November Happenings

November was a very busy month, It started with Aleric cuddling on the dogs, his best friend is Orion but he loves Cocoa too! And Buddy is just so timid and flighty that he seems to move to much for Aleric to cuddle him, but he does like laying nearby on the couch or floor.

Then the Denver Museum of Nature and Science had a Dinosaur exhibit and even though we had already went once this year we could NOT miss taking him to see this so we went twice this year, I love this place, I love going there and seeing all the cool things, and I love looking out over the city on the sky deck. We actually already have our next trip planned because the next exhibit is snakes and reptiles so we are going for sure!

Its funny and sad at the same time, people kept asking me if we were going to eat Goosebert on Thanksgiving, and I kept saying no. Well I had been noticing that the duck eggs were going missing every morning, so one morning I went out to let the birds out and there was a bloody duck egg, I didn't think much of it, and then I noticed Dr. Duck Duck (formally know as Magnum because he is a Swedish Magpie duck) he was torn up, blood all over, wouldnet eat, was sitting in the corner of the pen just laying there like he was dying, in fact I walked right over and picked him up, got him in the house, put him in a warm bath while Chris went and found the perpetrator... Goosebert :( it broke my heart, I didnt want to have to deal with this but if I want to be a farm girl, then this is one of the things that comes with it. We called my brother and had him come and dispatch him, we put him in the freezer and had him for David's birthday dinner. Mr. Duck Duck is ok now, and we have the thery that Goosebert had been eating the duck eggs and one day Mr. Duck Duck got pissed one morning and tried to defend his duck lady's eggs and him and Goosebert went at it and Goosebert was much bigger and stronger so Mr. Duck Duck took a beating. But we can NOT have mean animals on my little farm, fighting will not be tolerated.

Victim:

Perpetrator:

On to the Joyous occasion of Thanksgiving, I actually did not get many pictures, I had a small dinner at my house with our friend Ed, my Mom (Dad had to work, and David did not want to come) and the in-laws, Grandmother had never seen the ducks or chickens before so she ventured out into the backyard to feed them. I wish I had got more pictures!

And we went to one of my absolute favorite things in the world, the Parade of Lights! I LOVE this parade, we go ever single year (well we didn't make it the first year we had Aleric). It was freezing fucking cold, I think everyone was miserable but Chris loves me so we stayed til the end. Next year I really gotta figure out the key to staying warm, there has to be a secret to it!

There was lots of crafting this month, but none of it got completed until December so it will go on the catch up post for December!

I'm back!

For some reason life just kinda spiraled out of control after my last post in October, its now January - almost February and I am just now getting a chance to get all my thoughts together. So there was lots of crafting over the last 3 months, and even more chaos! I will post a few highlights of the months, this post will be:

October - we did Boo at the (Pueblo) Zoo for Halloween. Aleric was of course a zombie. He hated wearing face paint so it was the only time we dressed him up, we don't do trick-or-treating yet so we didn't need to torture him again on Halloween with more face paint. Hopefully next year he will be better with the makeup.

We also did some home renovations with the help of my brother, when we moved into this house we paid for a home inspector, well apparently we DID NOT get our money's worth. Every single thing that could go wrong has since the day we moved in. Well anywhere there was a HUGE hole in front of the front door, so luckily my brother came over and helped us put in a new door frame and sealed it up real nice, and replaced the floor boards after ripping up moldy carpet. Then we put down some really nice hardwood floor that a friend of ours brought that he had leftover from a job he worked on. It looks 500% better, and when it was done we took turns jumping up and down where the hole was!

Before:

After!!!!:

And it looks like we did this just in time because 3 days later.. First snow of the season!!!! I love the first snow, im not sure why but I just love it so I always take a picture of it.

Aleric was slightly confused with it, and the chickens and ducks and goose had no freaking clue what it was, they kept trying to jump to get away from it. So CUTE they are.

Later in the day Aleric went outside with me to help "clean" the snow off the back fence and collect eggs.

