Bella Pepper

Handmade Christmas continued

2009-12-30T10:47:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share a bit more about our Christmas and how things went before moving on to the new year and all the wonderful things that come with it. This Christmas was a really special one for us, one that will be treasured forever. We tried our best to make most of our gifts and the rest we bought via Etsy, craft faires or small local businesses. At first this seemed like such a challenge, could we really make Christmas great on such a small budget with out going to a place like Walmart? Well the answer for us was YES! We usually spend about $50 on each of our girls and this year I think we hit the mark at right around $61, so really not to bad! Now in this I have to take into account that I already had a lot of crafty supplies on hand, like the yarn for the slippers, which leftover's from the stash. Most of the stuff used from stash was yarn, buttons, thread, and a bit of fabric, the rest was purchased for these special projects and included in the budget.

What I am really excited about sharing is the earrings that Micah and the girls made for me, so impressive! They are made from hammered out bottle caps and botany prints from the Internet. I think the most amazing part about this is that he let a 2 and a 5 year old wield a hammer! Ah, the things we do for the sake of crafting ;)

This holiday did of course include some thing that were not made by hand and with those we tried to purchase them from small local businesses. Micah totally scored good by getting me this strawberry tea kettle from our favorite hardware/kitchen store. Be still my whimsical heart!

I have to say though that as sweet as my husband was I don't think I did as well. Which I feel is OK since the husband should get a chance to out do the wife once in a while, right? While I did get him a stocking full of sweets and a box filled to the brim with local mandarins his main gift was a nice pair on UNfinished wool slippers.

This photo was actually taken after I seamed them and wove in the ends, now all we have to do is felt them. These were mostly finished way back in October, but like most crafter's I set them down and started working on something else. Oh well, I know he loves me for more then just my knitting.

Handmade Christmas

2009-12-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

A glimpse in pictures of our (mostly) handmade Christmas:

Our Christmas was a very special one, filled with family, thankfulness and lots of handmade goodies. It was so wonderful to see the joy in my children's eyes from something handcrafted from the heart. Oh and boy was I surprised to get 4(!) handmade pairs of funky earrings from Micah and the girls! I love how he really takes on the handmade challenge just for me. Well, I'm going to get back to relaxing and enjoying my little bit of free time I have been blessed with this weekend. I hope that everyone's Christmas was a merry one. God bless.

Christmas Cookies

2009-12-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

Tonight was cookie decorating night in the Pepper home. We always use Indian Tree Natural food dye for our frosting's and the colors are just so cool. Not your traditional Christmas sugar cookies, but I like it that way.

L and I did the decorating and a bit of snacking....

P has a bit of a lingering cold so she just decorated he own and had a good ole time. Oh yah and check out her haircut! I took off 5 inches!!!!

I almost didn't make sugar cookies this year. This month has been a busy one and I don't like being obligated to bake, I like to follow the whim you know?. Alas, then I remembered that I had just bought a new $20 box of dyes and some all natural sprinkles and I knew I just had to break them out. Since decorating them is really the fun part I forgo ed the cookie cutters. Instead I just rolled the dough into balls and smashed them down on the cookie sheet, fun and time saving!

Happy Birthday Love

2009-12-19T21:11:00.000-08:00

(The hat is his birthday present from moi, crummy pic though)

Today I got to celebrate the man I love. I never would have thought I'd end up with someone so amazing. Someone so inspiring that they change who you are without one ounce of effort. He is always surprising me with his love, kindness, and his adventurous nature. Life with this man is just exhilarating and my hope is that will share many more blessed birthdays together. I love you Micah, Happy Birthday.

Guilt Monster

2009-12-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind this past week. After Phoebe's fall I spent a good few days worrying over what could have happened and pretty much blaming myself for not being vigilant enough. You know, normal mother guilt, that we all put on our selves from time to time. I know it wasn't my fault and I know that it's completely normal for kids to play alone in a room with the door open, but I just couldn't shake how scared I was for days. I relied on my mothering instincts when it happened doing all the right things like checking her over, seeing approximately how high it was and jetting of to the ER taking my little brother along to keep an eye on her in the backseat. Then after it was over the mothering fears, the other side to the mother instinct took over and haunted me for several days.

After much prayer and council with my husband, and time I'm feeling much better. I have to say though that now the nurture mothering side is taking over and that little girl is getting whatever she wants! There has been lots of hugs and snuggles, medicine, ice packs, doctors appointments and even some cookies involved. I know that I shouldn't be babying her as much as I am, but I just can't help it I have a mothers heart.

P.S. The monster pictured above is for my nephew, but P has requested one and of course she will be getting one very soon!

Joy and Heartache

2009-12-07T19:23:00.000-08:00

This week started off with one of the most exciting joys that life has to offer. A sweet baby boy entered the family as my sweet nephew. My sister labored like a champ with honestly not a word of compaint, taking it all in stride and even joking around with us. I am truly amazed at the strength we women possess in childbirth, it is such an amazing thing to be apart of. My mom and I were both honored to be there along with my sister husband.

This perfect little guys was born on the first snow of the season and is going to be a huge blessing to our family. What a wonderful early Christmas present!

Then yesterday while still aglow with giddiness we had a very scary thing happen, that makes my mothers heart ache to even think about it. Phoebe tried to fly. Out a window 6-7ft onto concrete. Sick with worry I rushed her to the hospital to find out that she had a broken wrist and a concussion. She is doing much better today and even smiling for us.

I knew that she was wild, but I would have never expected her to JUMP out a window at only 2 years old! She keeps saying "little girls can't fly, only birds can", oh my.

Crafty Time

2009-12-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

Today after we finished up some schoolwork and put some brownies in the oven, we embarked on a crafty adventure, one where we all had a great time. A sheet was laid on the table and we set off to have a great time. I made something I have been super excited about ever since I saw it on this blog. I had some vintage bulbs that had been my grandparents that I had been saving, just waiting to put them to good use. I didn't have quite enough so I thought this project just wasn't going to happen, when earlier this week I popped into my favorite thrift shop and they had DOZENS of vintage glass bulbs. I paid $2.50 for the ones I brought home. Next it was off to the craft store where I got a foam wreath and a package of mini glue stick (I use all but one of them!). So it total, this project cost $16.

Here we are working away, my project ended up taking much longer than theirs so they went into the living room to watch Sleeping Beauty. Phoebe kept coming in to check on me though. I ended up breaking only 4 bulbs and with 1 bleeding finger. After all the bulbs were glued on I broke up pieces of an old dollar store garland to fill in the cracks.

The girls glittered, jeweled and tissue papered some construction paper tree. Easy peasy when you already have a huge bag of cut up tissue paper.

Slippers

2009-12-03T20:30:00.000-08:00

OK, so you are going to have to pardon the bad photos, these thing are really hard to photograph! They seemed to want to glow florescent and fuzz out no matter what the lighting. I don't know, I'm certainly not the best still life photographer.

I made these using this pattern and stash yarn. The purple ones are actually from the leftover yardage from my last years slippers. Buttons were from my button jars as well. Thrifty Christmas giving is so exhilirating (weird I know).

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-29T20:23:00.000-08:00

(Raw Pecan Pie, recipe from this site)

I know this is a wee bit late, but really for our family Thanksgiving is all about the whole four day weekend. With Turkey leftovers, visiting loved ones, decorating for Christmas, the whole 9 yards. Just wanted to pop in real quick at the tail end of this great holiday weekend and say Happy Thanksgiving! If anyone reads this blog, I love to hear how your Thanksgiving weekend was!

November Homeschooling

2009-11-25T10:01:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, two post in a day is kind of crazy but I feel into bed yesterday without publishing the post for yesterday. I took some photo's of yesterdays homeschooling seeing as it was a really peaceful time. Which is definitely not the norm around here. For some reason the stars alligned yesterday day and both girls sat quitely (even during L's reading lesson) and payed attention to the word coming out of my mouth, so strange! After L's main lessons and P's coloring pages I decided to add on a little art time since it actually sounded like fun.

I laid an old flannel sheet that was mine as a girl down on the table to minimalize mess and let them get to work of trees and turkey cards. Two crafts in one day even!

So they crafted and I snuck a few moment of knitting time with my new project the Cosima cardigan. This one is going to be slow going, but I am really hoping to have it done in time for my birthday in January. We will have to see though since this is a work on at home only project and I have lots of holiday crafting on my plate.

I hope everyone has a truly great Thanksgiving with lots of pie and other mouthwatering goodies!

Soapmaking

2009-11-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I got the pleasure of going out to a friends farm to learn how to make soap. What a fun adventure that was! We made lavender soap, apple cinnamon soap with apricot seeds, and even some lotions. These are her already made soaps, that we got to see when we first got there.

Here some of are in the kitchen blending a batch.

(soap in the cylinder mold)

I was surprised with just how much I enjoyed soapmaking. I've always been kind of freaked out by the whole lye thing, but once I did it, it wasn't so scary. It took about an hour to do batch of soap and you get at least a dozen 4 oz bars out of it. The lotion was absolutely dreamy though, do harsh chemicals, just melt and blend. Very luscious and a lot of fun. I think I see much more of the is in my future, especially if I ever get to have the goats I've been dreaming of, goat milk soap sounds so heavenly!

A Recipe For You

2009-11-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

In my attempt to make something kind of like the Lara Bar peanut butter cookie bars, but with a less "datey" taste I came up with these peanut butter balls. They take only 10 minutes to make from start to finish and that's WITH little helping hands.

Peanut Ball Cookies

3 cups unsweetened dates

1 cup unsalted peanuts

1/2 c. unsweetened coconut

2 Tbsp ground flax seed

1/2 tsp vanilla

A dash of salt

Combine all ingredients into food processor and turn on for a couple minutes until mixture resembles the picture below. Have you and your helper roll into little balls (remembering that little hands need to use smaller amounts of dough). Makes about 18 cookies, refrigerate to keep dates fresh. Enjoy!

Honeymooning on a budget

2009-11-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

When Micah and I got married we were broke, pregnant and in love. We had a small but awesome wedding in my parents backyard under a trio of birch trees. There were twinkle lights in the trees and barbecue on the grill, sun dresses and flip flops and we all had bouquets fresh from that mornings farmers market. We couldn't afford a honeymoon, but in didn't seem to matter much. Two kids and five years later we finally managed to get away for a honeymoon. Unfortunately we were still broke and had little time off to work with, we made it work though and we had a wonderful time.

Micah has always wanted to go to Ashland Oregon because it is one of my favorite places and since it is only three and a half hours away we decided to go there to see the Shakespeare Festival. The hotel prices are high there, so after extensive Internet research we decide to camp lake side in a place right outside the city. We packed an ice chest full of food and headed out on our first childless adventures since our marriage. We saw plays, took lakeside walks, drank fancy coffee drinks, shopped in the funky down town shops, and had a simple yet wonderful time.

Isn 't he handsome?

OOh and look I even got some knitting time in, this is the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret by Natalie Larson, the link is to the Ravelry page. This is a free pattern and a very fun knit!

New Adventures

2009-11-11T20:08:00.000-08:00

Wow, that was a much longer break then intended. Things have been a whirlwind around her with moving, homeschooling, traveling, and celebrating Lydia's 5th birthday. Moving to a bigger place has been something we have been talking and praying about for quite awhile now. We wanted someplace a bit bigger that would allow us to have chickens and a small veggie garden and God certainly provided, actually the place CAME with chicken. These are our girls:

They are mostly free range chickens even though we have a chicken tractor to keep them in. The fresh eggs are amazing and but we have found that we also really like just having them around, they are so much fun!

About a week after we moved in we put in our very first winter garden. We have always kind of been wanna-be farmers planting container gardens or share gardens with others with land. This time our efforts are being much better rewarded, check out those seedlings!

These are our snap peas, next these we have regular peas,

Then we have some lettuces, we planted romaine and simpson, but I forgot to mark which was which, but I'm leaning towards these ones being simpson....

Here is the best of our cauliflower plants, they really seem to be thriving!

Here is some broccoli,

And then there is the onions, one row of red and one of white.

More to come soon, I'm off now to watch a movie with my wonderfully patient husband:)

100th Post

2009-09-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

It's funny that today I would log on after almost a month of not blogging to find out that this is my 100th post! Crazy I say, it doesn't feel like that, I still feel as though I'm barely getting the hang of this whole blogging thing. It's even more amusing to think that I was wondering if I even would come back. Lately I've been feeling like blogs are to braggy you know? Look at what I bought, made, did etc. I'm not effectively conveying what I originally wanted in this space. Well, whatever, maybe the next 100 post's will be better, and hopefully more enjoyable to read.

Lately my crafting has taken a bit of a back seat to life. Homeschooling is getting off to a great start this year, we are going through a very laid back charter school and it's turning out to be a great choice for our family. We are doing all sorts of fun things that would have otherwise been impossible on our shoestring budget and I'm using the exact same curriculum I would have picked independently. With the help of my husband and the teacher we are working with I really foresee this being a more enjoyable year for me.

We have also been enjoying the last bits of summer left, that is the summer fruit that's left. A friend of ours gifted us with about 20-30lbs of organic peaches which became smoothie peaches, pie peaches,

and peach fruit leather. We were SO excited to give fruit leather a try using our new dehydrator given to us from the depths of our friends garage. So happy to find out that it did in fact work, yay! A really great way to use up the slightly bruised peaches.

