And The Cottage Charm Giveaway Winner Is...

It's time to announce the winner of my Cottage Charm giveaway.

Thanks again to Kim from The Twice Remembered Cottage for hosting this fun event!

Just to refresh, here is what the lucky winner will receive...

Ok, so I decided I'd ask my 5 year old to choose a number between 1 and 48, I figured she would make a pretty random pick. Well, she was so excited to pick a number... but the number she chose was 68! hehe Needless to say, that didn't work so well, so I went to find my hubby out in the shop, I knew he could help me. I asked him to write down his number and told him I needed to take his picture to authorize his pick, but he declined. :o)

He did agree to let me take a picture of his written number though.

And that number was....

The 42nd comment was left by Gayla from Oatmeal and Whimsy .

Gayla you're the winner!

Congratulations!!!!

Thanks to everyone else for leaving such nice comments! I appreciated each one.

Cottage Charm Giveaway

Whoo hoo! It's time for another giveaway!!

Kim from The Twice Remembered Cottage is hosting her 2nd Annual Cottage Charm Giveaway.

I thought it'd be fun to join in so I put together a few vintage baby themed goodies.

The winner will receive: "Emerson" the mohair duck, a vintage vinyl Effanbee cute baby head, an old cabinet photo of a baby, vintage metal flower frog, 2 different size Napco baby shoe planters, and an old pink child's hanky with ducks on it.

All you have to do is leave one comment on this post and you'll be entered to win. Please leave a way for me to contact you too. I'll accept comments until Saturday, May 31st 3pm (Pacific Standard Time).

The winner will be announced that evening!

Be sure to click on the above link to view the giveaways from all participants. Lots of wonderful gifts are in store for the lucky winners.

Island Finds

Last weekend while we were up at my parents cabin, my sister-in-law, mom and I managed to sneek away from the beach for a bit, and do some shopping. We hit a few garage sales, an antique show, and a thrift store.

Every Memorial Day weekend a cute little antique show takes place at the local fairgrounds. The show is in the main barn and there's lots of cottage goodies to be found!

I took this picture from the main stage. Behind me there were more vendors. It's not a big show, probably 40 vendors or so.
The lady who has this space always has fun things! She had some wonderful barkcloth that I just loved....
Isn't the basket of petunias pretty in this birdbath? I thought so.

Here's a peek at what I found Saturday. I bought the German plate and Josef figurines at a garage sale. The Mobley lamb and the vintage rayon seam binding I found at the the thrift store. The old photos and the French beaded purse I purchased at the antique show. As much as I love Josef Originals figurines, I decided I just couldn't keep 'em, so I've listed them here.

Oh, and I have to share my favorite things of the day.

Even though my birthday isn't until August, I got a birthday present Saturday, from my Mom! This is it, a wonderful old celluloid photo album full of photos that date from around the 1860's.

Each photo is so beautiful. I love the babies in their christening gowns...

Here is a funeral card for a woman who passed away at the young age of 20.

The album also has a few pages of tintype photos from the civil war era.

More photos of the family. It's fun to look through and see the children as they grew. I love that the album is complete. I can't help but wonder what their lives must have been like.

Thanks so much Mom! You see why I love taking her shopping with me. hehehe

Lovin' Long Weekends!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend! We spent the weekend up at my parents summer beach cabin. My parents have had this cabin since about 1974. When I was a kid we'd spend our entire summers up here. I love the beach!!

My paternal Grandpa built the cabin pictured below around 1942. My daddy spent summers here as a kid too. My dad's brother owns the cabin now.
To the right of my parents house is my Uncle Norman's cabin and then next to him is my Uncle Carl's (the one my Grandpa built) cabin. Not pictured but to the left of my parents cabin is one of my Dad's cousins. Before 1974 my parents owned the cabin Uncle Norman has now. We've all been so blessed to have this place, and to be able to always get together with our aunts, uncles, and cousins for the summers and long holiday weekends. It's so fun now to see the 3rd generation loving the beach as much as we did as kids.
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The weather was way better then expected this weekend.
Saturday, at low tide we went and played down on the tide flats for awhile.

Daphne was jumping for joy while playing on the tide flats!

Both girls love walking on the logs.

They're both great beachcombers too. We have a huge glass container that we are filling with found beach glass. They get so excited when they find a special piece to put in that jar.

Hubby loves to ride the Waverunner.

The sunrises have been specatular the last couple mornings. My nephew took the picture below from the front window. I'm thankful he did so I could enjoy the sunrise too since I was sleeping at the time...

This view is from our beach right in front of the cabin. That is Mt. Rainier in the background.

