Our Harvest Week Celebration

Last week we celebrated the Autumn Equinox with a Harvest Week Celebration, and a Harvest Feast!

Of course we had to decorate and add some festive harvest decor!

I drove an hour and a half round trip to get these great corn stalks. It was worth the trip!

All the large pumpkins pictured are from our pumpkin patch! Aren't they beauties?!

One of the crafts the kids made last week were napkin holders using fall colored beans and pasta. 

This is one of the place mats I made for the feast. Each child had their own using a picture I took that week. These were the cutest turkeys I've ever seen!

Fall themed games with leaves and pumpkins featured heavily through the week.

Some of the families brought in their harvest shares this week. Here's is a wonderful squash from Eric's garden. I can't wait to replant the seeds!

For the feast, everyone brought a locally grown garden fresh harvest dish to share. It was sublime!

Henriikka and Eric brought cheesy potatoes, using fresh potatoes from their garden, with a side of homemade salsa using fresh veggies and peppers form their garden. 

Laura and Joel brought a homemade raspberry cheeescake using fresh raspberries from Laura's dad's garden.

Jessica brought homemade applesauce and zucchini bread, while Kaelonnie brought homemade apple butter to spread on the bread, made by Tayson's grandmother.

Zach and Desi brought us fresh salad with garden tomatoes, a wonderful variety of veggies including bell peppers, apples, carrots and zucchini, with delicious hummus dip. 

Liz and Brad brought devilled eggs using fresh eggs from a local farm.

The kids were all so excited about the feast. They loved talking about what each person brought as they were eating and loved knowing where their food came from. Liz even included a whole egg to show the kids from the farm!

The feast and the whole week were so much fun to celebrate. Thank you to all of my families for your participation and help to make our feast such a success!

Getting Caught Up

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted here! I'm so far behind on all my home projects and blogging. I did finally get my Etsy shop back open and a few new items listed over the weekend. Here's a couple- aren't they cute?

Last year I closed my shop for vacation, only to never get back to it... for eight months. That's the life of a procrastinator, though. It just comes with the territory. 

But I feel good that I finally got my act together enough to finish a few of the projects that had been sitting in my craft room partially finished/started for months. There's still plenty more projects in various stages of completion but I'm feeling motivated enough to tackle them now that I've gotten a few out of the way. It doesn't hurt that I've burned through all possible good TV series on Netflix and Hulu and have virtually nothing to watch until the new Fall line-up gets back into full swing. 

In other news- Alex is getting bigger. I wish he would slow down. I'm feeling almost panicky at the very real possibility that he isn't going to be my little boy much longer. It's all happening too fast. The double digits are looming and I can't stop it. In three weeks we celebrate his half birthday. I have to bask in his boyishness as much as possible for the next six months. Then the big one-o arrives and it's just all downhill from there until he's in his twenties. Is it possible to go through the grieving process over your child turning 10? 

Let's see-  according to Wikipedia, Stage 1 is Denial- which I was never in because I knew this day would come. But denial of being in denial is ... denial? Right? So check for that one. 

Stage 2 is Anger- "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; '"Who is to blame?" Yep. All Check. 

Stage 3 is Bargaining-  "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..." Has Wikipedia read my diary? It's like they know my soul!

Stage 4 is Depression- 'It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed. Depression could be referred to as the dress rehearsal for the 'aftermath'. It is a kind of acceptance with emotional attachment. It's natural to feel sadness, regret, fear, and uncertainty when going through this stage. Feeling those emotions shows that the person has begun to accept the situation.' All righty. Am I disfiguring sad that my baby, a.k.a. my whole entire heart, is getting older and will soon be too big to hold? Yes! I mean, who doesn't want to die in a heap on the floor at the thought of their child leaving the nest (eventually)? But apparently I'm on the right track in my grieving process because the last stage, stage 5, is acceptance, and while I'm not almost there I can have hope because I could very nearly be close to there in the next few years or so. 

Moving on- 

Today we celebrated the Autumn Equinox! Happy Fall everyone! We call it Mabon, the Brits call it Harvest Festival apparently. There was a moment today when I was putting away dishes that I could envision a cold winter day, eating soup and snuggling up under a warm blanket and being happy in the moment of it. I am sad to say good-bye to my Summer, but I am ready to greet the new season with a positive attitude once again. I just really really really hope we don't get any snow this year. Or next. That's all I ask. 

And news about our pumpkin patch- I am sad to report Karma trampled the patch last week, breaking many main vines and killing a good majority of the main plant. An offense I very nearly disowned him for. But his crooked smile and doggie breath won me back over. Darn that dog and his doggie charms! Some of the younger pumpkins probably won't make it or mature past where they are now. I am hoping that the ones that already turned orange will be OK and will keep through next month for Halloween. The front yard pumpkin patch isn't growing as fast as the one in the backyard did. It doesn't receive as much direct sunlight there, and the temperatures are cooler now. I am still hopeful it will sprout some pumpkins for us by the end of October. 

Updates on the kitties: the momma cats are trying to wean the babies. The babies are doing their best to not be weaned. Isn't that always the way of it? The older litter turned 10 weeks old on Friday, and the younger litter turned 9 weeks old today. They still have a couple weeks to go before they can go to their new homes. I don't know how I'll feel when they all go. On one hand it will be much quieter and cleaner. On the other I've gotten used to them filling the house and bringing so many laughs and smiles to us. They will be missed for sure, but unless I'm willing to start a cat farm- which I admit I have given more than some thought to- it's better for them to find new families where they'll get lots of attention and love. 


I stayed up last night until 5:30am trying to see the stars and moon with our new telescope. After 12:30am passed and I realized I wasn't going to be able to get to sleep, I hopped up and decided to use the telescope for the first time. I didn't get any good views because I tried to assemble it in near darkness, worried I would wake Alex, so I assembled by feel. Not recommended. Oh well. Just looking at the stars and moon at those hours when you feel like you're the only person outside is always therapeutic. I'm hoping to have the telescope set up properly enough to be able to see the comet Ison in the coming weeks. It's due to graze by the sun in late November and I don't want to miss it as it travels past Earth. My geekery knows no bounds.