A Day at the County Fair

This past week was our County Fair. It's the one thing we all look forward to every year, but it also signals that summer is nearly over and school will start soon. Sad I know, but after this super heated summer I'm ready.

This year the kids all took 3 craft projects apiece to compete in 4-H. Between them they made a crocheted shawl, knit mini socks and fingerless mitts and many, many baked goods. We even took an improvised Lego ship. That thing was hard to transport!


All the projects got blue ribbons, but 3 very special projects got Best in Class awards. I'm so proud of them!! The girls are headed in their momma's footsteps in the knitting and crocheting categories. :o)

After all that we got to spend some time enjoying the fair. I always love going through the open class project barn and the animal barns. Except the draft horse barn. *shudder* Walking behind horses that look like elephants and are so tall I could walk under them (I'm 5'11") without ducking does not do my nerves any good at all.

The fair food always cracks me up. Is there anything they haven't tried to deep fry? Do people actually eat this stuff? And really....who wants to eat fried rice while walking around?


The amount of fried food is always astonishing, but I think the deep fried chocolate cookie had to be one of the most inventive and expensive. One cookie was $4!!! We managed to avoid the food and still enjoyed our visit. I think my arteries will thank me one day.

Here's a quick photo recap of the fair.

Wordless Wednesday - The Cutest Alpaca Picture Ever!

Wordless Wednesday - Hi New Little Cousin

How Did You Spend Your New Year's Weekend?

After the ball dropped and the parties ended, how did you spend the first weekend of the new year?

The kids spent new year's eve at Grandma's so the hubby and I got the house to ourselves. (Never, ever happens!) The problem was I was awake 3 hours earlier than usual. I think it was because the house sounds were different. Whatever the reason it was seriously annoying. The one morning I could have slept in!

Because I was up so early I ended up getting the kids back from the grandparents early. They didn't mind though because we had big plans for the day.

We stayed home and had a monopoly tournament! I put some munchies in crockpots along with veggies and fruits to snack on and we spent the day playing the never ending real estate game.


The game went on for awhile and we snacked on BBQ smokies and my Mexican dip. I lost.... I was so sad. Oh well.

Sunday was just as quiet here. The kids got control of the DVD player and we watched many, many episodes of Star Trek Voyager (we love Sci-fi!). The girls worked on crafts and such while they watched and I spent the entire day knitting.

It was so wonderful to just relax with no plans and nothing that needed done right then. I got so much knitting done that my Blizzard Mitts are nearly complete and I'm getting ready to have the pattern test knit. I'd love to have this pattern available in our Etsy shop before it gets too warm for them. :o)

Sunday night I also realized that the phone never rang even once all weekend. I wish we could have weekend like that more often.

Wordless Wednesday - Family Portrait

A Thanksgiving Craft and Giveaway

Thanks to Scotch(R) Double Sided Tape for sponsoring my writing about crafts. Add your comment below to be entered for a chance to win free sample rolls to help with your upcoming holiday needs.

I can't believe it's November already! Where has 2010 gone? It's all good though because that means Thanksgiving is almost here!!

I love Thanksgiving. It has to be my absolute most favorite holiday. I think maybe because it centers around food and we all know I love food! I also have a great time decorating the table with lots of crafty things.

Making Thanksgiving crafts to decorate the table is a great way to get the kids involved. Normally I have them making hand turkeys and fall leaves out of construction paper, but this year I came across something a little different.

How about a cute napkin ring that doubles as a great conversation starter and a trip down memory lane. You could actually make these for any holiday or family get together, but they seem especially appropriate for Thanksgiving celebrations.

Do you have old family pictures around your house? Do you maybe have a box of them tucked away where no one has seen them in years? Have your kids ever seen what grandma looked like back in the day?

How about making Photo Napkin Rings!


Instructions:

Gather up some digital images of old photos or scan the old photos into the computer. Print each photo in the desired size (2 inches works great) and trim it into a square, then use double-sided tape or glue it to scrapbook paper and trim the paper to leave a 1/4-inch border on all sides.

Cut a paper strip (1 3/4 by 8 inches) and tape the ends together making a ring shape. Use tape to attach the mounted photo to the ring. Insert a napkin into the ring and viola! You now have a great conversation starter for you meal.


Now the really fun part!! How would you like to win your own Scotch brand double sided tape? Two (2) lucky winners will each receive 5 rolls of Scotch Double Sided tape provided by 3M.

Here's the rules:

GIVEAWAY~ Two lucky readers will each win five (5) rolls of Scotch brand Double Sided tape provided by 3M.

