sweater

Here is Maeve sporting a new sweater, knit by grammy.  cute!

Just look at her eye brows - is that John's expression or what???  Seems a little devious, doesn't it?

Beautiful & so much more.......

excavator widow

I am an excavator widow. 

in the bath tub

Bathtub time is Daddy's job around our house most nights and they sure do have fun.  Maeves favorite bath games include peek a boo through the clear shower curtain (she thinks this is hilarious), pulling the lever that turns the shower head on, and reading her Sandra Boynton bath book.  Here she is enjoying her tubby time:

Through the door

Maeve likes playing in our room.  Here is is through the bedroom door.

Walking video

Maeve has this walking thing pretty much down pat.  Yes, I know there is a plunger in the background, story of my life!

10 months

Little Maeve is 10 months today.  I plan to take her 10 month photo this weekend, but in the mean time here is what she is up too these days:

1.  walking like crazy!
2.  getting into things she isn't supposed to.  If I turn my back she is off to climb the stairs or play in Griff's dog food bowl
3. She has 4 teeth
4.  She had her first cold
5.  She says Dada, mama, roar, uh-oh, nana
6.  I hope I am not jinxing myself here, but she is sleeping better! yay us!  All I can say is that it has been a long 10 months in the sleep department
7.  She loves her train toy (one she sits on and it has wheels so we can push her around the house - it also makes GREAT train sounds).
8.  She loves books.  Her current favorites are 'have you ever tickled a tiger?' and 'llama llama red pajama'. 
9.  I put some photos in a photo album for her a couple weeks back, she loves looking through the photos of 'her people'!
10.  I would not describe Maeve as a particularly enthusiastic eater, but, she does like yogurt, tortellini and Cheerios. 

big brother griffin

Griffin seems to adjusted to his role as big brother.  He gets less attention, less exercise, and is left behind at home more often - but on the upside, Maeve leaves him lots of table scraps (mostly on the floor).  One of the first things Maeve does each morning is crawl, well now walk, over to see Grif in his bed. 

Here Griffin watching M and I outside.  He sits very close to the car so as not to be left behind. 

bringing the outside in

Our weather this November (so far) has been nothing short of amazing.  60 and 70 degree days that are full of sun.  Earlier this week Maeve, my mom and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to bring some of the outside in.  We gathered red berries, hydrangeas, pine cones, pine boughs, balsam boughs and spruce boughs too.  We filled baskets, vases and window boxes for the winter months ahead. 

Peek a boo!

popcorn balls - a family tradition

My earliest memories of popcorn balls are actually Halloween related.  A neighbor, Isabel, used to give them out on Halloween (followed by the neighbor that gave ice cream sandwiches - we were lucky kids!).  Over the years popcorn balls have become a staple at the farm during the holidays.  Some years it is Thanksgiving week, some years Christmas week, this year it was Halloween weekend (hey we had a snowstorm, what else were we to do?).  Lizzie was very excited about the prospect of making popcorn balls and we had been talking it up for weeks.  This year she even got to help us shape them.   I can't believe I didn't get a photo of the finished product, I must have been too busy eating them!

Recipe for Popcorn Balls:

Make a big bowl of popcorn (for us it was 2 batches from the popcorn popper)

Then we doubled this old family recipe:

1 Cup molasses

1/2 Cup sugar

1/2 teas salt

1 Tab butter

Bring to hard ball stage (about an hour)... stir constantly.

A few notes:  this is an old recipe and it doesn't take anywhere near an hour to get to the hardball stage, I wonder if the quality of heat from modern stoves makes a difference.  To test, we drop a few drops in cold water, if it stays in a ball and hardens up as it drops to the bottom of the glass, it is ready. 

Pour over the bowl of popcorn and stir/mix a bit with a couple wooden spoons.  The candy is VERY hot! 

To form balls, wet hands with cold water and dive in!  I rinse with cold water between forming each ball, this helps keep the candy from sticking and helps keep me from getting burned by the hot candy. 

Thats pretty much all she wrote!

Solar PV

John has been doing quite a bit of Solar PV work lately.  Here are a couple photos of recent off-grid projects.  I find the off grid stuff pretty interesting, mostly because people who live off the grid are usually my kind of folk.  Also they live in the most remote places - places practically in my own back yard that I never knew existed.  Even though I don't do any of the 'work' per say, I find it fun and often a bit of an adventure to drive down a road that really doesn't look like a road, as I make my way to these project sites for a photo op.   

our little lady bug

Maeves first halloween! She was pretty sad about the whole thing at first, mostly because her naps earlier in the day were less than stellar.  We persevered and made it through the evening relatively happily.  We stopped to see Grammy/Grampy and went to Nana's. Then went to the firehouse where John was serving ice cream with the other firefighters - a local and very popular tradition.  It was great fun to see all the neat costumes and connect with some friends that we see less than we would like now that we are all busy with young families. 

hand me downs

Thank goodness for hand-me downs - am I right?  A couple weeks ago friends, Paul & Jane, brought us a couple bags of beautiful clothes that they dragged back after visiting their granddaughter - all the way in Ohio!  One of the great things about hand me downs, is the variety of clothing.  Check out this adorable dress - so cute!

I think she likes it!

Grammy helps