Category Archives: Kids

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Cleaning Friday

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It’s Cleaning Friday! At last!

Cleaning Friday is something I started early this summer to ease my wearied mind.  We already had Sewing Sunday (which has become more of a Crafting Sunday, but whatevs) so I could look forward to having a solid day every week where everyone knew that is what would be getting done.  They all know not to bug me to do other things on that day.

Cleaning Friday was born out of the same idea.  I am forever trying to get and keep this house in order, but it’s mostly a losing battle.  Fridays were the day I would work at it the hardest so that I didn’t have to worry about it for the weekend.  Neve and I decided that if we made Friday a dedicated cleaning day where everyone pitched in the rest of the week would be a little easier.

It works like a charm.

The house still gets pretty messy during the week, believe me.  And there is still maintenance cleaning that has to be done daily, like the dishes.  But by and far this is a happier arrangement for everyone.  I am less cranky because I know that reliably there will be one day a week where everyone is scrubbing, vacuuming and mopping.

I t has freed my mind to focus on other projects rather than housework all the time.   It’s also rather wonderful to relax over my cup on coffee come Saturday morning in a nice, clean house.

Just don’t clean up this crafty stuff – I is nesting.

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Quiet Morning Knitting

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With school starting in a week there is an awful lot on my plate that needs attention.  Lesson plans have to be finished, the garden has to be readied for fall, chicken coops will soon need their seasonal clean – out, as will the freezer and pantry.  It’s time to finish up the summer sewing, harvest every last bit of basil to make pesto ravioli for the freezer, enjoy the pool one last time before the weather turns.

There’s also a culvert to be dug so we can easily cross the stream to bring hay and feed and water to the animals that soon will reside there.

There’s excitement all around as everyone senses the soon to come change in season.  Apple picking will come before we know it and the house will be full of the heady scents of cinnamon and ginger and cloves.

 

But for now I am enjoying those rare late – summer mornings when I am the only one awake.  I can enjoy my coffee and work on a sock while enjoying the view out of my new craft – room’s window.  That’s where the morning glories have started to bloom.  This year there are purple, white and fuschia flowers.  Every year they really take off right around this time, telling me it’s almost my birthday.  It’s almost our favorite time of the year.

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New Pajamas

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I finally finished the pajamas I had planned on making for Emily for her birthday.  Better late than never!

The fabric is Tula Pink, and the pattern is from Favorite Things.

The pants are a steampunk-ish mechanical bird, and the top has very spooky apothecary jars.  Very Emily.

I even whipped up a sleep mask to match.

She’s ready for fall already!

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Somebody’s 5!!!!

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We’re back from Orlando!

The bigger new, however, is that Oona has turned 5.  5!!!

SO much about my life has changed in 5 years – it is so different and so much better in so many ways.  And yet it seems that Oona has gotten to be this age in the blink of an eye.

She had a spectacular 5th birthday.  And how can you not, when you are celebrating at Disney?

But first we HAD to go to Hogwarts.

The world of Harry Potter at Universal in Orlando is pretty impressive.  It’s really a must – see destination for all Potter fans.  Although I will say that my friend Jessie and her family went to the Harry Potter attraction in London this summer and saw all of the actual sets used in the movies.  That certainly beat out our experience, but we still enjoyed our fill of Butterbeer, Pumpkin Juice and roasted chicken.  This was the all around favorite of the bigger girls for the whole trip.

Disney was not quite as easy to navigate and the weather was not quite as nice.

I will say this about Disney, though: some things they do very, very right.  We had Oona wear her Cinderella dress to the Magic Kingdom on her birthday.  To that, we got a button from a shop just inside the park that had her name and announced her birthday.  EVERY “cast member” (employee) all day long greeted her with “Happy Birthday Princess!”.  It made her millenium.

There was also plenty of meet and greets throughout the day.

Followed by the famous fireworks spectacular at the castle that night.

There is no way we will ever beat that as a birthday experience.

