Friday's Fave Five

This is my first time participating in Susanne's Friday's Fave 5, though I've thought about it plenty of times - just didn't take the time to participate!

1. Enjoying Pumpkin Spice coffee at the office every morning and coffee with pumpkin spice creamer at home. YUM!

2. Spending several days with my two nieces and my oldest nephew while their parents were away. Here they are doing homework.

3. Enjoying the colors of Fall.

4. Seeing the trick-or-treaters last night. I do have pictures of my best friend's kids, but they're still on my camera.

5. A great small-group discussion on Wednesday. We're reading the book, "How to Listen to God," by Charles Stanley.

Recipes Organized!

While I was camping earlier this month, I finally finished organizing my recipe collection! I had a bunch of recipes on 8.5 x 11 paper, hand-written on pieces of paper, and recipe-themed magainzes piled high. I ordered a recipe book, with matching recipe cards, and plastic pages.

Then I started sorting through the recipes and magazines. Once I had the recipes I wanted to keep, I wrote them on recipe cards. If there was a picture associated with the recipe, I included that on the recipe card. I need a visual!

Here's what I started with when I remembered to take a picture. I had already sorted through a stack of recipes.

And here are the recipes all organized and neat!

I also stole this idea from Barb at A New Chelsea Morning. She created a Good Things notebook with sheet protectors. It includes all kinds of useful and fun information. Now, when I'm reading a magazine, I tear out any articles I want to keep and they go in the notebook.

Here's mine:

I love having things organized, but sometimes it gets overwhelming. I just made up my mind to get these two things organized, and I did it! It took some time, but it's d-o-n-e! And I'm h-a-p-p-y!

2008 Camping Vacation

Mom, Dad, Tommy, and I spent almost a week 'camping' in a modern cabin last week. We spent a lot of time inside because it rained and was chilly. We did have some nice afternoons. I read a book, started another one, finished organizing my recipes (I'll do a separate post on that sometime soon!), played games (Parcheesi, Rack-O, Shanghai) with Mom, and relaxed!

Here's our cabin:


Ben, Wendie, and the boys came to visit. Mom had some crafts for the boys. Here they are making foam crowns.


There were a lot of black walnuts, so I told the boys I'd give them a nickel for every walnut they collected. They ended up with 24. Since I didn't have 48 nickels, they each got 24 dimes! (I keep a bunch of loose change in my car.)


Here are some pictures of the lake. So calm, beautiful, serene, peaceful....





I made Eggs Benedict. Well, Mom poached the eggs because I didn't know how to do that, but now I do! These were yummy!


We made pizza mountain pies over the campfire. These were yummy, too! Mom mixed turkey burger, onions, pepperoni, green peppers, and red peppers, and we added pizza sauce and mozzerella cheese!


Here's Mom making breakfast and Tommy ready for dinner of spare ribs, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes. Yeah, we roughed it. LOL Mom loves to cook, so we are spoiled!

Here's Dad at dinner.