A Warm Welcome & A Giveaway Announcement

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Big Giveaway Announcement Below!

I am excited to share that my mom, NeeCee has officially joined Trendy Treehouse as a contributor. She also has a blog, Pine Creek Style, of her own and you can check it out HERE.

Look for posts by NeeCee on Mondays and Fridays.

A little bit about my mom....(in her own words)

I have no special qualifications as a food specialist, interior designer, gardener, etc.  But, I do enjoy dabbling in all of the above.  I love to cook, bake and create my own recipes for friends and family.  The last several years, I have had many requests for recipes, whole menus, table decor and/or party themes.  I’ve received encouragement to "do something"  with my untrained talents.  At this station in my life, I'm not inclined to return to school or start something that ties me down. 

I was born and raised in Tehama County,California, as was my husband.  We have strong ties here through family, friends and business.  Having physically lived away for more than 30 plus years, we started seriously searching for property back home! Our search was successful and we purchased a home here in 2008.  It was one of the best decisions we've made. The re-connection with Tehama County, family and friends is just plain awesome! 

One of my favorite pastimes is "reading" cookbooks.  Boring to some, I know!  But, those  "some" always seem to be around when it's time to taste!   Anyway, I have been working on a blog idea for awhile, along with my ever expanding cookbook. The blogs name was chosen for the area where my husbands family settled in the Vina Plains.  And of course, "style" represents the "little bit of flair"  that life brings.  It is my hope that this blog will provide a platform of enjoyment for all. My intent is to provide good recipes, helpful kitchen hints, household ideas and much more . Even a place to share your own recipes.

Many of my recipes are semi-homemade without compromising taste.  Simply, I do this because of our busy lifestyle.  Not unlike many people these days! So, coming from an untrained and unofficial foodie. Enjoy with Style, oNeeCee

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In honor of my mom joining the site......we at Trendy Treehouse would like to host a BIG GIVEAWAY and are looking for other blogs to join us as sponsors.

....Sponsor Requirements....

The cost to become a Sponsor for this giveaway is $50. You will need to share and promote the giveaway on all your media sites everyday during the giveaway.

What do you get as a sponsor? You will get your blog site button shared during the giveaway, entrants will follow your blog or Facebook (your choice) and you will also be entered to win a $50 Visa GC. (1 GF will be given to 1 randomly drawn sponsor) Sponsor space limited, act now!

Giveaway Dates to be announced.

Email Tara @trendytreehouse@me.com to become a Sponsor

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Excited to Share

Hi Everyone, Hope your weekend is going great! I wanted to share a quick post about some exciting news for me.  I recently have been busy creating patterns and after my first successful test group, I released my first pattern.

You can find it on my Etsy Store. I only have one item in there now, but still so excited! LOL

And more exciting news, You Can Make This accepted my pattern for their site.  It went live on Friday!!! YAY!  Check out the link by clicking on the photo below or by clicking HERE.

In another post a while back I shared how to take a screen shot. I used it again today. Find out how I did it in my other post about Overlays HERE.

Please Check Out My Other Links Below

I would love to have you like, follow, connect and chat with you more!

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April Fools Day

Did you Prank anyone for April Fools Day this year? We did!

My mom and dad helped by making sushi and jello (drink) cups for the kids.

They had fun with it. They knew as soon as they saw the rice krispy treat. LOL But hey, we tried at least! They are getting too old to trick. Darn it.

But....they aren't too old to help mommy trick daddy! We pulled a switch-a-roo on daddy's cereal. We bought the cereal and some paper glue. Before heading home we pulled the switch in the car, glued the box and headed home. Bonus trick....When daddy called to see how long we would be, we fibbed and said we were stuck in town. Probably a couple more hours. :( We live 35-40 minutes from the big town where we shop. We fooled him when we walked in the door 20 minutes later. Yes, we were closer than we said when we text. And no, I did not text and drive. That's a no, no!!! My son relayed all messages for me. ;D

When we got home we sure surprised him with our early arrival and the cereal switch up too! Muah ha ha ha ha.

I also successfully pulled two more. Hee! Hee! Just add tape to the sensors on your remote control or mouse. You will totally fool them into thinking they don't work. They may even try to change the batteries before figuring it out. 

What did you do on April Fools Day? Did you pull a fun prank or get pranked yourself? Please share. I am always looking for ideas for next year. I may even sneak in a prank here or there through out the year. Wouldn't that be fun!?! ;D

Please Check Out My Other Links Below

I would love to have you like, follow, connect and chat with you more!

 

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Happy 8th Birthday Caidee

My Baby turned "8" yesterday. 

I love watching you grow sweet girl! Hope you had a special day!

 Love Mommy and Daddy

We had Caidee's birthday at "All Fired Up" in Chico. Loved it. They got to make their own bowls, design and paint them. It was so cool! By far the best hands on party yet! We had a lot of little girls join in the fun. It was an awesome day!

Can you tell she had fun?!?

She got a lot of presents. OH MY! What sweet friends she has! The favors are the cutest lil bags I found at World Market! I went crazy and bought a few varieties of their owl bags. I have plans for them and will share soon what I do with them. ;)

Since we took a pic of her with her bear today, we thought we would share her baby and bear pic at the party too! She loved showing off her photo.

