mamaroots

spooning

I recently introduced my youngest to the concept of spooning during some night time snuggles.  Yes I had my mama motive; ever since he was born he has clung to my necklace.  It is his safety net and his comfort zone. Love it I know, but some nights I need a little personal space around my neck so I said how about spooning? He loved it.  So that got us thinking about spoon crafting this week.

Step 1- hunt through secret stash of thrift store spoons you know you bought years ago.  An hour later have a cup of tea and resume looking.  Found them- celebrate with another cup of tea! 

Step 2- now find those metal stamps that should be in the wood studio.  Remember you bought those with the thought of stamping into wood and it was not quite what you were looking for.  Bingo, you found them.

Step 3- gather hammers, bricks, and willing children to smash flat spoons.  Step 3 is surprisingly easy-have a cup of while "supervising" children flattening out the spoons with glee and slighty unbelievable joy that you are letting them take hammers to said silverware!

Step 4- stamp away and practice "messing up" so children can flatten more spoons.  Swipe husband's black sharpie to darken in the stamped area and then buff of with fine sand paper.  

It is a pretty rough start, but I think we have been bitten by the spooning bug.  Guess we just might find ourselves at the thrift store this weekend hunting down some more.  It will be our reward for some cleaning/purging!

PS- I would recommend an anvil over the bricks lest you are wanting the fine aesthetic of broken bricks in your patio from which you borrowed said bricks!  Looks like it might require a stop at the anvil store this weekend too.

Anyone have any other experience with spooning?  

good partners

We definitely kept daddy busy this weekend.  The hardest part of the lower deck is done and even closer to adding the decking.  Upcycling that old decking has slowed us down a bit, but it really has been kinda cool doing this project with this man.  You know as cool as cutting, carrying big joist beams, pulling out old nails, and trying to retrofit lumber can be.  But the neat thing is that we have not built something together like this and I think we work together pretty well.

This really doesn't surprise me too much since we are partners in our parenting path.  And we seem to work together pretty well.  So we treated daddy to some fresh zucchini bread and our traditional gift of a coupon of total car cleaning.  

We added some custom clothes pins this year.  We constantly use these in our kitchen quite a bit.  Hubby was getting a bit frustrated because the clothes pins seem to go missing.  I heard that they can spontaneously grow legs and walk out when they get wet after midnight!

All in all we were pretty whipped by dinner so we went picnic style with some fried chicken, sides, and cotton candy at the park.  Hoping you had a great weekend celebrating all those great dads out there.  I am so glad to be walking down this path with my hubby being the dad he is.  I feel pretty lucky to have my own dad I love so much and then this crazy fella that I am proud is the dad to my boys.

around back

Found ourselves finally able to do some yard work and start some more outside projects and just time exploring our abode.  We came into the fortune of some decking being taken down so we decided to recycyle it into a deck addition in the backyard which has a huge slope.

Now we can sit on the upper deck near the woods, and the soon to be done lower deck and watch the chickens while the clothes dry on the line.  It is taking some good old elbow grease, but we are hoping to have it done this week.  

We have lots of critter supervisors, including the 8-legged large and furry kind- yikes!  

in a galaxy far away

In an epic sort of way this year Silas' birthday was spread out amongst a few different days in order for him to get to celebrate with his extended family, us, and then with his best buds for his first birthday slumber party.  Early morning muffin, 8 gold dollars, and a birthday song greeted him on his birthday proper and then the weekend brought lightsabers and galactic root beer floats.  

Kept it pretty simple really.  Just some buddies, homemade pizza, cookies and ice cream and an evening of his first view of Star Wars.  Crazy to think I was five when I saw this in the theatres.  It was just a fun time watching him hang out with his friends.  Probably the biggest challenge, besides a house with so much boy energy was putting together some goody bags that was not full of the plastic stuff.  I ended up going with some soaps, fruit snacks, "lightsaber" crayons and journals that Silas drew on.  I think it came out well!  The soaps came from here.  

