Long Time No See!

  



Its been over a year since my last post. My how things have changed! The pic to the right is Maylee, she will be 4 years old in October. She has got so big and is such a blessing! She is a total joy to have around.

I cut my dreads last November for my mom. She is happy, and I feel lighter. I figure I have a short time to make mom happy and a lifetime of my own to have dreads. Mom was diagnosed with advanced cirrhosis 2 years ago and its been downhill ever since. All prayers are appreciated.I have moved in with mom since November last year and I feel blessed to have the chance to take care of the woman who gave up everything for me when I was a child to take care of me so well. Im glad I get to return the favor. At school I was one of like 3 kids with a homemade lunch to eat. I could always depend on mom to be there when I was sick, like when I had chicken pox she did everything she could think of to make the itching stop. The only thing that worked was ice packs on my feet cause thats where it was the worst! Mom was always there and always worked hard to give us the best freshest food every day and a clean nice house to live in. I am grateful.

 My firstborn child Justin turned 18 on August 19th. Yes, this is him...all manly. It feels like just yesterday I was changing his diapers and begging him to eat something besides bologna! LOL
We had a big cake and I baked him a huge cookie cause thats what he likes. Mom bought him all kinds of Darth Vader stuff cause he is totally dark side. And I know for halloween  he will be Darth Vader...again...Justin will be graduating this year too. He has Cerebral Palsy and has really made me proud with all he has accomplished. Everyone who meets him loves him. He never meets a stranger and is always hugging old ladies...and flirting with the young ones! He cracks me up cause he tries to be smooth when he flirts. Girls like him though...they better not like him TOO much cause he is still my baby!!

 Tyler is gonna be 14 soon. He left me and moved in with his dad cause his dad does stuff like hunt animals and drives a big truck with monster tires...thats OK son I forgive you. Maylee misses him and wales the tar out of him when he comes down for a visit. She was always crazy about her "Brugga" At least with Tyler knowing how to use firearms maybe boys wont be too much of a problem when Maylee is a teenager?? LOL I always try to see the bright side of things...

 

Funny Picture I made on my iphone..the app is called "Where do I put my Outhouse" Its free go to the app store NOW and get it! I almost peed myself laughing the night I downloaded it!

Im still making soap, trying to get back into sewing...I stay pretty busy taking care of everyone but once in a while I have time to sew. Since winter is coming there will be lots of time soon.

We had a good garden this year and I grew this...its a Tigger Melon. It tastes like a mix between cantaloupe and watermelon but it has a creamy texture and the taste isnt overpowering. I am quite pleased with it and will be growing tons more next year! I plan on making this into a smoothie soon! Its such a gorgeous melon. Maylee likes looking for ripe ones. They go from dark green to this gorgeous brown golden color. I think its the prettiest vegetable ever!

 I love where I live now, I am next door to my aunt and uncle and their grandaughter and her husband and baby Olivia, Their daughter lives behind us both with her 3 kids and husband. This is like the most perfect situation ever! I love it! I can go outside anytime and there is someone there that I know and can talk to. My uncle mows the grass for the whole "community" and we all help each other out. Its totally awesome here and its like the most perfect place I always wanted to live but didnt know it till I got here. And to think if I hadnt lost my home, I wouldnt be able to live here and be so happy. Always remember no matter what happens good WILL come out of it! 

I hope to have some new tutorials on my YouTube Channel pretty soon cause I just found out my Smocking tutorial has got 14,500+ views since I posted it in 2009! I was shocked! So Im gonna be making more tutorials cause I know how to do lots of things so why not share, right?

Thanks guys for listening to me ramble on. I had a lot of catching up to do and that aint even the half of it! LOL

Redneck Asian Style Running Water Contraption

          The force of the water coming out of the pipe is so great we had to use one of the strongest materials on earth to tie it to that metal shelf...DUCT TAPE!

Amazing isnt it? Let me tell you how this contraption works.

