Old Man Winter

Wow! It's been a month since I've posted, and usual, at my parents' house, I'm not really able to make a much of a blog post. Sorry! But here in pictures is what we've been up to (excluding Halloween, which I forgot to upload pictures for) as of late:

We've been going to the beach! And doing a lot of frolicking

We've visited apple orchards, pumpkin patches and farmyards to enjoy the wonderful and fruitful season of Fall. We've been hugging sheep

And kissing goats!

Can it be? Anja's THREE!!! We had a party for her at our house the Sunday before her birthday.

I made a fabric garland

And String Monster cupcakes (upon request).

We've been wearing Christmas pajamas for more than a month.

On Anja's "very birthday" we gave her a few small presents at breakfast

Followed by a bus ride with Daddy to Barnes & Noble, lunch at Chick-Fil-A, then a little outing to the library to apply and receive her VERY OWN LIBRARY CARD! In Anja's mind, this makes her a legitimate human being.

I've been snuggling Theodore.

And Greta.

And doing a little bit of crafting.

(I made the sweater, not the bunny.)

Matching jumpers, anyone?

We've had other family birthdays!

We've been doing lots and lots and lots of art.

And just as much story reading.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And just today we travelled down to Crawfordsville to choose a Christmas tree from our favorite tree farm. They big hairy men gave the girls candy canes, and they were delighted!

And along with the first Sunday of Advent comes the first of the absolutely winter weather. Brrrrr!!! I'm not sure I'm ready for this. I'm not sure I'm ready for Advent either. I've got a lot of Christmas presents on my "handmade" list, and a frighteningly short amount of time to get all of them completed. Yikes!

I hope all of my readers are doing well and had a happy Halloween and a happy Thanksgiving. Both our holidays were wonderful. The girls were Woodland Princesses for Halloween! Lots of fun. I can hardly believe that Anja is three years old. Craziness. But have I mentioned how much I love having two girls so close together???

Oh, October!

My favorite month is here at last. It's the month of my birthday, of Halloween, the peak of the leaves, and Uncle Johnny's Redneck Party. Wool sweaters, wool socks, birkenstock clogs, and knitting up hats that may or may not fit better than last year's hats. Hot tea, hot cider, hot coffee.

And all these damned black walnuts! Standing in our kitchen you'd think you were in a war zone with those things dropping against the house and roof all day every day. On Sunday we decided to finally do something about it. We gathered, hulled and soaked all the maggot-less ones for a couple of days and today my once-white backing for a finished quilt top is now kind of a pukey greenish-brown. I may give it another soak tomorrow, if it isn't raining. I'm proud of our dyeing adventure. I've planned to dye many a thing with many choices of organic matter, but I only ever get as far as the foraging stage. I tend to pick, pick, pick, then leave all my stuff lying on a table someplace. I've never gotten anything to the stove top until this weekend! And that was really thanks to Martin, who kind of did all the work.

The Feast. Was it the best ever? Maybe the second best ever. The girls were AWESOME and aside from being our all-time favorite event of the year (right up the with the Fiddlers Gathering), we had new fun this year through Anja and Greta's enthusiasm. Anja loved every bit about the entire weekend. She even was able to sell some soap for our booth! She would hold up a bar and say "we have soap!" very sweetly. She was good at taking money from people. Saturday was cold and rainy, but we stayed dry and warm under the booth. We didn't camp because of the cold and wet, and Sunday was sunny, but still cold, but we were all bundled so it didn't matter. I came away with some great pottery deals, including a pair of taper candle holders that Martin won for getting 2nd place (again!) in the Highland Games! Go Martin!

My birthday was marvelous. Martin took the day off and we all had a quiet day at home together. I'd like to point out publicly that my nephew, Christopher, gave me a skein of yarn he bought at the Feast WITH HIS OWN MONEY. Such a treasure! I bought some buttons on sale at Jo-Ann's and I think the yarn will become a little sweater with those buttons. Martin gave me "What's New, Cupcake?", the sequel to my beloved "Hello, Cupcake!" book. And we had dinner with Martin's family at Qdoba, after which the four of us headed over to the Horticulture Park to play in the enchanted forest for awhile before bedtime. A lovely day!

And other than that, everyone around here just keeps on growing. I can't believe Anja will be three in less than a month. I can't believe how big Matilda has gotten. I can't believe how many cupcakes I ate for breakfast the other day!

Catching up on Pictures!

Matilda--newest member of our family. This was taken before we adopted her, when she was still living on our porch.

Anja spends a lot of time perched on the end of my sewing table.

Martin reading to the kids at the river.

With our friend Lina and her girls Sophia and Brigita

Some unbaked focaccia that turned out really yummy.

The two cats. Matilda = 3.5lbs. Theodore = 30lbs.

Late summer walks

peach canning successs

Anja and Matilda share lunch

Fresh blueberries

Going buckeye hunting in the rain

At the Linden Conservation Club

Funny Hair Greta

Oops! Sideways!

Limited Out

Picnic at Wabash College

If you didn't see the post that includes words below this one, take a look! I'm still breathing!

Knitting and Knotting

Fall is here!

'Tis the season for hot chocolate, hot tea, woolly striped socks, and large crafting projects. I'm excited! Around our house we've been drinking up the last of summer, enjoying the warm days and packing the travel bag with fuzzy footie pajamas. (The only thing better than a toddler in footie jammies is the sight of TWO toddlers in footie jammies!)

