Puppy and Ice Cream

Bailey is 18 months old! She's such a good looking girl!

Connor and I have been making ice cream. Our first batch had broken chocolate covered graham crackers and marshmallow topping for s'mores. The second batch has cream cheese and a can of strawberry pie filling for strawberry cheesecake ice cream. The next time we make it, I will take pictures and post them with the recipe.

Quilt and Other Things...

I finished my first lap quilt. It has lots of mistakes, but that is ok!

I spotted a skunk coming out of the woods. It went to the neighbor's field and then back into the woods. This is the first one I've seen here.

And we had one last (hopefully) snow/ice storm on March 12th. We've had dustings of snow since then, but hopefully we're all done now. I'm so sick of snow.

Chicken Ice Palace

Snow, bread and deer

We have had a TON of snow and subzero temps this winter. This is our basement walk out. The wood at the top is taller than I am. This is mostly from drifting.

Yes, that is a -12 f. It's been as low as -19 f. 

The chickens have handled it well. When it's below 0, I don't open their door except to put their water in the coop. The coop stays nice and toasty.

We lost a tree in a summer storm last year. It finished coming down recently and took almost all of the branches off of this tree and left a gaping hole.

I made challah! My first challah and my first braided bread. It's part wheat.

I made french toast and bread pudding with it. Yum.

I finally spotted our three-legged deer and was able to get my camera before she left. We nicknamed her "Daisy". We first spotted her in 2011, and almost three years to the date, I got the bottom pics. We saw her a few times this summer with a fawn. She gets along really well. No clue why she's missing a leg, but it doesn't bother her.

Sewing!

I don't think I ever got around to blogging about this... I'm teaching myself to sew! With help from Facebook groups and YouTube videos.

I am learning on both my grandma's 1898 Singer treadle:

and a Brother I bought with Christmas money, it does sewing and quilting:

As far as we can tell, the Singer was my grandma's mother-in-law's. No idea where she got it from, but there's no way she bought it new. This is Vesta J, my great-grandmother who died long before I was born.

It was made in Clydebank, Scotland in 1898. January 22nd to be exact, so it has a birthday coming up :) It was fairly well taken care of and sews well. Jon and I took it apart and thoroughly cleaned and oiled it. 

My current sewing table set up for the Brother: 

(see the sewing box on the floor? I have matching fabric and am going to make a machine cover for both of them, along with a few other little things)

Lap quilt I am working on: 

New fabric that is too beautiful to cut just yet:

Madison

On Saturday evening, around 10:30 pm, Madison passed peacefully in her sleep. She was laying in the floor, snuggled next to Jon. Bailey was laying next to her with her head on Madi's side.

She turned 11 years old on December 15th. She had been having some of the usual "old dog" problems, but nothing major. It was just her time.

We buried her in the yard with the help of family and finished around 3 am. Thankfully the sub-zero temperatures and 15 inches of snow did not start until later on Sunday.

December and Christmas Update!

It was cold and we got snow! 

Connor and his cousin went sledding in the front yard. Jon, my uncle and I went down too! 

Jingle, our Elf on the Shelf, came back!
Connor and grandma made a gingerbread house.

Connor built a fort.

Connor made me a present in pre-k.

I made Finnish Ribbon Cookies with my homemade cherry blueberry jam.

Family pic

Connor got a SWAT outfit.

I made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.

My grandma's nativity. 

Connor got lots of presents.

And 3 sets of trains! 

Thanksgiving Update!

Wow, so it's been forever since I've updated. I'll do this in chunks.

Thanksgiving!

Connor's pre-k had a cute program for the parents. They made table centerpieces, created a "recipe" book where they said how things were made (like put a turkey in the microwave for 10 minutes and it's done!), and sang songs for us.

Mayflower

3-eyed turkey

some of my decor

We host Thanksgiving dinner for my mom, step-father and uncle. We always do Alton Brown's brined turkey. Yum! Hmm... I had a picture of the turkey, but can't find it! So here's our Thanksgiving wine instead.

And my mom playing puzzles with Connor