Mushroom Hunting

Saturday found us wandering about Pigeon River State Forest searching for morel mushrooms, with Mimi, Poppa, Uncle Doug, and Aunt Suzan.

We climbed trees, found acorns (but only took home the ones with "their hats still on!"), played with sticks, and dicovered that you can write on birch bark with a twig.  No birch trees were harmed in the making of this photo....we only took the bark off of the trees that had already fallen down.  Drew confided that he thinks that "This is how the Indians wrote letters to each other, 'cause they didn't have paper."  I now have two scraps of birch bark on my desk that say "I love you, Mama," next to a jar of dandelions.  Perfect.

But most exciting of all, we came home with this:

Just enough for us all to have last night with our steak, and, oh gosh, were they good.  After reading 'I dig dandelions (and apricot blossoms)' by 6512 and growing, we also added a dandelion salad to dinner.  Ian wasn't impressed, but the rest of us thought it was great.  It might have been the perfect dinner, wonderful food, fabulous conversation, and the kids even used their manners so very well.  What more could a Mama ask for?

Finished Project Friday

I finally finished my brothers birthday present and if I can get it in the mail today it will only be 10 days late. Bad big sister. This toiletry bag gave me major trouble. It was just one of those projects were if anything could go wrong it did. I had to rip out the zipper five times, and always because of some stupid self inflicted error. Or because I can't seem to follow instructions without thinking that I can come up with a better way to do it. It never works out for me when I try to "improve" sewing patterns...you'd think I'd learn.


I'm more successful at tweaking knitting patterns. I made these soap bags for my kids after modifying the pattern so it has more holes for the suds to come out. Probably not completely necessary, but I think it looks better too. I really like the yarn I used, Hempathy by Elsebeth Lavold. I picked it up on a shopping spree with Ani.


And last but not least, I finally got these awesome shoe organizers hung. Ani made them during our last craft night. I hate that we live so far apart now. Craft night used to happen at least once a week, now it's more like once or twice a year. I miss you, Ani!

Spring Break...sort of (part two)

The second trip we took during spring break was to Lansing, to stay with the lovely Ani and family. We all went to Impressions Five Science Museum. We love this place! There's so much for the kids (and adults!) to do, from the water room, to the bubble room, to the light room, which oddly enough is a very dark place and so hard to get good pictures in. There's electrical circuits to build (Daddy's favorite part!), levers to compare, catapults to fling things, and pulleys to lift yourself or a friend with. It never seems like we have enough time there, they just about had to throw us out at closing time. We came home with model spaceships, a giraffe made from recycled pop bottles, a kit to make a soda/mentos fountain, and a rocket that, in theory, can be launched 100' into the air using baking soda and vinegar. So much fun and excitement crammed into one place!





Ani and I also went on a shopping trip to Joanne's and a LYS, of course, because we can never have too much stash. We then sent the husbands to the bar so we could get our craft on, only to find out that while I had packed a ton of supplies and even my sewing machine ('cause Ani's fancy machine scares me.), I managed to forget the machine's power cord. D'oh! The best laid plans.... Oh well, at least I managed to get some knitting done while Ani rocked out some awesome, but more about that tommorrow.

Spring Break...sort of (part one)

The kids had the second through the eleventh off of school for spring break. On the second it was 86 degrees, so we packed up a day early and ran away to Poppa's cabin in Mackinaw. We stopped at the cabin long enough to drop off bags, pack a picnic, and grab the grandparents. Ten minutes later we were at the beach (Lake Michigan). The water was still way too cold to be in. At least too cold for adults, the boys went in up to their knees anyway, even after Poppa told us that two weeks previously the lake had still been iced over. Still, the wind was minimal, the sun was warm, and I was at the beach. Luckily there were very few other people so the boys could run to their hearts content without me interrupting their fun, telling them to stop because their accidentally kicking sand on those nice people, or worrying that their getting too far away from me, too many other (maybe not-so-nice) people between them and me. Life is good at the beach. All peaceful and relaxing. Listening to the waves, watching the sand pipers doink about, looking for great stones and beach glass.


Saturday was cold and windy but I still had to go to the beach anyway. I may have been the only one who really enjoyed it, it was really windy. We celebrated Poppa's birthday with his favorite strawberry cheesecake.


Sunday was Easter and boy, did that bunny pick some good hiding places. Still, they managed to find all twenty-six eggs in around twenty minutes. The Easter baskets were a hit, especially with Mimi adding a large amount of candy. New t-shirts, bubbles, books, games, and tiny lego sets were greeted with excitement.



Two handmade additions to the baskets were Carrot Bags of M&M's and Chucks. The pattern calls them chicks, but mine came out looking more like ducks, so Drew and Ian dubbed them Chucks. Works for me.

Bands and Bagels

This morning I got to sleep in obscenely late (10:30!), I then had just enough time to quickly scramble an egg before attending the latest 'The Fox Band' concert, which the band members had graciously postponed until their sleepy Mama got with the program. Ian played songs on both the bongos and keyboard. Drew debuted a new original composition entitled "Foxes Are Mammals" while accompanying himself on the guitar.

Foxes Are Mammals

Foxes are mammals, they eat meat and hunt!
for animals for food to eat in spring

so they will not die to death
so they will never die

The mama will take care of the babies

so the babies will not die to their death
so they will never die


I just can't decide what to think about this song. On one hand, I'm glad my boys understand the whole circle of life theory. On the other, it's slightly disturbing to hear a 7 year old sing a song that seems so death centered. Neither of them seemed to think that there was anything unusual about this song and my parents had a hard time containing their chuckles during an encore performance this afternoon, so I'm trying to let it go and move on.

Husband and I made bagels together today. Mmmm, I love homemade onion bagels. Which is kind of weird, since I don't really like onions. Anyway, apparently I'm in a rather reflective mood today, because I realized just how well we can work together. Andy is a union electrician, sort of. See, he was laid off two weeks before Christmas 2008. So that means that for almost a year and a half we have been together all day, every day. Don't get me wrong we do have our small fights, but it really has been very good over all. I'm quite proud of us. Drew and Ian, of course, just love having Daddy home to play with all the time. And we eat much better with Daddy home to do the cooking. Our budget is squeaky tight obviously, but we have time to make things from food to furniture to presents from scratch and that, to me, is a very satisfying feeling.