Weekly trips to farmer's market have been a must around here, trying to scoop up the last of the years strawberries to freeze for winter's pie's and smoothies. Northern California Farmer's Markets have the most awesome strawberries, truly they have no comparison to the little hard ones in the grocery store

The prices are unbeatable too, I think what I have photographed there was just a little over $20.

Gifts of Graditude

2009-08-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

It has taken me awhile to get back into the rhythm of things after our wonderful trip to the beach. Honestly I think I was dealing with a little post-beach depression! I grumbled and lazed about thinking of all the fun we had and wishing we were still there for a good week, I think we all did really. Now things have gotten back to normal, the laundry is all caught up and regular routines are (mostly) back on track. I knew the first thing I wanted to do once we reached homeostasis was to get some baking done for the wonderful family members who dog-sat and kept our plants from wilting. You all know how I feel about pies, they just make everything better! Triple Berry Pie, the recipe is from my first post ever :D

I hope everyone else has a great weekend, I think I may be doing a little bit of preserving and we might even get in a little family day trip. Summer is almost over and even though I am longing for fall I want to make the best out of this lazy time.

Red

2009-08-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

I'm seeing red in a good way around here. I got some of the last strawberries of the season at the farmers market today, which have been frozen for smoothies. I hope they have a couple more half flats next week so that I can fill up my freezer with these sweet things.

Perfectly ripe tomatoes came from my friend Ryan's garden, gotta love friends with over producing gardens! These were hastily made into salsa to feed the freezer.

I tend to live my life kick by kick and this summers kick? Preserving of course. I am hoping to make this into a habit, it's really seeming to be cost effective.

Knitting News

2009-08-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

There will definitely be more pictures from our trip, but for now you will just have to settle for some knitting news. The long car ride and the lazy morning at the beach gave me many happy knitting hours. So much so that my sweater is actually starting to look like a sweater!

The bodice is about 3/4 of the way done now and then I just have the sleeves. I am having so much fun knitting this that it's really hard to put it down. I hoping that it will be done in September when the Mister and I go away for the weekend.

At The Beach

2009-08-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

We are just back from four awesome days up at Patricks Point. Warm camp fires, waves crashing, seaguls flying, sunsets, starfish, seashells, sea lions barking, long morinings, good memories, and even some good knitting time, yes four days was just not enough.

I can't wait to share more, but for now the laundry beckons....

Dot Paints

2009-07-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

Swimming lessons are over, gymnastics are over, and we are between camping trips right now. The weather has really started to heat up and we have been spending more time indoors then originally planned. Our art supplies are dwindling and I really need to start thinking about my order to the discount school supply this fall. Then I remember that I still had something that I had never used, my dot paint bottles!

The girls went to town and made a much bigger mess then they usually do with things, well it's was just P really. One of the reason why I love dot paints so much is because of the lack of mess, but really Wild Thing can make a mess out of anything!

I just love how there personalities shine through already in there work. P is wild and beautiful and very interesting.

L is drawn to beautiful things and loves learning new things.

I would love to hear some other easy summer craft ideas, especially those will small cleanups!

Pie Makes Everything Better

2009-07-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know how you feel about pie, but for me it seems to be a sort of cure all. I'm not talking about sitting down to eat a nice warm piece of pie and finding heavenly bliss I think it's much more then that for me. It seems that whenever I find myself upset, stressed, or in a funk that I seem to find myself in the kitchen baking a pie. Now I know this probably sounds quite ludicrous, to leave the house in chaos, unplug the phone and bake a frickin' pie, but it works. With all the crap that can go on in this life, all the things that can go wrong, tear you down and leave you dry, sometimes something as perfect as pie can just seem to wash that all away. Maybe it's the rhythmic rolling of the dough, the gently way you have to handle the crust, or just the sugar I don't know. With uneven crusts, gooey overflowing insides, and slightly crisp edges it has such beauty in the imperfectness.

And really how can any day be truly horrible when there is pie involved?

Latest hat for One A Month had me changing thing up a bit. I decided to knit this one for a chemo patient instead of the homeless. This was a much funner knit!

P.S. This post sounds WAY to perfect, pie and charity knits, come on! But honestly I was horribly PMS this week and didn't do much else besides knit and eat deserts ;)

Dolls

2009-07-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Here I am midsummer again and thinking of Christmas. Handmade holidays can be a bit of work, but man it's fun work! These girls were a lot of fun and I've been really excited to show them in this space.

This little sweetie will be traveling all the way to Florida to be loved my spunky blonde haired niece.

She gets to stay here with her pink counterpart L.

This lovely with the flower in her hair will go to my spunky little P.

This little Pixie with go to my littlest sister who I'm sure will enjoy dragging her all around the house!

All four were made with the free Black Apple doll pattern. I have one more that still needs some tweeking and may even make a couple more before the holidays. The pattern was easy (although I did have to enlarge it more then it said) and I really can't recommend it enough.

If anyone else is starting up there stash of Christmas gifts I loved to hear about them as well!

A Book Review

2009-07-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Great writing, but don't read unless you have a really strong stomach........

Happy Knitting

2009-07-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

After the monstrous orange baby blanket I really wasn't feeling the knitting love. It took me WEEKS to finish those last few inches and I really lost the meditative release that knitting usually offers me. I had to really work to get that back with my new One a Month hat. It took me a week to knit the first inch and I was not "feeling the love". I then stopped and reminded myself that this was supposed to be fun and I really needed to allow myself some time just to knit and enjoy it, to really get in the grove. So I did just that and threw in a movie for good measure and wah-la it's finished just two days later.

When I'm not catching up on charity knits I have big exciting plans. I am starting my first sweater! I know, I know the excitement is palpable...but since very few read this blog, I can be as excited as I want! Woohoo!!!!!!

Jam!

2009-07-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

It's all about connections isn't it? Like when you meet a family with fruit trees you know there are good times to come. This Sunday they were gracious enough to freely share there blessings with us. Micah climbed right up and got me a sack full of ripe plums.

I had my sister come over who was nearly jumping up and down at the thought of making jam with me. She was such a good stirrer.

Placing the filled jars into the canner is the funnest part for me (well, next to taking them out).

We made 10 cups of organic plum jam in just about 2 hours. On the list of worthwhile homesteading activities I am definitely putting this one up there in the well worth it category. You see I spent about $3 on pectin, sugar and a few cents spent on electricity and the other supplies needed I already had on hand. I then produced about $20 worth of jam in less then 2 hours.

Sorry, hope my nerdy calculations don't bother you I just really love saving money!

Summery Goodness

2009-07-13T14:27:00.001-07:00

This summer has been moving along faster then I can blog about it, here are just a few of the things we have been enjoying around here.....

Fresh cut lavender from my mother's garden,

Learning how to can; so much fun! I made over 3 dozen jars of strawberry jam with my friend Katherine a couple of weekends ago. I had hoped for more pictures, but alas I had no camera at the time. Really though, the finished jars are much prettier then the messy process.

Oh and eating these yummy pita pizza I've been making in the toaster oven. Just one whole wheat pita, some sauce, grated cheese, and whatever veggies I have on hand. Pop it into the toaster oven for 10 minutes and you've got a yummy lunch!

New Chairs

2009-07-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

Last month Micah and I stopped by a yard sale on our way home. I haven't been hunting these down to much lately, but when one is laid right in your path what can I do but stop? Immediately upon arriving I spotted two wooden dining room chairs in really sorry shape. I walked up to them and noticed how incredibly sturdy they were and how pretty the shape was. So for only $5 a piece I nabbed them.

My husband growled in annoyance as he dragged them to the car vowing that he would NOT be helping with this "project". I ignored his disgruntled behaviour already fabric shopping in my mind. The next time I was at JoAnns I looked and looked for the perfect fabric until I spotted it on my second trip into the home decor section. After a quick price check (on sale for under $7 a yard) I went beaming up the counter. Quite serendipitous don't you agree?
So here they are, with the help of my guns, staple and glue and the mighty brawn of my husband (he wields the staple gun so well).

My Spring

2009-07-05T17:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, that month sure did blur past me. My camera broke at the beginning of the month and I never did get around to posting even a recipe! My life has been consumed lately with many of the changes that one would expect in the new year or in spring, but I'll take mine when I can get it. You see I have been having some health issues that until last month were undiagnosed and causing me a great deal of distress. Finally after dozens of test and appointments I finally got my answers and I am very pleased to say they are completely treatable! With the help of supplements, diet changes and only 1 medication I am feeling like my life has started again.

I have been challenging myself in many ways with my diet, my activity level, my happiness and my creativity. Thinking of the things I want from this life and enjoying myself and what God has given me. While we are still hoping to buy a home in the near future I have been focusing my energy on contentment and the joys of my family. Earlier this year you may remember that I planted a garden, what I may not have said was that it was at my mothers and well they didn't follow through much with the watering. SO, lesson learned and instead of giving up we started a container garden on our deck! I went to the nursery and picked up some seedling and set to work. Here is what we have so far and I hope it will go much farther.

We hope to start a lettuce bed and a vermicompost (worm compsting) up as well and just see where we go from there.

We have some blood oranges coming up.

And here are some strawberries

Oh and in other super awesome peachy fantastic news the blanket is done! I may be two One A Month Challenges behind, but I can catch up because it's the freakin' blanket is done!!

Blackberries

2009-05-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

This weekend I stopped by my favorite road side fruit stand that sells the most mouth watering strawberries. My excitement went up several notches when I noticed they had blackberries too! Oh how wonderful it is to live in California were I can make blackberry cobble at the end of May, gotta love it.

I got out all my favorite cookbooks, and then some less favorites, and then I used my google bar but I was still not liking any of the recipes I found, most of them taking hours and ingredients I didn't have. I'm also not a big fan of precooking my fruit filling, I like the natural taste of the berries and not anything that has been boiled in cornstarch and sugar you know? Picky picky...

I then gave up on my cook books and called my mother. My mom is not one to spend a lot of time in the kitchen out of enjoyment, it's all about a quick end product with minimal dishes and annoyance. I was thinking that was the way I wanted to go with this recipe. I remember as a child coming in all sticky and covered in purple juices with a bowl of fat blackberries from the backyard and asking her to please make us a cobbler, and she always obliged. Here's how the phone call went:

Me: Mom, do you have that cobbler recipe you always used to make?
Mom: Oh I used the cup-of recipe
Me: huh?
Mom: You know a cup of flour, cup of sugar, cup of milk, cup of berries
Me: Only a cup of fruit?
Mom: Well, you can double that
Me: Oh, well didn't you add any butter
Mom: Oh honey I always add butter to everything, just a bit on top....OH and I like to add cinnamon and sugar on top too
Me: I think I will try it with honey and half the milk, that's the rule right?
Mom: There's a rule? I always just did a straight sub, huh????
Me: Hah, OK thanks mom
Mom: Oh, and a bit of baking soda helps it puff up a bit
Me: Baking soda or baking powder? I think you mean powder. Whatever, I will just double the whole recipe for a 9X13 and add a tsp of baking powder. Temperature? Time?
Mom: Oh 350 and about 45 minutes tell it's brown and bubbly, I think...
Me: I'll check after 30 thanks mom
Mom: Don't forget to butter the pan!
If you can glean a recipe off that too, you might come out with something like this....

The Pantry

2009-05-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

Wow, that was one crazy week! I really hate having something to do every night of the week. Being the homebody that I am I'm mostly content to stay at home eat a nice meal and snuggle with my honey, but I don't think I got to do that once the whole week. Oh well, this weekend made up for it a bit and we are starting to reach homeostasis around here.

Anyways, I mentioned on my last post our kitchen organizational woes. Which have really been going on for quite some time. Well, last week we finally did something to fix the problem and it only cost us $14 and few spare hours (which of course was the hardest thing to come by).

We were given an old pantry for free which was a little warped, beat up, and without any hardware. With a trip to the hardware store for hinges and self paper and some paint we had, sandpaper we had and our time we now have a place to store our bulk food that isn't the girls closet! I used my left over chalkboard paint to make the inside door usable for a grocery list. This thing holds a lot of groceries, it's as deep as my fridge. I still have to use our other cupboard and our chest freezer most of the time too.

Buying in bulk is one of the things that really helps keeps our families grocery budget down. We try to eat mostly organic whole foods and still try to stay within budget. This usually means we don't buy "fancy" food like bagels, chips, snacky foods or sodas. Things we do buy are 25lb bags of oats, wheat berries, popcorn, beans and 10lb boxes of organic cheese. We go through a co-op up in Oregon that delivers our bulk food their truck route. With a tiny kitchen we have had to be very inventive with meeting our shopping and cooking needs, but this pantry will definitely help!

Glass

2009-05-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

This has been a crazy busy week. So much running around and really not much to show for it. Well, tonight was a lot of the same fun as well. We spent all evening after M got home from work at our local E.R. to get a piece of glass removed from P's foot. She was so awesome though, barely even cried and you could tell the big numbing needle really hurt. I'm so proud of that brave little girl!

