Summer And Hamming It Up

Bean loves the camera. She'll twirl and jump, make funny faces just to see what kind of pictures I'll take. She adores being the center of attention.
Summer has been flying by fast, I've been working a lot which makes me appreciate every second all the more. We've started to play a new game - One Lie One Truth. Where each person tells two stories or facts about themselves. One must be a lie, the other true and the other players. It's a great way to learn more about each other.

Bean made this candy airplane at the Arlington Fly in and was so proud she wanted me to share a picture of it.

A few weekends ago

I am behind on blogging as I'm currently working crunch time. But in between the long hours I'm getting a few things done around the house. I cleaned up the top of the china case, and have started work on sorting the linen closet. In an effort to simplify things we are getting rid of all the sheet sets but 2 per bed. It's not neccessary for a family of 3 to have 7 sheet sets. It's an excessive waste of space. So off to the thrift store they'll go. I'm using those vacume bags to hold blankets and fabric bins to organize the remaining items.
Two weekends ago we went to the Highland Festival in Anacortes. We saw family, boffer fighting, cattle dogs, pony riding and rain. Lots and lots of rain. But before we were rained out Bean participated in throwing a stuffed sheep over a pole winning a medal she was very proud of and made a shield and clan flag in the children's art tent. After the festivities we headed over to R's aunt and uncles house for some amazing home made chili and smoked salmon.

Some Thrifting

I wanted to share some recent thrift store and doll show finds. We went to the doll show a few weeks back and had an absolute blast. Bean and I spent time together digging through boxes of old doll clothing and beanie babies - the later of which was for her. Then we followed it up with dinner at the Rainforest Cafe - and it really sucks. The decor might be fun but the food is just over priced, tasteless and nasty. Even the children's burger was burned so badly that Bean wouldn't eat it. I don't think we'll ever be going back.

Vintage doll dress, the cutest pink vintage jewelry box ever (I really love this find), 2 small watches, a clip, some hand made embrodiered napkins, a pin and my favorite - a vintage goody swan hair clip that I only paid $2 for. The doll show was really empty this time which allowed me some good finds.

My pippos 'Amelia' in a vintage doll dress and a cameo necklace. The quality of the dress is amazing. I almost think someone made it out of their wedding gown.

A vintage Norcrest swan. I want to put pearl necklaces in it.

And finally some vintage pillowcases. They are so soft, light and airy. And their new home is on my sewing room futon.

Happy 4th of July!

4th of July Weekend

My lovely 3 day weekend started with this:

Banana Muffins with peanut butter chocolate chips! So very yummy. The recipe comes from this wonderful site that has the greatest music:

http://www.pastrywiz.com/banana1.htm

Then Bean and I headed off to do this:

Berry Picking at Stocker Farms. It's the last weekend for strawberries. We had a race to see who could fill up their bucket the most and Bean beat me by a pound. Such a good price we ended up with almost 6lbs of strawberries for $10. After picking we went to their store and bought a couple of ice creams, lemons, honey and some wonderful honey sticks.

We have so many strawberries. Most are very tiny but oh so sweet. I washed them, sliced them and made a pie, enough strawberry shortcake for 2 desserts, put some in the freezer and saved the large ones to dip in chocolate.