For My Kids' Memory Banks

OK, I know a few of my blog friends can't WAIT for their snowy fields to melt, but give a coastal Californian girl a chance to post a few snow pics too.  :)  It never snows where we live so when the forecast called for snow, my husband thought that was crazy. 

Well, our snow actually started out as hail....or something.....we coastal Californians don't know all those fancy words for snow forms.  We ran outside to dance in this hail like stuff while getting pelted.

Yes I'm in just socks.  Remember, it never snows here.

We just happened to be having a sewing day at my mom's house so I got to enjoy this "snow" with friends.

Snow isn't supposed to hurt right?

OK, so I went in for shoes once the ground was covered.

Zac brought the kids up to my mom's to see the snow since he wasn't too crazy after all and it really didn't snow in our town, but apparently only snowed on my mom's hill and her neighbors' hills, which just made us feel extra lucky.  And by the time the kids came, there was REAL snow falling, verified by my friend who was raised in the snow.

First snow play in her life

Kian kept holding the show in his bare hands and didn't seem to mind.

Felicity ate her weight in snow (which isn't much) and STILL talks about how she loves to eat snow.  This was in February by the way.  I'm just now getting these pics on the blog because I didn't have my camera with me so these are from my mom's camera.

I swear, Logan caught sight of the snow and instantly made a snowball to throw at his Daddy.  Is this an innate reaction to snow for little (and big) boys? :)

Kids, if you read this one day, that's the vineyard across the street from Grammy's property.

And there's Papa's house.

And here's looking towards town.  Grammy's property got an inch or more.  Just enough to play in.

Snow falling on California oranges.  Ironic.

We spent the night and then went out the next morning to take advantage of the lingering snow before the sun QUICKLY melted it away. 

Lissy worked very hard on our snowman and loved him very much.

The boys, on the other hand, were fascinated by the overflowing gutters and showered themselves in the icy water.  I was amazed at the amount of water a roof with melting snow sheds.

By the way, do you notice Kian's "mittens"?  After his fascination with holding the snow the day before, I made him wear socks on his hands.

Yes Bubba, I know it's cold.  Melted snow water is like that.

I know this is a lot of pictures, and it's almost a month late, but I just had to post these.  Hopefully blogs will still be around when my kids are older and they'll be able to look back on this day and see the fun we had.

It Starts....And We're Super Excited!

For many years (well, for me, my whole life), we've been wishing and hoping and praying that one day we could buy a bit of land.  Just a tiny bit.  No more than 5 acres.  Just something big enough for chickens and goats and plentiful amounts of things to grow and harvest, can and pickle.  Well, I have to admit, I've had time where I was wishing more than I really should......borderline coveting.  God blessed us with this house we own and as soon as we started viewing it as our families home as opposed to just somewhere we live until we can own our homestead, we started seeing the beauty in its quirkiness.  You see, after we were both done with school, we moved back home to settle down and start a family.   The real estate market was up, so we were in the market to rent.  We were surprised to find that rent was very high and that we would basically just be paying someone else's mortgage.  We had no money saved as we were both fresh graduates, but we wondered how high our mortgage would be if we were able to get financed 100%.  Could it compete with the rental market?  We did some research and indeed it did.  We would either buy at the bottom of the market and pay our own mortgage, OR, we could rent for the same price.  We choose to buy at the bottom of the market, which meant a modular house 25 minutes outside of town, in a small lake community.  We weren't planning to be first time home buyers, but suddenly were.  I was also 2 months pregnant with our first when we moved in.  The place needed major help so you can guess that the last 6 years of home owning has flown by as more children have been added to our family, and the house is always in more need than it seems we can give it.  We have gone through times, like I mentioned above, where we were bummed with our house.  It needed a lot of work, it wasn't anything fancy, etc.  But through the years, I have come to love it for those very reasons I used to not.  I love that it's not a "normal" house.  I love its quirks.  I LOVE that its not fancy.  And you know what I just recently realized?  While we were sitting on our arses waiting for the day God led us to a homestead, we were sitting on land, just a little bit, that could be utilized, if wisely done, for tons of edible gardening.  Gardening that would yield enough for canning and pickling.  Maybe not chickens (though I plan to fight our H.O.A. on that) but rabbits for sure.  Funny how once we are content with and love what God has blessed us with, how we FINALLY see its full potential. 
So, I got online and searched and searched and searched for good literature.  I finally decided The Urban Homestead looked like the perfect book for us.  I asked for it for my birthday and have not put it down since receiving it.  In fact, after reading the introduction we were so inspired that we dropped the book, grabbed the kids and literally started ripping everything out of our front yard that wasn't edible....EVERYTHING.  I will talk about this book more later, but this post is wordy enough so let me just say that its great for us because it talks about how to homestead on limited space including patios on apartment buildings and rooftops.  In fact, our tiny plot would actually be considered one of the larger areas this book addresses because we have a front and back yard to utilize.
So, our changes so far.....our little fenced off backyard kitchen garden we've tended since we moved in will become the rabbit (and hopefully chicken) run.  A little wire on the fence and a hutch is all we need.  Oh, and rabbits.  A friend's bunny is pregnant so we are expectant rabbit owners.  We plan to use the rabbit pellets as fertilizer.  Everything is getting ripped out of the front yard which will become our edible garden.  Our front yard has gone majorly over to the weeds, so its been a big job.  Here's a few pics of day one of transforming our yard into our urban homestead.

