Picture Monday - Christmas Blast from the past

I got my Christmas Tree up this weekend. My husband even got the lights on the house! It is awesome. The kids helped me with the tree. Now I just need to get a timer, so I don't have to unplug and plug it in everyday. With that in mind I dug up this old picture. It is from 1988. I can tell because the babies in the picture are Andrew and Colt. I am the dork in the yellow sweater on the far right, with the perm.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I haven't posted this week because we have been busy and I just haven't had anything super interesting to post about. Our turkey day was nice. My husbands family came down. None of them had been here before. He got to shoot guns with his brothers and his mom did like 5 loads of laundry for me. Wow. It was nice. The nephews got to come too and the kids had a blast! We are hoping to get together for Christmas too.

If you didn't feel like this next picture, then you didn't eat enough food for Thanksgiving.

Picture Monday - New Family Pictures.

Weird looking things.

I have two pictures of weird looking things from around my house this morning. First is my son. I *thought* he was going potty. Instead he was doing this.

He claims that he wanted to look like an Indian. He covered his whole face with my brown eyeshadow. Good grief. :)


Next up is this fellow. We got in our local Organic food box. It is called a Blue Hubbard Squash. It is impossible to cut open with a knife. So, I did what anyone would do I threw it on my deck. Then I took out the guts, wrapped it in foil and baked it for one hour. It tastes kind of like pumpkin so I am making pumpkin soup with it. MMM!

Picture Monday - 4 years ago.

4 years ago we had family pictures taken in November. So i thought for my Picture Monday I would post a couple of those. It is hilarious to me to look back and see my Fat Toad! That was Dominic's nickname. You can see why in the picture. Those cute cheeks and no neck! :)

Here is our family picture. We recently just had some new family pictures taken. I will try to get them posted soon. Until then enjoy this one from 4 years ago.

I will kiss you, then eat you.

I love you Daddy!


I will give you a kiss.
I love you so much, I will bite you. Right on the nose! OUCH! LOL!

Slideshow quilt.

I have been working on this quilt for about a year. I had the top finished for a long time. I finally did the quilting and binding and it is finished! I am planning to give it as a Christmas gift. My dads family does a swap. So this is the girl gift from me.

I used Michael Miller fabrics and some matching solids on the front. Some pink camo for the binding and Blizzard Fleece for the backing. It also has batting, so with the fleece it is thick and warm! I love it. Almost don't want to give it away. I hope to have another one done in a week or so.

Water test!

We got our results back from our water test. They are stellar. We have soft water, all the minerals, metals and everything came back amazingly good. Which in theory it should because its just rain water, stored in a cement well. I can't wait to start using it!

In other household news, last night my freezer was off. Luckily I noticed it before bed. I heard a chunk of ice fall inside the freezer and it was defrosting! GAHH!! I called DH to help me figure out the problem. Someone had turned the dial to OFF! That someone I am positive is about 4 years old, short, talks kind of funny. If you see the guy let me know I am not happy with him. :) I bought a lock for it, but it won't stay on.

Luca is doing his baby signs. He will sign "more" when he wants more food or wants to nurse. He also is trying to say Diaper. It comes out like Dye-da. He also is saying Na Na for nursing. I love it. He is pretty happy that he can start expressing himself.

Happy Halloween!

Dominic as Elmo. He decided at the Last minute to go dressed as Elmo today. My sister was here and we all had a great time.

Here are the kids dressed in their Halloween Finest. Dominic (Spider), Luca (BumbleBee) and Gioia (Skeleton). We went today to the Harvest Moon Festival in town. They had a parade, jumping balloons and costume contest. Dominic was wearing the Elmo at the time. I think if he had been in the Spider costume he might have won a prize.

Oh i almost forgot. We went to a Haunted House, put on by the local Lions Club. Dominic had Massimo carry him and hid his face the whole time. Gioia was scared but brave and walked by me the whole time. Afterwards I said "Dominic do you think you want to come back and do this again next year? " He said, "Why?" LOL. I just laughed and said, "oh for fun." He said, "No."
Why indeed.

As part of the festivities this week we also went to a Pumpkin Carving party. We had food, drinks, carved pumpkins and played. It was great. Here are Gioia and her friend Charlotte making crazy faces.

Picture Monday!

Ok. Its Wenesday. Shhh! Don't tell anyone. But I have a good excuse, my husband is out of town this week. Anyway. I found another good picture to share.

