Flashcards for Baby

Country Living

I've been wanting to get some flashcards for Chelsea, simple things like numbers, the letters of the alphabet, colors, and some simple words. I searched but did not find anything that fit what I was looking for and that also had a low price tag. I decided to create my own flashcards and I wanted to share them with you. Now mind you, I am not graphics or design oriented (in a technical way at least) and do not have PS so I created these as Word documents. They are not the beautiful flashcards I envisioned in my head but they will do. I also figured a 6 month old needs simplicity and not a lot of extra design and do-dads.



I cannot figure out an appropriate way to attach a Word document or get a screen grab - I feel like I should be a bit more up on technology for a 31 year-old but it is what it is! I used Google Docs to create these links and some of the font sizing and formatting was lost (for example, the font size doesn't go above 36 in Google Docs). If you know of a better way, please leave me a comment. For now I am linking to the documents below.



Alphabet and Words Flashcards



Update: I only linked to the Alphabet Flashcards. The formatting is very off for the numbers and colors flashcards docs. If you are interested in these documents, I can e-mail them to you directly.



I also found this free download for numbers 1 - 4. Much nicer than mine!

Farewell Summer

Some last beautiful blues of summer. Time to bring on the fall oranges, browns, and yellows.

P.S. I have no idea why Blogger is putting in white space around these photos!

Cookie Dough Brownies

I saw these brownies on Bakerella and knew I wanted to try them. Mind you my photos are no were near as nice as hers but I wanted to show you the results.

The fabulous thing about these yummy little morsels is that they are made with boxed and bagged mixes making the process that much faster. Perfect for me as I search for fast things I can cook and bake during nap time or within the short attention span of an almost 6 month old amusing herself near by.

The recipe can be found on Bakerella's site and also on the back of the Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough package. The recipe calls for a frosting topping or you can use Bakerella's ganache. The first time I made these I didn't have the frosting or ganache ingredients so they went (gasp!) naked but were still quite a hit. The second time I whipped these up I used the ganache and it definitely kicked them up quite a yummy notch.

Enjoy!

Remembering 9/11/01

U.S. Air Force photo

A Day at the Orchard

This weekend we decided to take Chelsea and Jeff's niece Juli to a local orchard. We had a great day picking peaches, feeding ducks, and just spending time together.

The orchard is beautiful. Acres and acres and acres of fruit trees. You can pick apples, peaches, raspberries, and squash flowers (I LOVE these tasty buds fried with a bit of egg and bread crumbs, yum!).

Though it ended up being quite a warm day, Chelsea did great. She didn't cry or fuss at all and was happily smiling and watching all of the activity around her. She is getting to an age where I feel a lot more comfortable bringing her out and about. First time mom, what else can I say?

The clouds were so beautiful. It made me slightly mournful for the inevitable end of the beautiful weather but we still have a few good months before winter sets in. Let's enjoy them!

So I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately. I so want to be able to change the look and post more often and work on all of the creative projects that are floating around my head but alas, that is not my life right now. My days are mostly filled with Chelsea and work. Working outside the home all day makes the time with Chelsea all that much more precious and I don't want to miss these precious baby months. All this to say, my blog is taking a turn towards things that occupy my day to day life and weekends and won't be focused solely on my creative endeavors. I guess that has been pretty obvious over the last few posts but I wanted to make it official. Now, I just have to get around to attempting to play with my blog template to reflect some of these changes. Something tells me that might take a while! I do want to send a big shout out to Monica. I asked her how she made her column headers and she very generously offered to make me some. I'm quite liking them!

Another thing I think I can make some time for is Natasha's fabulous party - It's All About Me. She is giving us a very generous 6 weeks lead time so I think I can come up with some time! This party is truly unique and a wonderful idea. Check out her blog for more info or click on the icon to the left.