Photo Post

My two kitchen "helpers."  The Bonnie Prince cried when I took his apron off.

Michael mentioned to the neighbor lady that he was going to start using panty-hose to hang up his squash.
She gave him an entire bag of used ones.  I told him to write a thank-you note, but he thought that might be awkward...

We're back to thinking the gender confused chicken is a hen.  Apparently hens can crow.
And it might just be an alpha-hen that grows more quickly than the others.

Heirloom purple beans.  Michael and I enjoy them.  The boys try to sneak theirs to the chickens.

Yellowing! Hooray!

Million has renewed his interest in crochet once again.
I let him pretend because I'm not a skilled teacher in things that I pick up easily.

It's that time of year where our garden starts to lose its mind and grow into a wild beast, not at all conscious of borders or neat rows.  Things are a lot more unkempt in their appearance.

We were able to harvest our first beets this morning.  The boys will be genuinely excited when I cook these.  Unfortunately,this morning there was not enough for Michael and I to have on our salads, but we have about 50 more beets to go.

The top paint on this paint strip is the paint colour I chose for Creedence's room.  It's all painted now, but I can't take a decent photo of it.  It's a blueish white, and it looks cozy and inviting----just the kind of place for a Bonnie Prince and his future sidekick to curl up and sleep.  Hopefully I'll get the vinyl decals up this evening or tomorrow.

Since I wasn't able to use the staple gun while the boys were sleeping last night (or right now for that matter), I went back to this project.  These little squares... I'm 1/6th of the way on stitching their borders, and then I'll get to move onto the easy crochet part.

 And since I needed a mental refresher, here are the fabrics for the two other wingback chairs that will sit in our living room.

Tonight and tomorrow night, I'll be attending an online parenting e-conference.  I'm looking forward to being refreshed and inspired.  I'm also beginning a week-long purge in our house again.  I'm going to aim low this time and shoot for only 100 items out of the house by next Monday. 

Easiest Baby Blanket in the World....Sort of.

This fabric below would make the easiest baby blanket in the world.  Thinking about picking some up for our eventual daughter.  Found here.  The entire alphabet panels are 24 x 44, so throw some backing and  a border on it, stitch around the rectangles, and you've got yourself a baby blanket.

That is....when you get your other projects done.  (smirk.)

I'm coming along on my blanket/afghan.  Just have some topstitching to do tonight, and then on to the crocheting part.  Can't wait to share the finished results with you all.

We lost one chick a few mornings ago.  It was one that arrived with a large gash on her head, so we were prepared for her departure.  Down to ten.  I should probably take more photos, but due to their being under a red heat lamp, the pictures I took tend to make them look a little freakish.

These two posts from this week have me thinking.

Raising Self-Governed Children
Are Christians Addicted to Mediocrity: A Self-Governed Self-Image

In order for me to call out excellence in my children, I need to call it forth in myself too.  I need to do the best that I can in every area of life---not just settle for what culture deems as appropriate.

I'm not certain what that means in everyday life.  I know it is taking root in my heart as a conviction over some wasted moments when I give myself permission to "escape."  I know this ideal is also taking the form of conviction over the words I use and the image I portray.

That's all for now.  I have a Bonnie Prince that wants out of his crib.

Yard Work

We got some yard work done last night.  I wish that if you've never met Michael, you could.  He is the only person I know who can easily make anything fun.  We had such a good time with yard work last night.  He was dancing with our leaf vacuum/shredder/bag thing, (can't remember the technical name) and I was keeping the boys from killing each other with rakes, sticks, and other large found objects.

We also got our chicken permit in the mail yesterday.  So while we were out of doors last night, we worked out a rough idea of where our raised bed garden will go, and where the coop will go, and where the garden shed will go, and where our "cold box" (Michael's idea---I'm not sure what it is, yet) will go.  I'm getting pretty excited to see the progress, when it eventually happens.  We have some free lumber coming from one of Michael's coworkers next week.

I don't mean to mislead you into thinking we've got a humongous yard.  We actually have a much smaller yard than we did at our last house.  Simply, we have a well-laid-out yard for what we're planning on doing.  It's got a little pocket of space behind the garage for our garden tool/lawnmower shed, and some eternally sunny space abutting the garage.

We ate outside last night.  Spaghetti squash, bacon, and carrots.

A side note about bacon: we've started buying only ethically sourced meat from local farmers.  And it has changed our lives (and our budget...and the amount of meat we consume...)  Last night's bacon was the highlight of my week.  It was so sweet and tender and crispy.

How did you guess I ate dirt for dessert? You must be a wizard.

I got 24 of my new afghan/blanket squares sewn up yesterday.  Then I ran out of thread.  So that will be something to do this weekend.   I ran across this blog post from Anna Maria Horner today about the fabric that I'm using.  It made it that much more special.  I've always liked her work, and her personality and openness might be edging me over to preferring her over Amy Butler (gasp!)  (and Joel Dewberry is always close to the top too...don't worry.)

Some of my friends had a baby girl a couple days ago.  So, I crocheted (and sewed) this baby block.  It's got a jingle bell inside, and I'll be lucky if the boys will let it leave the house.

A helpful kitchen hint: if you want to make scrambled eggs protein-filled and stretch further, beef them up with a large portion of cottage cheese.  We actually prefer them, as they're more filling.  

