picnik.com

My sister came over with her 3 little angels today and I got to take pictures

i took a gazillion ~ 244 to be exact


i had fun taking the photos and i also had fun playing with the photos on picnik.com - it is an awesome site....it makes you look like a professional photographer (i have so many people fooled....LOL). Oh, the best part is ~ it is F.R.E.E. that's right NADA single penny absolutely FREE.

i was able to add a frame and crop the photo above

this one i faded out the frame and brightened the picture to show off the colors.


here i faded out most of the pic and focused mainly on the balloons and gave the picture an overall shadow effect from the colors in the balloons. By the way lime green and pink are an awesome combination, aren't they? Helpful Hint: Kroger has the biggest and best balloons I have ever come across......seriously!

in this photo (above) i gave it a polaroid picture effect........i love it....fun! and a little retro!
i added some text to this photo....i also cropped in on the cutesy shoes - oh, check out the ankle bracleets these girls have some rockin jewels.

I think this one is my favorite.

and this picture was just plain fun....i added a "papa mike" effect.........what that means is - my Dad, the girls grandpa has a bushy mustache like this one offered on picnik (stickers), so i took full advantage of that and added a special genetic feature to this photo. Now all 3 girls look like Papa Mike!

Pottery Barn Sale

I went into Pottery Barn today....and what a nice surprise. I found this soup tureen and I loved it, but I figured it was too much for my budget. When I turned it over I found it was on sale for $31.99 (and since I was returning a $40 item it was going to be mine)........IHowever, I seriously thought it was marked incorrectly. I grabbed a sales associate and she, like me also thought that the price was wrong! Upon further investigation, she came back to me and said that is the sale price.........oh I snagged that up right away!!!




I am going to re-do my dining room (I will be posting pics soon)....I hope to get lots of advice/opinions. Anyhow, this tureen is sort of my inspirational piece. I want to paint all of my dining room furniture black and have my china cabinet filled with white!

My Goal as a knitter.

I just started knitting with a group of friends, more of an excuse to get out of the house and socialize.............with a pair of needles and a ball of yarn. oh and a glass of wine! Anyhow, I really enjoy knitting when I have time. Haven't thought too much of what my ultimate goal as a knitter would be ........until I ran across this ~~~

Looking for Blog HELP

Okay if you notice I have been changing my template like every second.........I am unhappy with all of them. Can someone help me find a template that displays all my posts in the middle (without cutting off photo's) and have my archives, blogs i follow and profile on the sides or side - I am frustrated!!! HELP. I will take any advice.

moving to japan

my daughter has 3 best friends.......the best kind of kids.......the kids that you wish to be friends with your kid.....

tonight the girls are saying good bye to Shelby........she will be moving to Japan with her family.....

there was a going away celebration tonight.....a photo shoot....an outing on a boat.....and a sleepover. it is always so hard to say good bye to someone that you feel so close too.....we will miss u shelby, but have a great life experience in Japan! we will see you in three years .... hope u love your pandora bracelet!!!

Banoffee Pie

Wow. for some reason i have been thinking a lot about england......i am guessing the weather here in michigan has something to do with that. i have some very nice memories of my time in england and a few wonderful favorite recipes that i brought home with me....here is my all time, hands down fave. A delightful combination of bananas, toffee and chocolate........YUM O as Rach would say.



i promise you won't be disappointed. I don't understand why the Banoffee hasn't hit it big in the states yet.

Banoffee Pie

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
10 tablespoons butter, softened
2 (14-ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk
3 large bananas
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix graham cracker crumbs with softened butter and press mixture into 9-inch pie plate. Bake for 5 to 8 minutes.
Lower the oven to 300 degrees F for the toffee filling.
To create toffee filling, caramelize the sweetened condensed milk. Pour the condensed milk into a 9 by 12 by 2-inch glass baking dish. Cover with foil and place dish inside a larger poaching pan. Add water to poaching pan until half way up sides of baking dish. Bake for 1 1/2 hours.
Once both the crust and toffee filling are cooled, spread half of the filling evenly inside crust. Slice the bananas and layer on top of filling. Pour remaining half of filling over bananas, spreading evenly. Whip the cream with the confectioners' sugar and vanilla and spread on top of toffee filling and bananas.

summer time in michigan

Enough Already!!!

etsy!

