Harvest Time

This weekend we took Mary to a pumpkin patch in front of Harry & David's store. She had a lot of fun. She was more taken by the straw than the pumpkins. LOL! We took a bunch of pictures. When we got home I made a batch of pumpkin oatmeal cookies. You can get the recipe here. There is one mistake on the recipe. In the list of ingredients it says 2 tsp of baking soda twice. It should be only 2 tsp of baking soda and 1 tsp of salt. After I made the cookies, Rich picked our grapes. The bunches were just beautiful and sooo sweet. We are going to make juice out of them. Here is a slide show of our weekend

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Share and Tell Friday

Today I am going to participate in Show and Tell Friday that is hosted by Kelli at There is no Place Like Home. You can head on over there to see many other lovely things that are being shared. My treasure is a cookie jar that belonged to my grandmother, Clara Davis. It was given to her by her children in 1941 right before WWW II. My grandmother died 12 years before I was born but my mother made her very real to me by all the stories of her life. She was a wonderful woman of faith and you can read about a very special event in her life by going to the post entitled Lo, I am With You Even to the End of the World. The cookie jar is one of my early memories, I just remember being able to peer over the kitchen counter to see him. I am so happy that I am able to have him and my daughter Mary will be able to peer over our kitchen counter and see his jolly figure too. I plan on making some pumpkin cookies and fill his full little belly with them today:)

I just love his sweet little face!

He is made by Red Wing but that is all I know. I don't know where her children bought the cookie jar. All I know is that they were living in Southern California and most likely bought it there.


Well, I hope you enjoyed my Share and Tell. Have a wonderful weekend. Love, Elena

ABC, 123...8.9.9

With the fall weather is in full swing now, I know it won't be long until we get a cold snap and the frost will begin to kill all the tender plants. My begonias on our front step are part of those tender plants. They are so bright and radiant in their colors that I wanted to capture them on film before they were gone. So Rich and I took Mary outside and took some pictures of her with the begonias. Now with a digital camera, I can take bunches of pictures that I would have never done with film. It is so much fun to be able to view them right away and just delete what doesn't turn out. So another dilemma comes up... what do you do with all these pictures! My solution is to make slide shows! It has become my number one hobby next to blogging and almost an addiction. But I sure do have fun and I hope it brightens peoples day too. I am also saving the slide shows to disc and we can show them on our TV and I will save them for Mary when she gets older. Well here is my latest:

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Ask and You Shall Recieve!

Mary, twenty three months, has really been zooming in her communication skills. In the last week, she has begun to ask for things. She has been pulling on our hands, or pointing, and getting us out of our chair and leading us to what she wants for quite a while. Now she is using one word requests like, "juice", "milk" when she is thirsty. Yesterday for lunch we had toasted cheese sandwiches and cut up apple. So she would tell me if she wanted a bite of cheese sandwich or a bite of apple by saying "cheese" or "apple". It was really cute. For dinner last night we were having pork chops, broccoli and mashed potatoes. She likes broccoli but for some reason she only wanted a couple of bites and then she kept pulling on my arm and saying "banana". Well, we drew the line at that. We love giving her what she asks for, but we felt that would not lead into a good habit. We want her to eat the food we have for a meal and not get the idea that she doesn't have to eat what we are eating.

Oh while I am thinking of it I will share how to make a pork chop merinade that I used for the first time last night and it was delicious. You combine equal parts of honey, Yoshida's marinading sauce, and oil and then mix in a teaspoon of minced ginger&garlic. Let the pork chops marinade in the mixture in a tightly sealed bag or container in the frig any where from 1-8 hours. Then cook your pork chops! Boy, is that yummy:)

Mary is also saying three word sentences like, "I see you" or "You do it" (she not assertive at all) LOL.

Blessings to you, Elena

Eternity in Your Heart

Not last night, but the night before I took a walk down memory lane by pulling out a couple of scrapbooks and looking at them. They were of Rich and I's year of dating before we got engaged and then the other one was of our honeymoon. Here are a few of the pages:

Pictures taken shortly before we met.

The first wedding that we attended together.

A ceramic lamp that Rich made me when we were first dating.

Boarding our honeymoon cruise.

Rich at one of the ports of our cruise

The last night of our cruise.

