flutterings

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping my mother in law( for dorie sake link on sidebar) in your prayers. As you can see from her blog, the Lord answers prayers.

Things are busy. But not quite as busy as they could be. My sister is getting married saturday. We are pretty much prepared. I have some last minute cake topper perfections to make but other than that it feels surreal. It is going to come and go, and be over. Its going to rock the house. And hopefully I'll be able to take some decent pictures worth sharing.

Samuel has more ideas than his 16 month old self can carry out. This makes for a very frustrated boy. Today he spent alot of time in uncle kyle's room. There he has learned to place head phone jacks in their respective homes, listen to music on an mp3 player, and wear protective goggles. For what I'm not sure, but he had a good time.

At 12.6 weeks pregnant, I think I might be feeling some phantom mini nugget movement. Its so slight I almost doubt myself. Only to then try to reconvince my unbelieving self.
It has been much to hot to cook indoors. So to the grill we go.

Barbecued Pork and Apple Kebabs

Serves 4

• 1/2 cup apricot jam
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for grill
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds (about 1 1/2 inches each) pork tenderloin, halved lengthwise and cut into 16 cubes
• 1 medium red onion, cut into 8 wedges
• 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and cut into 8 wedges

1. Heat grill to medium-high. Make the sauce: In a large bowl, combine jam, vinegar, tomato paste, and 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Assemble 4 long skewers, alternating 4 pork cubes with 2 onion wedges and 2 apple wedges on each (begin with pork and end with apple). Roll skewers in remaining tablespoon oil. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Lightly oil grates. Place skewers on grill; cover grill, and cook, turning occasionally, until grill marks are visible, 6 to 8 minutes.
4. Open grill; baste skewers with some sauce, and cook, turning skewers and basting occasionally with more sauce, until pork is no longer pink in the center and is nicely glazed, 4 to 8 minutes more.

wonderful weekend::would you?

We went away to Pennsylvania for the weekend. To visit future family and these wonderful congregants. Its always such a pleasure to see them all. Even though the time spent is short.
We always look foward to going back. Which could be sooner than we thought. They are having a St. Pastricks psalm sing this coming friday. I love psalm singing in large #'s. Which is pretty much anything larger than 8 people. Its edifying!! All thouse voices praising God is so glorious. Its reaches my soul I tell you. That reminds me, Sam started to sing amen at the end of hymns. Its great to see him participate in worship service. Even though its just a tiny bit. He knows whats going on for the most part. That is, when he's not causing a disruption.

We got to do some thrifting in lancaster county. Much better resources than we have locally.
I got Sam a bunch of stuff. Books and clothes, and found this for me.


Okay here it is. The finished project:

Here it is. One print/color of two. Of course minutes before we left friday afternoon I just needed to finish it so I could bring it with me. Don't you love a needle that breaks at just the right time? Two inches from finishing the last seam.
I've been working on the structure of this bag for years I hate to say. I have a mild obsession with totes. And their functionality. A bag can look really cute on the racks but if it won't stay up or you can't reach in to get to the goods without a fight, what good is it? So here is what I've come up with so far. Would anyone be intrested? I might have to put in the shop.
Click on the bag to see the other photos I took.

things that make me happy,

Before you get excited, I'm not trying to make a habit of posting everyday. It is completely coincidental, and subsequently will not last. Some things that make me smile:


snow, even when its not really enough to play in,


reading to Sam. These slippers, these little owls, this cocktail, this mop,
this fabric store, even though they will not ship to me, I know I'll get to go there someday.
And this issue of cookie magazine.

A new tote that will one day make its way into my currently empty shop, then hopefully into the arms of its new loving owner. Its taking much longer than I wanted it to. But that's because something was missing. It needed a special little su'um, su'um. Thankfully I have found it and have continued its progress. I should post some pictures, but it might be more fun if its a surprise.

elephants

How unbelieveably cute are these thank you notes?
I tend to buy lots of grey and orange for my son. And, he happens to really enjoy elephants. His grandparents got him these guys that now sit in his corner of the room. I think this would fit in well with his growing collection. You can get them here at sparkability.com And while your at it check out all the other sweet goods they have to offer.

Well the party on saturday went splendidly. I'm always nervous when providing any kind of entertainment. Will my guests like the food? the music? Will they be bored out of their minds? Well, I think they enjoyed the food at least. Which consisted of Baked macaroni and cheese, coissant panini and mesculun greens salad with gorgonzola and dried cranberries. The dessert was cupcakes cookies and this decetent creamchesse tart my husbands mother makes. She puts fresh blueberries, peaches and almonds on top.... Yum. I was happy when the party was over not stressed. Sucsess!

I'm sure some, if not all of you are wondering about my empty etsy shop. Zero items listed; zero items sold? Yeah I'm working on that. I've kinda hit a lump in the progress of some upcoming goods. When will I be done, I can't give any definites because I have none. But sooner than later is the goal.

one year

At this time last year I couldn't believe what my body had gone through and accomplished. God had given us a precious gift. It all seamed so unreal. (It kinda still does actually) But he really is here, he really is ours, and its really been a year.

todays agenda:
frost cupcakes
get ready for house guests
finish painting Mr.jude's bike

5 things that make me happy:

1. This company. I mean, who doesn't want to preserve the earth for our childrens, childrens, childrens, childrens, childrens,.......

2. My little Samuel. Realizing the challenges of parenthood were more than eye opening. Faceing challenges like discipline, picky eating and naplessness are quickly forgiven and forgotten by a freely given kiss and hug. I love you little man!

3. I have these glasses from ikea. I have way more than my share of fun serving everything from milk to martinis in them.

4. Avalon organics lemon clarifying shampoo. Smells so clean and natural. I love using this product on my dreadlocked hair because it doesn't leave any residue. And because I love smelling like fruit.

5. even though I don't actually own it yet,... My birthday is this saturday.

We spent the day at Whole foods and Ikea gathering goods for Sam's birthday party. I still have to go to Costco for my bulk organic foods. But I got all the decorations and paper goods. Now all I've got to do is make some last minute decorations, and cook. While searching around yesterday we stumbled into joann fabrics. I'm not usually impressed with thier prints but for some reason, this store, (not our local joann) had this print, yes both colors in stock. I've had plans for it for a little while and its been sitting in my shopping basket at purl for months.. Something is wrong with my brain because I didn't buy any of it. So, I'm going to need to go back.

we never change

I wanna live life, never be cruel,
I wanna live life, be good to you.

I wanna fly, never come down,
And live my life,
And have friends around.

We never change, do we?
We never learned to leave,
So I wanna live in a wooden house,
I wanna live life, always be true,
I wanna live life, and be good to you,
I wanna fly, and never come down,
And I live my life, and have friends around.

We never change do we? No, no,
We never learned to bleed,
So I wanna live in a wooden house,
Making more friends would be easy.

O I don't have a show to say,
Yes, and I sing of a single day,
We never change do we?
We never learned to leave.

So, I wanna live life in a wooden house,
Making more friends would be easy,
I wanna live where the sun comes out

henri luc

Is teaching Sam to speak french.
( My sad litlle version of an amigurumi.)

sushi

I made california rolls and pad thai for dinner tonight. It was an experiment that turned out surprisingly well.
We are harsh food critics sometimes so I was kind of hestitant to try it at all. It takes time to make because of the rice. But it was relaxing. I thought about karate kid 3.( or was it 2?) Remember Daniel's love interest? The pretty japanese girl? Yeah, it made me think about her ceremonial tea preparation. . Time consuming yet productive. Very productive.