Happy Thanksgiving!

May your day today be filled with the blessings of friends and family!

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Easter Dress and Colored Eggs

Just before Easter I realized that Timber didn't have an Easter dress. I had actually thought about it a few weeks ago and decided that one of her regular dresses would do just fine and that she didn't need anything new. Then I changed my mind. I sewed this dress up last Thursday.
The dress is from this pattern.

The dress went together quickly and was easy to sew. I have found that I really enjoy sewing clothes. It's not like quilting. While cutting fabric for quilting you don't even want to be 1/8" off otherwise your points don't line up and your blocks are off. While I'm not suggesting that cutting clothes is just a bunch of hap-hazard cutting, it doesn't seem to need to be as precise. It seems more stress free!

We had a great Easter. I hope that yours was enjoyed!

finding the tree

Last weekend we headed out to find our Christmas tree. While the tree we cut down from the mountains isn't as "pretty" as the one you could go buy at your big box store, it sure was a great adventure!
Getting ready to head out...

Searching for the tree.
Loading up the tree.
After we'd found our tree we headed a little further up to find snow. Jackpot.


Yep, that's the stuff.

We had a great day. I have to say that it's taking some getting used to for me to be o.k. with a tree from the hills. I've always been one of those people that has to have the perfect tree and will spend hours at a tree lot opening and examining multiple trees before choosing the right one, much to the dismay of my family. Then we end up paying about $50 for the tree that will be going through the chipper in less than 3 weeks. Silly, isn't it? I had been pondering this and wondering how in the world I got so caught up in the commercialism. Christmas isn't about the perfect tree or emptying your pocketbook till there's nothing left. It's simply about the gift that God graciously handed down to everyone, the gift of His Son.

We're doing a much simpler Christmas this year. Less spending, more handmade, simpler things. We're going to focus more on what Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of, the birth of a Redeemer!

Thanksgiving MPM

This is going to be one crazy week at the homestead. My folks are driving up today (as I type) and are staying for a week. Tomorrow is Wyatt's knee surgery. Thursday is Thanksgiving which equals, spending all day in the kitchen. (Wait, how is that different than most days?) Any other spare time this week will be spent working on the pig barn. We have "Swine Lake" in the pig pen right now and it's not pretty.

My menu plan is a little different this week. I can already tell that it's gonna be a doozy seeing as last night I forgot to soak our oatmeal. Looks like we're having eggs this morning......good thing we have over 3 dozen in our fridge!

Monday

Eggs and spouted toast

Tomato soup and grilled cheese

Whole Roasted Chicken, peasant bread, broccoli

Tuesday

Soaked Oatmeal

Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and raw honey, sliced bananas

Whatever my mom makes! (We'll be out of town for Wyatt's surgery)

Wednesday

Soaked Oatmeal

Chicken and brown rice soup

Lasagna, peasant bread, green salad with homemade dressing

Thursday

Soaked Oatmeal

Mini Pizzas with sliced apples

Thanksgiving Dinner (with homestead organic, grass fed turkeys!)

Friday

Soaked oatmeal

Peanut butter and jam sandwiches, sliced apple, yogurt

Thanksgiving leftovers

Saturday

Soaked Oatmeal

Tuna Sandwiches with apples

Chicken Pot Pies

Sunday

Eggs, uncured bacon, buttermilk biscuits, gravy

Leftover sandwiches, yogurt

Venison Roast, baked potatoes, green salad with homemade dressing

Remember, if you ever have any questions about my meal plan or the food specifically, leave a comment and I'll be sure to respond.

May you have w onderful, blessed Thanksgiving!

a few complete

I finished a few dishcloths for Christmas gifts and a few aprons. I don't have pics of the aprons yet because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. ;) Dishcloths like these will be available in my shop soon!

I also took a few shots of Mason's new blanket...

I was going through Gavin's camera the other day and found this. Isn't she a cutie? It was from hunting season and Timber is eating huckleberries.

Now I'm off to work on the Christmas present quilt. I made the binding the other day and I need to get it sewn on today. I only have 3 more days to finish it and it came out way larger than I had originally anticipated. I was going for "lap quilt" and it came out 75"x75". Well, at least the recipient will be happy!

christmas kid craftiness

I'm a Christmas tree freak. I must have the perfect tree. I don't care if it takes 6 hours cutting open trees at the tree lot to get the perfect one. I'll do it. This year though I tried to not be as compulsive about it. We took home the first tree we opened! But, there were no huge holes in it (which is a huge no-no for me and trees) and everyone's mouth dropped open when I said, "That's fine, we can get that one." I also decided to not be so demanding when it came to the decorations. Really, I like my tree to look a certain way. This year I threw all that out the window and decided that I was going to have a tree that the kids "made." They were going to make all the things to go on it and with the exception of the lights, they were going to decorate it. So last weekend, we started crafting...

The cranberries got strung but most of the popcorn just ended up in our bellies rather than on the tree...

Little hands doing good work....

This is what happens when the ornaments are left to dry within reach of a 21mo old... notice the gingerbread man and Santa are missing something?

And this is our end result... Not too shabby is you ask me. Maybe the kids can decorate more often!

Christmas in July!

Well, sort of. I just finished my Crazy 8 disappearing 9 patch. The top anyhow. This was my first disappearing 9 patch and I loved it! It went together so effortlessly and looks really neat. Crazy 8 by Sandy Gervias was the perfect fabric here. It blends traditional with contemporary as does the pattern; taking the traditional 9 patch, cutting it up and then sewing it back together with a contemporary flair. A great Christmas look for those that are not quite old but not quite new either. Modern, yet classic. It should be in my quilt shop later this month.

Like the fabric? I have a charm pack of it for sale in my fabric shop on Etsy!

memorial day shots

We had such an awesome Memorial day. Here are a few (I really mean tons of) pictures to prove it! :)

Easter Hunting

Well we had a terrific time yesterday at church (three people got saved on Easter!!) and then over at Gavin's parent's house. All the family came out and the kids had fun hunting for eggs. The rain held off until later that day so we, thankfully, had a dry hunt- for once in our lives! I was surprised at how well Timber carried her little basket and collected her little eggs. She was so stinkin' cute! I think we had about 25 adults watching 2 little ones collect eggs. Everyone had out their cameras and video recorders to capture the fun.

I once again have picture overload for you. How many pictures can you see of kids hunting eggs before it gets repetitive? Surprisingly, not than many. :)

O.k. I'm done now. Sorry it was so long! :) Hope that you all had a great Easter!