at least) I am not with them when they get home from school and the youngest one still needs my help and supervision and the oldest thinks she needs my help and supervision!

Last night was like any other typical Monday.....I get home from work and start cleaning up the house while listening to my oldest go on about how her art project had been ruined at school and what she needed help with to fix it. First, she is in middle school so several classes and grade levels share the art room, which I understand, but what I don't understand is how she can have class one day and her project is fine and then the next time she has art her project has been ruined! This is not the first time that we have had to scramble to fix a project because it had been ruined at school - lack of teacher supervision I guess. Anyway, this project involved taking an old book, dividing it into four sections and then proceeding to glue pages within each section together. The book she brought home had some 300 or so pages......out came the Elmer's Spray Adhesive! It seemed to be progressing pretty quickly using the spray adhesive and appeared to be drying rather quickly (including all over my fingers). What I didn't take into consideration is that although it was Elmer's Glue, spray adhesive has an over-spray! I quickly realized that the counter and the bar stool was covered in glue so I took a timeout to clean it up (which, by the way involved several methods until I found one that worked).

Contrary to what I thought, not all Elmer's glue is easy to clean up as shown on the glue residual still on the counter and my fingers this morning. We finally got the book glued and the sections separated by wax paper (the only thing I could think of that wouldn't stick) and the book is on it's way to school to be made into some sort of art project that I am still confused about what the final result will be.

The moral of my story:

A) Mondays will continue to be crazy. B) Spray adhesive sticks to everything (thus the word "adhesive" in the description). C) I don't like homework. and...... D) I signed up to be a Mom and it is still the number one job that I love (and sometimes love to hate)....

Oh and as I was putting the youngest down to bed she says "I think I will wear my new Easter dress to my Spring Program tomorrow"......oops, forgot all about that - looks like I will be leaving work early to make sure I am there to see my daughter sing in her Spring Program!

Thank you for stopping by The Mix Gal! Comments validate my blogging efforts, so I would love to hear from you. Take care and Keep Life Simple by Mixing It UP!
~♥KerrieLynn

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Dickey's Barbecue Pit - Lynden, WA

www.facebook.com/DickeysBarbecuePitLynden

My family and I had the pleasure of recently enjoying the taste sensation of Dickey's Barbecue and oh what an experience it was! WARNING the following pictures contain Food Images and Descriptions that will make you want to rush out to your local Dickey's and get some Barbecue - please make sure (for your safety and the safety of others) that you only read during your local Dickey's Normal Business Operating Hours!

Dickey's Barbecue Pit is Managed By Dustin Benson! This is the sign located at the entrance.

When you arrive you immediately get in line to place your order and the food is prepared line style while you observe.  The first person cuts your meat selections to order and places those, the second person places your side orders and the last person gets you your Big Yellow Cup (all drinks are in the same size cup) and totals your orders.  It was busy when we were there so our wait in line was about 10 minutes or so, but once we got up to the counter the service was speedy. 

This is the menu that you choose from, we ended up choosing to each have the 2 Meat Plates with Drinks (Big Yellow Cup) and my youngest choose from the kid's meals.

Troy is the Assistant Manager (and Dustin's Dad) and you will find him working at the front counter or wherever help is needed!

Once you have your food items you move over to the side bar where you choose your soft drinks or cold sweet tea.  You also pick out the barbecue of your choice, Sweet, Standard or Spicy.  The FREE Pickles are also self serve and they are a meal unto themselves!  I got the biggest kick out of the "silverware" (they are plastic with a Silver finish), they fooled me at first glance - when I went to grab the forks, spoons and knives I was surprised at the weight - then I realized that they were "plastic wear".  This is the first time I had seen plastic utensils with a "Silver" finish!

The impressive Pickle Jar - no small portions here!

Blog Writing Slump...

I've had a major case of blog writing slump these past few weeks.  Not sure if it is the weather - cold,  rainy days or what but it just doesn't seem like anything going in my life has been post worthy.  I am sure that I am not the only blogger to suffer from bouts of this.  

 

I think I need to create a go to list so when I don't have anything to write about I can just pull topics from the list.  There have been a couple of memorable occasions and I took pictures but have yet to download them.  This past Sunday was my hubby and my wedding anniversary so we managed to get a sitter and went out for dinner and the week before that we packed up the whole family and went to my friend's new restaurant that he just opened.  I took lots of photos of that excursion and did promise to write a review, so that post will be forthcoming in the next few days.  

 

A couple of weeks ago my Dad, my two girls and myself took a small road trip down to what used to be Northern State Mental Hospital - now rumored to be haunted.  My oldest daughter is writing a history project on the place - it's funny what you find in your own backyard that you never knew existed!  This place is only about a 45 minute drive from my house and I never even heard of it before.  I suppose that our day trip and photos are another blog post waiting to happen!

In retrospect, I guess I do have several things I could be blogging about so my "slump" must just be weather related.  I always have the hardest time during the transition from Winter to Spring.  All of the Winter Holidays are already past and I just seem to get into"funk" during this time of year - I need my sunshine and spring flowers!  It doesn't help that I woke up to a dusting of snow on everything this morning.  After writing this post I suppose I have gained a little bit of motivation - so maybe I am starting a roll!  Until next time,

Thank you for stopping by ~