turkey feathers

Birth of a Flower

I was meandering around my yard yesterday and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this Rhodie; a perfect puff-ball of pink petals.  Planted a couple of seasons ago, it has finally come into its own.  Worth waiting for don't ya think?   Sorry, the official name escapes my muddled mind at the moment.  I try and keep a small garden journal for such things, because I'm good at forgetting details like this, however, no time to dig it out this morning.  We've got "Bitty", our 3 1/2-year-old grand-daughter staying with us during the day so mama can get the rest she needs. 

Baby Olivia is doing fine, no jaundice at all and already gaining weight.   We were in sync with matching pink outfits this morning.  Sigh.  I could stare at this face forever.

Short & Sweet

A perfect 20" :: 6 lbs. 9 oz. to be exact.  And extremely sweet!  Just as sweet as this cake Grace made to celebrate the occasion.  I meant to update a bit sooner but these past few days have been a blur of activity.  Baby grand-daugher #2 was born literally moments after that last post, and since then we've all been kept quite busy.   Thanks so much for the *baby love*.  I'll be sure and pass it on to the proud parents. Ding....there goes that kitchen timer again!

Frozen Food & Warm Fuzzies

OK, so what do you do when you get the call that your darling daughter-in-law has gone into labor?  You boil water, of course.  Add noodles.  Roast a chicken.  Make vegetables to go with it.  And bake a cake, that’s what!  If you ever wonder what you can do to help a family that has a new baby (and a toddler) in the house, the answer = food.  Comfort food.  Mostly in the form of nourishing home-cooked freezer meals.  So to this end, the girls and I spent most of the day mixing, cooking, and boxing things up to take with us tomorrow.  We still have a few presents to wrap, including these, a knitted baby blanket to finish (Grace’s gift project), a basket of books and puzzles to keep new ‘big sister’ occupied and some Mother’s Day goodies to gather before heading up to Portland to join the rest of the family, and hopefully meet grandbaby #2 (who hasn't actually 'officially' arrived yet.  But will.  Soon.) These few quiet days of contemplative needle-felting and tea sipping suddenly got very busy.  Happily, so!  But I tell ya, it sure feels good to be sitting down right now and resting my feet.  If only for a few moments, while waiting for the kitchen timer to call me back.  Ding. Alas, my allotted fifteen seconds for blogging is up. I leave you though, with some more needle felted fun.  I’m awfully proud of the bum on this one. ACK! Think I found a new hobby!

Take Your Time

I really appreciate all the support for our doll house baker.  Grace was giddy with all the orders she got yesterday and was doing a happy dance around the house.  Today she’ll be packing everything up and we should have it all in the mail by the end of the week.  Thanks again!  This was the creative boost she needed to pick up where she left off last year.  She plans to keep adding a few things to her shop regularly, so if you missed out on this buying spree please check back, or inquire about custom orders.   The online catalog is here if you want to peruse her wares and “baked goods”.  And this dancing flower is from PatternBee, part of the free-with-purchase bonus transfers, which I meant to mention long before now, because next Thursday, it will be time to take it down and replace it with a new set of designs.  I’m finishing that up now; continuing the "garden" theme.  I'll most likely make a pillow out of this when I find some time.

In between all this, there was a little craft activity with child #4 yesterday too.  Ginger and I finally got out our felting needles, wool fiber, and this book, and played around for a few hours making critters.  She wants to do more again today.  I hope my fingers can take it, I must’ve stabbed myself half-a-dozen times, and let me tell ya, those needles aren’t only wickedly sharp, they’re barbed, and rather rusty; must be careful here.  Ginger has more patience than I do, not one prick.  Next time I need to heed my own warning.  It was the first time I’ve done this type of wool sculpting and I probably went about it all wrong.  One needle broke, so I’m sure I did.  (Stop laughing Missy!)

Fortunately the blood droplets aren’t showing up on my baby robin.  Just don’t look too close! (I'm not kidding about that.)  Not too bad for a first try. My friend Missy supplied some of the fibers for our projects.  She’s put some nice kits together with a variety of pretty wool roving and a few other essentials; now available in her Etsy shop.  I'm finding more inspiration here and here and here.  But it will all have to wait, I'm going on a hunting expedition for trees today.

Dolly Sweets

Someone’s in the kitchen baking up a storm.  (I think I smell those heavenly poppy-seed banana muffins again this morning.)  There’s been some serious candy-making happening in the doll house bakery kitchen too.  Grace was back in her craft corner, following a brief intermission of driving lessons (eek!), starting up a Celtic band with friends (woot!), planting a vegetable garden (yum!), and ya know, just generally being a busy teenager.  So I was quite surprised when I saw these dainty boxes of petite confection a few days ago. Oh my.  Even the darling teeny boxes and tissue flower roses are handmade.  Gasp!  The sad thing though--the supply is limited.  These do take quite a bit of time to make, and she says there might be a few more to come, but no promises. So if you need a little candy box, badly, you’d better scurry over to her shop without delay.