First Hubs tied a sump pump to a stick, and tied the outlet pipe coming from the sump pump to the stick...there is a LONG pipe going into the well that you cant see cause I am NOT taking all that crap from the top of the well, I may fall in! AHHHH!

The pipe runs from the sump pump hanging in the well all the way out to our trailer, about 90 feet....yes those are blackberry briars,and yes the blackberries were rather good this year but my goodness the thorns!

Anyhoo, we have this contraption rigged up so when you plug in the sump pump from inside the front door, the pump comes on and you hear this rumbling inside the pipe...then out of nowhere ice cold water comes GUSHING out of the pipe and you can catch it in a clean garbage can like we have set up here...then you can take it in the house for whatever you need it for. Hey it works well for now! I am happy! Its better than nothing which is what we had before...just packing water in gallon jugs.

I am NOT drinking this stuff, it slightly smells of sulphur and thats just gross...but the water works great for everything else! Its clear as it can be and ice cold. Mom says thats a sign it comes from an underground spring. I hope shes right!

Next week we hope to get the well pump in the well and get the water hooked up RIGHT. But for now this works, and Noor rigged this up with his own brand of Asian redneck genius and with materials we already had on hand. Clever huh?

Stay tuned for more clever Redneck Asian Contraptions coming soon! LOL!

Straight up Redneck Style!

I want to say first off: DO NOT DO THIS CRAZY STUFF AT HOME!

In desperation for a ladder to finish the electric project my ingenious hubs devised this contraption. I just have to share with you guys cause its so hilarious!

First we needed one of those TALLL ladders like the ones professional guys use who work on these big poles. Well we dont have one or the money to buy one so hubs thought up this idea...park the van under the pole, tie the ladder to the pole and hope it reaches up high enough to bolt down that big pipe thingy hanging from the top.

So up the ladder he goes. It is tied and secured as much as possible, but he still risked life and limb to climb up this monstrosity to bolt this pipe thingy to the pole. I had my camera ready to take a pic when he fell...er...I mean to take pics of the successfull operation! Yeah...Anyhoo!

Here you can see the top of the pole thanks to the cool zoom on my camera. Thats what he was bolting down to the pole. And all the crazy wires hanging out is what the electric company tied into their wires so we could have electric. I think that day they turned it on was among the happiest days I have ever had. 2 months of doing without electric and being sucked dry by a gas hog generator was too much!

And here he is all done and still alive to tell the tale of how he rigged up this amazing contraption to get our electric finished up.

He wanted to make a tutorial for you guys out there on how to put the electric box and wires all together that runs from your home to the electric pole. Someday he may get time, for now he is working himself in the ground to pay off everyone we begged and borrowed from to meet the unending demands of Grayson County Kentucky for inspections,unnecessary work to our house, and more inspections of unnecessary work... (IE: we had to have our trailer leveled and tied down to STATE regulations before they would let us have electric. We had to have a septic tank installed before they would let us have it. We also had to have a housing inspection so some guy I dont even know can charge me 100 bucks to tell me if my house is safe to live in or not. I am not THAT stupid. There was inspection fees for the septic tank, the house, the electric job Noor did hooking everything up to the electric companies requirements after all this it took from June 20th till 2 weeks ago to get this done..and we borrowed ourselves back into a pit of debt were we wont see the light of day from in a while....Am I bitter?, YES! Am I angry? You betcha! Am I gonna do anything about it? I sure want to, if I can get some free time I want these laws to change so others dont have to go thru the hell we went thru, there has to be SOMEONE to complain to out there!)

So when we are once again debt free, then maybe we can get that electrifying tutorial together, for now we are enjoying the heck out of electric...


Next job: Running water!
If you remember the well from a previous episode, we have our trailer set about 90 feet from the well. Running the water line to the trailer shouldnt take more than a weekend we hope...the hard part is digging a 90 foot long and 18 inch deep ditch to bury the water line in. yay.
For now hubs has rigged up this crazy contraption that sucks water from the well, thru a big pipe running under the house and into the front yard by the door. I can catch the water in large containers to flush the toilet (yeah we finally got a toilet YAY!) and stuff. Its easier than packing water in from moms house. So in a couple of weeks we should have the money to run real water lines and stuff...I hope! After thats done we should be all set...well we will have the basic needs met anyways...


