Pondering My Blessings...

Wow! There has been sooo much going on since the last time I posted anything. Life seems to just run full speed ahead and there's nothing I can do to slow anything down or change anything. Quite honestly, I feel like it's just been crazy and I'm tired and out of breath and just wanting to slow down and take a breather. In just the last couple years I have had 2 surgeries, lost a couple close friends, quit my job that I thought I never wanted to quit, had 2 precious new grandkids born, had my wonderful mother-in-law move in with us with stage 4 lung cancer, then go home to be with Jesus not long after we were blessed with her being in our home, and right on the heels of that, my youngest daughter losing her baby, and my oldest daughter and her 3 boys move in with us while she was going through a divorce. Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot to some who I know are going through more than me, but that's A LOT of up and down emotional times for me. I know God has been with us/me through it all, the good and the bad, and that He is in control, and I am so glad, although, I have to be quite honest and admit that I haven't always acted like I was trusting Him in all this. As tired and worn out emotionally as I feel, I wouldn't trade most of it (okay, any of it!) for anything. I'm thankful for the most wonderful grandkids and for the precious time with my mother-in-law. I wouldn't trade her stories and her sense of humor and any of the time with her for anything. I don't understand about the baby but it's not up to me to understand everything...just to trust Him. I know that nothing touches my life that hasn't been filtered through the loving hands of my loving Father. I thank Him for being in control, for the time spent with the special people in my life, for the most wonderful husband to share it all with, and for knowing that God has a purpose for everything. I pray that I have grown through all this and will come out closer to Him and more like Him. I'm thankful that, through my attitudes, He hasn't given up on me. Does that mean that I'm handling things perfect and not all emotional still? I'd sure like to say I have it all together and am doing it the right way every time but I'm not. I'm a slow learner sometimes. I'm so thankful, though, for His amazing mercy and His grace and that His mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness. I need that fresh start every day. Thank You, God, for You! I love You, LORD!
P.S. Thank You, LORD, for the precious new grandbaby, that You're blessing our lives with! I can't wait to meet this new little one in February! Yay!

Gumdrop Pumpkins

I know, I know. It's been a LONG time since I've posted anything but while looking for a recipe to make something for my hubby I ran across these cute gumdrop pumpkins on the "craftiness" blog and had to share it! Check out their site here on how to make these cute things!
I have so many things to post...pictures of the grandkids, pictures of friends kids, more pictures of the grandkids, you know, that kind of stuff and I've actually started quite a few posts, I just haven't posted them. I will try to get better again but not promising anything. To all who read this, have a blessed day. Hope you enjoy the gumdrop pumpkins!
God bless!

Happy Birthday

My daughter and I took my new granddaughter for her first "professional" pictures. The lady taking the pictures did such a good job with her and I thought they turned out real cute. These were taken yesterday on her one month birthday. I put them into a collage for you to see them all at once better. Didn't they turn out cute?!

Happy birthday, precious Jordan. Nana loves you!

I also want to tell my wonderful honey happy birthday. Today's his birthday.

Happy birthday, Geno! I love you with all my heart. I'm so blessed to have you in my life and as my husband. Here's to many more happy, blessed birthdays for you. Hope your day is super special just like you!

I made Gene a Snickers Cake for his birthday. If you'd like the recipe check out our Tried & True blog.

Cell Phone Holder Project

I found this great craft recycling idea over at Zakka Life.

It recycles old lotion bottles into something useful. I like that. This is a cell phone holder for recharging your phone.

Front view of bottle

Back View

You'll find the complete instructions for this great idea here. Thanks for sharing this project with us, Jessica. Go to her site and check out some of her other amazing ideas.

In case you were wondering...

Just in case you were wondering why I haven't posted in so long, well, I'll give you a little hint at what's been occupying my blog time...or should I say who's been occupying my blog time. I'd like you to meet Jordan Taylor, my precious new granddaughter.

Jordan was born February 20th at almost 1 a.m. and weighed 6 # 5 oz. and was 19 1/2" long.

Here she is with her proud parents...

And with her proud auntie (who is also pregnant and due in July)...

Her cousin, Ethan, who's 4, couldn't get enough of her. He was so excited. He didn't want to share her with his big brother when it was his turn to hold her. Of course, Papa Geno helped with the holding part.

Next it was cousin Brandon's turn. Brandon is almost 8 and he thought his new cousin was pretty neat too. He couldn't get over how soft she was and how small she was.

Of course, he had to pretend to think about it when asked what he thought of her. He wants his mommy to have one of these too. He said he will get up with her and feed her and change her every night. What a funny boy!

Here are some more with her momma and her daddy.

We love you, baby Jordan and we're so glad you're here!

Oh yeah, I guess I need to include this lady too. She is my sister, Jordan's great aunt...aka the Baby Hog"! She thinks because she lives out of town and came all the way (an hour and half away) to see her that she gets to hold her more. I think I need to find out how long she will be here because Jordan's Grandma (that's me!) wants to hold her. "Hey, Baby Hog Lady! It's my turn now."

Oh that's right, I can't take the pictures when I'm holding her. Oh well, I guess that's it for pictures today. I think I'll take my turn now... hand her over, Baby Hog! ;o)

P.S. If you want to see more on baby Jordan, check out her mommy's blog here.

Okay, this is a new one for me. I am new visitor to the Iheartfaces blog and when I was there today I noticed they have fix-it-friday. You take one of their pictures and use whatever program you use to enhance pictures and see what you come up with. This week they have a picture of a cute little boy. This is what I came up with. The first is the original and then two of mine after that.

The first picture I cropped to put the little guy a little more off center than he was. Then I went in to "create" and did 50% "vibrance". Then went in to soften the picture. I did it to the max amount to really blur the background more so he would stand out better then brushed over him so he wasn't so blurry. Then I went to "vignette" and looked for the right shade of blue to make his beautiful eyes stand out and also to hide the background even more.
On the second picture I cropped him even more to just get rid of more of the background. I again went into "vibrance" to brighten the colors a little and then softened it like I did in the previous picture. This picture though I went into "ortonish" and moved the "bloom" all the way to the right and then went into "matte" and did a very soft blue around the edge to keep the whole picture soft. I realized that I'd lost some of the blue in his eyes with everything I did so I went in to "eye color" and tried to find the right shade and then applied that to the picture.

Photo Fun

I have been enjoying looking at the fun things that others have done with their photos and couldn't resist playing around with some of the pictures I've taken. I thought I'd share some of them with you. Let me know what you think. The first one of each picture is SOOC (straight out of camera). The ones after that are what I've done playing around. I even added my name on them, you know, to make it "look" more professional. LOL! Click on the pictures to get a better look.

These are flowers from my yard last summer. Oh, I can't wait for flower time again.

This was taken at the falls here in town.



This was from a trip to Polson for our vacation last year.





These are some of my goldfish in my pond.



This is of some flowers beside of my pond.





This was of a house we drove past.

Some grain towers. I guess that's what you'd call them. I'll have to check with my friend, Dave, on that.

Rust on our old pickup. I know rust isn't good but I loved the colors.



Another shot of the rust from our old truck.



My beautiful youngest daughter. She was at the beginning of her pregnancy here. She's a good sport about posing for me. Thanks, Kayla.



I took a lot of pictures of her that day. I'll just show you a few, though.






Well, there you have it. Honestly, I have so much fun playing with the pictures and trying all kinds of different things that I could sit hours at my laptop. Oh, wait, I do sit hours at my laptop. Who am I trying to kid?! I have a lot more but thought I'd narrow it down to these.
Hope you enjoyed viewing these as much as I enjoyed playing with them.