Signs of Spring

Daffs have a way of cheering up even the greyest of grey days.

Garlic Hydrangea leaves are beginning to uncurl after a long rest. Chicks!!!! Oh how we love the little chirp chirp in our home.

Girlies Weekend

This was my Bess with one of the triplets she bore that year.

Little Miss and I headed south Friday evening as soon as the Mister was home from work. Just me and my girl. The excitement of an evening with her (and her excitement of a hotel stay) and a morning shearing sheep filled us with glee. Farm Girl was very clear that she wanted to play Sorry on the hotel bed when we got in. Saturday morning she and I headed to the farm to watch the shearing. Being me, I left the camera in the truck. While the shearer was hired, I was all too happy to help keep track of tag numbers and climb fences to grab sheep and keep them where they were supposed to be. I proudly walked into Safeway with sheep crud, lanolin, and dirt on my pants. Being at the farm was inspiring and convicting. Watching Farm Girl do what she could on the sheep farm and witnessing her immediate help with chores was more than I had thought would happen and yet at the same time is exactly what I had hoped would happen. When we had begun or journey towards home, I asked her if a farm was still what she wanted. Her answer was a resounding "yes" and she specifically wants a sheep farm. She could do it. If ever there was a soul to join me on my quest for sheep, she's it.

That's my girl!

Who else but my daughter would be excited about a sea of a freshly washed fleece lying in front of the space heater? She is most definitely a farm girl/crafter in the making. So much so how will she and her Mamma spend a "girls" day together? Heading to a farm to watch the sheep shearing.

Cold, busy summer

I'll get back to posting properly (as if I ever have) soon. We've been keeping ourselves quite occupied. Summer is a time when not much crafting is done. I always find myself longing for the warmth of summer, the season of gardening and yet by August fall can't come quickly enough. I need the rainy days to use as an excuse to get some knitting, spinning, sewing or quilting in.
This summer has seen the beach on a few occasions, camping in the mountains on more than a few occasions, creating new strawberry beds since the chickens decided to decimate my once happy, healthy, lush strawberry bed, the creation of a new garden between our deck and fence line (20ish ft.), and last but certainly not least work on the front yard. The front is taking on a complete transformation. We now have 4 raised garden beds (12' x 4' each), thorn less blackberries planted along the fence and raspberries that I'm still nurturing in their pots. They were on clearance so I grabbed them. Now we're waiting to locate 4x4's in order to create support for them.
We (insert I at will) spent some time in limbo. The mister applied for and interviewed for 2 different positions in TN. In the end, we're staying here in WA and talking about (please, please, please) creating a plan of attack to wipe away the debt and have our home ready to put on the market in 3 years. At this point, trying to sell the house is not reasonable. While we bought our house under market value and while the housing in our city did not inflate drastically, our market has still suffered. We are one of the unfortunate Americans who now owe more for their home than what the home is worth. We were able to hold our heads about the market value line the first year after the crash but after that we were toast. :-(
Time to snuggle with a little Miss who seems to have a summer cold. Poor girl.

She's a keeper

On Wednesday evening, late evening...oh say 9pmish Emma engages me in a little conversation. I was sitting at the sewing machine fixing up a dress. It's one of those that is mostly done at the fabric store where all I have to do is sew it closed, hem it and add straps or sleeves. She's decided it's her Strawberry Shortcake dress. At any rate, our conversation goes something like this:

Em: "Mommy? Are you a good Mommy?"
Me: "I don't know Emma. What do you think?"
Em: "Yeah, you're a good Mommy. You make me happy and excited."

At that moment I stopped sewing, gave her a peck realizing that my heart had just melted yet again and decided that she was most definitely a keeper.

Nothing but worms

We skipped schooling today for more important things. Come on, you know hunting for worms on a spring day during the dead of winter is much more important than sitting at a table. :-)

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday my Goober

What? How? Why?!

When it rains it pours. Life as we, I, this family knows it is not about to change. It has changed. We are being forced to change.
xoxo

Um...yeah.

I know that I'm incredibly boring right now....okay so I have been for a long time. I have some stuff in the works and hope to be able to get back into the swing of things come the new year. Actually, the swing of things is changing. I'll be around off and on between now and then.

Fall tea parties

The creativity of my 3 year old never fails to impress me. She decided she wanted her tea hot so this is what she came up with. And of course the baby needs warm fluids too. :-)

Even the dog is invited to the tea party. Ack! He enjoyed it though.

Weekend fun...for some

Our weekend was full...starting Friday afternoon. The Mr. has been taking a couple days off from work for a couple weeks (hunting season) and Friday he came home from a cold wet hunt around lunch. We loaded up and headed to a favorite island to pick out pumpkins. Unfortunately we have had a few freezes here so most of the pumpkins were rotten.

By this point in time my dirt digging, worm loving little girly girl (she really is on both ends of the spectrum) was saying, "Mommy, I don't like this place. It's muddy." Yep, it was extremely muddy and when we got back to the truck I learned that her rubber boots were not keeping the cold mud out. Poor girl.

Saturday consisted of taking the kiddos to lunch with a girlfriend and then taking them to a movie.

Sunday was a day at church. The church we attend has Sunday school at 9:30, service at 10:30 and then the evening service is actually in the afternoon at 2. 2x a month we have lunch at the church and the rest of the weeks we can bring our own lunch or go to lunch. Yesterday we enjoyed company at Denny's.