10 on 10: 5th edition

  Welcome to the 5th edition of 10 on 10! 

Never heard of 10 on 10???

Here is my last one.

Actually, there is an ENTIRE CATEGORY devoted to them.

Here are the instructions:

Take a photo every hour (for ten consecutive hours, if possible) on the tenth of each month. Document a day of your life and find beauty among the ordinary moments. Then share your beauty on the 11th! Please be sure to use the photo above on your blog post, and link back to mine, so we can all share in the fun.

The gal that I originally linked up to, is no longer blogging her 10 on 10’s, so I am a lone ranger. If you ever want to try, follow the instructions above, then just come post your 10 on 10 in the comments, so we can all visit you!

NOW, just so you know, I only post 10 on 10 when both the 10th AND the 11th fall during a regular posting day.  For those that are new to 4 little Ferguson’s, I post M-Th at 7am and Friday at 6am for Weekend Potluck. I take all Weekends OFF to be Mommy! 🙂

Without further adieu, 10 on 10…..

~T

P.S. It doesn’t have to be kept to just 10 photos.  I haven’t done that yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Guess mine should be called 30 on 10?

1) Good morning to my 4 Little’s!  It’s cold outside, so we are having OATMEAL!!!!!

2) My facebook status at 7 am.

(Go like 4 little Ferguson’s on facebook for all recipe photos and fun updates!)

For those that can’t read the photo below on their phones it says:

”I can understand losing a lens cap, I’ve had a lot of photo sessions lately.  I can also understand losing a camera battery charger, I have 4 kids, things grow legs and walk away. HOWEVER, I cannot understand how in the world I lost a 5 pound bag of potatoes. Seriously? What in the world!?”

{SIGH} It’s true. Potatoes were on sale for a dollar last week, so I had my mom grab me two  bags.  I used one right away and distinctly remember talking about putting it in a cool, dark place.  Hmm.  Guess time will smell…..I mean tell.

3) Headed to Preschool, it’s getting COLDER out! 8* now

4) Set out all my holiday baking ingredients thinking I’d get it a bunch of it done while it was just Paxton and I at home.

Nope.  I was too busy doing laundry and looking for my potatoes.

5) Three kiddos are home now, and it’s LUNCH TIME!
Leftover Chicken Pot Pies are on the menu.

Recipe coming sooooon! 🙂

6) I grabbed a couple of the kiddos toy microphones that they had left out and called them all to nap time…announcer style.

Paxton thought it was a GREAT idea, but didn’t quite know how to go about making his voice loud like Mommy’s. Didn’t take him long to realize he needed to place them on his MOUTH, not his EARS.

Silly boy!

7) 1st hour of nap is reading time, 2nd hour is quiet play time while Mommy works.

Todays work load is Season of Light edits for the church, and a stack of recipes to type out on the blog.

8) SUPPER TIME!  Coming to a blog post near you……

9) Family Baking Time: there is no such thing as too many cooks in the kitchen!

Good little Cinnamon Puppy Chow makers and shakers!

10) Advent calendar before bed…

11) Everyone is beat from such a fun evening!

12)  Good night my 4 little Fergusons, sweet dreams!

Happy Birthday, Avery!

 

  Today is Avery’s Birthday, and guess what, it’s mine too!  She was the very best Birthday present I could ever ask for!

  Here she is:

10 pounds 3 1/2 oz. 

3 days old in this photo!

Hard to believe this is our lil’ bitty Peanut, isn’t it!?

  Avery has always been sunshiney with the occasional storm clouds.

  She has such a heart for the Lord, loves to raise her hands in worship, and asks Him almost nightly to help her future husband be a Godly man and a Mr. Fix It like her daddy.

She beams when praised, and gets tearful when she can’t get it done the way she has imagined it should be accomplished.  But she has drive and stubborness that we are asking God to use for HIS glory!

She’ll being going to Preschool 3 days a week this year!  I will miss her terribly!

