September 2014

First day of school photo:

On the first day of school, Nola Mae and I took a bike ride to town to run errands.  I needed to do lots of things this day, grocery shopping, library, bank, post office, drop something off at school and most importantly get exercise and get away from the house so I wasn’t thinking about missing my boys.  Our way home was a lot of work for me…27 pound child, 15 pound bike trailer, 75 pounds of groceries and library books.

I have planned to dye my hair a non-traditional color (purple) for many months.  I finally got around to doing it and it faded to pink (not one of my favorite colors).  In the last month I have considered chopping my hair just twice to get rid of it.  When my mom first saw me after I dyed my hair, she joked with me that my fabric dyes got in my hair.   Now, I am feeling like I will keep it for a while.  Next, I will attempt purple and maybe more colors.

 

Jack has made many cigar box guitars in the last year.  This month Charlie finished a two string cigar box guitar.

 

Jack made a video of Charlie and shared it on facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202628856665701&set=vb.1326037913&type=3&theater

I have an amazing husband, he deserves a blog post all to himself.   He is talented in many areas, he is intelligent, he is teaching our kids many skills, he creates beautiful wooden furniture and boxes.

I was a little skeptical about these ugly pieces of wood when he loaded these into our car.

One day he handed this beautiful bowl to me and told me he made it from the wooden burrows that we brought home.

Charlie turned a bowl with Jack.  He took his unfinished bowl to school to show his teacher.  Charlie was eager to finish it and then took it back to school.  One day I was looking for Charlie’s bowl to take a photo.  He told me he gave it to his teacher.

We got together with all the Vater cousins this month, unfortunately because Grandpa Neil passed away.  It was wonderful to see our kids having a blast with their cousins, and visit with the cousins we don’t see very much.  Nola Mae and I missed out on the last family gathering because she was sick.   I am not interested in doing the math on when I last saw Jack’s cousins from CA, it was sometime when Ben was still a little boy.  When Ben opened his mouth I just about died, because he had a man’s voice, not a little boy anymore!  Ben is the tallest man in the Vater family.

I have many sisters, four of them, all of them are amazing in their own way!  Early this month, Becca completed her first Ironman in Madison,  2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run.

I wasn’t able to make it to Madison to cheer her on.  I was able to watch her finish from the comforts of my home, 130+ miles away on my computer through the live-feed video on Ironman’s website.

I have my very own finish line photo of her.

 Nola Mae loves to put clothes on, take them off, and put extra layers of clothing.  While I was taking a shower  Nola Mae climbed   on the counter and was putting socks on and taking them off.  I took this picture with the intention of doing a blog post with all the photos I have collected of her in her many outfits.

Everything was going great.  You can see all the socks on the floor that she had on and took off.  Then she got stuck in these blue socks, that is when things started to get UGLY!  Exactly, one minute later…

 

Two days later…there was an outfit that included many layers and many tears – three shirts, one dress and one pair of tights – she wanted more clothes on and I wouldn’t help her.

The above photos aren’t so pretty ones of Nola Mae, but this one is!

When you co-sleep and put your child to bed before yourself they claim their spot.

I knew Henry was outside on the deck.  I heard sounds of a trombone.  I was afraid he snuck Robbie’s  trombone upstairs and outside.  I was relieved, happy and very excited to see him making music with the vacuum cleaner hose, rather than the $754 trombone!

Four days before my birthday a wonderful gift arrived at our house – a spiral ham and caramel popcorn!  I was delighted, ham is one of our favorite things.  Especially, mine because one ham goes a long way here.  If I am remembering correctly this ham gave us  at least four meals, fillings for additional meals, made awesome snacks and were added to cold lunches for boys.  The very last of this ham will be eaten sometime this fall when I make my favorite soup!