Another craft I'll be doing soon will be making this lap blanket with this fabric.  I'm looking forward to it, as I've never done a project like that before.  

We have our social worker walk-through on the house next weekend.  We're not worried about it, overly much.  She saw our last house.  This one will be a piece of cake to approve compared to that one.  

I've been obsessed with aqua lately.  This yarn is gloriously soft.

It's been a quiet start to the month.  We're catching up from last month's controlled chaos.  I'm making great strides with my un-upholstering of one of my armchairs before the reupholstery begins. (It's the armchair that will fortunately hide in our room if things run amuck.)

Million is at the age where he wants to be helping with everything.  Everything.  He will be four this month, and while the idea of a helper is lovely, it's so much work to figure out ways for him to help. Today he spent half an hour trying to get staples out of the armchair with me.  I think he maybe got one out that I surreptitiously pre-loosened.

I've posted three photos of the three chicken breeds I ordered on Monday.  They'll be coming early May, right around the time that our lavender, tomatoes, carnations, pepper plants, and raspberry and blueberry bushes will arrive from the nursery.  That will be a fun week, hopefully.

There are certain things in life that I never imagined myself doing.
Raising chickens is one of them.
Michael is good for me.
(And I'm sure he would reciprocate the sentiment about some of my crazy schemes....)

Million's bedroom addition is coming along nicely.  I'm looking forward to moving him downstairs so that I can rearrange the room the boys now share.

He wanted to shovel.  So I let him.
It was 7 degrees, and it was the first time in over a month that I felt it was actually warm enough for him to play outside.

I've been crocheting again.  It's been good.  I don't know that I'll ever be as "at home" while knitting as I am while I crochet.

Snapshots of a Week

I managed to get my camera out a little bit more this week.
And I actually completed some projects. 
I got out my sewing machine for the first time in this house and set to work making some new handkerchiefs for all three guys.

Million continues to pretend to know how to crochet.  This is his dedicated yarn and crochet hook.  He doesn't mess with the rest of my yarn, and I don't mess with his.  Just thinking about how long it would take to untangle this knot could give a person hives.

I got some new canvases this week.  They were a present for Michael.  Nothing special...just a "we don't have any art on the walls in our new house" present.

Creedence had his first chocolate chip cookie this week.  He wasn't opposed.

This will hopefully be another post, but it's been on the tip of my fingers to write about lately.

This is our "I love you" blanket.  (And our new addition, an "I love you" candle.)  When Million is having a dysregulated or angry moment, we bring him to this couch and hold him with the "I love you" blanket.  Because the blanket reminds us to love well, we cannot say angry words while the blanket is on us (for both parents' and child's benefit...)  FYI, the picture wasn't taken during any moment that required parental attention.  He was just getting cozy and watching the candle. 

And lastly, a photo of my "Sweet Pete" (as he calls himself) demonstrating just how sick he is. 

Distressing News

Our weekend fun:  Distressing wood.  (Tutorial we initially based our distress-age off of, found here.)

Michael has an order for distressed/rustic-looking crates to decorate a wedding cake table along with white china.  Isn't that a cute idea?  I'm glad I got married before Pinterest and Etsy, or my wedding would not have stayed in our budget.

For fun, you get to see pictures of our adorable family on the prowl for stain and wood for this particular order.... Every good DIY post has to have a little visit to the home improvement store, right?   I even threw in a little interview with Million (with his honest to goodness answers) for a charming touch.  I'll hopefully get pictures of the finished product this weekend.

Mommy: Hey, Million! What are we doing here at the home improvement store?
Million: We're seeing Daddy.
Mommy:  What is this can of stain for?
Million: At home.  Daddy use stain at home.
Mommy: What do people do with Daddy's crates?
Million: The lady hold it.  She hold it nicely.

Okay then.

Happiest place on earth.

Scouting out the deals in the stain aisle.

Getting a teeny bit bored while daddy looks for a natural sealant. Mommy pulls the "look at your picture on the back of the camera" trick.

Free paintbrushes.  Always exciting.

Michael looking pretty intense with his 1x12. 

One is disappointed because he doesn't get to ride in a lumber carrier, and one is practicing his  Zoolander face.

So moving onto actually distressing the brand-spanking-new wood.

Our tools:

hammer

bag of screws

screw drivers

palm sander

Million learning to palm sand.

Harnessing a 2-year-old's energy.

Pre-stain distressing.

Following the distressing, we applied stain and then nearly immediately wiped it off.  The stain stayed behind, lurking in the cracks and crevasses of our wood.

Since our customer requested sealant also, that was our final step before packaging and shipping.

There you have it.  A couple hours in the life of our family.

DIY Day: Homemade Stain Results

Here's the result of one of our homemade stains.  This one in particular is vinegar and steel wool left sitting together for a couple weeks.  It actually darkened quite a bit more after this photo was taken, but we brushed very liberally, so it might be like this if you brushed some and then quickly rubbed it off.

Here's my other inspiration of the evening.  A scrap pack from my favorite fabric store.  Guess who is going to have new throw pillows in her living room for a Christmas present?  And maybe some new hot pads if she can be motivated enough?  I'm going to go out of my sewing comfort zone and try to make some ruffles, because gosh darn it all when baby boy is born in November I just might need some ruffles around to remind me that girls do indeed exist.