The year I hung pudding boxes on the front door

 I am in the middle of trying to finish putting some kind of Christmas stuff up in here. This is the box I screw the Christmas tree too (because of the cats). Look at these monkeys! Man, even with all soft, handmade ornaments on the tree it might very well be terrifying this year. I have moved the tree all over the house looking for a spot that is next to nothing so that furniture cannot be used to launch two toddlers up into it!

 In the meantime I decided I needed to get these skates off the counter. Swapped out the laces for bias tape, glued on some fake fur...

 Hmmm, need something to stick in them. A damn bird has been living in my other wreath (which resulted in a damn bird loose in my house!) so I decided quickly against putting any sort of greenery in there.

Need little presents. Search entire house for something to use as little presents. Blocks of wood? Too thick to fit in the skates. Nothing in the sewing area. In the pantry? Pudding boxes to the rescue! This makes Jack a little nervous. Pudding on the door mom? REALLY?

 They were too small on the door on their own, so I ran down to the basement and grabbed a wreath from another year.

Ahhh, better, now maybe some year I will paint the Halloween wreath hanger another color?

Nah. Cannot be bothered.

Off to try and take a Christmas photo of the kids.  Lord give me strength and a sense of humor.

Gobble, gobble

 Happy Thanksgiving, from our crazy family to yours!

 (I just do not have it in me to sit out there in the cold and take 400 frames to get one where they are all looking my way. LOL)

 (Plus my Ginty has a raging ear infection. And I am still sick, almost three weeks now.)

(Sammi would like to you know that it is WAY too cold out there for her.)

Gobble, gobble.

Flea Market on Monday

Baby it's cold outside. Which means trapped in the house for many, many days on end.

We are:

Working on learning to use scissors.

Eating. (And thus pooping and pooping some more. Lordy this boy and his diapers.)

Thrifting.

This is a very small set of religious art. It's very grey and dark in here today but these are just gorgeous, very soft colors and the ovals are gold dresdens.

A pair of what used to be vintage candle holders I think. I am hoping to put together one and turn it into a tree topper. Too bad they weren't still whole.

An organza hostess apron with two little snaps to hold -

different felt attachments for each holiday. LOVE the cake.

A huge roll of vintage bias tape.

Some ice skates. Think I am going to stick some kind of greenery in them and put them on the front door. Oh, pom poms! They need poms poms too.

A vintage beaded sweater. I have a tiny collection of these that I started gathering for our wedding. I saw stockings made from them in a country home holiday special and meant to do that for our wedding, but I could never bring myself to cut them.  Some day maybe?  They are so tiny and often have tiny moth holes so I really cannot imagine they are good for much else...

I am working on a ridiculous star project for our Christmas tree and running out of steam already and I am not even halfway done. Hopefully I can find some mojo for that project again in the next few days. I think tree time might be this weekend!

Said no one. Ever.

I am at a phase in life that seems to invite a lot of very "helpful" advice.

No wait, maybe every phase in life invites "helpful" comments?

Never mind that though.

There is a certain line of helpful advice that is most irritating to me right now. It's of the "You are going to miss this" or "don't rush this!" variety.

There are sweet moments in this phase of life to be sure. But miss this?  Not unless you are a really sick and twisted masochist is what I say.

Let's think this through for a minute.

Would anyone say this:

You know I really miss those days when I did not sleep through the night for three plus years straight. (That's right. Three years. Pregnant with Sammi + Sammi infancy + Pregnant with Grant + Grant infancy, who still does not sleep through = more than three years.)

You know I really miss those days when I went from wiping a poopy ass to wiping a nose to cleaning up food to wiping another poopy ass to wiping another nose to wiping up more food.

You know I really miss those days when I spent every minute in between cleaning up poop and snot referring fights that make a women's prison look like a walk in the park. I could not get enough of the fighting, biting, hair pulling, hitting, shoving, throwing, and scratching!

You know I really miss those days when my children screamed so loud and so often and so many times all at once that I couldn't hear anything but the noises in my head ringing from the deafness!

You know I really miss those days when I only got 9 minutes to myself and those 9 minutes were spent locked in the pantry trying to call the water company to pay the bill before they turn off the water with two small people banging on the door and screaming as if they are being stabbed.

You know I really miss having an audience while I use the toilet. And shower. And bathe. And I REALLY miss the dirty clothes and the dirty hair that stinks bad enough to kill you.

You know I really miss slaving over meals every day and then barely getting to eat an ice cold bite because there are a 1000 messes and needs and behaviors to tend to during meal times.

Come on. Am I right?  No one would say that stuff. And that's reality with two toddlers plus one big kid.

Sure there are fleeting moments when you think about chubby baby fingers or little toes. But come on ladies! Kids growing up is awesome. Independence is awesome!

Kids are like wine - they get better and better with age.

So, to the dear lady behind me in the grocery store when my children were acting like total beasts and the line was 14 miles long who said to me "honey, I do NOT miss those days," I salute you.

And to everyone else who reminds me at least 14 times a day that I "WILL SURELY MISS THIS!" Please, for the love of all that is holy, just don't with that. I love my kids like crazy. I chose this. I wouldn't choose anything else. But this is freaking hard work man. Let's not diminish that.

A year from now will be easier. And year from that will be even easier. I know that. You know that.  This right now? It's slogging through the damn trenches man.

Miss that?

Said no one. Ever.

A felt + oil drip tray advent calendar

It all started when I saw the felt advent calendar at the Purl Bee. We have tried lots of advent calendars over the years - usually defaulting to playmobil or Lego, but I know that with the "not twin terrors" those will be a nightmare this year.

