Baby gifties!

 A couple of my friends have recently been blessed with new babes, so I've been busy crafting away! I made this cute little froggie from a free online pattern.  Yay!  I love free patterns!  His bottom half is "stuffed" with a tennis ball which makes him a little bouncy. I debated whether or not to add the toes and I'm really glad I did, because I think they're so stinkin' cute.

My dear friend Jenny recently had twin boys to add to her brood of handsome guys (5 including hubby).  I felt like the twins might need matching sun hats and shoes.  I bought the patchwork fabric at Joann and think it turned out really cute.  While making these, I really came to realize how much I love my overlock sewing machine!  If you are a sewer and don't have one, I highly recommend it.  It does such a nice job finishing edges.  It took me awhile to get comfortable with it, but now that I am, I turn to it during almost every project.  It makes everything look more complete. The shoes were really a pain in the butt because of their size.  I'm not sure they will fit any baby feet, but I'm hoping to go meet the new guys soon and see.

I really love crafting gifts.  They seem to be well-received and, most of the time, the materials can be purchased for less than the cost of a store-bought gift.  Giving something personal and unique is fun.  I got a great book from my MIL for Mother's Day from my Amazon Wishlist full of great, small projects.  More about that to come.

Raised Beds Rock!

 

I am loving our garden this year!  We changed gears and tried something new, and we have been so pleased with it!   In the past, we have had a large garden spot and planted lots of produce.  But inevitably, our good intentions would be taken over by weeds and the hard work needed to keep it looking nice and producing well would be forgotten.  We have always had enough to can and freeze, but it always felt like *a lot* of work!  

This year, Cam built a beautiful raised bed in our yard.  It has ended up being so wonderful!  We don't have to weed as much, don't have to water as much, it looks awesome, it's concentrated and just all in all, feels easier and more pleasing.  He designed it himself, using the mulched walkway to ensure that every area would be accessible without standing on the soil to prevent compaction. Granted, our harvest may not be as big this year, but it will probably be a lot more manageable!  

 

In each of the southerly corners we have green beans ready to climb these rustic poles.  Along the back you can see the livestock fence panel.  We are using that end for our climbing plants.  Our first harvest was peas that grew up the panels.  We just removed those plants a few days ago, fed them to our garbage disposals, and made room for squash, zucchini, tomatoes, etc.  

Beets!

We have been harvesting salad, peas, and we just harvested some beets.  The peas and salad were quite prolific.  The girls would munch the peas right off the vine while they were out playing.  Have I mentioned that I love our garden? =)

Living Garbage Disposals

Lined up to eat

Ok, we don't actually feed them garbage, but they do eat pretty much every scrap of food that is left on our plates.  We have raised pigs now for three or four years.  The first year we had seven or eight up on the hill.  The main purpose of the pigs was to try to seal in the pond that's up there.  Their wallowing, pooping, walking, and generally living on the space was said to be a great way of making the bowl-shaped depression that was unable to hold water into a pond.  So, we bought pigs.  We did a co-op adventure that year, raising the pigs for not only ourselves, but our neighbors and friends.  We each paid a share of the feed costs and then when the time came for butchering, everyone paid their own bill.  Because, if you didn't know it folks, that's what  you do with farm pigs.  They did a pretty good job that first year, but we felt the "pond" could still hold water even better with another year of pig living.  So, again they came. 

Cam got really tired of toting water and feed up the hill twice a day for several of the hottest months of the year, so this year, we scaled back and he built a more permanent shelter in which to house them in that is near the barn.  The down side to that is that they're near the barn.  Which also means near the house where we can smell their smelliness.  And, yes, folks, they do smell.  Cam positioned the pen in such a way that the wind doesn't often blow from the pen to the house, but when it does, peeeeeuuuuuu!  
Aside from the smell, I do actually like having the porkers around.  It makes me feel pretty good that our "waste" becomes food for them and any excess we have actually makes it cheaper to raise these guys because it means less feed to buy. It's also really nice to know exactly where our pork comes from and how it was raised.  I love that the distance from the farm to plate is, oh, about 100 feet. 

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!

We took a trip to the Louisville Zoo recently to check out their new bear exhibits.  We really enjoyed it.  We went on a cool morning and the crowds were low.  The bears were active and we all really got an up close and personal look at them. 

 I love this pic of the kids glued to the scene of the two bears "playing". 

 The bears are siblings and put on a good fight scene while we were there.

 

The exhibit is made to look like an Alaskan fishing town and I think they did a really nice job.  There are lots of angles and places to view the critters.

Sawing logs...

 

I promise we have enough beds in our house for Maggie to sleep in a real one.  However, several times in the recent past, I have sneaked into quiet time only to find her asleep in: her underbed storage and a doll crib.  Interesting.  Anyone else find their child asleep in strange places?

Easter!

 

We had a really lovely Easter this year.  We have tried to create some of our own family traditions related to this holiday.  We celebrate the religious reason for Easter, but we also incorporate eggs and a special Easter breakfast.  We don't do Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc around here.  We don't eat a lot of sweets around here, either so we have tried to avoid the candy-filled Easter Eggs.  Lila's second Easter (when she was about one), Cam snuck into her room Easter morning and had a big spread of beautiful cut fruits and flowers.  He set it up to look like her dolls were going to partake of it, too.  It was really cute.  So, we have stayed generally with that idea.  This year, we took the cut fruits and put them on... a sugar cookie crust with cream cheese icing.  I said we didn't eat "a lot" of sweets around here.  Give me a break.  =)

Easter Fruit Pizza

 We colored eggs this year and both the girls really enjoyed it.  Maggie kept saying "ta da!".  It was really cute.

Lila studiously coloring her eggs

Hunting Easter Eggs

Hard-boiled Chicky Face

I got this idea from a website that I don't remember.  Ooops.  It's a sliced hard-boiled egg with poppy seed eyes and a cheese beak.  I thought it turned out really cute.

 

Lastly, we finally got a family picture!  I really didn't realize it, but the only family picture in existence (I think) was a horrid church portrait where Lila is 2 and refusing to cooperate.  I wish I could find it to scan.  It really is a gem. Ha ha.  Anyway, this one turned out well.  Happy Easter.

Giddy up!

The weather has begun to warm up, which means it's good riding weather! Cam saddled up Bocephus, or "Bo" for short, in the round pen.  The girls each got a turn riding.  Lila and Cam have gone riding several times together.  They like to go to the Forestry in Harrison County and ride the trails. 

 

Lila normally rides on her saddle (the black one that sits behind Cam's), but Cam let her ride all by herself.  She was soooo proud of herself to be have complete control.

 

This was Maggie's very first time up on a horse and she also felt like pretty big stuff.  She really enjoyed being up there so tall.  

 

All three of my sweeties got up and rode around for a bit.

Bocephus, up close and personal.