Crochet Baby Blanket

Oh, this baby blanket.  Thought I was just going to burn through getting it done.  I was excited about the simple, repeating pattern, the colors, and that I would easily have it done in less than a week. Started in on it full blast and then, I don't know what happened, it sat in the box since Christmas.  I even kept it right in front of my chair so I would feel like I needed to work on it. I think part of the problem is that I just don't see as well at night as I use to.  There, I admit I have old eyes.  Finally this last week I picked it up and did more than a quarter of it in the past couple days.  Now that it is done I love it,  No baby to give it to on the horizon, but I think I will put it in the fair this summer.

The pattern is leaping stripes and blocks.  A tutorial can be found at Moogly Blog   

Planting the herb garden

A Happy Anniversary

Celebrated our 28th anniversary at the movies. Went to Pirates of the Caribbean because that is what the kids wanted to see.

 I didn't think it was as funny as the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but it did have lots of action and we enjoyed it immensely.

 We didn't see 47 Meters Down, just loved the display they had set up.

Old Glory Run 5K

 Rain or Shine.  When I sign up for these events and see rain or shine on the form, I never even give it a second thought because, of course, it is going to be shine.  Well, joke was on me this morning, it was rain.  And not just sprinkles. It was heavy rain.  

It didn't stop us though. 

See, we are still smiling at the end!

Mother's Day Bliss

Celebrated my 20th Mother's Day this year.  Wow.  Also celebrated my first Mother's Day without a mother. Wow.

Dancer worked on the actual Mother's Day so she and I celebrated a few days early.  Her gift to me, or should I say treat to me, was a pedicure.  I had never had a pedicure, I'm not one to like people, especially people I don't know, fussing over me.  Also the cost. Dancer and I paint each other's nails at home, so it seemed frivolous to pay someone to apply a little polish on something that spends most of the time in my socks.  But then I sat down in that massage chair and oh, my, goodness. Then the nice lady, who I held off telling her I loved her because it would seem odd, massaged my feet and legs and double oh, my, goodness. She did paint my toes a beautiful shade of purple, but I am counting that more of a souvenir of my time in the massage chair. Wonderful, I will be back. 

On Mother's Day my family gifted me with two gifts.  One was an extra battery for my phone. You can never have to much battery. My phone seems to use much more battery away from home than it does at home. Odd how that works.

My second gift was this metal rooster.  I love this bird, he is so well behaved! He doesn't get up early and crow outside my bedroom window looking for the cat food bucket. And he doesn't poop on the porch or deck. He is suppose to be a lawn ornament, but I think he is better suited for the living room. Besides, we have plenty of chickens outside roaming the lawn. 

Dad adds a year

Happy Birthday!

Let The Sun Shine

As a family we did a run/walk for mental health.  Although this picture says run we are walkers.

We choose this one because it is only 2.2 miles instead of the usual 5K and a good way to get our feet wet in the spring for walking.

Dancer at the finish line.  There were well over a 1,500 people who completed the event. 

Dad and Spark finishing.  At the end you got a bottle of water and a huge chocolate chip cookie so any calories burned off we put right back on.

YouTube for cats

 We were checking out April the Giraffe on YouTube and that got us interested in other live cams.  These live cams are a little addictive and more entertaining than some t.v. shows.  We were watching a bird nest and the bird sounds brought Fluffles out from where ever he spends his days to see what was going on.

He got down way low like an outside cat would do when stalking a real bird and slowly crept up to the t.v.

He was so sneaky that he got this close and they still didn't see or hear him. A mighty hunter he is!  He finally gave up, I don't know if he figured out they weren't real or if they were like a chicken on the deck safe behind a pane of glass.  Probably the later.

Tie Dye Easter Eggs - Pinterest Buster

Soak the hard boiled egg for a few minutes in vinegar to ready the shell to take up as much dye as possible. Wrap the egg in a paper towel securing it with a twist tie.

Put a few drops of food coloring randomly on the paper towel.

Spritz with a spray bottle set on mist to make the colors bleed.

Leaving the eggs in the paper towel, set them in front of a fan until the towel is dry.

Open them up and if they aren't completely dry leave them in front of the fan for a few more minutes.

These turned out stunning!

They have a sort of night time, celestial sky look to them.

Dying Easter Eggs with Cool Whip - Pinterest Buster

This was so simple I wish I had known about this when my kids were little.  

Put a container of Cool Whip in a cake pan.  Dot with several different colors of food coloring.  Swirl the color around with a tooth pick, not too much though or it turns laundry lint grey.  We wore gloves for easy clean up.