Oh my little one, you are growing up so so fast, you make Mommy’s heart ache to keep you a baby, but I know my job is to give you wings and prepare you for the day you will use them.

Happy 4th Birthday, sweet Avery!

You’ll always be my baby girl!

 

I love you to the moon and back!

~Mommy                      xoxo

Florida Family Fun

  Our Florida company packed up and headed out.  We miss them ALREADY! Avery keeps asking if they are coming back yet?  We are so blessed that they are willing to come our way, to come hang with us each year. We wish they’d stay a month! 🙂

  I thought it’d be fun today, to share the photos from our week together:

Looking at photos of Aunt Ashley’s wedding venue and dress!

There’s been a bike theft!!!!!

Destiny, I think Daddy is too big for your purple bike!

Watching the Bike Show and relaxing….

Pax says enough is enough…..

And proceeds to try to tip his sister over…..

Papa saves the day and Avery is all smiles…..

  So, last year, for my 30th Birthday, Papa  & Drea brought me a lovely gift…

 

A new-to-me table from their consignment furniture store.  One big enough to seat our growing family, plus a guest or two! 

  I have been in the market for a matching hutch ever since.  Guess what I found in their store while I was visiting my new baby nephews?

A matching hutch!  YAY!  And I even bought it with my own photo money I’d been saving, thankyouverymuch.   🙂

  Thanks to Papa & Drea for delivering it to me!

Before:

After:

The best part of all?  For the first time in TEN YEARS, I got to get my antique china out of the boxes they’ve been hidden away in.

  A silver and white set from my Great Aunt Mary {not pictured}, and an ivory and gold set from my Grandma Beckler.

Both sets fit underneath this hutch, along with my cake plate and some other big items! I am so excited to have more usable space in my kitchen!!!!!!

  Since it was over 103* all week, Drea took us to Target and let the 3 big kids pick out a movie.

What a special treat to get to eat supper in the living room during tv time!

Who could these GORGEOUS flowers be for?

“They are for YOU, Momma!”

  Sweet Avery went to the grocery store with Drea, and INSISTED her Mommy needed these flowers because she loves sunflowers.  Precious. 

   The next day was Destiny’s birthday!  Birthday tradition in the Ferguson household states, you can open ONE gift in the morning, but the rest have to wait for after supper.

The Birthday Girl also gets to pick supper, dessert and does not have to do ANY chores the WHOLE DAY! 

  Destiny picked spaghetti.  With all our extra tomatoes, I decided to try my hand at homemade sauce. WOW, was it ever tasty!  Recipe to come next week.

I’ll share the recipe for her Birthday Cheesecakes on Monday.

Destiny picked to go to the museum that afternoon, again it was SO hot, like 108* so we thought that was a great plan!

We learned all about the “Harvey Girls” and the train station waitressing they had to do and QUICKLY!

Drea wishing she could be a Harvey Girl??? 🙂

The museum has a GREAT kids hands-on play area:

Even the “big kids” had fun!

When we got home, it was birthday time!

I’d like to take a moment and point out Paxton back there “helping” big sis blow.  I love that we caught him blowing mid-drool.

Ewwwwww!

These mini cheesecakes were KILLER!  Can’t wait to share the recipe.

The kids don’t get dessert very often, so you can imagine, Pax in particular was thrilled with this new sweet stuff!

Check out the bottom left pic, when he realizes he has DROPPED his yummy on the floor!  The next photos after that are his face when he realizes he still has a morsel left on the table, phew!

  Silly Paxton!

Now, for present time:

FINALLY! Destiny says.

She got two more from us, for a total of 3 gifts.  This applies at both birthday’s and Christmas, just like Jesus got 3 gifts from the wise men.

Clip on Earrings

Papa and Drea got her some pretty cool stuff, too!

Yessssssssssss……

  We hired my crafty cousin, Brent to make this bunk bed for Destiny’s dolls AND he even sewed the mattresses himself.  A TALENTED young man, I tell you!  And a new daddy as of yesterday, CONGRATS! 🙂

The rest of the evening was spent playing with new things….

