A Happy Easter

Today was Easter.

I know this, because the Easter Bunny came. The girls are fascinated still by the fact that the Easter Bunny knows their favorite things, and provides them with gifts in their baskets perfectly suited to their interests and favorite colors. Funny how smart that Easter Bunny is.


We hosted Easter dinner at our house this year. This is a Big Deal. We've never had the space to have family over for a holiday before. But up here at our Forever Home Farm, space isn't hard to come by.

First, we hunted eggs. 78 of them, to be exact. Well, 77. The puppy found the first one, as evidenced by the small wad of half-chewed bubblegum we found lying next to an open egg. Silly puppy.


We flew kites in the hay field.


We held target practice.

Even the dogs played happily. (Yes, that's what happily looks like.)


My mom hid eggs again, this time with lottery tickets for those that found the Golden Eggs. I don't have pictures of that - I was looking for Golden Eggs.

I made dinner. This is actually a big deal. I've never cooked a holiday dinner before. It was a sort of coming-of-age experience for me. I feel like a grown up now. We had ham, roasted potatoes, macaroni and cheese, homemade rolls and parmesan green beans, along with some snacks and appetizers and such. It turned out pretty well, I think. Anyway, everyone ate it without complaining.


And we all ate in our dining room. Because we have a dining room now, and that's exciting.

There was some more kite flying, a bit more walking around, and then someone found a recently dead snake and Littlest One decided to bring it in.
It really was a wonderful Easter. Reading back through all that makes me realize we sound amazingly redneck - hay fields, lottery tickets, target practice, dead snakes... I promise, we have more class than it sounds like. :-)

The Top of the Hill

We finally found the time to hike to the top of our little mountain last weekend. Between the snow, the mud, and all the work, spare time hasn't been all too plentiful, but we decided we had to see the top.



It's a rocky hillock, covered with cedar, pine and juniper trees from about halfway up. Truly beautiful, in typical Colorado fashion.

We found the picnic table that the man we bought the ranch from told us about.

The girls cleared the snow off of it, and we found it was still in pretty good shape, especially considering how long it's been out in the elements. It won't be long til we can enjoy picnics up there.


We also discovered the view.



It's amazing how far you can see if you just get high enough up.

We came back down the southwest side of the mountain and got a new view of our house and outbuildings from the back side:



Really a nice little hike, and one I look forward to doing more and more as the weather warms and the mud dries out. There is a lot of space to get to know up there, and we're all looking forward to it.

Silhouette Pillows

Now that Christmas is over, I can show you the picture of my Mama's Christmas gift.



Silhouettes of the girls, on pillows.

I saw the idea on Pinterest (imagine that) and tested a few ideas out before finally figuring out how to do it. Mostly, I thought it would be lovely to applique them on, and then realized there was no way I had the skill to applique around tiny noses and lips. So I went with iron-on transfer paper. It made the whole thing easier, and the lines much clearer. The silhouettes are done in a dark blue bottom-weight cotton and the pillow cases are muslin (since I was going for a homespun, country sort of look.)

For the pictures, I just took side profiles pictures of the girls, printed them at out as 5x7's and cut them out. The hardest part of that was figuring out how to style their long hair so that it still looked like them when I cut it off at the shoulders. Ponytails seemed to be the best option. Then I pinned the cut out photo to the back of the transfer paper once it was ironed onto the blue fabric. I was able to cut the fabric easily with the transfer paper, as it added stability. A good, sharp pair of scissors is a must for this project.

I'm really happy with how they turned out, and really would like to make some for myself, too. And my mama seemed happy to receive them, so I think we can call this project a success. :o)

Missouri Trip: Bakersville

Blogging trips is so hard to do - we do so many things I want to write about, and take hundreds of pictures, and sorting through it all and finding the words to describe it all can be a daunting task. But I'm at least going to try, for posterity's sake, you know.

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In the beginning of October, the girls and I set off on an adventure. And adventure without The Daddy (gasp!) that included driving 20 hours east. There were many stops along the way, all of which I'll eventually blog about, and ending in a little town called Mountain View, Missouri, deep in the heart of the Missouri Ozarks.

One of the stops we made was Mansfield, Missouri. Our main reason for stopping was to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum there, but discovered another little gem close by: the little town of Bakersville, familiar to anyone who orders heirloom seeds from Baker Creek. We've ordered our seeds from them for years, and I'd always wanted to visit their little town. I had no idea driving through that we'd be right there, but plenty of signs led us right to them. And it was such a treat to visit this place (especially for this avid heirloom gardener.)



The gardens were utterly fantastic, and this was in early October, when they were long past their peak. But still there were bright colors in every shade of red and purple and orange and pink tucked away here and there, and flower gardens still bursting with color. I'm not a flower gardener, but this may have inspired me to become one!



We visited on a Wednesday afternoon. It was super quiet, hardly a soul to be seen, but I think that added a bit to the overall effect of the town. The shops were all void of people, meaning we could walk and look and talk to our heart's content without feeling rushed at all. The folks that worked there were sweet as could be.



There were shelves of jams and jellies for sale, handmade crafty bits of all kinds, an apothecary with jars and jars of dried herbs, books on every subject interesting to folks like me, and of course, seeds. Row upon row of heirloom, antique-variety seeds for purchase. It was a gardener's dream come true.

Not only do they grow heirloom seeds at Bakersville, but they grow heirloom chickens. All shapes and sizes and manner of fowl, really. You'd think, seeing as we have chickens in our own back yard, that coop after coop of chickens would get boring fast to Two Little Girls, but no!



