Happy Day of Love.

Finally finished. Not a moment too soon, seeing as how today is Valentine's Day! Here's the tutorial I used. I thought it would be fun to use this idea for other special occasions or to just tell someone they're special.

Most of you probably know this, but for those who don't, the story behind the tiny little fire is as follows: On our first Valentine's Day as a couple Sam made me a card. Inside that card was a picture of a huge bonfire. The gist of the subtle message was he felt more than a spark between us...he felt "a Kansas wildfire" raging. Very romantic, and no beating around the bush with this one. It's fun to still be so in love with someone after so many years (8).

Oh, and thanks to Sam's lovely parents we are heading out on a double date tonight with our friends Dave and Ann Lee to Sunny Point's Valentine's 4 course dinner. Here's the menu. It's sick how good this place is.

Happy Valentine's Day and make sure you tell someone today that they're special to you.

It is finished.

Celebrating the boy!

Kedzie's airport backpack. More awesome than I thought it would be. It's huge on him right now but it'll do until he grows into it. He will actually let me put it on him and he'll walk around the house with it. Very grown up (but still adorable). I ended up just following this tutorial. It's written pretty well. I only had one major bout of seam ripping.

I didn't have an old pair of khakis so I ended up using an old pair of jeans that had made it to the scraps pile. I love how the seam of the jean is down the middle like a sweet little stripe. As for the fabrics, I wanted to use one of these fabrics (especially the sweet blue elephants) but decided I didn't want to spend money on fabric when I have a gigantic stash to choose from. Sam helped me pick out the manliest fabric I had and off I went.

Here's an inside pic.

When Kedzie wakes up from his nap we'll be heading to the goodwill clearance center to find some goodies to fill it up with. This will be his key to keeping busy while on our upcoming flight to Denver.

As for the recipe for the bread we Sam made the other day...it is a super detailed recipe. Awesome, but not good for blogging. When I say super, I mean 14 pages long with tons of pictures. I highly recommend the book if you're interested in getting into bread baking. Great instructions for the basic bread and then many other variations on how to turn the basic into things such as cinnamon rolls, pancakes, focaccia, etc.

n.

The Return of Craft

He's been lovingly dusted off and is currently assisting in a Valentine's gift for Sam. I'll say more when Sam is not looking over my shoulder.

Also, has anyone noticed the "celebration of boy" happening on a couple of blogs I follow? It's definitely difficult to find boy themed tutorials in this craft blogosphere. Most tutorials include ruffles and a dress of some sort. Anyway, these two bloggers have dedicated the entire month to boydom. Awesome. (Sarah, I can't wait to see what you whip up for your upcoming bundle of boyness!) Look here and here. I'm thinking about combining this and this to make a backpack of surprises to keep Kedzie busy on our upcoming flight to Denver.

Anyway, inspiration has struck and it feels good. It also feels good to not be nauseous 24/7...although the heartburn has kicked in.

Sam was also motivated to be crafty today and after some inspiration from Soulemama took to his favorite craft of bread baking. We have very expensive taste and prefer home baked bread to any type of processed bread. This leads to a much higher grocery bill as the bread we prefer is from either City Bakery or Annie's and runs anywhere from $4.99-5.49 per loaf. Yeah, we know, but so good. Anyway, needing to decrease our grocery bill without buying wonder bread we decided to take matters into our own hands. Sam, already having the Tassajara Bread Book on hand, read a couple chapters and got to work.

The results:

So large that no ziploc bag could contain it. Hasn't been tasted yet, but I'm thinking french toast in the morning. I'll let you know.

Perhaps we'll have to add this to the craft project to-do list.

Oh, and Kedzie is a walking fool. So proud of himself.

Thank you all for the well wishes about baby two. It's exciting and amazing and we can't wait to meet the little peanut.

Love, 

n.

Back at it.

Let's be honest. My posts have been few and far between. I want to keep up the regularity of posting, for myself to have this tiny online journal, but also for the both of you who actually read this thing. I miss writing and hearing from you all.

So, here are my plethora of excuses:

1. Kedzie and I have had the flu for about 10 days now. Not cool to watch a one year old vomit and not eat. 
2. I've been trying to pick up more shifts at work right now. They're extremely shorthanded so I'm trying to help out while still keeping a balance at home with peanut.
3. Our computer got eaten by a bear.
4. On top of the flu I'm 13 weeks pregnant! I've been much more nauseous than I was with Kedzie and have been non-functioning for about 3 months now. We are so excited! We heard the heartbeat last week. Our sister in law will be our midwife again.

Enough excuses. My flu/morning sickness has finally begun to die down and I'm ready to jump back into the land of the living.

Like we said in the last couple posts there is no update for January because we're donating it all to relief efforts in Haiti. We're also going to start working out how to somehow give monthly to Haiti. That's not been figured out yet.

Feels good to talk again. I promise to get back into the habit of blogging. It's been nice to hear from some of you and know that you actually read this stuff. As long as you keep reading, we'll keep writing.

Love, 

N. (& Kedzie who is sitting on my lap enthralled with fingers typing on the keyboard).

(gotta love Photo Booth!)