an AH-HA moment

We had another fall day out in the forest over the weekend.

We packed a little picnic this time around and ate lunch in the trees.

 

The goal was to get one more monster load of firewood for the season.
 

My kids were great.  

Great little wood gatherers.
 

It was a brisk but pretty day and I was thinking about what a beautiful place I live as we went about our work.

I was also thinking about how blessed we are to have the opportunity to work together as a family.

As I was watching my sweet little ones haul the wood Matt had cut into the trailer, I was a little overcome with motherly emotions for a minute.

I thought about how blessed I am to have these little people in my life.  I realized how much they mean to me, how much I love them.

I am so lucky to be given these four little souls to raise.
My live would be incomplete without them.

So I cleared the lump in my throat, blinked away the few tears in my eyes, and finished loading the trailer.

Then I made Matt kiss me for the camera, much to his chagrin!

gray ruffle fabric skirt

Okay, another ruffle fabric project.  This time I bought a 26" remnant piece of this slate gray color.  I think it was around $8 or something like that.  I made up the skirt at this length.  That is just what you do - make it then cut to length when you are finished.  This is obviously a horrible length for me - so I had a friend help me decide a good length for me.

I cut off 6 ruffles from the bottom, and then reinforced the seam that I had cut so it wouldn't come undone.  Kelsey is going to have herself a gray infinity scarf now, and she is excited!

Here is the new length, much more becoming than the longer version.  Now I know if I ever buy another remnant, that I only need about a 19 or 20 inch length to work with!

This is a horrible picture, and its upside down with bad lighting, but I had to show the elastic waistband I attached the ruffle fabric to- easy as pie!

Kenna and I wore our new ruffles to church yesterday.  It sounds silly, but I am not the most feminine dressed person, and the ruffles were a pretty big stretch for me.  And as unfeminine as it sounds, I felt like a wooly mammoth!  There was alot of movement going on when I walked, and alot of "stuff" just hanging down from me that I am not used to!  Therefore, the wooly mammoth, but it was a fun little project.

lemon shortbread

I have a deep love of chocolate, a truly deep love and appreciation.  I also love anything lemon.  Anything.  I also happen to have a hankering for shortbread, so when I saw a post on a fun blog I follow that said lemon and shortbread in the same recipe, I had to try it. 

I doubled the recipe, because it was one of those days.  So it made 4 pie pans full of the delicious offering.  My neighbors appreciated the double batch.

So my review?

Delicious!  Lovely. Praiseworthy.  A good report!

 

Kerin's recipe can be found on her blog, at

Always Fixin' Never Sittin'.  She has some much better photos than I do, but

only here will you see my mug chowing down on the delicious little bits.

I got to eat 3 pieces while trying to get a photo of me devouring a piece!

Burn Baby Burn!

Last week, Emmitt and I unloaded this load of Aspen that Matt and his brother's family cut for us down south.  I like to burn a little Quaking Aspen - it starts up easy and is sort of like newspaper - nice and fast and not very hot.  It is a good wood to start a fire with, and is also great to revive a fire.

We usually get some Pinion Pine as well from down south, or some spruce from up here in Heber by Strawberry Reservoir.  Pinion burns hot hot hot, and spruce burns nice as well.  But, Matt wanted to try some lodgepole pine this year.

Since we had the wood trailer up here from the load of Quaking Aspen, and the back of the truck is no longer usable thanks to the new Bowie Vet box, we spent Saturday getting some Lodgepole Pine up above Kamas with the trailer.

We got up early and left the house by 8, drove for almost an hour, got a nice load in the snow, and came home.  The kids and I unloaded it while Matt did some cow herd work with a local cattleman for a few hours.  We all had lunch and went up again for another load.

We had a great afternoon as well.  Kenna loved the warmer part of the day with the afternoon sunshine on her, and the kids were glad we could ditch the snow pants and coats. 

My kids are good little workers, and Matt is a great big worker.  When we got home, Matt did a little chainsaw work while we unloaded the second load for the day.  Kendal and Emmitt were expert stackers, hopefully it won't fall over very soon.  Matt still has a ton of saw work to do, and splitting of course, but its a great start for the winter.  I love a good warm fire when the wind is howling outside and the snow is coming down sideways.  Its a safe toasty feeling.  Hopefully we enjoy the Lodgepole Pine and it burns nice and warm.

ruffles and ruffles and more ruffles

For a Relief Society (women's church group) activity, we made a few ruffle fabric projects last month.  I am lucky enough to know some great people with connections, so my neighbor and I went to the super sweet woman's home that owns rufflefabric.com and picked up a bunch of fun ruffle fabric for the ladies in our Relief Society to sew into some fun skirts and dresses.  There were some really fun and beautiful skirts made at the church last week in all colors!  I can't wait for next Sunday to see everyone in their new ruffled digs!