I found the frame at TJ Maxx this week. Loved it and bought it in Pink, Purple and Black. heehee

And who wouldn't love those cute cupcake cups. Found them at TJ too! She loves the confetti cake, so we made that with vanilla frosting and topped with green crystal sprinkles and a pink circus animal cookie. They were a hit and the perfect size for kiddos!

We finished off with a birthday lunch at Chili's.  I asked my good friends there to please help me to trick Caidee.  They brought over steamed broccoli with mayo as the topping as her birthday treat. It was hilarious. She looked a little shocked and squirmed in her seat a bit not knowing how to react. HAHA Success! (FYI...no children cried during this fun little trick lol)

Caidee and her friend posed for a fun pic after!

Just Kidding Kiddo. Here is some ice cream! LOL We love ya! 

Thanks for playing along with our fun trick Caidee and Chili's too!

Happy, Happy Birthday Love!

XOXOXOXOXO

Mommy, Daddy, Cordell, Charleigh and Cassidy too!

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My Kiddos this Halloween

Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween. It rained here, but we didn't let that stop us. We took the kids to the mall, and trick or treating in my cousins neighborhood.  Luckily my cousin, Laura had umbrellas. YEAH!  They had fun dressing up the most I think.  They haven't even eaten that much of their candy. Glad they don't obsess over it.

I wanted to share some of the fun photos I took. I shared most of these on Instagram (@tarajo4) already. In case you might have seen them there.

We had some fun with this photo. "No Tricks, Only Treats" LOL

He really didn't want to dress up but there was a little FB inside joke from a friend, so we took this pic. You will see more below. haha

My cute little Cave Girl

Corpse Bride - Hubby took the two littles to pick out costumes. I was a little nervous at first but they look so creepy and of course cute!

My Scary Ghost Girl - can you tell I had fun with these edits?!?

The FB inside joke - a friend commented on a photo of my two here was....

An aborigine and the missionary who is visiting the tribe!

I couldn't stop laughing.  The original picture did not have our service book in it. I had to retake it with him holding it. HAHA Thanks for the laughs Brandon!

They wanted to pose for this. Sister doesn't get to attack her big brother to often. ;)

And lastly, I had to get a sweet, smiling photo too!

How was your Halloween? If you have photos, please share!!

If you ♥ what you read here, please follow us, pin this post, comment below and share with your friends. We love that you stopped by ~ Thank you!

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Family vacation

My family was able to spend a week together at a resort in Illinois about two weeks ago. We all got together because my parents had celebrated their 40th Wedding Anniversary in June. It was an incredible vacation with no set schedule and just doing whatever we wanted. We swam every day, played a little mini golf, there was a free 5 hole golf course that some people played, movies to watch, coloring, games and just hanging out with family (which was the best part).

My dad was having some health issues and ended up having to go back to WI for a dr. appointment and had to leave one night early for another one...he had surgery on his spinal cord this past Wednesday and is now at home recovering. We are praising God that his surgery was successful and that he can once again feel his hands and feet...the numbness and tingling was moving all the way up his legs and into his tummy. Scary. They said if he didn't have the surgery soon he could have been paralyzed. Again, we are thankful that God in His infinite wisdom has blessed my dad with good doctors and a successful surgery. He'll be in a neck brace for the next six weeks and then will probably have to do physical therapy. But he should make a full recovery.

We knew that while we were on vacation and had the whole family together (some from WI, some from CO, some from TN) we wanted to get a family photo. I had made these dresses for my girls a long time ago, in fact you can see how long ago because Hannah's used to be a dress but is now a shirt :). And I made the skirt and shirt for Lily for her third birthday. So, my sister-in-law suggested that I make another skirt for Ella to match and that we could use those outfits for our family photo! I love how we all coordinated and didn't really know what we were going to look like until the last minute. I am also totally impressed (if I may say so myself) that this photo was taken using a timer with the camera on the tripod. After the photo was taken I looked at it and said "we got a great one" and everyone said, we should do a few more just in case! Ha! I knew we had struck gold and probably wouldn't again.

My kiddos with their cousins!! Poor Micah will be the only boy on this side of the family!

Here is my family...Hannah was over having her photo taken at this point...but I still love this photo!

                          

Micah LOVES to take pictures with my camera and he's pretty good if you ask me. He took this shot of me at 29 weeks and 3 days prego!

                            

We also had a big surprise steak dinner to celebrate my parents 40th Anniversary and since Ruby is the 40th Anniversary color we all dressed in red and I made these little outfits for the kids to wear. These photos were taken the same day as the other ones so the kids were not totally thrilled about having to do it all again, but it's a great way for us to remember the Anniversary!

                              

My crazy family! LOVE them!!

Now it's time to get into school mode. Naomi will be starting kindergarten on the 16th and Micah will start pre-school on the 20th with an intro day on the 14th. We are so excited about the school they are going to and all they are going to learn this week. I'm also excited to have a little more "time" to go through some things and get some projects done before this baby girl comes. I hope Hannah is ready to help me :) Have your kids started school yet? Blessings on your last (maybe) free weekends before school starts! 

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