I wish I could have kept up with this blog better, but with no electric, water, or anything for that matter its been rough. We just now got internet at home friday morning, Thank goodness!


I keep thinking with all the thousands of dollars we blew on getting electric service from these shiesters we could have got a helluva solar array going on....oh well...we will be able to tell them where to get off at in a few years (evil laugh)

Here is a cute Maylee picture as an added bonus for reading this far and putting up with my whining and complaining LOL! I missed everyone and am trying to catch up with everyone on facebook, and hopefully I can get back over to Hippiesew soon to catch up with my 2nd family over there. I miss you guys BAD!

Moving right along

Since last time I wrote we have got so much done. Its been a busy month! We got our driveway ready thanks to a nice guy who works at the quarry not far from the big town here. And after much headache we got the trailer moved! Mostly it was rain that kept setting us back but we finally got it done and boy was I happy to see this sight

Thats them coming with the trailer. What a relief!

So now that its on site we have a lot of work to do but first...some pics of how we got to this point. Hang on to your seat cause this is exciting!

We had a pretty major issue of how to mow off the land...we couldnt find no one to do it so we took matters in our own hands. We figured gas is reasonably priced right now and lighters are very affordable so lets do this!

Well...as you can see it kinda got out of hand....the fire went up in one of my cedar trees and the wind blew it over to the next field across the dirt road...so we not only had one fire but two...and all we could do is stand there and watch in amazement/horror as the fire burned so quick  thru everything. We ended up calling the fire dept who happens to be just right down the street from my mom who lives about 5 miles from here...as luck would have it the fire dept holds bingo on saturdays and when mom is feeling frisky she likes to go and play and gossip with the other old women...

so there is mom sitting there playing bingo, minding her own business when the bingo caller announces he has to leave right now there is a call for a fire and he has to go help. He is of course totally excited cause they dont get no calls much down there. Mom said he was grinning and everything (sigh) So he leaves and this other lady calls bingo while the real caller is gone fighting a fire....MY fire (sigh again) I swear to god I cant hide shit from mom LOL! The good side is, mom thinks that because this *new* caller was calling is why she got to bingo once...at least there is a good side to this.

So moms bingo caller and a bunch of other guys show up in cute lil trucks to fight our fire...they were really super nice. We didnt get the attitude that we normally get from fire dept people (Me and hubs had a bad experience with them at work once, they came on a false call made by another nurse and was less than kind about it) anyhoo...as we watched them bring their trucks over the hill Noor says,"You know, we should have brought a fire extinguisher." yep...two brainiacs here trying to do something like this...yep..

a month later we get a nice bill for 500 bucks. Its OK. I doubt we could have got it mowed so nice for so cheap LOL, and all the burnt grass is like fertilizer!  I always try to see the good side of things. Nonetheless we wont be burning off a field again. I was pretty scared. And in case your wondering, there isnt a house anywhere near where this occured other than the shed our neighbor lives in..and the fire got no where near his property. Its pretty big and open out here...

So now that we got the grass problem taken care of we then was able to move the trailer, and then comes the remodeling..ugh

Purple and orange for my bedroom. The small bedroom is the same color purple tooo. I really liked it...obviously. I also scrubbed and cleaned the carpets so we could keep them. Other than the paint that Maylee got on them, they look quite nice. Maylee helped me paint of course.


As of right now we are STILL working on getting the floor put in. We need to replace all the floors but we are running out of time! We need to get out of here by the 10th, so we will replace the living room floor which is the worst and hope for the best.

We also have a horsie! He isnt ours he is the neighbors horse but he eats my grass and keeps it mowed and I appreciate it a bunch even if he does poop in front of my door LOL

Maylee is pretty scared of the horses even though she acts like she isnt...she is so cute LOL




This is what I get to wake up to every day from now on...Just look at that big sky!

