Benjamin's Birthday

We kept Benjamin's birthday presents pretty simple this year, since he's too little to understand, but even so, I hadn't expected his favorite present to be...toothbrushes! He was pretty excited about them - too bad he's not so excited about brushing his teeth!

We enjoyed celebrating Benjamin's birthday with our families! He received lots of fun presents - and I was pleased with all of the good toy choices! =) By the time we got around to the cake and ice cream, though, he was too tired out from everything to really even eat it. He did have a cupcake the next day, but he doesn't like ice cream! I'm sure that will change someday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

May God bless you and your family today!

Happy Birthday, Benjamin!

Benjamin is One!!!
It's so hard to believe that my little baby is a year old! It is so amazing to look back at all the pictures from the past year and to see how much he has grown and changed. What better way to document his first year than with some of my favorite pictures from the last twelve months?












He is such a fun-loving, cheerful, curious little boy! He is such a blessing in our lives!

Birthday Banner

I took a break from Christmas presents a couple of weeks ago and decided to make something for more immediate celebrations - birthdays! I've been wanting to make one of these cute pennant banners, so I made a "Happy Birthday" banner, which I hung over our sliding glass doors. I love how it dressed up the window!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

A couple weeks ago I cooked and pureed the pumpkins we had gotten at the farm. It ended up taking me a while, as my blender could only handle a small amount of pumpkin at a time. I ended up with about 14 cups of puree from my two small-to-medium sized pumpkins, which I was pleased with. I put it all in the freezer, but pulled some out the other day and made some muffins today! Homemade pumpkin puree doesn't have as strong of a flavor as canned pumpkin, but they were still delicious - even with mostly whole wheat flour and not much sugar! It is so satisfying to use ingredients that you prepared yourself - you know they're fresh and healthy!

Happy Birthday, Seth!

It's Seth's birthday tomorrow! We'll be enjoying a simple celebration with family! Happy Birthday!

One of my new favorite things...

...hydrogen peroxide!

Several months ago I read a blog post on the wonderful stain-removing power of hydrogen peroxide, and decided to try it on several stains on our carpet. I was amazed at how well it worked! I was so happy - I did not want to pull out the Resolve with a little guy on the carpet all the time. Since then, I've also used it on our very dirty white couch, with great success! I'll be trying it on clothes next, but so far I'm am very pleased with the results I've gotten from using it! I screwed a spray bottle top onto the bottle, which worked really well on the couch, but I've found that it worked better on the carpet if I just poured it on, perhaps because it's able to go down into the carpet instead of just sitting on top. I'm happy to have another cheap, safe way to clean!