In the kitchen.....

A friend of mine posted a rather random note on his facebook page about his mother's Kitchenaid mixer. He was thinking about how silly it was that throughout his life he always remembers that mixer as being a constant, and it got me thinking.

A Kitchenaid mixer has been a part of my life since I was born. My mother had one, my grandmother had one, my aunt had one, and now, my sister and I both have one in our homes, both of which were wedding presents. It is almost like the mixer itself is a family tradition.

I remember my mom used hers so much that she burned out the first gear on it. I remember many many hours helping my mom in the kitchen as a kid, standing on a stool using that mixer. I remember several years of baking Christmas cookies where you had to be careful not to throw the flour everywhere because when you turned it on, it came on in 2nd gear! We have pictures of me using my mom's Kitchenaid mixer when I was less than 2, now I have similar pictures of both of my kids!

The heart of the home was once, and in my humble opinion, should still be, the kitchen. It was mentioned the other day that kitchens are now simply "warming stations". A generation or two ago, things were created in the kitchen. You started with flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and created a meal or a dessert or whatever. Now, you take some pre-packaged, pre-processed, pre-cooked meat substitute, and warm it. I remember when all of life's problems were solved in the kitchen. Dinners were made in the kitchen, desserts and cookies were made in the kitchen, and the kids were messy enough afterwards to prove it. Memories were made in the kitchen.

No, I have decided that there is nothing silly about the memories in a mixer. I have several stirring around in there myself. And with the holidays coming, I plan on adding a few more. :)

Babies Babies Babies!!!!

WOW -- Everybody seems to be having babies all of a sudden!! Two of my very good friends, Julie and Jenny, both had girls in the last 8 days! Congratulations to your growing families!!!


Allyson Paige



Olivia Jane (with her Grandma Jane)

Stained Glass Theatre -- Our Silver Celbration

Celebrating 25 Years of
Serving Christ through the Arts

We have just wrapped up our 25th season. It is hard to believe that what started out as a little rag-tag band of actors 25 years ago, has developed into a nearly 300-seat full service theatre, producing 7 shows every year. We truly are a jewel among theatres. The Lord has blessed us in so many ways. Here are a couple photos of our current home in Ozark, MO.Did I mention we are all volunteers?? Everyone; the actors, directors, tech crew, set crew, concession workers, house managers, ushers, dinner theatre servers, board of directors, EVERYONE you see on a performance night is a volunteer. There are only 3 paid staff members in the whole theatre. Pretty amazing, huh? We're not crazy, (well, not entirely crazy...) we do it out of love. Love for the Lord, love for the ministry, love for what Stained Glass Theatre stands for. Every year, we have an appreciation banquet and awards ceremony. It is a fun night that gives us a chance to dress up in our finest and have a fun evening celebrating another season, and showing our appreciation for all the hard work everyone does to make this ministry a success. So I wanted to post a few pictures from our 2007-2008 Banquet, to share a small taste of our fun with you.

CKC Tulsa

Wow -- I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last post!!! I have been SoOoOoOo busy lately... my new mantra is "I can't... I have rehearsal." DH and I are both in the next show at Stained Glass Theatre and we rehearse 24 hours per week. That is enough for a part-time job!! It is going to be a great show, though! It is a musical called "Without Fear" - it is the story of Daniel. We will have performances every Thurs/Fri/Sat from Sept 11 - Oct 18. If you are in the area check out the SGT website for show times and ticket information!!

CKC TULSA
Wow!! CKC is a scrapbooker's dream! 4 days of cropping, shopping, classes, shopping, vendors, and more cropping! My mom and I went up on Thursday and hit a few of the Tulsa area scrapbook stores along the way. We also stayed on Sunday for a crop at one of their stores, and it was so much fun! I got a LOT done, which made me very happy!!

As for the CKC classes, I took a wonderful class from Allison Davis of Scrapbook Generation called One Two Three 4x6. It was all aout using full 4x6 photos on your layouts without cropping them first. It made for some fast and fun pages!! We completed 2 different 1-page layouts, and a 2-page layout in under an hour. I will be heading to Scrapbook Gen this week to get more paper to turn those 1-pagers into 2-page spreads, since I am totally a 2-page layout kinda girl. Another good class Allison taught was about journaling. She highlighted 8 different journaling styles, so when you are stuck in a journaling rut, you can try a different approach and see if it works better. I am anxious to get the copies of the notes from that class she is going to be mailing to us.

I also took 3 different board book classes, and loved them all!! I am really getting into making some board books now, since the boys love to look at them. NONE of these are finished, but I thought I would show you what I have done so far.

PIGGY TALES
This was a new company to me - they have been around about 3 years or so, but I had never heard of them before, and fell in love!! All of their paper lines are named after Fairy Tales. Simple, bold patterns for kids, and some more "sophisticated" styles for teens and adults. Their board books are FAR from ordinary! Lift-the-flap books, books with sliders, and more. I was definitely impressed! Here is a lift-the-flap book I made in one of their classes using their "Chicken Little" line of papers.



