I do have one positive crafty thing to show for my week and I will be back with that soon. I've been trying to work on making my living room and kitchen more functional so it's something in that direction. That's the thing with living in small places you have to be ever evolving, finding new ways to organize so that your life and home can be as comfortable as possible

Indulgent Stitches

2009-05-18T16:38:00.000-07:00

OK so here we go, a little something to ease the pain of stitches lost. A little something pretty for myself (doesn't a little indulgence always help?).

I've been wanting one for months and finally got around to making one! I got the pattern from here. Well, that's all for now, I will be back later on this week with a new sewing project I started last night. Hope every one's week is starting out well!

Ribbet....

2009-05-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I had to rip back 15 rows of the Orange Cabled Blanket. That's 1800 stitches people! So I have set it aside for awhile to avoid killing it. Now, I could move right on to the next planned knitting project, a Christmas present I have already purchased the yarn for, but no I don't think I will. Instead I will indulge and make a small little something just for me out of my scrap yarn. Come back tomorrow to find out what it is!

Pretty Little Things

2009-05-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. Such a good day in fact that I almost have a hard time believing that tomorrow is in fact Mother's Day. I got to do two of my favorite things sewing and shopping and I even won a gift certificate from a local craft store! Good times. I love those gentle reminders from God that he does love us and want us to have joy in our lives, it truly lifts my spirits.

Upon waking this morning I immediately went to my craft closet (before even going downstairs) and riffeled through it looking for a few fun things to make. I remembered that I had been wanting to make a brooch from an old belt buckle I found in a button bin. Such a simle project so I knew that that was going to be one of my projects for the day. I just broke off the back piece and hot glued a pin backing on and I wore it around all day. I wish I could find enough belt buckles to make a whole bag full of these babies!

While riffled I also came across an old pair of curtains which really fit the bill for the pillow I have be working on. My mom always taught me to save all my linens even if they don't match your current decor and I have found this to be such good advice. Years go by, things change and sometimes they end up being just what you were looking for (even if not for there intended purposes).

The rest of my day was spent on an outing with my mom, 2 of my sisters and my girls. We shopped and went out to ice cream and just had a really good time together. My mom is a self professed shopaholic and is such a fun person to go on these outtings with. We talk, eat, and find that in some cases we do actually have similar tastes.

Happy Mother's day everyone!

4 Month Slippers

2009-05-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

I am amazed with just how long it took me finish the clogs I started way back in January! The actual knitting was finished in oh, about 3 weeks (including taking classes for it and learning new techniques). Then I hit a road block, you can't felt them in a front loader...which I have. So, they sat and sat waiting for me to either A. go to a laundry mat with 2 kids and be the weirdo trying on wet slippers every 10 minutes or B. Go to a someones house that has a top loader and ask to use there machine. So you can see why they sat and sat, a combination of forgetfulness and lack of motivation were to blame.

I finally managed to get them felted up when we were visiting my in-laws last month. So, here they are in all their felted glory, just in time for the warmer months, perfect............

As for more recent projects that I don't plan to let languish unfinished for months here is my very first baby blanket. I know that this is a common project amongst most knitter, but MAN it's a lot of work! This is for my nephew that will be born this October, when I knit this I can't help but think of a cute little baby all snuggled inside.

A Handful Of Pastels

2009-04-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

Ever since L watched a Holly Hobbie video a year ago she has been begging me for a bonnet, and she wanted it pink. So this Easter I finally got around to making up a couple of bonnets for the girls in pink of course. I used Amy Karol's pattern that you can find here if you are feeling so inclined as to make up some bonnets.

So much pastels nearly gave me a headache, but the smiles on those there two faces that morning was completely worth it...

One A Month Update

2009-04-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

The last time I posted about this was way back in January and I have been quietly working on them one by one, just forgot to post about it. For anyone who doesn't know, the One A Month Challenge is about making one thing every month for a charity bringing awareness to our children and hopefully ourselves. This is just a personal challenge I've given myself this year to teach my children about giving and I'm knitting hats for the homeless.

Acrylic yarn is really not my favorite thing to knit with, but with these babies durability is key. The hats are a bit stiff, but I knit them on smaller needles then usual so they would be nice and tight, and therefore very warm.

In non-hat related news my Easter Baskets made it on to Whip up! You can see the post here. Just want to say hi to any crafter's that may have made there way over to my little space from the post.....hi :)

Smilin'

2009-04-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Throughout my childhood I loved to draw. I was never much of an artist rendering lifelike portraits with exquisite details or anything. I drew horses, people, houses you know that type of stuff. I did it for me and it made me happy. It's one of those things that I now regret having stopped. Art is not perfect, it is unique and imperfect and has the ability to make people happy, whether that person is just you or many. It's silly for me to think back and remember that I stopped because a boy in my class teased my portrait and I wasn't as talented as my brother. Silly stuff.

Last week I started up again and it made me happy so now I'm going to share one with you guys.

It is hard for me to put something like this our there, something straight from my heart, but I love it.

This embroidery is on it's way to being turned into a pillow for our bed. I hope to encourage the unused talents of other, perfection is not the key, smiling is and I can say that this made me smile.

Trivets!

2009-04-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

Trivets, yes I'm making trivets. So simple, so functional and totally fun to make. Using some left over cording I made this up in less then an hour. I just used the basic coiled cording method for this tutorial again. I have already made two and I'm really feeling as though these would make good Christmas gifts, no?

Things have been a bit hairy around here, Spring time is in full swing around here and I'm not talking about the new flowers and fluffy baby chicks. I'm talking about sneezy, rashy, asthma ridden children keeping me on my toes all day. I've also been recovering from attack of the Corned Beef. Did you know that stuff is filled with Nitrites, preservatives and all sorts of nasty stuff? Well, I didn't and I got very sick for over a week, feeling better this week, but my house is a mess. I should really be mopping the floors right now, which I think I will go do. More crafty goodness to come next week.

Dandelion Wishes

2009-04-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

We have been soaking up the sun around here, trying our best to ignore all the Spring cleaning that should be going on around here.

(The girls both needed good doses of benadryl after running through this field of wild flowers on our trip to Redding last weekend.)

I agree with L when she made her dandelion wish, she wished for there always to be flowers in her house.

Another month has started and I am amazed with how fast this year is going. They say that when you have kids, it's as though someone turns the dial up and years fly by, I definitely feeling this lately. My days are sometimes long, but the months and years are wizzing by leaving me blurry eyed.

I have more to share, but for now I'm off to get ready for a date with my hubby.

Another Basket

2009-03-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

The second basket is all finished up waiting to be filled with grass and goodies. I love the changes I made in the construction of this basket. The strap is awesomely sturdy and the shape of the bowl works so much better. I'm not to happy with the big stripes and the colors, but oh well it's just for one day a year.

I'm actually working on quite a few other projects including a new embroidery that I am really excited about. This weekend will be filled with lots of down time so perfect for this breezy weather.

Easter Baskets

2009-03-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I came across this tutorial for how to make fabric bowls via Linda's great blog. As soon as I knocked out a few WIP's I got started, but alas all the colors I used ended up looking to "Eastery" so a made an Easter basket!

I used the basic bowl tutorial for the base and then made a handle out of some remaining cording working back and forth instead of in a spiral. I left button sized holes in the end of each handle big enough to squeeze a button through.

On my next one I think I will be making the handle with 6 cording sections instead of just 4 and I may even make the handle shorter. While this project was time consuming it was really a lot of fun, repetitive yet gratifying.

Hello Spring!

2009-03-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

Daffodils have been popping up all over town, giving me a new found appreciation of Spring. I keep spotting these bright yellow beauties all over town as I drive to and fro on many meticulous errands and they brighten my day. I picked these up at the grocery store in order to bring some of that nice warm feeling into my home.

Of course as Spring is now here one of my favorite holidays is fast approaching Easter! I just love all the brightly colored eggs, the matching dresses, the chocolate eggs and bunnies, such a sweet celebration of Spring! I made these matching twirly skirts for the girls from fabric in my stash. These were such a quick sew, just a couple of found hours and there done!

I love the little chicks, I've been wanting to use this fabric that my mom gifted my for years, so happy I finally got the chance. The girls are really looking forward to wearing them to church in a few weeks.

My favorite part however is the twill tape that I picked up when perusing the scrap booking store. P's tags have purple stripes and L's have pink and that along with their names written on with fabric marker will finally stop M from asking "who's is this?" all the time.

My brothers wedding was yesterday and I think it may take me days to recover. I plan to lounge around, watch t.v. on my computer, finish up a few projects and hopefully blog about them. A little bit of down time before we start up with some more fun Spring time activities.

St. Patrick and the Baroness

2009-03-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

The corned beef and cabbage is in the crockpot, the Irish soda bread is cooling on the stove, and the green jello is becoming a united gelatinous form in the fridge. We are all clad in green and pinching each other anyways, it must be St. Patricks day! I managed to finish my new green beret in time too, YaY! It's the Baroness Beret from Ravelry, I love this pattern. This was my first time knitting a lace pattern and while it was much harder and took lots of concentration, the results were well worth it (at least I think so).

Hope everyones having a great St.Patty's Day!

Post Publish: I wanted to add a nice detail shot of the Baroness Beret. I stretched it over a dinner plate which also how I blocked it.

Patchwork Pillow

2009-03-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

I mentioned on Saturday's post that I got some good sewing time in. Well, this wedding gift was the main fruit of this well enjoyed time. I designed, cut, sewed and stuffed this pillow in just a few hours. As you can see I still have to stitch up the bottom, but I am saving that for a still moment. I really like how this turned out, so much in fact that I am dreaming up a similar one to make for my bed.

My Floors Covered In Dirt....And I Like It

2009-03-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

We got our finally got around to planting our seedlings today. M was such a good Dad explaining everything and letting the girls dig in. It was one of those days where you truly feel the Lords blessings in your life. I sewed, we ate good food, dug in the dirt, and took time to enjoy the day.

You can really see all the dirt on my floor here, I really got to put my Dyson to the test tonight, so even the clean up was kind of fun!

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend!

Feeling Green

2009-03-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Green has been popping up all around me and you know what? I LOVE IT! I feel so giddy about all the changes going on around here. I'm trying to move forward in our homeschooling and incorporate some more "hands on" items. Our first was this terrarium. The soil, rocks, jar and little toy are all things we had lying around, we just had to make a fun trip to the nursery for the plants. That was a fun weekday trip, the girls rode around in the wagons they had there, we bought seeds for our garden, flowers, and of course talked the guys ear 0ff about terrarium stuff. We even bought the girls some lemon fresh off an employee's tree that same morning.

We promptly went home and after lunch and nap we put it all together. I had a whole lot of fun, the girls however were less excited then I expected. P wouldn't touch the dirt (weird I know) and L wanted to know if she could go do her page work instead (gotta love that type A personality). It was still a lot of fun though and now I have some beautiful greenery in my home.

After about 5 attempts I finally figured out how I wanted my new cowl to look. I finally settled on the Abstract Caterpillar Cowl on Ravelry. I'm lovin' the way this looks, however the yarn is so soft that it isn't quite stiff enough. Oh well, I love it anyways!

Time to Teach

2009-03-06T10:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spent my time wisely. I wisely ignore the dishes, knowingly forgot to fold the laundry, and made the smart decision to have a late dinner. Things got done in their own time and a few have been put off for another day.

I think that I have mentioned on here that my little sister A comes over to hang out a couple of times a week. She plays with the girls so I can clean and loves to eat our "exotic" food which is quite different then what she's used to. Well today was her day to finally learn to knit. I could have taken her for a lesson at the LYS (local yarn shop) for only a few dollars and saved myself the time and headache, but this was something I wanted to do. She has taken to it well and I am really happy I got to do this.

Since she was here I decided to bake some bread, so along with the usual sandwich bread I made a loaf of Garlic and Herb bread to with our dinner. This is the fifth time I have made this and I finally managed to snap a picture before the devouring began. Per my friends request since she is always sweet enough to read this blog I am also including the recipe.

Garlic and Herb Bread

2 cups unbleached flour

.5 cups of wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp of Chico Spice Garlic and Herb (This is a local thing, but I'm sure another Garlic seasoning mix would work, you could also use rosemary and other herbs to make your own custom seasoning)

1 Tbsp of olive oil (plus 1-2 Tbsp more)

2 tsp active dry yeast

2 pinches of sugar

1 cup of warm water (110 degrees)

Mix the water, yeast and sugar in a bowl and let sit for 10 minutes, preheat oven to 200 degrees. Put flours, salt and seasonings in food processor and turn on to mix. Feed in olive oil and yeast mixture, pulse 30 times. Turn off oven. Pour about a tbsp of olive oil into a medium size bowl. Flour or oil hands and take dough out of food processor being very careful of the blades. Then smush into somethings slightly resembling a ball, dough will be sticky, but it shouldn't be so bad that you can't do this, if it's runny then you may want to add more flour, but I have never had this problem. Then plop it into yourbowl with oil in it and roll it around until it is coated in oil. Place cheesecloth or thin cloth napkin atop and place in the warm (but OFF) oven.

Let rise 1 hour. Then take out of the oven and turn it back on to 200 degrees. Grease large baking sheet. Take dough out of bowl and mush it into a ball, making sure that harder spot that was on the top of the rise bowl is moved to the center. Then place ball onto baking sheet and pat down to a 10" circle. Turn off the oven, cover dough with cloth and put back into oven. Let rise half hour. After 20 minutes you will want to take dough out of oven and preheat oven to 425 degrees. When 30 minute rise is done, take cloth off dough and gently brush it with olive oil. Place in oven for 18-20 minutes, bread will be golden brown and medium brown around the bottom edge (not burnt though). Let cool 10 minutes and enjoy!