I need to get my garden tilled up ASAP too. I got a bunch of heirloom seeds to plant! I am gonna have a 100% organic heirloom garden this year thanks to these fine Etsy Sellers:

The Bearfoot Shaman

Wall Flower Studio

Azure Dandelion

SmokyMist Gardens 

I have got some really fun varieties of veggies from some of these sellers. I highly recommend them all, as they have been a joy to work with. Ship fast too!

OK I gotta run we are planning on doing more remodeling today since hubs is actually off...this thing is so slow going cause he has been working so much but next week he is off! So we can get this show on the road!

Prayers and well wishes welcome for a safe move from Louisville to Rough River. Thanks guys!

Moving to the country...gonna eat a lot of peaches!

I like that song...anyhoo! I wanted to update my followers on our land and us moving! As you remember in late 2008  we bought some land in Breckinridge county Kentucky well we are FINALLY moving to it!

We are working on catching some non muddy days so we can actually move our mobile home to it. The home we bought was cheap enough, it needs work obviously but by golly its MINE! Aint no bank can take this sucker I OWN it! LOL And I get to do some interior decorating which I LOVE to do!
We have a lot to do to the land itself before its ready to move onto. we have to move the trailer first then get the septic tank put in. Then we have to figure out how to hook up our well...yeah a well!

 

I found this yesterday when I was walking all over the land. We have two huge piles of weathered lumber and shingles on the land. This is one of the main reasons I picked this particular parcel. Even though no one said anything about the possibility of there being an old homesite here...the evidence remained. I knew it could have been an old house OR it could have been an old barn that was there...I am thinking after my investigation yesterday that one of the piles was a house. 1st clue is the well and second clue is:

Under ALLL that crap is a hole/tunnel/cellar/basement some kind of opening is under all that mess. My theory is its a cellar and this is the remains of an old house...we will see! I am not brave enough to move any of that stuff around cause its a HUGE pile, but I definitly seen a hole of some kind that looks deep under it all. I am excited to get it cleared off!


Anyhoo, after we get the septic tank installed and the well hooked up then there is the problem of electric...We can continue to kiss electric company booty, OR we can go solar. It would be WAY cheaper in the long run and I wouldnt mind living off limited electric for a short time till we can get a bigger array of panels and batteries going. We will make up our mind for sure when we price the cost of having electric run to our land. if its over 1000 bucks we are going solar baby! My mom says it shouldnt be more than 200...but we are pretty far back from any main roads.

My main goal at some point is to live off the grid, and be 100% self sufficient in an eco friendly home of some kind (I like cob!) with no need for electric or water companies and their bills. I hope to someday not need money for anything to sustain my family. Thats my goal and I am well on my way!

My short term goal is to make our living expenses cheap enough that my soap business can pay the bills. Once we get moved in this will be a reality. I want to generate money from the land, and hopefully get my husband set up with some kind of mechanic/car repair shop. I have a lot of goals but at least we are moving forward and not stuck in the mud like we have been for the past 6 years we have owned this house. I am a very blessed woman! I am so happy Maylee can spend the rest of her years in such a beautiful place...with chicknens.

A year of Dreadlocks

Well guys its been a whole year since I got dreads.I am pretty excited to show how they have progressed in this year! This Picture to the right is me today with year old dreads, here are more pics:

If you want to see the post I made the day I got my dreads done click here

 

Here is the pic of me the day I got them done

This is before I went to the salon

This is after I came back from the salon

This is 2 months into it. I am losing the length on my hair at this point too...keep in mind I have NEVER cut it except for some witchy dead ends when the dreads were about 7 months old. Those ends wouldnt lock up for nothing so off they went but it was only an inch or two...

This is me today:

  

I went thru such an "ugly duckling" phase with these about 4 months into it I was wondering if I reallly wanted to do this or not cause I looked SO bad. You could not tell I had dreads it just looked like I didnt comb my hair, and it was embarrassing to go out without my head wrapped up in a cloth.

Thru my dreadlocks adventure I have learned a lot about myself, and that was one of my goals for getting dreads. I learned that hair shrinks a LOT when its locking up too!!!

