James' Birthday

James celebrated his 5th birthday this past Saturday. We promised him a trip to the apple orchard to pick apples.

It was a gorgeous day, and there were tons of apples. We all had fun!

Note David's hilarious pose:

There were some wonderful squashes to purchase at the orchard store:

And I couldn't resist this huge Cushaw which is destined to become pies, I think:

We happened to go to the orchard on the weekend of their Fall Fest, so there was lots going on. Suze came along for the ride and helped with all the kids:

Then James amazed us all by learning to ride his bike on his birthday!

Presents were so much anticipated that we had to do them before the cake:

Lightening McQueen is the star of the show:

At James' request we had apple cake:

We love you James!!!!! You are a sweetheart!

The Stove

My stove is fixed!!!! YAY!! Just in time too, because I need to bake a bunch of pies for company tonight.

Having felt deprived of nice, hot dinners in the last 10 days, I decided we needed to remedy that last night. We had pork and beef meatloaf which turned out a perfect consistency and had such a lovely savory taste (no doubt in part to the added grated apple and onion). This was accompanied by parmesan mashed potatoes and cauliflower roasted to crispy, golden perfection. And there was salad with avacado in it. Oh my! It was all SO good. Oh, and Rachel made baked apples for dessert, their brown sugar goodness enjoyed with pools of cream.

In case you are now feeling hungry, just think of all the dishes that were left and all the time it took to cook that. Oh well. It was worth it. It sure felt nice to have a hot dinner.

And now for a day of school and pie baking and tomorrow we celebrate the 5th birthday of James.

Knitting

Our first Knit Night of the season was a great success. Lots of knitting, chatter, and tea (or coffee) drinking.

My mom's cousin recently sent me this family picture of 3 generations knitting.
Isn't it wonderful?
Pictured are my great Aunt Jane, her granddaughter Lily, daughter-in-law Dayle, and granddaughter Ryan.

First Fall Purse

I finally finished the first of about 5 fall purses I started. :) We'll see how many get finished. I loved the colors of this one and if it doesn't sell quickly over on my Etsy site, I may just take it back to be my own fall purse. :)

Food, Etc.

A few more practice shots with the camera. Definately, this is what I need for food photography.

I made some pumpkin butter over the weekend. Very good. Very easy.

Practicing getting the foreground in focus and the background fuzzy.

We have a bowl of apples as our centerpiece right now. Very festive for this time of year.

The garden has done, overall, pretty well for it's first year. The beans were the best investment. I've picked about 10 pounds and paid only $1.69 for the seeds. Lots and lots of yellow tomatoes and one called Mr. Stripey.

And there were pictures of other people and things as well.

My stash, which needs some spare time from me to turn it into beautiful things.

Some newly arrived yarn destined for baby hats:

And my current wall board:

Now it's time for school and Michael and I are headed to see the King Tut exhibit this afternoon (and maybe we'll make it to the camera store?!).

Baby John

I've been having fun taking pictures with a friend's camera. Mostly I was interested in how it captured food, but I did try it out on my little nephew, John. He's so sweet!

So, it's now my priority to get to the camera store and find out just how much I can get and how much I still need to save for. :) I do want to post a few other pictures (of food) that I took while I had the camera. Unfortunately my oven is still out! And, it may not even be fixed this week! Ugh -- kind of hard too when I'm hosting a pie night on Friday night! It does force creativity........

Looking for September

I feel like I've been looking for September, and maybe today I finally caught a glimpse of it.

We've had the air-conditioning on to help with seasonal allergies, and the temps have still been climbing to 80 each day, so it's been hard to feel that cool breeze that reminds you fall is just around the corner.

Today I was driving my favorite "back way" and did finally feel like I was seeing signs of fall: harvesting, a few little leaves scattered on the road, the deep blue September sky, and the yellows beginning to appear in the forest and fields.


I love barns, and country scenes. I'm studying color for an art class next month and so I'm trying to notice it all right now. Green and red are complimentary colors -- is that why red barns look so nice in green landscapes? (Although I have to admit, this barn, in person, does have a distinctive pink ring to it.)

Every now and then there are a few leaves starting to turn:

Even the field of drying soybeans with the "disguised" water treament plant managed to look appealing today:

So I was glad of my little drive to help put me in the September mood. I suppose fall comes next week. A fall tea with treacle scones sounds so good to me. I'm a bit down by the fact that my oven isn't going to be fixed for perhaps another 10 days or so. It puts a big wrench in my schedule for what I needed to use it for in the next week or so, but I guess I need to learn to be content......