As for me, I found myself having the most fun at the Animal Kingdom.

Since it was meant to look like parts of both Asia and Africa there was much more plant – life (and shade!).  There were animals everywhere of course, and we were all very excited to see their petting zoo, which promised “Exotic animals of many species”.

Well.

What they had were sheep, goats, pigs and a llama.

That was a total bust.  That was the opposite of exotic.

Fortunately, the safari ride we took more than made up for it.

We didn’t have to touch any of the animals to thoroughly enjoy them.

Now we are back to reality.  Back to planning for the school year which will start in just about a week and a half. Back to digging a culvert so we can make a bridge over the stream.  Back to getting fencing set in.

Because y’all, my birthday is coming up.  And you know getting my animals home is the one and only thing left for me to be completely content.

🙂

 

 

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In Which I Wax Rhapsodic About English Muffins

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English muffins.

When I was growing up I loved Thomas’ English muffins.  Toasted, slathered in butter & jam they were pretty close to the perfect food.

In a more savory application my mother used to make what we called “pizza burgers” : toasted muffins with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni, broiled to bubbly deliciousness.  And don’t even get me started on those sinful Egg McMuffins.

Unfortunately as I got older my digestive tolerance of english muffins became problematic.  I don’t really know the hows or whys of it, but they became one of those foods that I began avoiding because they caused me heartburn.  Every. Single. Time.

I know.  Heartbreaking.

It took me awhile, then, to hop on the “homemade English Muffins” bandwagon.  I’d been seeing the rings used to make them advertised on the King Arthur Flour website, along with the recipe to make them.  There were rave reviews.  But I hesitated.

It was Emily that convinced me to take the leap.  She has been loving my pain de mie and homemade jams for breakfast, and gets awfully cranky when there is no bread.  In an effort to come up with an alternative I decided she’d probably love the muffins.

I ordered the rings and got to it ($11 for a set of 8 – not a bad deal!).  And you know what?  They were a snap to make.

I used the King Arthur Flour recipe since it seemed to be the simplest.  They also have a honey – wheat variation that you KNOW I’ll be trying.

These come out big and thick and lovely.

I had planned on making them to put aside for breakfasts, but while they were cooking I realized I had the makings of dinner: eggs, ham, cheese.

When I cut open the first one and knew I had success, I assembled the fried egg, ham, and melted cheese sandwiches for a tasty dinner.

They were far better than any fast food sandwich you can get.  Dinner was accompanied by pleasant moans of happiness from my children: and that’s quite a feat, let me tell you.

The best news?  No heartburn.  The true test will be when I have one with butter & jam, but I am feeling optimistic.

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In Praise of the Automatic Buttonhole

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It’s only been recently that I’ve had a sewing machine with an automatic buttonhole feature.  If you’ll recall, Paul bought me a Janome for our anniversary this past March.  I’ve been working it hard, let me tell you.  And when I can manage not to get in its way, the automatic buttonhole feature works like a dream.

I just made a new outfit for Oona using two Oliver & S patterns: the “2+2 Blouse” and the “Puppet Show Bloomers“.

These patterns are always my favorite to sew – they go together beautifully and they are such classic designs.  If I could I’d dress my kids only in Oliver & S.

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In the Garden: Patty Pan Squash

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I think I’ve mentioned we’re trying to be more responsible about the meat we are eating.  We’re making a major effort to only eat organic grass – fed beef, organic chicken, etc.  It’s majorly more expensive and not as easy to come by, so it’s forcing us to eat less meat, and this is, of course a good thing.  It also means that when we do eat meat, it tastes sooooo much better and we enjoy it that much more.

So a few days ago I bought some hamburger patties from Whole Foods Market that were grass – fed AND local, and was thrilled to grill them up and put them on some homemade buns.

Emily, on the other hand, was not enthused.  She is a vegetarian, and no amount of humane, environmentally responsible- ness will change her mind in that regard.  Occasionally I struggle to accommodate her.  Generally it is her responsibility to maker her own dinner if she chooses not to eat what we are having.  However, there are nights when I am cooking meat and I realize there is nothing that she can really cook for herself.  This recent hamburger night was one of those.