I tried to make this recipe very beginner friendly so even some non bread making people can give it a try! If you are looking for better instructions on general bread making I would recommend going over to The Fresh Loaf and clicking on the lessons in there top bar, they have a lot of extremely valuable information in them.

Right Now

2009-02-27T14:43:00.000-08:00

Leg warmers I made for P, much better when you follow the pattern.
I saw this over on Jessica's blog and I thought it looked pretty cool, I love getting a little window into the thoughts and surroundings of others so I thought I would do one as well.

Right Now, I am:

smelling... fresh apple baking in the oven

feeling... content with my family life going on around me

reading... Multiple Blessings by Jon and Kate Gosselin and Beth Carson (from Jon and Kate plus 8) and the Seeds of Change catalog

enjoying... M's weekend at home

wondering... What to serve at tonight's pray group

hearing... M and L counting pennies

listening... to God's still small voice, telling me to be thankful

drinking... soon to be some apple spice tea M's is brewing

wanting... enough yarn to start on my first sweater project I'm dreaming up

loving... lazy Sunday mornings

looking... at this wonderful project and thinking about how fun it would be to donate a bear

Hope everyone else is having a wonderful lazy sunday morning!

Lovebirds

2009-02-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

The nasty cold that assaulted my system for over a week is finally leaving my house and making it's way to torture some other poor souls, but alas I am free! During the time that I was down I managed to crank out a few projects, 4 to be exact and here is the second one I get to share with you (the first was the leg warmers) it is the embroidery I did for my brother's wedding gift. I still haven't figured out what to put at top and whether it should be a framed sampler or a pillow, so I am begging for some opinions here!

In return for your opinions and suggestions I offer you this:

Crispy Nummy Not To Horribly Bad For You Apple Crisp

(Picture taken before baking because all the after pictures were hastily taken and therefore bad)

5 large apples

1 cup sugar

1 cup unbleached flour

1Tbsp Baking Powder

1 Egg

1.5 tsp cinnamon (I used Saigon)

3 Tbsp melted butter

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Core, peel and slice your apples (I think it is just as good without peeling them though) and toss with 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Pour in greased 8x8 glass baking dish.

In separate bowl combine, sugar, flour, baking powder and egg until somewhat well combined (will be a bit chunky). Pour this mixture atop apples.

Stir together the melted butter and the tsp of remaining cinnamon. Drizzle over crisp.

Bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown.

Blog Love

2009-02-23T19:36:00.001-08:00

I got a blog award last week from One Hook Wonder and actually I am ashamed to say that it is not the first. I know, what? Ashamed? Yes, but that is because I never posted it! Dorky me was so new to blogging and couldn't figure it out. I know, silly huh? So thank you also to Ginger from lovestodream for the Amazing Blog award you sent my way as well.

So here are the rules that I am supposed to follow (this reminds me of the chain mail letters that used to litter my email in high school):

1. Put the logo on your blog or post
.2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

One Hook Wander- Even if you wouldn't have sent this to me, I'd still be passin' it on to you
A Friend to knit with
Turkeycookies
Knitsational
mr.monkeysuit
MayaMade
The Toby Show

OK, so you know what, I fell short, but I've actually decided that I'm going to put up a list of blogs I love in my sidebar and that will just have to count!

Phoebe's Homebirth

2009-02-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

It was an unseasonably warm day when I went into labor with P. The middle of February and the sun was beating through the trees as though two more months had flown by without me even knowing. That certainly wasn't possible because being pregnant you are aware of every second that ticks on that 10 month clock. You wait in wild anticipation for that due date to come, calculating weeks and days hoping for your precious child to be in your arms. Babies however tick to the tock of there own and not even they know when they will enter this world; however P came right on time, quite unexpectedly.

I woke up that morning late the day before my due date, like most of my mornings, sleeping in while my husband M took care of our first daughter L downstairs. I'm sure the only reason I woke up that morning before 10am was because my sister was in town and I wanted to take her to the Farmer Market with me. So, after a quick bite and putting on my nice spring clothing we traveled to the next town over for their wonderful Saturday morning farmers market. Soon after we arrived I started to feel some light contractions, mostly like pressure which I laughed off and continued on with my shopping. Fresh fruits, yummy veggies and some beautiful flowers to look at while in labor. I finished my other errands, getting loads of groceries thinking that maybe, just maybe this will be the last time I grocery shop before my baby is born.

We arrived at my mother's house around 3pm and strangely enough I was still having these mild contractions, they were light waves of pressure but certainly nothing painful. I started to pay a bit more attention to them, noticing that they were about 15 minutes apart. Still I talked and visited with my mother and sister while silently hoping that today would be the day. As the pressure became more noticeable I decided to head home to get some dinner and rest just in case this did turn out to be "the big day". L said that she wanted to stay with her aunt so M and I happily went home to our quite house.

We got home and M made us a stir-fry and I started to read Spiritual Midwifery, which I had planned to read before the baby was born. When dinner was ready I sat on the birthing ball instead of a chair as it was much more comfortable. I also hoped that because it had the word birth in it that it might somehow make this be true labor. The contractions were a bit closer together, maybe about 6-7 minutes or so, but I was trying to just ignore them, since they weren't that painful and I thought that they might not lead to anything. I called my midwife Paula, just to give her a heads up since I knew she worked her second job on the weekends. At 6pm I went into the bathroom and while wiping I had some bloody show and was starting to lose my mucus plug. I was very excited at this point and called Paula back to give her the update. I felt it was a bit silly calling twice in a row, but I felt an urgency to tell someone. I then decided to call my mom and ask how L was doing and was informed that she had asked to stay the night, so that worked out perfectly. We had the house all to ourselves, it seemed like everything was just falling perfectly into place.

The contractions continued around 6 minutes apart, they didn't hurt at all just felt like pressure. I made sure to relax my jaw and my pelvic area during the contractions and focus on my opening. M was already doing the dishes so I decided to get in on the clean up so that we would have a nice clean home to give birth in. I wiped down the counters, swept the floor and then vacuumed. I had wanted a clean and quite home to birth in, but I hadn't thought it would be so easy! At 7:30pm I asked Micah to install the car seat, which I felt he could no longer stall on. While outside my contractions started to die out to every 15 minutes apart and only about 20 seconds long. So we then hopped into the car and went to the store and walked around there. My contractions kicked back up as I walked and spent some money I didn't really have. At about 9pm my abdomen was starting to hurt from the weight of my belly so we left and went to rent a movie. Once home we popped in the movie and I lay on the couch hoping to get some rest, but apparently my body had different plans for me. My contractions started to pick up to 5 minutes apart and 40 seconds long and I had to breathe and concentrate through them. At 11pm we turned off the movie and started to fill up the birth pool, just in case which was in our dining room.

While M was busying himself with the pool, I turned on Mad TV and walked around watching that between contractions. I also gave Paula an update at this point. Around midnight I turned off the TV. and stood out on my back porch looking at the stars with M for awhile. I went back and forth from the living room, to the porch, to the kitchen where the tub was being filled feeling lots of pressure. I took the time to slow dance, kiss and look into my husband's eyes during the contractions. I felt so alive at this point truly connecting with my baby, my husband, God and the earth around me. The pain woke me up and filled me the great knowledge that only laboring women can know. I knew at this point that I would have this baby by morning so at 1:00am I had M call Paula and tell her to come on over.

It took her awhile since she was at work and would have to call someone in to replace her. I started leaning heavily on M for support during the contractions feeling his love and strength. I would look into his eyes and feel all the love and faith that he had in me. I imagined this birth being a gift to him, as we danced under the stars, my wonderful husband who is my strength. We kissed each other softly feeling the love and warmth this baby would be bringing into the world.

The tub was filled now as Paula arrived at 2:30 am. As a contraction would come on I would call out for M and he would help me to find a comfortable position to labor in. Paula checked my Blood pressure and the baby's heart rate and started setting up her equipment. At 3:15 am she asked if she could check my cervix and I said OK since I was curious to know how things were going down there anyways. I was 3cm dilated and 90% effaced, active labor. During the exam I felt a popping sensation and had my hardest contraction yet. It came so fast that I was unable to get on top of it as I moaned out in pain. I stood up expecting to feel a gush of water between my legs, but there was nothing. I needed something to take the edge off, I wanted water, so I went upstairs to take a shower with M. The hot water only lasted a few minutes before it ran cold. I felt defeated. I came downstairs and tried walking outside with M for a few more contractions. At about 3:15am I told M "I have to get into that damned tub". Paula said OK and I went ahead and got in. I tried getting into the position that I had envisioned giving birth in, on my knees with my arms lying on the side of the pool. This position however did not work for me I felt extreme pressure on my pelvic bone, so I flipped around and ended up in the crab position with the water supporting my weight. I was able to sway my hips around in circular motions which I had been doing for the past few hours. This helped a lot with pain and I was able to get the pressure of my pelvic pone.

At 4:06am I asked Paula to check me which she said she could do right where I was. I was 6cm and fully effaced. I felt relieved and empowered! My labor was going fast and I was thankful. Within minutes my body started to shake and Paula put more hot water into the tub. My shakes continued and Paula asked if she could give me Rescue Remedy, but the thought of having any taste in my mouth sickened me and I covered my mouth and shook my head. The contraction were surging through me and not leaving, they were overlapping like the tide and had peaks the size of title waves. I said things that I don't remember and that I didn't believe. I didn't want to be here anymore, but I wasn't going anywhere. Paula reminded me that I had made a comfortable cozy place to birth in and that I didn't really want to go anywhere. She didn't have to convince me, there was no way I was getting out of that tub. The precious water that was keeping me safe. It enclosed me in its warmth and gave me the comfort that I needed. I have always felt so free in the water, so much so that my skin will ache for it at times. This was one of those times and it was there for me. I was moaning low and steady through my overlapping contractions, through the energy surging through my body, begging for just a little break. I just needed to rest for a minute, but my body would give me no such thing.

Then my body started to bear down in that all too familiar "urge". I exclaimed that I needed to push. Paula checked me and there was no cervix to be found just my babies head, it was 4:24am. M then moved from his position near my face to be in position to catch his daughter. Paula tried to check the baby's heart beat with the Doppler, but it put to much pressure on my pelvis and I batted it away. Between contractions I asked her to call my mother and tell her I was pushing and that she needed to come over. I felt the head descending into the birth canal. My body was doing most of the pushing for me; I was just a mindless servant bending to its will. I followed the call and got behind it. The head started to crown and I reached down and felt my little girls head. It felt like a hairy brain all folds of skin mashed together as if it was trying to get every inch possible out of my body. I gave another push as my husband hands stood waiting. I felt I slight tearing sensation as her head emerged. M cradled her precious head and I gave another push as the rest of her body flew out of me into the water, it was 4:33 am. A time I will never forget, as she was resin out of the water to my bosom. She was a beautiful purplish thing covered in white vernix. I starred at her in amazement, complete shock that she was finally here. She didn't cry she just breathed. Her eyes were closed and she lay still in my arms. After a minute she let out a slight cry like that of a mouse as Paula checked her heart beat. Everyone became at ease after hearing that little voice knowing that her spirit was here and that she was with us. I asked M to turn off the overhead light so that she could open her eyes and once he did that she started looking around. I then asked Paula again to call my mother and tell her that the baby was born and to wake up L and my sister to come and see the baby.

The women of my family flooded into my home as the sun started to rise above the trees. My mother, my aunt, my little sister, and my two daughters. Sarah, the other midwife also came, a little late, but there all the same. We gathered around and looked at the beautiful new girl in our lives. We rested, she nursed and we examined my healthy placenta. I then climbed the stairs up to my bedroom and lay down with my beautiful babe. After examining my tear, which was nothing, doing the newborn exam, and having my mother cut her umbilical cord the midwives left us. Our families left us and my husband and I settled in our bed with our new little girl and fell asleep to dream of all the wonderful things our family would become.

Happy Birthday P!!!!

Those Winter Days

2009-02-17T08:22:00.000-08:00

You know those yucky winter days where at least half the family is sick, the rain (or snow) is coming down hard, and every ones a bit stir crazy? Well, that's what we have been having for several days now. This virus that I have has commandeered my body and pretty much left me as a hump on the couch. Thank God M was able to stay home and parent 'cause I wouldn't have been a very good one! The girls did do some things to make the time pass more swiftly. I give you the poor mans bounce house:

Pop up playhouse from P's birthday last year + all the pillows from our couch = hours of FREE entertainment!

Since M was on duty and I couldn't just look at the ceiling all day I decided to put my hands to work and I am really surprised with all they accomplished while I was laid up. The embroidery I showed you last week is nearly finished and I made these legwarmers for my nieces birthday.

These are made from KnitPicks Comfy in Flamingo and Cashew it took awhile to get here, but I was really impressed with the quality, it's SO soft. The pattern is from Never Not Knitting. I am about 75% done with a second pair as well, which I am planning to give for P's birthday, so that is what I will be working on today. M was a such a great dad this weekend, he took care of all of us without one word of complaint and he even got the laundry caught up for me! Sorry for the brag, I just really thought he should should get some recognition here.