This is our pond, which we put in ourselves when Logan was tiny.  Its not the best picture.  We plan to keep this as the birds love it and birds on our urban homestead mean natural bug control.  Plus, we like to watch the birds come get drinks.  You can see Logan in the background hacking away at a dormant crape myrtle bush.  The stump is still not out.  Its a biggy.  But this raised bed against the house will be a great planting area.  I'd also like to attempt an apple espalier on our barren trellis Zac made.

Forgive these bright pics, they were quickly shot as we ran out to start digging everything up.  I wanted a few before pics and couldn't wait for better lighting.  :)  This is the majority of our front yard.  I'll measure it one day soon.  It looks smaller here, but it IS small.

Here's another corner of our front yard.  Under those weeds is a traveling rose bush I recently hacked away at.  I don't know if I'll ever be rid of it as its roots spread around half this area and send up shoots.

This is our side yard.  We grew tomatoes down this strip in wine barrels one year, but the sun hits this side of the house ALL DAY LONG and even the tomatoes struggled.  I would however like to one day turn this into an area to hang dry clothes, taking advantage of that constant hot sun.  You can see how close together the houses are in this pic.  We are lucky that our neighbors on both sides are lake vacationers so that gives us more privacy than if they lived here year round like us.

I'll have to post more pics soon because that yard full of weeds is emptying out more and more each day.  Its rained the last few days, keeping us inside, but that'll help soften up the areas around those big roots we've been working away at.  I bet they'll come up no sweat the next time we can get out there and work.

Today was an exciting day.  We planted our first seeds ever!  That's right, in years past, we started our little backyard kitchen garden from store bought started plants.  I've wanted to do seeds for years but had seed anxiety.  ???  The Urban Homestead and some homesteading blog friends inspired me to take a crack at it so today was the day.

My 3 filling the seed trays with soil.  They all loved this part.

OK, I know that's a lot of pics of Kian's little hands, but I can't stand it.  I had to post them all.  He LOVED planting the seeds.  He'd poke the hole, then shout "more, more, more!" until I gave him a seed.  Then he'd drop it in the hole and cover it up.....not very neatly, but that's where I came in and tidied it up.  :)

Felicity was also a great seed planter.  She was so very patient through every step.

Busy Logan got bored of seed planting and got himself in trouble.  But he loved watering them with a spray bottle.  He's not too patient with tedious tasks these days.

So there you have it.  We are becoming urban homesteaders and we have excitedly worked, read, researched, and planned for the last few weeks.

My mom told me tonight that I hadn't blogged in a while and needed to.  She might eat her words after reading this L.O.N.G post!  If you've made it this far, you are a good friend and its very nice of you to stick with it.  :)  I tried to shorten this post as I typed it, but I just couldn't.  I hope that my excitement about this is obviously overflowing this long post and will inspire other urban dwellers to jump in and do something in their small yards too.  If that's you, start with getting a copy of The Urban Homestead as fast as you can.  You'll be amazed.

Teething Smock Top

The ladies from two of my favorite blogs make their baby boys smocks to catch all that teething drool.  I've loved these smocks since I first saw them.  I don't think that opinion is shared by anyone in the family (other than Felicity who asked for one for her birthday and examined it as if she was taking mental sewing notes on how it was constructed).  But I'm the one at the machine so I get to pick what gets created there.  :)  Actually, Zac says it's fine and noted its practicality, but asked that Kian doesn't wear it out and about.  :)  We differ in our children clothing style opinions sometimes. 
Anyways, here's Kian in his new smock top....just in time to catch the drool from the FOUR molars wreaking havoc on this poor kid. 

I just love the simplicity of this smock....

....and I love the criss cross back!

This is Kian's "Praise The Lord" move.  :)

I put the smock on him and he looked down at the front patch and started growling like a tiger.  :) 

He loves tigers and lions.

Here comes some drool!!!