Our yardsale was a success. It was especially successful for me, because I came out of it with two new pairs of pants, a new pair of shoes, an adorable wrap skirt, a sweater, and a nice pile of clothes for the girls.... all courtesy of my sister and sister-in-law!

One day last week the girls and I took a trip to Battle Ground. Greta wasn't sleeping, so on a long drive to try and get her to sleep, we stopped off at the Nature Center and went down to play in the creek. It's sometimes easy, living in a place with so much history, and so much to do, to forget about the little treasures that are right out your backdoor.

This past weekend was the annual Walk for Wolves out at Wolf Park. Anja LOVED IT. SO MUCH. It was really, really fun. Afterward we went to the river, hung out with family, and played in the water. Anja has been really into the idea lately of going to the beach... so an exposed sandbar in the river was good enough for the middle of Indiana. We caught a crawdad and Anja found a mussel shell that she wanted to make into a jewelry box. We are still looking for a tiny enough hinge for it, but we're working on it, and Anja probably will never loose her enthusiasm for it.

Last night we took a picnic dinner to Wabash College and ate dinner under a tree and then let the girls run around. We showed Anja all the places Daddy lived and worked and went to school. It was a gorgeous evening.

I bought a candle at Hobby Lobby the other day. It smells like fall and is wonderful. Every time I go to Hobby Lobby I remember how much I love it (they have EVERYTHING!) but I don't think I love it as much as Anja, who has been saying that her NAME is Hobby Lobby, ever since our trip there.

I'm knitting a wool diaper soaker and it's turning out GREAT! It's on straight needles--hoorah! I'm also close to being finished with Greta's sweater. Other projects include a chemise for Anja to wear to the Feast this weekend (it turned out amazingly cute, with cotton lace edging); a girl-sized quilt covered in adorable appliqued owls, using scraps from a box my mother-in-law brought to me from HER mother's quilting supplies; another girl-sized quilt started long ago and just getting finished; cloth diapers, thanks to Anne!.... and then all the Christmas presents. Also, I think I found the pattern for the sweater I will someday knit for myself. Not the hourglass sweater of Joelle Hoverson.... I've instead gone with something I found in "Knitting Noro" which is really cute and versatile, but which I won't be knitting in Noro.... I think I'll use a green I found at the knitting store from the Cascade "heather" line. Unless I look at it again and it seems too "heathery".... if you know what I mean.

And while I'm sitting at the kitchen table nightly knitting my wool soakers and baby sweaters, Martin is standing nearby, practicing his knots. He's tied many a knot around my wire stand that holds my fruit bowl. And when he's not knotting, he's filling our freezer with squirrels.

The Feast is this weekend! We might camp... wish us luck!

I have limited time, but I do have pictures..... So I'm going to post a few of them!

Winding Down

It feels like summer is winding down. I guess it kind of is, since this is Labor Day Weekend and all. Seems like just yesterday I was getting out my white pants, and now I'm already putting them away. Actually, I'm putting them in the yardsale we're having tomorrow. Okay, I'll be honest: I don't really own any white pants. But if I did, you can bet they'd be going in the sale tomorrow.



Every few years we have a yard sale and my mom's house. Location, location, location! We're collecting all sorts of junk from our Big Back Room, clearing out our closets, and anything that isn't gone by 2:00 is being hauled off to Goodwill in one large load. The yard sale is the reason I'm here at my parents' house right now--we brought a load of stuff up here and the girls (who didn't want to come here when we were on our way) didn't want to leave. So now Martin is making trips back and forth bringing the rest of our stuff up here. I'm tired already, but it's worth it to be rid of so much STUFF.



The heat has broken and we've really been enjoying it. Sadly, my tomatoes and green beans are the only produce I'm getting, and even those aren't giving me enough to can... we just get a handful at a time for a meal. Not one single pepper flower all summer long, and now my pumpkins are full of blossoms again, but we've never had a pumpkin. Kind of a bummer, but we have bigger and better plans for next year.
The girls and I have been taking walks again, now that the heat index is less than 110 degrees, and we've discovered a buckeye tree up the street from us! We've been filling our little red wagon with spikey balls and bringing them home to break open, polish up and admire. Also, the oak tree down the street is dropping it's ginormous acorns, so our nature table is filling up fast as Autumn approaches!

Anja's imagination has really taken off lately. She is always pretending to be different things, usually animals. One day though she was a "dragonfly princess"! Also, she tells us stories that she makes up. One of them involves her going into a hole in our kitchen where the baseboards don't quite meet, and borrowing toys. Evidently the hole is also filled with real live cats and dogs. She tells the most magnificent stories!

Martin is taking an HVAC class this semester at Ivy Tech. It makes for long Thursdays for all of us, but that's okay, I think it'll be worth it.

We are going into our third month of being computerless. I love it. Only once in awhile do I really MISS having the internet. For the most part, I don't think of it, and often I come up here and think I should satisfy some "craving" for internet time, but the craving isn't really there anymore. Tonight I felt like I should make some sort of substantial post, just in case anyone still checks up on the old blog, but really I've pretty much kicked the internet habit and am happy to be without it. I've been writing letters to people and spending a lot more time watching my kids play. All good things!

Alright, more garage sale preparations to make! I'm so happy for the cool fallish weather!

Summertimes

Summer is still being good to us!