The Joy of Creativity!

Creativity… 

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.  

No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. The bounds of creativity extend far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen, or the keys of a piano. Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.

Everyone can create. 

You don't need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty. .

What you create doesn't have to be perfect. . .   

Don't let the voices of critics paralyze you—whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside.

If you still feel incapable of creating, start small. Try to see how many smiles you can create, write a letter of appreciation, learn a new skill, identify a space and beautify it."  
(Dieter F. Uchtdorf)

I was not raised in a creative home…
 my mom took her sewing to the sewing lady and if she needed an idea for a handout, she paid someone to help her do it. She didn’t have a lot of confidence to branch out and TRY anything new!
(sad to say she still doesn't) 

It makes me sad to think about how she was
and I wish she would have had this quote from President Uchtdorf, to inspire her to have a YES, I can attitude!    
I still remember being a teenager and hating to see her spending her hard earned money to have someone make something for her and then telling her “Let me try and help you with making a cute handout for the girls in your Young Women’s class”.
I remember feeling so much JOY as I created something awesome.   

There is nothing that brings more satisfaction than to look back and at something and say to yourself 
“WOW, I made that, 
I created that with my own two hands”! 

What a blessing the blogging world has been in my life 
because it has been such a FUN creative outlet for me.

I married into a family FULL of creativity and I myself, have always felt a little inadequate…
I can’t draw or doodle and I definitely have the world's worst handwriting, I can’t look at a photo and paint a wall in zebra stripes, I can’t sew, I don’t throw amazing out of this world parties that have every detail PERFECT, I can’t play the piano by ear and the list goes on.

However, 
I have always had a yearning and desire 
to be as creative as I can…
 I love to make homemade cards, I love to wrap a gift in a fun, creative way,  
I love to make my home “festive” for the holidays,  
I can bake and cook and be creative in the kitchen, 
I can be creative with the way I take photos and present them,  
I can be creative in the way I plant and grow things in my yard and garden AND, 
I can always bring a SMILE to a friend or strangers each time I meet them.

It’s funny how the desire to create is in us and how when life gets hectic and crazy and you don’t have time to create, how there is a truly a VOID in your life. 
That has been the case this past few months…non-stop dealing with all of the curve balls that life throws at you.  I have missed being creative and I can’t tell you how much JOY it brought to my life to finally have a few moments to pull up my boxes and decorate my entry shelf for fall. I had yet another moment of FUN, when we pulled out all of the Halloween decorations.
Ethan was SO excited as he pulled each little thing out of the box and talked about the memories he had of the decorations.
He was thrilled when he saw it all creatively put together!

Creativity really is just seeing a pile of various objects 
and bringing them together.
Such was the case with my latest creative endeavor.

Tracy has been obsessed with Pinterest
and all of the wonderful “eye candy” there is to enjoy there.
I have seen so many cool centerpieces
that have used various treats of the season to fill their jars with.

 I got looking at the branches from the Memory Lane Tree
from our anniversary celebration and thought it would be fun
to fill a glass jar with candy corn,
fill the vase with the branches that I had painted black
and then to hang photos from Halloween Past all over it.

Sure enough, it all came together great…
even BETTER than I had thought it would and this 
FUN thing is what is now gracing our dinner table for the next month.

SO, fun, 
SO easy 
and something that ANYONE  
could put together!!

Feel the JOY that comes from taking a pile of random things and  
C-R-E-A-T-I-N-G 
 something wonderful and beautiful to display and enjoy in your home,
office or wherever else you would like.

 Happy Weekend...
Whatever it is you are doing, have fun creating something wonderful today!

Have the courage to follow your heart & intuition...

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."

From Steve Jobs 2005 Commencement Speech to Stanford University,about a year after being diagnosed with Cancer:  (here)

What a sad day to lose such an amazing visionary and innovator...

he died way too young!

Steve Jobs...what an awesome man, who truly had the courage to follow his heart and his passions.

 I was SO touched by the quote above that he gave as a Commencement Speech, shortly after finding out he had cancer.

I want to live the powerful words that he spoke 

so I can be the BEST Kimmie I can be and to live my life for ME, not how others think I should live my life; 

and that takes courage!

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. 

Everything else is secondary."

