This game involves a few of my favorite things: handmade goods, creativity, and gift-giving. Here are the tagging instructions: The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It’ll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it’s going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer a giveaway to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

I hope that I have at least 5 friends that will do this!

Just had to post these adorable little baby shoes someone in our ward made for Eva. So darling! I just need to figure out how to make them now. She’s already outgrowing everything!

Okay, so now that I post it, I realize it’s not the best picture, but the soles are that suede kind of fabric, and the back is that same red color that’s in the flowers. SO cute.

And a picture of the girl.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just wanted to share our greatest discovery in the realm of Mathematics. Marshmallow Math. My biggest frustration with Homeschool is finding consistently useful and affordable curriculum. This is cheap, flexible, and most importantly… it’s working!

Read the rest of this entry »

Kim Chee
Makes approx. 5 cups

1 head napa cabbage
6 Tbs salt (approx)
2 Tbs sugar (I would make it a little less sweet, Conan likes it as is)
2 Tbs crushed red pepper flakes (according to taste)
1/4 tsp fresh ginger root, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2-4 green onions, finely chopped

This is loosely the recipe we followed, here’s the process, as Conan remembered from his Korean contacts while serving a mission in New Zealand.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just had to share. My little girl has the most adorable belly button!

And here’s her adorable face just for kicks

So, we’d had a fun grown-up party way back in 2002 celebrating the Chinese New Year with good food, friends, games… it was so fun I decided then and there I’d make it a tradition. I think we did have one in 2004, before Burke was born, but it’s not really been as traditional as I’d hoped. At any rate, sometime around mid-February, we had an Asian Celebration of sorts as a family. We’d totally missed the holiday, but decided to celebrate with good food anyway. The menu included Chinese Stir Fry, Korean Kimchee, and Japanese sushi. Here are photos of the kids making candy sushi. I’ll make a second post with a recipe and photos of Conan and I making KimChee.

Our Inspiration: Veggi Sushi. I think Keane tried some pickled ginger, but that’s as far as that experimentation went.

Read the rest of this entry »

So here’s some fun projects my kids have been up to…last year. I’ve had them ready to post for about that long, but never did post them. Ah, well. Life is life. Here they are:

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some photos from a Family Home Evening Night a few weeks ago. We went to play in the snow and visit our neighbor’s miniature horses. About a week before the miraculously “warm” weather, actually. And now it’s about the same temperatures again, and the snow keeps on falling. Pardon the somewhat blurry pictures. My camera does not like the cold, either.

It’s hard to tell, but they are showing off their snow fort. Read the whole article to see all the photos.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I thought we were looking at a miracle when it hit 50 degrees on Sunday and sent the boys out to play in just sweaters and scarves, then Tuesday we had a high of 60! If that’s not park weather I don’t know what is. I even took Eva outside to play. Well, observe from the baby carrier anyway! She would watch her brothers climb and swing and just giggle and gab… she’s already SUCH a chatterbox. Now if only I could catch it on camera… and figure out how to upload it.

I’m posting pics from Sunday, and Tuesday. Alas, last night it snowed and hasn’t really let up since. We’ve already got at least four inches.

Read the rest of this entry »