LICKETY SPLIT
This was another company that was new to me. One of their designers, Shannon, taught the board book class I took. Shannon is from Carthage MO and has a company called K.I.S.S. that hosts all kinds of retreats and crops there, so I am sure I will be seeing her again, now that I know about her!! The Lickety Split Disney board book was a great class too!! I learned how to do a board book with a covered binding that doesn't get worn out from all the opening & closing. This book is still missing a lot of ribbon, tags, and white pen doodling, but I can already see it coming together in my mind, so I know it is going to be a favorite when I get it done!!



























PAPER KANDI
I also took the "A Boys Life" board book class from Tracey & Darby that was sponsored by Oriental Trading. It was pretty time-intensive with the stitching on the front cover, so the cover was all we got finished in class, but we have instructions on how to complete the rest of the book.








While shopping at the Vendor Faire I found a great sheet of robot punch outs from Cosmo Cricket that I bought for AJ. Here are his creations so far!

Back from the BEE

Well, I just got home from the Bee early this morning. By early, I mean 5:30 -- AM. Yes, we drove all night long! I left Dresden, OH (Home of Longaberger) about 6:00 last night. We planned to stop in either Indianapolis or Terra Haute to sleep, then drive the rest of the way home today. We did not know there was a nascar race in Indianapolis today... there was not a hotel room to be found anywhere in the entire state! People were staying 4 and 5 hours away and driving in for the race. It was crazy! From Dresden OH to Springfield MO is approximately a 13 hour drive. My branch leader started out driving, till we got to Columbus. I took over the wheel there, and drove through to St. Louis while we talked about the classes we had taken, the FABULOUS new product we had seen, and formulating our plans for the 4th quarter. After we had made our lists and strategized our game plan we knew we were going to make some touchdowns with our customers when we got home! We could have stopped and stayed the night in St. Louis, but it was only another 3 hours to home, so we switched drivers and came on in. It was a great time, and I can't wait to share!!

I will be having an open house the last weekend in August to show off all the newest Longaberger baskets, pottery, and wrought iron pieces. I specialize in helping you solve your decorating, organizing, gift-giving, entertaining, and storage needs. Feel free to contact me or check out my webpage at www.longaberger.com/christianmcneal if you want to know more.

**Chris

ps - in case you missed my little "hints" I have a great new basket for football fans!!

Arrrggghhh Matey!

Aye! It be a pirate-themed party we had for AJ's birthday. Swashbuckling scallywags (and one princess) filled the yard on a hot Saturday afternoon. DH & I made a pirate ship out of cardboard boxes from an idea I found at Mr. McGroovy's. It was a hit! The kids loved playing in it and having sword fights with the balloon swords we made.


These are the Pirate cupcakes I made for the party. AJ said he wanted cupcakes with pirate faces on them. I thought they turned out really cute!!!





I cut X's out of red card stock and the kids played "Pin the X on the Treasure Map" They wore a pirate bandanna over their eyes while pinning it on the map. Every kid got an eye patch for playing the game.





I planned for the kids to make little treasure chests & they could take their treasures home in those instead of loot bags. Unfortunately, I did not do enough research into that little project. Instead of the sticker-type foam project I THOUGHT it was, you had to glue it all together. Needless to say, it did not go over so well with our 4 and 5 year old pirates. Several of the moms tried to put them together for the kids, and even the parents were having some challenges! (You can tell it made Pirate-Mommy-Debbie say AAARRRGGGHH!) SO we scrapped the treasure chest idea. A few of them got finished, but we sent the loot from the treasure hunt home in bags instead. The treasure hunt was held in the sandbox, of course. DH had buried necklaces, jewels, seashells, and gold coins for the kids to find. I think the treasure hunt was everybody's favorite activity! All in all I think the party was a hit. I know AJ had a lot of fun playing with his friends, and that was pretty much the whole point of the party. No presents, just friends (16 of them, actually!),a little food and a whole lot of fun!

8 questions....

Katie aka Ragamuffin Gal has asked me to answer the following questions 8 times:

8 things i say a lot:

1. Quit (hitting/pinching/biting/throwing things at/etc.) your brother!

2. Just a second

3. I love you!

4. shhhhh Baby Hunter is asleep.

5. Helllllllooooooooo! Bye-Bye!

(Baby Hunter likes to play telephone.)

6. Sweet tea, no lemon.

7. Hi, Baby.

8. Don't slam the ... **SLAM** ... door.

8 books i have read lately:

1. Self Talk Soul Talk ~ Jennifer Rothschild (small group study)

2. Hood ~ Stephen Lawhead

3. Thorn in My Heart ~ Liz Curtis Higgs

4. Fair is the Rose ~ Liz Curtis Higgs

5. Whence Came a Prince ~ Liz Curtis Higgs

6. Afton of Margate Castle ~ Angela Elwell Hunt

7. The Trubadour's Quest ~ Angela Elwell Hunt

8. Ingram of the Irish ~ Angela Elwell Hunt

8 movies i have seen at least 8 times:

1. Gone with the Wind

2. A Knight's Tale

3. First Knight

4. A Walk in the Clouds

5. Mr Holland's Opus

6. Ever After

7. Anything Veggie Tales

8. Anything Disney

8 things I am working On

1. My Daily Quiet time

2. My prayer life

3. Catching up on my Scrapbooks

4. new Art pieces

5. Cooking at home more

6. Being more patient

7. Being less critical

8. saying No to things that take time away from my family.

I would love to hear your answers to these questions, too!

Answer them on your blog, then leave me a comment & I will check it out.