On September 11th, Nola Mae and I drove to Milwaukee to see my sister, Emily.  Earlier in the week she was admitted to the hospital for liver failure and the talk was “she isn’t going home until she gets a new liver”.  Her MELD Score was so high, she was on the top of the liver transplant list for the Midwest.  As the week progressed and she got more fluids and antibiotics she was feeling and looking better.  I was thankful to see her in better spirits and health later in the week so that when and if a new liver came to her she would be strong enough to make it through a transplant.

On Monday, September 15th, around 4:30 AM Emily was told that there is an organ donor who is a perfect match for her.   I am pretty sure this was the longest day in her entire life.  It sure was for me!   The staff took her to surgery for the liver transplant at 5:30 PM.  If I am remembering correctly, I got the call at 12:21 AM, on the 16th, telling me that her surgery was done and she will be heading to ICU.

Click here to read my thoughts on the day of Emily’s transplant, “A Sister’s Emotions”.

I spent the day before my birthday glued to my computer and close to the phone waiting for any news on Emily’s transplant.  I didn’t get much sleep that night and woke up for my birthday in a zombie-like state.  I knew Emily was sedated, well cared for in ICU and I needed to get the heck out of my house!  IT was MY birthday and I wanted my special coffee and I wanted to use my 60% & 50% off coupons at JoAnn Fabrics!  So Nola Mae and I went to town!

I made a trip to my favorite thrift store and found a bunch of dye blanks!

  I bought these fabrics.  The birds and butterflies were on the $4/yard rack.  The bottom white fabrics I bought for making dyed scarves.

A close up of one of the white fabrics.

I made two scarves from this fabric – one for my step-mom and one to sell or give away as a gift (or maybe keep for myself).

My last stop in town was Starbucks, thanks to my sister Danna and her boyfriend, I purchased a yummy coffee and this beautiful coffee mug.

The boys (& Jack) gave me a package of socks, these awesome rubber boots and something else.  I can’t remember what the third thing was.   I love my new boots and wear them every day!

Usually my garlic gets planted in October.  The planting window for garlic in Wisconsin is mid-September to November.  I remember this because my birthday is the beginning of this planting window and my brother’s birthday, which is at the end of October, is my absolute last day for planting garlic.   This fall, I started planting my garlic before my birthday and then finished planting 200+ cloves of garlic the day after my birthday.

We are were still picking raspberries into October.

 Every year I find a pair of Walking Sticks in my raspberry patch.  They are always attached to each other every time I see them.  This time I happened to have the camera with me and when I bumped them, they came apart and I took this photo.

I have accumulated many dye blanks, I am always looking for more.  Recently, I  had some time to organize and prioritize my dyeing projects

I also had some time to set up a little dyeing space in my basement and got busy.  In one week I dyed 20 pieces.

We paddled up the river from Big Falls when the leaves were beautiful.  It was a great way to end the month.

 

I am making and selling soap again this year.  I started early for Christmas by making four batches.

“Cleansing Calendula”, with essential oils: Lavender & Tea Tree and ground Calendula flowers for a great exfoliation.    Aroma:  Soft, floral.  Benefits:  Renewing, cleansing, stimulating.

 

“Cinnamon Swirl”  with essential oils:  Orange & Cinnamon and ground cinnamon, which gives it the dark color.   Aroma:  Warm, spicy   Benefits:  Warming, comforting, energizing

 

(these are the same soap, just different batch and different method of coloring with the ground cinnamon)

“Jumping Juniper”  essential oils:  Juniper, Lavender & Rosemary   Aroma: Floral   Benefits: Restoring, empowering, balancing, purifying, &  uplifting.

 

I have about twelve pounds of garlic to sell.

It was a good birthday month for me!

August 2014

A moment when everyone was getting along nicely!

Charlie is thrilled about his candy DNA he made in summer school.  I had to take this photo for Aunt Danna who is studying Bio-Chemistry at UW-Madison.

Charlie celebrated his 9th birthday.

