back from vacation

We are back from visiting my family in New York state.
So much to talk about...so many beautiful pictures to share.


I am feeling so fragmented being back home and trying to slip back into
routine, getting caught up around here, digging the house out from under drifts of kitty hair.....
I will share a couple pictures and be back in a couple days with more and tell about our wonderful trip!

loose ends...

ever the procrastinator i am.....
we have known we were going on the family vacation back east to visit my dad, step mom and his side of the family for at least two months.
why then am i sitting here thinking of all of the things i need to accomplish tomorrow?
we leave to an overnight hotel tuesday so that leaves monday (tomorrow) to finish washing loads of laundry, fold them and have the kids put them away.
same with dishes.....
i know it is extra work to finish up the house before you leave on a trip but it sure makes the coming home easier....especially when it will be 6 of us coming home.

animals have caretakers
mail will be held
new shirt made for my oldest daughter
rides to the overnight hotel lined up
cleaning out the fridge of perishables tomorrow
yard cleaned up for winter so we dont have to do it in the rain when we come back

church was awesome today.....you sure dont know how much you miss something or someone until you havent seen it or them for awhile.
it has been at least 6 sundays since i have seen my church family....one sick kid after another and when you are the only parent this can make for a loooooong stretch.
anyway, good to see everyone again.

the weather has been sooooo beautiful for the past three days....seems like real fall weather.
crisp air, sunshine, people hurrying up the last minute yard work or house painting before the rains come.
i have immense respect for paint ~grin~
we werent able to get the house painted this year (it seriously needs it) but i finally got my picket fence all white. at least this winter when it is all rainy and blustery outside i will have a pretty white fence to look at....exactly the reason i painted it now instead of next summer when the house will be painted...so that i will have something cheerful to look at outside.
i will post before and after pictures when we come back Oct 26th.
it is a MAJOR difference.

have a GREAT week!
Lori xo

book give away

wow...I just got an email from Biblical Womanhood talking about a homekeeping book give away.
Sounds like a wonderful book and I hope I am one of the lucky winners.

When I was a younger mama I took for granted being able to stay at home with my children and got sidetracked too much with other matters. I still get sidetracked quite a bit but not as much as then....a little too much involvement in church activities and helping friends out back then and not too much emphasis on things like the husbands work uniforms or making sure the clean clothing actually made it to the drawers.
I digress....
Now that this past year has brought me into single parenthood of the bustling bunch of kids I no longer take staying at home for granted because I make soooo many sacrifices to do it and work many an odd job for people to make ends meet to be able to continue to stay home.

Some day I would love to be as organized as most women who choose to stay at home but I know my family loves me in all of my quirky homemaking ways.

Hopefully as soon as we come back from our family vacation (my dad and step mom paid for us to visit them...woohoo!) I will update my etsy shop which is supposed to help keep me at home with my kids too... Etsy shops really dont work well if they aren't updated. ~grin~
I am working on some super cute skirts for little girls with an appliquéd horse head with pillow trim for the mane called the *Giddy Up* skirt that I need to get some pictures of in case anyone who reads here has a little girl in their life that is a horsey lover... they are in sizes 2T, 4 and 6. They will be $38 with shipping included.

This picture is a WIP because of the button eye and little mirror medallion from the bridle missing. On the back of these skirts will be an appliquéd horse shoe with *giddy-up* embroidered on it. They are all wide wale corduroy except the tan one...it is regular curduroy.
Anyway, if you are a woman who is a homemaker at heart you may be interested in the give away....go leave a comment in the link at the top of this post!

peeping chicken....

See anything that doesn't fit in this picture? Look closely.....
Usually we have a cat peeping in our kitchen window at us but imagine the surprise to walk into the kitchen and see this beauty.
This is one of our *girls*.
She must have flown the coop and thought this was the closest thing to a roost.


silly bird.....


Sophie lost her first and second *official* teeth this past week. The top one had to be taken out because of one to many run ins with the floor...the floor won.
when did my baby start looking so grown up? gotta love those freckles.


Sophie has been on an ornament kick this week. you cant tell from the photo but each one was hand drawn to perfection and then a thin strip of paper was cut for the hanger and stapled on.
many hours of fun for the little crafter. she would love to sell them but i dont know where to encourage her to do this....how do they start this at the age of 5? wow....already a craft diva.
oh...the one on the far right is actually a puppet with a recycled limb from a tree that was laying in the yard....ever the recycler is that girl.

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?