Mom and Brittney shared a birthday cake. It's Brittney's birthday and a day early for Mom, but she didn't complain one bit!! They were both birthday princesses.

Koster Christmas

  - Hosted by Jeff and Brenda -  I didn't end up getting to go to this due to a very unpleasant virus that hadn't run it's 24-48 hour course yet.  It looks like I missed seeing a lot of people I would have loved to had a chance to visit with.  Would love to see more pictures from the same event if you have any. 

Waffles!

Waffles!!  I love waffles... and while what you see is gone now...(moments after the picture actually) I will definitely have more in my future. 

Thanks to all my kids - #1 stood in line getting the waffle maker on Black Friday, #2 shared her bestest recipe, and #3 put the two together and created a fantastic waffle.....yum

My past waffle maker was way too shallow and just took too long to make inferior waffles.  This is one of those flip waffle makers like this one.  Flip-Waffle-Maker  These waffles are nice and thick and beautifully done.   I'm so happy!!!  Thanks kids!

Honoring a Veteran

Thank you

New Home for an old Favorite

We've had this chair for a while now that was curbed shopped. Despite being an easy project, it took a couple of years to get a new seat (from the burn pile) put on it and this beautiful ivy leaf geranium 'seated' on it. I love the look and the cost was right! $0.00 unless you count the cost of 4 screws! 
   I realize this is the third post in a row that has this geranium in it.  I sure do love it and hope I'll be able to successfully winter it over again this year.  I also hope to get some cuttings off it to start some new plants so I can have even more of them.

Salvage wheelbarrow

Look what I just finished from a wheel from the farm, an old drawer, and some scrap wood.   I want to show my inspiration piece too, but I can't get it to load.  I'll try again later.

Third year geranium

This is the 3rd year for this geranium that my Uphoff kids gave me.  While it's not at it's showy-est in this picture, it's the only picture I've managed to take of it so far this year.  I just wanted to show off that it's still around!!

The fence came down

This doesn't really show the fence so much, but you can see at least part of the combination of snow fence, chain link and latice (among other things) that we put up for a temporary barrier to keep the dogs off of where we needed to put grass in the back yard. 

    Since building the shop, we've had nothing but barren ground (like you see to the left of the tree below) and a few weeks.  Nothing to keep the soil from washing down into our brick and covering about a foot or two along the edge. 

You can see here - my hostas aren't doing so good this year either - none of my flowers / plants seem to be doing so well this year.

We finally took the fence down and the dogs weren't sure what they could do, but they loved running, playing and just plain rolling on it!  There still is some areas that will need some patching, but hopefully it will work out.

Zep's Haircut

Megan was over today and.....




Zep got himself a haircut

He actually was quite relaxed here.

Lots of fur left behind.












It will even out in a couple of days, but for now, he's so much cooler, and not so prone to those hot spots he keeps getting.

remi and the butterfly

Remi and and Zeplin spotted a butterfly floating around the yard.  Remi became fascinated by it and in her most stealth manner, eased up to it until it finally flew away to the other side of the fence.

Uphoff Updates: Speechless

You've gotta go see the new picture of our grandbaby at:
Uphoff Updates: Speechless

Alyssa's Birthday

Alyssa Ann Patterson turned 2 yesterday.

This is her with her daddy looking over the new Eye Spy quilt Nana made her.

You can see all the rest of her Birthday pictures at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/brianina/PattersonS#

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALY!!!

Guardian Remi

Remington is guarding the babydoll dressed in baby Brian's sleeper. As soon as I put it here, Remi went over, sniffed it out and layed down next to it just like she does with any baby that she gets to meet.

Sorry about the poor picture, I only had my cell phone.

Update:  The next morning when Brian got up, he found Remi had apparently decided that since we weren't going to take proper care of the baby - she would have to.  Brian found the babydoll actually ON the couch, with Remi right next to it.  With closer examination, we found the Right foot of the sleeper outfit a little dirtier and with a couple small punture holes.  We only wish we would have had a camera capturing how she drug that babydoll across the room, and got it up on the couch.   

    We don't know, maybe Zeplin helped her out, but I have a feeling if Zep even came close to the baby, Remi would have told him to 'back off' in no uncertain terms.  So it would have been a pretty fair struggle for her to get that babydoll up onto the couch where she wanted it to rest.

Mom n' Dad's Anniversary

This is just 2 little videos from my camera phone of Mom & Dad cutting the cake at their 60th Anniversary celebration. They were married May 20th, 1950. This is a replica Angel food cake make by Becky.

We have a new Grandbaby!

Brian Thomas was born at 11:33pm at the Portsmouth hospital in Virginia on March 17th. He was supposed to wait till the 29th but the little Leprechaun decided he wanted his own birthday. We are so excited about his arrival, but will have to be content with phone and email pictures as we aren't able to go out to see him right now. He's quite a handsome little boy.



Big Sis Hannah is doing knuckles with her baby brother!!

Bierocks and Eggrolls

Son wanted Bierocks and Eggrolls when he came home this weekend. Since the kids don't get home often enough for me, I was happy to oblige. Daughter #1 thought it was a good idea too, so soon I was planning a big cooking day so we all could have some in our freezers as well.

Son is working on a monster Bierock, while hubby is putting anothe batch into the freezer.

We added leg to the 6 foot folding table, topped that with a piece of heavy canvas for a pastry cloth.

That added height sure did save our backs though when we were rolling out the dough and making them up.

You can see on batch of dough in the above picture.  We used 3 to make 4 1/2 dozen plus the monster.

Here is the result of the Monster Bierock son made.  Beside it is a normal sized bierock.  This monster should easily feed 2-3 HUNGRY guys.  He plans to take this one home with him!!  This sucker is a full 9+ inches across and sits on a large pizza pan.  There is my oven mitt in the top corner and rolling pin in the lower corner for perspective.

Then came the eggrolls - I taught the boys how to roll them up and they did a great job...it sure made quicker work of making up the 5 dozen of those.

Here are some of them in various stages:  some ready to eat, some ready to cook, and others ready for the freezer.

And here's the rest of the group enjoying today's work.

oh.....and bundt cake for dessert!  yum