Happy Birthday Maddie!

Happy Birthday to my darling daughter! We are so proud of her and who she's become. She's conscientious, smart, mellow and fun to hang out with. Were very glad about her upcoming baptism, and that she knows the choice she is making. We've had a fun day celebrating and I'll have a full report tomorrow.

and I got the dress done....

I'm busy with...

Hopefully it will be finished today and debut tomorrow!!!!!

More Soup on Divine Domesticity

I made Pioneer Woman's Cauliflower Soup for dinner tonight. It was so good I want to get in the stock pot and swim in it. Read more about it at Divine Domesticity!

Photo credit: Pioneer Woman

Yum!

I just posted a really yummy soup recipe on Divine Domesticity. Try it. You will like it.

photo credit: flickr

Grateful Sunday

I'm grateful for:

• Excellent church meetings today.
• My happy husband. Plus he can make a perfect grilled cheese sandwich.
• 3 cute and healthy children. I've especially enjoyed my little boy this week. He's just so fun. And nice.
• 3 productive chickens that have resigned themselves to the backyard (no more visiting neighbors).
• The library. It's one of the few well-functioning government institutions, and I love that I can read and learn without spending money.
• The beeee-utiful weather today. Every Sunday I don't have to wear hose is a blessing.
• Temples, eternal families, plan of salvation, prophets.
• good friends.

Updowns--Dream Come True!!!

It's not very often that your dream comes right to your front door! The other day, an updown pulled up right in front of our house (sidewalk issues with neighbor's house) and the kindly workers were more than happy to give Will and Elle turns in the machine. Now, I figured that after watching every instructional video YouTube has to offer on the operating of heavy machinery Will would be a pro, but he was a bit nervous. I had to help him. Good to know the boy still needs his mother.

These would be the cutest pictures if .... well, you get the idea....

Happy day.

Spooky Food

For the last few Halloweens, my parents have been able to come up and visit us. This year it was just my mom, but we still continued the tradition of "spooky food." The kids loved having Nana here (and I did too!) and the food was fun and delicious. Like I need more delicious and fun (size) food around during Halloween... Mummies.

(I think these are the only things that looked better than they tasted)

Don't kill me mom, I thought you looked cute.
Eyeball eggs (those are farm fresh eyeballs, let me tell ya)
Chili with bugs
(for our filling pre-trickortreating dinner)

I don't think I can get a picture of Elle without that "teenago" smirk.

I'm no food stylist, and besides, it was my second bowl of chili. The bugs were yummy though! Excellent suggestion Maddie.

I promise...

...I'll blog soon! I've been crazy busy, but I have tons to report. So, after all I have to do today, I promise a new post!

Happy Halloween 2009!

Great Zoo Halloween--more pics to come.

Happy Halloween from The Grandma, The Wolf, and Little Red!

May your candy bags be full and your teeth not rot out.

Re-fashioned Shirt

I love the idea of re-purposing clothes and embellishing them with all sorts of stuff. So today, inspired by this fabulous blog, I dug this shirt out of my goodwill box and went to town. It was just a boring v-neck t-shirt from Target, you know when they're like $5. It was so boring, I wouldn't even wear it out of the house. Then, I:

1. cut sleeves off just below elbow
2. leaving the sleeves in tube shape, cut the fabric in a spiral for the maximum usage. It made 2 really long strips. One strip I cut thicker than the other.
3. Layered the skinny one on the thicker one and ruffled. Ruffled the other skinny one (that's for the sleeves)
4. Pinned the double ruffle around the neckline (I just did the front, not the back). Stitched in place.
5. Pinned the single ruffles around the sleeves, stitched in place.

Now, cute shirt I will totally wear in public! This could get really fun. I can't wait to do another one!

Good Article

I get the Meridian Magazine in my inbox each morning, but I rarely actually read anything. But today the headline caught my attention. It was about coveting. I thought, "coveting, hmm. We don't ever hear much about coveting. What are they going to say? Plus, you don't hear the word killer used much in church literature..." So I clicked and was drawn in. It's an excellent article, with insightful thought, and most appreciated: humor. It's a very fast read, so I highly recommend it.

It talks about how coveting kills friendship, contentment and kindness. It's just another good reminder to appreciate the small things in our life, as well as the big things (i.e. good friends). I want you all to know how much I appreciate your friendship and the kind comments and support on my blog too.

Read the article here!

And thank you!

Maddie's Dress

This is the dress I'm going to attempt for Maddie's special white dress. She won't actually be baptized in this dress, but it's the one she'll put on afterwards. And even though I can make children's clothes with my eyes closed, I've never attempted "heirloom sewing." I'm a bit nervous, but very excited.

Originally I had planned to do a very simple cotton boatneck dress, but Maddie fell in love with Tib's Accordian Pleat Dress in Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill and this is as close as I can come. I'm really excited about making something that can be passed down, that Elle can wear and their daughters too (hope I'm not jinxing them to all sons by saying that). I've always wanted a reason to buy Swiss Batiste and French laces! I have less than a month, really more like 2 weeks to put this together, and I still have to order fabric and trims. I kinda feel like I'm on Project Runway. Make it work!

