Quote of the Week

"Go Big Money!"
West

Simple Pleasures

(Life can be hard sometimes.  Sometimes what we need is to slow down and realize the simple pleasures around us.)

Waking up to find two little warm bodies have crawled into bed with me!

Something to Miss

Everyday when I walk out my front door, or sit in my back yard, or look out my bedroom window this is what I get to see.  Now, not everyday do they look like this but here lately they do.  That is snow laying up there in a thick cloud, you can not even see the very top of the mountain.  In the summer I get to see lots of green and in the fall I get to see lots of golds and red.  It is beautiful year round and I will have to say this is something I will miss seeing on a daily basis.  These mountains have taught me a new found love for the outdoors.  That is not something I ever thought I would say as I grew up on the plains and I love the wide open spaces.  I lived in Ft Collins, CO for awhile and there are of course mountains there but even then I still loved the plains more than I loved the mountains.  But after living here for 4 years and loving just about every minute of it I can now say that I am a lover of both.  I don't know if I will ever love any other mountains than the beautiful Wind Rivers but for now that is enough. 

New Button

I love buttons! of all kinds.  In fact I just ordered a set of wooden buttons from a lady on etsy and she is clear over in Taiwan.  Crazy, I know!  But I also love buttons from other blogs and if you look down the right side of your screen you will notice a new button! (yeah!)  This one is for no big dill.  I personally am super excited for this one! For all of you out there who read children's books on a regular basis you should enjoy this.  She is going to have guest bloggers and also some of her readers (who choose to do so) are going to be posting things inspired by children's books!  Even if I don't put anything up on her site I will still be checking her out on a regular basis just to see what fun things everyone comes up with.  Besides, lots of the bloggers she will be having as guests are blogs I love to read as well!  So, go on over and check her out just by clicking right on the button that says "once upon a thread".  You won't be sorry!

Little Girl's Nighty

So the other day I was cleaning out my closet as we will be moving soon and there are some things I am trying to purge before the actual packing process gets started and I happened across these little beauties.

This is a 100% cotton under shirt that I was given to help try to keep me warm in the cold of winter.  They worked well for about the first two times I wore them and then they shrank so bad they were just uncomfortable, and they rode up something fierce!  So I deemed them trash-worthy.  However, as they laid there on my bed while I was going through all sorts of other things in my closet I realized they  might be just perfect for my little girl.  I was right!  So I went about figuring out how to go about making them fit me (rather snugly) to fitting her well enough for her to sleep in.

I started the process by simply cutting the straps off ...

and sewing them together with a zig-zag stitch.  I did over lap the ends so it would lay flat as the seam would sit on the front of the shoulder rather than the top.  Because of this I ended up sewing down two open seams on each strap, if you look really closely you will see my two seams.

Then I sewed an applique on and there you have it! 

So far I have two of the appliques done, a cute little chicken and a bird.  There is a third shirt that I have yet to get done since ... well you know how things happen!  Ruby claims she wants an owl on the last one. 
I also put a little pink strip of ribbon that I tied in a knot on the back so she knows when she is putting it over her head if she has it on the right way or not. 
So if you have an old undershirt that you no longer wear and you have a little girl who likes to wear nighties to bed you can now do it yourself!

the ladies and coffee

For any of you who happen to know me personally, or maybe not so personally, know that I am an avid coffee drinker.  I love fresh coffee brewed right here in my house in my French Press with a few drops of half and half in it, and I love to go to the coffee shop to let someone else make me a cup of not so ordinary coffee.  I love everything from iced drinks to blended drinks to a few shots of espresso with a bit of half and half on top.  Ruby also loves coffee and the other day the Rooster had my vehicle and Ruby and I were left alone in the house.  We decided to take a walk in the gorgeous sunlight even though it was super cold out.  We bundled ourselves up and headed out.  And where do you suppose we ended up?  You got it!  The local coffee shop.

Ruby's favorite part of course is the foam on the top (what you see above is a London Fog, steamed milk with Earl Gray tea in it and a shot of vanilla, I prefer mine without the vanilla though)!

The coffee shop we go to here in town is called Old Town Coffee.  They make a Great! cup of coffee!

Even the hens think so!  I can tell you this - all of us chickens here in this house are going to miss them!

A sparkly surprise!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Can we say yummy?!  Hope all of you out there have a great Valentines Day!

Valentines!

I have no idea why but I love valentines day.  Not because of things that the Rooster does for me but rather what I get to do.  Since becoming a mother, and really only since those kids that have made me a mother have started going to preschool and they get to exchange little gifts I have really started to love valentines day.  I have found myself thinking about what I can do for weeks in advance, planning it out, strategizing what fun and cute little thing I can put together.  This year I (or rather I with the help of one of my sisters) have come up with something so cute I could just eat it ...

 Literally!

Simple Pleasures

(Life can be hard sometimes.  Sometimes what we need is to slow down and realize the simple pleasures around us.)

Having my hair brushed ... by anyone really!  Now I just wish I had a sink in my house especially for someone to wash my hair in!