Since I anticipate at least three years of kids wanting to constantly rearrange ornaments I decided to take the time to make a felt advent calendar this year.

Making the ornaments was kind of fun. (That is supposed to be a yule log, not a ding dong. LOL)

The tree and the mitten are my favorites I think.

Although I did have perfect button eyes for the gingerbread in the button jar.

The wreath is really fun too. Worth enlarging the photo.

 

I knew that pockets were just never going to work though. No way to keep the kids from taking all the ornaments out at one time and losing them all.  So I spray painted an oil drip tray from the auto parts store to make a big magnetic tree. (It's a little light around some of the edges because it took me a few tries to figure out the best way to get the tree on there.)

Super fun right? 

The ornaments are in individual envelopes in this leather organizer I thrifted that happens to be the perfect size.

With any luck the ornaments will stand up the abuse of the kids and last for many years!

*A few notes - because I have two toddlers I made sure the magnets are VERY secure. Each magnet is hot glued inside the ornaments and then sewn in. I washed the tray first because it had some sort of silicone or something on it. Then I primed it. Then I roughly sprayed a green tree shape on it.  The easiest way to make the actual tree shape was then to tape off the tree and overspray the white area. Some of the ornaments are not stuffed because their shapes proved real buggers to shape and stuff. I tried to add interesting embellishments to each ornament that are all made from different sewing materials - bits of crochet, different trims, buttons, rick rack etc.

Flea Market Sundays - or getting piggy with it

It is so warm here I am sweating, so that means off to the flea.

A gaggle of mica birds. (Still trying to fill a tree like miss Magpie Ethel does.)

Some pretty vintage yardage.

The most wonderful vintage barn puzzle.

And a two color solid baby quilt.

Whose merits are not in the piecing or the fabrics but in the lovely quilting and that scalloped edge.

I went to the doctor on Friday after 5 day of not being able to swallow anything but tiny sips of water. Bronchitis says he. Shots of a steroid, a heavy antibiotic, prescription cough meds. Off I go. The throat was better within a few hours. The exhaustion, sweating and non fucking stop coughing? Nope.  Even taking three cough meds and one cough drop at a time does not stop it. I cough constantly. All night long. All day long. I am exhausted. My guts hurt. My head hurts. I cannot do anything without a violent coughing fit that leaves me peeing my pants and nearly puking. All at once. In an effort to not want to kill myself I have been calling it the cough drop diet. It's all I can eat. Oh sure, it's effective weight loss, but honestly, there must be a more merciful death than this.

To top if off yesterday my oldest child says "god it is dirty in here." Yes child, it is. Your mother is sick for 7 days now. And you children are P I G S.

So, that's whats happening here. We are getting piggy with it. While mommy dies a slow, painful death by cough drop.

All the autumnal things we own

 The kids and I are having a rough go of things right now. I started getting sick on Monday afternoon - spent  most of Monday in a feverish haze trying to care for them - and have been sick ever since.  The two littles are so freaking crabby. It's been cold so they can't play outside. They are fighting constantly. And with my coughing (peeing my pants! fun!) and super sore throat I am in NO mood for their bullshit.

But anyway.  After the Halloween stuff came down I actually felt the urge to put up something fallish. Usually I start right in on the Christmas stuff, but that is not happening this year.

 The woodland tree is making another appearance in the foyer.

 Gnomes, nests, acorns, pinecones...

 owls, fruits and toadstools.

 My small collection of diecuts is in the hallway.

 A honeycomb turkey and a pumpkin tree on the china cabinet.

 The mantel went kind of sparkly earthy. I didn't want to put away the glass glitter pumpkins so I just scrounged around for things that worked with them.

 Ironstone and antlers, orange pom poms, seed garland, sparkly leaf ornaments, german wooden ornaments.

 Tarnished silver and nests.

 And a few old thanksgiving postcards too.

The pilgrim (I have no girl) and Indians are on the kid's chalkboard wall.

With that I am off to discipline the child who just threw something at me. Again.

I'd like to thank the children

Since my kids never sleep I am in the habit of waking before 6 am. 

Garage sales are few and far between in this chilly time of year, but there was one that caught my eye on craigslist sometime this week.  Because I was already up I was there about 15 minutes after it opened.

And then I RAN into the garage and snapped up this pile of quilts for less than it would cost me to have lunch at McDonalds. For all of them. :-)

So thank you unruly children of mine.

The early morning light is not doing the color of this one any justice.

It's a deep mustard yellow.

This one is a true scrap quilt, made from old clothes.

Pieced together all over the the place.

And this one. Well, this one. It must have truly been a work of art before it was loved to pieces. (Sorry for the bad crop, the sun was coming over the fence and blinding my camera.)

I haven't looked up the name yet, but those blocks! that border! those colors!

You lovely ladies often email to ask questions about washing quilts (and please do! I would hate for them to get ruined.)  This one was seriously brown and yuck o. I often recommend sunning them and when I saw this on the line yesterday I had to show you.

That stripe at the bottom is the part of the quilt that was over the line hanging towards the shade. The white part is the part that was facing the bright warm sun. Keep in mind that is NOVEMBER sun, so not very strong. But look at how much it whitened the quilt!

The lesson here? Wash very gently and then sun, sun, sun!

Happy Sunday to you!

P.S. I am starting to ponder an etsy shop. I have a plethora of quilts and tablecloths and beautiful vintage beaded handbags that cannot find a home via Craigslist (my preferred method). A girlfriend and I wondering about how they decide on search result placement? Any thoughts?