I have learned to have patience, especially with the cashier who laughed out loud at me for having dreads...laughed HARD too, not just a giggle..That ALMOST hurt my feelings, it was a close call on that one LOL I have learned I am still a bit vain after all these years, cause I was so embarrassed to go out during months 4 thru 6 before my dreads miraculously locked up.

One thing that did help my dreads lock up quick was making sure my hair was clean. For my particular hair it was not in my best interest to go without washing it for weeks like people told me to do, once I started washing it, it locked up. Greasy dirty hair cant get locked up. Thats the way my hair works anyways.

I started making dreadlock shampoo bars cause I didnt want to buy the stuff of course, and I noticed a huge difference. My advice is use a plain simple soap on your hair, no conditioners nothing fancy, just a plain castile soap and you will see a big difference. I dont care if you buy it from me or someone else, just buy handmade! Be good to your dreads, you got em for life! Make sure nothing gets built up in em!

in a way my tree like twisty crazy looking locs have grounded me. Like the roots of a tree. I am happy I did this. Its been one fun adventure for sure.

New Liquid Soap Home Test Results

  We have tested this soap pretty thoroughly here at home and here is what I have discovered! 

Dreadlocks shampoo: KILLER!! I love it! It lathers up great and rinses away so easy. Its not like commercial shampoos that want to linger around. It cleans wonderfully too. I will definitly be offering this recipe as a dreadlock shampoo!

 

Dishes: WOW! It got a tea stain off my tea pitcher that will NOT come off with commercial dish soap. I was in AWE! I gets food off of dishes super great I had NO problems using this for dishes...I was actually excited to do dishes by hand just to get to try it out! LOL

 

Laundry: Would not do well in front loading machines due to the suds...however I may test this theory later...This cleaned clothes great, and left them as soft as my usual laundry soap once they came out of the dryer. I had to use about 4 tablespoons worth to get the water to turn milky they way my usual laundry soap does, so it may not be cost effective to use this over my usual laundry detergent, however I plan on offering it for sale anyways for people who just realllly want a liquid soap.

 

Handwashing soap: Not bad for general purpose. My hubs is gonna try it out on greasy hands the next time he works on a car, so we will see how that does. But for general use its awesome. Doesnt dry out your skin or anything!

 

Regular Hair Shampoo: It cleans great, left my hubs long thin hair shiny but frizzy...Worked great on the boys short thick hair, and I am gonna try it out on Maylee tonight. I am thinking this recipe wouldnt be that great for a regular shampoo so I am formulating a new recipe for a shampoo today.

 

I am thinking this particular recipe which is olive and coconut oil would be awesome as a general purpose cleaning type soap and dreadlocks shampoo. The coconut content being so high gives it tons of cleaning power which is what I wanted in a liquid soap and its not harsh on skin which is great!

I am in the process of researching oils to formulate my shampoo/bodywash recipe and I will be testing that out this week so wish me luck! This is all so exciting! Now I have to go order some bottles to package this in!! YAY!

New Project: Liquid Soap!

I just realized I have not posted since before thanksgiving! (gasp) I have been THAT busy and I want to take a moment to sincerely thank each and every person who has bought from my shops in the past year. I am eternally grateful for your business as it has helped me and my family thru some insanely rough times I wont bother to get into here. Just know each dollar you have spent has HELPED me tremendously and it was all VERY appreciated. Thank you all SO MUCH! ((HUGZ))

I wanted to let you guys know all the exciting things I been up to since the "busy season" is pretty much over. Sales have went down to usual numbers and now I have time to catch up on some things I been dying to do like make LIQUID SOAP!!

I had quite an adventure making liquid soap yesterday I had done my homework for sure but you never know how something like this will go till you jump in with both feet. So I jumped!

I had what was supposedly a fail proof idiot proof recipe in hand that had been tried by others with success. This made me feel at ease a little bit more.