Mask making:

 

 

We biked to Big Falls this summer for the first time.  Round trip was 16.5 miles.

We went to the Sweet Shoppe for some games and ice cream.

 

 

 

 

Charlie’s new hair cut – trim at the beauty solon.

 

 

 

Then a buzz cut from Papa:

 

This hen has always acted “broody” so I decided to give it a try to let her hatch some eggs.  I expect chicks any day.

 

Nola Mae loves to come to the chicken coop with me.  She has figured out how to climb so she can collect eggs.

My garden is doing well:

Garlic crop was a success.  I am not sure how many pounds I grew this year.

 

I was able to recruit some helpers for the peeling and trimming jobs.

We got a lot of rain this month.  I didn’t get out to the garden to pick my green beans for a few days.  I was surprised with an 11.5 inch long green bean.

 

We found this cute frog in my purple cone flowers.

I have lots of corn in the freezer, about 120 cups.

I did some dyeing this month, check out my post Dye Projects – August.

These dyed items found new homes this month:

 

Granny visited us for Charlie’s birthday.  Nola Mae put her glasses on.

  

Napping Nola Mae.

A common scene at our house.

I made a new soap this month:

Tea tree and lavender essential oils with ground Calendula flowers.

My very popular soap:

Orange and cinnamon, swirled this time.

Playing on the sinking canoe is always a lot of fun!

I made this wrap for someone, 100% linen, color is honeysuckle and beautiful!

I had to try it out!

October 2013 – Month 10

Fall is one of my favorite seasons.  For many reasons…cooler temps, beautiful colors, yummy apples, my fall projects are so much fun, and winter is almost here.

We (mostly I) picked all the apples off our trees.  One of my biggest fall projects is to make applesauce.  I am hoping a lot of these apples will get eaten!

I waited to pick the last batch of apples after a few good frosts.  I needed to wait until most of the hornets were dead.  The hornets were horrible around the apples.   If I didn’t pick up the windfall apples every day they would be covered with hornets.  I found a few of these apples still on the tree where the hornets ate everything but the skin.

This fall I placed an olive oil order for my friends and family.   I bottled up about 12 gallons.

Toddlers in our house are hard on glasses.  When Henry was two he flushed my glasses down the toilet.  Nola Mae recently did this.

My second favorite fall project is planting garlic.  This year I planted 3 1/2 pounds of garlic = 340 cloves.  I expect to get more than 11 pounds of garlic next summer.

My garlic space, before picture.

After tilling and raking those nasty weeds.

Since garlic planting takes me about three days to get done because of the distractions I have.  Nola Mae watched the chickens taking dirt baths in the garden and she would copy them

And so did Henry.  He came into the house to show me how clean he was after his dirt bath.

Almost done!

My best helpers!

Charlie has had some trouble with a boy in his class not being nice to him.  It has gone on since last year.  The first time I was aware of him was last year in 1st grade.  On morning I walked Charlie to his locker and was hanging out.  This little boy arrived and as they were taking off their coats he  called Charlie some horrible name I think it was “stupid idiot”, right in front of me.  I was shocked and told him what I thought about it in the nicest way I could come up with.

This month this boy drew a very nice picture of a dragon and gave it to Charlie.  The nicest thing he has ever done to Charlie.  I was excited about that.  Charlie said he just wanted to throw the picture away because Kris isn’t nice and why would he want to keep anything from him.  I explained to Charlie that if he did something nice back, like draw him a picture or write him a thank you note maybe Kris would feel some love and try being more kind.  Charlie was not excited about that at all!    He wrote this:

Kris has been more kind to Charlie but not 100% of the time.   Charlie is watching him, calling him on his behavior and is making sure the teachers are aware of the times Kris hurts someone.

This month was the last time I hung the diapers on the line to dry.  My last load took three days to dry.  And the sun is definitely not strong enough to do any bleaching!

One of our kind neighbors gave us a basket full of goodies with directions and a note to pass the Boo-ed on to another neighbor.

I asked the boys what neighbor we should do this back to, they suggested the newest neighbors that we haven’t met yet.  We waited until it was dark and dropped this basket of goodies off on their door step.

 

Nola Mae’s way of playing Legos with Robbie.

Nola Mae at 18 months:

Aunt Carol made this beautiful dress for Nola Mae.

Nola Mae hiding the deodorant container that she is playing with.

I have made kale chips for me and Nola Mae to eat.  One batch was a little oily.  She must have felt the need for some moisturizer.

I am not sure how the bowl of applesauce got on her head and face, well and everywhere else.

Nola Mae likes to put on the boys’ underwear and likes to try to catch chickens to hug them.

Henry went with Jack pheasant hunting in North Dakota:

They were gone for eight days.  Henry had a wonderful time.  I am not surprised because he didn’t have to share Papa, Grandma Hanna and Grandpa Rob with any other kids.

Charlie actually missed Henry.  When they came home Charlie ran out to greet them and carried all their bags into the house.

Baby wearing:

Nola Mae has learned to multi-task like me.  Dishes while wearing her baby.

     

 

Henry came home from school sad and tired.  He brought me a wrap and asked me to put him on my back. I told him I wanted a picture of us so I could remember this because he is getting really big.  As soon as I got the camera out his sadness turned to silliness.

  How can I bottle up this sweet little girl who loves it up on my back?

   

I have sold two ring slings this month.

A friend bought this one for Robbie and Charlie’s past gym teacher who they adored.  Even though I made this before I knew who it was going to I packaged it up with a little love and sleepy dust for Mrs. Bourget and her son.

I sold this ring sling  to my first “stranger” customer that I met on Facebook and it went far away, Arizona.

I made this ring sling for myself by ice dyeing it.  I have only worn it a couple of times – once for this photo and one day while running errands in Waupaca.  I have more ideas and wouldn’t mind selling this one so I can make a new one.

Do you know someone who is having a baby and wants to enjoy the benefits of wearing their baby?  I can help!

Other posts for this month:

Robbie’s Favorites, age 10

This Moment – Planting Garlic

This Moment – Long Bike Ride

This Moment – Planting Garlic

 A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

September 2012 – Month 9

September 2012 – Month 9

Robbie found this cool stick (he is always finding cool sticks to swing around) at Iola Winter Sports Club on the day we were doing some trail clean up after a big storm.  It made him think of deer antlers.

Charlie made this wooden car in the workshop with Papa.

I scored this Nordic Ware bundt pan at a rummage sale for $1.  We needed a reason to try it out, Susie’s birthday cake!

And the boys decorated it.

Nola Mae has decided that she can go down the stairs forward.

She often gets comfortable in the upside down stool.  I wonder how long this will last.

Something gross…someone opened a gogurt in my sewing room and it squirted on the wall.  I didn’t notice it until the yogurt was dried up and Nola Mae was scrapping it off and eating it.

The weekend of my birthday we met some of our family for a picnic, playing on the rocks and hiking at Eau Claire Dells.

My beautiful sister, Becca.

We were here five years ago.  We took this photo inside this tree trunk (Henry was in my belly and Charlie and Henry were so little and so cute). 

 This year we did the same pose, notice the difference in the tree trunk.

On my birthday (because I wanted to sleep in) I took the boys to school.  When I came home I notice one of the power lines in front of our house was down.   Thankfully it was a wire that was not “live”.  I called the electric company to tell them and secretly hoped my favorite linemen would show up.  I have a couple of favorites because I use to work there many years ago.  Did they know it was my birthday?  My two favorite guys showed up!

I went to my 25th class reunion and made the cake for the dinner.

My mom and Helen helped take care of the kids while Jack and I went to dinner and stayed late for visiting.  Robbie and Charlie slept over at Helen’s house.  We left Nola Mae and Henry at my mom’s at 4:30 and came home at 12:30.  This was the longest amount of time I have ever been away from Nola Mae.  She woke up looking for me just as we were coming down the road.