Pax thought the curry brush for the horse would be nice to use on dolly’s hair.

She apparently needed some feed too……

Hmm, something is just not right here.

There, that’s MUUUUUCH BETTER!

The other kids thought the big box was equally as fun as the toys….especially with Papa around to give them rides!

Before we knew it, our week with Papa and Drea was over. 

We had one last special supper together!

The next morning, it was time for them to go…….

Bye, Papa & Drea! We love you and miss you already! Come back soon…..

~T

T-Shirt Scarves: The Perfect Gift!

We had many, many people to thank for helping with our Vow Renewal.  Some got money, some got gas cards, some got the Sunflower arrangements after the ceremony.  The couple that loaned us the barn got a framed picture of their barn that I took, and added a verse to:

But I had more people to thank, some lovely ladies to be exact.

Remember a while back, I posted about making some t-shirt scarves?

Well, when it was time to think of Thank You gifts for the remaining participants of our Vow Renewal, I knew this was the answer.

So, I made 3 of them.

One for Shelby, our soloist, which I tried on here.

ANNNND, I made one for me out of Shelby’s extra material!

{What? There was just enough left!}

One for Kasey, who made gobs of cookies and spoke:

And one for Ann, who had driven a long ways, just to sing “Our Song”. The very one she and her husband, Lynn sang at our wedding 10 years ago.

The girls LOVED them! 🙂  YAY!

{Ann, not pictured}

Shelby’s & Ann’s are a mixture of link style and spaghetti knit scarf made in a yoke styles,  Kasey’s is all loops with tassels at the end.

The one I have on is a regular spaghetti scarf.

Oh, and while I was at it, I also made a Ruffle Scarf in Cougar colors for Destiny’s teacher:

I was so busy working on completing all these BEFORE the renewal date, that I did not take photos of the process. Sorry!

However, AFTER the Renewal was all said and done, I still had one thank you scarf to make, and I did take the time to photograph it.

First, take a print t-shirt, stripes or tye die would be great!

Cut off the top of the shirt.  From the bottom of the sleeve seam down, so that just the tube of fabric that covers your back and tummy remain.

Cut off the bottom stitching too.

Now, take that tube of t-shirt, and fold it in half, leaving a good inch more on the bottom half than the top half.

Cut all the way through the folded layer, not going beyond, like this:

Cut strips until you have completed the entire row.

Run your arm through the loops.  See that uncut section?  There is now a strip of uncut t-shirt on top. 

Tug hard on the top and bottom of the loops like this…..

Take a strip of cloth from the sleeve and gather the scarf at the uncut section and wrap like this:

Tie underneath wrap to secure.

Ta da!  A spaghetti scarf. The fastest and easiest of all t-shirt scarves!

Here is a link to the instructions for how to make all kinds of t-shirt scarves:

My Blessed Life Scarf Tutorial

More of my scarves here: https://4littlefergusons.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/t-shirt-scarves/

Have fun!

~T

I Do: Part 2 {The Ceremony II}

  This is post 2, head back to post 1 to read in order.

The ceremony continued……

A big thanks to Pastor Mark for coming out multiple times to set up and run the sound system for us!  Couldn’t have done it without him!

  After the ceremony, we served cookies and farm fresh milk…..

{Thanks to Kasey and Eileen for making all the cookies!}

We also served Fruit pizzas, Dale’s famous popcorn and these…..

Chocolate Truffles!

Handmade from a wonderful someone who had read the blog and wanted to give to our special day….WOW.  What a blessing! 

{For you locals that were asking, I do have her contact info if you want to order from her for your special someone! The quality of these truffles far surpasses anything you’d find in the store!}

This next set of photos is from my friend, Heather of Heavinly Blessings.

———————————————————————————————-

————————————————————————————————

Did you see in the earlier photos, that I had laid Scrabble letters all over the food table spelling out I Love You and I Do etc? 

 

  Well, look what our friend, MaryAnn made for us…having no idea I loved Scrabble letter EVERYTHING! 🙂

  This has a very special place in our home.  LOVE it!