And that is when the garden came to the rescue.

We have a lot of over-sized pattypan squash right now begging to be useful.  It occurred to me that with it’s flat, round-ish shape, a sliced pattypan might fit nicely on a bun.

Emily was game for the experiment.  We sliced it thin – ish and brushed it with olive oil and A-1 sauce.

Next, we chucked it on the grill and let it brown for awhile.

Emily ate it with no condiments and pronounced it a success.  In the future, we are thinking we can grill it up, slather it with barbecue sauce, top it with coleslaw and eat it on a bun.  Healthy veggie alternative to meat, straight from the garden!

 

 

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Chicks!

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Remember Fleur, the unfortunate hen I had to perform surgery on a few months ago?

Well, she’s doing great. Not only has she been back to scratching around and clucking about with her friends, she recently went broody (she began to sit on a nest of eggs).

This past week she has hatched three new chicks.  Emily has named them Widget, Butterbeer and Tsukiko.

Fleur is an excellent mama, and has proved herself to be more fierce when it comes to her babies than any previous mama hen we’ve had.  I am guessing her near death experience has something to do with it!

She’s more than ready to attack you if you try to grab those babies.

Fortunately Emily is pretty adept when it comes to chicken management, so we were able to check over all the babies and they are perfect!

Emily is pretty excited about the new babies she gets to care for.

I wasn’t actually planning on hatching out any more babies; the chances of getting more roosters is too high and we have far too many already.  But, I have 50 meat chicks I am currently caring for until they go to freezer camp in August and Emily hasn’t been too happy with me about it.  Having her own little babies to care for has been a nice distraction so she hasn’t been focused on the fate of the other chicks.  And with any luck they will all be hens, and help replenish the population of egg layers that we lost to predation in the spring.  And, since they were hatched out of blue eggs, hopefully they will lay fun – colored eggs as well.

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A New Space To Create

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You may or may not know that recently Paul started a new job.  He has been commuting to work every day and is traveling only rarely now.  It’s not bee as big an adjustment for us as I was originally worried it would be, and the kids are certainly benefiting from more papa time during the week.

The other side benefit?  Since he is working every day out of a regular office at a regular 9 – 5 (ish) job, he no longer had any use for the home office.  Since we bought this house the room that had been designated by the builder as “Living Room” has been Paul’s office.  It’s far too small to be a living room, and since the room with the fireplace next to both the dining room and kitchen (labeled “family room”) was much bigger, we had a living room already.

But this smaller room is in a primo spot: in front of the house with floor to ceiling windows and nice french doors. In other words, I’d been eying it for years.

Well, I no longer have to wish.  Paul gave it up for me now that his office is at work.  I spent the last week cleaning it out, painting it, and moving all of my stuff (Including a massive desk that should never be moved by anyone).

It took two tries to get the color just right, but now I am glad I went back.  I love this colonial blue.

I painted around and behind Paul’s post – surgery chair and the server rack.  It took FOREVER to get all of that stuff organized and moved out.

Before Paul could get all of his stuff out I began moving mine in. I couldn’t wait!

Everyone got excited when we moved the big comfy chair from the bedroom in.  It’s a favorite spot to nap and read.  I spent the first two months of Oona’s life sleeping in this chair.  Very comfortable.

Now that the room is complete you can see a good reason for the comfy chair in here – the flat screen tv Paul mounted to the wall above my desk (the monitor on top of my desk are the cameras outside – these will be important once the animals come home).

Everything fits quite nicely.  I kind of want to spend all my time in here.

I have a room surrounded by things I love, that is all me.  It has already become the center of family activity – Paul likes to sit in the big chair and relax while I work on creative things, and the kids like to watch me and the tv.  Even the dogs are in on the action.

I may have to make use of those french doors before too long.