 We went to our favorite park, Keller Lake, as usual we had the park to ourselves!

My Favorite pictures from this month:

From my garden:

I didn’t get to braiding my garlic this year before it really dried out.  So the stems got chopped and I put a notice on Facebook that I had garlic for sale and 11.5 pounds sold within six hours.  Thank you to all my friends, enjoy!

September 7th I picked my first batch of tomatoes, two of these boxes came from Susie’s garden.  I have already canned 21 quarts of tomato paste and have a gallon bag of dried tomatoes.

By September 12th my raspberries were ripening like crazy and still going strong at the end of the month.   I have about two gallon sized bags in the freezer, so far.

The mullein has gone crazy in my garden where the garlic was this year.  I am thinking I will be planting the garlic for next year around these plants because there is no way I am tilling them up!

On September 20th we picked all our Honey Crisp apples.  I wanted them to stay on the trees a little longer but with every windy day many would fall off the tree.  Our other tree is still loaded and I will be  picking those later in October to make applesauce.

Sunflowers

We have seen this little frog on the house, on our window and on the door at night.  I found him in my Autumn Joy Sedum during the day.

We have let the chickens roam the yard this fall, Henry took this photo.

Climbing the rocks in my flower garden.

Charlie is a great big brother and very helpful, he loves to wear Nola Mae.

I got out my baby wearing vest for one of our hikes.  It was chilly but not chilly enough for me.  It was perfect for keeping Nola Mae warm.

My friend Sara and I with our matching Zara Velvet wraps.

I washed my light rainbow wrap, it looked so pretty on the line I had to take a photo.

How does your garden grow?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

How does your garden grow?

If we compared our garden to last year’s garden (with a new baby in our family) this year’s garden is awesome!  Last year’s garden I had no expectations, whatever got planted, harvested and eaten was a bonus.

This year I expected a huge garlic crop, lots of sweet corn, lots of broccoli and a small amount of tomatoes. Our planting was a little late due to the long cold spring we had.  I had great helpers this year, mainly Henry.  We were rushed at times and had many interruptions because of Nola Mae needing a nap or taking a nap or her wandering around in the garden going under or over the roped off rows and pulling out what we planted.

First the not so awesome stuff…

Two 10 foot rows of sweet corn, with tassels when it is as tall as Henry.  I had 3 1/2 other rows of corn planted and those seeds didn’t grow.

Behind Henry are pumpkin plants gone wild!  I didn’t want pumpkins, we didn’t really have room for them and I didn’t want to weed them.  Henry added a few seeds to a little rotting manure pile that I had in the garden that I was slowly tilling in.

Too many huge tomato plants.  I only wanted four plants.  Jack wanted one plant at work, but needed to buy a 4 pack.  I went to a green house and they had some discounted plants so I bought another 4 pack.

We have a pine snake in my flower beds under the apple trees.   That means I am not weeding!   My flower beds aren’t so awesome!  I know there is one in there, maybe even multiple snakes.   The weeds are horrible!  Snakes are yucky!  Snake story:  Last week when we were playing kickball, Robbie kicked the ball right in the flowers/weeds.  I took a deep breath and said to myself, “What are the chances that darn snake is right where the ball landed?  Just pick it up!”  I put one foot on the edge of the weeds and the other foot on a big rock.  As I was reaching down to grab the ball, then a snake slithered out from underneath the ball!  That is when I decided I am mowing the weeds and flowers down when it is time to pick apples.

The awesome stuff…

The first sunflower to bloom is a volunteer seed from last year’s sunflowers.

Awesome broccoli!

I have 12 plants!  The chickens got out a few times in the early spring and ate the leaves off two of them.  Those plants are making a come back.

Our apple trees are loaded!

Our raspberry patch is awesome!  I am hoping for a very late frost so that we can get the second batch of raspberries this fall.

Our blueberry patch is awesome!

My phlox free garden is doing well.  I have my own comfrey plant, so I can dry my own leaves for my healing balm.

My friend, Kat, introduced me to mullein when I was pregnant with Henry.  My midwives reminded me of mullein when I was pregnant with Nola Mae.  I decided this year we were going to get serious about drying some mullein.  My sweet husband has been mowing around my mullein all around our property this summer.  Thanks to Henry riding on the tractor with Papa, pointing out all of “Mama’s Mullein” and insisting on Papa mowing around it.  This week we picked leaves from three plants.  They are drying nicely in my living room!

July is the month for harvesting garlic.  This year was great for growing garlic.  I haven’t found my notes from last year to know how many cloves I actually planted.  I have about 260 bulbs of garlic.  I am almost done harvesting with about 60 more to dig up.

Nola Mae woke up from her nap and Charlie brought her out to the garden to me.  It was time to stop digging!  I don’t need her kind of help this year.

My second digging.

Most of the garlic is drying in the garage, this is 191 bulbs so far.

How is your garden this year?  What is your favorite thing to grow?

Week 38 – September 17 – 23, 2012

 Week 38 – September 17 – 23, 2012

 (completed on 12-11-12)

Charlie thinks it is cool that he can help Nola Mae walk.  I am not interested in rushing into the walking stage!

 

Yucky sucker.

 

Last week was my birthday.  I purchased this brand new Girasol Light Rainbow Diamond Weave (LRDW) for a great price from overseas.

 In order to break a wrap in you can braid it, and

wrap with them.

 

Henry is a great helper in the kitchen.   I have taught all our boys how to use a knife safely at an early age (compared to normal families).

I love garlic.  I love to plant it.  I love to grow it.  I love to eat it.

My deadline for planting my garlic is around my birthday.  Well, that never happens.  The latest I have planted garlic was late October.  This year I am feeling pretty good about getting it in the ground on September 23rd!  I planted 260 cloves this year (a record high).

 

Henry helped me pick all our tomatoes and clean up the garden.

 

Progress on the kayak.

Week 27 – July 2 – 8, 2012

Week 27 – July 2 – 8, 2012

Monday, July 2nd:  I started my project of putting all the olive oil in jars.  It was my lucky day because I had Henry running the spout and Nola Mae napping for a few hours.  We finished the job with minor interruptions.

Tuesday, July 3rd:  I have been complaining about our fruit fly problem.  This morning I caught Robbie’s attention by telling him we needed to build a trap for the fruit flies.  Robbie helped me make two of them.  I am not sure if this was as exciting of a job as he thought it was going to be.  Grandma Lynn showed me how to make this when I was younger.

I showed Robbie the directions for this Strawberry Sparkle Cake on the Pioneer Woman’s website.  He was very interested in making this since he loves jello.  We made this cake and two other jello flavors.  I won’t make this ever again.  I dislike jello, jello making and angel food cake is yummy just the way it is, PLAIN!

Wednesday, July 4th: I took the older two boys and Nola Mae to the New Hope Firecracker Parade.  It was short and sweet and very entertaining!  The boys were excited that there was candy involved.   Charlie and Robbie each had a pocket in my shorts for their candy.

I just happened to have the camera on the table while I was drinking my coffee.  Normally I would ask Henry to get off the window.  I was curious to find out what his mission was.

 

For some reason Henry wanted to open the garage door with the garage door opener that is attached to the top of my valances.

 

Thursday, July 5th:  Another Sunset Lake photo…Nola Mae napping in our beach bag.

The boys have been helping me in the kitchen.  They have gotten very good at putting away the dishes, to the point where I can leave the room or house, this is how I found my pots.  I giggled and resisted the urge to “fix” it.

