Happy Halloween!!

Photo credit here!

Happy Birthday E!!

The last two years with you have been amazing! I love this little girl with all my heart and am incredibly blessed to be her mother. Here's a small picture timeline of my big girl!
Just 3 weeks before she came earthside

Brand new

Six whole months of awesomeness

One year old

18 months of love

And now she is two!! Happy birthday, love!

On the Brink of Two:

Sweet E's birthday is tomorrow! 2!! Here are some pictures I took tonight of her last night at 1.

It's a Cinch Head Wrap and Cowl

My dreads are loving these hair wraps I made over the last few weeks. It is the most simple pattern and I might even make some as Christmas gifts. The purple wrap was a modified version, using size 4 needles and much smaller yarn. It still came out adorable! Here and here are my ravelry notes.

You can find the author of the pattern's blog here. I love all her pretty things that even this thrifty mama can make.

E's Birthday Blanket

Little E will be two in a couple of days!! I cannot believe how fast these last two years have flown by with her here with us. It seems like she's been with me for so much longer than two years. I love that girl. Her and all her craziness. She is such a light and loves to make people laugh. A while back, I bought fabric to make her a blanket. A ended up claiming it, so I thought I'd better make her her own for her birthday. This time I wanted to make a granny square blanket. I've been eyeing them for a while and thought it couldn't be too hard. It wasn't and came along pretty quickly. I did 16 squares instead of 20, to make it a bit smaller. Here are my ravelry notes.

Fall Kitchen

During this beautiful month of October, we have decided to budget our groceries to $400 for our family of four. (Today we are right around $350.) E is still nursing quite a bit so her food intake doesn't make too much of a dent, but she still eats. Her favorite food right now is either balck, white, or garbonzo beans and brown rice with a bit of tamari and tahini mixed in. I love her style. Her and I eat off that for snacks and lunches. A is really liking fish since we reintroduced talapia to her this month. She's always loved it but we did not have any fish, let alone any meat or dairy. And Aaron will eat just about anything I cook, bless him.

So, this month I've been cooking a lot of grains, beans, and seasonal veggies. It's been good. Lots of soup, too. The great thing about soup is that it freezes so well. We are still pretty stocked in the freezer with soups, so if we get really low by the end of the week, we can do soup and homemade bread. Speaking of which, I bought flour in bulk this month! So, we should be stocked for bread for a while, at least until the new year.

I've also been trying to can and preserve some of the fall yummies. So far, I've made pickles, applesauce, and pumpkin puree. I'm still doing small batches of jam when I have fruit that will not get eaten. I love those little jars. What else has everyone been cooking?

Baby dreads

A week ago today, I gave myself dreads. I love them and cannot be happier with them! It's been about a year coming and I was actually going to wait a little bit longer but couldn't take it anymore. It was either dread or cut my hair, and since it was just starting to get long again, I couldn't cut it! After researching them, I realized that back combing them would take a few inches off as well. Then I came across this video, and decided to give it a try. I only lost about an inch using this method, (though will probably continue to loose a bit more as my dreads lock up.) And I put pretties in them already. The day after I did my dreads I put in some embroidery string to brighten them.

I'm excited for this new journey. So far, I haven't had any negative reactions to them but I haven't went out a whole lot during the last week. I'm a bit nervous though. I'm hoping this will be spiritual journey, with God teaching me patience, acceptance, & love. Patience as they grow, twist, turn and do their things. Acceptance in other people both on my part and theirs. And love; loving myself more and loving other people as much as I can.



Also, the maintenance on my hair is already considerably less! I wash them every 5-7 days and blow dry them. That's it. I get to wear pretty scarves that STAY in now. Oh, dreads, I love you <3

Oh, hey there!

So, I'm thinking about coming back to blogger. I tried typepad for a while, but for the free version, couldn't figure out how NOT to have a black background. And that get's depressing, ya know? And even tried tumblr for a bit. But couldn't get comments on there, and I like comments! I like hearing what other people think... well most of the time :) I'm going to try posting on here a few times before I make the commitment. Also, want to see if this is as screwy as I remember it was a year ago... so! Let's hope this works. I miss rambling on here.