The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

The Halloween costumes revealed! Sam's been running around the house all morning singing "you can fly you can fly you can fly!"



The Peter Pan hat is another one of the things I had to make without a pattern. It turned out pretty well!

OK, now you have to go to Joey's blog and check out the completed dragon with WINGS!!! (Both kids can fly today.)

Gathering In

I just moved the family room furniture into a "winter" arrangement, focusing on the fireplace, turning inward. It's very cozy. I just enjoyed a cup of Good Earth Original tea in my rocking chair, the perfect ending to a cold day in late fall.


I'm looking forward to reading books aloud to the kids in front of the fire this winter. Joey and I just finished Little House in the Big Woods and now I'm going to read him The Good Master by Kate Seredy. After that, I'm going to get my hands on a copy of 101 Dalmations, the book that came before the movie. Can you believe my library does not have it? I'm getting more and more dissatisfied with the public library, and more and more determined to build my own family library to the point where we have bookshelves lining every wall in the house.

Anyway, it's going to be a snugly comfortable winter, with books and fires and quilts and hot herb tea. I'm so grateful for all these things! 

MomWisdom: Better Baby Food

I've been cooking and pureeing pumpkins and the result is Ellie's new favorite food. She gobbles it up, it's healthy, and it's free. What could be better?

Other good baby foods for this age:

Homemade refried beans
Tofu
Homegrown grapes cut in pieces
Bananas
Small pieces of homemade bread
Squished up peas

Happy Together

Isabelle and Ellie are always so happy to see each other. They both get very animated and start waving their arms and babbling. When your good friend has a baby girl the day before you have your baby girl you Hope they will be friends but you can't be sure they're going to even get along. However at this point there seems to be a bond between these two that goes beyond this world. It will be fun to watch this friendship unfold. (It's been fun already!)

 

Best Bread I've Ever Made

The stars aligned for me on Friday when I made french bread. Somehow, everything was perfect-- ingredients, mixture, rise, and baking. It tasted incredible (and it sure didn't last long!) Thanks go to Farmgirl, for her post about how to bake better bread.


As I was eating this divine stuff, I got to thinking about the nature of bread. Indulge me while I wax a little philosophical here. Bread is the most basic and universal of foods. It is so simple. And yet, the complexity, the chemistry, and the artistry of what occurs between the grain and the leavening is miraculous. In my opinion, bread defies the theory of evolution. A world in which there are substances such as wheat and yeast that can be carefully combined in such a way as to produce Bread has to have been created; indeed, created by One who said "I am the bread of life." Bread is a gift to man from a loving God. 

Lovely Eggs

I love these beautiful brown farm eggs we buy. They make me so happy.


I made a luscious tomato and spinach quiche. I forgot to take a picture of it when it was done, but here it is in the mixing stage. Mmmmmm......

 

Almost Finished

Joey's thrilled with his new costume! The only thing missing now is the wings I wanted to add. I'm not sure if they'll make it on there or not. That depends on the craft wire I bought for them turning up. It disappeared this afternoon, and neither of the boys is fessing up. They've had one of their wild days today. That means early bedtime and then I'm going to sit in front of the fireplace with a book!

More Memory Lane

Sam and I one year ago, taken by Charlotte:

 

Another Ellie/Sam Comparison

I was just looking through old baby pictures of Sam's, the first pictures I ever put on Snapfish back when I was mailing them film (in 2003, ages long since!) I was reminded what a dear little soul Sam was back then. He still is dear, but he is adamant that he is "BIG!!!" Now Ellie's my dear little cuddlebug.


 

Brother and Sister

The top picture is Sam, the bottom picture is Ellie. The way they resemble each other most, in my opinion, is not necessarily their facial features, but their countenances. I have the sweetest babies!


 

Can You Tell What Joey is Going to Be for Halloween?

I'm very proud of this tail-- I made it myself without a pattern. I'm using the pattern for a dinosaur costume and modifying it to be a dragon, so I have to make up parts, like the tail.


Thanks to Merianne for teaching me how to sew! What fun I'm having! 

Not A Picture of Ellie

I realized that my last several posts were all pictures of Ellie or stories about Ellie or both. And while she's wonderful beyond comprehension, there is more in my life than just her. So I figured I'd better take some pictures of other stuff I'm doing.

The lady that bought our old house said we could have the grapes, so we went over the other night and picked them.



Tonight I made grape juice with the Concord grapes. I'd never done it before, but after a couple frantic phone calls to my mother-in-law I ended up with four sealed quarts and no serious mishaps.


That's the last of the canning for this year. Now I just have to get Joey's Halloween costume done. This won't be difficult as long as Ellie cooperates. She's been teething hard and having a tough adjustment to solids in her digestive track, so we haven't been getting much sleep. Luckily mothers are blessed to be able to survive on less sleep! 

For Michele

Hey, Michele, remember that cute outfit you brought me when Ellie was born? Here are two pictures of her in it, one with and one without flash. It is darling on her, thank you so much!

 

Good Morning!

 

Ma Petite Ellie

Adorable, n'est-ce pas? 

Little Green Bean

 

Pardon Me, Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?

First of all, I never buy baby food. I think it's pointless; it's so easy to make your own that's better. But someone gave me some, and Ellie needed to be occupied yesterday while I was making dinner. So I opened a bottle of Gerber pears and handed Joey a baby spoon and showed him how to spoon it into Ellie. It was perfect because they were both highly amused and then his attention span wore out at precisely the same time Ellie was tired of the pears.

So a couple hours later I'm cleaning the kitchen and I hear Sam open and shut the fridge. Then he comes to me holding a little jar and saying "I'm going to feed Ellie."

"Sorry, Sam, you have to be five to feed the baby." I take the jar away from him. It's not the pears, it's the dijon mustard!

One of the many many times I'm relieved I caught the kids before they followed through with their plans!

Another Good Read

I'm now reading It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. All I can say is "wow!"

Scrub Scrub Scrub

I cleaned the master bathroom today. It's a great bathroom, isn't it? Let me tell you though, keeping that shower looking good takes serious effort! I did a lot of scrubbing! As I scrubbed I thought, "I really need to spend lots of time enjoying this bathroom because I sure work hard to keep it clean!" So I have a goal to take more bubble baths.



 

Can You See Ellie's Top Teeth?

This was a hard picture to take, but I think you can see both top teeth! That's a total of Five!

 

Cinnamon Bear

Here is Ellie in the snowsuit that all of my kids have worn!


There was a cold wind blowing on our afternoon walk, so I bundled her up. Check out my Fabulous new stroller I bought on Craig's List!

 

Hooray!

My favorite pants fit me again!

This has been the hardest battle to lose weight. It seems to go SO slowly and I often feel that I'm not really making any progress at all. But the first part is always the hardest. In the larger sizes you have to lose 20 or more pounds before you even go down one size. However, I remember from before that once I'm in these favorite brown jeans it starts to get back to where just a few pounds off takes me down a size. Then it's not long before I'm an 8 again! (Well, I still have 30 lbs to go, but it feels like it goes faster!)

If I can do it, you can too! TRUST me!

Jared and Ellie Again

Sometimes Jared feels like Ellie doesnt' like him very much-- she pushes him away and cries and wants me, and sometimes it makes Jared feel bad. Just now he picked her up and she went nuts with joy, so I recorded the moment. If I have enough of these pictures documented perhaps Jared's confidence with babies will grow a little bit.


Plus, I think my husband is cute and my little girl is adorable. 

Jared and Ellie