What the Fork?

Thinking of Spring

2012-01-31T16:14:00.000-05:00

This has been the most bizarre winter I can ever remember! As I type this at almost 4 o'clock it is 54 degrees outside. That is just so weird to have such warm weather here. It seems almost strange to think of Spring as just around the corner when it feels like Winter hasn't even really started yet. But Spring isn't too far off at all so it is time to start making plans for the new planting

Happy Year of the Dragon!

2012-01-24T17:59:00.002-05:00

Every year the kids and I celebrate Chinese New Year. Not because we have any Asian heritage but because this time of the year we need something to brighten up the dark days. Our celebrations started in 2006 when Jeff spent three months out of town and the kids and I were completely lonely and stir crazy. If you haven't ever celebrated Chinese New Year it isn't too late the true

New Baby

2012-01-20T11:58:00.001-05:00

Okay I'm not having a baby but my brother and sister-in-law had a baby earlier this month. He is just the cutest little nugget ever! Well most babies are though aren't they? As the auntie I made him a set of mitts and a hat. I so with that I had known how to knit before my babies were born, although Jeff did point out that before our babies were born we wouldn't have been able to afford the

Update on the laundry soap

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

(a cute photo that has nothing to do with this post) I was looking back at some of our older posts and saw that we have been making our own laundry soap for over a year now! I can't believe how natural it has become to just do it ourselves (okay by that I mean Jeff makes it and I use it). I think that I've only bought two small containers of commercial laundry soap since we started

Felted Nesting Bowls

2012-01-10T15:26:00.002-05:00

Free Pattern: Felted Nesting Bowls I need a little bit of a brain break. All the Christmas knitting got finished in time even a last minute day before gift. I want to try something a little fun just because. When going through my yarn stash I have a few colors were there isn't much left over so I found these adorable felted bowls and decided that I had to try them. They are so

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T09:54:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!!! We hope your day is full of love, laughter and the true meaning of the season :)

Jam Failure

2011-12-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

First off please forgive the amount of crap on my kitchen counters, I could make excuses but really we just know that it just happens sometimes right? Please let me not be the only one.... Anyway Jeff and I had our first batch of failure to seal jam. This is the batch that was made at my jam making class, if I had to guess it would be because they were moved before they cooled completely.

Harry Potter Done and Early Christmas

2011-12-08T16:00:00.001-05:00

So my set of Harry Potter gear is done, this is Aden it is his gift actually. He seemed really happy with the way it all turned out, I have to say that I was really happy with it too. I have been knitting up a storm getting ready for the holidays. Not the best photo but this is the Christmas party we had at my house on Sunday. When I was a kid we always had our extended family party

Spoon Care

2011-11-18T12:59:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone what's been going on?! We had snow for the first time yesterday! The kids thought it was FABULOUS!! Mommy did not think so since it was freezing cold out. So last winter I saw this post on Food In Jars (one of my favorite blogs). I've been meaning to make it for ages and finally got a round to doing it. The wax I used is from the same bee keeper that I get our raw

More Knitting

2011-10-29T21:59:00.001-04:00

I have been knitting like crazy lately trying to get some projects done for Christmas and Molly's birthday in December. This hat that I'm wearing is Hermione's Cable and Eyelet hat from the third movie I believe. I found the pattern here. I had the whole thing done and then realized there was no way it was going to fit the first time. I had to go up to a size 7 needle and redid it from

Trying to Surface

2011-10-09T20:52:00.001-04:00

Oh My Goodness!!! I always forget how insane fall gets around here. We've had so much going on as a family I'm not sure which end is up some days. This hat is a project that I've been working on for Jeff for a few weeks Jack is modeling it for me. I don't have a pattern for it but it is just a basic beanie style. One thing I do love about this is the way that the increases create this

Apple Pie

2011-09-16T17:26:00.000-04:00

Autumn is in the air and apples are coming in at the Farmer's Market!!! The kids and I are so excited about the delicious things we are going to make this year. We of course had to start with apple hand pies. Last fall I was very inspired by this blog post at A Cozy Kitchen I diced up two honey crisp apples and one granny smith (Miss M's favorite). A squeeze of lemon juice, 1/4

DIY Fruit Leather

2011-09-12T16:01:00.000-04:00

Molly got a new issue of Food Network magazine this weekend. In it was how to make your own fruit roll ups. The kids decided that we NEEDED to do that! We were headed to the farmer's market anyway so we grabbed some extra fruit while we were there. I read through the Food Network recipe and realized that they used a lot of white sugar, not gonna' happen in my house. The kids helped me