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Leave a comment on this blog post telling us what fun and great uses you have for Scotch tape.
*Please leave your email address in your comment so we can contact you*

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(Please leave a comment with your extra entries)

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Giveaway will end November 7, 2010 at 11:59p.m. EST. Open to US residents, 18 years or older. Winner will be chosen using Random.org, notified by email, and will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

Please learn more about Scotch(R) Double Sided Tape and other Scotch(R) Products, and join the conversation on the Scotch(R) Brand Facebook Page and via Twitter. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Halloween Highlights 2010

What a great night! It was chilly, but calm and sunny. I'll gladly take the chill during trick or treating if it doesn't come with rain or that evil white stuff.

It was weirdly not that busy, crowded or whatever you want to call it. There were families out, but I've seen it far busier. Maybe because it was a Sunday?

Wordless Wednesday - A Rare Occurance

This doesn't happen often and I didn't make them pose. :o)


For more Wordless Wednesday visit the home of Wordless Wednesday and A Beautiful Mess.

The Only Chore the Kids Beg to do....

Raking leaves!! Do you remember how much fun it was to play in the leaves? Do you remember a time when you would look at all those leaves and think of something other than back breaking work?

Well, the kids have completely taken over leaf raking. They think it's the best thing ever! Nothing like work at all! Yeah for them, but I still think it's a chore. One I am very happy to pass off to them.

I do enjoy watching them enjoy themselves though. They make forts and tunnels and all sorts of other leafy creations before the big haul to the garden. (We compost them into the garden for their soily goodness).


This past weekend was absolutely beautiful to spend time outdoors. It was about 60*, sunny and just lightly breezy. Perfect fall weather!


The kiddos have been out there raking and playing in those leaves for 4 days in a row now, but I took these pics over the weekend.

First Day of School!

So what do you do on the first day of school when you homeschool? Go to the Museum! With all the other kids in school the museum was a very quiet place with only a couple moms and their little kids. It makes the afternoon so much more enjoyable when you're not fighting to look at displays or play with the science stuff.

After a morning of school work, we headed off to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. This is a great museum in downtown Kalamazoo and it's FREE!! I love that this museum doesn't charge admission and always has great rotating special exhibits. The current special exhibit is Out of This World - Extraordinary costumes from Film and television. Think Sci-fi! We sooo love our sci-fi shows here. The little man was especially excited to go because Darth Vader and the Storm Troopers were there.

Flash photography was not allowed so these aren't the best, but we had a blast and if you're around here you need to visit by Sunday because after that they are gone!

Here is the jacket worn by Arnold in The Terminator (the kids had no clue since they've never seen it, but mommy was geeked!)

Storm Trooper helment. Cool!

Seven of Nine's cat suit thing from Star Trek Voyager. This is my absolute fave!! I love the show and Seven was my favorite character. I think I may have actually fit into it myself (pre-kiddos of course), but I'm just a touch taller than her.


Indiana Jones jacket, whip, holy grail and staff headpiece. These items were from Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade.

And Darth Vader!

I was really amazed at how cheesy some of these costumes looked up close. Movie magic really is magic. :o)

Oh, there were lots of other movies represented too including more Star Wars, Ghost Busters, Batman and others.

The Parade That Almost Wasn't

Do you ever make big plans and then have something completely out of your control mess it up?

We were supposed to be in a parade this past weekend, but this is what we woke up to.

Rain, rain and more rain.

There is this little tiny town about 10 minutes south of us. Actually, if we didn't homeschool, this would be the schools our kids would be in. We never spend much time there and it's one of those places that if you blink while driving through you'd miss it.

They have one small grocery store, a gas station that doesn't always have gas (that's a whole other story), and a funeral home. That's about it. No lights and no stop signs.

What they do have going for them though is a great farmer's market, a nice park and Lizzie's aunt living there. It seems they also have a homecoming celebration (not the football kind). This includes a community parade, a carnival and some fun.

I had never participated in any of these things, but was recently asked to take pictures of the float by Lizzie's aunt & uncle were putting together. Of course I love any opportunity to take pictures, but that rain was freaking me out.

The amazing thing was that by line-up time the rain was letting up and when the parade took off the rain had ended. Talk about divine intervention 'cuz I was sure that rain was never going away.

We had a lot of fun even though we were all wet and I'm already looking forward to next year. Just a little less rain please!

Prairie Girl Project Debut!

Have you ever seen this book?


