Elizabeth Smillie

These were some of the flowers that grew in my porch pots last year. It was so nice to have a bit of color growing, something fresh and pretty (and free).
This year it seems that the flower seeds – or my flower pots – are on strike. I am having such a hard time getting anything to grow! I plant the seeds, they pop up, and then wither away (yes, I do water them, and no, not too much).
It’s almost as if something is killing all of them ………. or they decide to give up once they realize that they will have to grow on a shaded balcony. *sigh*.
And I had so wanted to have a few flowers to cut for the table this year.

“Trees” by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree …

I found the link to the recipe for these on OnePrettyThing, a blog that compiles bunches of crafting/decorating ideas from all sorts of other blogs each day. It’s a fun place to go every now and then, and I’ve found some great ideas there!

These cupcakes are delicious. Simple to make, too. The recipe is really just a glorified cake mix, but it tastes soooooooooo good! You could also easily take your favorite chocolate cake recipe and customize it using orange juice and zest if you’d rather not use a mix.

John and I agree, though, that the best part of these is the icing. It’s a basic buttercream recipe, but the liquid is orange juice instead of milk and there is about an orange worth of zest in it. Just delicious, and not cloyingly sweet the way buttercream can sometimes be.

1 Box Chocolate Cake Mix
Replace Water with Orange Juice
1/2 Orange Zested
Follow box directions with the added and replaced ingredients. For parchment cupcake papers (for the mini cupcakes that she showed on her blog – I made regular sized cupcakes with regular papers) cut 3 1/4” squares and squish down into cupcake pan.

Icing
4 Cups Powdered Sugar
8 Tablespoons Butter, Softened
3 Tablespoons Orange Juice (add more juice if needed)
1 Orange Zested
Mix all the ingredients until smooth. Use a round piping tip to pipe the icing (I used a plastic sandwich baggy with a corner cut off). Zest an additional orange for garnish and sprinkle a little sugar on top.

If you have a chance to take a look at her blog, I recommend it! She’s a graphic designer at Hume Lake and her work is sweet and refreshing

These pictures were taken on the evening of Emma’s due date, February 20th. I spent that day and the next week wandering around the apartment, doing little things that didn’t need doing – since everything was already prepared – and waiting.

I think baby due dates are just wonderful.
Because they are a concrete date, they give a sense of expectancy and anticipation to the waiting family and friends, but can also be (and usually are) a form of divine joke. God is the One Who opens the womb in the first place, and He is also the One Who determines when that little babe is ready to meet the world. More often than not, it’s not on the “due date”!

Emma’s nap times are times when I like to enjoy a few moments of quiet.
I put her down a few minutes ago, and started to quietly do the dishes, and then heard the dog. Emma had been playing with her singing/light up toy just before she went to bed, and the dog seemed to be stuck. It played a little jingle and then all was quiet again. And then it played another. And another. And another.

So I found the kill switch and turned it off.
Who knew that a cheerful electronic voice could get to be a little, um, too much?

“And now let us welcome the New Year, full of things that have never been.”

Things such as Emma’s first steps and first birthday, meeting our new baby face-to-face, and so many more things that are still unknown.

Yes, let’s welcome it in.

stretchhhhhhhhhhh, originally uploaded by Lizi Beth.

she can just barely touch the bells when she stretches, and every now and then we hear the bells jingling and know that she is at the door again. :)