There's a big to-do list in front of me but somehow I just don't feel like doing very much - -fatigue, fatigue. Oh well. At least I think the kids got some good school done today. :) Have a good weekend!

Emily's New Job

My sister, Emily, has a new job! When she's not in class, or studying, she'll be waiting tables at Trader's Point Creamery! Yay! We are so excited for her. It seems like such a cool place to work.

I love going to the Creamery to see the cows being milked or just pretend I'm out in the country on a farm. The Creamery raises 100% organic, grass-fed cows. And their milk products are pretty delicious! (Think super delicious yogurt, ice-cream, cheese.)

Last Friday night Em and I took a quick spin up to check out their Farmer's Market and to sit down for a bit of ice-cream: a scoop of mango and a scoop of chocolate. The mango ice-cream is amazing! I wanted to have eaten an Indian meal prior to indulging -- maybe next time. :)

Anyway, the Creamery restaurant has a different menu each week night and I'm having so much fun hearing all about it from Em. Maybe one of these days I'll actually go eat there.....

Saturday Wedding

Saturday morning we attended a beautiful wedding outdoors.

The weather was perfect, the flowers and dresses gorgeous, and the people happy:

And the couple was happy too:

The reception was on a great big lawn, with plenty of room for the adults to sit and chat and the children to run and play.

It is always fun to see the rings:

And now the week is ahead of us. My oven broke over the weekend, so I'll be needing to sort that out. A broken oven is highly inconvenient, especially when one has a lot planned to bake! :) Hopefully things will sort out quickly.

End of the Week

Well, it's the end of the week. Thank you all so much for your kind words on the death of our uncle. We've spent the week keeping in touch with my mom and look forward to her return on Monday.

It's the end of the school week, which is nice too. We are taking Fridays for our history, art, and science day, since we just don't get those things done on other days. It does make it more of a day to look forward to.

Everyone is talking about 9/11 today. Eight years means that it was eight years ago that we were packing for Scotland and planning to hop on a plane the next day. Lots has happened since then. I am thankful that God is still in control of everything that happens.

I've been busy working on felted flowers -- all in fall colors.

Although I'm drawn to spring and summer colors, these are warm and inviting, and by some miraculous chance I found a yellow sweater last week!

I've also made 2 dozen minis. Yesterday I made some mini sunflowers (not pictured) which are too cute. These minis are adorable when put on hairclips.

I think I'm tired but there's still work to do and dinner to cook. We have a wedding to attend this weekend, so that should be fun. And a HUGE pile of ironing.......

Uncle Bill

William Arthur Winterbottom

June 24, 1946 -- September 5, 2009

As a family we are mourning the sudden death of Uncle Bill this past Saturday. After enjoying Maine's "nicest day all summer", rowing in the Yarmouth area with friends, Uncle Bill went home to his camper and apparently suffered a heart attack. We certainly would appreciate your prayers for my mom, as she mourns the last of the Winterbottoms.

I have many memories of Uncle Bill which include:

Waiting forever until Uncle Bill woke up in the mornings so I could bring my legos in and dump them all over the bed to play

The cooler filled with lobster and clams that accompanied Uncle Bill on his trips from Maine to our house in Vermont

Model airplanes, "dope" (glue), and balsa wood

Clamming in front of his house in Maine

Laughing with glee as we "cleaned the kitchen" using an open-topped vitamix, water and plenty of dish soap

Fishing off the coast of Maine and hitting a school of mackerel

Sailing to Jewel Island and camping there for several days

Good food -- always good food: real eggnog, smoked meats, lobster, clams, filet mignon, steaks, blueberry pancakes on the huge stove, clam chowder, taco feeds.....

Staying on his boat in Mattituck, Long Island where "everywhere you look there's a project"

Racing on Uncle Bill's sailboat and being scared to death the boat would tip right over into the water

Making funny commercials for Grey Poupon

Enjoying the holidays together this past year

Watching my kids get to know this funny uncle

Knitted Bear

I made this sweet little bear last week to give to a friend who is having a baby any day. The bear is from Susan B. Anderson's Itty-Bitty Nursery and is so simple to knit! The entire bear is made of garter stitch (knit every stitch) squares!!!! The only thing slightly difficult is sewing the bear together -- all it takes is a little time.

So, all of you Knit Nighters out there -- you might want to consider making one of these! They make great gifts -- and mine only took one skein of Cotton Classic.

Photo courtesy of Tammy -- thanks!

Spring to Fall

I decided to take my spring purse:


and change it around a bit for the Fall:

I'm not quite satisified with it, but I'll keep staring at it and see if I think of something else to do. I'm buried under piles of fall felted sweaters, trying to get an order of fall flowers out the door. Lots of fun......