just a few moments...

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The girls spent much of the weekend helping their dad gather and haul firewood. Such good helpers they were, and Chloe learned to use a chainsaw!! (No photos of that, because I wasn't there, and even if I was, I don't know that I would have been watching…) (Wait, of course I would have been watching, anxiously, but without a thought for taking pictures…)

I am apparently sometimes just awful at picking up the camera at all, and so wishing to be better at it. I will try.

So, it is January. Just thought I would mention that, in case the barely any specks of snow on the ground and sundress confuse you into thinking we are already approaching the months of spring.

The little dress. One of the first dresses (probably more like the 5th) I ever made Chloe when she was a baby. Now being worn by sister number three…

I found sweet little baby sitting up in bed at 5:30 this morning. Making happy little sounds to herself, and pointing out the window at the dark sky when I came into the room. Fortunately she is now settled back to sleep.

I have a feeling winter weather will be returning to us soon. Surely, right? This is Colorado, we are 7,000 feet up in the mountains. Please February, please please be snowy!
(Or, it could be said like this… I'm so afraid we are going to have a snowy March! Or April!) (But I try to not voice such concerns…)

Today though, we will enjoy the sun!!

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!!!


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winter lake

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"If it's not snowy then winter's just cold and brown", said an observant nine year old girl recently…

But a winter lake is beautiful in just about every way possible…

The girls wandered through the trees and along the waters' icy shore.

I chased the sun into the aspen grove…

And stood knitting as the light faded…

And we will return soon...


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definite most exciting moment of the week

Our babies do not walk early. Quite content they are, taking their very sweet time with just about everything.

I can't believe I actually managed to photograph her very first all alone steps!!!


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recent handwork...

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I have taken to using the bookshelf as a knitting shelf. It is working quite well. Knitting bags are every handy too, as they keep balls of yarn safely unwinding within and can be hung out of reach of baby.

My knitting bag was a birthday gift from Chloe. She now has times, often late in the day, when she simply must start on a particular project immediately, and she will then work for many hours to get it done. (Reminds me of my 1am, or 3am!, sewing nights from when I was younger!) (I can't believe I just said, "when I was younger".)

So yes, knitting bags are useful, my mind is now whirring away with thoughts as to what makes a most perfect knitting bag. Chloe included a knitted i-cord strap on mine, which is most definitely perfect and lovely.

More on Chloe's finished sewing list includes a nightgown, a cap (this one, which I think is very becoming on her) a linen pillow for Elsa with her name embroidered on it, and a green corduroy frock/dress (which just happens to resemble a dress I made myself about 20 years ago, and was even cut from the same length of fabric…)

Now if I could just get myself some time at the sewing machine!

(Would probably be easier to do if I would put down my knitting.)

But knitting… Two pairs of pants now for Elsie, and the second pair is plenty, plenty long, hopefully she will be wearing them all year.

And then my other so very special knitting project…

But the sewing!

(And the teeny tiny dolls!!! Not more than 2 or 3 inches tall. Lots of these little people about our home…)


~ Joining friends Ginny and Nicole ~

(p.s. knit pants are picky pants pattern and elizabeth zimmerman baby leggings. and i really should update my ravelry page sometime…)


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belated 2013 moments...

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My chivalrous husband rescued my ball of yarn as it went tumbling down the mountain!

There was one night last year… into bed early with just the girls, baby nursed to sleep, bedtime story over, and then the quiet talking began…

Two hours of wishes, dreams, hopes for the future.

We talked of  land (the little land we have now and the big land that is still out there somewhere waiting for us), midwifery (a passion that has been slightly replaced by cowgirl dreams at the moment), having a dozen children (or maybe just six), santa claus (does he ever keep bringing gifts to adults?), off-grid living (we don't refer to it as that, but eldest intends to have no electricity in her home (cabin) when she grows up, and those 6-12 children will be using an outhouse…)

We talked about homeschooling (they want me to help waldorf homeschool their children), holidays, family traditions… on Sunday's they will send their own girls over to my (grandma's!) house (it is just along a path through the forest) so I can brush and braid their hair. (Okay!!!)

We talked about 100 or 1000 other things it seems, all that just so warmed my heart and made me sigh with (almost) disbelief at how amazingly awesome and wonderful my girls are!!!