PS...Thanks Steve Jobs for inspiring us, for providing us with "Magic" that has made the lives for people all over the the world a more wonderful place, with being able to listen to music, keep in touch, get online, etc... with all of the wonderful products you were the master-mind behind! 

iPod, iPhone, iPad, and many others.

I loved how they said you provided "magic", while other companies just provided technology. 

It has been inspiring to listen to all of the wonderful things that have been said about you these past two days. I didn't realize that you helped in the beginning stages of Pixar and that their first hit "Toy Story" was greatly because you were on board with them.

  (this is such a wonderful tribute about you here)

You are a visionary, remarkable, awesome man

that will be greatly missed! 

Thanks for giving us the tools

to help us all have the courage to

"Design our Own Life"!

The Wonderful Milestone of 50 Years!

What an amazing milestone it is 

to be able to celebrate 50 years of marriage!

In a society, where many marriages end in divorce, OR, many people that get sick and leave their spouses to death, I think it is such a wonderful accomplishment to make it to  

50 years of marriage, especially in great health! 

We had SO much fun planning a 

surprise anniversary celebration for Tracy's parents; 

while they knew that we were doing something FUN for them, they had no idea the magnitude it would be. 

The event was held at the home of Shane and McKenzie with McKenzie, Shelley, Genessa and Ashley working in the kitchen doing SO many things "behind the scenes". 

My sister-in-law Cheryl had fresh floral arrangements made for the centerpieces and corsages, there were white linens for the tables along with colored linen napkins. It was complete with a musical number (by Lisa, Shae, Cheryl and Margaret), slide show done by Travis and Tracy, music from the 60's era, The men grilled up veggie and meat kabobs, there were LOTS of yummy salads and a variety of desserts/rolls, that were made with love by their kids and grand kids.   Candace created a family tree and we all put our thumbprints on the branches for the leaves.  Cheryl made up candle tins as favors for all of us and the evening ended with a family toast around a bon-fire with everyone telling their favorite memories they had of growing up.

It was a perfect and wonderful evening 

and I could tell it meant the world to Clair and Josie.

(It was SO windy, the wind was blowing all of the linens off the table, so we had to move everything into Shane's shop for the celebration).

WOW!  

50 years has treated the two of you great!
Ready to go inside to the SURPRISE PARTY...

I had spent HOURS and hours of time

putting together photos for a Memory Lane Tree to display.

Clair & Josie spent SO much time looking at each photo and commenting on it and the memory that they had of it.  

It was SO awesome seeing them SO happy...
they were full of emotions of all kinds!

Josie's favorite quote is:

"We don't remember the days...

we remember the moments!"

 I savored each and every hour that I spent with Josie while I scanned in photo after photo from their family photo albums. I treasured having heart to heart conversations with Josie while she told me explicit details about the photos and I can honestly say I had four wonderful days of "memory lane" FUN.

I was SO excited to really capture the evening well in photos...

However, before we started eating, Jade had a bad seizure and I was spending most of the time with him, making him comfortable, making sure he didn't try to stand up and fall down and hurt himself.
I was pretty stressed out, worrying about him and  
feeling SO sad that he was missing out on all of the fun. 

 Jade is a PEOPLE person 

and LOVES getting together with family and friends and he had been looking forward to this night all month long. 

He was even ready at 11:00 in the morning and the celebration didn't start until 5:00.

He and I pretty much missed out on the majority of the celebration.  

Thank goodness for the photos I did get and Tracy tried to snap some photos as well, in between, doing the slide show.

Jade and I were at least able to watch Clair and Josie dance for us and enjoy the special bon-fire moment. 

Precious keepsakes from Josie and Clair's wedding day...

announcement, wedding tiara, garter, flower worn on Josie's wedding suit, tie worn by Clair, ring box, necklace and earrings that were a special gift to Josie from Clair on their wedding day,

Here are some of my favorite photos from my

four wonderful days of scanning in photos

with Tracy's mom Josie...

I love these two people so much...

they always bring so much JOY, laughter and FUN to our lives!  

They are just like parents to me and what a 

WONDERFUL 21 years of being married to their son that I have had!

What a blessing it is to be able to be a part such an amazing family...