Friday, July 6th:  Granny came to visit and she had the idea to fry an egg on the sidewalk, our temps have been close to 100 degrees.  The boys were excited and seemed a little disappointed that it didn’t sizzle once it was cracked.

Saturday, July 7th:  I started to harvest my garlic (alone) digging up the ones that only had the bottom three leaves dried.  I was enjoying a little peace in the garden.

These were my helpers last year on July 24th harvesting garlic (during Week 29).

Sunday, July 8th:  Nola Mae wasn’t nursing well this morning.  I did everything I could to fill her belly and she didn’t seem interested or upset or terribly hungry.  When all of my attempts failed I put a fresh diaper on her and wrapped her on my back, trying this new carry I learned on YouTube (BWCC – back wrap cross carry) and she slept for almost two hours.

One of the things I ordered with my olive oil was beeswax.  I have been wanting to make something similar to the booty balm I use for the baby’s booty and a few other things.

Week 7 – February 13 – 19, 2012

 Week 7 – February 13 – 19, 2012

Monday, February 13:  I sold many bars of my home-made soap today to a friend. I had three different kinds: Patchouli & Orange, Lavender & Lemongrass, and April Flakes (Lavender & Lemongrass essential oils made with snowflakes from last April’s late snow fall and lavender petals).

 

I have been fighting a cold and a cough since November.  My voice hasn’t sounded normal since then.  Over the weekend it seemed to come back, only for Monday to come around giving me a runny nose again.  My voice is still scratchy and I am coughing, but my cold seems to be gone.  One of the reasons I attribute that to is the garlic cloves that I ate for two days. 

I found a few helpful sites on the web about the benefits of garlic (this could be a blog post all by itself):

 Fighting Colds & Flu Naturally with Garlic

Cold Remedies Using Garlic and Honey

Treating a yeast infection with garlic

Tuesday, February 14:  Jump Rope for Heart – Charlie’s gym class.

 One of the cutest home-made Valentines I have seen!

Wednesday, February 15: Jump Rope for Heart – Robbie’s gym class.

 Henry will need absolutely no convincing when it is time for him to go to school.  I think he enjoyed gym as much as Robbie and Charlie!

 Aunt Susie came for a visit and dinner.

 

Thursday, February 16:  Henry and I skied with some friends who were faster than us.  We had to turn around before they were done.  This gave Henry a chance to check out the snow making machine. 

Friday, February 17:  I finished this baby quilt this week.  I am calling it Grandma’s Flowers.  I made this quilt with my new sewing machine that I purchased with the help of the money left to me by my step-grandma after she passed away.  The flowers are a straight stitch done with the embroidery feature on my sewing machine.  There are two irises, three daffodils and two poppies on this quilt.

Saturday, February 18:  Despite the warm weather and lack of snow fall this winter I am thankful we are still able to ski with the youth ski program on Saturday morning. 

We have had some help keeping snow on the trails with the cold temps at night, shade from the trees and most importantly the man-made snow.  Thanks to my friend Phil for making it and my friend Mary (Phil’s wife) for not getting mad at him for staying up all night and being worthless for a couple of days after his all nighter!

This was the first day I allowed the kids to use ski poles.  From what I have read it is easier for young kids to learn to ski without poles.  My main concern with poles is that they can be dangerous with young beginner skiers.  If you have seen the “pile ups” of kids crashing into each other, like I have, you would understand.

Some kids were excited to use them and some choose not to.   These girls were naturals and pretty fast with poles.  Robbie was able to keep up with them without poles.  He tells me poles are too much work.

Sunday, February 19:  My family got together today to visit in Middleton with my sister, Danna, who is currently living in MT (she is home for a week interviewing at UW-Madison).  We also gathered to see Ben off to Afghanistan.  Ben is my sister Becca’s boyfriend.  He will leave on February 23rd to get ready for his trip to Afghanistan.  Please help us pray that he will be safe during his time there!