Dreaming of...

Pear Blossoms

Picnics

Walking around Barefoot

Green grass, green leaves and water flowing in the river

Lilacs

Black Eyed Susans

The Dreaming makes the months go faster.

Ice Storm Warning- The Day After

Decorations on a budget

When we first got out our Christmas decorations this year, I had a slight panic. You see, our new house is quite a bit bigger than our cute little cottage was. I knew exactly where my decorations went at the old house. I always put white lights on the picket fences in the corners of the yard. The tree had a standard home. I did silver balls in the dining room. It helps that there were really only 3 rooms I could decorate. Much less overwhelming. All of a sudden I have a much bigger house to decorate, but the same amount of decorations. I wasn't sure how I was going to make the house look festive, using only what we had. Many, many material things have been put into perspective this year, and now I can add Christmas decorations to the list. When you are saving for an adoption, suddenly, how many and what kind of decorations you have just really doesn't matter. The slight meltdown/panic came on because I really like to decorate. I like to surround myself with pretty things. But, I am also immensely cheap. Like I said, it was only a slight panic. Once I put my mind to it, I have been able to decorate quite nicely without spending money on anything but the tree (which we do every year). I am so thankful for a healthy dose of creativity that sometimes drives me crazy, but many times is exactly what I need. I am also quite thankful for Flickr and all the great ideas that can be found there. You will have to forgive the quality of these pictures. The lack of sunlight is not helping with the photo taking attempts. I am unable to get a decent photo of the silver snowflake garland in the dining room and school room doors, but you will just have to trust me that it looks great.

I sewed fabric that I had in my stash into star shapes with some batting in the middle. Cut the edges with pinking shears. Used a large eyed needle to thread some shear ribbon through and hung 1 on each spindle on the stair case. We also hung the stockings with ribbon from the stair case. Emma did the tying, she said it was good practice.

The tree found a good home next to the window seat and in front of one of the glass doors, so it reflects nicely.

The wreaths are my favorite! I have really wanted star shaped wreaths after seeing them in a pottery barn catalog a couple of years ago. Being CHEAP, I wouldn't buy them, so I had been searching for a star shaped wreath form and have been unable to find any. As I was trying to figure out what to do outside the house, I realized that the star shaped wreaths that I have been longing for would look even better on this house than they would have at the other. So I set my mind to figuring out how to make them. We always get extra pine boughs when we go get our tree so I had plenty of that to work with. I just needed a base to wire the boughs to. I spent some time looking for sticks that would work and came up empty. Then I saw the stash of utility flags that the children had hidden behind the couch. When we moved in we had the utility guys come and mark all the line so that in my mad gardening frenzies, I wouldn't kill myself or blow up the neighborhood. After I had taken pictures of where the flags were, I told the girls they could have them. They used them all summer for such things as marking where they had planted their dandelion seeds and pretending to land on the moon. So now I reclaimed them and used the sturdy wires that the flags are attached to to make star shaped wreath forms. I wired the greens on, snuck some lights in there and ta-da!
We had intended to put lights on 1 of the trees down by the river so that they could reflect off the river and make me exceedingly happy and also had intended to put more greens around, but alas, the every other day snow/ice pattern that we have been in has prevented further decorating. I guess there is always next year. I keep telling myself that snow is a free decoration and who need icicle lights when there are real icicles?

Baking and Making

Since Thanksgiving there has been a great deal of sewing, crafting, decorating and baking going on around here. I am hoping to post a little more often to share some of the goodness, but I have to be careful as I wouldn't want to reveal any gifts. For today, I will share some baking loveliness. The 2 days immediately following Thanksgiving we get together at my mom's house and do some hard core baking and cookie decorating. I love this tradition because it always involves some degree of craziness on the part of my sister and me. You see, we are a tad bit anal, mixed with a little crazy, and have more creativity and ideas than either one of use will ever be able to use in a life time. So cookie decorating becomes an art. Not like Martha Stewart though. Oh no, we are much too silly for that. Oh, and inevitably someone gets cookie dough thrown at him or her. And we laugh so hard that we cry. Such fun.

This is Mandy's crazy cookie spiral. Last year we realized that it was very fun to photograph the cookies. (that is what the cookie pics at the top are from.) We both probably have over 100 pictures of cookies between the last 2 years. Like I said, crazy.
My girls really got into the decorating this year. This guy is Emma's.

Ever the entrepreneurs, my children set up shop in Grandma's living room and sold the cookies for 5 cents a piece. Who was buying? Me, Mandy, Curt, Grandma, Grandpa, and even one of my Aunts came out and bought some. The little buggers made over $2 selling cookies over the 2 days. I think I should be worried.