The End. 

No……..

The Beginning.

~T

Unless otherwise mentioned, photos in this post are from:

 Whitney Hamilton Photography

Corn Chip Salad & Another Paxton First

I am loving summer vacation!  All 4 of my babies home, fresh goodies from the garden, all different kind of delicious salad recipes to choose from and family dinner around the table with no looming homework, or early bedtime to worry about! 

  All our kids LOVE corn on the cob.  This is Paxton’s second summer here on earth, so naturally this summer is full of some new “firsts” for him.  I was SO glad I had my camera near by for Paxton’s first corn on the cob.  I had just used it to take a picture of the salad I am sharing today, and caught the whole thing.

  “Paxton, try your corn please.”

“Nooooooo, anything but that!”

“Please! I beg you.  I have eaten my entire salad. Don’t make me eat that weird thing on my plate!”

“Paxton Clay! You will try it RIGHT NOW! Look at your siblings, they LOVE it. Now dry those tears and take a bite!”

“Ok Momma. I guess I will try it, JUST for you.”

“So how does this thing work?”

“OH! Like this?”

“It’s kind of hard to bite……”

“What do you mean, that’s not the corn?”

“This thing is so confusing.”

“Pax, quit eating the handles, bite the MIDDLE!”

“OHHH! The middle, got it.”

“Zike dis?”

“Hey Destiny! See me doin’ it!”

“See me, Daddy! I am doing it like you said.”

“It tastes kinda funny.”

“I am not too sure about this stuff.”

“Yeah, I think maybe I liked eating the handles better.”

“Daddy! Why are you laughing at me?  I’m pretty stinkin’ cute, huh!?”

  TOTALLY ADORABLE!  (Even in his sisters old purple ballerina bib with nap time bed head!)

  Now for the salad……

Corn Chip Salad

(click title for easy printable)

Ingredients

FOR THE SALAD:

• 1 head Leafy Lettuce, Romaine Or A Combo
• 8 whole Hard-boiled Eggs, Sliced
• 1 pound Bacon, Fried And Crumbled
• ½ pounds Colby Jack Cheese Shreds
• 6 cups Corn Chips, Crushed

FOR THE DRESSING:

• 1 cup Miracle Whip
• 2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
• ¼ cups Milk
• ¼ cups Sugar (scant)

Make dressing ahead by whisking all ingredients together. Refrigerate until serving time. Rip lettuce into bite sized pieces, add sliced eggs, crumbled bacon and shredded cheese.
Add chips and dressing right before serving.

  Enjoy with big fat slices of garden tomatoes and corn on the cob!

~T

4th of July Fun

  I am happy to report that this years post about 4th of July Fun, does not include any meltdowns from any Firework hating little Fergusons.  For this very reason, last years 4th of July follow-up post was entitled:

 “4 Little Fergusons Fireworks: Fiasco or Fun? Um, Yes.”

  Photo from last year:

2 out of 4 sobbed through the whole thing

Photo from this year:

Awe and amazement

YAY!

  We had a great time, it’s super duper late, we just showered all the kids and it’s almost 10, so without further ado, 4th of July photos……

~T

Patriotic music  by the Municipal Band the night before……

Much dancing and marching ensued….

Never mind, 105* is just too hot for marching and dancing…..

The next morning:   The 4th of July Parade!

Biggest turn out we’ve seen yet! The streets were packed!

Steak Fajitas for supper.

Secret ingredient?  Herbed Goat Cheese.

OH MY YUMMY GOODNESS!  A must try!

After supper, Poppers, bike riding and a few fireworks.

Dale thought it’d be fun to teach Paxton to squeeze the poppers between his fingers since he couldn’t make them snap by throwing them.

Needless to say, Mommy was NOT impressed and we switched to stomping.

Destiny and Ty put on a bike show.

Then, fireworks time!  A short but sweet show, with fireworks found in the shed last time we cleaned up, plus a few daddy bought for a special treat!

Somebody’s excited!