 I hope that Tracy and I are just as lucky 

and make it to celebrate 50 years of marriage as well. 

Here's to many more wonderful years 

of health, happiness and love!

Kimmie in Real Life! (week 17)

WOW!
I forgot what it is like to have a somewhat "normal life", with cooking dinner every night. 

It was SO fun to be back spending lots of time in my kitchen cooking yummy things for my family to eat.

As I type this
I am down to my last 5 gallon bucket of flour, I have 7 cubes of butter left, 10 pounds of sugar, 2 pounds of raisins, 2 pounds of cheese and a few dollops of sour cream, AND PLENTY of all of the other staples we use on a daily basis, so I will definitely make it 2 more weeks without doing any shopping,  
albeit,
I don't know if I will make it without running out of paper towels, or gallon Zip-loc bags. 

 I have been enjoying this challenge SO much 
and I think it's going to feel a little weird 
to actually be able to go out and shop and buy things again!  

Here are the food highlights from our week!

I made these up using POWDERED milk.
I put 1/8 cup dry milk powder and 1 cup water in my Vita-Mix and blended it together.
I then added in the rest of the ingredients and blended for 30 seconds and we had a PERFECT batch of Oven Pancakes to enjoy for breakfast!
I think I'll be making these with powdered milk from now on!

If I were to think of one of my favorite meals
(other than SALAD, or Lentil Stew), it would have to be this yummy fresh, Tomato Soup.
So nourishing, delicious and comforting and PERFECT served with your choice of bread sticks!

BOTH of these Bread Sticks are a hit at our house!
SO fun to have enough leftover soup the next day to make up a different style
of Bread Sticks the next day.

You don't have to worry about serving leftovers, 

when you have a yummy bread to serve with it!

I found this recipe when Jade was just a youngster,
when I went to a Women's Conference and I attended a class entitled... 
"Feed Me Right, I'm Yours"! 
Fun, yummy recipes to disguise things to get your kids to eat them!
My kids enjoy these LOTS and loved that there were leftovers to enjoy in their lunches the next day at school.

When it's the first week of Autumn, 
you know that this yummy meal will grace our dinner table!

We had a frost and it killed our precious squash/pumpkin plants, but we had this lone pumpkin and pulled it and let it sit in front of the window of our sliding glass door to finish ripening and it was perfect for our yearly tradition!!

If you have access to pumpkins or Sweet Meat Squash, you should try making this up to add a little bit of FUN to family dinner time during this wonderful Autumn time of the year!

YES, apple pie also graces our table 
to be enjoyed after our "Dinner in a pumpkin"!
Ethan commented that the way we scooped the homemade ice cream on top of the pie, looks like a "Storm Troopers" head from the Star Wars movie.

LOTS of delicious garden produce
sauteed together, filled inside homemade tortillas and sauce made the most tasty and savory Veggie Enchiladas!
Love this recipe and the FUN memories it brings with it!

Fresh Apples and Pears that were 
shared with us from our neighbors abundance.
WOW, pure heaven is what we were in 
when we got to enjoy these yummy things this week!

If I were to think of a specific meal that is our favorite, 
 it would hands down be this delicious and savory Beef Stew, served over a bed of mashed potatoes!
Jade especially enjoys this!!
This is what you call "Man Food"! 
I love that you can take somewhat "tough" stew meat, make this yummy stew and then put it in the crock pot for a few hours on low and it tenderizes the meat and makes it SO tender that it falls apart in your mouth!

DELICIOUS!!

I found out on two occasions this week that when you freeze extras,
they ALWAYS come in handy on days,
when you have a lot going on,
thus was the case when I made up some Lemon Bread and French Bread a few weeks ago.
I didn't have time to make treats or cookies and I was wondering what I could add to our lunches and so I looked in my freezer and had a loaf of Lemon Bread and pulled it out, cut it up and we such a yummy treat in our lunches.
This is on Tracy's TOP 5 list of favorite treats that I make up!

We had to go on 10 mile hike with the Scouts on Saturday and we got back from Jade's Cross Country meet on Friday night around 10:00 and there was no time at all to bake bread, so thank goodness I had a loaf of French Bread I could pull out of the freezer...
I scrambled up some of our eggs from our chickens
and these were PERFECT for lunch on our hike!

