199 posts tagged “family”
This weekend my best friend Veronique took our family photo's and they are stunning! She is an amazing photographer and I have been abundantly blessed to have her as my friend. We spent the late afternoon taking photo's in her orchard, filled with old farm houses and beautiful trees. I am so happy we were able to take some maternity photo's as well, Veronique has an amazing talent to bring out the beauty in everything. And made me feel beautiful as well, which is hard this days. After our photo shoot, we enjoyed dinner with Veronique and her family. It was a great way to spend a Saturday night! I loved every minute of my time there, and only wish we did this more often! I love each and every photo and i hope you enjoy them as well. If you are interested in Veronique's work check out her website: www.streetpoet.org.
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Psalm 127: 3-5
Today my mother in law and sisters threw me a beautiful baby shower to celebrate the up coming arrival of Eli Daniel Milner. It was wonderful to be around so many of the women i love and adore. There was great food from tea sandwiches, homemade scones, cookies and a beautiful cake. Everyone had a great time playing games and getting to chat. Sienna loved being included in all the fun and felt very much the big sister all day.
It has been a tradition for many years that i help my nieces get ready for Halloween. I love dressing up and doing hair and make-up so it's a great excuses to have the girls over and play! This year Kaitlin was Lucille Ball and Sarah was a Candy Corn Person. We had fun with colored hair spray and make up. Sienna loved having her big cousins over and being apart of all the dress up fun. Sienna was a beautiful pink Ballerina and i curled her hair as well. Sienna also loved getting to have a little bit of make up on, all three girls had a ball getting ready for a fun evening of trick or treating. Before evening fell i had three very pretty and dressed up girls all ready for some Halloween fun.
This is the first time i've ever carved pumpkins on Halloween. We have just been so busy this past week, there was never time. But with Halloween being on a Saturday it was something fun today in the afternoon before trick or treating. Daniel and i really enjoy the art of carving pumpkins and get really into making new and differnt designs each year, you will rarely see a regular old jack o lantern at our house. This year we each carved one pumpkin and then we did one together.
We had a great time eating monkey much and carving up some pumpkins. I hope you had a great Halloween afternoon!
Monkey Munch Recipe:
Ingredients
- 9 cups Chex cereal (any kind)
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted (6oz.)
- 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter, melted
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1-2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- Measure cereal in large bowl.
- Set aside.
- Microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter for 1 minute on high.
- Stir.
- Cook for 30 seconds longer or until smooth.
- Add vanilla.
- Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until coated.
- Pour mixture into large Ziploc bag or paper bag and add powdered sugar.
- Shake until well coated.
- Spread on waxed paper to cool.
- Store in Ziploc bags or large sealed bowl.
- Recipe Note: It helps to add cereal mixture a little at a time if you only have small bags.
Today Gary and Lora drove all the way from Idyllwild to spend the day with us to celebrate my birthday. I felt so loved and special that they would drive three hours just to be with us today! We met up at the Skriball Cultural Center to have lunch and play in their Noah's Ark exhibit.
Sienna had an amazing time play, climbing and discovering everything on the Ark. I love that kids can touch and play with everything. We spent hours just exploring all the fun stuff you can do in the Ark. From making lighting to helping clean up after the animals. I think Sienna's favorite thing to do there was play with all the animal puppets. She just loved the whole thing. After playing all afternoon in the Ark, Sienna got to be a archeologist, and dig for pottery. She loved playing in the sand and finding treasure. It was a fun way to end our time at the museum.
Tonight the whole Milner clan went to Santa Monica Pier to celebrate Rissa's and I's Birthday's. I am blessed to share my birthday with my mother in law. So it was wonderful getting to celebrate together. We enjoyed a delicious dinner on the Pier and enjoyed watching the ocean while we ate. After dinner we walked the Pier and enjoyed spending time together as a family. Happy Birthday Mom! I hope you had a great evening.
Today our family celebrated my nephew Josh's 2nd Birthday. My sister Cristal and her husband just moved into a new, bigger house and it was fun getting to have a big party to break it in. One of the great perks of their new home, is a BIG back yard. We all enjoyed sitting out in the beautiful day and the kids loved playing in the bouncer. It is a great place to have party's and if you knew my sister, they love to throw party's.
I got to decorate Josh's birthday cake, which was so much fun. I made his cake last year and now it's turning into a family tradition. I have also made cakes for my nieces as well. It's super fun to do something special for each of them and give them a cake that no one else is going to have. Joshy loves the movie "Cars" so his whole party was based on the movie, even the cake. Cristal found the prefect size cars for the top of the cake, I just needed to make it look like a race track, pretty easy compared to the Mickey Mouse cake i made last year. Well he loved it and so did everyone else.
Sienna picking a Ballerina worked out great because we already had a lot of the pieces in her dress up clothes. However i decided to dazzle them up so they were special for her. What you will need to make this costume:
Ballerina Costume:
Leotard
Tutu
Tights
Slippers
ribbon that matches slippers
rhinestones
Fabric Glue
Scissors
thread that matches slippers and Leotard
pins
and sewing nettles
I glues rhinestones all over the tutu and on the neck and cuffs of the leotard. I hand sewed ribbon to the slippers and glued more rhinestones to them as well. It took me about two hours to finish and Sienna loves it. She just couldn't wait to put it on. The only thing left for me to do is sew the tutu onto the leotard, the tutu is a little too big on Sienna and keeps slipping off. So i just need to add a few stitches to secure it in place. So if you have a little girl who wants to be a pretty ballerina, you may be surprised how much stuff you already have. I only had to by the rhinestones, glue and slippers. I had everything else! Easy and cheap. Hope you have fun putting your special touches on your childrens Halloween costumes!
Tonight we enjoyed having the McSwain Family over for dinner and some caramel apple making! I just love fall! Dan McSwain is the youth pastor at our church and we love working with him in High School Ministries. He has an amazing wife that I have so loved getting to know and love. They have two beautiful little girls that Sienna loves to play with. We met last April and hit it off right away. It has been such a blessing to know them. They have been there for us through some tough times over this past summer and we thank God for giving them to us. Their support and friendship has changed our lives.
After we enjoyed a yummy dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, we got to work on the apples. I made a caramel sauce and got a bunch of fun toppings to put on them. The kids loved it and us big kids loved it too. It was a prefect way to spend a rainy fall evening. Thank you Dan and Kristin for loving us and being our friends. We look forward to many many nights like this.