Snacky Bits

2011-09-09T09:04:00.003-04:00

I'm going to let you in on a secret, I'm not a big snacker. It drives people crazy that I don't have a ton of snack foods around the house (including the ones living here!). I don't really think to purchase or make snack foods very often because I'm more of a two square meals a day and coffee for breakfast kinda' gal. Every once in a while though I will break down and feel like having

Dried Apples

2011-09-08T16:58:00.000-04:00

This past week we were gifted to grocery bags full of apples. We got our dehydrator last summer and hadn't used it yet. So we sliced up one bag of our apples and placed them in the dehydrator. Just before bed Jeff played musical layers with them and put them in reverse order from were they started since the bottom ones were getting done much quicker than the top ones. About 24 hours later

Garden deconstruction

2011-09-06T05:00:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend Jeff started deconstructing the garden. The cucumbers had pretty much stopped producing and were completely out of control! The zucchini plant was still going strong but with about 20 pounds of zucchini harvested from just one plant we felt that we don't need any more (especially since it seems to be all over the house right now). Our poor pepper plants just didn't do well

New Lawnmower

2011-09-04T19:07:00.001-04:00

For the holiday weekend we spent a day at Jeff's family cottage with everyone. We had a great time and the kids loved being with their cousins. While up at the cottage we were given permission to bring home a lawnmower that had belonged to Jeff's great-grandfather. It is still in good shape it just needs some tuning up and the blades sharpened. It is definitely a work out to use it but

What's Off My Needles

2011-08-22T11:07:00.001-04:00

Remember this post? Well my project is done and this is what it looks like! Isn't that color just stunning?! I'm glad you can't see too close because they are far from perfect (like not exactly the same length) but I'm so very happy for my first attempt at anything this tricky. If you click here it will take you to a link to the pattern I used and it's free! Just in case you want to make

We Love Pickles!

2011-08-16T17:50:00.000-04:00

Last week was a little crazy here. Poor Jeff had to leave for a week in San Diego for work so it was just the kids and I. Luckily we have wonderful friends who helped keep us busy :) Sunday we had a canning get together with our next door neighbor and we all made pickles, 57 pints and 6 half pints! Without three of us working on the cutting and whatnot we would have been up to the wee hours

On my needles

2011-08-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

This is one of the two projects I'm working on right now. Molly has been taking knitting classes every Thursday all summer long. She has learned to knit, purl and bind off. I'm very proud of her. One day while I was killing time I asked about one of the projects hanging up in the store and got myself scheduled for a class too. This is the very first time I've ever used double ended needles

Blue Weekend

2011-08-01T14:08:00.001-04:00

We had a wonderful weekend! Our good friend Heidi took the kids and myself blueberry picking for the first time ever. Her son is Molly's age and all three of the kids get along like siblings (a little fighting a little getting along it all works out). We picked 9.25 lbs of berries and the kids probably ate a few pounds themselves. We all got home and cooled off it was a hot day. Heidi and

I won!

2011-07-27T15:56:00.001-04:00

A little while ago I entered to win a giveaway at A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa. It was wonderful to get home from karate last night and find a big box on my front porch full of wonderful things! Photo Dude has a new set of gloves and Mama has chocolate!!! Everything in the box is from Seeds of Change. The seeds are packaged in neat resealable packages that will be much nicer to keep all

How does your garden grow?

2011-07-26T12:47:00.000-04:00

What in the world is wrong with me?! I couldn't believe it the other day when I realized there were no photos of the garden up! Geez! Sorry about that I feel so silly. Here are a few of the photos I took this weekend. Please forgive the fact that we haven't cut the lawn or weeded. The kids and I got out after I did the photos and got the beds cleaned up real nice. Here are the three

Tarnished Silver

2011-07-20T13:03:00.000-04:00

When we had our BBQ not too long ago I wanted everything to be perfect. Of course there is no such thing but I did want to at least try for things to be done up nice. That meant getting out the silver service that we were given after Photo Dude's grandma passed away. It may seem strange to have silver out for a BBQ but we thought she would enjoy us using it whether for a fancy dinner or

Homemade Lemonade

2011-07-17T18:41:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we had a family BBQ. It was wonderful :) I had very much wanted to be over the top and do everything from scratch but the heat and time made me step back and only do a few of my intended projects. One thing I did get to do was make fresh from scratch Strawberry Lemonade. I followed the recipe from the Ball Canning book. It was delicious! On the tart side instead of the too