The Best Couple Days Ever?!

This past Monday we went up to my beloved Duluth to see Bentleyville and Santa.  Bentleyville was great as usual and it was less chilly than last year so we were able to enjoy it a bit more.  We let Blanche have a sip of hot chocolate and she LOVED it.  We told her no more until next year.  She also did really well with Santa!  No crying, just wonderment.  She even said she wanted a truck!  I told her to say that, but I was surprised she did because she doesn't usually talk in front of people she just met.  

Surprisingly our night went quite well.  We went to Duluth Grill after Bentleyville and ate, then we went back to our hotel and Blanche went swimming for the first time ever.  It was so fun!  Blanche and Matt slept together while I had a bed to myself because the room came with two full beds and there's no chance Blanche would have actually gone to sleep alone.  But she slept way better than I expected.  

Now to the great part: on the way back down to the cities I saw my first ever wild porcupine!!!!  It's been about a seven year journey and it finally happened!  I cried a little I was so happy.  We were on 35 only about 40 minutes out of Duluth and I was looking for porcupines out the window as I always do and I saw one with his tail hanging down from a branch!  Matt stopped but it was already too far behind us to back up on the highway so he went to the next exit to loop back.  I saw it too late again to back up and Matt tried one more time!  This time we stopped in time to see it.  Matt added 24 extra miles doubling back on the highway so I could see it :) and then let me watch it for about five minutes before we decided we better keep going before somebody thinks we broke down.  This was all after he already drove by the "porcupine hotel" as a post on Perfect Duluth Day called it, to see if we could find any, but we didn't see any there.  I have the best husband ever.  For real.  Who would do all those things?  My amazing husband, that's who!  I love him.  

That's all, I just had to share my amazing experience.  Here's to many more porcupines in our future!

Later!

My Lil Helper

It looks like another good while has gone by without me posting.  Not much has gone on, but I know the next few weekends will be busy so I may as well post now.  I don't have much time anymore because lately whenever I try to do anything (laundry, dishes, cooking) Blanche has wanted to help.  It's totally awesome that she wants to help but it adds about a half an hour to everything.  At least she will be prepared to do chores by herself!

I'm still fantasizing over houses though we probably won't move until the fall :( like a year away.  So incredibly disappointing.  If Matt and I didn't have two different location priorities we'd be able to move sooner but unfortunately that is not the case.  I'm sure we'll end up close to his work.  At any rate, I decided (we'll see if he follows through) that we're only going to move to a city that allows the keeping of chickens :) and therefore we'd probably also need 1/4 acre.  Preferably more!  I had found a great home that had .87 acre with a little path that led through woods to a fire pit that I can totally imagine raising kids, but it's too far from Matt's work.  Another thing that is definitely going to happen is this:

How cute is that?!  I found it on Pinterest and I can't wait to do this for Blanche!  But I want to do it with one of the little cabin houses and hopefully wherever we end up part of the lot will have a little treed area so she can pretend she has a little cabin in the woods.

Okay, that's all I got for now.  Maybe I'll have something fun to update before Christmas, otherwise I'm sure I'll have fun Christmas stories to tell in a month.  I'm excited because Blanche has things she really loves now and I know she'll love the presents we get her.  It also snowed for the first time yesterday and she just loved it!  It'll be gone by tonight I think but I'm sure we'll get more soon.

Later!

Busy Busy

I haven't posted in a couple weeks now, and I bet you thought I was done with my little streak I was on, but no!  It's just been busier than normal around here.  

First, I had been working on this little hat and scarf for Blanche's new winter jacket.  I love how it turned out!  

I'm considering adding a button on the scarf because I'm not sure Blanche will leave it on otherwise.  I just keep thinking about how cute she'll be walking around Bentleyville!

After making Blanche's winter gear I quick made a little baby hat for my sister's son who will be born in the middle of winter.

I used the same yarn as I made Blanche's 'Going Home' hat with for when she was born :)

So that had been taken up free time I had during the day and then we even had two dates since my last post and it was Halloween!  I won't put pictures up from Halloween but we went to the zoo and it was pretty fun, if not crowded.  I think Blanche will have more fun next year when she can listen a little more to know she can't run off into the crowd if she's not holding our hand.

Our first date was just going out to dinner close-by because Matt's parents were watching Blanche for the first time and it made me nervous.  But that went well besides Blanche waking up shortly after we got home.  Luckily she went back to sleep pretty easily.  That date was in preparation for our date we had on Saturday night; The Matthew West concert!!  I was soo excited for it and it did not disappoint!  We saw him in 2009 and not to be cliché, but it was life changing, as was Saturday night.  He is such an inspiration and we have pretty much the same sense of humor, I love it.  And I think his use of humor can reach so many people.  His story about his experience with Compassion really moved me and after the show Matt and I talked and I decided I would give up my spending money to be able to sponsor a child in the program.  I picked Suraiya, a little four year old girl from India.  I am really excited about this journey and hope she is just excited when she hears the news.  

