Settling In

We are all liking our new place. It is larger than our little old house on Normandie. The kids have been able to spread out a little and I can't say how amazing it feels to have real closets to store our stuff in. We have a huge pile of furniture in our garage that we don't need anymore. Its strange that we had that much furniture in our old house but then I think about how we didn't have any other storage space. Here there is a giant closet under the stairs and giant closets in every room. At first glance the kitchen seemed so small but it is a true galley kitchen and so it is very efficient. I did make a few boxes of dishes that I feel I can finally part with while we live here. I wanted more room in the cupboards for food. I figure I can always get new stuff. I could enjoy a reason to go to vintage stores in my future. 

For the first time ever I have a kitchen that works to photograph food. I also just took over my husbands old phone which helps also. I think I am going to save up for a new camera and perhaps a photography class. I have been cooking a lot here and it feels good to start to establish a normal routine. We are still finding all the stores and places to shop for food but I think we are going to have it all figured out in no time. 

I tried to take a bath the other night. I have been having a slew of migraines. The bathtub is old and such a funny shape. It was so uncomfortable. I am going to have to try to find a bath pillow or something. We think this house was built in the 50s. It has had a lot of updates so in a lot of places it feels more modern but it still has plenty of older touches to give it some character. I have been laughing at it a lot and am glad it is not mine as it is the crookedest house I have ever been in. The walls lean and the floors slope and even my closet door doesn't shut all the way. I don't know if it was built crooked or if it has settled so. I suspect it was a bit of both. At any rate we seem to be doing good and are so much more relaxed here. Life is good.  

Making May

I am still sewing and sewing and sewing. I am still loving it, although it makes a huge mess and I don't want to do any of my housework. I have also been trying to knit here and there. Right now I am on this self imposed knitting project where I am making all of my cotton yarn into washcloths. I am still kind of slow so each one takes me hours. I keep seeing people talk of them in the pattern places online and that they are a quick one hour project. I laugh a little at that. I am hoping to use all that I have up and then move on to little sweaters for the kids.

I had a wonderful Mothers Day with a brand new emergency dishwasher earlier in the week. I also made myself some chocolate covered strawberries. We were at Costco and they were selling these packs of them for what I thought was expensive for 6 berries. Then when we were walking through the produce isle I saw the giant strawberry container for half the price. In a stroke of genius I put it in the cart. I just used melted chocolate chips and dunked them right in. I picked some flowers from my garden and remembered how nice it is to grow my own to keep a constant supply of fresh flowers on the table. I spent a glorious three hours alone in a mostly clean house with no one to mess it up. The next day Hubbs caught us all on the couch and announced it was a Mothers Day picture. He got a few decent shots which surprised me knowing how tricky our camera is. Most of my pictures are terrible.

The weather here has been calm and warm and the windows are open from morning until we go to bed. I love the way the air feels in the spring, all green and warm and exciting. I keep thinking ahead to summer and all the fun things we should do. I have been feeling a huge sense of relief lately as I have been wrapping up some large projects that have been making me feel they are taking up my time. The garden is about to go in and then I am just going to read library books on the front lawn in the shade.

Purple and Pink and Green

Things are bursting in our garden. Every year I get handfuls of flower buds from my girls who pick them and bring them to me. I want to be mad because they are picking all my flowers but at the same time I know they are giving me them and are trying to be sweet. I take them and put them in vases scattered all through the house and then remind them not to pick things unless they ask first. The other day my oldest girl brought in almost all of the garlic greens that were growing and told me she wanted to make a salad. I let her but she didn't eat it too well and then had garlic breath. 

I am still sewing as much as I can. I have been finding a bunch of vintage patterns everywhere for cheap. I have been snatching them up, and now I have so many its making it hard to decide what to sew. I want to get this summer wardrobe wrapped up so I can work on winter clothes in a nice and lazy way. I have been making everything a couple sizes big so they can last for years to come. Recently I found this giant bag of notions at a thrift store and there were some vintage snaps in there. I have been using them and they are great because they require no sewing. They were the gems of the bag. Snaps are so much easier for the kids, and I have never been interested in sewing them on. So tedious. 

Lately all I can think about is pie. I don't know why. When I first got married I made pie all the time. There was something so domestic about it. I guess back then I didn't have all these kids and could make more pie. I made lemon meringue pie the other day. I didn't have any milk to make a cream pie so I went with lemon. I had to make it gluten free but it turned out great. I bought some organic cream that was on sale just for making a cream pie so perhaps today I might try again. Its a tough choice, chocolate cream or coconut cream. 

We needed to get out yesterday so we went to the Arbor Day festival at our local Arboretum. It was fun to gather all the pamphlets and talk to people about gardens and trees and such. While we were there we met Aqua Duck. My youngest thought he was great but my older girl wanted nothing to do with him. Afterwards she told me that she thought he was just a "quiet guy in a duck suit."

Tooth Time

We  had a first around here the other day. The oldest kid lost his first tooth. We have been waiting for that thing to come out for such a long time. Its actually the second loose tooth, the first loose tooth is still in there waiting to come out. I think he was a little nervous about it. New experiences for these kids are a little overwhelming at times. Even new foods can not be tolerated. I sometimes like to change things up and we have started eating grits. Hubby can't eat gluten or wheat (we aren't really sure which as he won't got get a legitimate test but we do know that he gets very, very sick when eating wheat). Its been a hard change but hardest on the kids. When I made the grits I choose to try to get the kids to eat them by putting chocolate chips in it. They hated it and complained that they didn't want them, that it tasted like a desert and that was bad. I tell you I might just pull my hair out over this cooking thing, it used to be so fun. Besides my broken heart at all the things I can't cook that I love like cinnamon rolls, and homemade bread, I have to deal with three very picky pallets that don't like the same things. Its impossible.

I am still sewing up a storm. I made a couple of new nightgowns for summer. They are super cute and I wish I could look that cute in one, but I fear that I would just look frumpy.  We have eggs coming out our ears but I am a little grossed out because our birds got mites, or lice or something from the wild birds that come in to eat their feed. I guess we did pretty good though, first time for an infestation in over 4 years. I just have to figure out how to be a chicken vet in some of my spare time.

St. Patrick's and the Pirate Treasure

We always celebrate St. Patrick's Day. It started way back when I was first married. My husband likes his Irish roots so we always had a party. We would have a fun feast, friends, and board games. It was really great. When we started to have more kids, and our friends started having more kids it got hard to continue to celebrate that way if the holiday fell on a weeknight. We stated to just keep it simple and have a family feast and a scavenger hunt. We also like to listen to Irish music, read Irish folktales, and just focus on Ireland for a little while. The fun thing is that I have Irish roots too. So I guess it makes sense that we get into it a little bit.

This year my husband decided that he wanted to do a buried pirate treasure scavenger hunt for the kids. I thought it sounded silly but supported him because whenever he gets excited about something he is more willing to help me pull it all off. I left most of the pirate activity to him. He prepped the chest, then made the map and buried it. All I had to do was buy the chocolate. I just used the same scavenger hunt cards that I made when we first moved here, but now that the kids are a little older we can hide the clues more. After dinner I read to them the story of St. Patrick while hubby got everything ready. As it turns out St. Patrick was kidnapped by Pirates and that is how he got to Ireland. He was sold there as a slave. I thought it was funny as I should have remembered that part of the story and it turns out that the pirate treasure was relevant after all!. Then we started the activity. The kids loved it. They had some troubles digging the right spot and my littlest even tried to dig it out with her bare hands. It was so much fun to see their faces and listen to the exclamations when they found the chest and saw what was inside. Happy, happy day of green.