coming home

Our little family spent two weeks in Utah, to greet my little brother coming home from his mission and to visit family.  Sometimes I get sick of the day-to-day routine and leaving (Virginia) is good, but I after a week I start missing the ordinary and coming home is a relief.  And then I am content for a while.

pencil roll/art show

I found this pencil roll pattern in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.  I simplified it and after learning a few tricks from a "test roll," I was able to whip up another in under an hour.  Maren is a little artist and spends a lot of the day drawing pictures and creating little masterpieces from various mediums, so her colored pencils have already been worn down.

 A few pictures I have collected over the past few weeks:

"Mice Eating Dinner"

"Rabbit"

"Sailors on a Boat"

"Dogs"

"A Rainbow"

Saturday morning/lip balm

Saturday morning usually involve Chris waking up early with Maren to make pancakes, waffles or french toast and letting mom sleep in.  Until just recently, Maren would usually wake me up every mornings by yelling from her bed, "MAMA!  OOOOHHHH, MAMA!" until I would stumble into her room and climb into her bed.  She's finally realized that she can come to me in the mornings!  Hurray!  I can stay in my warm bed and she crawls into my bed for morning cuddles and a little Frog and Toad.

 Maren and I made some lip balm today.  I took me two weeks just to gather all the ingredients and containers, but I am happy with the end result.  I used SouleMama's Peppermint Lip Balm recipe.  (Mine didn't turn out very "pepper-minty," but still good.)  I found these little Nalgene containers at REI in 1 and .25 fl oz. sizes.  The recipe yielded a larger batch than I anticipated and I ran out of containers so I ended up using my mom's tiny pottery bowls (as you can see below) which are cute in my bathroom.   I also discovered these new Martha Stewart labels at Staples.