Evening Beauty

While out catching fireflies with Sweetpea, I caught this sunset streaking across the sky behind my neighbor's house. Love the brilliant color!

Sweetpea has been very vocal about her favorite color being yellow. She asks people what their favorite color is on a regular basis, and keeps running tabs on the colors her favorite people prefer. When she saw this sunset, she said: Oh my, Mama, it has both our favorite colors in it! How beautiful!

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

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Tasty Cucumber Salad

Have a few too many cucumbers, or just looking to take advantage of the abundance of them this time of year? I love cucumbers any which way, but also enjoy mixing things up a bit. Lately there has been a container of cucumber and onion salad in the fridge just about every day of the week. Sweet and sour, cool and refreshing, it is especially delicious when the Vadalia onions are available.

This is an especially easy recipe. You may want to play around with it a bit to find your preferred balance of sweet and sour - I started at allrecipes as I often do, and adapted from there.

Prep and slice cucumbers and onions thinly - I like a 3:1 ratio or thereabout of cucumbers to onions

Bring equal parts vinegar, water, and sugar to a boil in a saucepan. Make enough of the liquid to cover your veggies. While hot, pour over the vegetable mixture. Let everything marinate for an hour or more. I prefer to make this far enough ahead that it's cold, but room temperature is fine too.

Enjoy!

I had this salad while we were on vacation last week with a bit of crushed red pepper flake. If you like spicy, it was a nice addition.

Looking for some more ideas for your cucumbers? May I recommend these easy pickles or this quick Greek pasta recipe!

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven

Grateful for the sun on my face and the sound of the waves

We spent last week at the beach - chasing waves, building sandcastles and enjoying island life. It was Sugar Plum's first introduction, and I wasn't sure how she would like it, but she and the beach became fast friends. We quickly fell into a rhythm of lazy mornings leading us to the pool by about 9 and the beach by about 10. Then back to the pool for lunch and up to the room for naps. Back to the beach mid afternoon and then another dip in the pool...I tried my best to soak up every minute of enjoyment with my beach bummin' water bugs. And now I have my memories, kept clear with pictures and my gratitude journal. Here is a peak:

• Seashells, sand castles, and salty girls

• Watching Sugar Plum discover the surf for the first time, grasping, smacking, grinning

• Sweetpea revels in the water, scratches in the sand, entertains herself for hours

• Little legs pumping, arms swinging, catching up with daddy and reaching for his hand as we approach the dunes - pig tails flying in the breeze

• My big girl is now willing to let me "do her hair" each day requesting either big girl hair (a french braid) a pony tail or "piggy tails". I.Love.It.

• Baby beach greetings - outstretched hands straight into each other's mouths...hey have you tried this sand? Isn't it the best you've ever tasted?

• The sound of the surf, the feel of the wind in my hair and the heat of the sun on my face...

• Tiny hand prints made from sun screen on the sliding door out to the balcony

What are you grateful for this week?

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

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Baby Toes

Play hard and sleep hard...

I have limited internet access this week, so I'm going to stick mostly to images from our adventures at the beach. Once we get settled back in there will be much more to share! "Vacations" certainly aren't carefree and relaxing like they used to be, but they are still so worth it! Oh, and Sugar Plum is just as much a water bug as big sister Sweetpea...

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven

Summer Fun List

I love making these lists - it is so much fun to brainstorm the fun things we want to do over the course of a season, to prioritize fun into our lives. I find that with a sign like this posted visibly in our kitchen we are much better at making time for the things we want to enjoy. By making conscious decisions to include these mainly frugal summertime experiences we are not making our schedules busier, simply more focused. Not everything gets done, and there are always a few projects that are more fun after they are completed than in the midst of things. I'll even admit that Sweetpea's big girl room looks a bit familiar...it might have been on last year's list? Yep, that didn't get done last summer.

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven

Taking time to share my gratitude

I've gotten away from my Sunday gratitude posts due to the business of life, and it's time to get back to sharing. There is power in a gratitude journal that I've talked about before - somehow by writing down my many blessings, I become more mindful, more present. Reading my entries during a time of stress or frustration takes just a moment, and is a needed reminder. When things get busy it's easy to stop taking the time-but much like menu planning, organizing, and "me time" the dividends are greater than the investment. I deserve a grateful,present, giving me, and so does my family.

In case you're interested in what got me started journaling my gratitude, or are interested in finding a gratitude community, please click over, you won't be disappointed! Here are some of my recent entries.

The head bopping happy dance that greets me as I walk into Sugar Plum's room when she night wakes makes me smile no matter the hour or number of times I've seen it that night.

Wispy blond baby curls backlit by morning sun

Tag team naps make for long days and creative cooking and cleaning routines, but allow for each girl to get her special alone time with mama.

EmDee's schedule is unpredictable and demanding, but we never take our time together for granted. The days he's home are sweet and relaxing or fun and adventurous, but never boring or routine.

The girls are so healthy! The past three weeks have been full of fevers, coughs and stomach bugs, but it was Sugar Plum's first time getting sick (at 9 mo) and it had been over a year since Sweetpea had run a fever.

Now if we can just ditch the sickies before we go on vacation...I'm so glad we appear to be getting these germs out of our system beforehand.

After a long winter and another especially cold and snowy February, I am so glad to be outside on a regular basis again! Sweetpea is old enough to really help in the garden this year, and she is enjoying watching the plants grow. Sugar Plum has discovered grass and she loves to sit in it and pet it.

What are you grateful for this week?

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven

Anticipation

Congratulations to Lori for winning the $25 grocery gift card! And thanks to General Mills and Eat Better America for the giveaway.

Things have been crazy and unfocused around here for awhile now, thanks to the sickies, my classes, EmDee's unpredictable work schedule and loads of overtime, and a profound lack of sleep. Ironically now that summer is about to start, I'm going to try and take back some control - at least of my schedule and I desperately want to regain some of my organizing strategies.

One of my favorite organizing strategies is the summer fun list - I hope to have that completed and published this week. I've fallen off the menu planning wagon and I plan to climb back on next week. And I'm planning a full scale attack on the clutter in our house! I've been randomly filling sacks with unused items to resell or give away for some time now,but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. Patty Kreamer, author of the Clutter Rescue Course was kind enough to send me a copy of her workbook to review. So far I've just glanced through it, and I'm encouraged. I'll let you know how it works out!

There are also strawberries, cherries, and asparagus to pick, and of course sweet girls to cuddle. I absolutely love this time of year, and between all the business and the have to's, I'm trying to soak it all in!

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven

The garage sale find of the season

Sweetpea is constantly teaching me things - little lessons I've forgotten along the way. We were garage sale-ing with a few friends a few weeks ago, and the weather was much colder than I had expected. I was wheeling Sugar Plum in her stroller into the garage, asking the owner if she minded if I parked my little one there out of the wind. Sweetpea spotted this bike you see behind her in the garage, behind the sales tables. She proceeded around the cash box to check it out. I was in the process of telling her it wasn't for sale since it wasn't in front of the cash box when the husband mentioned he was thinking of selling it. When he asked if we wanted it for $5 (it was missing a chain) I didn't hesitate. We left it there to finish the sales along the street and promised to return. When we returned the nice man had added the training wheels and basket that hadn't been present when we'd agreed on the price! Lesson learned: don't be afraid to ask for what you want, what's the worst that can happen? You might just get it!

Since then we've spent many hours riding around in circles, picking up treasures and enjoying Sweetpea's NEW BIKE! {emphasis hers}

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven