Attempting Soap Making

2020, great time to learn how to make soap, right?

Inspired by this tutorial, the ingredients I used are below and then I just followed the directions on the tutorial.

Orange Cinnamon Clove Bars

Ingredients:
-1lb. hemp melt-and-pour soap base
-couple of orange peels
-1 tbsp smashed cloves
-10 drops of cinnamon essential oil
-4 drops of clove essential oil

It seems to work great and bonus that you end up smelling like fall.

Halloween 2020

Family Zoom Party with games, siblings drawing names for Christmas and backyard (masked, socially-distanced) preschool trick-or-treating, all things considered it was a great Halloween.

Flannery declared it the best one yet.

Voting: Fall Craft Sunday Edition

Two Sundays ago, instead of our typical crafting we voted- yay! In Washington state we have mail-in ballots, so we filled them out and took the girls to drop them off.

Flannery and I spent the rest of the day watching Curious George Boo-Fest and writing postcards to voters in Florida from the Sunrise Movement. Flannery stamped 100 postcards and thought it was the most fun.

Once I saw this pattern I knew I had to make it. It was so quick and I’m in love with fence quilts now.

And one last thing….

New outdoor decorates

We have upped our game with the Halloween decorates this year.

I found some flamingos on Buy Nothing, skeleton spiders & skulls from the Dollar Tree and picked up spray paint from Target. Plus bought pumpkins anytime we were at Trader Joes.

Flamingo tutorials & inspiration can be found here and here.

Extra in love with our spooky and cozy house this year.

Goldie is One!

We are still here and still doing & making fall things. I’m gonna back track a bit and share some crafts from Goldie’s 1st birthday- yay for fall birthdays!

I have a tradition with Flannery where I make her a quilt of some sort for every birthday going all the way back to her actual birth day and so I wanted to continue with Goldie. I had an idea to make a quilt that represented her birth….

…. fireplace full of pumpkins & water. I feel like the message came through. Thanks to the Cricut I was able to cut the pumpkins and make the quilt label. (If you are looking for a great intro class into the Cricut- check this one out.)

Another Cricut project that got done was Goldie’s birthday banner.

Her party was simple and perfect- a few friends (masked) with music, bubbles & cupcakes in the backyard. I made a mini pumpkin patch for kids to choose from and paint, a nature wall (that surprisingly wasn’t a big hit), and cinnamon scented, pumpkin shaped playdough party favors.

Happy Birthday Marigold!

You were exactly what we needed and continue to be a bright spot in our lives.

Love you so much.

Favorites From This Month

Isaac and I have been busy trying to appreciate every second of our (much too short) autumn weather here in Michigan and I thought I’d share some of my favorite moments from the past few weeks.

Our favorite local farm stand, Bremer Produce, hosted a Sunflower Harvest Festival with all the free u-pick sunflowers and barn kitty snuggles I could possibly dream of.

We picked way too many honeycrisp apples at Moelker Orchards and made apple pie, applesauce, apple cinnamon mini muffins, apple juice, and fruit leather.

And we decided to escape the house for a few days and travel 30 minutes north to camp at Hoffmaster State Park where we hiked, read, fished, and nearly froze to death. We ended up getting rained out and headed home early but the colors were incredible and getting out of the house was much needed.

I hope you’re enjoying every bit of autumn wherever you are.

Halloween Countdown

I finished our Halloween Countdown Calendar (better late than never)! It’s a panel from Ruby Star Society by Sarah Watts.

Some of the things I stuffed ours with…

Candy (obviously)

Stickers by Pipsticks

Temporary tattoos (Dollar section at Target)

Mini bubbles

Calico Critters (I found this set last year)

And then I wrote out a few activities on fake leaves from the Dollar Store (pumpkin patch, rainbow leaf walk, carve pumpkins, spooky movie night, etc.)

Flannery is seriously so excited and I love a new tradition plus it makes me very happy to see hanging in the living room.

Halloween favorites to share with you!

Here’s a pretty fun and wide-ranging compilation of our most watched and loved Halloween themed movies, books, and television shows and specials, and where to find them. Our shared Halloween playlist follows, which I highly recommend driving, cooking, and kitchen dancing to all through October. Tag us in your Fall and Halloween dance videos and please share any of your own traditions with us on IG.
Happy Halloween!

Halloween Movies

Rosemary’s Baby 

E.T. 

Jaws (HBO Max)

The Orphanage 

The Omen (Hulu)

Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown 

Garfield’s Halloween 

The Birds 

The Dead Don’t Die 

Hotel Transylvania 

Goodnight, Mommy (Hulu)

The Shining 

The Addams Family (Netflix)

Halloween 

Halloween 2 

Pet Cemetary (Hulu)

The Monsters are Due on Maple St 

Nightmare before Christmas (Disney+)

Hocus Pocus (Disney+)

Beetlejuice 

Ghostbusters 

Corpse Bride (HBO Max)

Frankenweenie (Disney+)

Nightmare on Elm Street (HBO Max)

Edward Scissorhands (Hulu)

Young Frankstein (Hulu)

Gremlins (HBO Max)

Psycho 

Halloween Kids Movies

Monsters Inc. (Disney+)

Room on the Broom (Netflix)

Curious George Halloween Boo Fest (iTunes)

Toy Story of Terror (Disney+)

Coco (Disney+)

Halloween TV

Haunting of Hill House (Netflix)

American Horror Story (Netflix) 

Halloween Episodes 

New Girl - Season 2 Episode 6 “Halloween” (Netflix)

• Season 3 Episode 6 “Keaton”

Freaks and Geeks - Episode 3 “Tricks and Treats”

Friends - Season 8 Episode 6 “The One with the Halloween Party” (HBO Max)

Parks & Rec - Season 5 Episode 5 “Halloween Surprise” (Netflix)

• Season 4 Episode 5 “Meet ‘N’ Greet”

Parenthood - Season 2 Episode 6 “Orange Alert” (Hulu)

Boy Meets World - Season 5 Episode 17 “And Then There Was Shawn” (Disney+)

Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 2 Episode 3 “Trick or Treat” (HBO Max)

Wizards of Waverly Place - Season 3 Episode 2 “Halloween” (Disney+)

Stranger Things - Season 2 Episode 2 “Trick or Treat, Freak” (Netflix)

Suite Life of Zack and Cody - Season 1 Episode 19 “Ghost of 613” (Disney+) 

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Season 5 Episode 4 “Halloween V” (Hulu) 

Even Stevens - Season 2 Episode 11 “A Very Scary Story” (Disney+)

Bob’s Burgers - Season 4 Episode 2 “Fort Night” (Hulu)

• Season 3 Episode 2 “Full Bars” 

That’s So Raven - Season 2 Episode 2 “Don’t Have a Cow” (Disney+)

Raven’s Home - Season 2 Episode 16 “Switch-or-Treat” (Disney+)

The Baby Sitters Club - Season 1 Episode 2 “Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls” (Netflix) 

Gilmore Girls - Season 6 Episode 7 “Twenty-one is the Loneliest Number” (Netflix) 

Schitts Creek - Season 6 Episode 5 “The Premier”

Jane the Virgin - Season 5 Episode 1 “Chapter Eighty-Two” (Netflix)

Halloween Kids TV

Tumble Leaf - Season 402 “Trick or Treat Trek” (Amazon Prime)

Pete the Cat - Season 2 Episode 7 “Pumpkin Pageant” (Amazon Prime)

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - Season 2 Episode 7 “If You Give a Mouse a Pumpkin” (Amazon Prime) 

Daniel Tiger - Season 4 Episode “Katerinas Costume & Day Up Day” (PBS)

True and the Rainbow Kingdom - “Tricky Treats Day” (Netflix) 

Muppet Babies - Season 1 Episode 15 “Happy Hallowacka!” (Disney+)

Doc McStuffins - Season 3 Episode 18 “Hallie Halloween” (Disney+)

Mickey and the Roadster Racers - Season 1 Episode 15 “The Haunted Hot Rod” (Disney+)

Super Monsters Save Halloween (Netflix) 

Emily’s Wonder Lab - Season 1 Episode 9 “Spooky Science” (Netflix)

Halloween Playlist

And for less traditional, more Halloween vibes.

Bellewood Farms

After a week of smoke we decided to get out of town and visit our favorite apple orchard, Bellewood Farms. 

It’s a little less than 2 hours north of Seattle, but we originally discovered it because they make gin. Out of apples! 

Nothing says a good time like riding a little train to pick apples that are almost as big as your head, having a apple cider gin slushy and getting some mini apple donuts for the car ride home. 

It’s totally worth the drive, we felt safe and were able to keep our distance from others however there were visitors not wearing masks and it didn’t seem to be enforced.

On Sunday we took our apples and turned them into apple cake! Recipe is from the picture book, Apple Cake: A Gratitude. (Thank you for the book Nicole!)

Rain is in the weekend forecast which calls for pajamas, movie night, soup and lots and lots of crafts.

Fall Playlist

Happy Autumn Equinox!

Here is a collection of our favorite songs to craft, cook, drive, sing, and dance to over the years. You can find our playlists on Apple Music and Spotify (including some of our baby's favorites on Apple Music and Spotify!)

Sunday Drive

September, like the rest of this year, is so different from any in the past. Typically at this time of year summer’s free-for-all is winding down and we are becoming grounded again by September’s familiar pattern and routines. But suddenly we are missing the framework around which we are used to designing our time. This is affecting many of us in difficult ways. I have personally been struggling with the idea of attempting anything that used to be considered “normal” when every aspect of life is so out of balance. To cope I have been turning to the place that always provides restoration and inspiration: nature. 

It’s been a challenge to focus on our usual activities, plans and crafts. Schedules are off and so many moments of the day just feel weird and unmotivated. But Sunday a rare occasion arose to spend the day together so we took a short drive across the bridge and a couple of hours north and the magic thing happened where they just become little kids in the back seat again and for a fleeting moment life isn’t out of control and you have them so close and no one is moving out on their own in a couple of weeks to face a world that is literally burning and hating each other and spreading sickness, and leaving the rest of us behind to miss them with broken hearts. They’re just your babies and your best friends and nothing has to change. Not while you’re on the drive. Listening to the same fall playlist you’ve been listening to for so many years and laughing at the same memories you’ve laughed at a zillion times.

The fresh air, the change of scenery, and frankly the break from reality, was medicine. Another day that I will try to memorize and hold tightly forever. These moments will get you through. When it’s days on end with babies that you can’t entertain anymore, take their hands and walk them to the trees. Mama Nature will take over. When you want to hear their grownup hearts, just sit with them by the water.

Tahquanomen was beautiful and Superior was quiet, cold and gray. Just a few trees were turning. Our Autumn here will be far too short, but I gained a new determination to be physically engaged and mentally prepared for the changing season. Next week fall will officially arrive and miraculously the cycle will continue, even in the midst of injustice and a pandemic and natural disasters and so much hurt and heartbreak. There will be celebrations and goodbyes and another season of life will be upon us.

I hope that there are beautiful moments for you this fall. I know how hard life is right now. My family’s entire life changed during quarantine. We lost and changed jobs, we moved and our children are moving, navigating their own job losses and trying to adjust to a completely new and foreign reality. It’s difficult to focus on anything but the multiple ways our country is hurting right now, and I think that should be our focus. We’ve set many of our traditions to the side this year because they don’t feel appropriate for the times. But I do encourage you to gather with each other around what is good, to find rest and healing where it is available to you. I recommend the trees.

Harry Potter and the Half-Burnt Pears

After not being able to go all summer, Isaac and I decided to pack up the car and head to the drive-in for our fall activity of the weekend. We saw the first Harry Potter movie, complete with Hippeas and chocolate-covered banana chips. You know, typical movie snacks.

We woke up on Sunday and drove down to our new favorite trail to find some leaves for our craft. It turned out to be much more difficult than we expected as the leaves have barely started to fall here. Plus, I accidentally touched a slug. But it wasn’t a complete disaster, we eventually found what we were looking for and saw some really nice dogs.

For dinner, we made this recipe for Vegan Pumpkin Ricotta Stuffed Shells (god bless cashew-free alfredo sauce) and balsamic brussels sprouts. For dessert, we made a variation of these Baked Pears. Due to the fact that I may or may not have a tree nut allergy that is getting increasingly worse, I made a crumb topping for mine using flour, vegan butter, oats, cinnamon, and coconut sugar instead of the walnuts. It was all fun and games until we started thinking we could get fancy and put them on broil to get crispy and ended up burning most of the walnuts. Still delicious.

For our craft, we tried making some clay, leaf print bowls which are currently drying. We’ll see how they turn out in the next few days.

Fall Haul

Fall & Back-to-School shopping are one of my love languages. This year looked a lot different for obvious reasons but I wanted to share a few of my favorite finds.

1. These kid masks and shield is from Kira. Very soft and Flannery doesn’t mind them as much.

2. I used my Cricut and the SportFlex Iron-on to add her name on the outside for school. I have recently been labeling everything, which isn’t out of character for me but the Cricut is amazing!

3. New favorite shade of nail polish is called, Sweet Potato by Glamfro.

4. My custom rainbow chainstitch mask is from Daily Disco.

5. Leggings made from recycled water bottles?! Yes, please! The color I got is Marigold but the new fall colors from Girlfriend Collective are all wonderful. I’m adding a few things onto my Christmas list.

6. The most perfect shoes ever are from Keds x Jungalow.

7. Who doesn’t love buying new school supplies? I filled up our Little Free Library with all kinds of supplies but after doing so, I discovered the Wisdom Supply Co. and they specialize in zero-waste school supplies. My favorites for little hands are the Jumbo Pencils and the Stabilo 3-in-1.

8. These fall Jellycat stuffies are the cutest, our favorite toy store to get things for the girls is, Merci Milo.

All the Trees

A long walk for cinnamon waffles, collecting acorns, leaves and tiny pinecones was how we kicked off our first Fall Craft Sunday of the season.

Our craft was a process art painting on canvas, to create our own birch trees. I did a combo of these tutorials I found on Pinterest. For the paint, I did 2 tablespoons of baking soda, 2 tablespoons of liquid watercolor paint and 3/4 cup of water.

It ended with Goldie drinking vinegar, dumping watercolors on herself and screaming while Flannery continued to make little paint explosions on the canvas. Like a said process painting.

We watched Mulan (not a fall movie) and Caleb made delicious chili and cornbread.

My big idea for the week was to make fall ice cream cookie sandwiches. The cookie recipe were for these snickerdoodles by Sweet Laurel. We used brown sugar instead of date sugar on the outside. While we were making them Flannery had the idea to turn them into pumpkin shapes, this dough is super sticky but with a little extra almond flour we were able to roll it out between two pieces of parchment paper. The ice cream was from our favorite local shop, Frankie & Jo’s. They have this incredible seasonal flavor called, All the Trees and I knew they would be perfect together. I highly recommend both, separate or together.

(I am not a food blogger however this is the only vanilla extract you will ever need!)

Bucket List

We are eagerly awakening the arrival of our first Fall Craft Sunday tomorrow. We have been making plan all week but while we wait I wanted to share a favorite tradition, the fall bucket list!

While I love a good list, I’m happy to report that “Have a baby” is not on our list this year.