I want to remember that night forever…


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Feeding Our Families

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I sometimes wonder how it is that I don't post much food or kitchen stuff here considering that it is what occupies most of my hours, days, years…

Even when I'm not in the kitchen my mind is still often contemplating the days meals, the baking list, the weeks' menu, the grocery list. 

Good thing all this food stuff makes me happy.

Here above is a collection of almost every food photo I have ever shared on my blog (minus birthdays cakes, and more garden salads). This despite the fact that I have obviously cooked thousands of meals and baked hundreds of loaves of bread in recent years! (Wow!)

I would really like to be sharing more here about that wonderful work we all do of preparing food for the ones we love. So to help motivate myself I decided to invite some special blog friends to join me in a series of posts on feeding our families. At the beginning of each month we will share some of what is on our kitchen hearts, and I very much am looking forward to the conversation and inspiration!

Now I will be honest and tell you that, oh my, this first post just snuck on me! Yeah, you might think I would have had something prepared ahead of time, but no. 

At least I remembered to get the oats soaking last night! Porridge for breakfast. Probably with only butter and honey as I usually cannot get the girls to add any fruit or nuts to their bowls. Unless it's peach season. And sometimes apple. I guess it's really more the dried fruit they are opposed to. 

For dinner there is leftover pinto beans and brown rice, creamy from coconut milk, yummy from the addition of sautéed onion and green peppers. Surprising that the girls liked the coconut milk part. The first night it was served with roasted winter squash, tonight… oh phooey, I just realized I didn't buy the cabbage I meant to get at the market yesterday. Well, so I guess we won't be having roasted cabbage for dinner… 

(Simple and good… Roasted cabbage… I cut a head of cabbage into wedges, sprinkle with a little olive oil or coconut oil, sea salt and pepper, into oven at 400 degrees until it's done to your liking. That's about as good as I can do at recipe sharing for now…)

We actually don't eat rice very often, but beans, plenty, and my family would likely say more than enough. Later this week I have a garbanzo bean dish planned. It's just onion sautéed in lots of olive oil, garbanzo beans (I cook ours in a crockpot) and lots of cilantro. And lots of pepper, which must be freshly ground according to my sister, but we're always out of peppercorns…

Well there, that was almost like sharing two recipe ideas!

Today's baking list is scones in the morning and then the several loaves bread that will last us the next few days. The girls will probably help with the scones. 

Oh, and Jason is feeling like he is up for the challenge of cooking dinner one night a week! It's the time part that will be challenging, as his kitchen skills are really quite great. Last week he made some delicious chili with ground elk. (Oh, and last autumn he hunted elk, his first successful year, and how great it is to have meat put away in the freezer!) (A long way from vegan! But we are still as particular as ever about our food choices!)

See, it looks like I will have no problem at all finding all kinds of food stuff to ramble on about!

Please feel free to share any food thoughts you may have…

and please visit my dear friends who were kind enough to take up this little project with me…

Melanie from Our Ash Grove

Jules from A Little Crafty Nest

Melody from Bespoke

Sarah from Our Island Home

Tonya from Joyful Living

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knitting priorities and taking care of self

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Hello dear friends (and other random nice people who visit me here)… I hope you have all been enjoying these days of christmastime and ending of the year…

And now to the beginning of this happy new year!

I decided a few months ago, as the days began to get colder, that knitting had to be more of a priority. There are all these homestead chores and tasks we do, daily cooking, baking, gardening and producing our own food, clothing our family. Clothing our children! I have always made most of the girls' clothing, even much of my own, (hardly anything for dear husband, but trying/planning to be better at that). And in recent years, being able to add warm knitted woolens to the list of what we are able to make for ourselves, well that has been really great! (I had been knitting for so so many years, but never sweaters. And I have such a love of cardigans you know… (I mean, some of you know…))

So yeah, we live it the mountains, can be cold in any season, baby's pants were not at all long enough anymore, and I needed to do lots more knitting. It was okay to sit down and knit. I wasn't sitting knitting doing nothing, getting things done in the kitchen is not always more important, or at the least could occasionally be considered equally important. It's been going pretty well. (Except for a recent week when a much needed ball of yarn was missing,  but all is well again.) I am almost finished with the first leg of a second pair of pants for Elsa, and I think I am going to make good progress on the next leg too, and I think these pants are going to be very lovely on her…



I was talking on the telephone to a friend a few days ago and she was asking me how I was feeling, physically and emotionally, in a fairly detailed kind of way. A sudden random leg muscle injury has us trying to figure out what might be going on and wanting to make sure that I am as healthy as can be.

