Happy Birthday to the Ricks Family

August 15, this Wednesday we will be celebrating one year as a family. WOW...it has flown by. It's so crazy to believe just a year ago we had no children. Laying in bed praying for the Lord to bless us. And here we are wrapping up our first year together. God is so good.

It honor of our family birthday I have some pictures of our first weekend together. And a few from recently so you can see how much things have changed.

THEN:

Renee the first night we met her.

Wesley the first night we met him.

Jon the first night we met him.

This was the first weekend they were in our home.

We had a campout in the living room in case they were scared.

Jon playing with his new dog "The Big One". We have 2 dogs, Lucy and Layla, they look a lot alike so the kids have problems with who is who. So they call Lucy "The Big One" and Layla "The Lil' One"

Renee playing doctor and looking in Papa Santa's ears.

Daddy and Renee.

The boys sitting on their new bunk beds. Playing with all the great stuff everyone got them.

Waiting to go outside and play in the water. Lucy and Layla waiting too.

First Sunday morning. Dressed and ready for what will begin a whole new life.

Our first Sunday lunch around the table.

NOW:

Making banana chips. Good thing we got to eat some before they were done because when they were finished they were gross. We will stick to fresh bananas. :)

Our family. 

I would like to take this time and tell everyone who has helped out in so many ways thank you. There is no way to ever pay you back for all the special things that you have done. All the many prayers. All the things that have been donated to us. We did not know what to expect as we embarked this new life together but we knew we had an army behind us. Thank you for all that you have done and still continue to do. May your prayers still be with us. :)

The last 6 photos were taken by Lyndsay at pinkcoffeephoto.com. If you ever need pictures taken she rocks. Plus she is really fun to hang out with. :) Thanks Lyndsay for the pics. We love them.

 I love to hear your comments. So post and let me know what you are thinking. :)

Introducing...Jose and Arianna

I recently did photography for a wedding. Here is the sneak peek of the happy couple.

If you would like to see the image bigger. Click on the image.

Feel free to use these images, just please follow these requests.

1.) Do not crop my logo out of the images.
2.) Do not crop or alter the photo in any way.

Gardening 101

Mike and I have tried to have a garden 2 summers/falls in a row and have had no success. We either go out of town for 2 weeks and forget to water them, or just didn't remember. So I had the brilliant idea to grow a garden for the 3rd year. :) My excuse "This will be different"..."We can use it to teach in homeschool"..."The kids will love to help." So here we are trying again.

We have the perfect location for it. Right outside of the homeschool/play room is a planters box that goes the entire length of the room. It was full of some kind of fern thing that we had to pull up. So last Friday we spent about 2 hours...or more...pulling all that up and trying to get all the roots out. Saturday morning we woke up and went to the store to get some top soil and seeds. We came home, ate lunch, and started planting. After a day of gardening the kids decided to have a little fun with the wheelbarrow. 

By the way I don't think we will have a chance to forget to water it. Everyday the kids ask to go and look at it to see if anything has changed. :)

Pulling roots

End of Day 1!

I went ahead and placed the bags where they should go. Then ripped them open. I let them pour the soil out. They did it as fast as they could and would run to the next one.

I think Renee worked on this one the entire time. :)

We have planted: Red, Green, and Yellow Bell Pepper. Beefsteak and Roma Tomatoes. Iceberg Lettuce. Cucumber. Carrots. Onion. Broccoli. Summer Squash. Cantaloupe. Pumpkin.

We planted the pumpkin in time for Halloween. YAY!

Do you have a garden? What works for you? What doesn't? Anything I should know? Leave a comment.

We made shirts

I am a huge fan of pinterest.  I have to stop myself from getting to addicted to it. :) If you do not know what pinterest is I am sorry for you and you need intervention.

The other day I found these cute little onesies that had designs on them. So I pinned it to make with the kids. Of course we would not make onesies :) so we made shirts.

The only problem with the blog, it wasn't very good about giving step by steps. So here is how we did it. Yes pictures are a must.

1. Take your stickers off of your shirt.

2. Pick out your design

 - Jon and Wesley wanted to do a tie. Renee wanted to do a caterpillar.

3. Cut your fabric larger than you design.

 - We laid the tie out and cut around it. For the catepiller we laid a piece of tupperware out and cut larger than it.

4. Cut your Heat-n-Bond a little smaller than your fabric.

This is what the package looks like. It was $2.99 at the craft store. 

Make sure to use your coupons to get it even cheaper. :)

5. Place the fabric face down (so that you are looking at the ugly side of the fabric) then place the rough side of the Heat-n-Bond down (so that you are looking at the white side of the heat n bond). Iron on medium heat with no steam for about 4 seconds.

 - Same picture as above.

6. Let cool for a couple of seconds.

7. Draw out your design on the white of your Heat-n-Bond.

8. Cut out your design.

9. Peel the white back off the of Heat-n-Bond.

10. Place your design in the perfect location on the shirt and iron. (Again on medium heat with no steam) for about 10 seconds.

11. For Jon's I took so of the embroidery floss (thread) and halved the thickness. (I used about 3-4 strands). Then went around his tie. It just made it stand out and look a little more complete. *This step is totally optional.

11. Wear it proud.  :)

Renee's shirt was a little big so we tucked it in. I also had some 

scrap ribbon that I cut and tied around the sleeves.