My mother in law... the master of all knowledge

How cool is this?  My mother-in-law taught me last weekend to knit with 5, yes 5 needles.  Socks!  Think of all the great socks I can make now!!  Before this I only knew how to knit with 2 needles.  Ah, to gain knowledge... priceless.  Thanks Linda!

Lets get creative!

I've been taking a great e-course that started this past week.  It already is helping me in so many ways and I've had wonderful opportunities to connect with like minded people.  I really feel that I stumbled across it at just the right moment.  One day weeks ago I found and bookmarked Hip Mountain Mama's blog because it looked so good but I didn't have time to read that day, so later (last weekend) I finally found time to go read, and This is what I found.  That led me to This and This and I felt the idea pulling me so I jumped in!

There have been assignments each day that really have made me dig into figuring out me, and getting back to being me.  And, happily, have gotten me back to art-ing.  I have had a fantastic time pulling out some art supplies that I haven't used in oh so long.  On this note, I've also taken something I read in The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule to heart and tried harder not to have a segregation of  "my" art stuff and "kid" art stuff.  We've long had these drawers of "kid" art stuff

The drawers aren't going anywhere.  I do like that everything in them is "on limits" to all the kids we often have at our house and they know where to find them.  So my stuff will stay separate because I want to be more 'present' when the kids are using my favorite things than is always possible when we have a houseful of kids going a billion directions.  But, to incorporate this idea that I like, I've let Spencer, Emily and Makaylyn "art" with me and a mix of all the kid stuff and 'grown up' stuff the last couple of days, and its been a blast!  I'm going to let the kids have access to all the supplies when I'm able to be near by.   So much creative going on all over the place!

See our fun creative mess?  The table got full so the kids started using the floor as workspace.

How much is Emmy my kind of gal?  I love love love that almost everything she makes has a peace sign here or there!~

And here is a little peek at one of my "assignments" and of the workspace I had going on Friday before the kids joined me.

It has felt so good to just play and get creative with no pressure!  And I am really loving the guided meditation.  I had let meditation fall away from my life for some reason and I feel much more balanced now that I'm making an effort to include it in my days again.

I so recommend this course to you.  Really, are you listening?  It is good stuff.  If you are ready to go there that is.

A little more done on these projects and a little more to do

Here are a few things that the fabric my Aunt Sheila gave me turned into.  The tote bag started with plans as a purse but I didn't quite like how it was going so it made its way into a giant (suitcase for the whole family size) bag.  Tall enough for my knitting needles so chances are that is what may live there.

The little bags will have big, colorful, fun buttons along the top and will be gifted to our nieces over the next few months as birthday gifts, some will hold art supplies, some make-up.  I'm sure they'll all have a chance at holding some girls' treasures. There actually ended up being enough fabric in this set to make my giant bag and 6 little ones for the girls.  

A little peek at what I'll be happily working on next week

Here are some fun things that  will make their way into finished projects sometime this next week.  My Aunt Sheila is in town and we have big plans for much sewing!  More photos to come.  Spencer's sewing debut will come this week as well.  He has plans for turning some of Grandpa's old shirts into sleeping bags for his stuffed animals and small cowboy figurines.  Photos of all this for sure will make it here!

Another Tradition

Remember THIS?  We love this tradition that comes at least once a year for the past, oh, most of my life!

                    

It is that time of year again, Taffy making with Grandpa.  Looking back on the pictures I took made me laugh, Natalie was Grandpa's little sidekick and was so excited to be helping and in all the pictures she was just next to him, watching and always with a spoon full of candy.  She was the main taster.

 

Such fun memories we're making.  Traditions run strong.

Santa's gingerbread village~

Here is what our afternoon was all about.  How cute are these?  For our 4-H meeting today my mom volunteered to help the kids make gingerbread houses (ok, graham cracker houses).  Thanks to a bunch of great parents and grandparents we had all sorts of goodies to build and decorate with! 

The kids had non stop fun and ended up with wonderful cottages, and mansions!  One even had a garage!  What a funny, messy, silly good time we had!

Thanks, Mom, for your help!

More digital scrapbook pages

Here are more digital scrapbook pages. I think I'm getting the hang of it finally. I'm having fun with it at least, thats what matters right? What do you think?

Pretzel Paddles

Spencer in snack creating mode.
Spencer got this cookbook at the book fair a couple of weeks ago. He has loved looking through it and deciding what recipe to try next. It is a great book, I love the pictures and how kid friendly the recipes are!~Yesterday after school Spencer decided to make Pretzel Paddles for an after school snack. They turned out so festive and he loved eating them! They are essentially pretzel sticks with peanut butter and cereal (we used Trix). Yummy!

Scrapbook page from yesterday

I thought I'd give digital scrapbooking a try. This is my first attempt. These are pictures from yesterday when we had a yard full of kids enjoying spring weather. What do you think?