Finally!!!

..

Hooray hooray! I think that we are truly all better now!


Goodness, what a long recovery that was. It was so nice to have a normal enjoyable weekend. And so nice to eat some good food!

We had the buttermilk I had made that I wanted to put to use, and also bananas that really needed eaten (I can't eat raw bananas, they make me dizzy and kind of nauseas, is that weird?) so I made two loaves of banana bread. It was very yummy, even though I have just about no sweet tooth at all lately, good snacking for the girls though.

I had also made some creme fraiche (european style sour cream, not that I had ever had it before..) and we tried that for the first time tonight with an enchilada casserole. The best meal we have eaten in weeks! And leftovers still for tomorrow night. I really like when our dinners can last a couple nights.

And making cultured dairy products is so much fun! I seem to be really good at it, though I'm sure it's a pretty basic thing that anyone can do. Still, feeling impressed. I want to try making yoghurt next!

Clearly not much more than food was on my mind this weekend.

My sister just called and was laughing at me cause of my creme fraiche excitement. Don't care...

There was some nice handwork time this weekend too. Crochet. Granny squares, of course. I will try to take some pics and hopefully join in with the Yarn Along later this week.

Hope your weekend was full of happy wonderful goodness too!

(Anyone have any suggestions for using our buttermilk and creme fraiche??)


...

Still here, kind of...

..

Sort of...


As some of you have guessed, we have been not so well. Actually, we have been more sick than we have ever been before, and all four of us at the very same time!!!

I can count on one hand all the things I have done in the past week...

One day I made a small loaf of bread. Since not much was eaten other than dry toast. We ate less in one week than we usually do in one day.

Another day I made buttermilk. Glad to save the milk from going bad.

Sometimes I cried. We all did, except for Chessa. Tough little six year old.

Oh yeah, and one day I drove Jason to the emergency room. He was becoming severely dehydrated, having been unable to keep even a sip of water in him for almost 5 days. That was a rough trip!


The list of what I didn't do is much, much longer!


Things to be grateful for...

The house was really really clean when we got sick. Thank goodness, since all chores were abandoned for the week.

A best friend who took hours from her day to run our errands and bring things to make us healthier.

And most importantly, we are all so so so so so much better now!


My wish for you...

May you never ever ever get sick at the exact same time as all the rest of your family!!!


Thanks to those who wrote to make sure we were okay!
Health and happiness to all!


...

Sewing Bee!

..

I am so so happy to be joining in Julia's Sewing Bee! All week it kept coming to my mind...

Just before I learned about the Sewing Bee I had decided that I wanted to make us a little quilt. So what good timing!

I cut squares as I had free moments in my days.

Don't let my lack of words make you think I'm not super excited about the Sewing Bee!

(I'm just too tired to be on the computer this evening. I think I shall go do some knitting...)


...

castles, and castles

..

There has been a lot of castle play happening here recently. Sometimes the girls are king and queen or princesses themselves. More often though they are creating their own elaborate castle worlds on paper.

The girls like to lay out notebooks together so they can draw extra big pictures. So we have here the interior of the castle as well as the courtyard. (This is Chloe's castle, Chessa had moved on to other things.)

Within the castle walls are gardens, animals, people working, and children playing.

I love the girls dancing in a ring. And the little woman leaning over the garden with her watering can. And the men harvesting the wheat. Okay, I love it all!

There is so much detail in these drawings, and much of it is very tiny. Therefore hard to take photos, and so we have here a blurry queen and king.

I love all the people bustling about in this one! The woman in the green dress and red apron, hair in a bun, is supposed to be me. I guess I'm a maid? (I won't take offense, the girls know cleaning makes me happy.) There are also a lot of cats in this castle!

There is a royal coach parked by the fence and a wagon traveling along the road. The wagon is called the "Help Yourself Wagon". You can go and get whatever you need.

The girls often spend many, many hours a day on their drawings. There are always stories to go along with them. Chloe can flip through a notebook from a year or two ago and tell you what every person or animal in the picture is doing and thinking.

The castle pictures prompted a search at the library for castle books. They were enjoyed, but there was some doubt, and the girls have realized that perhaps they do not want to live in a castle after all. (Lots of violence in those old castle times!)

They did however want to build castles of their own. And how excited they were when I handed over some thick paper and let them cut and glue to their hearts content.

The castle is now populated by a beeswax royal court, and you will be happy to know that this kingdom is in a land of peace.


...

Winter, Midway...

..

February is here! We have made it halfway through winter! And while it is dumping snow on just about every part of this country, here we are in our Colorado mountains, at 7000-8000 feet, and we have just had only our second real storm of the winter. If you can even call it a storm, barely more than a few inches of snow, when in other years it would not be unusual for us to have at least several feet of snow by now, if not much more.

It leaves me feeling a bit confused, almost like it's no season in particular. However, it is super super freezing quite often, so I guess there is really no doubting it is still winter.

Other days though it's warm enough to go out and pretend that spring might be on it's way soon.

The girls are always up for outdoor adventures, no matter what the season.

This day they set out on a picnic...

Seeking just the right spot, which was beyond the snow on a sunny stone wall...

Waving good-bye to daddy.

Whispering sister secrets?

Smile for mama.

They said they were going to stay outside the whole entire day. But after about 10 minutes they came in. They said they missed me too much and wanted to come be with me :)


This was another day. They were traveling to Wisconsin. On foot, because they don't have a wagon.

They are Caroline and Charles Ingalls.

See Pa's suspenders? He (she) finger-knitted them all by him(her)self.


And now we begin the new month. I guess I don't really have a Brigid or Candlemas post this year. We did have a nice day, perhaps most memorable part being the wonderful Brigid stories we shared together. (Here is my Candlemas post from last year, you see we do so love Brigid...)

I always look forward to these special days in February, we sure can all use some extra joy and fun to help get us through the last long stretch of winter. (I pretend that it won't be too long...)

Hope everyone in the snowy lands finds time to enjoy some nice coziness!


...