Hope everyone else is finding some entertainment in these dreary winter days.

Our Funny Valentine

2009-02-16T18:01:00.000-08:00

Micah and I have a Valentines curse. It has followed us for 5 years now, usually striking about every other year. It all started with our first Valentines together when we were dating. M had planned a romantic day trip to Sacramento to go Ice Skating, but instead ended up with us getting lost, fighting, and me sulking the rest of the way home. Fast forward to this Saturday, the plan was to have a nice low key day with little gifts, sweets and a huge feast of a dinner.

It started off innocently enough with the exchanging of gifts (see my gorgeous flowers up there). Well things quickly heated up from there (and not in the good way). Our landlord needed to come by and inspect a leak in our downstairs which is below our bathroom. So, even though I was sick with a nasty head cold and it was Valentines, we still needed to get this done. I'm sure you can guess that this is leading to something and here it is, mold. Mold in the drywall, but thank God it was only where the leak was. I rushed the girls upstairs to get dressed and we quickly fled the house with a diaper bag and the dog. Being asthmatics we can't be to careful.

We called our local relatives and all had some sort of stomach virus, so no way were we going there! The rain was pouring down, my head was pounding and we were homeless for a day. We drove around, shopped aimlessly and finally landed at my moms for dinner to brave whatever her baby had (which turned out to be a virus and she was just puking from the snot). We cuddled up, watched a movie and eventually went home to our house that had been cleaned up and had double air purifiers going the whole day.

Still throughout all this our cool was kept. It's truly amazing how much parenthood changes you, we laugh in the face of peril and spray air deodorizer when life just plain stinks! Long live the Valentines day curse!

Happy Valentines Day!

2009-02-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone everyone is having a great Valentines Day. We have been baking treats,

eating treats,

making Valentines,

and getting ready with cards and gifts for tomorrow festivities,

(paper cutting was from free download at little acorn, it's my first ever!)

Whipin' Up

2009-02-08T19:07:00.000-08:00

Today I got to get on the sewing machine and managed to whip up this skirt for L

I made it out of an old sheet, can't you tell from the nice hem?

She of course was thrilled and had to wear it right then. M was thrilled because it was nice and long which is something he is always complaining about with little girls clothing. You wouldn't think that a man with an eyebrow ring would be modest would you?

As my clog project winds to a close I went ahead and started my next big one which is definitely something that won't just be whipped up in a day. I working on an embroidery sampler for my brothers wedding in May. Here the beginning

There's a bit more not shown in the hoop, I plan to put there names and wedding date above the doves. The pattern is downloadable over at Pimp Stitch it is another design from

Sublime Stitching that they have there for free.

Oh yeah and in other news, we got a car! Yay, no more being stranded at home with crazy girlies. We ended up getting a minivan which I love. I know, I know we only have two kids BUT I have 7 siblings whom I drive around. The "green" things about the minivan are that it is Ethanol capable and it shows us how many mpg we are getting at all times and has really helped me improve on my driving. The mpg is good for a minivan 22mpg average which is almost the same as my old Subaru.

I loved the nice comments on my slouchy hat, glad to see I'm not the only one with the slouchy hat love. I've been wearing the thing so much I sure I will be making another one soon. Could you ever have guessed that I'm not really a hat person? I always felt so silly in them, but once I started knitting them myself I realized I'm just very persnickity about them and I'm ok with that.

Slouchy Hat

2009-02-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

While the clogs are well on there way to being finished up and felted, I managed to fit in this cute little slouchy hat as well.
I would have had it finished within two days, but just as I was one row from finishing it I tried it on and it was to small. I just knew that there was no way it would close, I guess I have a bigger head then I thought. So with great dismay (mostly because I was excited to wear the dang thing) I took it off the needles and ripped out about 14 rows. I finished the next evening and have been wearing it most of the week (in fact, I'm wearing it right now).

The pattern is from knitsational which is one of my favorite shops on Etsy, such cute stuff there! The pattern also includes a rose to go on the hat, but I think when I get around to making it I will make it a brooch. I currently have a major obsession for brooches, especially one that are good and sparkly or handmade.

I'd love to make another one of these, maybe in the turquoise I got from my MBOY.

MBOY

2009-01-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

This month as part of my my "taking care of me" fun I signed up for an MBOY(magic ball of yarn) swap on MDC. I send out a few ball of yarn with 6 "goodies" to someone and I got mine in the mail yesterday. Totally cool huh?

L has already claimed the yellow and pink wool for some legwarmers and I am totally in love with the hank of purple and green variated. I'm thinking it may end up as a cowl or skinnyish scarf, but I'm still undecided so if you have an opinion, I'd love to hear it! The needle case is my other fav, I love the green and brown combo. I'm known to be very picky about my colors especially greens, but these are perfect, so happy.

Oh, and I thought you might like to hear about my wild thing....

....she's still wild.

Stitch and B*tch

2009-01-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

On Friday I was forced to sit for most of the day, due to my knee going out (ouch!). To stave off my boredom I started (and finished) my first embroidery project that I got from Sublime Stitching which I loved! They have such awesome designs, I already have 3 more patterns that I just HAVE to buy.

Here's a close up for you, not to bad for my first embroidery and I definitely learned a lot!

I would have had a wonderful weekend if it wasn't for my knee injury and the fact that I had to do online car shopping. Oh how I loathe car shopping! So much money wasted on something that could just crap out at a moments notice. Can you tell I'm mad at my old car? Well, I am. Only 2 years since we bought it and it needs a new engine.

I am also not feeling the love for my knee right now, it hurts to walk, let alone dance. So, it looks like M and I will have to postpone the dancing class for another semester, so bummed!

Amazingly enough the other parts of my weekend were great! I got to go to my clog knitting class (and no that doesn't me we knitted and clogged at the same time which is what popped into mind as I typed that) which was a lot of fun. I'm learning a lot and am so glad I took the class 'cause I am WAY out of my league! Then M's parents came up and watched the girls and treated M and I to a play. It was so much fun! If only we hadn't discussed our opinions on what kind of car to buy first, total mood buster!

Oh, and I almost forgot (literally was about to push "publish post") I wanted to point everyone (all 5 of you that read my blog) over to knitsational who is having a blog giveaway this week ;)

Cake and Crafts

2009-01-23T21:12:00.000-08:00

This week didn't go quite as planned, in fact it is by Gods grace alone that I am still sane. Instead of delving into some Valentine's crafts that I was looking forward to I spent my time searching for a new car and trying to entertain some seriously stir crazy girls. Fortunately, it did have some bright spots like when I made the apple cake from a friend to knit with You'll notice that mine doesn't look quite as nice as hers, but that is what happens when you have to use bread flour instead of all purpose, it puffs up like a marshmallow. You can thank P for this, seeing as she dumped an entire bottle of garlic and herb into my baking flour, which was only annoying until I made parmesan and garlic biscuits, yum!

I also managed to take some time to do a few art projects with the girls

We painted Valentine pictures for M's office,

Made some pretty necklaces,

and I made a button barrette for each of the girls.

Even with all the gunk I had to wade through this week I am still in somewhat good spirits and very much looking forward to this weekend. I get to spend my Saturday learning how to knit felted clogs! Well, at least the first part in a three part class. I will also be doing some fun shopping for a swap on MDC and some not so fun shopping for a new car, but hey maybe I'll luck out and find something I love. Gotta stay positive or they'll eat me alive!

One A Month Challenge

2009-01-17T16:31:00.000-08:00

Throughout the year time ticks by, daily schedules and routines take up the majority of our time and the rest is spent of either trying to catch up or trying desperately to get some "peace". I know that this is how I feel. Like life is one big rolling ball that sometimes I don't take the time to just watch it move; to meditate on the world around me and what I will be leaving behind. What have I taught me children about giving? About caring for others and how they should live in this world? Is what I find myself thinking a lot.

This year I have challenged myself to take time our to meditate on these things. To show my daughters through the work in my hands how much we can do in this life, if we only slow down and try. I know that this may seem like a lot for one little thing a month to do, but I believe it can. So often I will be sitting with my knitting needles, fabric, etc. and L will ask me "who's that for?" "when do they get it?" and that many times I will get to say that it is for someone who needs it more then we do, someone without a home. It is a lesson that she is learning well, through repetition little ones are taught so why not repeat kindness?

So this year I have challenged myself to knit one warm item per month for the homeless shelter. By December I will have my daughter help me bring all 12 of them to the shelter and with this little effort I hope to make a big impression on her little heart. Anybody else want to join me????

Much To Do, Not Much To Say

2009-01-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

Could it be, something else for me? Why of course! I have been working on this scarf for over a month and just got it finished the other day. I just found it so boring that I just couldn't bring myself to finish the last 8 inches. Finally done now and I wonder if it will ever get worn, I'm not feelin' the love. Eh, whatever at least the yarn was on sale.

These are the legwarmers I have been working on for P, I hate them, but I think I will keep going. I bought some cheap acrylic yarn, because I wanted something self striping and super bright, but I'm not enjoying them. They look to big too. Hmmm....if I could afford more yarn right now I would just frog them and start over. I'm dreaming of them 4 stitches smaller in pink Portland Tweed......
Coming up tomorrow; something not for me :D

Back At It!

2009-01-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

Back to the grind, trying to get back into the weekly rhythm around here. First thing that needed to be done was a mass amount of dishes and laundry, but after that was underway I made our weekly sandwich bread. Which I shamefully have not made since before Christmas. Here are the first loaves of the new year, not bad, just a bit bubbly.

While I'm at work swimming in a sea of toys and laundry I'm dreaming of sitting here in my favorite chair working on my new project.

Hope everyone else isn't working to hard and stealing precious moments to sit back and enjoy yourselves!

My Birthday!

2009-01-11T15:21:00.000-08:00

You know what you get when you combine Christmas, New Years and my birthday in 2 weeks? One very relaxed crafty girl with very little done! I have been relaxing, knitting, reading, eating, and catching up on zzz's and my list of accomplishment to share with you is practically zilch.

My birthday was on Thursday and I had a nice low key day, I stayed at home with the girls, didn't clean a thing, and made a mess in the kitchen which produced a lovely blackberry pie. Then we went to my folk's house and had dinner and I was showered with a few much loved surprises. On Saturday I used my gift certificate(thanks mom and dad!) and went down to the local knitting shop t0 take a lesson on cable knitting. Check out what I made: Finally a hat for my cold little head! I'm really wishing I would have made it olive green, so I may have to get started on a second one. I have fallen in love with cable knitting and can't wait to do more of it. This hat was so much fun, I finished in less than 2 days!
While I was off knitting, my wonderful hubby was busy giving me my big birthday gift, what every women dreams of.........a clean house! He scrubbed the bathrooms, the windows, the kitchen, the walls and mopped the floors. My house is all bright and shiny especially with my big bouquet of Gerber daisies (my favorite). What a sweetie!

Oh and check out the awesome locally made necklace M had the girls get me.

And it's reversible too. I saw this at a craft fair and I guess M swooped back behind me and snatched it up. The girl also had an etsy shop, but I can't seem to find it, hopefully I will come across her card and update.
While I was taking pics of my birthday goodies I went ahead and got one of the journal M and L made for me for Christmas. Spoilt? I think so.

It's All About Me

2009-01-03T15:45:00.000-08:00

Like so many others I have been taking stock of my life and thinking forward to the next year. What I want to accomplish, the changes I want to make, and what I really want to make my focus for the year. I'm wanting to take time for myself and grow as a person. I love my children and I would die for them in a heartbeat, but that doesn't mean I have to stop living. I seem to have fallen into the martyr position with my children always focusing on what's best for them even when I am unhappy. Mothering can be such a ruff place sometimes, you don't know where to draw the line. If you can give them the best then shouldn't you? At what cost? Do you jeopardize your self, your family, your sanity all for the sake of what is "best"? Well anyways, this is something that I have been thinking a lot about. So, starting at the beginning of this year I'm taking better care of myself and letting my kids suffer a bit. Haha, just kidding, there will be no suffering, but they may not like it very much.

I have signed up (as of today) for a couple of college classes one of which is Ballroom dancing with my hubby. I am VERY excited about this. It will take the place of our weekly date and by the end of it I'd like to buy a fancy dress and have M take me out dancing. I've also set some weight loss and health goals: lose 30lbs, going back to all organic (which I have let slip since cost increases) and cut out sugar (at least until I am no longer addicted again) and strengthen my core. We'll see how this all works out, it's all stuff I have done before and that I see as completely doable.

As far as crafting goals go I would like to make a few things for myself I have already started this at the end of last month, finally getting around to knitting something for myself.
Some yummy wool fingerless gloves that I finished up in just 2 days.

I have something else for me on the needles and I have my next 2 projects planned for myself as well. I have a purse halfway cut out that I hope to finish up tomorrow and you know who it's for? ME mwahhahhhaaaa!

My other New Years goals include knitting one hat every month of 2009 for The Jesus Center in Chico. They need warm things to give out every winter so this year I'm going to get a head start and hope to have 12 to donate by the end of the year.

Following in the footsteps of that goal I'm also planning to make one Christmas gift per month. So that I can give out even more hand made goodies next year. Christmas for my immediate family rocked this year, but I am hoping to gear more towards the extended as well next year.

