Weekending

This was the start of the weekend. Saturday morning tea, knitting & sunshine.

It's been a weekend where Ree's allergies are acting up. She is so very stuffy. But that (and being miserable because she can't breath) seems to be her only symptoms which leads me to think it's not a cold. Here's hoping.

We still managed some fun. There was a lot of cooking & baking for a birthday celebration today. Homemade eggplant parmesan with the first eggplant from our garden. It was delicious!

Lots of snuggles due to a stuffy nose. Not too much sleeping. Beautiful weather today though! I really should be sleeping now while Ree is. I have a feeling we'll be up in the night! But football is on and I'm enjoying the first few quiet moments of the day!

How was your weekend?

Linking up with Amanda

Around here

The weather for this first week of Fall has been fabulous!! Chilly mornings; beautiful sun filled afternoons; chilly evenings. Ree & I have spent a lot of time outside soaking it all up. We also decorated the house for Fall. She put all the decorations on "her" shelf in the kitchen. We use it as a nature shelf so she thought it would be a good place.

I made the first apple crisp of the season the other day & it was delicious!! More of that will be happening soon. All the sudden the garden has decided to produce tons of eggplants. There are a lot more then the one's in the pictures! I have plans for eggplant parmesan and other recipes I need to look up! I also plan on freezing some for this winter!

I love this season & we are trying to soak up as much of it as we can!

Make & Listen (and a winner!)

Before today's post I wanted to announce the winner of the {Art Together} E-zine!! The winner is Lise!!! I'll be e-mailing you later today! Congratulations!

I'm also joining Dawn at Simple Things Notebook today for Make & Listen.

Ree & I went and picked out some fat quarters for her to help me make a baby quilt for Baby V. It's going to be simple using this "tutorial" from Ginny. She used six fat quarters & we have eight. Because Big Sister had a hard time choosing just six! The color scheme is ALL her's!

I am also feverishly working on Ree's big girl quilt. She's been in the big girl bed for a few weeks now & with the weather getting chilly I REALLY want to finish it soon. I had hoped to have all the blocks finished by the beginning of September (ahem) and be finishing up by the end of September. My new goal is to have all the blocks finished by the end of September and be piecing it together the beginning of October. Hopefully there will be time this weekend for a sewing marathon! 

We've been listening to a lot of music latley. Nothing in particular just putting on the radio or the kids station on the tv. Ree is getting her own cd player for Christmas so I'm on the look-out for some good pre-school aged cd's!!

Yarn Along

I finished the grey waffle socks yesterday!! I like knitting socks with thick yarn on big(er) needles! They go so quickly! 

The new yarn is going to be another pair of socks using just my "go to" sock pattern, Basic Ribbed Socks. Another Christmas gift. I have my anniversary yarn patiently waiting to be knit into a pair for ME! 

I've started reading Quiet after having seen it in a few yarn along posts and seeing a gentleman reading it this summer while we were at a nursery. Ree & I also have a huge basket of books from the library for her on all different subjects. I'll include that in tomorrow's post along with the sewing we've got going on!

It's a busy time creatively right now! We're in crunch time to see how much we can get done before Baby V comes! Two months and a week until the scheduled c-section. We're taking bets on if she'll stay put that long though!

Don't forget my giveaway for Amy's new {Art Together} E-zine is still going on! Make sure you enter for a chance to win a copy of this awesome new endeavor she's begun!

Autumn

Ree & I celebrated the first full day of Autumn yesterday by spending a good amount of time outside.

There was side walk chalking; walking around the yard; surprise at finding roses in bloom; noticing the big blue sky.

Inside we got out the Fall decorations & lit the cinnamon spice candle. There are plans to collect leaves to do art with them. At the store she spied the small sugar pumpkins & declared that she "needed to have one please." So we picked that up with plans to paint it soon.

This morning was cold. I loved it! The first day of wearing hand knit socks & sweaters. The windows are open with a Fall breeze coming in making it just a little chilly in here. Plans for a pork roast for supper & brownies for dessert. 

These are beautiful days & we're soaking up all we can get of this gorgeous weather!

Weekending

That's the Full Harvest Moon from Thursday night. EVERYWHERE we went this weekend I forgot my camera!

We had a birthday party Saturday morning; Saturday afternoon I did a few errands by myself; came home to knit & give my husband "moral support" while he re-sealed the bathtub. Made a "Fall" supper of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. 