The Boy

If you will for just a moment turn your attention to the right of this blog ... you will notice a button that has been added!  "The Boy" button will take you directly to the blog MADE.  You will also see a link down below in the list of blogs that I follow.  However, I have added this button for a specific reason!  Wait for it ... her and a fellow blogger (Made By Rae) are doing a whole month of BOYS!!!!  For those of you out there who have boys and look for things online to sew or make or anything for boys, here it is!  Look no further!  A whole month of things for boys and on two blogs!  Could life get any better?  You bet it can; most of the time, I am told by reading these blogs, they will be posting more than once a day to get everything in!  So, if you have a boy and you are always looking for new and creative things to put together for your boys here it is!  So check it out, it starts Tuesday the 15th of February!

In the Kitchen

Oh my! My sister was here this past week with her beautiful daughter and of course when we get together the main thing that happens is drinking coffee!  It always amazes me that I can go through a certain amount of coffee in a week, you add one of my sisters to the mix and we drink about three times the amount of coffee that normally goes through this house.  Don't even get me started on if all four of us sisters are in the same house!  And of course my mother drinks her fair share as well. 
We decided we needed a bit of something to thicken up all the coffee in our stomachs so what did we decide on?!

 

Why, biscotti of course!  The perfect cookie to go with the perfect cup of coffee to go with the perfect company!  What could be better for coffee drinkers than a cookie you are actually supposed to dip in your coffee?

What's in your wallet?! ... er Oven?!

Inagural Ride

For Christmas Santa brought these two lucky chicks brand new bikes!  West is a ridin' fool and LOVES to ride!  He even wants to ride uptown in the dead of winter with three feet of snow on the ground and freezing temperatures that makes your nose-hairs to themselves.  Yes, I know!  He is crazy!  However the sidewalk in the front of our house is the only place to ride without me having to get on my bike and ride with him.  Unfortunately it has been covered in a thick sheet of ice all winter, or at least since Christmas.  So this past week before the below freezing temperatures set in it actually warmed up enough here that we were able chip the ice off the sidewalk and the two riders were able to set on their maiden voyage. 

West of course was riding riding riding!  Those puddles were just too much to resist.  Ruby is kind of new in the two (four)-wheeled department and she is a bit afraid of the "tippy" as she puts it. 

So, she caught a ride on the back of the tricycle her cousin Scarlett was riding!

Then West thought maybe it looked like fun so he needed a ride too!

Freezing!

It has been freezing here!  Just like all over the place we have had super super cold temperatures all week.  We haven't had very much snow (knock on wood) but it has been so cold we don't even want to go anywhere.
It is times like this that I am thankful for our fireplace.  If we ran the ancient heater in this house enough to keep the house warm this past week our heating bill would be outrageous!  So we have been burning lots of wood to help warm the main living area of the house.  This of course means hauling wood in off the porch on a regular basis.  I guess it's a good thing I have such willing helpers.

Cousins

This past week was so much fun for my kids!  One of their cousins got to come for the whole week!!!!  Isn't she just a cutie?!  I  just want to gobble her up!

Quote of the Week

"Alright, bossy lady!"  West

Simple Pleasures

(Life can be hard sometimes.  Sometimes what we need is to slow down and realized the Simple Pleasures around us!)

Sitting on top of a heater vent with a blanket over me and tucked in around the vent to trap all that heat under the blanket, making a nice little cocoon of warmth to bask in on a cold winter morning.

posting comments!

It has come to my attention that some of you could not comment.  I have changed that over so that anyone should be able to comment now.  Give it a try and see what happens!!!

Birthdays!

This year West turned 5!  It was so exciting for him.  Such fun things happen when you turn five, he just knows it!  And who am I to discourage that?  All of a sudden he can do things like use a real plate, and cut his own meat, and set the table without any help from his mama.  This is all super exciting for me as well.  I am not one of those mothers that wants to keep them babies, or even young; I want them to grow up and become who they are going to be and go out into the world and see what they can see!  And every once in awhile come home.  But first before all of that can happen we get to do things like learn how to use a sharp knife because it really is so much easier to cut up your piece of meat with a real knife rather than one of the plastic ones he has been using for years now (or so he says).  We also get to celebrate every year of his life once a year with the whole day dedicated to just him!  In fact, this year we got to celebrate it twice!  The Rooster of course was not going to be here for his actual birthday so we discussed it with West (another joy of getting older) and he decided he really wanted to celebrate on his actual birthday but he would miss his Daddy not being there for it.  To remedy this we thought maybe we could all go eat out someone special with Daddy.

So we did some coloring

And a bit of waiting

and some fooling around

and finally some eating (he wanted cake and ice cream but all they had was pie!)

And then he discovered his Daddy really was the best guy out there when he opened his present from him and it was this amazing thing!

And then a few days later he woke up and it was really his birthday and this was the DAY!  He was ready to turn 5 and the day was finally upon him!
He woke early of course as this is his normal routine but then had to wait for brunch.  The wait, however, was worth it!

We had pancakes and bacon (his favorite) and then of course sausage for his mama and Aunt.  (Thanks Uncle Todd for cooking the greasy stuff for us).
Then it was time to get ready for the rest of the party to show up.  This of course involved frosting the cake!

Which he deemed himself old enough to do!  And what kind of a birthday party would it be without a few candles to blow out and a few presents to open?

All-in-all it was a good time had by all and I now a 5 year old boy who points out to everyone he talks to that he is 5 and he might be big enough for that!