Throwing rocks in water is a favourite activity around here these days.

Some of my favourite bloggers always participate in I ♥ Faces so I thought I would give it a try too!

This is one of the pictures I took yesterday on our trip to the park. Such a cool log I had to pose the kids in there!

FOR TODAY…September 28th

Outside my window… it’s finally starting to feel like Fall. We are still having lovely weather but we had to wear hats and coats to go outside this morning!

I am thinking… about all the crafty projects that I don’t have time to start, let alone finish!

I am thankful for… a husband who treats me like a queen! And all the family time we have been able to have while he goes to school. Pure Heaven!

I am wearing… jeans (with long johns underneat! It’s cold!) and a purple(ish) t-shirt

I am remembering… that I should probably have taken something out for dinner earlier this morning…

I am going…to Costco this afternoon, we are almost out of wipes!!

I am reading… a book called Choosing Beauty, I have really enjoyed it so far and it has challenged me in good ways.

I am hoping…to finish my plans for the upcoming feast days tonight.

On my mind… something that I’m not quite ready to blog about yet.

From the learning rooms… we have been doing lots of outside stuff, trying to get outside as much as possible while we still can!

Noticing that… Mary

Pondering these words…“Fallacies do not ceace to be fallacies just because they become fashions.” by GK Chesterton

From the kitchen… I love fall cooking!! Lots of root veggies and apple desserts. Yum

Around the house…too much crafting/sewing and not enough cleaning… must remedy that this week!

One of my favorite things… planning! I have been making Christmas/holiday lists. Making lists and being organized makes me happy.

From my picture journal… is my I *heart* Faces entry… see the next post!

So I have been feeling really crafty lately, I have been making Mary things for our school time (more posts on that to come, I promise!) and it just kind of carried over… here is the playmat I am working on:

the garden:

the pond:Mary is having almost as much fun playing with this as I am making it, it has been so fun!

I absolutely love watching Mary play. She spends so much time sitting with her Little People sets and imagining. She is very much into playing real life right now so I often see one of her people sitting in the corner. She makes them practise saying please and thank you, they eat dinner and play hide and seek… I could watch her forever!

Have you heard of Evernote? It’s pretty much the coolest thing ever.

I love browsing crafty blogs and etsy for ideas. I find myself bookmarking tons of places thinking “oh, I could so do that!” I also love looking for recipes online, I rarely use cookbooks now. Most of the time though once I finally get time to do something I can’t find what I’m looking for and I have to search through my plethora of book marks to find it again.

Evernote has pretty much changed my life. You download it onto your desktop and then whenever you see something you like, like a recipe or a picture of a product or a tutorial you simply highlight it, and then drag and drop it into a new note. After you do that you can make up a tag for your note (like recipe, crafts, tutorial, etc.) so that next time you are looking for it all you have to do it click the tag and it’s right there! I have some things tagged with multiple tags, like this tutorial I have tagged under sewing, Mary, and Christmas. That way when I want to work on one of the presents I’m going to make Mary for Christmas I can find it right away! Evernote also keeps the website so you can go back to the original website very easily. It’s nice because when you see a tutorial or something you can just drag a picture of the finished product into a new note and you don’t have to save the whole thing.

Try it. It will change the way you bookmark things. You will love it!

FOR TODAY September 14th 2009…
Outside my window… It is supposed to be fall but I guess someone forgot to tell the weather! It has been in the high 20s and is supposed to stay that way all week!

I am thinking… About all of the fun stuff Mary and I have been doing during school time, she is loving it!
I am thankful for… my husband and
From the learning room… we are working on the days of the week and signing family words. We have been doing lots of fun crafts too.

From the kitchen… sourdough starter is on day 4! I am anxious to try the sourdough pancakes.

I am wearing… shorts and a tank top.. in the middle of September!!
I am creating… all sorts of things! I made Mary the cutest cape for Halloween with a matching headband. I have also started on a set of felt play food for her, felt is my newest obsession, SO fun!!

I am going… to play group with the kids tomorrow! I took Mary to the 3-5 year old room last week and she had SO much fun! She got to fingerpaint and play with playdough, she hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

I am reading… books about canning. I have some pears waiting to be made into spiced pear sauce this week.

I am hoping… that Luke will remember how to sleep through the night soon!

I am hearing… my son throwing a fit. Daddy just gave him a carrot to chew on and when Nathaniel went over to help him get a better grip on it Luke threw himself back and screamed like one of his fingers got cut off… someone has a bit of a temper!

Around the house… *sigh* chaos. Laundry has taken over once again. I really need to get it under control!

One of my favorite things… watching Mary play with her Little People when she doesn’t know I’m watching. She has quite the imagination that girl!
A few plans for the rest of the week:
Tuesday: play group
Wednesday: park play date
Thursday: photo shoot
Friday: picnic dinner!

Here is picture for thought I am sharing…
this is the cape and ribbons and barretts I made for Mary’s friend’s birthday this week.

Make these. Now. Drop whatever you are doing and make them. You will be glad you did.

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 4 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 5 tablespoons white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons chopped pecans (optional, I don’t like nuts)
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

2. To make the filling: In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until soft. Add egg, vanilla and brown sugar. Beat until combined, if you beat it too much it will get soupy and that’s kind of yucky.

3. For the streusel topping: In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Add butter and cut it in with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.

4. For the muffin batter: In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and add eggs, pumpkin, olive oil and vanilla. Beat together until smooth. (Or be like me and throw all ingredients into your mixer and then turn it on)

5. Line two muffin tins with paper cups. Fill each cup half full (not much more than half or it will overflow when it cooks, ask me how I know…) and then add approx 1 tablespoon of cream cheese mixture in the middle of the muffin and top with a spoon ful of streusel.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, mine usually are done in 20.

Yield: 24 regular muffins or 16 regular and 24 mini muffins. The mini ones are super fun!

As the first year of Mary’s life plainly shows I am very anti cry it out. Even when she was over a year and still getting up many times in the night to nurse I still refused to force her to stop. Yes it was hard and yes I was always tired but looking back I don’t regret it and I wouldn’t do anything different. She is now a well adjusted 2 year old who sleeps in her own bed, in her own room and has for months.

Luke on the other hand is a totally different ball game. At first I tried treating him like Mary: Nursing him when he was fussy to help him calm down and then to help him to go to sleep. Now he would get really fussy and upset before naps and before bed. I would try and nurse him and he would just get more and more angry. It was frustrating not being able to calm him down enough and it was taking forever to get him to sleep!

Well, a couple weeks ago it dawned on me… what if he just wants to go to bed because he is tired? Well sure enough next time he started getting fussy I took him, layed him in his bed and gave him his sucky… guess what? He cried for about 6 minutes and went to sleep.

This has been working for a week now and I’m still in shock every time I put him in bed. I didn’t actually believe there were babies out there who you could just put in bed when they were tired and they would go to sleep by themselves… but I have one! And it’s awesome.