Roll the hard boiled eggs in the Cool Whip until they are completely covered.  Let sit for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, take the eggs out and gingerly rinse them in a bowl of water so as not to disturb the color.  Allow to dry and they are good to go.

Give the leftover Cool Whip to your chickens.

Easter Bunny Origami - Pinterest Busters

A Tale of Two Bunnies

  The first one had over 20 steps to make this little bunny basket that will hold small trinkets.  Cute on the web site, but didn't work for us.  

Dancer would say this pin is busted.  Maybe if you are skilled in the art of origami, but for the beginner this is not a winner.

Second bunny had only nine folds and we successfully made a whole fluffle of bunnies.  The bunny stands up and you can brighten up your Easter table by using them as name place cards.  We have to say that this pin is winner, winner, bunny dinner.

Cinnamon Roll Easter Bunny - Pinterest Busters

Pinterest - the little corner of the world where everything is beautiful and perfect. One of the things our homeschool co-op likes to do is see if all that perfection is real or a ruse.  This week we tackled a few Easter pins. 

Since our co-op is three boys, we tend to navigate towards food pins and tried the cinnamon roll Easter bunnies.  The boys bravely opened the cans of premade cinnamon rolls.  Those things scare the crap out of me, but they didn't even flinch.

They spread out the rolls for the head and cut one roll apart to have dough for the ears.  The directions stated to leave a space in the middle of the ear to allow for the dough to grow.  Pop them in the oven following the baking directions on the can if you haven't already thrown the can away.

After frosting we added a couple chocolate chips for eyes and a nose.  They turned out pretty cute and delicious.

We would call this pin a success because, even if you make the ears to short, you have cinnamon roll bears.

Irish Colcannon with Kale

This is an Irish dish, but don't feel like you have to save it for St. Patrick's Day, enjoy it all year.

Make mashed potatoes as you normally would.  In a separate pan put 5 - 6 tablespoons butter, 3 cups chopped kale and 3 chopped green onions with the tops.  Cook about 5 minutes, you want the onions and kale soft but not mushy.  Mix potatoes and kale/onion mixture together.  Serve in bowl with a plop of butter in the middle of the potatoes (the best scoop comes from the middle of the bowl).

This can also be made with cabbage, Swiss chard or any other hardy green.

Greenhouses and Goats

Our 4H club enjoyed a behind the scenes peek at a greenhouse.  So much more goes on there than meets the eye.

Some of it is right before our eyes, but I just never noticed.  For example, each one of these hanging baskets has it's own drip irrigation.

Another thing I learned is that those first two tiny leaves on a sprout are called cotyledon. I feel so garden smart now. 

Seeing all these plants got me itching to get a couple seedlings started.

A small sample of bird feeders they had.  If there is something to stick out in your backyard, they had it there.  Everything was so, so cute, I didn't see one thing I wouldn't want.  The only thing that kept me from backing the car up to the front door and loading it up was that all that cuteness comes with quite a price tag. If we lived where it was nice out most of the year it might not seem like so much, but here in Minnesota, where our first and last frost dates only span about 4 1/2 to 5 months, it sure does.  

Next stop was the park for a meeting, Subway lunch and knocking a volleyball around.

We finished up the day with a visit to a goat dairy.  Nothing will make you say "ahhh" faster than 80 plus goats all together.  This pen held over 25 newborn kids. Made me think we needed more goats, but then I came to my senses.  Dancer's goat Jamal is from this dairy so I scoured the mommy goats to see if I could see the one that might be his mom. There were a couple that would fit the bill so there will be no definite  family reunion for him. 

Grandma Shirley

Please don't sing sad songs for me,
Forget your grief and fears,
For I am in a perfect place
Away from pain and tears

It's far away from hunger
And hurt and want and pride,
I have a place in Heaven
With the Master at my side.

My life on earth was very good,
As earthly life can go,

But Paradise is so much more
Than anyone can know.

My heart is filled with happiness

And sweet rejoicing, too.

To walk with God is perfect peace,

A joy forever new.

Llama Clinic

Time for the llamas to have their annual check ups.  We are fortunate that a number of vet students from the U of M come out to a local farm and hold this clinic every spring.  It is very hard to find vet familiar with llamas so this is a huge blessing.  The girls got a good once over, their teeth checked, shots, dewormed and toe nails trimmed. 

Marceline in the chute getting her shots.

Honey Bear and Dancer.  Honey Bear was all done and very interested in sampling the hay. She has been eating hay out of the same field all year so perhaps this hay from another field was a real treat for her.