Wishing everyone abundance and blessings in the new year!

Our Handmade Christmas

2009-01-01T13:57:00.001-08:00

I am ready and willing to sound like a total child when I talk about how AWESOME our Christmas was, possibly the best ever! Who knew handmade could be so fun? So much time and effort was put in to the making, swapping, and the few things we did buy were truly loved and appreciated. We did extra work and bartering, and I weaseled a bit out of my allotted "grocery" and "household" budgets to pay for Christmas and it was far beyond what I could have purchased with a Walmart credit card.

It started off with the girls sleeping like logs and M and I tossing and turning all night from excitement. We were then awoken by load claps of thunder and flashes of light right above our house, so yeah we were up at 7am and the girls slept in until almost 8. Anyways, when they did come down they were fun and pleasant. They loved there gifts and were truly grateful (I know totally unexpected huh?)

Here they are twirling around in the tutu's M made for them. The crown is from a local handmade business.

When P opened up her cape, we immediately put it on her and she ran all around the house making it fly.
L was quite the princess with her "Angelina Ballerina Wand" which is just what she asked Santa for.
P loved her stocking from Santa although the favorites were this camera from an MDC swap and the candy.
M has been enjoying the hat and fingerless gloves I knit him, he has actually worn them every day since!
After the gift giving we had a wonderful snugly time
with chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and a lot of lounging around enjoying the day.
Then we headed down to see M's parents were I was gifted with the most awesome gift, a new sewing machine! Oh, how I needed and wanted this, but gosh wouldn't have even thought to ask for it, it's just to much! M got me wonderful thoughtful gifts as well, I couldn't have shopped better for myself. In all I got 5 cookbooks this year, can't wait to get to using them all. He and L made me a journal too, I can't wait to put up picks of this.

Mmmm....Fudge

2008-12-24T13:52:00.000-08:00

Last night ended up being just as productive as I needed it to be, which was unexpected. M took the girls Christmas shopping (gotta love the procrastination) and I got all 3 batches of fudge done while he was out. Here they are:

White Chocolate Peppermint (my new fav, just lovely)

Butterscotch

and Rocky Road

Topped off with a nice sugar cookie, tied with ribbon and a tree ornament. Yep, all set for Christmas festivities tonight!
Hope everyone has a truly blessed Holiday!

Christmasy Goodness

2008-12-23T17:22:00.001-08:00

Today has been a wonderfully productive, stay at home and get some crap done kind of day. I have finished two knitting projects (that were practically done, but still on the to-do list), blogged (now twice), baked 5 dozen cookies with L, did laundry and cleaned up my kitchen (which is now and utter disaster). So, since I am in the spirit on getting things done I thought I would go ahead and post these ornaments I made last week.

They are made using khaki pants from the thrift store, vintage buttons, Ecospun felt, ribbon from my stash, and cookie cutters for templates. My original idea was to make them look like sugar cookies, with pastel felt frosting and bead sprinkles, but then I thought these up when I was going to sleep one night and just had to get up the next day and make them.

Here are my sweeties frosting away, P mostly just licking the frosting off of everything she could get her hands on. We usually just use white frosting due to L's red dye sensitivity, but this year we purchase these and these and had a blast.
Left on the agenda tonight is 3 batches of fudge and ack more cleaning.

Wee Little Purses

2008-12-23T10:55:00.000-08:00

So as you can probably tell, I haven't been around very much this past couple of weeks. This was only a little to do with Christmas, and a whole lot due to having my wisdom teeth removed. Totally not fun, I was kinda out of it for about a week and a half due to the after pain. I rocked it though with only local anesthetic (gotta keep breastfeeding) and Motrin. Doing much better now, and back in the crafty spirit of things.

This week has been much the crafty catch up, that and my wonderful hubbies birthday. M didn't get anything crafty for his birthday, just a commuter mugs with a picture on it from Snapfish and a new pair of drumsticks. His mom threw him a party (I did just have surgery you know) and we went down there and had a great time.

Anyways, I just finished up these children's purses for my aunt last night, made the pattern myself the night before. I've been pondering an Etsy shop for children's toys and accessories, but so far I just sell to my relatives.
Here's P modeling one (you have no idea how hard it was to get this picture)

And here they all re laid out on my floor. The panels in front are nice pockets. I'm not exactly sure what lead me to pockets in the front it's just what I imagined when I thought these little cuties up. I think the purple one with little lambs is my favorite, it's just so sweet. I think my little girls will be getting one of these in there Easter basket (Oh yes, I did just go there).

I can't wait to show you some of the other things I have been working on!

Tasty and Healthy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2008-12-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

My camera is (again) not working so I thought I would offer up one of our favorite recipes. These cookies are great for kids, something sweet, but at the same time pretty dang healthy.

1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened blackberry applesauce (can use raspberry, but I really wouldn't recommend using plain this is what gives them the extra kick)
2 cups of rolled oats
1 1/2 whole wheat flour (hard white wheat if you have it, if you don't you should really give it a try, it's awesome stuff)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cups raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, honey and eggs together. Stir in the applesauce, oats and the baking soda. Then add the flour , spices, and raisin just until moistened. Scoop tablespoon size dough onto grease baking sheet and bake for 1o minutes or until slightly golden. Let cool 5 minutes and enjoy!

I Love Knitting

2008-12-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

The other day I was frantically looking for my spare #7 double pointed needle when I realized just how much I love knitting. When there is something I truly enjoy doing, I tend to ration my time with it. Like saying only in the car and on outings and only on certain days, which is what I also have to do with reading. Otherwise it's all I will do, I will devour a novel or knitting project in just a few sittings. So, back to the other day, I was frantically searching thinking "it's just been a really stressful day, I really need to knit a few rows, just few rows and then I will stop". Of course you can guess that I succumbed to the temptation and finished the whole darn thing (hey, at least it was just a small project). This is what I was working on:

Some fingerless gloves that my Mummy requested from Christmas. I made them in her favorite color and I truly hope that she loves them. They are almost done, just about 20 minutes on them tonight and the pair will be complete.

I believe everyone should have a truly loved hobby, something that you could practically get a bumpersticker for. Something that takes your mind off the problems at hand and gives you that simple pleasure of accomplishment. What ever your crafty hobby is, I hope there is much endulgence this holiday season. It is so wonderful to share hand crafts this time of year.

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

2008-12-05T11:54:00.000-08:00

All the holidays seem to spilling into each other this year, not ready for one to end and then boom there's another. Barely enough time to deck the halls and craft it up. Yesterday it hit me, it's time to decorate for Christmas NOW! Not wanting to miss another moment I devoted my entire day to whipping up stockings for the whole family. We plan to do the rest of the decorating tomorrow when M is home to help. These took about 6-7 hours including drafting my own pattern. I tried a pattern the day before, and frankly it sucked and I threw the stocking in the scraps pile. So after a few choice words these cuties were born.

Mine is on the left and M's is to the right.

P's is to the left and of course the one on the right is L's she just loved this fabric. I love the little girl hiding on the toe of L's such a perfect little detail.

They are all fully line with unbleached cotton, no yucky raw seams.

So that the adorable fabrics can be fully appreciated, here are some closeups. M's and L's are my favorites. M's uses my favorite fabrics, so loving those Christmas trees and who doesn't LOVE candy cane stripes?

I love L's because A. It's adorable and B. Because she absolutely squeeled when she saw it. She was so sweet beaming from ear to ear.

The rest of Christmas is on it's way, I'm nearly done with my last Christmas gift, the cards arrived in the mail yesterday, and we will be decorating this weekend. Oh, I'm just so excited!

Nature Walk

2008-12-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

Two weekends ago M and I took the girls to the park to snap some shots for our Christmas pictures. We brought a picnic basket and made plans for a nice nature walk. It started out with a lot of this...

Remedied with a bit of this....

...Then having fun, and catching glimpses of this...

and this...

Hope everyone had a turkey-tastic Thanksgiving!!!

Pumpkin Farm Pumpkin Bread

2008-11-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

Over the past several (I swear I didn't eat them all myself) times I have made this Pumpkin bread I have changed a few things and now feel quite OK with putting it up here. I changed some ingredients and feel that this recipe is actually a bit improved. So here you go, I hope that some of you will go ahead and make this delicious treat, you taste buds will thank you and your children will be begging for more "mumkin bed" like little P keeps doing.

Pumpkin Farm Pumpkin Bread

3c. sugar
2/3 c. oil
1 c. water
4 eggs
2 c. mashed pumpkin (1 15oz. can)
3 1/2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves (I didn't have these, so I just used 2 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional)
1/2c. raisins (optional, but yummy)

Struesel Topping (optional, but I did it and it's really good)
1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 c. finely chopped nuts (if you don't have any double the amount of brown sugar)
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbsp. butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Grease and flour either 2 9x5" or 3 8x5" loaf pans. Combine sugar, oil, water, eggs, pumpkin: beat 1 min at low speed. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup and level off. Add flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; blend at low speed until moist. Beat 1 minute at medium speed. Stir in nuts and raisins. Pour into pans

Topping: Combine all ingredients until crumbly; sprinkle over batter

Bake for 60-75 minutes (It takes the full 75 for me) or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for about 10 minutes and then turn over onto tea towel or wire cooling rack. Allow to cool a few minutes longer (if you can control yourself) because it is so moist it can be hard to cut hot.

Pie Night

2008-11-19T22:07:00.000-08:00

A while back I remember reading about someone doing Pie Night for dinner and thinking Wow that is a great idea. I then cataloged it into the "cools things to do someday" closet in my brain (this is also wear underwear out of old t-shirts and making a knitted sleep sack live). So as I was preparing for dinner the other night with Quiche on the menu I decided that it was a great time to give Pie Night a try. I can't tell you how thrilled my husband was. So last night we had our first official Pie Night.

The quiche I made quick and dirty (as in not neat, still sanitary though). The crust is all funky and I should have added an extra egg, but still quite scrumptious.

For dessert pie we had Pumpkin Pie which was absolutely nummers. This was it right out of the oven still a bit puffed up, but as you can see my crust was a bit better here. All in all I have to say that Pie Night was a success.

In non-pie related news, I finally got something finished out of my overwhelming pile of half finished projects. I was starting to get in a bit of a funk about it, not wanting to do anything because it all seemed like to much. Today I was bound and determined to get something done, anything. So of course I tackled the easiest one and finished up the little scarflette I had half finished in my knitting bag.

It's made out of a beautiful variated wool that was gifted to me. It was a very small ball, but I finally found a good use for it. Waste not, want not. I used one of my favorite buttons from my small button stash, I love how quirky it is.

Last Weeks Goodies

2008-11-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

This past week did not end up being the craft catch up I needed and had hoped for (sigh). It was a good week, a productive week, but still a lot of my projects lay unfinished yet not forgotten. These are things I completed the week before. This cape, this simple thing proved to be very difficult indeed seeing as I broke 2 machines trying to make it! I'm taking my old Singer to the shop this week, but in the mean time I have the new (very basic) one my mom bought me. The other one that broke was the POC Brother that I had learned to sew on.

With all the mishaps it's not a perfect cape, but at least the girl can fly with it.

These are some emotional beanbags I made for the swap. They were a special request and I had the felt to make them so here they are. Not an original idea or anything, but fun to create. I also made this bag to go with them using the same pattern (with a few modifications of course) as my doll diaper bag.

Now for non-crafty news, check out the gorgeous hand blown glass pumpkin I scored at our church auction yesterday for $20!!!!

I'm so in love with this. We also ended up with a entire home carpet steam cleaning gift certificate for just $40, yippee!!! So all in all, we are ahead financially from this weekend, if not by crafts.

Christmas Craziness

2008-11-12T13:38:00.000-08:00

I got a email from a friend today saying that she noticed I hadn't done a blog post all month and wanted to see how we were doing. I shook my head, with confusion, no couldn't be I just posted last.....oh. Apparently in my Christmas frenzy I have forgotten to update in almost 2 whole weeks. Here is why my friends, in the past week and a half I have:

Made M a really cool gift (mum is the word though, so I can't share it)
Made a cool bag for the swap
Done some knitting for me
Made P a superhero cape
Worked on Ls gift (will show more on that this weekend)
Broke my sewing machine
Bought another sewing machine
Spend countless hours surfing the web for gifts
Done quite a bit of baking
and taught L how to write her name

Now not all of that has to do with Christmas, but dang I've been a girl on a mission. My plan every year is to finish my Christmas crafting and buying by Thanksgiving day, therefore freeing myself to enjoy the season. Though this year I have seen the major flaw in this thinking, where the heck is my autumn? So, my new goal is for this year to finish up the last remaining things by this weekend and spend the rest of the month not thinking about Christmas at ALL! I need to soak the last bits of autumn, making autumn crafts with the girls, going on nature walks, baking with cloves and cinnamon, and maybe even apple picking. If anyone knows of any places to go apple picking around here please please let me know....

Sweet, Not Spooky

2008-10-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

Last night M and I stayed up late making carmel apples for our church's Halloween Festival. We made these the silly way where you melt carmels and add a couple other ingredients. I feel as though this is cheating, but we didn't have a candy thermometer and the carmels at Winco were super cheap. Who would have thought it takes such a long time for carmel to melt? I imagined it to be like melting chocolate, but in reality it took a LOT longer.

