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It didn't seem fair to only make dollies for the girls we know so I invented some monsters for the little boys we love. These two are slated for a couple of special little boys we will see when we go camping next week. My dad though monsters should not have hearts on them but I found it physically impossible to leave them off.
Oh, and dads, just so you know, these are not dolls, they are ACTION FIGURES.
Oh knitter of beautiful sweaters! oh most gracious of hostesses! oh most wonderful cook and maker of sweet things!! oh most lovely of ladies, PH I sing your praises!
I mentioned to PH on the phone right after this package arrived that the girls were beside themselves with joy at the sight of their new sweaters. They were pinging around the room dancing, shrieking, hooting their kidlet joy at the marvelous gift of sweaters. It was, of course, nearly 30 degrees inside and fearing they would whip themselves up into heat stroke I made them take off their new treasures (very unpopular move) and drink some water.
They could not help but make their very funniest of faces for the camera they were so giddy with joy and heat. When they finally tired of pulling horrid faces (thanks to the teaching of their 8yr old boy cousin who is a faces expert) they allowed me to photograph them with their regular faces and Eden's is still all red from the heinous pulling and stretching required to achieve true hilarity.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you THANKS
Your sweaters are divine and make me reconsider my string-a-phobia.
For Eden's birthday I made her a dolly. I always struggle with buying her stuff. She, like most kids, has too much stuff. Too much stuff she never even plays with that comes from far off lands where the kids have no stuff at all. Yeah, I'm the downer mom who shows up at your kids party with homemade stuff that has no box or flashing lights. Things that don't make sound effects have little appeal in this day and age it seems. So, naturally, I subject my kids to this too. They get the prototypes usually. This time though I made Eden's dolly (she named her Rick for reasons unknown) first and thought I would make Arlo one next year for her birthday. 
As you can see Arlo had a different time-line in mind. She kept asking if I was making her a blue dolly too. And when exactly will she be ready mom? Is she done yet? Is she ready now? Can I have her? The blue dolly you made for me, like the one you made for Eden, is she done?
I've mentioned before that Arlo usually refers to herself as a boy, so I was surprised how eager she was to get her own dolly. Two days later she got her dolly (who she named Lella) and was only slightly disappointed that she didn't have blue hair (how was I to know?)
The black haired dolly was the original (Rick) and was inspired by the dollies made by Emily at Inside A Black Apple. I love the way she does her felt dolly hair! But I wanted much bigger dolls, like a little sister for each girl. Eden and Arlo are pretty happy with their dolls but I only had time to make clothes for Rick, Arlo is concerned that Lella is chilly so I best get to work.
Doesn't it look delicious?!?!? It was beet, celery, purple cabbage, spinach, carrot, cucumber, garlic, tomato and ginger. And it was ok but a bit too cabbage-y methinks. Next time less cabbage and more spinach, maybe less garlic too. It was hard to see the juice come out of the juicer after adding one clove of garlic so I didn't know if I'd be able to taste it or not. So I chucked in one more clove and it was a bit potent.
So how did this happen at all you wonder? Well Dark cloud recommended a book by Michael Pollan called 'The Omnivores Dilemma'. I read it and it was good, a bit gloomy but worthwhile. Then I ordered all the rest of his books from my library. I am reading 'In Defence of Food: an eaters manifesto' now, and while it is not a great read, I think it has some interesting ideas. Like how western eaters tend to miss out on eating nearly enough veggies, in particular the leafy green ones. And he goes on to tell us what we are missing and how we are short changing ourselves by eating too many seed/grain based foods. Ok, ok, like your mom always said, eat your veggies. I figured if I was truly so deficient in the greens I needed to kick start the reintroduction with a big glass of goodness rather than trying to eat my weight in salad.
Boss Hog (normally an irritatingly functional eater) thought this was vile. And poor Arlo who comes running if she suspects anyone is trying to drink juice without sharing with her...let's just say she was significantly disgusted.
It wasn't very delicious but I think there is potential to make it 1000's of times more palatable without forgoing all the goodness. Cheers to greens!
And her mouth is full of ice cream cake! It's hard to believe that she has been here for four years. Some days she seems so much older that I forget she is still so little. Eden is careful and cautious and precise. She loves reading and baking and talking about being a ballerina. She hates getting wet accidentally, peas and being woken up. She can be so much like me that I fear her teen years. And yet where would I be without her.
You never know who you will get when you have children. They are their own people from the moment they arrive and come with so much to teach their parents about patience and love and wonder that it makes your throat ache just thinking about it.... now I am feeling a bit weepy....
I know that having kids is not the only way to live a full life. But in my life, I know that Eden and Arlo have made me a better person. Hopefully, I can give them respect and freedom and the ability to be whoever they were meant to be.
