Hello friends! Yes, I'm still around! It's just that between all that I'm trying to do something had to give, and it was my blog! My intention is to post occasionally, so here I am! So much going on, but one of my favorite activies is to.... BE GRANDMA HEIDI!

Summer in Oregon begins, oh, say....around August 1 and ends...oh...say about September 1. Just kidding! But summer on the southwestern coast of Oregon DOES get off to a slow start! I had the grandkids here for a few hours yesterday and though I wanted to have them slide down the slip-&-slide like this time last year...

(last year)

..it was chilly out so I built a little fire in our outdoor fire pit and had them roast marshmallows.

Mark made this heavy metal fire pit for me last year. He cut and welded all the pieces, making it the exact height I asked for, welding on "legs, then painting it black. I think he used 1/2" metal, because this fire pit is h*e*a*v*y--luckily my brother was here the day Mark moved it out of the shop!

(last year)

Ellie's marshmallows immediately caught fire...

But she ate them anyway! She had melted marshmallow all in her hair and on her clothes, but I knew I was sending them home soon...that's how Grandmas are, you know!

Claira just sat in a chair watching...and eating...it wasn't necessary to toast her's!

John Mark ever so patiently barely toasted his, he was so careful to NOT have any charred marshmallow.

We also played around with the sidewalk chalk:

 So what else?  I continue to spend moments on Pinterest (while on HOLD on the phone, as I'm working! I can PIN a LOT while on hold!!! LOL)...

        Here's just a sampling of a few Pins I actually did:

(filled strawberries...a sweeten creamcheese filling!)

(banana white chocolate chip biscotti -- these are SO GOOD!)

(homemade Ritz crackers... again SO good!)

Time to get some work done! 

Thanks for visiting and blessings to you!

   ~Heidi





Just checking in!

Just wanted to pop in and say "hi"!



One of my sisters and I drove 10 hours south to visit family a couple weeks ago. I ended up at the piano playing "No Never Alone" and was quickly joined in by my father and mother!  That song was one of my favorite hymns when I was about 10 years old. I can still remember singing it at the Sunday night "Singspirations". I know that even in times when things feel dark I am NEVER alone as God is always with me!  It was fun playing it with my dad on the guitar.

In the few days I was out of state there was a huge SNOW storm here.  (Mark took the above photo of the front of our place.)  We were without power and phone lines for a few days.  And I missed it all!

The weekend I returned Mark and I went to the lighthouse at the ocean bar to see how it looked out there after all the flooding we had here.  There was so much drift wood, and the ocean was full of more logs and stuff coming out of the opening of the river.  There was even a dairy cow washed up on the beach.  I took some photos, as it had a tag/ID number on the ear, in case I could let the dairy owner know where the cow ended up.  This isn't the first time we've seen a cow washed ashore.

Then there's the three grandchildren....here's Ellie & Claira in the middle of a sweet tea party.  Ellie said, "I'm so glad Claira is old enough to have a tea party now!"

Claira absolutely loves having her photo taken!

This is John Mark, just after his first ever school program! (Kindergarten!) It was also his day day of being 5 years old.  Now he is 6!  He's one of the sweetest boys you'd ever meet!  We had a wonderful birthday party for him here this past weekend. Load of fun!

"Happily Ever After Starts Here"...a sign I painted for a wedding we're going to next month!

I've been busy painting signs for my Etsy store orders!

Blessings & hugs, Heidi

What? Monthly? Not good!

I realized the pace I'm blogging is monthly now. I don't like that, but until I can get blogging back to top priority on my daily lists I guess monthly it'll have to be!  Anyone out there struggling with this too? Throw in way too much time on Pinterest....don't get me started on that distraction,...err...wonderful place!

So, a few photos of signs I painted in January:

For a precious baby girl on the way.....a princess, for sure!

"Our Little Princes...." with custom name.

 This is a must for all couples.....and for children and babies, too!