I want to introduce to you the cute little elves that have come to join our home. They are currently hiding out in my bedroom awaiting there grand debut on Christmas morning at the top of my girls' stockings. Oh course I had to show them around the room a bit, so that they could get used to their new digs, they thought M's drum set was a good place for a photo op. They came from a lovely MDC mom in our recent craft swap, thanks El!

When doing the Elf/Apple photo shoot I notice that M took the liberty of having a photo shoot of his own when I was sleeping in this morning. This just shows how awesome of a dad he is. He also gets a wonderful husband points because he has L wearing the hat I finished up this week, so I don't have to take the time to photograph that.

Happy Halloween everybody!!

One Lucky Girl

2008-10-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend I felt like a very lucky girl. I got to do some of my favorite things in abundance. First off I got to do some baking, lots of baking! I made six loafs of this freakin' delicious pumpkin bread. I can't take credit for the recipe though it is out of Bishops Pumpkin Farm Cookbook, man I love that place!

Three of the loaves were supposed to be for pastor appreciation month at church, but alas P was sick so we stayed home and ate one. We took a couple to my moms, and we still have one left. I also made some rocky road fudge for my brother's birthday, but I forgot to take a picture of that before I gave it to him. I am so over giving "stuff" as gifts, I think my new "thing" is going to be bring home baked goodness to people on special occasions.

On Saturday we went to a cute little root beer shop where they sell all sorts of cool bottled sodas. I noticed that they had bottle openers on the wall with a huge Plexiglas bin type thing filled with bottle caps. So of course I had to go ask them if they sell them and they replied that I may have as many as I'd like. So I made M reach in and get me several handfuls, lucky me.

Here are some of my favs. I'm not exactly sure what I'm planning to make from them, although I do have some funky earrings in mind. Anyone have any suggestions?

That evening we took the girls' to a Halloween party. Aren't they cute?

P wasn't feeling to well, because of her cold, but she did at least try to amuse us....

One Down, One On The Way

2008-10-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

At the our local yarn store I spotted this nice soft rainbow wool for a very resonable price so I decided I would knit the girls some nice warm hats to welcome fall. They are a super fast knit and I have only been working on them when I'm out and about and have free time. I was thinking I may have the girls wear them for Christmas pictures? I think they would look adorable with some low ponytails.

Finished P's up first and she really loves it. Now I'm working on L's, one down and one on it's way.

My Princess

2008-10-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

As promised here is L in her birthday garb. She really loved the cape and crown (mostly the crown though). She also got a little bit of cash and she went to a couple second hand stores and got some treasures too, like the Cinderella dress (which is handmade and AWESOME) that she's wearing in the picture below and a Cinderella doll.

Here she is on her birthday after the pumpkin patch, after her bath, and yummy enchilada dinner eating her chocolate cake (which M and I made the night before).
She got a couple of other things like a fairy in a felted necklace pouch from vermontfairies (look look I did it! I actually made a cool linky thingy) and a cool handmade oilcloth lunch sack. I so loving giving handmade gifts! She also go some "clicky shoes", books and other items fit for a princess. All in all I'm really happy with what she got for her birthday, stuff she will really use, we have room for, and not too much of it. Perfect.

Me Love Swapping!

2008-10-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

Some wonderful news, M fixed my camera! It's not the best camera, but it takes MUCH better pictures then my spare. So back to blogging I go, yay! What better way to start off your morning then with yummy homemade biscotti?

Shamefully that was my breakfast, not really great for weight loss, but hey at least it was made with half whole wheat right? This was actually my first time making biscotti and it wasn't that hard at all. The recipe is from my betty crocker cookbook and it is banana chocolate biscotti. No, I'm not obsessed with bananas and chocolate together, I just hate throwing away food, so I'm always trying new ways to use up my brown bananas.

On the swapping front, I shipped out several packages this week including this sweet doll diaper bag set for a mom on MDC.
This is one of the swap packages I got in return
A nice big knittin needle holder.
Here is it all rolled up, I'm so loving the colors!
And my totally cute new diaper bag. I wish I could have shown the print better, it so cute. It's huge and has lots of wonderful pockets. Most of my swaps have been for Christmas, but these two things I got for myself.

As for my wild thing, I think she may be even wilder then before. During this posts production which took about 15 minutes she managed to pull the chair to the counter twice, pull her sisters hair three time, and drag the outside broom inside three time, which would have been more, but I threw it over the fence, I think I should be getting that now, before it's run over huh?

4th Annual Pumpkin Patch Trip

2008-10-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our annual trip to the Bishop's Pumpkin Patch in Wheatland with our home school group. It was also Lydia's 4Th birthday. We had a lot of fun, despite the crazy wind. Everything was such a blur that we didn't get a whole lot of photos and the ones we did get were very rushed. So sorry, not lovely scenic photos of piles of gorgeous pumpkins, squashes, and gourds. Here are the girls having a wonderful time.

It really is a wonderful pumpkin patch with baked good galore, train rides, hay rides, panning for marbles, slides, play places, pony rides so much fun. While in there wonderful gift shop I was reminded of there awesome cookbook which I bought last year and will be cracking it open this week to make some wonderful pumpkin treats. I think I may need to buy a whole case of pumpkin for all I have planned.

Lydia really enjoyed her birthday and all her lovely handmade gifts, I will have to get pictures of her modeling them today.

Lifes Happenings

2008-10-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, I would like you to meet Roxie. She is our one and only furry friend.

Roxie had to go to the vet today, she has another ear infection. Poor thing just keeps getting them. We are going to do our best with 3 different meds and some homeopathic's to make it go away within the next 2 weeks. If it does go away then we will be doing surgery to fix her ears so that they can drain, if not she will have to have her ear canals removed and will be permanently deaf. Her ears are very damaged and nearly closed due to scar tissue from her previous owners leaving her ear infections untreated. We got Roxie 10 months ago and the women mentioned nothing about her health problems and avoided the question when we asked her which vet she took Roxie to. I refuse to be angry with this women, I only feel disappointed you know? Not with Roxie of course, but that people do that sort of thing.

I hate to bring this post down anymore but we also found out on Monday that M did not get drawn for the nursing program lottery this semester. It is so frustrating to M that the program is based on a lottery, shouldn't it count for something that he has almost all A's including an A in frickin' anatomy. I know that there is a reason for all this, that God has a plan for making us wait a little longer. One thing that I do know is that M is doing really well as his job right now and will most likely be getting a promotion in November. He also has a performance related bonus coming in this month.

Sorry for the crafting break and the boring post about what is going on in our lives. Hopefully I will get something wonderful and inspiring up by this weekend.

Wild Thing

2008-09-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

Try as I might I haven't been in much of a crafty mood. Yes there has been a little knitting, a little baking, and some repetitive sewing going on, but not much that I'm truly excited to post about (OK maybe one thing, but it's a secret and you can't see it until after Christmas). Why might you ask this is? I have two words for you; Wild Thing.

Yes, Wild Thing. In this photo sporting her clown face paint (we do face paints a lot around here) she may look sweet and innocent. You may say "really how much trouble can a 19 month old get into?" and I will have to say "A LOT". This wild streak in here (which I'm adamant she got from M's side of the family) is what I feel is draining me from my previously overachieving crafty glory.

Could it be her fascination with knifes? Her ability to break baby latches? Her love of climbing everything several times her height? Or maybe the way she manages to unlock 5 foot high gates? No, it certainly can not be any single one of these amazing feats my friends, it is surely all of them and oh so much more.

Pray for me my friends that I may gain the strength I need to deal with this.........Wild Thing!

In other less wild new, here's some felt fruit I made for a side swap on Mothering.
This is from a couple of online tutorials from here http://mrmonkeysuit.typepad.com/mr_monkeysuit/files/microsoft_word_strawberry_tutorial_word.pdf and http://melissagoodsell.typepad.com/day_to_day/tutorial---felt-food-eggssliced-orange/ (hey, if anyone knows how to make my links all short and pretty would you mind sending me a comment or an email :D.
Also L and I made some yummy peanut butter cups during Wild Thing (P)'s nap time. I had to sneak in the pretty rose M got me from my mothers garden today, a little piece of everyday romance. The recipe is from here http://havecakewilltravel.com/2008/08/29/pb-cups/ which I found on this great blog http://a-friend-to-knit-with.blogspot.com/2008/09/getting-sidetracked.html

Autumn Bunting

2008-09-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

With the help of chocolate and my little sister A I was able to make yesterday evening actually enjoyable. A is 10 years old and loves coming over and earning a few bucks playing with my littles. She also really loves my cooking, which seems very new and exotic to her. So, while the girls' played I got to do some crafting. This is something that I have been really wanting to make, but keep putting off because I have so many other time sensitive projects that always seem more important. I'm so excited to show you guys my autumn bunting.

You can't see the fabrics very well, but there are five different autumnish fabrics, two of which were my moms and the others were remnants and I bought one fat quarter. I spent a total of $3.60, not counting the bias tape and fabric I already had.
The pictures aren't the best because I had to use my back up camera, which take horrible pictures. M and I are just dying to buy the $200+ Nikon we saw at Costco last week. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2008-09-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

So, I thought I would stop in with a recipe I made today. I apologize for the lack of visuals, but my camera broke today. I haven't been having a good day, it's feels like one thing after another, so of course I had to get into the kitchen and bake up something, something with chocolate. This muffin has a nice mild flavor not to sweet, not to bready, and the slight bitterness of the semi-sweet chocolate chips made it really yummy.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
5 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
6 Tbsp Canola oil
1 Tablespoon milk
1 1/3 cups honey
2 tsp vanilla
3 over ripe bananas
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees
Combine all dry ingredients (except the chocolate chips of course) in a medium bowl, stir and set aside. Combine all wet ingredients in another bowl (feel free to use your mixer if you have one). Add your dry ingredients to your wet ones. Once well combined add in your chocolate chips. Spoon into muffin tin (with or without liners) about half way full. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen (maybe a few more).

These are actually pretty healthy and low fat too. I would love to hear about it if anyone tries these!

Lovin' it.

2008-09-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have been one busy little crafter this past week, I've been doing a few things for a craft swap on Mothering (no mass producing, just trading individual items I promise), and making this beauty (the carrier, not the baby).

P is modeling a wrap carrier I made for a pregnant friend. I think this is one if the nicest things I've ever made, I'm so lovin' it.
The woven fabric is much nicer in person, I can't quite capture the colors on camera.
I also made this cute tote bag to go with it. I never liked the little tiny totes that come with carriers, you have to be a magician to get the thing back into it, totally impossible to do when you are on the go with a newborn. This tote is big enough to fit it even if it's just wadded up into a ball. It also has a huge pocket on the front, to stash keys, and maybe a couple of diapers and travel wipes. Perfect for quite trips into the store where you might need these things.
I know I have rambled on way to much about this, but I really do like it. I wish I would have had one this nice for my littles. P is to big now for a new carrier, I think the four I already have will have to suffice.

Cruddy

2008-09-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

As happens to so many a cold has sprang up and put a hault to my crafty fun. I had plans to make 2 baby wrap carrier with coordinating bags, some burp rags and maybe get a little baking done, the yummy kind. Instead I'm sitting here blankly looking through blogs wishing I could go back to my nap.

I've been meaning to post this once it was received in the mail, but forgot. I sent this outfit out to my little niece last month. I was missing her pretty bad, so I just had to make her something sweet. She'll be 6 months this month.
I hope you are all having much more productive weekends then I!

More Christmas Presents

2008-09-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night I got inspired to start making another one of Ls Christmas presents. I made her a diaper bag and 2 matching diaper and bib sets. I drafted my own pattern for both, which I hope to share with you as soon as I get the time. I do apologize for the busy background, I had to sneak upstairs to photo these.

You can't tell, but there are very light classic Winnie The Pooh characters on this fabric.
The bag was a little harder, but only because I'm stubborn and really wanted to use this adorable stretch jersey fabric. Really not smart to pair it with denim, but what can I say, the cute factor out weighted practicality. Also, this picture was taken before I got the chance to iron out the handles.

Crafting In Small Spaces

2008-09-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

In my blog reading travels I have come across many wonderful creators and artists. One of my favorite things is when they show off their glorious craft rooms. With Beautiful sewing tables, shelves of fabric all neat and color coordinated, ample work space, and above all expertly decorated. Now all these things are great and wonderful, but not all of us have entire rooms to dedicate to our art. A while back I started thinking about showing my spaces, but was a little frightened at the state they were in. So yesterday I set to work on my crafting closet, where I keep all things craft related. Seeing as we live in a 2 bedroom and have very limited space, so my "craft closet" is actually in ou Master bedroom where our clothing and shoes have to live too. Some people might be embarrassed to put their closets on the Internet, but me I don't mind. Anything that could possibly help make another crafty mama feel comfortable in her small space I'm all for.

