Lent... 1 day early.

And a taste of things to come:
Thank goodness my mom is coming over tomorrow because we need a change of pace. Last week the doctor said A's ear was still a little pink and if it bothered her, to give her a call and she would hook me up with some more antibiotics. Well she ended up with a little cold, which seemed to clear up over the weekend, and then Tuesday, 2am she woke up screaming. She said her "ear hort". This happened a good 4 times or so and first thing in the morning I called the Dr. for her meds. Unfortunately they didn't get the call to the pharmacy until 4:30pm, after 8 phone calls on my end. So Anastasia sat on the couch miserably... ALL DAY LONG. I found cooking an onion in the microwave in a small amount of water for just over a minute, and waiting for the juice to cool made a nice soother for her ears. (google "onion for earache" for more specific directions). We watched snoopy and the Muppets multiple times. Oh yeah, I had to watch too. That was part of the deal for her not to scream at the top of her lungs. Atleast I was able to read an entire book about saving seeds.


Yes my friends, I have every intention of having my very first garden this year. Complete with all or most heirloom seeds. It was going to be simple, but the more I sifted through the catalogues, the more wonderful things I wanted to grow. Then I picked up a book about saving seeds from the library and realized it isn't too difficult to save most types of seeds from one season to the next. I guess I am an all-or-nothing person. I can't just do the minimum and be happy, I really have to completely embrace all aspects of what I am doing in order to be successful at it. My mom probably never thought she would see the day that I sat down with an heirloom seed catalogue and poured through the pages of tantilizing vegetables with her. I have to admit, I never saw myself as a gardener but the more I connect with my roots and the more picky I have become about what goes into my children's (and my) mouths, I can almost feel the dirt calling me.




(Green Zebra heirloom tomatoes and why my husband wants a garden)

My mom has always loved gardening. She is currently raising worms in her closet. I wish I was kidding! Nick teases her about them, securing our inability to adopt any of her little slimy friends for our composting endevors. I come from a long line of Czech farmers. I remember the huge well of pride I felt eating greenbeans my grandpa grew, and I helped pick and snap. I remember the snapping part well, on the porch of my Grandpa's house with my cousins, aunts, whoever was around. I felt connected to my family, the land and the meal we ate. That was what my family was. Farmers and homemakers and it all intertwined. Once farming was a way of life and now it is somewhat of a luxury for those who can find the time and space for it. And it is one luxury I want to commit to. So any farmers out there who can share some advice, please do! Until next time... let the planning begin!

Little Update

I have been in a bit of a whirlwind of projects. One big one... hopefully I will be ready to share with you next week. But with a house of sicklings, I can't make any promises. Seems the laundry pile just gets bigger, the wool is finally getting lanolized, and the girls are cranky with colds.

on the upside Nick found me a bottle of vodka. lol. Its not what you think I promise! I decided to buy some vanilla beans and make my own vanilla extract with it. Guess how much a vanilla bean is at our organic store? $4! for one bean! so I bought just that. 1 Bean! So hopefully I can make a small bottle of vanilla extract. I have found cheaper places online, and maybe if my 1-bean-bottle works out well, I will make a better investment. It will still make more than what you buy in a tiny bottle for the same price, so I don't feel too ripped off.

On another note, check out this interesting interview on Huckabee's show. I am not a huge Huckabee fan, and I think is show is pretty bland. I am so homeschooling though. Even though I was homeschooled for the latter end of my education, I feel that as an adult I am still trying to undo some of creative smothering I was subjected to as a child.

Anyway, I better tend to my fussies and pizza.

Stickers.

Anastasia LOVES stickers. So I made her a little sticker book out of a photo album. I just bought a cheap album, used some scrap paper and she loves it. Plus she can stick, and re-stick the stickers as she seems fit. AND in the future I want to add some scenic post cards so she can have different scenes to stick them to. And the wheels in my head keep turning... in the future I also see making phonic or letter pages and she can stick coordinating items on them. Or even numbers with those little dot stickers. Imagine the possibilities!!

Here is a little Dover sticker paper doll that fits perfect in here!

Little monkeys I gave her after being brave at the doctor:

I was even thinking of making a "brave book" including small documentations from doctors appointments. Like a picture of the dog she got at the ER for being brave. the stickers she gets at the doctor. And a small caption that goes with each one explaining how brave she was. hmmm.

Hey good lookin', whatcha got cookin'?

I think I was reading in "The Creative Family" about taking pictures of places and things your child has played with as a way of documenting aspects of their creativity. It seems like a neat way to remember these early years of their lives and those little things they do as they learn about the world we live in. Finding wooden bears (or another toy) in my sifter is not an unusual occurance around here. Licking the beaters. Yum. I remember doing that as a kid and it seems strange that my favorite part of baking cookies/brownies/etc is eating the dough. I will bake cookies just because I crave cookie dough. Now Anastasia is carrying on that favorite tradition of licking the beater.