I mixed my potassium hydroxide and oil and stick blended the daylights out of the mixure till I got something I was pretty sure was trace...then I blended more. I wasnt taking NO chances with this one!! Everything I read said if you cant get the potassium hydroxide and the oils to trace then it WILL separate on you later on down the process.

The only part of this process that I dont think I fully "got" was the fact you really do have to keep this stuff HOT! I put it in a double boiler set up and had the water just below simmering...that wasnt enough, I needed to keep the water boiling the whole time. Once I turned up the heat I got better results.

I figured out from the "test" globs I took out of the "paste" I was cooking that I needed to BOIL the water that I was testing the globs in. So I had a ton of boiling water around the house yesterday LOL

I finally got tired of cooking this "Paste" I was supposed to be making after about 7 hours of cooking so I boiled yet more water and poured it over the paste I had made. I boiled this for about 15 to 20 minutes.

I broke up all the chunks of the paste in the boiling water as best as I could. This was the hardest part was breaking up this stuff so it could dissolve and thus make my liquid soap. I went and watched a movie and when I came back all I had to do was hit the whole mixture with my stick blender and it blended just perfect. AND to make it even better for my ego, it was just a WEEE bit cloudy. I was shooting for 100% clear, but you never know when this stuff sits for a couple of days it may be as clear as commerical dish soap! I am OK with partly cloudy though, as long as it isnt milky I am happy.

I have tested this so far in laundry : works AWESOME!
Dishes: I was amazed! It took the tea stain off my tea pitcher and commercial dish soap wont touch it unless you SCRUB with a scratchy pad. All I had to do with my soap was rub!

You could put this in a foamer bottle and make foamy soap for handwashing too! So many applications for this stuff the possibilities are really limitless and I am so rejuvenated and excited to be able to KNOW I can definitely make this stuff now!

I have in the works a new product I wish to announce here today! This week I hope to be unveiling my newest invention: ~JIGGLE SOAP!~ This will be similar to Jell-o as it will be jiggly and squirmy but it will be soap you can take in the shower with you. This will be 100% chemical free unless there is a fragrance oil to scent it but those are always pthalate free at least. This will also be 100% vegan! I will be making an experimental batch this week. I know it wont be till at least wednesday cause I have no car to get supplies till then...UGH!! but be on the lookout! I will most likely announce it here when I get this made. I am super duper excited!!!

I will also be coming up with an original recipe for shampoo. I am still researching oils and deciding what I would like to see a shampoo do, so that will be coming up in a couple more weeks as I get time. its definitely a top priority of mine to release a completely natural shampoo that works great!

I am so excited about all this, cant you tell! (jumps up and down and claps hands)

And, I am rapidly approaching 1,000 sales in Maylee's Garden on Etsy ! As of right now I have 982 sales. A lot of sales came in the past 2 months, I remember recently having my 777th sale and being all excited about it...and here I am staring at the big 1,000! I feel SO successful right now, and to make it special, I am gonna do SOMETHING nice for the person who buys that 1,000th product. I dont know what yet, maybe free shipping, free goodies...not sure. But I promise SOMETHING nice will happen to the 1,000th customer!


Again thank you ALL for your continued support of my little business. I truly enjoy cranking out all natural goodness for you all so we can all be healthier. I am so proud of what I have accomplished, and I could not have done it without each and every one of you who have supported me along the way.


THANK YOU!!!!

Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale

Its that time of the year!

SAVE 25.00 % On
All Items

Use Coupon Code:

BLACKFRIDAY25

during checkout.

Green Products

For the occasion I am offering coupon code in Maylee's Garden Artfire shop ONLY!!

This coupon is good Friday 11-27 thru 12-01 for the late night cyber Monday shoppers


The coupon will take off the percentage at checkout once you enter the code in the appropriate box, no waiting on a revised invoice from paypal! YAY!

This coupon is good on my WHOLE shop. Clothing, laundry detergent, soap, dreadlocks shampoo bars, destash, base soap for your own soapmaking..the whole 9 yards!

