Embroidering time!

Jessica has such a fine touch when it comes to making little stitches. I am teaching her how to embroider lately, and she is so good at it! I love spending my Sunday afternoon outside in the shade with her, both of us with some embroidery work in hand. Such a good way to spend time with my little girl. It brings back those wonderful memories of my mother teaching us young girls how to sew and embroider.

I am working on a yellow rose napkin which I plan to give to her once we are both done with ours. Hopefully she will hang on to those memories for a long time to come!

How about a summer refreshment?

Take some fresh, organic, unpasteurized, non-homogenized cows or goats milk. That's lots of digestible calcium right there!

And some frozen bananas. Potassium, vitamin A, fiber, protein, and lots more nutritious goodness!
Spinach, fresh from your garden or frozen from your freezer. Either way, you will get all that iron, calcium, vitamin A and too many more vitamins and minerals to mention here.

How about some essential peppermint oil? The real thing! Not only does it taste wonderful, but it is very good for your stomach- and some! Now blend all that goodness together. What do you get?

Something beautiful. Something delicious. Something healthful. Something very, very refreshing on a hot summer day.

Something so good the children don't even notice mommy taking their picture as they are sipping away. Here is the recipe:

Green Mint Slushie (or frostie) (or smoothie) (OK, help me give this drink a name!)

2 frozen bananas
2 handfuls spinach
2 drops peppermint oil (no more!)
3-4 cups milk

Blend till smooth and green with no sign of the spinach, except the color. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

My children would want to drink this every day. And you can't even taste the spinach. How good is that?!

What we're enjoying nowadays

With summer here and the garden doing good (and the weeds), we have begun to enjoy some fruits of our labor. First to be ready is the spinach and green onions, radishes, leaf lettuce and turnip greens. That was our salad almost every day for a while. How good! And after reading about all the good nutrients found in turnip greens, I enjoyed them even more. I have no doubt this salad is a good liver or blood cleanser after going all winter with no fresh greens.

Well, I shouldn't say no greens, because I did buy some from the store, but it doesn't compare. I am a big believer in eating what's in season where you live. So that would mean no green salads in winter, right? I will study that a bit more, before I have to eat my words too...

That fresh leaf lettuce makes any boring sandwich into a feast. I could eat one of these every day for lunch when it is too hot to cook; with a glass of sweet tea to go with it, of course...

Happy Father's Day!

That was for yesterday. Here is what we ended up making the last minute, and it turned out pretty lovely, so I thought I better share this idea if anyone wants to create a simple yet lovely card. We made the envelope out of a grocery paper bag.

Let's go for a walk...

For a while I had been wanting to take a walk with Jessica and see what kinds of flowers we could find.

Last Sunday we had the perfect chance to do so. Here is what we found:

I love wildflowers and the way they look in a basket or jar. I guess I like the wild look about them. Maybe its because they are so very natural. Or maybe its because their colors are not very bright and sharp ; yeah I think that is it; the subtle look about them (if you can describe flowers that way).

Bathroom decor

For a while I have wondered how best to display my blue canning jars. I have a bunch of them, and today I finally had a great idea. Put some sand in bottom of one, and shells on top, and there you go! Very easy yet very lovely. It reminds me of the ocean...

If you have more great ideas for how to utilize these jars, pass them on! I would like to put my others to good use as well.

Mommy, would you paint with me?

Yes dear, but not right now. How often do I find myself telling my children that! But then, what is a mother to do? Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, but I think it is very important to take the time to do things they want to do with us together. After all, they are this small only once. Only a short little once. So, I made a painting session with both of them recently. We got out our watercolors, chairs and what we needed and found a nice spot outside to relax and see what we could paint. Little Timothy was on a blanket beside us, chewing on grass, sticks and whatever else he could find...

Here is Jessica's first painting. It was somewhat similar to mine. It is meadows, fields and sky.

Jessica's depiction of our family. When I look at this picture I feel so blessed that there are 5 people in our family!

Joseph's state of the art piece of art. I like it. You can see the watercolor so well. But I couldn't tell you what it is supposed to be. But then, that is what art is all about now, isn't it?

