Happy Halloween!!!!

How the Gnomes came to live with us...

Meet our newest friends....

 It all started yesterday with one of those afternoon sibling fights.  

Someone has new fairies from her birthday, 

someone else wants to over take them.

(one baby is teething, 

one mama just wants to read her book....)

On the story goes.

Inspiration strikes...

"Cyrus, would you help me make some gnomes for you to play with?"

~Start with some sticks...

If your house is anything like mine than you probably have a collection of sticks to chose from.

Ours are Pecan branches from our favorite restaurant.

We chose a nice thick stick.

I hacked at it with an ax until I had three equalish size pieces.

(Have I mentioned that I don't have any power tools?)

~Use a metal file to sand down the rough ends of the stick 

working until they can stand on their own

~Once standing you are nearly done!

Our Gnomes needed proper cloaks.  I used inspiration from a Waldorf book...

(Maybe Earthways?)

And looked up a quick tutorial.

~Cyrus chose the color combinations...

et voila...

 ~I was very pleased with our results.

Then I was reminded that gnomes have beards.

Of course they do.

Silly mama.

No worries.  

Some craft glue,

some wool, 

And now we have proper gnomes.

Very welcome in our home indeed!

Happy toy making everyone!

Thank you to Magic Onions for bringing us together in celebration of nature and play.

Wedding in the works....

The bride in our family is blushing.  

Perfectly sweet and always planning.  

She dreams about her wedding day in ways that I've heard other girls do, 

but never really understood until I became  

her mother.

Aren't they lovely?

Rain Dance...

When the skies finally open with rain in Phoenix it is nothing short of a joyous event.  The energy in the air reminds me of the first sunny warm days after weeks (months) of wet ones of my childhood in the Pacific North West.

With children, or with out.  Day or night.  I must get out and touch the rain.   A little dancing, and a lot of splashing!

(my secret preference being late at night, with a glass of wine, and no children.  Shhhh.)

Air of change...

Its a painful and slow process as
Summer releases her grip and
Autumn breaks through.

Give me a sky like this,

and I can take it.

Give me a wild wind,
and I can be patient.

Gratitude Mondays.....

What I love today....

~Rainy days....

~Having every window in my house open from sunrise to sunset...

~Fat babies who roll over...
(and get stuck on their faces)

~Not being sick anymore...

(I want to make my own herbal cough drops like on 5 Orange Potatoes.  
She seems to have trouble on her site, so I'll link later.)

~A partner who bewitches me with his eyes...
(stupid eyes.  I was prepared to be angry.)

~A boy who usually falls asleep first...
(and when he doesn't, he thinks its perfectly reasonable to 
ask me to wake up Ava so she can play with him)

~A little girl who had two days to celebrate turning six full of magic and wonder....
(more on that later....)

Sick days....

What's life if not unpredictable?

We have had some very busy, very beautiful days around here.  Family, friends, birthdays, and fun.  Now its time for some sick days.  Not so much fun.  Thankfully my children have brand new mama made quilts to snuggle up with while they heal.  (Perfect timing!)

I'm going to step away from the blog (again) to nurture my little ones (and Matt, and myself) back to health.  I'll see you all here, bright and early Monday morning! (and by that I mean late Sunday night.  Has anyone caught on to my trick yet?)


I leave you with a late night image of my sweet boy's toes.  (and the blanket that I'm so very excited about, but I'll gloat later.)

Gratitude Mondays....

What I love today....

~A finished quilt...

~4th annual girls weekend...

(that coincided with Ava's birthday weekend)

~Having both of my sister's together...

(even if its too short a time)

~Brand new, and very first tattoos...

~A partner who helps me pull it off...

(I mean parties, and events.  You got that right?)

~A fat little baby who suddenly wears a 6-9 months 

(starting Wednesday)  

and appears to need a larger /longer size.  

(Bad baby.)

~A little boy who can hang up his own clothes.

(His independence, dexterity, and perseverance is remarkable.)

~Ava turns 6 today.  Six.

I still haven't upgraded my storage, and therefore I can't post photos, but I'll do that later on today.  I promise.  Probably. 
Update:  1:12 Am...  Still can't get to my upgraded storage, it "may take up to 24 hours to access"  bla bla bla.
Update 10/192010 11:28:  I finally seem to have everything working!!!!!

Here's the deal....

I wanted to try something new.  I wanted to watch my blog grow. (also I was a tad annoyed with blogger and picasa and I may have acted rashly.  May have)  Its not working out.  Typepad can't move my archives, and I'm not willing to live with out them.  This blog has been an incredibly personal journey.  I love this space.  I've decided to share this part of my life publicly, but its all mine.  My babies, my memories, my days, my love.  I'm not risking that.  So I'm not leaving.  I'm going to take a few days to fix this place back up.  And start where I left off. (hopefully)  I may even still do the week about the rain that I was planning. 

Sorry for the confusion folks!
~Amanda

First, and last Harvests....

Our little garden is doing pretty great.  The damage from the weeks storms is evident, but minimal.  Matt and the babies took a day recently to get our garden started, but the heat has kept us from getting much further.  That same heat has prolonged the harvest of our watermelon and honey dew plants.  I pulled over 80lbs of melon today.  Experiencing  the intense Summer's heat into October brings us mixed blessings.

;

  ;

;

;

Aren't those tiny peppers adorable?  They represent the first of our fall harvest.  Mixed in you'll find just one cherry tomato, and one roma tomato.

Here's to the end of a bountiful summer harvest, and the excitement of our harvests to come!

Halloween sneak peek

Ava's much anticipated Halloween/ Birthday ensemble is finally complete!
Thank you to Etsy.
Thank you to Tiara's Boutique!
This is going to be a great season!!!

A garden in transition....

 We've had some crazy weather here in Phoenix the last few days.  The hail has been impressive.  The winds have been powerful.  I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to find in my garden once the mud recedes so I decided to change my blogging plans a bit.  I have some photos that I took of my garden the other day, some of them I didn't think I would ever use here on my blog.  (I see no need for the whole world to see a large empty bag of mulch, and more weeds than you can wade through, among other things.  But I digress)  What ever damage the rain may have caused, it was still Rain.  I love rain.  I miss rain.  I plan on dedicating all of next week to rain, in celebration.  So for today, and for Friday (I have a Halloween sneak peek on Thursday) I'll share what my garden is (was?) pre-storm.


Cyrus and I recently toured our garden.  We talked about what's coming in for our Autumn garden, which things stay all year, and which things are on their way out till next year. 

 The last of the summer's garden continues to bless us.  The watermelon is more than a little out of control, the sunflowers have sent us (with the help of the birds) one last bloom.

 The Meyer lemon tree has big beautiful lemons that turn a little more yellow each day.

 The first plantings of our fall garden are precious in their neat orderly rows.  The remind me of an old fashion nursery.  Rows and rows of babies full of promise.

Hopefully by tomorrow I can see which of our plants are going to weather the storm, and which will be replaced.  I will not mourn their loss, the season is still very early.  We have so much yet to plant.  (unless my 3 foot basil really did get knocked over as it appears to have.  That will suck)

Here's to the fantastic power of nature!

Fiber Factory

A weekend trip to The Fiber Factory.  Wool, cotton, bamboo, silks galore.  Educational, textural, colorful heaven.  We came home with a drop spindle, but I really should wait till the holidays are through to take up spinning.

  I have a new plan...  In spring Ava and I will learn to spin our own yarn.  In summer I'll teach her how to make her own knitting needles.  Then we'll learn how to knit together.  I love my plan.