I like to call this one "Cooking Babies!" These two were just turning 2 years old. We were camping out with a bunch of friends. Lincoln C. on the left and Gioia on the right decided to get in the old fire pit and play. They got pretty dirty but it was so cute. Its pretty fun. These two are both 6 years old now and losing their baby teeth. Very sweet!

Wow Kara. We have been friends for over 4 years now. :) That is great!

Greenhouse plans.

We have been talking about Greenhouse plans for a while. At first we were talking of building one. Then DH found a really great deal to buy one made of plexiglass and aluminum frame. My idea was that next spring we replace the windows on our house. Then we reuse the windows for the greenhouse. Sounds great right? I am having a tough time convincing him. Then he offered that why didn't we just buy the great deal one and have that be our Christmas gift to ourselves. Well...I think he got me there. :) I still want to find a purpose to reuse our windows. Maybe we can save them and use to build a second greenhouse or use for building a workshop sometime.

The plan is to pour a concert slab and figure out a way to heat it so we can use it year round. One idea is radiant heat in the slab. I think that is the best bet. We have kicked around several ideas, but that seems to be the easiest.

The other thing on the agenda is we are looking to buy a fireplace wood burning insert with blowers. We talked to some friends that might have one that will work. We are stalking Craigslist and also education ourselves on the best deal. I mean why not? I am home everyday. These babies will crank out enough heat for the top floor at least. We bought the chainsaw. Cutting wood is not really a problem so..... Oh and if we ever need more wood, well my brother sells it all the time. Definitely better than buying loads of gas all winter. We still have the furnace of course for the times we need it or if we run short of wood.

I have also got a gallon of water from the cistern to get it tested this week. I can't wait to start using it.

Picture Mondays!

So my blog has been kind of boring lately. I read lots of other peoples blogs and they are SOO interesting. I do feel like i have a pretty interesting life, but maybe I am just not conveying it well on my blog. I have seen people do picture days and I think that is a great idea. Mondays are usually boring around here, so I am picking Monday. Also the twist will be that it is probably going to be an old picture or a picture from a past event etc...

So to kick us off. I love this picture. It is Me, My mom and my little sister Melanie. We were on vacation in Branson (Silver Dollar City). We didn't get to take a lot of family vacations back then because my mom was a single parent. I think the year was 1985, or there abouts. I also remember really enjoying this vacation because our family friends The Dulys were there with us. One thing I remember is that Brian couldn't ride the rollercoaster because of his epilepsy. Fun, that that stuck out to me as a kid. Later I developed childhood epilepsy. I grew out of mine. Brian did not. What a great picture. We all look so good. My mom looks so young and skinny. She has recently returned to her beautiful skinny self. She even wore some of my PJ's when she stayed all night recently. I am proud of you mom! :)

Slings the good and the bad..

So I sold 12 more slings to HappyBottomus . My friends awesome store that sells my slings like hotcakes. :) I love it. I sent 4 flannel slings and 8 regular cotton slings. I am excited to see how well or fast the flannel slings sell for winter. That is the good. I also know lots of people having new babies soon, so I may be busy with that as well.

The bad is kind of embarrassing. So i was all on a high from selling 12 slings to HB. I was online messing around and was reading a blog I frequent. She just had a baby so i was thinking OOH I wonder if she would like a sling. So I emailed her telling her I could send her one for free and if she liked it maybe she could mention it on her blog. No big deal right? Wrong. She emailed me back with a short pissy reply saying that they don't except freebies, ESPECIALLY for a plug on the blog. I was embarrassed and hurt. I really didn't think of it that way. My other WAHM's and I always swap products and link to each others blogs. So i was thinking of it in that way. I really did mean it as a gift. Being naive, it never even crossed my mind that she would say no. *sigh* Oh well. Learned my lesson.

For any new moms to be out there I am getting a new shipment of fabric in soon. SO check back to the website for new beautiful fabrics. www.bambinoslings.com

Yummy snacks.

Veggie Bars

1 package of crescant rolls
prepared ranch veggie dip
1 bag broccoli cole slaw, chopped fine in food processor
mozzarella cheese

This recipe is not super detailed. It only makes about 4-6 servings. So you may want to double it for a larger group. SUPER EASY. Roll the dough out flat, bake and let them cool. Then spread the veggie dip on it. Layer the veggies and then cheese. Press lightly to stick it to the dip. Refrigerate any leftovers.




Whole Wheat Beer Bread

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup vital gluten
  
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle beer

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar. Pour in beer, stir until a stiff batter is formed. It may be necessary to mix dough with your hands. Scrape dough into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

9 year anniversary.

