This Moment...

...a day late.

Happy Weekend!

Loving These Days.

I love it when I feel like I have nothing to write about here, 

then prove myself wrong when I go through recent pictures.

I can mention the sun. The sun has been happening out here.

I can let you know that the chickens have been roaming
around outside of their covered run. They love it.

And I love how Sully's favorite chicks are now his favorite hens.

(Some of the roosters aren't our favorites though.
More about those boys later.)

 I have to say how hard it is to drive when you look in the side mirror
and see a head popping out.

He's just enjoying the wind and the sun I guess.

I still can't stop laughing about it.

I also like seeing little bare arms more often.

Along with little kites in the making. 

Plus, soccer has been going on. These dudes are looking good out there.

And out here, these past few days have been good.

How 'bout yours?

This Moment.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

-Amand Soule (SouleMama)

Lots more of this happening out here today.

Guaranteed.

Happy Friday!

Some Good Stuff.

So, saying goodbye to family last weekend wasn't very fun.

In our little world, most of the week prior, was though.

Here is some of that fun stuff...

Easter was easy and colorful.

Having a house full of people,

and paper bunnies in our likeness' from Grandma was too.

Having WAY too much fun with my new phone. And Instagram.

(username-outherentheflats / name search-natalie t)

And, embroidering my new phone

and taking pictures of it with Instagram.

Much. Too. Much.

Speaking of embroidery,

I posted a wrap up thing over on A-Round-A-Day.

A year of stitching every day, complete.

Now what?

How about science projects, a dance recital, soccer and cleaning up our yard now that we can see it. The snow is a-melting and our little slice seems huge!

We are busy, no doubt.

What's up next for you?

The Kind Of Post I Never Post.

We just had a full week with family, and laughter and fun. Days of sun and showing off our home and the island we have started to call ours. Last Thursday, the kids spent 10 hours running, sword fighting and puddle jumping, with no coats in sight. I will be here soon to share.

But there are families on the island that had a very different week. While we felt surrounded by love and color and the excitement of family near, there were people losing loved ones in a brutal way. And while my kids got a luck-of-the-draw day of playing hooky, their peers experienced a scary 5 hour lock down at school.

I have a hard time speaking of anything but the easy and pretty and funny here. Mostly because I don't have the words. I know that blog readers in general know that what is posted online is not the whole story. Not the whole truth. Only parts of a day, a glimpse.

I just felt I couldn't not say something.

The tragedy that occurred last Thursday has made the news country wide. We still don't know the whole truth to that story either. We are all wondering and waiting and hoping that the people working day and night will find answers for us.

We had to talk to the boys about what may be talked about at school when they returned today. About how someone used a gun to kill two people while they were at work, only a few miles away from our home. And how there is a search for who is responsible. And how they know kids and grown-ups at school, who know the people that died. About, how we are all affected when something happens to others, even when we don't know them. We talked about how scary things like these sometimes don't seem real and we have to be careful with our words when we talk about it.

We are very grateful and very sad at the same time out here.

I am holding onto the vision of my strong boys running, bare armed with their swords.

This Moment.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

-Amanda Soule (SouleMama)

We are off to spend our last full day of fun with our family visiting.

So very happy they get to see Kodiak in the sun.

It will be very hard to see them go.

Hug everyone you love and have a wonderful weekend.

The Beginning...

...of the end.

My Kids Are Funny.

While cleaning out the craft closet last week...

...we found some neat pens and ink.

Kids reaction-

"Wow Mom! Cool!

Are these the pens you used in school when you were our age?

You know, way forever ago?

Before there were real pencils?"

My reaction-

Silence.....giggle....

"Let's just see if it all comes back to me and try some calligraphy."

Happy Hump Day!

These Few Days...

We have visitors from California out here!

They jumped right in without fear and joined us on our rainy walks.

Quickly brought spunky new enthusiasm for our old (very. old.) snow.

Plus, this pair of brothers get to play with new toys together again.

And the wrestling.

Boy oh boy.

The wrestling.

These houseguest days are good.

saturday, sunday, monday

This Moment.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

-Amand Soule (SouleMama)

-Nice surprises this week-

Having some fun cooking again.

Finding more time with camera in hand.

Caught up, ahead even, with a-round-a-day.

In spite of chilly rain, puddle/lakes and lots of snow on the ground,

flip-flop weather has arrived for some of us.

Happy Friday!

Logs.

A big truck dumped a huge load of logs in our driveway last week.

Jeff and the kids have been slowly cutting their way through it.

Don't you go feeling sorry for Jeff having to cut them all up.

He got to get his dream chain-saw.

He is not feeling sorry.

Besides,

...he has a sassy, well dressed helper.

That Rainbow Hat.

Here is that hat I promised to show you.

It's this free pattern. Pretty colors, huh?!

I didn't have the same shades as the designer did, but I like it just the same.

I want to do a photo shoot outside. When Minna lets me.

The shot below was how she wanted to model her new hat.

Big open mouth...

...eating her english muffin with peanut butter.

She froze in her "peanut-butter-time" moment until I took the picture.

I have to admit, I only made this hat because I wanted to keep busy while I waited for the yarn store to be open. They were open today, so I got the yarn I needed to finish this project. A big old shawl! I am almost half done and truckin' right along. I didn't want to lose momentum because at the end I think the rows will have about 350+ double crochet stitches. That's a bunch. Then I want to make this shawl by the same gal.

All about the shawl.

Happy mid-week!

Color Project Round-Up.

Happy Monday! Good weekend? Us too.

The past two weeks have been project heavy out here. I haven't been picking up my camera as much, and making it to the computer even less. So here are a few of the things we have been up to...

Extreme finger painting.

Painting cans that I take out of the recycle bin at work.

We have also slapped some paper mache on them.

Minna did hers all by herself, start to finish.

She didn't need me, so I made a bowl.

You can always use a newspaper bowl somewhere.

I threw some yarn in it.

(Those cans turned out so funny because we cut up an Athleta catalog for some of our paper strips. We had bikini tops and legs and bums pop up in the strips we cut. Very entertaining with 10 and 7 year old boys. Probably stick to regular newspaper next time. They still giggle about it. Sheesh.)

Speaking of yarn, I copied a rainbow hat as close as I could with colors I already had. (How do I not have any purple yarn on hand?) Anyway, it worked up quick and I will show you tomorrow.

I am into using iBooks on my iPad for patterns. Super handy. It would be neat if there was an app for knit/crochet patterns where you could check off each row as you go. Maybe there is? It really would be neat. I would use it.

What colorful things have you folks been up to?

sunday