"Always Kiss Me Goodnight" (shown in black lettering)

 Home is....

where your horses are!

(A sign for a horse lover!)

 This sign was given as a gift. I paint a lot of this type of sign.

You can add any words, names, dates, etc.

"Love is Sweet".....this continues to now be my top selling sign.

I can paint it in any color and any font!

Ice Cream Parlor.....an event coordinator ordered a few of these

signs for her event.  I loved painting this....wanted ice cream that night!

What else?  How about "Cupcakes"....can you think of a sign for a cupcake table?

Welcome to Our Home, layered over the family name, with the date.

I loved painting this sign, I've done a few and enjoy seeing the color

combinations the buyers select.

 Snips & Snails and Puppy Dog Tails...perfect for a baby boy shower!

Both the girl and boy signs in this set have been very popular lately!

Those sayings are making a come-back, I guess!

To The Beach......I have so many "beach" signs to paint,

but just not enough time!

Sugar & Spice and Everything Nice......

perfect for a baby girl shower gift!

 A dream is a wish your heart makes.  A Disney sign?

See the three reasons I love being a grandmother?

Blessings, Heidi

So much fun at Sweet Woodruff Acres

  

I had the grand kids a few hours early on Christmas Eve-Eve (we celebrated Christmas Eve two nights in a row!).  While we were in the kitchen baking, we somehow got way off track when I taught them how to make a blow up balloon squeal loudly!  Then we three got rowdy and ended up rolling on the kitchen floor in laughter.   I think we were all super excited about Christmas (and maybe had too many sweet by then, too!)

Jessica & Craig had wrapped all their gifts in brown craft paper.  For the tags they had sepia photos of the recipients. The kids absolutely loved this, they didn't have to look for names, but their own faces.  These gifts were so pretty! 

I made plates of gingerbread cookies, Tex-Mex Snack Mix, bags of candies, mini-gingerbread houses and more to give out to neighbors and friends.  

 This is one of the small wood cutting boards I made to give out as gifts.  I took my Scottie Dog cookie cutter and enlarged the pattern.  I cut them out of wood from myrtlewood trees that grow on our property.  Did you know myrtlewood only grows in two places on earth?  Yes, here in Oregon and in Israel.  How cool is that?  I wanted to make more of these, but ran out of time, as well our wood wasn't dry enough yet. It takes at least 6 months to really season it well.



This Oregon state shape cutting board was made the same way as the Scottie Dog one above.  I have an Oregon state shape cookie cutter  that I traced and just enlarged the pattern to the size I wanted.  These cutting boards were one of my favorite crafts this year, right up there with my gingerbread house decorating party!  More on that next post!

Have a great weekend.

May you have 2012 blessing this year!

Hugs, Heidi

(Linked with Cindy's My Romantic Home Show & Tell Friday here.)

Apple Dumplings and Tea -- Camp Grandma!

We've got a nice productive McIntosh apple tree, but in addition to that our kind neighbors have given me permission to pick apples from their many trees!  I've got apple sauce and apple butter lined up to make, but couldn't wait to get something sweet going so I made apple dumplings. Apple dumplings have always been one of my favorite desserts. 

Most apple dumpling recipes have you put a whole (skinned and cored) apple in each dumpling.  But I have always preferred smaller chunks of apples.  I pretty much just make what would be an apple pie filling and pie crust recipe.  The only thing I need then is a syrup to pour on top.

I love apple dumplings served with vanilla ice cream, but didn't have any, so I used whipped topping.  Still super good! 

My sister's son and daughter-in-law are expecting what will be my sister's first grandchild!  We are so excited for them and I couldn't wait to give her a special sign I painted:

 She visited with Ellie (our second of three grandchildren) her at my "Camp Grandma, Coos Bay Unit" and taught her how to "have tea".    She'll be a perfect grandma and she'll love the new title! 