And then I started what seemed to be a never ending sewing fest that lasted the next 2 months. I made a coaster for a gift. It was very well received!

And finally the month ended with Halloween! We carved one of our 4 or 5 pumpkins, its been a while but I think we had 5 to begin with - well 7 if you include the 2 tiny ones we got for Aleric that died after he repeatedly stabbed them with a screwdriver. He was scared of the pumpkin for a bit and kept blowing out the candle from inside it, in the end we had to put a flashlight inside.

Old Singer Sewing Machine...

I found this beauty at a estate sale shop for a really good price, we had just got the Tahoe and were headed to town when my husband saw it sitting outside of the shop, we stopped and I looked at it (not that I actually knew what to look for) and decided for $35.00 it was a good deal, the needle moves fine, I know it needs a belt though and as far as I can tell its all in working order it just needs a few parts. Anyone have any ideas? The only number I can find on it says "C6998852" according to this site it was possibly made around 1908. Its paint job is pretty much gone, I cant figure out how to figure out what model it actually is either. All I have is this number and the one site that says they started making them in 1908, I would really like to restore her and start using her, and if the end of the world ever comes I can still make clothes and quilts!

Another Quilt

I finished another quilt last week, this one is for a little boy that is not born yet. Hopefully he and his parents love it! This is the first quilt that I did the "proper way" I guess you would call it and I stitched the binding to the back by hand... it took 6 hours alone just to do that. I love making things or this would so not be worth it. Its not as wonky as it looks in the pictures, it is actually quite strait which surprised me because as I was making it I thought it was going to be very wonky. And comments are greatly appreciated! Even constructive criticism is welcome :)

Front:
Back:

Pumpkin Picking wtih Aleric!

This post is a little overdue, we went on the 1st because I am obsessive about how I do my holiday decorating, October 1st Halloween and fall goes up, November 1st Halloween comes down, fall stays up. The day after Thanksgiving the Christmas Tree and the lights go up, Christmas day the tree comes down and I hang snowflakes on the windows for January. We picked out 5 pumpkins this year, we always go to Vic Mauro Produce, they are just down the road from us and we get to go out into the patch to pick our own. Here are a few pictures!

Autum is here!

I spent today with my Mom and Aleric, we went out to eat and then to the park to play. I love that fall is here, they live closer to the mountains than I do so they have a lot more fall color. On to the pictures!

Brave Aleric (seriously walking across this thing made *ME* dizzy):He went down this ladder like contraption without any issue. My little man is growing up so fast!
And then we went over to the stream area and away from the playground, my Mom got him to show his muscles so that he wouldn't cover up his face:
And then he got to play is some trees that we picked (isnt this the cutest face?)
And this one really looks like he is big-foot but you know... not as big as big-foot:
He had such a fun day playing outside :) And I just love the outdoors. We picked lots of fresh wild peppermint while we were there also so its drying in my extra room and hopefully I will get some good tea for winter out of it!

Laundry Soap

I went to do a load of laundry today that had some fabric in it that needed washed before I can sew it up, got all the clothes in the washer and then it hit me... I am out of laundry detergent. I have known this for over a week but in my busy life I just forgot to make more. I am trying to save money, use less, waste less and be more self sufficient. Well all the ingredients are bought from a store but I still save tons of money and I am happy to make stuff myself. There are probably hundreds of recipes for homemade laundry soap on the net so I will add one more. This will be my second batch and I love it. I was using soap nuts for a while, they cleaned my jeans and 5 fingers (shoes) but my shirts just never came clean enough so I went to making my own, 95% of my shirts come clean now (apparently I am kinda hard on my shirts and I get them really dirty). So what I do is take my ingredients:I use one bar of fels-naptha soap
1 cup Borax 20 Mule Team
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 cup Oxiclean (its whats in the measuring cup)

Shred or grate the bar of soapmix everything in a big bowland wah-lah your done. Really it IS that easy. I use less than 1 tablespoon per load (HE front-load machine) and have not had any problems so far.