To all my friends-

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cakes. Crafts. and Creativity

 I made this Coffee cake tonight, and had a blast decorating it. (decorating it is the best part....other than licking the spoon at the end. ;p) I admit, it doesn't look that cool, or creative. I would love to do a huge Celtic design on the top with chocolate sometime. I think that is what I'm better at. :)

 Making the chocolate leaves and chocolate covered espresso beans was extremely fun and easy. I normally do this with white chocolate, because the lines on the leaves show up better, but I thought dark brown would look best on this cake. Don't you think?

 The swirly things on the sides are lame. I wish I could have have done something better than this, but it's good for now. :) (can't beat myself down too hard you know! ;p)

 Yarn, needles, and colors have been my best friend for these past few nights. I don't really get time in the day to just sit down an crochet so I do this sort of thing at night. On the bookshelf there is my latest creation. It is a lacy slouch hat I came up with. Now, for some reason, I simply CANNOT follow a single pattern for anything. So all my crocheting life, I have made up every single one on my own. It is so much fun! The only problem is- since I cannot read a pattern, I cannot write one either. Bummer, I know. So one of these days I'll just have to figure out how to do it, hu?

 COLORS!!! I have absolutely fallen in love with bright, different colors. I don't like the red in the middle, but since the Christmas Bazaar is coming up, my mother said that people will be liking that color....so, reluctantly, I bought it. (My mother actually bought most of my yarn. She is so incredibly generous and kind to me!!)
But don't you love the blue, and purple?

 *sigh* This is the long list of items I need to make for the Christmas bazaar. Slowly and surely I am making my way to the bottom of the list.

 This is a blue lacy hat I made last week. It took me around an hour and a half to make. Super easy, fast, and cute. -the way I like it. :-)

 These are some of my hand-warmers. I tried to make the green ones look knitted. Do you think it worked? I don't really look at a ton of knitted stuff closely, so I really don't know! The blue ones are children size, and lacy...to match the hat.

 *ug* One looks bigger than the other one! It's not, really. It's just that I didn't stretch out the one I JUST finished, like I did with it's mate. But, anyways- Do you like them? Does the green strap look dumb? This is the first pattern I've made up with the strap, so I'm still working out all the kinks. I also made the buttons that are on it. (explained farther down.)

 Crafts!

  I also made these flower hair pins. Cute?

 More flower hair pins, and a thank you card.

PENNY BUTTONS-

Okay, so I completely stumbled across this weird idea on accident! I made the green strap hand-warmers and I needed a cute button to go on top. Problem. First-buttons are way to expensive for comfort. Two- I didn't have any.
What I DID have was fabric that matched the hand-warmers. So I tried to brainstorm for some ideas, when...My eyes drifted to my change coconut. (located on my desk) I grabbed a penny, which I had in the plenty, and I hot glued the fabric onto it, and then I hot glued a small square of fabric onto the back. (for sewing.) Wa-la! A fabric covered penny, replacing buttons I never have! I also think that these would be cute on bobby pins, or head bands. Maybe use quarters if you want bigger ones or something.

 Keepin' it real. Being a craft-gal means that there will always be messes. Most gals don't want to show their messes, but the one over here....knows it's life, and keeps it real. ;-)

 Cards.
I just made this card tonight. It's kind of like a flower...but just weird. I love the clash of color, and the rustic look.

And...my favorite card of all. It's simple, and cute. The circles and the big "U" are all hand painted in metallic paint.
Well, that's all for now. Sorry for the shortage in posts lately. As you could probably tell from this post...I've been busy!
God bless you all,
JessicaCynthia

Marcus' 11th birthday

 My little brother just turned 11 today. My how time flies by...Pretty soon he'll be a whole lot taller, and stronger than me, and he'll make sure I know it too. ;p 
We went to OMSI for his birthday. (My .a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Grandmother bought us all a membership there! -yay!)
We all had an absolute blast trying things out, and looking at interesting things.

 Marcus also got a touch remote controlled F350 Ford truck. Ohhh, ya. It is pretty expensive, but SUPER cool! (yes...I tried it. *smile*)

 -Love Nick's face when he saw the truck in action!

 At OMSI-
Jacob tried out their space rocket and how you would feel if you went in a real one. Upside down.

 Seeing Levi in there reminds me of the movie, "Astronaut Farmer." -Great movie! If you haven't seen it I would strongly recommend it!

 <3 cute kiddos <3

 Levi was the best at almost anything there.

 Yes. This photo is extremely blurry. Why? Because I wasn't behind it. :)

 ....She was.

 We all had fun building an arch out of blocks. It was actually pretty cool.
(photo credit-mother)

 Nothing can beat a handsome John Deere farm boy! *melting heart*

 Papa and his littlest boy  played around in the tree cave.  It was so cute!

Well, that ends our full and eventful day!
And, to Marcus-

Happy birthday!

FREE

My family doesn't have any place to put this painted canvas we made when we had the Cascade Arts Business. It still has the tag on it, and we were just going to throw it away. So, if any of you want it, I'll bring it to you on Sunday or something. If not, I'll put it in the garbage. Thanks.

Fall Leaf

I loved the twisted look of this leaf, and just thought I'd share! Having a fun Autumn?

Farm l.i.f.e.

 What's new around the Koch farm? Well, first off, and one of my favorites, we got three little piggies! -yay! They are the cutest little things you ever did see. Stinky, but cute. <3

We also had a Rabbit who gave birth to five little bunnies. She ate two of them because she didn't want to take care of that many. (I know! Can you even imagine such a horrendous thing as that? *gasp*)  But, the ones who were left alive, are as cute as anything else. Soft, too.

My siblings, Papa, and I did electric fencing today. You should have seen my hands! They were/are stained completely black, and are covered in callous. -the signs of a working gal. :) I love the farm life though. You have such a feeling of "belonging" when you are working on the farm. Can any of you relate?

My Papa is doing better now. The Lord be praised! Of course it is still painful, and he is not completely better, but he's getting there. Thank you all for your prayers.

Well, that's been life for us as of late. It is a blessed life.

Sibling time ;)

 Spending time with your siblings is very important in my mind. I took time to play around with my adorable little brother, Levi. We had such a blast making funny faces, laughing at them, and making more! I also had fun painting his face with "war paint" used by the...."Indian savages." (Oooooohhhh)

 Look at that mighty Viking in war paint.

 In this photo he was supposed to have a scary look in his face, and I was supposed to be frightened....but that plan did not work out too well. *smile*

 I love my brother! <3

 Okay, this is one of the most embarrassing photos we took, but Levi absolutely LOVED the way you could see down his throat and begged me to put it on my blog. (you know how boys are...) He laughed, and laughed, and laughed about it so hard that I couldn't resist. -He is such a boy.

Awww, doesn't he look SO sweet?!?!? His big blue eyes looking strait into you with the sweetest smile that could just melt your heart down to nothing. Oh, Lord, thank you for blessing me with such an adorable brother.