Pepsi-Cola Pictures

I love the new Pepsi-Cola bottles with the emoji faces on them!  I just found at the dollar tree ones with pictures too on them!

Go Seattle!  Don't forget to drink lots of water especially when it is hot outside!

I love soda!

What's your favorite drink?

Summer Grills

My BBQ King has been drooling over barbeque grills at the stores lately. We run in to the local fix-it stores or Walmart and he has to go look at the grills.  It's like the metal pulls something in him to go look at them!  I would let him buy one but we just bought a new car a month ago and my job is going downhill fast!  For now he will make do with what he has in our backyard!

This duck roasting on a grill is exactly how I feel right now in this heat!  I would say it is wonderful but we have not bought a pool yet for the summer and allergies have been horrible in the warmer weather the last few days.  

What on your menu to grill this week?  How are you beating this summer heat?

Christmas Ornaments

A tradition in my family from when I was little my mom tried to do, she tried to buy ornaments for all her kids every year.  We grew up really poor and had no money.  I think I had 5 ornaments that I got for my very first Christmas tree. 

When I was very first married to my ex I started to do this too because we didn't have anything to put on our Christmas tree.  Every year since I became a mom I bought my children an ornament. Some years I would let them pick out the ornament, but most years I buy them something that they are into.

Like my youngest loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, my only daughter wants to be a cowgirl when she grows up, my oldest loves football and penguins.  He knows the football part annoys me, but that is a story for another time! And of course for my BBQ King I got him the smoker with ribs on it!

One of my kids loves batman; his ornament is at grandmas house!  He is the hard one to shop for since he has few things he is into, books and batman!  This kid of mine has only books on his Christmas list, hard cover ones! He even told me Kindle gift cards for books doesn't count! I told him in return, why because you want more books for your bookshelves so you can start your own personal library? He just smiles big! I could read his thoughts, great idea mom!

Merry Christmas!

Labor Day Weekend

Some of us are lucky to have a 3 day weekend!  Many years ago it was the joke that I would go into labor on Labor Day with my first child!  Next year he will be turning the big 2-0!  Where did time go?? Anyways, my response to everyone would be, baby will come the day after labor day just because everyone expects arrival on labor day!  Sure enough, late that night I went into labor and had my baby on Tuesday around lunchtime!

I hope whatever you are doing you are spending time with your family.  I love my family and would do anything for them!

My BBQ King, aka my husband is my BFF, so this is fitting also!

He thought I was a little crazy snapping pictures while grocery shopping with him!  He was taking his time!  I also was playing with little bottles and gathered some family members' names and snapped some more pictures!  I'll share those another day, until then, drink up!

Stay safe in whatever you do and drive carefully home if you have gone out of town.

What are your favorite family stories to share?

Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies

I love things growing in the garden!  It gives me a big sense of accomplishment when I am able to pick something from the garden and turn it into some magical dish in the kitchen!  When I got home from work one day this last week my teenager requested cookies.  I requested he does his chore and I went outside to pick this beauty from the garden. 

I think this will make awesome cookies!  I found on Pinterest this link to an awesome recipe we tried out.  Here is the website for the cookie recipe!  I started making the cookies about the same time my teen finished doing his chore - dishes!  I told him yay he gets to help but he had to go use the potty but never returned until cookies were done!

I didn't have chocolate chips, but we still wanted chocolate in the cookies so I put in a heaping spoonful of cocoa into the batter.  This recipe made the moistest cookies!  Even the picky kids at the cookies!  They were so good!

Great idea my son had!  We ate them all before my BBQ King got home!  I was only able to save him four cookies!

What have you baked lately?

Embroidered Frog

Okay so I said this wouldn't just be a BBQ blog and that there would be "other things"!! It has been way too hot to BBQ or way too windy and pouring down rain here in Washington State.  So just before our summer storm I made this awesome embroidered frog on a bar mop towel.

My daughter just informed me that I need to give this frog some team spirit and make it in green, blue, and gray ~ Seahawk colors!  We'll see how much time I have on my hands in the next week before school starts! I just might give her idea a try!

What have you crafted lately?

Please pray for our fire fighters to stay safe and be able to put out the fires. Also to keep everyone's homes safe.

Stormy Weekend & Crochet Team Spirit Hat

Happy Monday everyone! What a weekend we had!  My teenager called me to tell me the power was flickering Saturday morning.  Then he told me it went out, but it came back on real fast.  I was at a medical work conference so I wasn't able to get them prepared.  Then I got a text from my hubby saying the power went out not too long after my son had texted me.  My son was a bit worried so he had knocked on my bedroom door to talk to dad.  Dad said he got them fed and got them each a flashlight.  I wouldn't have believed them but I had stepped outside and went right back into the building.  It was like southern tornado weather outside!  I ended up going home early when everyone went to lunch.  We ended up going without power for over thirty hours!  Thank goodness we have a generator so we didn't loose all our stock of food in the fridge and garage freezer!

My husband had put in a request for a hat with dreadlocks.  I know it sounds crazy but I try to make him happy even if he doesn't ask me how my day at work went.  So without power I can't sew, but I did make this creation!

I am very new to the crocheting world.  I don't know the name of the stitches but I can make my own interpretation of them and create my own thing.  I learned off of YouTube and patterns from Pinterest. It takes a lot of patience to learn.  I usually end up with a wad of yarn.  It has taken a few years of watching videos to come up with something like this.  I use the start of a pattern like this one here.  Just leave off the ear-flaps for a hat like the one above.  Or you could use something like this without ear-flaps.  I made my own pattern for the braids, just measure how long you want them, double it and stick them between stitches and braid. Tie at the end in a knot and trim any excess off.

My model isn't very happy she has to wear the "daddy hat"  she thinks it is very strange and I guaranteed her that her face wouldn't show in the picture!  It's a little big on me, but fits my hubby perfectly!

So that about wraps up what I did when our power was out!  What did you do to stay safe and entertained?