Woah!

Pax wanted to go UP in the sky too!

Hope you all had a fun and safe 4th!

Oops!

Yesterday three whole blogs posted.

THREE.

Ugh.

   Soooo, today I am here to tell you, that you need to go re-read one of them, and pretend it’s fresh for today!  Ok? 

  I have two REALLYREALLY good reasons for being so distracted…..

I’ll give you a clue:

They live in Florida.

And they stole my heart and all my time and attention for the past 5 days.

  Meet my identical twin nephews, Colby and Brayden.

  See, I told you there were REALLYREALLY good reasons to be distracted from my blogging duties.

Thanks for understanding!  🙂

More pics to come as soon as I get my suitcase unpacked….

Hugs, T

OH Pax! No-no!

  Destiny and Tylan did NOT prepare us for Avery and Paxton. 

Guess the Lord likes to keep us as parents humble, doesn’t He? 

The first 2 were easy, laid back, didn’t get into trouble much, were very tender-hearted and then…….

We had Avery.

  Sunshine to thunder clouds and back, all in a matter of minutes. 

 

No middle ground. 

  I will never forget when she was 5 months old and threw her first fit, arching her back and practically sliding down my leg, limp as a spaghetti noodle.  I gasped and stared at Dale across the room, whose mouth had also dropped open.  We knew then, we were in for a WHOLE new ballgame!

    I wouldn’t have it any other way, my sweet, sassy little Peanut!

  Then there is Paxton, who takes Mischievous to a whole new level. 

He is the naughty to her theatrics.

  Did I tell you about the time I went out to photograph Banana Caramel Pinterest Pie and when I came back he had dragged over a kitchen chair and helped himself?

How about the morning where he dumped the entire bowl of Oatmeal on his head?

Or, when he dumped flour all over the place?  Escaped out the back door for the first time, or helped himself to the contents of the fridge?

   In the last 2 weeks it has been as follows: 

Threw his binky in the toilet.  (Yes, the toilet was being used, otherwise the lid is not allowed to be left open. Yuck.)

Threw Avery’s special prayer bunny in the toilet, again it was being used.  Ew.

Hit Avery in the head with Dale’s golf club.

Hit Avery in the head with a golf ball.

Hit Avery in the head with her high-heeled church shoes.

Hit Avery in the head with a utensil. 

Hit Avery in the head with a train.

Poor Avery needs a helmet!  Paxton will smack his own bottom afterwards, “No no”, he says. 

  If you know it’s a no-no, THEN QUIT, DUDE!  Your sisters health depends on it!

  This torment seems mostly directed at Avery, as you can tell!  He just frustrates Destiny when he trashes her room and Ty when he knocks down his lego towers.

  He stands at the island to “help” with supper, those little grabby hands dumping salt and noodles faster than I can stop him.

  I clean up water messes at least 5 times a day as he crawls up on to the table and dumps his siblings cups out, then plays in them.

{Sigh}  A mother’s job is never done it seems.  If it’s quiet and you can’t find Pax, don’t walk, RUN to find him. You will be sorry otherwise!

  Now, our latest issue is……….

Markers.

  I hide them, he somehow finds them.  I hide them again, higher.  He finds them again, using a kitchen chair to do his job.  Hopefully they are all so high he can’t reach them (I barely can) and this will stop.  OF COURSE, I didn’t think to take a photo of my “decorated” walls, doors, couch and carpet before I scrubbed them, but here is how he looked afterwards:

(When he first came to me, I was very concerned that he was bleeding. This quickly turned to exasperation, as I realized he had found yet another marker!) 

Oh my gracious sakes! Who drew marker all over the walls?

Ok, ok, you are right.  It was me.  {sigh}

  I decorated my sock, too!  See?

What do you mean that is a “No no”?

This is some of my BEST work!

You aren’t going to tell Daddy about this, right?!

You ARE????????

Sorry about the mess, Momma.

Even though I am naughty, you think I’m pretty cute, don’t cha!?”

