Wednesday, December 9, 2009

My New Purse

Mr. Ted went hunting for a week in the woods of Northern MN with the "Men" and left us girlies home on our own back in November. I usually go a bit crazy and do things like painting rooms, chopping down trees, etc when I am up late at night not able to sleep because he is gone.

But since we have school every day, I could not do anything too crazy. My whylie hair did get the best of me one day and I stopped at my favorite quilting store (with the girls, who ran around the store like wild Indians... I can say that because I am Indian, you know...). I picked out this awesome pattern by Amy Butler, called the Frenchy Bag and picked out these fun funky fabrics. I told myself that if I did not stay up and get it all done in one night, it would sit there for at least a year along with all of my other half done projects.

So, I sewed like a crazy lady until 2:30 in the morning and here is my result. I totally love my new purse and I just know you are going to try to steal it from me... Maybe if I can get another one done I will have a contest and you can win it... But don't hold your breath, we're still behind in Math, and there are presents to wrap, Christmas Cards to assemble, you know, you've got a list too!

The pattern has two sizes, this is the larger size. I like the smaller size too, it's just right for carrying a book or if you are a smaller purse lover. There are two large pockets inside, which I decided to sew down the middle of those and make into four pockets, which is perfect for cell phones, pens, etc! I may look like a grungy momma at the grocery store, but I have a totally hip Frenchy Bag now - watch out ladies!

Busy Beavers - Part 2

More pioneer food sampling... (Oops, I put them in backwards again! I'm too tired to fix it though...) These are Johnny Cakes, kind of like Hasty Pudding, but slightly different ingredients and then you fry them like pancakes. We ate them with Apple Butter and Molasses (both traditional pioneer toppings). We all liked them alot!
We went to one of the apple orchards in Southern MN and picked a whole bunch of apples to make apple sauce. Here is Emelia slicing...
And Hannah doing the stirring...
Hannah decided to make Mickey Mouse ears one day, and as you can see, she is quite proud of her new "do".

Busy Beavers!

I know it has been awhile... we've been very busy. The past two weeks we've been sick. Miss Hannah came down with H1N1, and then pneumonia on top of it! Thank you to those of you who have prayed for her. She has now had pneumonia 3 times in her life of 4 years, so we are learning now that we must be very careful with her when she comes down with anything. Thanks to Mr. Nebby (Nebulizer), things are looking up! And amazingly none of us got the H1N1, but I (Angela) have had a bad cold/sinus issues this week. It's really hard to get anything done when we are feeling so crummy... but here are some things we've been doing prior to being sick.The girls had a blast picking out things at the dollar store for the shoe boxes for kids less fortunate. Although there were a few moans about wanting to keep particular items for themselves :)
One day we made our own homemade ink with berries and wrote with feather pens, pretending we were pioneers.
Yummmy! Or is it Yucky? Remember Yankee Doodle? Well, the assignment on this day was to make "hasty pudding". And indeed, it was hasty, easy to make and according to Hannah delicious! (I have to say it was quite good with butter and maple syrup on it). Emelia was not such a fan of it, but was a good sport anyways. Another name for Hasty Pudding is mush, and the other day when I asked Hannah what she wanted for lunch, she said "MUSH!"
Oops, these pics got in the wrong order, but here is the final product - homemade bread!
Emelia and Hannah had a great time mashing and kneading it. We were suppose to share it with a neighbor, but I feared making someone sick, so we did the taste testing ourselves. It was great and we didn't get sick either (what a bonus!)
Making homemade play dough...
And in case you missed the great butter dance video, here's another shot of Millie doing the shaka-shaka-shaka!
Canoe's while studying the Native Americans. Did you all know that I am part Indian? I told the girls I am really Pocahontas. I think they believe me... Really, I am... but it is a really long story...
Science experiments, which Daddy loves to help out with. One bottle has yeast and sugar and one has yeast and salt. Guess which one releases the gas and blows up the balloon? You'll have to come to homeschool at our house to find out!
And now you are probably thinking what an amazing teacher I am. Not really, I'm just following directions in my lesson plans, and No, we do not have this much fun every day. This week I've been kind of a drill sargent since we didn't get much done last week. Hopefully we can dig out of all of this snow soon and get up to the cities for some fun with family and playtime with cousins!

about us

The West Ranch currently consists of Ted, head Rancher, Angela, Ted's right hand woman, and two busy little wranglers, Emelia and Hannah.