This one done by him is a bit more obvious what it is supposed to be. Trees, a road, a car with people in it, a rainbow, and sky...

Here is mine. I call it, A lazy day in Iowa. I might actually frame this one day, or stack it with all the ones I mean to frame some day in the future.

So, spend that special moment with your child! You might just be rewarded in several ways.

On Walmart and Ideas...

Walmart is good for a few things. Or maybe many, depending... Like buying a nice summer hat. And giving birth to ideas.
My Handsome let out a remark a few days ago that surfaced again in my mind when I was in Walmart. He said something about someone looking nice wearing a certain hat, and I thought to myself, hmmm, I think I will get myself one! I saw this cute one and just had to buy it, even though it wasn't in the budget. It was, after all, only $7.00. By the way, my hubby does a nice job giving haircuts, right?


I saw a few skirts in Walmart that later on gave me some ideas. Like, maybe I can make my own? Maybe I can get rid of some scrap fabrics here? Maybe I can save myself some money? Maybe I can be in 'style' doing it? I had just bought that shirt in STUFF, and it just happened to match with some fabrics I had lying around. And I mean I had some of it lying around for a loooong time.

I threw that thing together today; once I start, I can't stop. And man, is it ever comfy. Nothing beats the comfiness of a light summer skirt like that, if you know what I mean. If you have one you will know what I mean.

So go ahead and look in your closet or boxes or wherever you store your fabrics. See if you can't find three or four or five pieces of scrap that can be pieced together. Hey, don't worry, it will be in style! This kind of skirt uses lots of fabric so it is excellent if you want to reduce your stock of scraps, and the pattern ideas are endless but simple. Let me know if you like the idea or make yourself one and show it to me!

Canning beans, doing math

Canning beans and doing math?... Last time when I wanted to can beans I wanted to teach my daughter how to do it, but then I went one step further and decided to teach her some math while we were at it, to make it more exciting, or, because I am so lazy, kill two birds with one stone... So I got out a marker, and marked the jars with fractions.

It took me a pretty long time to learn fractions in school . I didn't learn it this practically. Jessica picked it up very fast doing it this way; it's amazing what a little real life practice can achieve versus boring numbers on paper.



In the end she had also learned that 2/4 is the same as 1/2. I think that concludes our math lesson for today. And we didn't even have to drag out those math books. Well, I didn't really have to anyway, cause she's only six...

The horse story

We love horses. My cowboy husband grew up with horses on the farm, and rode since he was a small boy. So, after we had our first two children, we decided we wanted them to grow up with horses around too.

That's when we bought Rose, a gentle, well-trained older mare.

That was in January of 2006.

We lived in Tennessee at that time, and had a small area on our property that we could fence off for her. We had her bred when we got her, and started looking forward to having a foal from her. She was a Tennessee walking horse, and so was the baby.

And here is the little tyke Joseph we were trying to make a cowboy out of! It seems to have worked, as he still loves horses at 4! Although it took him longer to learn to like the mare than it did Jessica. She seemes to have inherited the love for horses from daddy.

Old Rose has given the children many a good ride. Even the neighbor children came and wanted to ride her, and lots of friends who came to visit.

Having a horse is not cheap, and even though we were trying to save money as much as possible during those years, we felt it was ok to do this, especially since we both love horses and since we wanted our children to have that fun when they were young. I'm glad we did.

Father / Daugther Night Out

Last week my daughter got a night out with Daddy. She was very, very excited. We were looking through her clothes, trying to figure out which was the best one for her to wear.

It turned out to be one that she got over two years ago to use as a flower girl, which still fits her!

It sure was good, because I could not have afforded to buy her a new one right now.

My little daughter, not so little anymore. Boohoohoo. But on the other hand, I am thankful to have such a big helper already.

Just before they went out, Daddy surprised her (with some previous ideas from someone else:)) with a necklace all her own, the first real one she has ever owned.

Wow Daddy! I am in awe...

My man fiddling around with a necklace for the first (?) time in his life. Oops! Hey, remember I wanted him to do this for her!

-This is so beautiful, I can't stop looking at it.

I don't think I have ever seen her happier and more proud than she looks here.