All in all it was fun and I will save another post for the mama-made giftie for my boy to share.  I think I am feeling a Star Wars marathon coming up now that we have enter that world, hard to not go on now!  

bliss

You probably remember that this is the time of year where birthdays are quite abundant.  First my mama, then me, and then Silas this upcoming week.  We celebrate for my mama last weekend and then today we celebrated mine and Silas' together with our family.  I am all blissed out tonight from the love and incredible weekend I had.  So many wonderful great birthday wishes, yummy food, and most lovely gifts from my family.  New gnomes, gardening supplies, and knitting supplies- so excited!  Silas is getting all geared up for Star Wars action and also such a lover of balls that he was in heaven!  Pictures say it best my friends, being officially forty"somethin' is really not so bad!

dinner parties sans camera

Being a blogger and wanting to capture memories does not always coincide with just sometimes wanting to roll with the flow and enjoy a lovely dinner party with my family yesterday.  So the camera did not come out till this morning when I was sitting back and reflecting on the day in the early morning sunshine while the boys were still asleep and all the early chicken chores were done.  

I really really love my mama.  I am so thankful every day that I have her in my life in such a close way. She lives within 30 minutes of me.  Having so many of our immediate family close to us is what really keeps us here in the midwest.  Having a dinner party to celebrate her birthday is super nice perk to having her so close.

Yesterday my boys planted a little spring color for us to enjoy, I got to finish some knitting for mama, and then got to cook with my sister for the evening.  Yep- I cooked.  It can happen!  BBQ shrimp New Orleans style is one of the few things on my repetoire of cooking!

Time to take the bunting down, water the new flowers, empty the dishwasher, and pick up the stray slingshots and balls from the yard.

Sometimes it really still can come down to sharing food with the people you love!  Eat, hug, and enjoy the rest of the weekend my friends.

the thaw begins

Let me tell you a story about a gal who wanted at least one good snowstorm before winter said goodbye. She did a snowdance, well maybe she did two because not only did we get hit with one big storm, but some back to back snow storms that brought us a crazy 11 inches in the first and 6-8ish the second round.

Actually it was a welcomed 4 snowdays from school, sledding, and really we needed the moisture to recoup from the drought last summer.  What I did not anticipate was that it would also knock out my internet for over a week- hence my absence from this space.  But alas we are restored and I am processing the amazing film fest that happened in the midst of the aftermath of the storm, and of course some knitting.  I am a woodworker at heart, but knitting does travel so well!  I have been working on learning increasing and decreasing.  My second round of classes begins this month.

The thaw has begun, the sleds need to be gathered, and the knitting continues.  Have a wonderful weekend!

love what you have , use what you have

I was on a bit of a mission to try and have a simple valentines and try to stay as close to possible with using up the craft stash supplies.  For our school mate Valentines we took a que from Pinterest and used some watercolor paper from the art cabinet and created some handpainted individual cards that we then upcycled some sheet music given to us for the hearts.  It took a couple evenings but we ended up with 46 valentines for teachers and classmates.

Daddy even got in on making and reused some of the scraps into creative cards for us.  For a simple high tea yesterday afternoon I used some frappaccino jars, wood hearts for the stash and bakers twine for a cranberry sprite fizz.  The tablecloth and bunting were made from recycled dishtowel and and vintage sheet stash which is quite out of control.  I have a feeling I will be having a vintage de-stash event soon!

One thing I did buy was the cotton yarn to make the boys monogram washcloths.  Washcloths are my world right now!  I love their perfect size for learning off of these yarn patterns.  Hmm- what pattern to start today?  Hope you all had a wonderful Valentines with your sweethearts!

welcome February

Welcome February!  Just a little shout out this first day of February with a little Happy message to a couple crazy kids who tied the knot in Minnesota many years ago and became just about the best parents I could ever ask for!  

I think I love knitting

I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that most new knitters getting pretty darn peacock proud of mastering some new pattern.  What- did you say pattern?  That thing that a few weeks ago made me ill? Yep, not only did I use a pattern, but I threw my own little ol improvisation to it.  Take that Miss I don't know how to knit alter ego!

I happened to find all these knitting needles in my grandma's sewing machine and cabinet that I inherited from my Auntie.  Knitting with metal was different than the bamboo, but it was nice to know they were in her hands at one time.

So this is a basket weave pattern that I got from here and added a boarder.  I worked on it a bit Tuesday night and then finished it yesterday afternoon.  Is it a dishcloth, a washcloth, a cleaning rag.  Who knows, for now it is my little mug rug! 

I am going to attempt a monogram wash cloth for each of the boys for Valentines with a fun bar of soap. Not because they are smelly, grubby boys, but I just want to give them a little something practical and full of their mama's love!  Wish me luck!  I found this spot that has awesome free pattern for each initial if you are inclined to give it a whirl!