Bits and Pieces over the Past month

Snowflakes for Sandy Hook

Feeding Reindeer snow, while waiting for Santa

Sweet little dress from Treasure Hunting

Relaxing and Reading 

Hanging out with the family

Handmade Marshmallows 

Christmas aftermath

A handmade Christmas

Cowgirls are super heroes too 

Fort Christmas was invaded 

 Mosaic Art

Christmas in my Room: A bunting I made

 Close up

 Wooden Ornaments 

 A few from my Shiny brite collection

 Christmas colored Pot holders

 Little people nativity

 We made Snow Globes

 Christmas Cookies 

 Pipe cleaners and beads ornaments 

 Breakfast after Church 

 Best.Dog.Ever. *Note the drool*

 Jackson was back!

 Friday night movie night and making garlands 

 Making stockings for the Horses at the stables until...

 Matching toes!

 That is one way.. 

 First and Fav seed magazine of the session!

 Tilly Monster

 Going on the Lumiere walk with friends

 Drive in Thanksgiving movie

 Playing with Hamilton!!

 Lilly and "her" horse

 At Church

 Play-doh, Hello Kitty Go Fish, Puppy Ears

Cleaning Tack  

 Onnnne More

Yes I am late, very very late on alot of this... I made a ton of Christmas stuff that I wanted to show you guys but just did not have time :( I learned a lesson this year, Do not commit to a Giant project and a couple mini projects to and do a lot of Homemade gifts, Classes starting... It all worked out very well, just no free time to blog!  

Countdown To Christmas

This year along with the 24 books, I decided to start a new tradition. I took my daughters out and let them pick out Christmas fabric they liked (I did not tell them what it was for) and made pillowcases for them to open December 1st along with their first book! They loved it and were so excited to curl up in their beds with them and read our first book!

The second I saw this fabric I was over the Moon for it!

We have one of the big Pottery barn advent calenders that we use every year, but as soon as I saw the post on the punch board I knew I wanted to do it! For ours we pull it off the fridge and punch it. Also this year instead of getting candy each day for the countdown I made ( except for a few above) handmade gifts. Little things that I have seen on pinterest and saved for later. I wrapped Lilly's in green tissue paper and Raley's in Red so I would not have to guess when they pulled their gifts out since some of them were not the same. I have another post coming with the rest of the gifts that I have made, I could only get a few out to take a quick picture before Lilly wandered in.. Also each day in the advent calender they get a piece of paper that has a series of scriptures on it that follows His life, so we get out our bibles and read them together. Lastly they get a second piece of paper that has a Christmas/Jesus Activity to do.  Hopefully tomorrow I will get our list up of the activities we do!

The pillowcases follow the pattern here! 

For the Advent Calender here

Jesus Scriptures here

Friendship Bracelets here

Mrs.Potato head here

Crayons in a box here

Hello Kitty Softie here but I did not put her's together so she could sew it

Jacks Straws and Rhyming dominoes  here

The ball of yarn is for finger knitting. The Chalkboard books I just painted old board books with chalk paint.  Fox mask I free styled out of felt. Journals, bracelets bought at target. 

Felt Christmas Tree

Last year I saw all over Pinterest this felt tree which is awesome! So this year wanted to make a felt Christmas tree for my daughters to play with but make it moveable and more for dramatic play. I love all things forest like so I wanted this tree to look kind of shaggy like it came from.. well the forest. My mom thinks it need feet and should star in a SiFy movie... hmmm.. full of jokes that one. I think its cute and the girls love it! I make some quick ornaments and got some sparkly red yarn from my stash I also threaded some sparkly pompoms to string around it but they are not pictured. The tree I made a cone with one layer of felt and stuffed it sewed it shut. For the leaves I cut long strips of jagged felt and hot glued it around until it was done! 

Very Exciting News!!

I have a "little" project that I have been working on! It is also one of the reasons while I have been so busy and have not had a lot of time to spend here. My two daughters and I are members of one of the largest Methodist Church's in our area. 20,000 large. Today I met with the facilities and Construction director at my church to talk about my "little" project.