I purchased this little piece, a 12" remnant, for just a couple of dollars.  I was going to make a simple little scarf for my fashionista 11 year old daughter, but decided to try out a little dress pattern I had seen for my 1 year old.

I took this picture last night, after just a half hour of sewing.  I just made two side seams to make a pillowcase shape, a few little armholes and a slit at the front chest, and then split the other end so I had a tube.  I hemmed the armholes and neck slit, then made a casing for a ribbon in the neck.

So this morning after Kenna's bath, I tried it on her again.  I added a thick white ribbon in the neck casing, and cut off a few inches from the bottom because it was way too long.  She kept trying to put the scrap I cut off over her head, so I wrapped it around her head.  She thought that was great.  I think I will make a real actual head piece for her out of the scrap from the bottom of the dress.

I think it turned out pretty cute for just a half hour of sewing and a few dollars for a remnant piece. I made myself a skirt out of gray ruffle fabric yesterday, so she has spent time in the sewing room with me fondling and rolling around in the soft ruffle fabric.  When I put her dress on this morning, she just kept rubbing it with her hands and smiling and dancing.  It made me smile!

Just a close up of the simple little neck casing that the ribbon goes through. 

 I purchased 2 yards of this red ruffle fabric when I was at the ruffle fabric lady's home with intentions to make my three girls matching Christmas dresses.  I wanted to make them something similar to the dress pattern I made for Kenna and this was the perfect opportunity to test it out.  I will do a few things differently, but overall it will be the same dress.  My 8 year old is so excited, and my 11 year old wants to know if she can wear a belt with hers.  Oh boy!  I was going for the 1920s flapper look for the Christmas dresses and a belt will kill that look  But we will work it all out and we will love it!

Autumn

2 weeks ago

my kids were playing in the 

sandbox in the sunshine

10 days ago we had a 
neighborhood marshmallow roast

4 days ago I took the 

canopy off

2 days ago Emmitt and I unloaded 

this trailer load of fire wood

(although Matt didn't have time on the mountain to buck up the 8 foot pieces, so I told him we unloaded trees rather than firewood!) 

4 hours ago

Kelsey and Kenna checking out 

the snowy deck

My yard a few hours ago.

Currently Emmitt is out making a snow man.

I know this snow will all melt today, but it is still sad to see that Autumn is here in full force, and winter isn't far away.

Huber Grove

Months ago my friend Amanda and I were asked to participate in the Provo Watershed Festival at Wasatch Mountain State Park.  Amanda had to work and couldn't break away, so my girls and I headed over to Midway, Utah for the Festival on Saturday.  I was unfamiliar with this festival because it was always held the same weekend as our Heber Valley Civil War and Living History Weekend event.

We were asked to do a historical clothing presentation, and of course I threw some historical quilting into it as well.  My girls were great and we enjoyed a gorgeous fall day at the Huber Grove Cabin.  The house and surrounding orchards have some amazing history.  Early Mormon settlers from Switzerland, the Johannes and Maria Huber family, built and settled here in 1878. They raised 9 children here on their 160 acre homestead, and planted one of the first apple orchards in the Heber Valley.  Johannes and Maria would give an apple tree sapling to all the newlyweds in the valley.

The girls and I swung a jump rope for the eachother, Kelsey played her violin a little bit, and the girls just ran around and had a good day in the beautiful fall sunshine.

The Watershed Festival was a pretty diverse day at Huber Grove.  We got to listen to presentations on bee keeping, bats in Utah, dutch oven cooking by a national champion, and Native American dancing.  So many topics beyond just our little historical presentation.  There were other activities happening at the main Wasatch Mountain State Park building and pond as well.  The girls went on a geocaching field trip, and collected little prizes for fun little environmental and weather activities they participated in during the day.

We had a wonderful day and enjoyed playing outside all dressed like 140 years ago. (Much better than running in the Women of Steel race with Ashley and Tacey!)  I am glad my sweet girls enjoy doing this with me.  I think it may have been one of the last few very pleasant Saturdays we will have this fall.   Matt and Emmitt went to the ranch and did the cowboy thing - moved cows, fixed fence, hauled hay, and a bunch of other things that always need to be done on a farm and ranch.

Bowie box

Matt, the good doctor, has been wanting a Bowie Vet box for the back of his truck for a long long long time.  When we lived in Cortez, Colorado, he worked out of one and really enjoyed the convenience of it.

So, on September 10th, Matt's box was delivered from Iowa.  The stipulations were that he needed to have something to move it from the trailer to the truck with, so he borrowed his friend's tractor and boy was it exciting!

It took the Bowie guy a few hours to install it, because it has alot of bells and whistles.  Heater, cooler, 18 gallon water tank, LED lights, outlets, sprayers, and all kinds of fancy gadgets.  Matt spent the rest of the day moving all his equipment that was crammed in his little car, to the truck box.  He is pretty excited to have the space and convenience of the Bowie box.  I am excited as well, it is better than Christmas for him!  He does alot of mobile work, so this is going to be great for him.