Massimo and I had our 9 year wedding anniversary on Sept. 30th. We had a great night. My mom came and watched the kids. They did awesome. We went on a date to see Dave Matthews Band in concert. Willie Nelson opened up for him. It was really fun. Dave and Willie sang Gravedigger together. Our friends Melinda and Jeremy went with us. That was cool.

Massimo also got me some BEAUTIFUL HUGE yellow roses. I was really surprised and they smell great!

The boys.

Well I finally got a picture of Dominics PJ's that I made him. Same pattern as the ones I bragged about earlier. Here they are being modeled by Dominic. Another great thing about this pattern is that it has a 2 inch hem. So if they shrink from wash, or they kids grow really fast I can drop the hem.


As for Luca, he got his first haircut today. I am happy to say that it is shorter and he looks more like a boy. However, I am also happy to say that he STILL has curls! HOORAY! I love his darn curls. He was a very big boy and sat pretty still for the lady. Of course, I have a envelope with some of his curls in it.

Play food.

As in, I am making some play food, not playing with your food. :) My AP group is doing a handmade play food swap. You make enough for everyone in our group, then we all trade. I am really excited. The kids like play food and I love hand made stuff. Most people are doing felt food or knitted projects.

I am doing ice cream cones, ice cream scoops and orange creamsicles. As usual I got my pattern from an etsy shop. Here is the link: PATTERN You can see what it will all look like. I have a picture of what I have done so far.

I am making one pink (strawberry) scoop, one brown (chocolate) scoop, one cone and one creamsicle for each person in my group. I am almost done with the pink scoops and have started on the cones.

I made pants!!

You seriously don't know how excited I am. I am an idiot when it comes to reading patterns for clothes. Especially the ones that have several size choices. So I took a chance on an E-book pattern. It is amazing and wonderful and a big slice of heaven! First thing I made was these cute PJ pants for Gioia. I love this Yoga Monkey fabric. Michael Miller of course.

Next I am going to make a pair of PJ pants for Dominic. Then the pattern also has two variations, one with cuffs on the pants, another has ruffles on the bottoms. I am going to make those as well (cuffs for D, and ruffles for G). A couple pairs for Luca too of course. I will probably make the next few pairs for Christmas gifts. It is getting close enough to start saving gifts for that occasion.

Oh yes and I didn't even mention that you can also make shorts and capris out of this pattern. Just adjust the length! WOO HOO!!
You can buy your own pattern here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30060639

Presents from grandma.

Between my mom and grandma someone has been in the hospital almost none stop for the last month. UGH! But they are both feeling much better. My mom is doing great. Grandma L is on the mend. Hopefully home to stay this time. Little over a week ago she got a helicopter ride back to the hospital. A little stressful on everyone to say the least.

Anyway, my mom came to visit this week and stayed the night. She brought the boys their birthday presents. She was recovering when we had their party. Luca got a cute giraffe ride on toy. He much prefers to push it all around the house. Dominic got his dream present DRUMS! Not just one drum. He had that already. No, no a whole trap set. He is in love. He played them until bedtime, then first thing the next morning. And no we aren't mad! LOL! We actually encouraged my mom to get them for him. SO thanks grandma elaine! He loves them!



And here is Luca. Climbing on his present with a giant carrot in his mouth. How you doin'?

Tooth Fairy

Gioia lost her first tooth about a month ago. We put it in a cup but never did the tooth fairy thing. She was pretty insistent this weekend about needing the tooth fairy to come. DH and I however have a problem with lieing to the kids about that kind of thing. But on the other hand I want to let her have some of the fun and mystery of childhood things. So finally we decided to put the tooth and cup on her dresser and let the tooth fairy come. The next morning she was excited to find a quarter. She asked DH if he was the fairy he said no. Then she asked me if I was. I said Do you want me to tell you if I am, or would you rather keep it a surprise? She said she wanted to know. So i said Yes I was your tooth fairy. Then I received a scolding because I didn't take the tooth. The tooth fairy is supposed to take the tooth. She got a baggie and put the tooth in it. Then i asked her what the tooth fairy does with all the teeth. She said, The tooth fairy saves them all. Then she makes a necklace out of them and sells them to other tooth fairies.

HA HA! Ok. Good to know. SO all you other tooth fairies out there. In a couple years I will have a human tooth necklace for sale. Not to be confused with a shark tooth necklace or the like.