You know you live with a two year old when...

You find one of your favorite shoes filled with Cheerios. Oh the places we find Cheerios.
On another note, while we were outside today, I spotted these little toadstools in our yard...I swear these pop up over night. I love these...they help me imagine a world where elves and fairies live.

Where did all those apples go???

Why in a caramel apple pie, of course. My mom made a wonderfully rustic apple pie yesterday. It was just beautiful and tasted oh so good. What a wonderful way to celebrate the first day of Autumn.

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." ~George Eliot

Even though the weather is still a bit warm and the days are still long, I can feel autumn in my bones. It's coming. Oh, how I love autumn days.

On another note, here are some pictures of our newly painted dinning room (dark celery) and living room (orange blossom). Didn't Andy do a beautiful job?!

Autumn Apples

One thing I love about where we live is that there are community apple trees in our town. There is a tree right behind my parent's house that we have been wanting to pick all year long and yesterday, we were finally able to. My parents' neighbor came up with a apple picking tool so we could reach the apples that were high up. He took a long pole and added a coffee can with a sharp lid. You reach the pole up to where the high apples are and get it in the can then you pull the pole so the apple stem will be cut by the sharp side of the can. It was so hard to do at first, but by the end of the day I was able to get 11 apples in the can at once...yeah! We have big plans for our apples...apple pie (my friend Becky has an amazing apple pie recipe) and mini caramel apples with homemade caramel sauce. Picking apples means that Autumn is here. I can tell by the crispy cool mornings now and the leaves that are slowly starting to change.

Blake loved picking apples...she would help hold the big ol' bucked we were using to collect the apples. When I started washing the apples, I found a few apples with bite marks in them...hmmm, I wonder how those got there, Blake.




Here is beautiful web I found at a neighbor's house while we were collecting apples. Now, I am not a fan of spiders. They are creepy and crawly and where we live, they are huge! Last night, when I was painting, I saw something moving on the floor out of the corner of my eye...yep, a humongous spider. I had to call Andy to come take care of it...of course it took off before we could do anything...yuck. But this web was so beautiful in the sunlight that I had to take a picture of it.

Up to the mountains...

This weekend we were supposed to go camping. Andy and I have wanted to go camping every summer since we got married...that's five summers folks...we have missed out each summer. We had been planning on going camping with our good friends the Purvis family...we were looking at campsites near hot springs...talking about what food we should bring...when it all came down to it...we didn't end up going. Blake and I were still feeling a bit under the weather and the Purvis' had things they had to do too. We decided that we are going to plan an epic camping trip for next summer...yes, epic. Even though we didn't go camping we still has a good time. We went to the beautiful Colorado mountains. We stopped at our favorite breakfast spot...Country Road Cafe, then we went to see some of the Summit County Parade of Homes. Oktober Fest was happening in Breckenridge, so we decided to join the party. Here are some pics from the day:

What a wild and crazy weekend we had at the Dunn house...it has taken me until today to start recovering from all the mayhem.

We started doing a few little face-lifts to our house on Thursday night...we finally decided to paint (a kinda of avocado green for the dinning room and an orange for the living room), and were able to get rid of out linoleum floors. We are trying to refinance our house and decided to to a little sweat equity. Why we decided to do this a few days before Blake's birthday party I have no idea (although Andy blames me). Friday, Blake and I came down with a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cold...I was pretty worthless to help out with house projects after that. My wonderful husband worked his backside off to get the house ready for Sunday. I wish I would have taken some before and after pictures because the change is quite remarkable...we love, Love, LOVE our new changes.

On Saturday, I worked to get everything ready for the party, there was caramel and chocolate sauce to be made and tortillas to cut into abstract star shapes, fry and cover in cinnamon and sugar. Ok, yes I went a little overboard and have been spending a bit too much time on marthastewart.com (I am enrolling in a twelve step program), but the caramel sauce was the best I have ever had and oh-so-easy!
I think my brain wasn't functioning correctly (or maybe it was the cold), but on Saturday I decided that Blake needed a smocket for her party. What is a smocket? Well, it is this adorable thing that is a smock with a pocket. I got the pattern from this wonderful site. It was pretty simple to make...more of these to come.

Sunday was a mad dash to make sure the house was ready to go...but thanks to the Bauer-Martinez Guys, our good friends who came over to help out in the morning, everything was finished on time. They party was wonderful...the weather held out just long enough for everyone to make their own sundae...oh, I do love Colorado weather. Blake and I are still feeling rather crummy...we are drinking lots and lots of tea. Blake is now requesting tea at night before she goes to bed.

September 8th, 5:51AM

I asked her yesterday: "Blake, how old will you be tomorrow?"
She replied, "doo."

This time, two years ago, I was in labor but was feeling pretty good because of the wonderful gift of the epidural (yes, I believe they are from God...amazing). Blakeley still wouldn't be greeting the world for three more hours.

Blake at two minutes old and two years old.

My Mother, The Creative Soul...

My mom is such a creative soul...she loves to decorate things and reuse old items. The things she makes are amazing. She is so gifted and has finally started to sell some of her items. I would love for her to start a store with all her furniture she restores and re-functions, her sewing creations, and her art and jewelry..but this is a start. She has created an Etsy site. Etsy is this amazing site for artists and crafters to display their goods. This is a great place to get some creative inspiration or just find a gift for someone special. Here is her store front: Junk Posse

Kids, Mountains, Home Sweet Home

I know it is September 6th, but Happy September! I can feel Autumn coming and I love it. I am back to wearing my comfy jeans and soon I can break out the clogs and the soup recipes. Summer has been wonderful, but I am looking forward to cooler and shorter days. We have been so busy lately, but good busy.
The last week (well, from Aug. 28th through September4th), we were up staying with the Sand Cherry kids. Their parents went to NY for a child-less vacation. We had a blast but were oh so busy with seven kids (including Blake). Thankfully, the kids were in school during the day. I love these kids, and they were great, but I don't think I could handle seven children all the time! Whew! I taught some of the girls how to sew and they kept busy at night making purses and coasters for their nightstand. I made my first softie for Blake...sadly, Madam Platypus isn't blog worthy...maybe the next one will be suitable enough to make an appearance.
On Saturday, we dragged the whole gang up Mount Evans. This was the last weekend the road to the summit would be open. We drove to the top and walked the last bit to the top.

Blake rode to the top in the backpack via Daddy, but she was just as happy to get to the top.

Yeah Blake...this is your first 14-er!

We are so thrilled to be home. I realized how much I love where I live and our little house in the sticks. I love being able to hear the frogs and crickets at night ans actually see the stars. I also love the quiet of our house. There are big plans for our house in the coming weeks. We are hoping to give it a bit of a makeover. Now, we are busy getting the house ready for Blake's second birthday.