I want to start a Congregational garden, where 100% of the produce grown will go to local food pantries to feed the homeless.  They asked me "how much land I would want?", I asked them "How much would you give me?" Right now we are talking about 2 acres! That's to start off with. That is one of the gardens that we talked about today. Another is a Children's garden and another garden to grow produce for the cafe inside the church. Iam going to list the rest because manly its late and I have been going since 7am and my brain is not working the best right now.. Some other ideas that I want to do are


* A Children's garden where we have "Farmers Markets" that the kids put on and sell their produce they grow and use the money to donate towards a Children's cause that is local so the kids understand where the money went.
*A pumpkin patch where we grow our own pumpkins and have a Fall festival where the families can go pumpkin picking, sip cider, roast smores, play in hay, face painting, crafts.. etc and again all the money will get donated or go towards a new wing of the church.
* Fruit trees, there is a grant that you -short version- have to donate the fruit to a pantry but they give you 25 fruit trees. So an orchard.
* Sweet potato project, where they give you the slips and they come dig them up all you have to do is supple the land.
* Potato seed project where they also give you the "seed" and you plant them you dig them up but the potatoes go to feed people in the Appalachian mountains.
* A Gleaning team. I am part of a local Gleaning team and I want to start one for our church. What Gleaners do is go to the farmers and pick produce that is left over or Seconds and then take it to the food pantry for those in need.
* During next summer I want to start classes on Canning , fruit leathers. People pay a small fee which is donated and they learn how to preserve and make the most of the fresh food.
There is more but for now that is all I can think of ... it is exciting and the feeling it gives me is Ah-mazing.. its like a boyfriend in a since.. It makes me excited and happy and I can not stop daydreaming about it..

Here is view on the life in the Appalachian Mountains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocqTQBk_aco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63np8bbF9Aw&feature=related

http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/23/11355138-appalachia-struggles-to-overcome-poverty?lite

What a changed place this world could be if everyone used their strengths and gifts that God gave them to make it better. This is the beginning of my piece and what I want to show my daughters.

Thanksgiving Bunting

This is the Thanksgiving Bunting that I made. I cut leaf shapes out of felt then just ran them threw my sewing machine. I have seen really cute ones on pintrest but I did not have the time. You can see some of  our Pilgrim houses and Indian tee-pees on top of the mantel that Lilly and I made. She was wanted to display them there so we put little lights in them and turn them on at night and they are pretty cute! Plus some of our smaller pumpkins.The bunting I got from this web site 

http://atsecondstreet.blogspot.com/2010/11/give-thanks-banner-free-printable.html

Halloween/Fall part 2

1-6 Leaf Maze and Leaf Piles 

7-9 Spooky Show, This was Lilly's first Horse Show! I made her horse saddle pads like Angus  but you can't really see them in this picture and I made fake fur legs to make her look more like a draft horse. Lilly loved it! 

10- I made Remy the same horse outfit but made him a bridle to go with it that Lilly lead him by... he looooved it... fake fur legs and saddle pads. We won the pet contest we were in!! We got lots of treats/toys/ and a gift card!! Lilly was super excited about all of that.

11- Carving pumpkins

I forgot to put these with the other Halloween post.. 

Around The Blog

The plan
1 Recipes
2 Sewing/Woodworking/Crafting
3 Antiquing/Thrifting
4 Random Goodness
5 Weekly Homeschooling unit
6 Pretty Pictures
7 Bits & Pieces

Details from above
1 We eat organic, pure, no GMO's. I also have picky eaters. So these will be recipes that my children eat. 
2- I will be showing projects I make. From crafts with my kids to building with wood.
3- I go Antiquing several times a week and will show what I get. Also I will start to show my collections and family herlioms
4- Life
5 We do a different unit each week, and I have been horrible about posting these. I never remember to take pictures and when I do its never enough to do a "Unit" post. Also I will show how we practice speech.
6 Inspiration
7 Our Week

This is my plan. Buuut plans can always get thrown. Mostly this is to hold my self accountable. I have also decided to open up more about my personal life.  Get more detailed about who I am, my thoughts, my feelings, my past, my present. A random blog post every now and then is fine and dandy but I want this blog to be a blog where friends are made and meet. Where you go to see what a friend has been doing that day and feel like you know my family.

Also with the Holidays coming up, I will start a series of post on toys/crafts/books that we have and love and some that are on our wishlist. I will always say if a post is sponsored. But mostly it is going to be my personal opinion on what we love.