Sunday morning was the usual with a trip to the fabric store thrown in. Ree & I are planning out a small quilt for Baby V for Christmas. And we needed fabric. Then it was home to watch the first half of the Patriots. At half time we jumped in the car to head to my parents for the second half & my sister's birthday party. A fun afternoon with the whole family together. 

Today Ree & I have plans to celebrate the first full day of Autumn. We have an art project planned, she wants to pull out all the decorations. And maybe we'll go for a walk around the neighborhood documenting how things are changing!

Don't forget there is still time to enter my giveaway for Amy's Art Together E-zine! Go comment on the post, the giveaway is open until Thursday!!

Linking up with Amanda!

{Art Together} The E-zine!

When I ask Ree what she'd like to do today, more times then not her response is "do art". I have no background in art, I felt I didn't have any talent in it & got discouraged when trying to "do art" or think up something art for Ree to do. 

Then along came Amy and her blog and her encouragement and I now don't want to run screaming when Ree says she wants to do some art. I've also come to see through Amy & her project ideas, that art isn't the end product. It's the process of getting to the end product that truly counts. I believe this is something that Ree has known all along....she would much rather go to the art supply drawers & pull out different things to make her own creation then have me come up with an idea for her to produce. 

Every so often she'll need a jump start on what to work on though. And I want to also use art time as a teaching time. I was ecstatic when Amy began her series {Art Together} last winter. Each week she'd write a post featuring different Art mediums. Color; textures; color mixing; drawing; etc. I love it! She's made me think of different areas of art that I never would have thought to present to Ree as well as materials that I wouldn't think to have purchased for us to use. (Our first water coloring session way back when was thanks to Amy's encouragement).

The two biggest things I've gotten from Amy is to focus on art as a process, rather then an end product; and that I can do art too even though I don't think I have talent for it. Some of my favorite times are when Ree & I pull out the paints to draw and paint together. Another favorite activity of Ree's came from one of Amy's ideas: color mixing with water & food coloring. 

At the beginning of the month I got an exciting e-mail from Amy. She was in the process of putting together an Art Together E-zine and would Ree & I be interested in a copy to look over and try some activities from and give feedback to? I jumped at the opportunity!!

The first issue of {Art Together} is all about color. 27 pages chock full of project ideas, an artist spotlight, featured art material and many resources to help you dig deeper into Color.

The above pictures are from one of the activities: black outlines, painted color. I put out blank watercolor paper, two sharpies & the watercolors and we went to town. We both drew out shapes with the Sharpies then painted our drawings. Ree wanted to add her personal touch to mine & that was okay too! At one time a blank piece of paper & paints would have made me leave the room thinking I couldn't do this. With Amy's guidance I now enjoy this time of creating with my little one. (And hearing Ree say "Momma you chose beautiful colors! It looks gorgeous!" Helps a lot too!)

The e-zine has so much to offer on Color that I am sure it will keep us busy until the next issue comes out! We already have a stack of books on hold for us at the library from the resources included.

Amy has generously offered to give away one copy of the new E-Zine to one of my readers! To win simply leave a comment. If you want to share how you incorporate art into your teaching/life with little's that would be good too! The giveaway will be open until next Thursday morning when I announce the winner in a post back here!

If you are interested in purchasing a copy Amy is offering a 20% off discount through September 30th, just use the code "Birthday" when checking out (and go wish her a happy birthday on Saturday!!)

Also, make sure you check out the {Art Together} Flickr group. So much inspiration over there as well!

Yarn Along

This is my rainbow boneyard shawl. It's grown a bit from the last time I showed it! I'm really loving the yarn (Knit Picks Chroma Fingering) and think I want a shawl with it too. Ree JUST the other day noticed that I was knitting a rainbow blanket. She asked who it was for & I said it's a Christmas present. She said oh and went on with her play. I hope she's surprised on Christmas day when SHE opens it!

That skein of grey yarn is the second sock for my dad's Christmas socks. I broke my own strict rule of casting on immediately for the second one when finishing the first one. Because of that I haven't begun the second one. Even though the first one was finished over a week ago! 

There hasn't been much reading lately. By the time supper is finished & the kitchen is cleaned I have no desire to read (or knit really) the past few nights. I'm tired by then! The 3rd trimester began yesterday for this pregnancy & I'm feeling the fatigue return already! There really is something to say for the 2nd trimester energy levels & feeling good!!

