this is good

toadstools

UGAly bags

I realized that I never put up a picture of the UGAly bags that I made. It's a mom and daughter set. They were a trial run. There are things that I like and dislike about each, but it's a process. Eventually, I will find the exact materials that I prefer.

ah.......

I love this look! It just makes me want to breathe.

for real now

I've arrived (or something). Now I'm a REAL soccer mom!

rocking my baby...

I've heard the last paragraph of this before, but never the whole thing.


Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

- Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

oh really...

Our mail lady left this note in our mailbox today:


My thought was "Really? You think so?"

sink lights

Matt's latest home improvement project was to install some lights above our kitchen sink. I didn't take a real before picture, but here is one that will give you the idea.


He installed a switch to control the lights (and eventually the garbage disposal) as well as the lights themselves. Here is the after picture. There is a big difference in how much light is there!

a quilt for Caroline

I'm having trouble. I started a quilt top for Caroline back in the fall using the butterfly fabric that I had shown on here before. I didn't get to finish it because of being pregnant and then having Sara. Well, I finally got back around to it. The problem is that I don't know if I want it to be Caroline's quilt anymore. I have only finished the top, so now's the time to decide. Here are a couple pictures (not very good ones) of the quilt top.



The main reason that I'm rethinking things is because Caroline is so in love with purple. It just seems wrong to not have some purple in her room. I have tried to come up with a way to make purple go with the quilt top that I've already made, but I can't figure out anything that would work well. So, I'm thinking about making one that has some purple. Here are a couple ideas (I included the pink on so you can see more of what the first purple one looks like).




After giving it plenty of thought, I decided that maybe it would be good to not be stuck only on purple...in case she finds a new favorite color. So I thought that something rainbow like the ones below might be a better choice.




So what do all of you think? Help! I need some input here to help me figure things out.

a garden tour

Last weekend, we got our raised beds loaded up with a truckload of compost, a truckload of topsoil (which ended up being more clay), and bagged topsoil. We mixed it all up and got the plants put in them on Monday.


These two beds look a big empty because they have a lot of tomato plants in them. If they actually grow big enough to have tomatoes, they will need plenty of room.


Nathan's class at school started some lima beans in bags in the window. We planted four of them in our garden.


When we picked out seeds to plant, Caroline picked radishes. Does anybody know of any way to eat radishes other than sliced in a salad?


Our other bed is in the shade a good bit, so we planted some of the colder weather plants there.


Here are the lettuce plants. As you can see, there are multiple plants in each spot (for all the veggies). This weekend, I plan to thin them to one per spot.


And here are the carrots. There are also broccoli plants in both beds, but I didn't manage to get a picture of them. And I think they are the ones least likely to succeed.


I don't know if any of these will grow into something edible or not, but it will be an interesting experiment on whether or not we can grow veggies from seeds.

a Saturday project

Matt and I have been talking for a while about creating some raised beds to grow some veggies (and maybe flowers too) in our yard. Today, a large chunk of the project was finished. I decided that the space between our sheds was the best place to put something. The space was unused and overgrown. It's really not a good space for much. Before we started, there were piles of old wood from things that we had taken out of the house and sheds. There were buckets of monkey grass that I had collected from the front flower bed when we cleared it. (I intended to replant it around our back bed, but it just hasn't happened.) There were also weeds galore...big tall weeds and tree weeds.


The first part of the day was spent clearing the junk out of this space and kinda leveling out the ground. The space is a funny space because the sheds sit parallel to the fence connecting to two different yards. The fences are not straight in relation to each other. That left a triangular shaped space between them. I decided that we would add one rectangular bed and one triangular (mostly) bed.


Here is a good shot of both beds. As you can see, we still need to get some compost and top soil put into them. However, all of the construction is done! Yay!


We will also be adding one other bed on the end of the shed closest to the back of the yard. This area is shaded, so I'm going to have to be careful about what we put in it. We also made some progress on that bed today. The wood has been cut. We still need to do a little ground leveling and then actually put the sides together.

Hopefully, we can get the rest of this project finished this week. By then, some of our little seedlings may be ready to be transplanted into them!

our friendly neighborhood woodpecker

Thunderbirds

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the Thunderbirds from today's air show.

struggle

I'm struggling tonight. The problem - I went clothes shopping. Nothing fancy. At all. I just don't have much of anything that looks even ok. I need clothes. It was hard. I've never had to buy that size before. I would tell myself that it's only temporary, but that's not been the case in the past. Ever. I only go up. I've never gone down. It's a struggle. I want to jump on the treadmill right now. But it's after midnight. And I have a long day tomorrow. A fun day. But a long day. I want to just quit eating much. But I'm nursing. And I have to eat. And depriving myself does not help my emotional state. At least in the past. But obviously the current situation doesn't help much either. So that's all. Just a vent. Just wanted to put it out there. To be open. And honest. And make sure that those who care about me know that I'm struggling.

spring

messenger bag number 2

I almost forgot to add a picture of the messenger bag that I made for Lisa's birthday. I was waiting to make sure she got it before putting up pictures...and almost forgot to do it at all.

shirt dresses

Before:


After:



I have been doing lots of sewing the last couple days. I have really had a good time. You should have seen the room - a disaster. It was fun, though. I even had both of my sewing machines going! Anyway, I made these dresses based on this tutorial. I made several changes to Caroline's dress and (obviously) resized things for Sara's dress. It was definitely an adventure - my first attempt at clothing. Caroline requested purple (of course) and chose between the two purple scraps that I had. Also, the flower on Sara's dress was made using this tutorial. (Can you tell I like tutorials - free!) They wore their dresses to church this morning, but I wasn't able to get any pictures. I'll have to try to get some next time...keep an eye out over at the Moseley Kiddos Blog.

two gifts

These are two gifts that I made for my mom for her birthday. The reversible Kleenex box cover is based on this tutorial.

Matt's hard work

Last weekend Matt worked long and hard to put a new light in our main bathroom. We now have a light/fan over our toilet. Before, it was like you were "going" in a cave. Now, it's much better! He also did all the wiring for a light over the tub/shower. Hopefully, he'll actually be able to put it in before too long. Here are the before and after pictures with the light. Please disregard the really bright linen cabinet. I was trying to get the idea of the changes in the toilet area. (And yes, the bathroom lives with Caroline's setup most of the time.)

an Easter family picture