As I looked at the pictures, I thought how young I looked then, LOL. Let me tell you this was not that long ago Rich and I have only been married 5 1/2 years! I am now 48 and the old saying goes that once you are over the hill, you pick up speed. That is so true, especially after you have a baby. In most ways Mary makes us feel young, but at times my age comes through in my tiredness or the stiffness of my body! I was thinking about that scripture, Ecclesiastes 3:11 which says, He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. The part that struck me was where God has set eternity in our hearts. It seems that all of us do not want to grow old. I like the fact that I am more mature and centered now that I am older, but I am talking about the deterioration of my body. Everyone struggles with their bodies aging. Also we are always struggling with the clock, wishing we had more time to do things or spend with someone. In Eternity we will not grow old and we won't have to worry about time. Won't that be wonderful! We all have eternity in our hearts yet God is so much more greater and awesome than we can understand. I feel this "eternity" in our hearts is what leads us to God. We come to the realization that he is so much greater than we are and we need Him so desperately. Here is a poem I wrote on this scripture:

You are a man with eternity in your heart

called by God to do your part

You are a man broken in pieces

that can only be put together

by God's love that has no leases

You long for eternity

that you may never grow old

and you wish not to be bound by time

that can be such a constricting mold

You are a man with a heavy heart

in the sight of pain

as it falls on the just and the unjust

like the rain

You are beckoned by God to do your part

to reveal the hope of eternity in your heart

through the pain that falls like the rain

God bless you all and have a great day! Elena

Trees of Memory

I was out in my yard yesterday afternoon watering while Mary was taking her nap. I was admiring our 2 avocado trees and decided to take some pictures of them. They are both trees that my husband started from seeds. The large one he started one month after our wedding and the small one he started one month after Mary was born. You can see her sitting in her high chair, so small and so is her little tree. This is its 2nd year and it is beginning to branch out and fill in. One thing we did to make them full was when the start was 6 inches high we cut the top 3 inches off, yes and that took all the leaves and a green stob was all that was left. It was really hard to do on the first one because I had not done that before, so I had Rich do it:) But I had read that is what you have to do with avocado trees as they have a very strong growth hormone that has to be curtailed or you end up with a tall stringy tree that doesn't do much. It reminded me of how the Lord prunes us with difficult times so that our faith will become strong. The avocado tree is a survivor and it is one of the only trees that can come back from a stump. I pray I am like that avocado tree, always growing in my faith as hard times come.

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night, And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season, And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers. Psalms 1: 1-3

Fleur Elise

We had a great weekend. Mary played in the yard and I took some pictures of her and made this slide show. I titled in Fleur Elise because it is about flowers and the background music is my favorite classical piano piece called Fur Elise. The weather was so beautiful!

We celebrated my husband's birthday with his folks. They took us to Outback Steakhouse on Sunday and he got shrimp on the barby and his favorite, rib eye steak. Mary did so well, just eating her food and playing with the crayons and coloring sheet they gave her. She didn't get her nap so I thought for sure that she would be fussy but she was a perfect little angel, even the waitress commented on how good she was. We were there well over an hour and she just entertained herself the whole time!

On Saturday I used the money that his folks and my brother sent for Rich, to buy him a new keyboard for the computer. It was one designed especially for gaming. The keys are back lit so you can see them in the dark. This was a big hit for him, as he loves to play video games in the evening and sit and unwind after a hard days work. He said he was sad Sunday evening because the weekend was coming to a close:)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Fall Splendor

Fall is arriving here in the Northwest beautifully. This is my favorite time of year! We have such lovely fall weather every year. The nights are crisp and cool, the days are sunny and warm and the skies are so blue. I love standing out in my flower garden and noticing the angle of the sun how it has slanted to the south. It brings a magical feeling to my soul, an expectancy of change. The two closest loves of my life, my husband and my daughter both have fall birthdays. Today is my husband's 53rd birthday! I am so happy he was born and that God gave me to him and that my life has been blessed abundantly because of him. Here are some pictures that hopefully capture the magic of fall in the Rogue Valley.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

I went down to Fred Meyers this morning to do my weekly grocery shopping. I have a CD by Twila Paris that I like to listen to, so I popped it in and it began to play, "The Days of Elijah". Mary was sitting in the back in her car seat and soon as she heard it start she yelled, "Yeah!" and started clapping her hands. She clapped her little hands on and off during the song and yelled "Yeah!" at the end. She is only 22 months old and it blessed my heart to hear her little voice rejoice with this song. It brought tears to my eyes. I have included a video so you can hear the words and music. It is a wonderful song and touches my soul deeply every time I hear it!

For more favorite worship songs go to Brittany's blog.