I hadn't until recently. I found it mentioned in a post on Ravelry and had to look it up. It's the cutest little book on old-timey crafts and activities.

This is what Amazon says "Frontier fun meets a home-spun touch in this heart-warming mixture of pioneer projects and wistful nostalgia. Jennifer Worick teaches readers how to sew a quilt, master the art of bread-and-butter pickles, speak old-time slang, and much much more. This is for the legions of Laura Ingalls Wilder fans who have dreamed of what a pioneer life out on the prairie would be like. Combining step-by-step how-to on crafts, with tongue-in-cheek instructions on prairie slang, winning a spelling bee, and singing a lullaby, The "Prairie Girl's Guide to Life" allows fans to finally act out their childhood dreams or to simply enjoy the vicarious thrill of reading about it one more time. This is a book that will pull at the heart strings of every childhood Laura and also teach us a few prairie-time crafts along the way."

Sounds fun, right?

I'll admit that like a lot of Americans I love all things pioneerish and the thought of cowboys makes me woozy. :o)

In our family's constant journey to finding a simpler more fulfilling life this book seems like a great how-to manual. It also looks like a lot of fun to explore with the kiddos.

The author is from Southwest Michigan which is our neck of the woods so that is just awesome! I'm not exactly sure where, but it sounds like her family has been here at least 2 generations. Go Michigan!! Love the Michigan products and people!

The book states that there are 50 projects, but I counted 52 twice. That makes this book a perfect year long project. We are going to try to complete one thing each week and write about it on Thursdays.

Some of the projects that we will be working on are knitting a shawl, lacing a corset, panning for gold and making applesauce. Of course some projects are easier than others. I'm not entirely sure how we're going to pan for gold or lace a corset, but we'll figure it out.

This week we're going to start easy with the Art of Letter Writing. When was the last time you wrote a letter by hand?

Wordless Wednesday - Blue Ice Cream is GOOD!

For more Wordless Wednesday visit Wordless Wednesday and A Beautiful Mess.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day!!!


Have a safe and happy holiday! As for me....I'm off to visit the sales at the fabric store. :o)

Wordless Wednesday - Playin' in the Sandbox

For more Wordless Wednesday visit Wordless Wednesday, A Beautiful Mess, and Harriet and Friends.

An Afternoon in Black & White

Happy Birthday to Two of My Beautiful Daughters!

One amazing daughter by marriage, one by birth. Both share the same birthday. Happy Birthday to both of you. May your day be great and filled with joy!

Big Announcements!

As some of you have seen or heard we had one big announcement already this week. Our farm will soon be selling Spinolution wheels. These spinning wheel are AWESOME and I will let you know the second they arrive.

The second announcement is just as exciting, but also slightly terrifying.

We are now Full-Time farmers. That's right...Jim no longer works at Lowe's and I get to be his boss now (insert evil bad guy laugh).

As great as this is, it means we are now completely responsible for making the $$. Over the next few months you will see our fiber business expand and take off (fingers crossed since a lot of this is up to you guys). The veggies will also be a major player over the summer as we hit the farmers market with our tasty goodies.

Of course the 'pacas are always here and for sale to the right buyer. Babies are coming soon and we will eventually have to make some room by selling a few.

We just ask that even if you can't support us by buying our products, you can support us with your kind words, thoughts and encouragements. They mean a great deal to all of us.

The kids are absolutely ecstatic by this turn of events because Daddy's home all the time now. Mommy is happy, but not so ecstatic about the change of routines. We'll have some time to figure it out and I'll just have to become less of a control freak (ok, I'm not really that bad).

As always, we will keep you up to date on the farm happenings and look for Spinolution wheels to be arriving soon!

To the Greenhouse We Go

It's Spring, at least according to the calendar, so it means it's time for the annual trip to the Greenhouse. Most things we plant from seed, but tomatoes and peppers are bought at the local greenhouse. I decided awhile ago that it wasn't worth it to try and grow these from seed.

We had a great time looking at all the pretty flowers and yummy veggie plants and the people here are always so nice.


Now if only he weather would cooperate. It's 40* and WINDY here. Brrr. For now my little plants will have to hang out on the kitchen table.

A Day in Our Life

I was in a picture mood today. Here is a little glimpse into our world:

I got a bit of sewing done today. While I was at it, the cat decided to keep me company in the window.

Of course we had to check on the chicks.

Lizzie wasn't exactly happy about being outside.

I found these little eyes in the barn.

Spent some time with the 'pacas.




Play time.