Handmade Christmas continued

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.

Happy Birthday Love

(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

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!

Slippers

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).

November Homeschooling

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!

Honeymooning on a budget

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!

Knitting News

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.

Pie Makes Everything Better

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 ;)

Happy Knitting

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!!!!!!

My Spring

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!!

Indulgent Stitches

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....

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!

4 Month Slippers

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.

One A Month Update

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 :)

St. Patrick and the Baroness

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.

Feeling Green

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

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

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!

Those Winter Days

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.