Summer!!

Ok so Ive been really bad about posting here lately but hey its summer!! I was going to post a follow up on our trip to see my sister but I guess after I uploaded the pictures to Kodak I deleted them from the SD card before I saved them to the computer. That means no pictures of the Arch on my blog but I can still print them off. O'well Ill just tell you about everything else thats been going on! 

We had a family reunion at Possum Kingdom. 

  

We helped with the Turtle Race for the 4th of July Celebration.  

 

 Here's the overall winner with her mom and her big sister

  

Tiny Turtle someone brought... he was to little to race though! 

If you attended the race and see a picture of yourself or your little one feel free to comment or email me and I will be more than happy to share them with you! I have many others as well

And afterwards we headed off to Lake Foss to celebrate with family!

 Ice cream anyone?!

 

And of course we did a little bit of tubing!

Hope your having a wonderful summer!!! 

With Love from the Reeds, 

Evan Christine Alex and Luke!

Letters!

I love wooden letters! They are very easy to decorate with and make such a statement!

What you need 

The letters of your choosing. Could be your initials, full name, or a saying like "Love"

Clear Industrial strength glue such as E6000 or Multi purpose cement- be sure to read the back of your product carefully. Different glues do not work well with plastics or rubber.

Ribbon- you will need double the hanging length and it needs to be sturdy enough to support the weight of your letter

 and Just a few idea extras:

Silk flowers, metal clippings, buttons

Mod podge glue if you decide to decoupage with papers

Stencils and paint

You can add picture hangers to the back to make displaying easier and less demanding on your hanging ribbon. 

This one I made for Vanessa's baby shower using the cement to attach the moon and star. I kept it simple so the mommy to be could add any colors she decides to decorate with.

This one was made for a Dear friends Birthday!

The "family" was brad nailed on thanks to my wonderful hubby!

I used some metal jewelry accents and iron on flowers- glued on though! 

These two are huge- they are actually cardboard and not wood but I loved the size. Here I used stencils and paint so that the boys could help and pick out what they wanted.

We topped them off with a messy hand print!

All of the letters shown are from JoAnn's fabric store. I hope you have fun with this one! There are so many ways to decorate them! 

Hope you have a great weekend! 

Christine, Alex and Luke

P.s. We have had over 1000 Visits! Thank you all so much! 

Vanessa is having a Baby!

Jessica and I planned a surprise shower for our friend Vanessa. 

Being as terrible at secrets as I am, I had my husband call Vanessa's husband- Stephan to help get her out of the house for the morning but he came up sick the day before! So we recruited Vanessa mother in law to do the dirty work! We also had her mom in on it too!

 She helped us with most all of the addresses! 
As they are having a boy we had a lamb (for her) and camo (for him) theme. It sounds silly but it turned out so cute! Jessi made all sorts of stuff out of diapers. A wreath, a carriage and even a cake!

I was in charge of the cookies and cupcakes. I fell in love with an umbrella shaped cupcake-cake and decided to give it a shot. 

And the cookies were so much fun to make!

These took a long time to frost to due all the detail so we were in our hotel room icing cookies until 12 but they sure turned out cute!
 
 We had a cake just for Stephan who loves to play guitar, but unfortunately with him being sick we had all the guy stuff inside with us girls, well except for the guys!

 Jessi had all the guests sign onesies made from paper with their well wishes as the sign in book and then strung them across the living room for an adorable garland! Then once the party was over she turned them into an adorable memory book!

 We also had an autograph plate for a keepsake 

and of course all sorts of presents! 

Diaper tower from all the guys!

 Now we are all just waiting for little Tobin to arrive!

Congratulations Vanessa and Stephan! You guys will be wonderful parents!

Love, Christine


p.s. Our boys were sure worn out!

Oh praying for spring!

I can not wait for the warm weather to arrive and stay for good! Normally I love winter but year has been to dry and with to many people ill. Ugh!
However, It was gorgeous yesterday so I took the boys out to play for the afternoon!

While we were out I looked over most of the trees and found this...

One of our cherry trees is already putting off buds! It so pretty but we think they are coming out to early and we may not get any fruit this year.  But fingers crossed all will be fine!

Hope you are having a great week! 

With Love, 

Alex, Luke, Christine and Evan

Christmas Cookies

Ever since Alex, Luke and I made some salt dough ornaments , Alex has been begging me to make some cookies!  I asked Alex what all he would like in them.. He told me chocolate! I asked him what color he would like them to be and he told me Green!- his current favorite color. 

So I started thinking of what I could put in a cookie that was green but not to weird.. I finally came up with Mint! We used mint M&M's but I'm sure you could also use Andes Mints. Once baked they even looked rather festive! So we are now calling them Grinch Cookies.

 Here's our new recipe:

"Grinch cookies"

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

dash of salt

1 1/4 cup flour

1 cup crushed Mint M&Ms or Andes Mints

Mix wet.. Mix dry... Mix all together! Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Makes about 15 cookies depending on how many get eaten before they are baked! 

They really are grinchy too! They grow and grow in the oven!

We also made some..... 

Peanut butter Cookies: (just for daddy!)

½ cup butter

½ cup peanut butter

½ sugar

¼ cup honey (We use honey in place of brown sugar)

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 ¼ cup flour

1 cup Chocolate chips - optional

Same as before.. mix them all together. 

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes
Makes around 35 cookies

My helpers!

 Some had chocolate chips

All finished and plated!
 Now lets just see how long they last!

Don't forget to make some for Santa too!!

Christine, Alex and Luke