Come on, you know you do……

I sure love you, Momma!  I will be a good boy now.

Sweet baby Tank, what would my life be without you and your siblings?  I love that each and every one of you are different and special in your own way!

  God is good and life with kids is great, so we’ll just smile and roll with it!  🙂

~T 

Basement Birthday, MCC & Ree Makes 3: Part II

 This is continued from Post I.  Live Writer seemed to think I had TOO many photos for just one post.  {It’s true}

I got to go meet the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond on Thursday! I couldn’t share it with you all Friday, because of Weekend Potluck, so I bumped it to today! Thus, the MEGA full post! I went with my best friend, Kasey and of course, I took my camera to photograph the whole thing. 🙂

My notebooks of Tasty Kitchen print-offs ready to be signed….

“We are going to meet PIONEER WOMAN!!!!” {Squeeeeeeeeeeee!}

Crazy Driver, oops! I meant, The Driver.

  I don’t know HOW we got lost and had to drive all over creation to find the theatre. I mean, I gave SUCH good instructions. I am pretty sure Kasey has laughed until she has cried several times over my notes. Well, I thought I listened to Dale VERY Carefully. I don’t drive in Wichita and apparently that makes a difference in the kind of notes you take?!?!?!?!?

Despite some squealing tires and hair pin turns, we still made it on time (with ONE MINUTE TO SPARE) to get seats at the back of the theatre. Good thing we had great tickets, numbers 203-204.

 

Ticket numbers 500 and up, had to stand outside in a line around the building. Highest ticket number we heard?

1500!!!!!!

After an hour of waiting, she came on stage!

Ree Drummond!!!!!

  She gave the CUTEST slide show presentation about her life and start of her blog. This presentation included ugly food photos, cowboy butts, photos of her babies and of course, Charlie. The Charlie portion including a lovely song. She seriously had us cracking up!!!!!

They had her come sit at a desk right in front of where we were seated and began to call ticket numbers, starting 1-25.

Cowboy Josh was there, and quite a hit with the ladies.

We waited another 2 hours until they called our ticket numbers. Can you imagine how long number 1500 waited?!?!?!?!

Then, the big moment…..IT WAS OUR TURN! The ladies that worked up there almost didn’t let me go through! Saying TWICE, that they were just SURE I had already been through once. One even checked my books out to be sure they weren’t signed. {I think they thought I was you, Jamie Wyatt!} 🙂

Once I got through the Bookstore Body Guards, our 30 seconds sure went fast, and I am not sure I can remember what all was said. Honestly, the only thing I can remember was teasing her that her cheeks must hurt from smiling so much, so we all massaged our faces a bit before this mini photo session. Poor thing was soo sweet, but you could tell she was exhausted! And still had ticket numbers 250-1500 to go!

Thanks to a HUGE surprise from Kasey’s sweet Momma, Pam, I had a REAL cookbook for Ree to sign in addition to my two “homemade” ones. {Squeee!!!!}

We headed to Newport Grill for supper at 9, exhausted but thrilled with our fun “Mom’s Night Out”. The first one in a long time with no nursing babies waiting for us at home!

ROCK SHRIMP CIGARS melted leeks, pineapple, fresno chili

BABY ARUGULA SALAD: shaved fennel, celery, Belgian endive, pomegranate, goat cheese, apple, sherry vinaigrette

Served with Artisan Bread with sweet salted butter

Smoked potato “tater tots”

The waiter made Kasey do a blind taste test. Hysterical! {She nailed it!}

HAWAIIAN AHI TUNA hazelnut brown butter, crispy brussels sprouts, quinoa & tart cherries

It was SO GOOD!

Dessert with Banana Bread Pudding with caramel and ice cream. But alas, I was too busy eating and did not get a shot! 🙂

We started driving home at 10, full and yawning, no longer used to being out so late! Does that mean we are getting old, or does that mean we have 7 young children between us?

Let’s go with the second option…..

Welp, that’s all folks. Thanks for letting me share ALLLL my photos with you! 🙂

Happy Monday,

~T