If you are interested in learning more/possibly sponsoring a child yourself you can go to compassion.com

Well I suppose that is enough of an update for now, if my posts get to ramble-y I know people quit reading and I think especially the end of this post is worth reading so I'll end here.  I think things will be less busy for awhile so hopefully I'll talk to y'all soon.

Later!

Bears

So ever since I first saw one in Duluth when we got there five years ago, I've loved the pastel paintings/pictures of bears by Sue Rowe.  There are SO many cute and funny ones I just wish I could buy one of them all!  We've always particularly liked the ones of a bear "couple" sitting next to each other looking into the distance saying "Simply put, we're happy here".  Well this weekend Matt took us on a lovely drive looking at fall colors and made a stop at a studio that had her work and I finally got my first piece!

I love it so much.  Now we need to find a nice simple frame for it and we'll stick it at the bottom of the stairs.  Until we move.  There are similar pieces to this but in one the setting is a sunset and another is the bears looking at a lake, all with the same phrase.  The sunset one and lake one are what we plan to purchase next and want to hang them in a row.  We'll probably wait for the next ones until we move though.  Blanche is super into bears now and I want to get her one for her room when we turn it into a big girl room.

Right now the website is under construction hopefully to build an awesome new one, but keep checking out suerowe.com to check out some of her work!  It's beautiful.  And also look up some of the galleries/studios that sell her work, I've seen a lot of good ones in stores that weren't on the website.  Hope you enjoy it!

Later!

Kool Aid Playdough

So at "school" we got a recipe for the playdough they make that we love.  It is made with Kool Aid so it smells really good and is safe if little kids get curious and have a taste.  The recipe makes a whole bunch and will last awhile if stored in a ziplock bag.  And by using different packets of Kool Aid you can make different colors and have different scents.
 Here is the recipe:

Kool Aid Playdough

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
2 pkgs. dry unsweetened Kool Aid

2 cups boiling water
3 Tbs. vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Mix liquids together and pour into the dry ingredients.  Stir until it forms a ball.  As mixture cools and becomes less sticky, take out of the bowl and knead until smooth.  Store in a ziplock bag or other airtight container.

This kind of shows the color well.  Not quite what I was hoping for, but all we had to work with was Pink Lemonade and Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool Aid flavors.

 

And this one was supposed to better show how much it makes but I don't think it does a very good job.  I'd guess it makes about four containers of the real Playdoh.

 I loved that it was something Blanche could "help" me with (she got to pour the Kool Aid packets, salt, and flour in the bowl and attempted to stir those together).  We'll have to find more tools to play with but today she liked playing with the animals I made her and squishing it and playing with it with measuring cups and spoons.

There, I did a real post!  And it was kind of fun, but even more fun to play with Blanche. 

Later!

Another Sporadic Post

Hello blogging world!  There are so many things that have changed in the lives of family member's and a few in ours but all I wish I could update about is a new living situation!  But alas, that is not the case and I really don't know when it will as Matt now is trying to convince me we should stay here another year if he can talk down rent a hundred bucks or more.  Lack of garden depression: high.  Hospital anxiety level: higher.

I had dreamed of using this blog to post updates of my big garden and outdoor adventures.  Instead, I suggest you check out my Pinterest boards titled "homesick" and "garden ideas".  Those are what I would love to tell stories about on here :)

If anybody has "yuppie" type topics I could write about let me know.  My hope would be I can continue posting regularly come next spring/summer when God willing we will have a place to live with a piece of yard bigger than the 6x8 foot "yard" we have now.  My child needs room to grow and it's not gonna be done here!

I will be back if I can find anything fun to write.... Leave suggestions if you have any!

Later.

Anybody Still Out There?

Not sure if anybody even reads (not that there's been anything to read) this anymore.  And I know I've lost all the "anonymous" followers when I changed the title of my blog.  But alas, I have come to accept that I will never have a farm.  At this rate, we'll actually be lucky to even own a house again after the one in Duluth.

There really hasn't been much to write about since the last time anyway.  I mean, of course all sorts of Blanche updates, but since I've kept this blog public I'd rather not put too much about her on here.  She is growing like a weed though and seems to be learning ten new things every day!  Really, she's the best thing of our life.  And I thank God I've got her or it would be so unbearable living down here in the Cities!

I would really, really like to post more on here but I don't know what to write about since I don't want to share too much personal stuff.  We don't do anything fun, there's not much to do down here, we're poor people trying to pay off way too many student loans.... Doesn't make for the greatest reading!  If only I could convince Matt to move....