One more fruit to love from the Okanagan. We are blessed to be in such an abundantly productive agricultural area of the world. These raspberries came from Boss Hog's mom and step dad's farm where they have an ENORMOUS organic raspberry patch. So enormous in fact, that both the kids were too tired of picking raspberries and putting them in their mouths, that they started stealing berries out of the buckets BH and I were picking into. The cheek.
Strange as it may seem we did not make any raspberry jam. Eden and Arlo love eating frozen raspberries so much that we froze all of the 30ish pounds to be devoured through the winter as is or in the occasional batch of muffins.
So it seems I didn't make anything in this post at all. The berries were grown with love though, and I think it gives them a homemade taste.
It didn't seem fair to only make dollies for the girls we know so I invented some monsters for the little boys we love. These two are slated for a couple of special little boys we will see when we go camping next week. My dad though monsters should not have hearts on them but I found it physically impossible to leave them off.
This is actually the third dress I have made from this pattern. I love this pattern so much. It calls for a zipper down the back but since I like not to be squeezed into my clothes, I make it a bit generous and forgo the zipper altogether. It is super easy to make and easy to wear. This one was made in a mad fit of alone time the other day when Boss Hog took the girls to the beach. I had to raid my stash for something that might work and this is OK, but a bit thin. I always try to avoid making things that need slips.
Then since I am not usually a head to toe pattern wearer I felt I must break up the pattern with a belt. (Boss Hog took one look at this dress and said he had just about bought me a package of paper napkins in the same print, how lovely) In any case, I had a bit of fabric left over from the cape I made the other day and thought I would whip up something wide and corset-y to make this dress easier on the eyes. 
It is just a five inch swath of corduroy (double sided) with heavy iron on interfacing on the inside and four elastic loops on one side to attach to four buttons on the other side. Since it was such a surprise sewing afternoon I didn't have the buttons I would really like so I layered nice little shell buttons over the last of my big black buttons. I wanted the size of the big ones but they were too ugly on their own. I tried just using the four "real" buttons, the ones actually holding this corset together but it looked unbalanced so I added the four fooler buttons across from them and I think it looks better and more substantial.
Oh knitter of beautiful sweaters! oh most gracious of hostesses! oh most wonderful cook and maker of sweet things!! oh most lovely of ladies, PH I sing your praises!
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you THANKS
For Eden's birthday I made her a dolly. I always struggle with buying her stuff. She, like most kids, has too much stuff. Too much stuff she never even plays with that comes from far off lands where the kids have no stuff at all. Yeah, I'm the downer mom who shows up at your kids party with homemade stuff that has no box or flashing lights. Things that don't make sound effects have little appeal in this day and age it seems. So, naturally, I subject my kids to this too. They get the prototypes usually. This time though I made Eden's dolly (she named her Rick for reasons unknown) first and thought I would make Arlo one next year for her birthday. 
As you can see Arlo had a different time-line in mind. She kept asking if I was making her a blue dolly too. And when exactly will she be ready mom? Is she done yet? Is she ready now? Can I have her? The blue dolly you made for me, like the one you made for Eden, is she done?
The black haired dolly was the original (Rick) and was inspired by the dollies made by Emily at Inside A Black Apple. I love the way she does her felt dolly hair! But I wanted much bigger dolls, like a little sister for each girl. Eden and Arlo are pretty happy with their dolls but I only had time to make clothes for Rick, Arlo is concerned that Lella is chilly so I best get to work.
Doesn't it look delicious?!?!? It was beet, celery, purple cabbage, spinach, carrot, cucumber, garlic, tomato and ginger. And it was ok but a bit too cabbage-y methinks. Next time less cabbage and more spinach, maybe less garlic too. It was hard to see the juice come out of the juicer after adding one clove of garlic so I didn't know if I'd be able to taste it or not. So I chucked in one more clove and it was a bit potent.
It wasn't very delicious but I think there is potential to make it 1000's of times more palatable without forgoing all the goodness. Cheers to greens!
And her mouth is full of ice cream cake! It's hard to believe that she has been here for four years. Some days she seems so much older that I forget she is still so little. Eden is careful and cautious and precise. She loves reading and baking and talking about being a ballerina. She hates getting wet accidentally, peas and being woken up. She can be so much like me that I fear her teen years. And yet where would I be without her.
One more fruit to love from the Okanagan. We are blessed to be in such an abundantly productive agricultural area of the world. These raspberries came from Boss Hog's mom and step dad's farm where they have an ENORMOUS organic raspberry patch. So enormous in fact, that both the kids were too tired of picking raspberries and putting them in their mouths, that they started stealing berries out of the buckets BH and I were picking into. The cheek.
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