I have just listed the cutest vintage pillowcases in my etsy shop.........i will be listing more within the next few days, along with some adorable vintage aprons. Here is a glimpse at some of the items.

Living with the Queen for 3 Years

When I was pregnant with my 6th child, my husband was given an opportunity to take a 3 year position with his company in England. Although, we were hesitant, mostly because we had a large family and weren't quite finished yet..........we did it! And, it was the best thing we ever did. We lived in the heart of England - Royal Leamington Spa and enjoyed 3 of the most wonderful years of our lives.

I miss England dearly - and hope to go back to visit one day. Here are some of my favorite memories......................

sheep everywhere, grazing in fields along roads........sometimes stopping traffic so they could get across the road.

british pubs.......in every corner of every village - the true identity of the british culture. a place where villagers gather and converse over a pint or two of ale.

London - truely a spectacular city.......and to me, even more memorable in the rain.

although, i truely loved London - I equally loved the Cotswolds.......to some, this is only a beautiful picture, to me it is a place in which I could escape to in less than 30 minutes and spend hours going from one village to the next. Sometimes, I could travel down a road (more like a path) wide enough for only one car and find gems of unspoiled land for miles.

Tea........i fell in love with it, especially with a splash of milk added. Everyone drinks tea. We had a group of men working on our house - they were covered in paint and dust, but they would take a regular tea break everyday.....and NO these men were not drinking out of a white stryofoam cup..........they were drinking from a china cup, the kind that my grandma drank from!!

oh........we call them "cupcakes" they call them "fairy cakes".........love that!

A very typical English Kitchen........very small and including an AGA cooker! Unfortunately, I didn't have an aga in the house that we lived in, but mostly everyone I knew had one. An AGA Cooker is a cast-iron, gas-fueled, enamel-glazed cooking stove that uses non-drying radiant heat to gently cook food, often in less time than a traditional stove.

I had a crush on Hugh for mostly 3 years while living in England. I became friends with a nice british women named Rachel, who just happened to be the first cousin to Hugh........I so badly wanted her to set up a meeting between us........that never happened :( Her and her family were always going into to London to one of his big movie premiers..........I didn't get invited to one of those either :(

These are just a few of many many wonderful memories of wonderful, beautiful England!!! If you ever get the chance to travel to Europe make England your number 1 stop!!!

Looking forward to...

Saturday Night! going to see kid rock at comerica park in detroit. i know he has a potty mouth - but besides that, he puts on the best concert and especially to his hometown fans.....very excited!!!

The Grad Party

here are some pictures of my daughters grad party. we had it this past weekend. it was a combined party with my twin nephews. we had 200 people and it was lots of fun.

centerpieces were made from terra cotta pots that i spray painted white and decorated with colors/emblems for the universities that they would be attending. i got pictures of each graduate at different stages of their lives and stuck them into floral foam - covered the foam with crinkly paper and done. Easy and very inexpensive it added a lot of color to the table and was fun to look at. the boys are going to University of Michigan and Brianna will be attending Michigan State University.....so some were done in Blue and Gold and some in Green and White

future purple hatters way to party girls!

my dear friends that we met while living in England..... DeAnn and Tanya (Tanya drove 6 hours with her family to attend the party).

we hired my neighbor to dj.

Katie with BFF leading the crowd in the latest Miley Cyrus line dance !

Brothers tending Bar. My husband Jeff, on the right with his brother had lots of fun .

My sister Dawn and Me.

Brianna - co guest of honor.

Jordan - another guest of honor doing some skank foot dance or something like that.

I don't think I left the dance floor.

Baby pictures were blown up of the three cousins!

It was a great night and a great party.