Happy Day after Thanksgiving

We woke up to the first snow of the season on Thanksgiving morning, so we had some snow fun before heading to Curt's parents to gorge ourselves.
We have enough of a hill in the backyard to make a small sledding run. Daddy or mommy have to pull them down the hill to guarantee that no one sleds into the river at the bottom. Daddy likes to make them spin out just before the river as seen below. Maybe a little too close for my comfort.

No shopping for us today, just LOTS of cookie baking and decorating and sugar consumption at my mommy's house. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and a wonderful long weekend.

Bonus photo: My new bathroom curtains. I know the photo is a little dark, but I think they are super cute. I have been making the little yo-yos on and off for 2 years or so and will never make anything big like a quilt out of the, so I decided this would be a good use for them.

What we are up to around here

Short absense again. Sorry. It is kind of the story of my life, I can only be consistant for short bursts of time and then I fall off the wagon (which I guess means I am not so consistant after all). We have been trying to enjoy the remaining nice weather of fall. This has included a leaf raking party at friend's house (with 12 kiddos involved, so much fun).

2 weekends ago, Curt and I went to an adoption information meeting in Madison. I went into it with the expections that this would be just more info to add to my already confused and crowded mind and that we probably wouldn't come away with any answers. I guess sometimes it pays to set your expectations low, because sometimes when you least expect it, God will simply blow you away. We arrived at the open house style meeting an hour later than I wanted to ( I am a time person, I like to be on time). But this just happened to be 10 minutes before the next set of informational meetings was beginning. We had been going back and forth between whether to adopt Internationally or adopt through the foster system domestically. Well, we had to choose an information session to attend. It was good because it kind of forced us into a corner and made a choose. From the beginning, we had wanted to adopt Internationally, but in the recent past we had been questioning that decision. We picked the International information session. We were the only people in that session which meant that we had the Social Worker completely to ourselves. She asked a lot of questions and shared a lot of info. We shared with her that our heart is really to adopt Internationally but the $ is scary ($20,000 to $40,000 depending on the country) and that we were having a hard time choosing a country. So she asked what country, if any, we were leaning towards. We talked to her about Haiti. About the connections we have there. About the missionaries we have supported there and the prayers that we have prayed for that country and their orphanages. We just talked. She looked me in the eyes and said "I never tell my families what country to choose, they have to make that decision themselves, but I just know that your country is Haiti." Sometimes in life, you need an audible voice. She became that for us. So Haiti it is! What a relief to finally know what direction we want to go. We will be starting the long and expensive process in January. Yeah!!!! After the meeting we went out to lunch and then just walked by the lake a bit. I will always remember that day and these photos are so special to me because they somehow capture a bit of what it feels like to finally know a direction.

On a lighter note. There has been crafting going on (always, you just don't always get to see it). I put together a Fall Craft Day for the local homeschoolers. I loved it. I had put together 10 different projects that were just set up around stations for the kids to do at their own pace. I love how creative kids can be. I had made simple examples of each project but really wanted them to feel free to do their own thing, and they did. I made a simple boat out of a paper plate and a popsicle stick and some paper. They made SHIPS with the same materials. I made simple napkin ring holders out of beads and wire. They made bookmarks and rings and bracelets. I made a simple Thanksgiving card. They made 3D cards. I did a simple stitching card with an acorn and backstitching. They did cross hatching and added beads. Amazing.
Oh, and I volunteered to test out a pattern for Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio. So now I have a lovely new scarf too. Yeah!

November

I like November. October, I can live without, but November I like. What about you? Do you favor certain months over others? My list goes like this...

#1 Favorite month- September- It is the month with my birthday. Things start to cool off a bit and we usually go camping.

#2- May- You know, all those spring flowers that come after the April showers. I absolutely love tulips and poppies and lilacs and peonies and and.... you get the idea.

#3- November- Halloween is finally, freaking over and then there is Thanksgiving what with all the good food and the thankfulness. Also, it seems to be one of the few Holidays that is mostly lacking in controversy (I don't deal well with controversy). I also like the cool, crisp weather that requires that we cover our bodies, but not bundle up an extreme amount.

My least favorite months:

#1 February- There is a reason that it is the shortest month of the year, but it still always feels the longest.

#2 October- I DETEST Halloween!

#3 Probably July (sorry Mando) only because it is sooooo stinking HOT most of the time.

The rest of the months are just kind of there with some high points and some low points in each, but today, I just felt like saying "Yeah, it's November!" You gotta take every small reason to celebrate that you get.