autumn in the air...

It seems everywhere you look in blogland this week (in the northern hemisphere anyway)
that fall is upon us. we can certainly feel it here in the Pacific Northwest...actually raining tonight.
My oldest daughter Tessa took down the fall box of decorating stuff from the attic and went to decorating the house this past week.
The dollar tree had the great glass plate kind of candle holder so we splurged on one of those. ~grin~


This is a mirror that is actually by the inside of my front door and the table and chairs is in the next room over. Tessa takes all of the pictures that go on my blog...she is getting pretty good if I do say so myself getting that view from the mirror.
No toys in the shot...no dirty fingerprints on the walls....no folded towers of laundry waiting for little fingers to take them upstairs to put away.
We are settling into fall real nicely here.....
What tradition or decorating do you do at your house to ready for fall?

inspiration

I keep these three outfits hanging on my studio wall to get the creative juices flowing.
The outfit on the far left is my favorite of all time.....i refashioned it from a babies jumper. wacked off the legs from the crotch down and added huge pockets and everything that isnt pink...the gold fringe around the neckline is supposed to be pillow fringe.
the original piece was a pink curdoroy...my now five year old LOVED that dress...i always put a long sleeved orange shirt under it.
the middle dress i made while going through a very emotional seperation from my now ex husband...very colorful....probably to cheer me up.
it was for my second youngest daughter ..she adored the dress.
so hence they hang on the wall awaiting me to make the new and larger version of each for the girls who miss them so.
the baby jumper is there just because it is so darned cute.


we got our littlest kitten back from getting her no babies operation this past week...nice to have that out of the way and nice to have her back home where she belongs.
it still amazes me how we bond with our pets (babies).....she belongs to my daughter Hannah (who I seem to have in every post as of late) and you should have seen the emotion this little kitty (Pixie) showed when she saw her mama come to pick her up.
We were blessed because PAWS helped us to keep our fees down in getting her spayed....otherwise it would have been $100 more than the amount we had to pay (which was enough...youch!)
Anyway, glad to have little Pixie home.

fall soccer

this is Hannah's first year of soccer...she thoroughly enjoys every minute of it and we are sooo very proud of watching her running around out there the whole time with a smile on her face.

it's so cute to watch the girls at the age...they are competitive but not so much that it clouds their feel for the game or the opposing players...more in the sense of *give me that ball*.
the players that are on the sideline waiting for their turn play soccer with a miniature ball and this stuffed soccer teddy bear....adorable.

this is my sons 4th year with the same coach...most of the players have stayed the same also on the team with some new players being added in. watching this coach these past several years has shown me what a great coach looks like.
he isn't overly easy on the boys but also doesn't take things personally with the boys either...when the boys do something wrong he corrects them and on with the game...no personal stuff in there.
I love this picture because Zack's coach looks genuinely happy with Zack...he is subbing off and the other player is going in.
This was Zack's first game he made it to after all of the illness in our family and me not being able to take him to his practice.

Zack has enjoyed his community soccer years and next year chooses if he wants to play for the local jr. high or not as his team wont be a team anymore as the boys will all play for their middle schools in the local area....i know it will be different for him as we home school and he doesn't have ties to the school.
we sure have enjoyed watching these years and i am proud of his good sportsmanship and overall love of the game.

eight

Breakfast in bed anyone? a tradition at our house is the person whose birthday it is gets breakfast in bed. they are allowed to come downstairs only to go potty then back up to bed with them while others scurry around making the different parts of their special breakfast.
this breakfast belonged to my sweet Hannah who turned 8 on Saturday. Hannah is the one who is recovering very nicely from Strep throat from me treating her with natural things.
She got a ham and cheese omelet...eggs supplied from our very own girls (chickens..they lay better for me when I call them my girls), grape juice in the punch bowl cup, blueberry brown cow yogurt with sprinkles on top.


Sophie (5) went outside and picked the little purple pansies and fuschia violets for the little wicker basket arrangement for her sister. I always have fun making the breakfast trays for my children...even when the cupboards are almost bare (during momentous growth spurts in the kids) there is always something to serve up on silver platter.
Even a fun shaped piece of toast would taste good on a silver platter, right?
A large celebration in our town is Loggers Playday. As you can tell from the title we are (or were) a logging community. There is a whole bunch of logging pride in this area...we go to the parade every year as it is only about 7 blocks from our house.
this is a fun time to walk in the middle of the street without getting yelled at by your mom.


the log trucks are all polished and armor-alled to the hilt.

lots of fun....
perfect end to a perfect day is always hanging out in the tree in the crisp night air isnt it?

community....

In the past 6 months I have found so much encouragement in the blogging community as a stay at home, crafting Mama...

I find that locally in my life I have several home school friends...none are crafty or I have crafty friends that dont home school...or several friends that are moms but not stay at home.
I'm not saying that their is anything wrong with not being crafty or not homeschooling...just that it is nice when two things are such a large part of your life to find other like minded women.

What is so strange to me is finding myself at a point that I feel so close to women that I haven't met in real life....such is the sign of the times.

There are three blogs I read daily....for different reasons.

Melissa of Tinyhappy is a stay at home mom...loves creating and making what she can out of recycled and natural fabrics for pleasure and for selling....

Amanda of SouleMama is a stay at home mom who unschools (we do also), creates for pleasure and to sell, and encourages other mothers to enjoy their families. She recently did a podcast to listen to all about her creative journey.
Amanda Blake Soule

Cherry is another of my favorite blogland friends...she is a homemaker and loves it and writes to encourage other women to love it too!
She also creates for pleasure and for selling.

There are many more womens blogs I visit but these are the ones who inspire me personally...their love of family and home are so evident that it makes me even more content and blessed feeling than what I already felt before I started reading their blogs for the day.

My daughter Tessa recently put in a site meter for me as I was feeling quite down for lack of comments on here---the comments have not picked up but I can see that indeed people are visiting me....yay!
Its nice to see I am not totally invisible in blogland.

Hoping you have a wonderful day!

mish~mash

boy, what a week.....

i know i have left that sad post about our sweet kitty up there a tad too long without something more cheerful but i have hit the floor running this past week....been extremely crazy.

*an uninvited guest came to our house---strep throat. sigh....i think the little boy that i babysit and practically lives at our house brought it. my almost 8 year old started running a fever and a visit to the ER (because as you know they are never sick enough when the regular doctors office is open) and a swab of her little throat told the tale of strep.
They gave antibiotics but knowing how it would knock her immune system out along with the germs I decided to do some searching on a hunch I had.
i searched out strep throat and GSE.
I always liked GSE but after reading all the good info I turned up with the search I had even more faith in it.
She (and everyone else to be safe) are getting orange juice, emergen*C raspberry flavored, and GSE in a dixie cup three times a day along with her getting childrens Echinacea.
She perked up by the next day and no fevers.
I am happy.

Along with that I found out the little guy i babysit has sleep apnea....that is a bit scary and especially seeings how I am only the babysitter. i sure dont want anything horrible to happen while he is sleeping at my house.

sooooo...school didnt start this week as planned but that is the glorious thing of homeschooling.
I am taking this time and finishing up last minute planning so we start off on a nice foot.
I love the primary colored paper folders with three prongs in them for xerox papers to go in....something about those cheerful colors in a school basket.

the sun has been out and i am really appreciating that for sure.....another thing i appreciate is the sneak away time I had with one of my favorite friends today to a fun little coffee shop for a good uninterrupted talk and a very yummy caramel coffee and a side trip shopping for things like the notebooks at WalMart.

hopefully we are all pulling out of it...breyers almond bars always help ease the pain
mmmmm........................