If you look closely, you can see wet spots on the smock already.  It's working hard!  You'd be able to see it better if this fabric wasn't so great at masking the wet spots, but that's a plus!

His whole mouth is rimmed in wetness!

I need to fix the neck on the next one I do.  It needs to be higher and the shoulders closer together.

One day he wore this to our friend's house (who loved it....so there, ZAC!) and by the time we left, the WHOLE top half was soaked.  I was glad the poor boy wasn't walking around with half his shirt needing to be wrung out.

I backed it with flannel so the wetness never reaches his shirt.  We have lots of scrap flannel around here!

Melanie from Our Ash Grove and Jules from A Little Crafty Nest each posted tutorials for their version of this smock (HERE's Melanie's tutorial, and HERE's Jules' tutorial).  Each was made a bit differently.  I used Jules' tutorial for my starting point since if was fashioned in a way similar to how I fashion my homemade patterns.  I think the only change I made was that I left a small opening on the bottom edge for turning instead of leaving the whole bottom open as Jules does hers.  Thanks Jules and Melanie for the tutorials and inspiration!

Welcoming The Rain

Doing the Hooray For Rain dance.

What's cuter than brothers excitedly welcoming the rain?

Possibly these two as they head out on a special Daddy date.

Or possibly these boys who helped me make their dinner while Daddy and Sissy were away.

Nope, I think this is the cutest.

A tiny boy experiencing rain for one of the first times in his life and being in complete heaven about the new experience.  Can you imagine?  I love seeing my kids experience things we take for granted, for the first time ever.  They enjoy it so fully and purely with no care of who's watching.  Their joy is contagious!

Freeze Please

Do you ever have Mama days that you wish you could just freeze and stay in forever?  Last Thursday was one of those days for me.  I didn't even want to go to bed because that would mean it would end. 

Zac worked out of town the majority of this week.  While he was gone, Logan and I worked HARD on a surprise for him.  There were tears (Logan) and tempers lost (me), but we persevered and when Zac came home we had this GREAT surprise to share with him!

No training wheels!!!

This was truly a great surprise because Zac had tried to teach Logan and it was just not happening.  Logan is a very timid boy, and his lack of trust was frustrating.  That's why this new skill is more than just a milestone.  It was also a lesson in trust. 

It was fun to be in cahoots with Logan all week and it was thrilling to surprise Zac, for both Logan and I.  We couldn't wait for him to come home.  Zac was so proud.  He was beaming!!!  We stayed outside until the sun was setting and watched as before our eyes, Logan got better and better until it looked as if he had been riding without training wheels for years.

We eventually headed in to enjoy a "family night", which is what the kids call a night where we cozy up and have a simple homemade meal and enjoy a movie together.  We eat together as a family every night, so I guess "Family Night" should really be called "Movie night."  Anyways, Logan suggested pretzels so I whipped up our home made pretzel dinner, which consists of these pretzels, apples, cheese, and lots of dips.  I made a special bike pretzel to celebrate Logan's accomplishment. 

I made the rest of us our initials out of pretzels, which the kids always love.

As I baked, the sounds of kids wrestling with Zac, dancing to their iTunes playlist, playing chase, and in general just racing around the house making lots of noise, was heard.  This is often a time of day when I'm overwhelmed with the noise as I prepare dinner, but today, the noise was so wonderful.  After many days without Zac, I was smiling from ear to ear listening to the kids enjoying having their Daddy home.  I have a new appreciation for that raucous.

We had a great family night.  As I was dressing Felicity for bed, she was very upset that she had to take off her Mama made skirt to put on her P.J.s (which are also Mama made, but this girl LOVES pretty skirts).  I promised her I'd wash both her Mama made skirts right then so both would be ready for her to wear in the morning.  I loaded the clothes and then headed to the kitchen.  Zac came in and told me to go look in the laundry room.  There I found Felicity, standing on an emptied out toy bin, staring into the washer to make sure that BOTH her Mama made skirts were in the load.  She was not satisfied until I dug around and showed her that in fact, both were in there. 

Back in the kitchen, Kian helped me put away the groceries.  I love how proud he is to be able to help more and more.

Here's his pride coming out as a ham for the camera.  :)

After all the kids were tucked in, I finally shared with Zac a dream that has been running through my brain ever since Kian's birth.  I'd like to have our next baby at home.  He shared that he did too.  No, we're not planning number 4 yet.  Just dreaming.  :)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this all proceeded a very fun day at the park with friends and a grocery run where Logan was so very helpful.  I went to bed feeling proud, thrilled, loved, excited, and dreamy. 

Thank you Jesus for these free and simple pleasures in life!