So I told her, well yes, I am very emotional, but that is nothing new. I am not at all depressed, not even when I'm sad, not even when I'm an emotional wreck. I'm an exceptionally happy melancholic person really ;)

And we talked about how well I am taking care of myself. And my honest answer ranges somewhere between just fine and not at all.

I told her that I am trying to get extra rest, so I'm making sure I sleep in and stay in bed until 5am. (This is a huge improvement over 4am rising! And don't worry, I go to bed very early…)

And I told her that I am not eating well enough. I am eating good food, but not enough of it, because when there isn't quite enough food then I give more to everyone else and take much less for myself.

And I told her that I have probably been doing too much around the house. Because rather than ask for help, that is sometimes met with grumbling or arguing about who should have to help, then I am just doing it all myself.

And my friend told me that it all sounded very familiar to her. And I'm afraid it may sound familiar to many of you too!

My dear wonderful mother friends, we must take good care of ourselves!

We put our families first, and I cannot say that that is incorrect, it feels absolutely right to me. But, if we are not taking proper care of ourselves then we cannot take proper care of our families.

Following a pregnancy filled with constant nausea and puking, it was really easy to feel great after that! And just go, go, go. And sometimes it seems like that works just fine. But it is obviously not a good long term plan.

So please, take good care, rest well, feed your body good food, feed your soul, your creativity, your imagination. Do all you these things for yourself, not just for your children.

Please. Thank you.
Happy day and happy new year to all!!!
With love, Renee


p.s. linking to one of my wonderful mama blog friends, lovely Ginny.


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st. lucia, and johnny cash, and...

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(Photos are from last year's celebration, it was Chessa's first time to be Lucia…)


Really. Yes. Somehow these two things are related.

A clever little seasonal calendar is only helpful if you have any idea what day it is.

Fortunately, when one day last week I thought to myself, "Hmm, I wonder when St. Lucia day is?" I started counting back to the last day I was sure of (don't worry it was just a few days back, I'm not that lost..) and oh wow, the very next day was St. Lucia day! At least we didn't miss it!

But I did then kind of forget about it for the rest of the day.

And that's how Chloe ended up spending her evening listening to Johnny Cash and baking our Lucia buns.

And that's how I ended up baking a second batch of Lucia buns the next morning at 4am.

Chloe's batch came out a little crisp (not quite burnt!)
She is a very good baker,
but Johnny Cash.
The girls are really loving him lately. Listening to their favorite songs and trying to write down all the words.

(Anyone else have memories of wearing out tapes (cassettes!) using the rewind button to listen to the same songs over and over again?)

Well, so, Chloe was distracted by song lyrics, and the Lucia buns were... (not burnt…)

The 4am batch turned out just right (lucky, since baking at 4am probably has the potential to go not quite right) though not finished until the sky was losing it's darkness.

And I decided to be Lucia. I had a feeling Chloe wasn't feeling up for an early morning rising (true, she told me later) so I layered on some white clothes, put the crown upon my head…

headed out to get the candle and wake the girls…

oh, and there was Elsa, sitting up wide awake in bed!

and probably Elsa then thought something like...

oh, there is mama, with a crown of candles upon her head!

So I scooped baby up into my arms, somehow lit the candle, and went to wake my big girls...

who thought it was very neat to be awakened by their Lucia mama,

and were even more wide eyed over the transformation of the dark crispy buns into a tray of soft and sweet buns…


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first week of advent

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The Festival of Stones. St. Nicholas came. Three oranges this year!

Maybe next year I will remember to re-post my advent calendar tutorial in time.

(If I wait for good light and unblurry pictures then blog posts will never happen.)

Our advent angel shows us how many days until Christmas, but that still leaves lots of asking... "How many days till St. Nicholas comes." "When is St. Lucia's day?" "When is Three Kings Day?"

So our Winter Festival Days Calendar should help with that...


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this moment ~ one whole year

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Our dear little child of light, our advent baby, our hope and joy and blessing.
One whole wonderful year of life with her.
One blurry photograph, an unfinished falling off birthday crown.
Love from sisters And little handmade gifts of course.
And they dressed you up. (In a dress that doesn't quite fit.) (They kind of do that often...)
A dance with daddy. Lots of smiles and giggles.
You go on little walks around the house with us now. Very wobbly legs.
Super happy girl.
We love you so.


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