Seattle! (part 1)

Our 4 day trip to Seattle...

We started with seeing the house and meeting Fay, who regrettably I did not ever take a picture of but rather took one from my mom's facebook to use.

~Fay~
After settling in a bit we went and had lunch at Husky's, a local place with the most delicious sandwiches! Then walked around looking in shops and catching up.
We happened upon a basket full of dishes for a mere $40 that mom snatched up,

Dishes are her "thing" after all.
Once dad came home from work we went out for a drive to get a view of their town and then made our way to a little Greek restaurant.

Fun conversation and yummy food made for a lovely evening which we finished off by going downtown to see Alice in Wonderland.
The following day was our one whole day with dad so we packed a lot in.
We started out taking the bus downtown to Pike's place market.

First stop was freshly made doughnuts and coffee

my mom thought it was funny that we were both taking pictures of the doughnuts and so took a picture of us :)

Then we browsed, shopped and just enjoyed meandering the market seeing all there was to see..
These were some amazing handmade kaleidoscopes! really cool.

We picked out tees for the kiddies.
The fresh flowers everywhere we killing me! want!!!

We eventually made it down to a tea shop my parents had visited before, which I had wanted to see so I could learn how to make up the tea they had bought me from there.
They had soooooo many teas we ended up buying some Lichee which is naturally sweetened and quite yummy.
Next we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island for the express purpose of a certain yarn shop my mother had told me of.
It was chilly but beautiful and we enjoyed taking pictures on the ride over as well,


Aw, I love my parents! they're the best, truly they are.
The homes were amazing! I can't imagine living in such a beautiful home and location...
ok, not true cause we did when we lived at Hume...
Anyway I guess the truth is it made me miss that.
Float plane!Isn't my husband a handsome man? I sure think so :)
well that's it for now, more another day...
too many pictures I tell ya!

as promised...

More cute knitting!
A couple weeks back my friend Elisa contacted me about test knitting her first pattern.
I was totally interested as I adore knitting but got really excited when she showed me pictures of what it was I was getting to make!

I had planned on knitting up something similar but this one is a million times cuter in my opinion.
So of course I said yes and the process began.
It's actually a knit and crochet pattern but seeing as I learned how to crochet first this wasn't an issue for me.


It knit up super fast and for being her first time pattern it was written really well. I know she made a couple changes to perfect it before releasing it to sell but I was really impressed by her first time go at it. :)
And I loved getting to add this cute button from my stash, a gift with lots of other fun things from my sister Sydney.
Thanks Syd!

This fits very comfortably on my head, soft and warm, I love that you're ears stay cozy but you can still do your hair and don't end up with an itchy forehead like when you wear a beanie, lol.
I also like the versatility in personal design. because of the crochet border and flower you can use more than one color or make it all solid(like I did) depending on what you like. You could even make multiple flowers in different colors and switch them out.
And she's planning on sizing it down to make a child version as well which I'm excited about since I have a daughter and a niece.

So knitters you can purchase her pattern on Ravelry here, as well as her Etsy site here.
And if you don't knit but love this as much as I do be sure to check in on her Etsy site as well where she's selling them pre-made.

Something new...

I have some fun news! lots of you probably saw this on my facebook already but for those who didn't and to give a little more insight to it, I figured I'd blog it too.
My dear friend Alison is a wedding coordinator among all the other awesome things she is.
Like a Godly wife and mother, and my dear dear friend.
She has many talents, and has been using them coupled with her love of weddings to great success.
Naturally being friends we eventually discovered our shared love of all things wedding related.
To what does all this lead aside from I love my friend?
Well, Alison asked me to join her team as Creative Director!
You can read about it here on her blog,
oneandonlyeventsblog.com
And be sure to visit her web site as well.
One & Only Events
I'm really looking forward to having a creative outlet for my party planning/craft loving brain.
I guess that's all for now...