Thanks so much for your business, my family and I appreciate each and every one of you. I have had 308 sales in my Artfire shop and 809 in my Etsy shop as of today. I thank each and every one of you who have helped make my shop a HUGE success! Over 1,000 sales total and counting!

Our big day in BeaverCreek Ohio

Getting to Ohio yesterday was half the fun! I was very very surprised on Friday to a bunch of "gifts" in my paypal account from my loving hippiesew mamas JUST so I could go meet Kristi and Christina in Beavercreek at Kristi's house on Saturday. Christina was the sneaky sneak who set it all up thru a note on Facebook asking for help from anyone who had a buck to donate so I could have the money to get up there. Thats how bad she wanted me to be there, and thats how much I am loved. Have I ever mentioned how blessed I am?? A lot of things in my personal life are as wrong as they can be right now but I swear I have the BEST friends in the universe and I love and thank you all!


We left about 9 AM and after a bunch of bathroom breaks and other breaks such as the one depicted here where Tyler and Maylee gang up to figure out how to spend mama's spare change we finally made it to Ohio in about 3 and a half hours. The day was so pretty, not too hot not too cold and traffic was ok considering the massive amount of road construction I incurred while driving. Its seriously insane guys, ease up on the road construction seriously. Last time I drove I-75 it was NOT that bad, come on now!






So we finally get to Beavercreek! I was so happy to finally meet Kristi and to see Christina once again. We all went out back to Kristi's awesome backyard so the kids could play as it was a VERY nice warm day.

Maylee (In the pink) and Lavender loved jumping on the trampoline, of course with all the leaves on it is HAS to be fun right! its like a never ending leaf pile that you can jump in over and over again! What fun!







Maylee loved the "Yabbit" (rabbit) Kristi had. She has never seen a real Yabbit before so this was fun for her to finally get to see one up close. Yes sweet baby, they arent just in your story books they are real!









All of the kids loved playing in the awesome treehouse with the cool slide. Maylee and Lavender played there for a long time.
The kids all had so much fun while us grown ups talked...all was well...until....




Cass finds a BUG!


We have no idea what he was. We call them "Armour bugs" and thats what Kristi called it too, all I know is Cass is one brave young lady cause I wouldnt have touched it! EWWWW! LOL


Kristi had a massive Hula Hoop collection and lil Dom tried his hand at it. I think he secretly wants to be as awesome at it as his sister Cass, but again we ALL wanted to be that awesome at it! She can make the hoop go up to her head and then down to her feet like its no problem at all! Yeah we were pretty envious, I wish I had a video of it! Cass is not only brave but pretty darn good with a hula hoop too!




You all know how Maylee loves Kitties, well Kristi had a kitty that seemed to really love little girls. Maylee was pretty excited to find a kitty that didnt mind being played with. That was the most patient kitty I have ever met. She really didnt mind being carried around by the neck. I guess she knows how toddlers are LOL

Maylee really liked kitty's "Puppy" (Tail) too






We had some awesome pizza that Kristi made too! Maylee loves Pizza. Its one of her food groups. Kristi also made a pesto pizza that was to die for! I loved it and wish I had one right now! YUM!

I also got to sample some coffee made by Jill of Capital City Coffee. I am not a big coffee drinker, I prefer sweet tea really. But THIS coffee makes me want to pick up the habit in the worst way. I have had Starbucks, I have had Gevalia coffee, I have had a local coffee shop's fair trade coffee, I have had plain ol cheap stuff from the grocery store, I am NOT a coffee expert but I swear to god this is the BEST coffee you will EVER hope to drink in your whole life! It is worth every last penny, trust me!

It was so awesome to drink the finest coffee and eat the finest pizza in the finest kynd company I could ever hope to be in. I cant thank Christina enough for organizing this so that I could have a MUCH needed break. I feel so much better today after being able to get away for a little while yesterday. Thanks so much to all who donated money or bought from my shop Friday to help get me there. You are very loved and appreciated. I will remember you guys and if you need ANYTHING I can help you with you dont hesitate to ask! I mean it!

THANK YOU ALLLLL!!!!
HUGZ!