Even Isabel does her part in the kitchen. Her part is to be good and happy while mama works. And of course to let Anastasia torment her and then laugh together about it.

oh, and because we are on the subject of cooking, Anastasia has been making lots (ok 3) of felt cupcakes. These are the size of mini muffins and fit snuggly in a mini muffin tin. I was going to give them to her for V-Day but she always catches me making them and HAS to have them. And I am a pushover for letting her indulge me by playing with my crafts.

I sort of came up with these on my own, and think i might be able to sell them... but they take a lot of time to make (like 40 minutes each) so I feel like they should cost like $10... but that seems like an awful lot for little mini cupcakes. But perhaps making regular sized cupcakes wouldn't take THAT much more time and would be more likely to sell for a higher price. I was also thinking of making a pattern if anyone wants one. hmmm. I have so many brilliant ideas. Its just finding the time and motivation to accomplish them all. :)

It is really windy out here today. my grill blew off the deck. there is a freaky mask that blew into our yard... think twisted horror movie freaky. And the wind is whistling when it blows and a while ago it sounded like a child scream. kind of freaky. So I built a fire even though it isn't that cold because it seemed like a cozy thing to do. I feel much safer knowing I have a shot gun and that I know how to use it. (I hope Nick you are proud that I blogged about a gun! lol) But seriously. With tough economic times, and the reality that I think most robberies occur when people are at work and sweet innocent stay-at-home mom's like me are at home. I am not going to be a victim! ha! So watchout bad guys.

anyway. I am finally decorating for valentines day... simple but sweet. Holidays are a nice way to cozy up the place and a good excuse for craftiness. Plus a holiday where I get to add lots of red into my life is always a winner in my book. Well, I hope everyone has a Happy Valentines day and gets lots of love and kisses. :)

Dreaming of Swinging

Anastasia loves to swing. So I finally decided that we would buy her a nice "sky chair" swing with the savings bond my grandfather gave me as a baby. I think she will get a lot of use out of it. Here she is at a nursery testing one out. Now I just have to cash that thing in...

i haven't blogged in a while, much in part to a surprising amount of social outings. We are usually little hermits in the evenings and sometimes on weekend, but last week we were booked up! lol. Crazy. We also took a trip to Philadelphia on Saturday for my friend's Wendy's son Samuel. We had a really nice time, and wish they didn't live so far away!!

Now I have been addicted to making cupcakes. my cupcakes are super great because they are fat-free, calorie free... in fact they are made of felt! I thought they would be a cute gift for Anastasia for Valentines day. Pictures to come.

I am not a morning person. I am posting this a little before 9am... sorry if it is lacking in any way. i wish I could get up at 6am and jog every morning like I intend to. It is just so difficult for me and I have a new excuse every single morning for my lack of motivation. One of these warm days I will go jogging before nick leaves for work. Perhaps it would help if I wasn't up until midnight making felt cupcakes. hehe. ;) thats all for now. I have ideas and pictures for better posts.... but since it has been a while i figured I would post SOMEtHINg. now i just got spit up on. nice.

A Good Mom

A good mom teaches her daughter not to play with matches and keeps them out of reach.

A bad mom feeds them to her baby for breakfast:

hehe. We found Anastasia found the matches (bad mommy and daddy) and the logical thing to do was feed them to her doll. It reminded me of a card I gave my mom for mother's day a few years back reading, "A good mom lets her children lick the beaters." Then on the inside it read, "an even better mom turns the mixer off first." lol.

Maybe you recognize the baby in the picture? If you were anywhere near as in love with American Girl as a child as I was, you would know she is the classic "Bitty Baby" doll in the catalogue. Anastasia's aunt sent her as a birthday gift and Anastasia has enjoyed changing her diaper, reading books, doing puzzles with and feeding her. I am thrilled to have family who indulge her with American Girl dolls and accessories that I only dreamed of having as a child. I still have my doll (Felicity) and hope to see my girls enjoy them as much as I once did. I love things that haven't changed much since my childhood.

It was quite a rough weekend for our poor Ana-bear. She has been sick on and off for almost 3 weeks now, and became a bit feverish a few evenings last week. She would be fine during the day and so I didn't worry too much but did make her a doctor appointment for Monday suspecting some sort of infection. We didn't make it until monday. Saturday night was rough. She woke up every half hour burning up and shivering. I gave her some Motrin that she spit out and the little she did get, didn't help much. So at 4am after a grand total of 20 minutes of sleep, I decided it was time to go to the ER. The perk of living in a pretty small town is the empty Emergancy Room! So we walked right in, and the doctor found she had a pretty bad ear infection. :( poor kid. While peeking in her ear, she turned her head sharply and the doctor scratched her ear and it started bleeding. this was the point my hypo-glycemia kicked in and I began feeling faint. He thankfully didn't rupture her ear drum or anything, but it was still a bit disheartening seeing her ear bleeding. We each got a popsickle. mmm. We left with a few souveniers including a bottle of pink stuff and a valentine puppy beanie baby named "heartbeat."

Today we are all feeling better (and I finally caught up on sleep) and I found mixing amoxicillin with apple juice is the only way to get a full dose of antibiotics into Anastasia's system. whew. Hopefully the rest of the week will prove less eventful.