Tagalong tees

In case anyone is still reading here, I've got my Tagalong Tee up for sale! It was originally designed for Nate as a Father's Day gift (he and Walter were tagalong pals), but I thought other folks might like it too. It's a soft, ringspun cotton, navy tee with white print, available in mens, womens, and youth sizes. $20 each plus $5.75 shipping, or local pickup is free. Orders must be placed by April 22. Send me a message if you're interested.

Kite-flying and other distractions

I'm turning into a person who takes a lot of photos but never manages to get them off the camera. I have a bunch of things I feel like I should be sharing here, but I've been distracted with knitting, gardening, cooking, and the bumper crop of black raspberries that has popped up around the house. (Yay!) Food is so good in the summertime. I wish could spend my entire day picking, preparing, eating, sharing.
Since I can't pass a dish of homemade ice cream through the internet you'll have to settle for these photos of kite-flying and our growing boy. He's getting taller by the minute. I'm so grateful for a season of shorts and t-shirts with this long-limbed kiddo. Pant hems always seem to be floating just above his ankles. He's missing a front tooth, with the second one wiggling it's way out any day now. I miss those baby teeth. Adult teeth are so... adult, ya know?








Another thing checked off the summer list!

2014 Summer List

It's the first day of summer, so I suppose it's time I share our 2014 Summer List. We've already started checking things off and we have a lot more fun things planned.


We better get to it. Yay, summer! What's on your summer list?

Backyard experiment

A few weeks ago I was eating lunch with coworkers and I mentioned the black walnut trees in our yard and how annoying they are. They are like poison to half the plants in our garden. The walnuts, leaves, and especially the roots are toxic to plants like tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, eggplant, and rhubarb. Even though we have raised beds, these plants have not done well in our space. I've heard the trees can be sold at a good price for their wood but that still would not solve the root problem.

As I'm complaining, coworker Tom (Hi, Tom!) says, "You can tap those, you know."
WHA???
So I did a little internet research, and, yes! You can tap black walnut trees and make syrup. It's not common. Maples are far more productive and therefore the best syrup-making option. But you can do it! So I got Nate and Walter on board with this plan and we did a little syrup science experiment.

We tapped 4 trees and collected sap for about 2 weeks, which gave us around 3 gallons of sap. Nate rigged up a little cooktop in our fire pit with some stones and a grill grate. We all tended the fire, using up lots of branches and sticks that had fallen over the winter.




It took about 4 hours to boil those 3 gallons of sap down to about 1 cup of syrup. I know what you're thinking. All that for one cup of syrup? Well... yeah! It was a fun experiment and a tasty one too. It's very different from the flavor of maple syrup. A little less sweet, I think, and a little nutty.


We made waffles for dinner after our sap boil. The plates were licked clean. And the black walnut trees are now just a little less annoying.

The Santa visit and other "things to do"

I started the month with good blogging intentions. I really did. And I got exactly this far:

That is day one of Walter's advent calendar. I filled each pouch with a Hershey's Kiss and a "thing to do." I was planning to post a few of our activities, but here it is, day 16...
The lack of posts is simply because I've been having fun doing rather than documenting. And we've been doing all sorts of good Christmas-y stuff. Making paper snowflakes, stringing popcorn, decorating cookies, shopping for gifts, making donations, looking at lights, and so much more. Day 14 was "Visit Santa." I couldn't let that one go undocumented. 


Walter made some verbal requests, then stopped to write it all down as well. Best to cover all the bases.


I know the holiday season is already full of "things to do," but we've really been enjoying having a little something each day to do together that puts us in the Christmas spirit. I hope you've been able to enjoy some holiday "things to do" as well. 

The summer list

You know, some days I feel ahead of the game. It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while I get things done with time to spare. So I'm feeling pretty good about getting our summer list compiled, designed, and printed a couple of weeks before school is out for the summer. (It's not hung yet, but hey! I've got two weeks to do that part!)

Have you seen these summer lists? They are all over Pinterest, of course. But I think the first time I saw the idea was on whatever. The whole blog is colorful and fun and you should check it out. And the summer list - brilliant! We had so much fun just thinking up all the cool things we can do all summer. The list answers all the "What should we do today?" questions and it gives us all sorts of things to plan and look forward to. We can't wait to start checking things off our list!

From the weekend

The camera was filling up with photos so I figured I better put some up here. Our weekend was spent mostly outdoors – soccer practice, farmer's market, garden planting, and just hanging out in the yard. I think it's so peaceful to just sit outside and watch all of our creatures. The chickens are back to being free-range during the day. So far, so good.


The bees are out and about, collecting pollen from anything they can find. Mostly dandelions at the moment. It's so fun to find a bee in the yard and know that it's our bee. 

Molly is enjoying the new smells of spring. She's rolling in all kinds of gross stuff and bringing all kinds of dirt and bugs (ticks!) into the house. But we still love her. 

Walter can't get enough of the outdoors. Chasing chickens, popping bubbles, playing baseball, riding bikes, hitting golf balls. There's just so much to do out there!



The garden was planted on Sunday. I'm hoping the weather stays nice and things actually grow. I feel like I may have jumped the gun a bit this year.

In other project news: the scrap map is done! Not just done, but framed and hung in my sewing room. 


Hooray for fun and productive weekends! 

Sunday

Building, visiting, crafting, and photographing. My kind of day.
LEGO building in our pajamas is becoming a Sunday morning tradition. And I'm giving you another little peek at the playroom re-do. Maybe by next Sunday I'll have it cleaned up and ready to show off. No promises though.


I spent the afternoon putting some more scraps to use. I can't wait to see how this scrap map turns out - I got a pretty good start on it today. Those big blocky western states went together quickly, but the northeast is more challenging. It's hard to keep track of all those little guys. 



I hope your Sunday was as productive and peaceful as ours. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm a day late here, but really, is it ever too late to spread the love? We spent a quiet night at home, just me and the boys. I made chocolate-covered Oreos for my Oreo-loving Valentines. And I made them cute – for me. :)

And a little gift for me from the boys – Walter agreed to get his picture taken and Nate agreed to work the camera. Yay!

(I know, the art table behind us is messy, but we've been busy making valentines! There are paper hearts all over this place...)

Organizin'

Over the past couple of months, one of my favorite spaces in the house had become one of my least favorite spaces in the house. The art table. It looked like this:

ALL of the time, it looked like this. I'm all for getting messy when it comes to art, but I'm also all for cleaning it up when you're done. 
It never got cleaned up. 
But it's not Walter's fault. The more art supplies he got, the messier things became. It's hard to clean things up when there's not really a place to put everything. So I made a place to put everything. This was such an easy fix, I can't believe it took me so long do it. One trip to the thrift store and I found this cute wooden tote.

$2.00. And it was red. Perfecto! I used some wide mouth jars and a few tin containers (found in the dollar section at Target) and just like that, the supplies were organized.


The best part – when Walter saw it, he could suddenly find things he didn't even know he had. 




He spent all day at that table. And when he was done, it was all cleaned up.

Grampa built the art table and chairs, and cleverly put storage areas under the chairs  for paper, coloring books, etc. The oatmeal container holds crayons.