I've been not so good at getting around to everyone's yarn along posts lately. I'm hoping to do that this afternoon & tomorrow!! And be sure to stop back tomorrow....I'm hosting a very fun giveaway!!

Happy Things

Some Happy Things from the last week!

Anniversary yarn & roses!

I won Tracey's Birthday Giveaway with the sweetest little lamb bag, measuring tape & stitch markers! Inside the lamb pouch are some sticky notes! Thank you Tracey!

And this morning is a gorgeous Fall morning. There's quite the chill in the air. I love it!! Sweater weather! 

Some knitting

 

Oh, today is Thursday? I missed yarn along Wednesday!! It's been a busy week here! But I still wanted to show some of the knitting that's been taking place!

I finished Baby V's pink sweater (I need to think of a blog name for her. For now that will do!) All I needed to do was sew on the buttons but that happened about a week after the rest was finished! Once I started it only took a few minutes. But it's finished now and in the pile of ever growing Momma made, Ree requested knits for baby! I'm thinking she might wear it home from the hospital.

I also finished one of the Blueberry waffle socks. These will be for my dad for Christmas. Men's socks on size 6 needles with worsted weight yarn. Probably the quickest I've knit socks before. Now I just need to cast on for the second!

I'm off now to comment on other's blogs. Computer time has been limited the past few days!!

Weekending

A very good weekend was had around here.

There was lots of sunshine. Lots of Fall weather.

Errands & playing outside.

Naps & football games.

Knitting & sewing.

How was your weekend?

Linking up with Amanda

Late Summer Sunsets

After the car was fixed Tuesday night (yay!) Ree & I spent Wednesday running errands, spending time at my moms, & finally getting outside to enjoy the weather. 

This week we've also been knitting; working on her big girl quilt; planning out some stuff for her to "do school" and enjoying more of this gorgeous late summer weather. I woke up this morning cold! I love it!

I realized I never shared these pictures here. We have gotten into the habit of heading down to the the local Point on Friday evenings. There are picnic tables, a grassy area to run around in, a beach to look for shells or skip stones from, swings to swing on, people to watch fish, and in Ree's case dogs to make friends with! Because the sun is setting earlier each day we were able to catch a gorgeous sunset!

Yarn Along

With the crazy weather we've had & the worrying about the car yesterday, I've been knitting like crazy.  This is the start of Ree's Rainbow blanket that she'll get for Christmas. My husband asked if she'd wonder who it's for while I'm knitting it. We don't really have to worry about that because every time I pick it up she asks when I'm going to knit something for her baby. 

I also cast on a pair of Christmas gift socks. But as those are just barely at the cuff I didn't take a picture. Maybe next week!

The pink Puerperium sweater is finished except for the buttons. I'm trying to get Ree to let me have 7 of her buttons from her collection. But as they are the PINK buttons I'm having a hard time with that!

I've been reading the Bell Jar in the evening's but not really getting into it. I found it too dark right now. So after getting about half way through it, when the library sent an e-mail saying it was due back, I brought it back last night (in my car!! That got fixed!!! Whoohoo!!)

I have a few other books here to read but was so tired last night I didn't pick one up!

Weekending

The long weekend had it's up & downs.

Friday night was our weekly walk on the beach & stop at the playground

Coming home to no water due to a water main break

Baths & showers for everyone Saturday morning instead

Laundry, grocery shopping, Arts & Crafts festival

Coming home to crash for the rest of the afternoon

Fresh picked lettuce from the garden for the salad!

Sunday began early with a 2 hour long massive thunderstorm

Then another one that lasted for 2 hours at 8AM

 There was a stop at the mall after Church

Come home to grab the eggplant parmesan I made to bring to my sister-in-laws

A relaxing evening with family

Monday dawned with another crazy thunder storm

A slow morning of knitting & enjoying Daddy being home to relax

A new mattress purchase for Ree's big girl bed

A stop at the grocery for our impromptu cook-out that would become a cook-in

Flash floods making many roads impassable

Going the long way around the development due to the huge puddle in front of our neighbor's that was blocking the way to our house

Getting stuck in another puddle the other way

A car that wouldn't start 500 feet from the house

Thankful we were able to walk home

Family that came to us for the cook-in

This morning the car still won't start

There are more severe storms on the way

I'm tired of the weather

Tired of being tired

This afternoon calls for knitting & relaxing & not thinking!