An Evening in the Park with William

William Shakespeare, that is.


That evening I loaded my new picnic, thanks mom, with dinner for the family. Picnic dinner included pasta salad, yellow watermelon (from our garden), wraps, a bag of fritos, and brownies for dessert.


We loaded up the car to include a blanket and headed out to the park. Once we arrived and picked out a spot. Close to the front and on the edge. We sat behind the chairs that you could pay to sit in. They are more comfortable than the benches and they come with a waitress to get you items from the concession stand and bar. We laid out the blanket and grabbed a bench. The picnic basket got opened to be enjoyed.

The set was great, the play that evening was "Much ado about nothing" set into the west. 

While waiting for the play to begin, JP took the girls over the playground over the hill. And there was a water feature, nothing attracts like a flame to water or child to water. Little bit ran through again and again. Then they returned to wait for the play to begin.

I don't have any cool photos during the play out of respect for their wishes. But I can say this that it was fantastic. The actors did great, giggles and applause soared through the crowd and the sun set and darkness set in. At intermission, little bit hand our donation to one of the actors, cause only through donations can they keep Will free. 

My Fairy Tale Weekend

Gift for new neighbors

snack, snack.....

My Fairy Tale Weekend

Cows, Cows, Cows

Playing in the pool

Oh my how my garden grows....

Life has been busy with a vacation, preparing for the vacation and adjusting back to real life....


But while I was away, my garden kept doing what it does best...growing!!


I now have kale and collard greens that will be harvested this weekend, green tomatoes, beginning of green beans and peas. Pepper plants are starting to flower. And baby melons are appearing among the jungle of vines.


I test spot for growing lettuce in summer seems to be working, although I want to put a raised bed since the soil is not great. So thanks to pinterest, I'm going to use a pallet, further posting with details.


Well here is a look at my garden as of yesterday and this morning.....

Have a great day

Can I have your autograph please?

We are heading to Disney soon with JP’s mom and sister’s family. So since Easter is coming I decided to make all four kids autograph books to collect character names during our trip. After researching on the internet, I found a tutorial that would fit what I wanted to make.

Here is a link to the tutorial, 

http://greenbirdofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-make-disney-autograph-book.html

I used chipboard for the covers, mainly because I can a free supply from work. To help with the sturdiness I had JP glue to of them together. I made the book to me 4 x 6, and added the extra inch for the spine just as the tutorial suggested.

After getting all the boards glued and cut out, I laid them out on the cardstock I chose for the covers. I left roughly about 1/8”ish spacing between the cover and the spine. Then trimmed the cardstock to leave 2 inch over hand and cut the corners in on an angle. My choice for glue is modge podge; it’s my favorite and worked well for this project. I then glued all the over hang down to the chipboard.

For the back cover, I hot glued twine that is roughly 12” long, this is to attach the marker. Then cut the piece for the inside page, to cover up the edges and give a nice clean look (And on the back cover will cover the glued twine.)

Now in the ladies tutorial she was able to use a hole puncher to punch the holes, but my strong hubby broke two hole punchers trying to punch the holes. So I matched up the front and back over and then made my marks for the holes, roughly in the center of the spine and then I measured and marked for the 1” and the 3”. The securing the covers together with insides facing each other, passed them on to JP. He then got manly and drilled the holes for me with power tools.

In the meantime I cut all the inside pages, making the pages 4 x 6” and hand punching the holes to match the cover. This took a minute, making 20 or so pages for each book and then for four books.

Now in the tutorial, she used brads to connect the pages and covers together and making easy to add additional pages if needed. However mine did not stay together when I tried to open the book up, so I decided to use binding rings. Easy to use, I can add pages of photos later to each of their books.

For the back cover I simply put the year of our trip. Then for the front cover, I added each of the kiddos' names and a Mickey Mouse face. I also have some stickers to add randomly throughout the book. Lastly I used the twine to tie the marker to the book.

These we given to all the kids for Easter as part of their basket, huge hit!!

Local Fair

 I apologize for the lack of postings, sometimes you have a week like that. So I’m going to try and post a little extra this week.

Buy Local First Fair, this is the second time we have attended and I believe the fair’s 4^th year. Held at the Watertower right next to the Ohio river, setting is lovely. It’s was an extremely hot day especially for May, in the 90’s, full sun and heat index. Still the crowds came out. 

Vendors consisted of farms, crafts, jewelry, dolls, puppets, woodwork, honey, cheese, books, etc. 

and let’s not forget the food. Everything you imagine to eat was there, coffee, Mexican, gourmet, vegetarian, ice cream etc. Now we did not eat lunch there but I spotted a place that will need to be visited, grill cheese like you would not believe.

We settled on some ice cream from comfy cow, JP got coffee, Avery and I got Mango and Little Bit sampled freely of all the above. We found a comfy patch of grass and plopped down. Listening to the live music on stage and watching the people.

It is great to see our city and the people who live here take notice that we should start looking for local shops to get the things we need. Now we all can dive in and buy everything local, but we can start deciding what is important to us, your family, and start there. It can be a simple as one locally made doll for your little one, local farmers, local restaurants. But as a country we need to start looking at ourselves to provide for our country's needs. Slight soap boxy, but not too bad.

During our trip I purchased soap for little bit's hair, which will clear up her cradle cap, and we bought ice cream. I also grabbed two more bumper stickers for my mini van, because what else do you do with a mini van???!!!