M put a metal shelf in there for me to house all my fabric and other sewing notions. You can see how multi-purpose our bedroom is with Ms drum set to the side.
I usually try to buy only what I need for a project if at all possible. The only reason I have so much extra fabric and some extra yarn is b/c they were gifts. My mother is a compulsive shopper so I get whatever doesn't get used after several years. I have my knitting, paints and buttons on the top so that little hands can't get to them.
I have scrapbooking stuff on the bottom, felts and other scraps on the next row up. The boxes on the side are not in the best of shape those too were pass ons from my mom as well. They are filled with material to repurpose, jeans, shirts, old dresses and such.
Off to the side are my beading, stamping and other miscellaneous stuff in the box. I have candle making equipment and supplies and my dying bucket on top of that. Also there's my basket full of patterns and some jars for I'm not sure what.

Well, that's my small space, I didn't include a picture of the place where I actually sew, but soon I will. It's pretty much an old dining room table with the sides down in the corner of my living room. I can turn it sideways and put up one or both of the sides when I want to cut something out. I use it as both my desk and sewing table. I usually have my laptop, one speaker and my sewing machine on it.

M and I believe very much in simplicity. We try to make this belief a part of our everday life. I love the fact that we make it work in a 1000sq ft 2 bedroom home. I get a great sense of pride thinking about all the things I love in our small space and how our personality shows throughout. We have given up a lot of "stuff" that we or others thought that we needed in order to have room for the things we really love. I have room for my crafting, my hubbies drumming, our homeschooling books and a small backyard for my kids to play in. Now occassionly I do have my moments were I'm really wishing for a garage for Ms drumset or a larger yard so I can a have a veggie garden and some chickens. I just have to keep myself focused and remember what's really important to us, M getting his nursing degree and me staying home with the my children.

Our First Day of School

2008-09-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

While it would be nice to say that our first day of homeschooling went perfectly, with bird singing and my children laughing and enjoying mine and each others company, sadly it would be a down right lie. In all honesty it was pretty rotten, although not as bad as last year when we tried out a co-op preschool and I spent 2 hours in a basement cutting out construction paper frogs. It started out innocent enough giving P some kitchen utensils to play with, and L sitting intently ready to gobble up every word I read. Then P started flipping out crying, climbing onto the table, distracting her sister and yeah we barely made it through. We only did about 20 minutes worth of actual stuff, but P made it nearly impossible. So after that I figured that we would do a craft afterwards, which I think I liked a lot more then the girls did. We made some crayon melts.

Crayon Melts:
Take old broken crayon and peel any remaining paper
Line muffin tin with baking cups (like the ones use for cupcakes)
Pile the cups full with different colored crayon pieces
Bake in a 200 degree oven until they melt
Take out and allow them to cool

After the homeschooling catastrophe I called my mom to complain (yep I'm a big whiner). She mentioned maybe giving P some play dough the next day. I said no way she just eats it, so she mentions making peanut butter play dough. WHAT???? Peanut butter play dough, I've never heard of such a thing (obviously I have since my mom made it for me as a kid, but I have no conscious recollection). So I got all excited and got up to make it right away, I didn't let the girls play with it so that it will fresh and exciting for tomorrow, although L did taste it.
Peanut Butter Play Dough
1 cup peanut butter (I used natural)
2 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 of honey

Mix together with your hands, until it looks like the picture above, you may use more powdered sugar to make it not as sticky. Store in an air tight container in the fridge.
Oh course I had to play with it a little just to make sure it worked!
Finally finished Ls birthday cape, why I decided to put some much work into a felt cape I have no idea, sometimes I need to think about these things before I just go flying off on my inspiration. I hand sewed the yellow decals all along both sides of the front.
This crown is hand sewn on the back right below Ls name which is also hand sewn on. It took forever, but I think she's really going to love it, and that make it totally worth it.

New Curriculum

2008-08-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, one thing I haven't talked about much on this blog is the fact that we homeschool. This year is the first year we are doing with an actual curriculum and I'm excited. We got the pre-k 4/5 Core from Sonlight and some supplies from Discount School supply. This year we will mainly focus on literature, art, and learning our letters and numbers. I've been organizing and getting everything ready for us to start next week. Here is my hutch in my kitchen that I use for our homeschool cabinet. We have books, games, art supplies, and puzzles in there right now.

I also wanted to include some review for a few of my favorite purchases this year.

Organic Crafts by Kimberly Monaghan, totally awesome. While some of the projects are to advanced for L, there's a ton in there for me! There are recipes in there to make your own paste, glue, paint, tye dye, clay, etc. I think this will remain a part of our collection for many years to come, I'm sure I will still be using it when I have grandbabies. Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook by Joyce Lankester Brisley a sweet story book from a time less complicated then our own. It's about a sweet little girl who lives with her mom, dad, auncle, aunt, grandma and her grandpa. She is smart, cute and quite loveable, a joy to read.
Is A Blue Whale The Biggest Thing There Is? By Robert E. Wells. Teach purportion and relativism to a child of 4, totally awesome. A Very fun read, even for mommy.

Yoga Kit for Kids by Imaginazium, not a book but cool. It comes with 25 great cards showing Yoga poses as animals. If I hadn't found this I would have made it myself. L loves doing yoga with me, so what a great way for her to get attive on rainy days.

We got many other great books, but so far these are my favorites may have to do a few more "mini-reviews" as the year progresses.

We're Back!

2008-08-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Back from camping and we had a wonderful time. I even managed to craft while I camped. L loves her little knitted hat and it was nice to have something to do during the car ride and long evenings. Staying in a cabin was so much fun, nighttime parenting was so much easier there then in a tent. We all agreed that 3 days was just not long enough, next summers trip will have to be much longer. You wanna know what the best part about it was? NO BEARS! Last year we had a bear rummaging through the camp site ALL NIGHT LONG and if that wasn't bad enough it was to cold and we hadn't prepared for that so even if I could have slept I couldn't, you know?

We spent a lot of time at the lake and even took a paddle boat out just me and the Mister. We peddled on out to an island to jump off a rope swing. I forget sometimes that I'm young and should still be doing things like that and not just sitting on the shore watching children and knitting. Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures, I was so involved with having fun that I kept forgetting my camera at the cabin! When I was out there I kept thinking "this would make a great picture", at least I snapped a few at the end.

The Lizard my little brother found in our sink

P trying out her bed
This is P when about to head home, just beat.

Divided Time

2008-08-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot to report around here, it's the slow going of working on unfinished projects. My time has been divided up by working on L's birthday present, knitting dishrags (which I won't bore you with pictures of) and getting ready for this weeks camping trip. However I did get to take some good pictures at the park this week of the girls playing so I thought I might share a few of my favorites.

Now this is a little out of focus and not the best picture, but how could I resist. She is squatting down to reach into her snack bag. Too funny.

Fighting Perfection

2008-08-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

My moms birthday was yesterday and for some reason I waited until the last minute to finish everything. This is totally not my style, I'm usually the nerd finishing up her crafty homework weeks before the test. Maybe it's because I have control issues or maybe it's just because I like to avoid the stress of having to cram it all in at the last minute. For me procrastination usually robs me of the fun of the event. I find myself stressing and agonizing over details when I would much rather be sitting back and enjoying the fun. Anyways, due to intimidation of both the project and my mothers reactions I ended up putting off finishing her present, wrapping it, and baking a 3 part cake from scratch, and making dinner reservations until the day of. This is how I found myself making a cake at 7 am in my pajamas and my hair badly in need of a flat iron.

As the day progressed I saw myself in an even more unflattering light. L was having "a day", she was cranky, sassy, bossy, and while trying to use all my patience of the various birthday tasks of the day I didn't seem to have enough for her. In trying to obtain perfection for someone else, I ended up falling flat on the face of mine.

When I was an adolescent one of the things that bugged me most about my mother was her need for perfection. The view from the outside always had to be different from what was on the inside. If the inside was shinning then let em' in, but dull and dusty was when you had to shut the doors. While others were rebelling with drugs and curfews I rebelled greatly against the ideal of perfection. Anything I could do to burst the bubble of what everyone wanted to see.

So in today's disastrous events I was reminded of what I used to be about. The ideal that perfection is never what it seems and to truly be happy you have to be anything but perfect.

Here is her cake, in all it's imperfect glory. It did however recieve rave reviews from everyone, although it wasn't really my cup of tea. Everyone really liked the purse I made her, which I didn't get a change to take a picture of before I wrapped it. My mom turned 45, and I do believe she had a great time. For a mother of 8 children she doesn't get a whole lot of fuss over herself , but I hope yesterday let her know how much we all care.

"I am the Champion"

2008-08-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

So, last night after 4 hours straight of continues work I finished my tedious task. Twenty denim dollars are now waiting to be shipped out. By the end I was exhausted and a little loopy and may have sung "I am the Champion". Again, if I ever talk about wanting to join another large scale swap and please tell me I'm crazy.

As a reward to myself and to my incredibly patient hubby we will be having a wonderful summery weekend filled with BBQ, swimming and fun. So I'm off now, but I leave you with this adorable picture of polka dot fabric I recently purchase from JoAnn's for a measly $1.99 a yard.

Procrastination

2008-08-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Why is that when one is overwhelmed with things that need doing, it is exactly the things that one can't bring themselves to do? I've been working on those dollars for a swap, like I mentioned before and I am just SO sick of them. I tend to get swept away with ideas and become so excited about them that I forget everything else. I should have been thinking about how much I LOATHE repetitive crafting, how my wrists can't handle to much strain, or how I would like to be enjoying the last bits of summer instead of spending countless hours on tedious works. Whoa as me, if only I could run away. In a way I kind of did run away today (and yesterday) I spent hours that I should have been producing mass amounts of play money, making Ls birthday gifts. Her birthday isn't until October, but what can I say I got inspired. Here is the crown I made her out of felt. It's all cut out and stitched free hand (except the main crown piece. I think I want it a little sturdier though so when she goes to bed tonight I will sew another layer onto the back. L spent the night at her Nana's last night, so I got some lovely alone time with P this morning. We snuggled and played and I got some great pictures of her as we were heading out the door. You can really see her snack bag in action here.

Unfortunetly I must get back to reality and back to my tendious task....

A Wonderful Summer Weekend

2008-08-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

This summer has been hard, with all the wild fires here in northern CA. There has been no summer swimming, barbeque's, long lazy days drinking lemonade and standing in front of a fan. Instead we have had evacuations, asthma attacks, and high air conditioning bills. I was never much of a summer person until it was taken away I felt slighted, it was unfair that everyone else was out swimming, camping and staying out late watching the stars. This weekend was one of the few exceptions that we have been blessed with.

M and I took the girls out to the Fore bay with Ms parents and they swam and played for hours (please note that the dress pictured in the last post is not a beautiful shade of red). We brought a picnic of PB&J's, chips and homemade salsa, blueberry fig bars, and watermelon.
We found some beautiful shells, one of my favorite things about that place is the fresh water shells and all the bird feathers that you can collect. When I was a little girl I just loved to bring my sand pail and seeing how much "loot" I could bring home.
As for the "crafty" part of my weekend I got 10 out 28 of my denim dollars done. These are made with a pair of old jeans of my father that I dyed green, and an old grayish pair of pants of Ms. They were very cheap to make, just $5 for the dye and $2 for the embroidery floss, although the price tag is a bit heavier on my hands. Ow, why oh why did I think it was a good idea to hand sew two layers of denim together? These are for a natural play food (they can play grocery store with these) that I'm participating in on Mothering and they are also for L for Christmas.
M made the best homemade salsa I've ever tasted on saturday, it's the fermented salsa recipe from Nourishing Traditions. We made 2 batches and fermented one and just put the other right in the fridge. We haven't tried the fermented one yet, but the other batch was SOOOO good. We probably spend about $7 and made 2 quarts of salsa. We got most of our ingredients from the Farmers market (local and mostly organic) and put it in recycled spaghetti sauce and applesauce jars. How green is that?! Pictured is only HALF of what we made, we actually ate a whole jar between yesterday and today.

An outting of a different color

2008-08-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

The whole Bella Pepper family went on a fun outing last night shopping and to the Farmers Market. We had a blast and stayed out way past the girls bedtime. I wanted to get a few more pictures of the Market, but it was so crowded that it was nearly impossible. All the fruits and veggies had about a dozen people around them and I had to send my hubby in to get us our produce. I did get a lot of good produce, the "Apple Guy" was there, so named for his delicious Organic Gala apples that he sells for ridiculusly cheap. At 3lbs for $2.50 M has promised to make an apple pie for me out of the extra bag we purchased. We also got enough stuff to make loads of fermented salsa. This is P and I smiling for M.
There was a really cool ceramics booth there, where they let the kids make something. Here's L giving it a try. She had a lot of fun, but wasn't to happy with how messy her hands got. The look on her face was priceless when she finished up and looked down at her hands with disgust and little bit of confusion.
M bought me this super cute dress at Target. The only one they had in my size was white, but I just loved the shape of it, so I figured I can dye it myself in a color I really love (I wasn't horribly fond of their color choices any way). So for about $23 (dress) and $4 (dye) I should have a really beautiful piece to add to my wardrobe. It really is much cuter in person the picture doesn't do it justice, neither does the color (or lack thereof)
Here's a close up of the bodice, I just love the pleating and the shape of it. Now all I need to do is pick what color to dye it. I'm not really a pastel kind of girl, I was thinking more of a jewel tone although it's a little scary not doing a test swatch. I'm afraid of going for emerald green and getting a forest green. I would LOVE to make it Sapphire or cobalt, but again I'm scared of ending up with a navy....hmmmm.....what to do......