We had a fabulous weekend!

My sister-in-law, mom, and I went to a few garage sales, a thrift store, and a great antique sale this weekend too. I found a few fun things that I'll post about soon.

To The Beach To The Beach To The Beach We Go

Whoo hoo! School is out and we're off to the beach!

The girls and I are heading up to my parents summer home this afternoon and my sweet hubby will be coming up tomorrow after work. Hopefully we can beat the rush today and not have too bad of a ferry line wait....

Ahh... I just love holiday weekends!

My Daddy always makes up corny little songs. He would sing this song to me when I was little, while we were on our way up to the beach house.

It's sung to the tune of the Lone Ranger song in case you want to sing it... hehe

"to the beach, to the beach, to the beach, we go, to the beach, to the beach, to the beach, ho ho"

And yes, the girls and I now sing it on our way to the beach!

Card Holder

Last week I had some time to kill while Sydney was in school. Naturally I had to go and check out the local Goodwill... I was so happy to find this Staffordshire bone china candle holder with the applied flowers. I confess, I have a little, ok BIG obsession with bone china posies. :o)

The other thing I found was this vintage ironstone dessert plate. I thought they would be so cute together, so when I got home I used some epoxy and stuck them together.
Now I have a wonderful holder to display my Victorian calling cards.

It really made a cute pedestal dish and for a total of $4, how can you not love that!?

Finally...Some Color!

It's starting to finally feel like spring has arrived around here. We have had gorgeous weather for the last 5 days or so. I decided I better try and capture some photos of what's blooming in our yard before it's gone... We have lots and lots of very mature Rhododendrons on our property. I love this time of the year when most of them are in full bloom! This particular hot pink variety is one of my favs.

I love the deep coral color and the smaller blooms on this one.
My second favorite of all, is this light pink one. The flowers open up really big and kind of remind me of Hibiscus flowers.
Since we had record heat over the weekend, the shrubs aren't keeping their blooms for long. All the bumble bees are buzzing around like crazy though.

Pink is by far my favorite color, but I love this red!

The snowballs are getting close to turning bright white.

Isn't this pink Dogwood gorgeous?

And the lilac trees are smelling so sweet too.

I planted my first small vegetable garden this year. I'm excited to see how it does. So far I think I'm doing ok.

Our resident Robin has even laid some eggs. Can you see her in her nest?

Dexter is so happy to be able to be outside again.

All he wants to do is play ball. I toss it to him and he tosses it right back to me. This goes on and on and on... Isn't he so cute!? I bet you just wanna kiss him. Oh, he loves kisses!

We've been loving going outside and not actually having to wear a sweater or jacket - whoo hoo! Yea, it finally feels like spring in the Pacific Northwest!

All In A Day's Work

I think we chose the hottest day of the year (today) to go get firewood....

My brother (well mostly my sister-in-law) is building a cabin on 5 acres in Eastern Washington. We are very fortunate that they share their downed trees with us for firewood.

6 cords of wood was cut and stacked today. Here they're loading the 3rd trailer of the day.

Daphne helped stack wood for a little while, then decided she much rather sit in the truck and eat Chex Mix...

Lumber Jack, oops I mean Grizzly Adams aka my brother cutting some lodge pole pine into rounds. It was such a gorgeous day. I love the smell of Ponderosa pine trees. Eastern Washington is such a beautiful place!
My brother's brother-in-law was here to help too.
The whole work crew posing including my parents, hubby, brother, and nephew. Daphne asked her daddy why he "put water" all over his face... I don't think she's ever seen him sweat like he did today. hehe

Sydney was busy running up and down the driveway, riding on the quad runner, and riding in the skidsteer most of the day.

15 minutes into the 2 hour drive home both girls conked out.

We were all in desperate need of a bath!

Moving Up...

Sydney's preschool years have come to an end and she's moving on up to kindergarten...

We went to the end of year open house last night. She was so excited to show us her art projects from her recent study of marine life.

She was so thrilled that both sets of her Grandparents were able to come and see her projects too. Grandpa and Grandma L are in the background and Grandpa and Grandma S are at the table with Daphne and Sydney. We're so thankful for the love and support our parents are to our girls. Sydney and Daphne have the best Grandparents ever!!
Ms. Crys and Ms. Cindy were Sydney's teachers this year. They are the sweestest ladies ever.

The preschool is in our church which I have been attending since I was 3 years old. I even went here to preschool way back in 1974. My mom was a teacher assistant at the preschool for many many years. This preschool is such a wonderful ministry of our church.

Now, Daphne is so excited that she gets to start preschool next year!