I had to drag Chloe away from them. The kind folks at Bakersville were trying to close up for the day, and my daughter was still cooing softly to a cage of banties, telling them how pretty they were. She left that day utterly smitten, determined to own at least one pair of banties next spring.

Upstairs in one of the shops is a Seed Museum.


Seed catalogs, packets, advertisements and other memorabilia from years gone by. Truly, the folks at Bakersville possess an extreme love not just for gardening, but for the history of it. The girls dragged me through faster than I'd have liked, but it was fun to see all this history collected into one place - and there couldn't be a more fitting place for it.

I am so glad we had the time to stop at Bakersville. It was a lovely surprise to find it so close to our planned route. Some day we'll have to make it back and visit during one of their festivals, and see everything in action, but spending a quiet afternoon just exploring was a great experience in itself!



If you garden - or need inspiration to start - check our their website and ask for a catalog. It's the prettiest garden catalog you've ever seen, and you won't be able to stop yourself from ordering at least a few packets of something interesting to try.


More to come on the rest of our trip as soon as I make it through more pictures. :-)

Halloween Happiness

Joy is...



watching Two Little Girls carve their pumpkins.



Ooey, gooey fun.


Sloppy, messy, slimy giggles.






Wishing everyone a Happy Halloween! Have fun, and be safe!

Memorial Day Weekend

It was windy this past weekend, not at all pleasant for laying around in the back yard in a bathing suit sipping strawberry lemonade and reading a good book as I'd originally intended.

But when life gives you lemons wind...

Daddy had great fun flying the stunt kite.

Chloe almost got carried away by the stunt kite.

On Monday we decided to try running away from the wind by going for a drive to Silver Jack Reservoir. We did succeed in escaping the wind...



And instead found some snow. The snow was actually falling here for a short time.

We found a geocache at a historic cemetery in Cimarron, Colorado.



We found another geocache on a lovely little hike near Big Cimarron campground. The dog had splendid fun as well.



We saw some beautiful scenery...


And plenty of deer.



When we attempted to cross Owl Creek Pass, we saw this:



It's always disappointing to see fallen trees across the road when you look out your windshield. And we didn't bring the chain saw. Sigh. We had to turn back the way we came, which was not nearly as interesting as I'm sure the top of Owl Creek Pass would have been, though we did get another view of the pretty scenery. We spent a total of nine and a half hours in the truck. It's a good thing we like each other.

And since we spent The Whole Day driving yesterday, the girls and I made our Memorial Day cake today instead.



They ate the watermelon Cora was so desperate to buy from the store. It lived up to her expectations.


Overall, it really was a lovely long weekend. I hope everyone else enjoyed plenty of great food, relaxation, and great family time too!

Beautiful.

Since the last post showed my kiddo with rags in her hair, I thought it only fitting to post a few pictures of the finished product.




Please don't think I EVER allow my eight year old daughter out of the house with make-up on. I don't. Except when it's picture day at the dance studio, and make-up is part of the costume. I had fun getting her all made up though. Ninety percent of the time Chloe is my tomboy, with her hair hanging in her face or a limp braid down her back, usually with food or paint smudges on her face and dirt under her fingernails. And I love her like that. But she sure does clean up nice, doesn't she? Looking at these pictures causes a little bit of panic to set in: my little girl is growing up fast!

And here's a picture of the Littlest One, all done up and trying on her costume.

I'll post more pictures from the actual performance in a couple of weeks. :-)

Kitchen Curtains: Finished!

In case you were wondering what happened with the Kitchen Curtain Project (because I'm sure you all have nothing more important to do than think about my kitchen curtains), I'm happy to report that I finally finished them.

Ta-da!

I am a terrible photographer. And taking pictures
of curtains is not easy. Forgive the awful photos.

Kitchen curtains. We've lived in this house for five years, and it finally looks like someone lives here.



Overall, I'm really happy with them. They change the look of the kitchen so much. They don't cover my beloved windows too much, but they make it look a little bit homier, and that was my goal. There's not one bit of peach in them, and yet they managed to tie in the Ugly Cabinets nicely (saving me from having to paint the cabinets and yes, even making me almost start to like them.) They're retro-vintage-y but still simple, and I love that about them. And I got to use nine different fabrics, which is always fun, especially when it involves patchwork.

Lace shopping was more of a chore than I expected it to be. Apparently, lace is pretty expensive stuff, especially when you need to buy twenty four yards of it. Everything I found in town (which wasn't much) was going to double the cost of the whole project. In looking around online, I found Lace Heaven, where I was able to purchase just the right laces for $.25 to $.39 a yard. The shipping was faster than I was expecting, and they actually gave me more than the yardage I ordered. Because I was ordering more than 5 yards, I even got a discount on the already insanely low prices. I'm not normally one to push other websites and stuff, but if you're in the market for lace, definitely check out that site. It's a keeper.

The best part of all? Every last bit of them was sewn on the Singer. And that thrills me, even though no one will ever be able to tell.

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Two other pictures I took today and thought I'd share:

After a week of gorgeous, gardening-in-tank-tops weather, the first of the daffodils finally blossomed. Just in time for a mid-March evening snow.
And a picture of the Baby Chickens. Because they're cute, and it's spring, and everyone should be looking at pictures of baby animals.

(That's Goldilocks - the shy one- on top,
Matilda -the feisty puffball- on the left, and
Mrs. Tweets -the noisy runt- in front.)