So, I'll let you know how it goes. Hopefully I'll have a beautiful dress for Maddie's Special Day!

Grateful Sunday

• Today was the children's primary program. It was great of course. They're always great (except when you're in charge of them). I heard and saw some of the best singing today, but some of the highlights for me were 1. seeing my kids with actual nice hair and clothes (I do try, but most Sundays it's a mad scramble: getting 3 kids, plus myself ready seems harder on Sunday than any other day) and 2. coercing my husband to sit with me and be a father-spectator instead of Bishop-on-stand-can't-see-my-children type. For all you people that get to sit with your spouses--snuggle up and be thankful!
• I was asked to participate in today's RS lesson by going around criticizing and saying judgemental comments to as many people I could find (the lesson was on not judging and being critical). This was super-hard for me and even kept me up at night. If you know me, offending people is something I try not to do. Now, there may be times when I offend people without trying, but it's in my personality to avoid confrontation at all costs. This includes offending. So the grateful part of all this is, I love everyone in our ward. I would've much rather told each person how much I love and appreciate their friendship. But do I do that on a regular basis? No, I don't. The fact that I'm not a details person also means that I don't always see the wonderful things and people around me. So I'm going to try harder to notice those things, and say something too. And for anyone that I had to say a mean thing too, I'm so sorry! (Don't worry, it was clarified in the lesson, and I couldn't deliver any insult with a straight face)
• It's not raining today. And the weather is mild. I'm very grateful for that.
• My mom is coming up this weekend. I'm really looking forward to the visit.
• I have the Halloween costumes all finished and Maddie's white dress pattern ordered.

Ok, Happy Sabbath!

Even the

Big Bad Wolf has to eat... Costumes are done!

Covered Bridge

As I mentioned yesterday, our newest family hobby is driving all around the country looking for the perfect farm property. We aren't really planning to move right now, it's just we know it will take a while to find the "perfect" place (Tyler and I each have pretty big lists). It's also a bit hard because we'd like to stay in our ward and in our school district. That leaves a VERY small area to search in. Also very expensive, let's just say (for Fort Wayne, before all you outside the Midwest start complaining).

But, as we were driving around looking for fsbos or places we could just offer the owners money to give us their spread, we found the Spencerville covered bridge. It was perfect weather and a perfect place for the kids to run around and perfect for me to bust out the camera (still working on those photography skills btw).

Photo credit: Maddie

Grateful Sunday

• Will went to nursery today. It has taken almost a year to get to this point. He went in without crying and stayed the whole time. It was wonderful! I got to attend Relief Society and hear a great lesson too. Now, just pray that we don't all get sick and lose the ground we gained.
• As we were "farm hunting" we stumbled across this charming covered bridge. We had so much unexpected fun there. It was a beautiful fall day and who knew we had such a treasure so close. More pictures to follow.
• I love my chickens. They are so fun to watch; they just crack me up. I love how excited my kids are to check for eggs and how Will chases them all over the yard. We get 3 eggs a day and it still amazes me.
• And I'm always thankful for my good husband and my children. I love that Tyler let me take a nap today and that he watches Project Runway. And I love reading the Betsy-Tacy books to my girls each night. It's fun that they are getting older and can do some of the things that I remember doing as a kid.
• And I'm so excited to plan for the up-coming holidays: Halloween costumes are almost done, Maddie's 8th birthday and baptism, Thanksgiving (baptism weekend), Christmas. It's gonna be fun!

Toilet Paper Pumpkins!

Check out my step-by-step tutorial of these cute and easy pumpkins at Divine Domesticity today!

Will's Fashion Advice

Vaseline makes good product.

* * *
And, here are some of the fall decorations the girls put up. Jennifer really liked the decapitated (and repaired!) teddy bear. It does add a nice touch, don't you think?

And, mostly likely my blogs will be simple (read: lame) when I'm posting over at Divine Domesticity. Today I wax poetic about the joys of mending. Don't miss it!

If...

I had a mere £435.00 ($688.17) sitting around I might be tempted to buy this coat.

I love the new collection from Cabbages and Roses--a great place for the rich farmgirl.
In other news--check out my new blog Divine Domesticity. It's my first week of posting. My good friend Andrea and I are alternating weeks and sharing our adventures (and misadventures) of learning/practicing the lost arts of homemaking. Stop by!

No Pictures?

I know you're totally not going to believe this, but sometimes I am REALLY DUMB! Really dumb. Like tonight. We had a wonderful Provident Living Fair as a ward. Twenty-eight booths ranging from car repair to backyard chickens (hehe) to homemade wheat grinders. Plus yummy food. It really was neat. There were lots of giveaways--fresh honey, fresh eggs, home canned food. And each booth was decorated with found materials.

But here's the dumb part: I forgot my camera. Here's the REALLY DUMB part: I made Tyler go home (2o min) and get it. And here's THE DUMBEST PART!!!: My camera that Ty brought dutifully back did not have the SD card in it!!!!!!! I couldn't take any pictures!

So there you have it.

And a great job Jennifer, I'm sure you're glad it's over, but it was a great night!