Saturday morning I baked up a batch of Raisin Cookies while we were getting our backpacks packed so we would have something yummy for energy on the trail.

This one recipe is SO versatile, delicious and ALWAYS a hit.
It is definitely a yummy, frugal thing to make for trail bars,
rather than buy pricey Odwalla or CLIF bars.

I'm so grateful to have kids that eat whatever is baked up...
it's amazing that my sweet nine-year old, LOVES Raisin Oatmeal Cookie! 

Some of the apples we were given were really SOFT
and were more of a cooking apple and not a eating apple.  
SO, I boiled them up, pulled out my strainer and turned them into applesauce.
Heated them on the stove and added in a little cinnamon and some raw honey and let simmer 5-10 minutes and put the applesauce in containers for lunches and used the remaining applesauce to make Applesauce Muffins!
 It is SO much fun being creative
with all of our abundance of produce that we have going on this time of year,
and making sure none of it goes to waste!

September 11th to 17th

Sunday
Oven pancakes, sliced apples
Fresh Tomato Soup, Yummy Bread sticks 

Monday
Steel Cut Oats
Granola Cereal with milk, carrot sticks, apple and string cheese
Leftover Tomato Soup and Bread sticks (made a batch of Bread Sticks/Pretzels)
Raisin Bars

Tuesday
Steel Cut Oats
Tracy...leftover soup, bread sticks, boiled egg, apple, and raisin bars
Jade...Granola Cereal with milk, bread stick, apple, raisin bars
Ethan and Kimmie...boiled egg, bread sticks, apple, raisin bars
Celebrated the first week of Fall with...Meal in a Pumpkin
My neighbor brought us over an Apple Pie for tending her animals for her while they were on vacation...we baked it up along with some homemade ice cream

Wednesday
Steel Cut Oats
Lunch for all of us...Leftover meal in a pumpkin, apple, lemon bread
Homemade Enchiladas, (made up tortillas, added in leftovers from last night)
Made an apple pie for my family and we made up another batch of homemade ice cream

Thursday
Steel Cut Oats
Tracy, Jade and I leftover enchiladas, apple, lemon bread
Ethan went on a field trip to Craters of the Moon and took tortilla rolled up with ham/veggies, string cheese, apple, chips, lemon bread
Beef Stew served over mashed potatoes...truly our family's very favorite meal! 


Friday
Steel Cut Oats
Jade Leftover Beef Stew and apple (took peanut butter balls/string cheese for energy for his cross country run)
Ethan boiled egg, apple, string cheese, peanut butter ball, chips
Tracy and I met in town and had lunch at Taco Time (since we won't be getting a date since we will be attending Jades cross country meet in Blackfoot)
Went and watched Jade run at his Cross Country meet in Blackfoot and then took the kids and enjoyed Western Lemon Chicken at New Hong Kong since it was Pay Day (we usually treat the kids to dinner when it is Pay Day)  

Saturday
(woke up and made a batch of Raisin Oatmeal cookies for our hike)
ZOOM cereal for breakfast
pulled French Bread from freezer and made up scrambled egg sandwiches for our hike, also took apples, string cheese cookies and chips
Wonderful 12.4 mile hike with the Scouts
The leaders bought the kids Square Ice Cream cones on our drive home

Links to recipes used this week:
Yummy Bread Sticks
Bread Sticks/Pretzels
French Bread
Oven Pancakes
Garden Fresh Tomato Soup
Meal in a Pumpkin
Beef Stew over mashed potatoes
Homemade Tortillas
Veggie Enchiladas
Raisin Bars
Lemon Bread
Apple Pie
Peanut Butter Energy Balls
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

SO grateful to be blessed with the BEST kids in the world!
They never complain about what we eat, 
 and I hear "thank you for the yummy lunch"
every day of my life from my kids, when they walk in the door and greet me after a long day at school.
Even when they get sent with Potato Salad, fruit and a muffin for lunch, they never complain and if it is a hectic morning and there is only an option to have a Tuna Sandwich on a homemade biscuit for lunch, or to eat school lunch, they ALWAYS want to take a lunch from home.

Can life get any better than that?!?  

I love my wonderful life

and I'm so grateful to have a home, 

where Gratitude & Love are in abundance!