Edited to add:
Ok, I think my brain was still waking up this morning cause I forgot a major part of the story and kind of the whole reason I was blogging about it anyway!
For the past several months I've been praying and asking God to show me or lead me to a way I can use my creative skills and urges (I really do get urges to create something!) for a purpose.
Not just for personal benefit.
I'm not much of an entrepreneur so while the whole Etsy world is appealing it always sounds like too much work in the long run and isn't my thing. At least not at this point in my life.
And while I love making things for people, birthdays and Christmas etc...
Well it just wasn't enough.
And I love doing wedding things! I got to help with both my sister's weddings in the past two years and also a dear friend's as well and about now was starting to miss all that.
There's just something so special and exciting about helping people prepare for their wedding day.
So when Alison asked me I was thrilled! I did pray a little more intently about it before saying yes but the whole thing was an answer to my months of prayer. :)
So thanks once again Father for giving me a desire of my heart.
And that's what I really wanted to share with you all! sorry my brain was being lame earlier.

Easter...

Nathan had to miss Easter with us this year...actually come to think of it I think he's missed it the two years previous as well. :( Hopefully next year he can enjoy coloring eggs with us, hunting them as well as celebrating the glory of God and the gift Jesus gave us in his death and resurrection.

After most of the days festivities Gabriel came to me with this drawing,
It's Jesus on the cross.
I asked him to draw me one of Jesus alive from the grave but he didn't want to draw anymore.

Gwen dyed one hand pink and the other green...

And had lots of fun in the process of course.

Gabriel was very meticulous and tidy with his...he's not type A at all! lol :)

Hunting eggs!
we did it early in the morning so the lighting wasn't great and none of the pictures turned out very well. But this one was just too cute not too share.
After getting dressed we went outside to play and enjoy the lovely weather.
We had a picnic lunch and just relaxed and enjoyed one another for the rest of the afternoon.

Thank God....

So today we went to a friend's house, they have a pool in the back yard and Gwen fell in. Not good right? Thankfully it turned out just fine, we got her out quick and she wasn't hardly fazed by it at all! She truly is our water baby.
Anyway the reason I'm blogging about it is because I was so calm through the whole thing. It was weird. My baby fell in a pool and totally could have drown and I was SO calm! we pulled her out, dried her off and went on with our afternoon, like nothing horrible had just happened. Granted it was a good outcome, but still.
So then, as we were driving home just now it started to sink in and I was astonished at how calm I had been. I can only attribute it to my good and gracious God. He most certainly had his hand on the situation and on me because there is simply no other explanation. I am not entirely sure why he wanted me to be so calm, perhaps freaking out and smothering Gwen would have made it worse for her and instilled an unhealthy fear of water...I don't know. But I'm so thankful she's ok, and that his presence is so real and active in our lives.
There have been many moments in my life where I've felt his presence as he holds my hand through situations, filling me with a calm peace. There have been others when I refused to let him take the reigns and freaked out and I must say I prefer the former. I'm not even entirely sure where I'm going with this or what I'm trying to say...I guess I just want to publicly praise him for keeping her safe and keeping me calm. that's all.

Last Saturday...

This past Saturday I got a girl day. It had been in the works for awhile and we finally nailed down a date. It's become a bit of a tradition for me to head North to LA and see the FIDM

costume exhibit and this was the second time going with my friend Jessica. We really enjoyed the exhibit and agreed that the layout and set up of it this year was a deal better than last years. They also had more costumes from last years "The Duchess" which I was thrilled about. And there were lots from "The Young Victoria", again, exciting! Regrettably you are not allowed to take pictures so these I've snagged from the the web. There were lots of fun costumes to see, these were just three I especially enjoyed looking at.
The Red one is from the film "Bright Star" which I have yet to watch. The next is from "The Young Victoria" it was my favorite of the whole exhibit. truly gorgeous!
And the last is my favorite gown from "The Duchess" so that was also very exciting to see in person! It's a fairly small exhibit so you go through it pretty quick but certainly worth the
trip every time.

Afterward we grabbed some lunch at a nearby Pannini place that was quite delicious and then headed to a big mall to do some shopping. Something I don't do often and so always enjoy a lot for several reasons, the main one being my lack of tag along children. :) Lots of good conversation, a little Starbucks, and some Pink Berry finished off my lovely day of self indulgence. And bonus, I still made it home by 8:30 and got the evening with my beloved husband! which was nice since he left Monday for 12 days.