Here's my sign, painted 5 years ago (I used to make my signs way smaller then, and on old wood:

Hope you all have a safe and fun weekend!
          Hugs, Heidi

Here's a basic APPLE DUMPLING recipe, it's the one I use:
THE SYRUP:
1 3/4 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 Tblspn. butter

THE DUMPLING CRUST:
2 1/4 cups four
1/4 TSP. salt
2/3 cup butter
6 to 8 Tblspn iced cold water

FILLING:
6 apples (skinned, cored, and cut in small bite size pieces)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1. Mix the syrup (EXCEPT the butter) ingredients in a medium saucepan and simmer, covered for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in butter.
2. Meanwhile mix the crust ingredients and roll out into an 18X12-inch rectangle, then cut into six 6" squares.  (Or get close, like I do!)
3. Mix the apple filling ingredients and divide evenly on the 6 cut squares.
4.  Pull up the four corners of each square into a pocket, or dumpling.  Pitch the edge to keep them closed. Place in a baking pan. 
5. Pour the hot syrup over the dumplings.
6.  Bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until the apples are tender and the crust is lightly browned.
7.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, or whipped topping.

Makes 6 servings.
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(Linked to  Cindy's My Romantic Home Show and Tell here. , Six Sisters Struf Your Stuff Saturday here, Be Different and Act Normal Show and Tell Saturday here,  Tator Tots and Jello Weekend Wrap Up Party here,  Blissful and Domestic Feature Friday Link Up Party here,  Niffty Thrifty Sunday #29 here, Totally Tasty Tuesday at Mandy's Recipe Box here,  Joy of Desserts here,and Frugal Girls Craft Linky Party here.)

Falling Leaves

Just As much as I love to be outside in nature, you must know I always dread the end of summer.  Yet a few weeks later, as in today, I always realize, "HEY, Heidi!  Fall is wonderful, too, for it's own reasons!"

Colorful falling leaves are one of the top reasons!  The crisp smell of the air early in the morning.  The scent in the evening of the wood stoves warming the homes in the area.  So yesterday when I had Ellie and Claira for a couple hours (Melissa was doing a Mary Kay consultation) I decided to try out the craft Heather Bullard blogged about here.

I took an old dictionary I use for crafting and pulled out a bunch of pages.  Ellie (3 going on 6) helped pick out fall color to paint the pages.  We watered down our paint and used old kitchen cookie sheets for easy clean-up.

Painted pages...pages drying...

Pages ready to be cut...

Pages cut out in leaf shapes (I stacked them to cut as many as I could at once, as well as used different scissors).

In the midst of our leaf project Ellie wanted to set up the Barbie pool.  Only by the sink I said. (She still had a POOL of water on my kitchen floor!).

She brought as many Barbies (these are old ones left behind by my grown-up-girls; she even plays with the headless ones, she "pretends" they had head...really.) as she could carry to the pool.

She'd say, "Come to the BARBIE WORLD POOL!" as she'd drop them in.

Then she'd say, "Dreams really do come true!"  (She loves Disney videos, I guess.)

Then back to the leaf project.  We finished up, using hot glue for a fast project.  I tied up an orange ribbon and quickly glued the sets on that.

Ellie is a wonderful crafting partner!  Claira was napping or I'm sure she would have been all over the pool and the paint!

Ellie decided to work on her sticker book as they waited for Mommy Melissa to pick them up and take them to their cousin's birthday party.....waiting to go to a birthday party is hard for a little girl!



Mommy's here..........

...........Heidi's going straight to the couch now....LOL 
What a fun fall day!  I do miss having John Mark here on days like this, but he's a big boy now, in kindergarten!

Blessings and hugs,
     ~Heidi

(Linked to Cindy's My Romantic Home Friday Show and Tell here,   At the Picket Fence Inspiration Friday here and Nifty Thrifty Things Sunday here, and Under the Table and Dreaming Sunday Showcase Party here.)