I have been using lists from A Beautiful Mess but decide to make our own this year. It was extra special because Flannery has very specific ideas of things she wants to do like, bob for apples and make fall puppets with googly eyes.

Download our Fall & Halloween Bucket list here. And don’t forget to share it with us. Happy planning!

Autumn Reading List

I formally declare that summer reading is overrated. Autumn is the optimal time for reading and I find myself getting through twice as many books in the fall than I do the rest of the year. I have to mentally prepare to transition to spooky books on October 1st and not a day later, which means that my autumn reading starts right now. My fall reading list is almost always a mile long each year but over the past few weeks we have all been compiling our all time favorite fall and back-to-school reads.

Autumn Books

Red at the Bone - Jaqueline Woodson

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

October Country - Ray Bradbury 

Anne of Green Gables - L. M.  Montgomery

Harry Potter - Anonymous 

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

Complete Tales and Poems Edgar Allen Poe - Edgar Allen Poe

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

There, There - Tommy Orange 

The Call of the Wild - Jack London

The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman

Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

 *We did our very best to omit any books that promote or glorify any sort of problematic themes but I do want to note that a lot of these books are extremely old and warrant a warning. My advice to you if you run across something even remotely offensive: scribble it out in your book and re-write something nicer. I’m sure the author won’t mind. 

Childrens Books - Autumn 

Sophie Mouse Maple Festival - Poppy Green & Jennifer A. Bell

Autumn - Gerda Muller 

Autumn: A Pop-Up Book - David A. Carter

The Busy Little Squirrel - Nancy Tafuri

Maple - Lori Nichols

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves - Julia Rawlinson & Tiphanie Beeke

Home - Carson Ellis

One Leaf, Two Leaves, Count with Me - John Micklos Jr. & Clive McFarland

Adventures with Barefoot Critters - Teagan White

Childrens Books - Back to school

The Girls - Lauren Ace & Jenny Lovlie 

They She He Me: Free to Be! - Maya Gonzalaz & Matthew SG

We’re Going to be Friends - Jack White & Elinor Blake 

You Matter - Christian Robinson

The Pigeon Has to Go to School - Mo Willems 

All Are Welcome - Alexandra Penfold & Suzanne Kaufman

When Charley Met Emma - Amy Webb & Merrilee Liddiard

Kindness Starts With You - Jacquelyn Stagg & T. Omaskat

Daniel’s New Friend - Becky Friedman & Jason Fruchter

Happy reading!

The Beginning

It’s been over a decade now since my family started celebrating Fall Craft Sundays.  It began humbly enough: gathering all five kids, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, around the table for a seasonally inspired dinner and dessert accompanied by an autumnal craft every Sunday from September through October.  At this point in our lives we were living in Tennessee, where our oldest two children were raised and our three youngest were born. Every year when Fall would roll around I found myself feeling a bit extra homesick, missing the crispness and beauty of Fall that I had grown up with farther north and, because I love Fall so very much, wanting to pull everyone closer and celebrate our time together in my favorite season.  In the same way that in the fall months you start to feel the year slipping away, I was keenly aware that our time together in one place as a large, growing family was also nearing its end. My stepson and stepdaughter, our oldest, were finishing their educations and making plans for their respective futures and frankly I was grasping at anything to hold us together for just a little longer. So I gathered a few fall craft ideas, planned a fall menu, coordinated a trip to our favorite local pumpkin patch and petting farm, and sent out the schedule. The first Fall Craft Sundays were born. 

Over the years our schedule grew to include most of September, October, and November.  We added Halloween crafts and as the little kids got older started a tradition of “scary” movies after dinner and crafts. Boyfriends and girlfriends and then fiances and eventually spouses started joining in. These were my favorite days of the year, every year. I knew that everyone would show up on these days, no matter what the family might be going through or how busy we were. They would come.  They started asking weeks- sometimes months- before it was time, what the schedule would be. What’s on the menu?  What crafts are we going to do? Savannah, especially, would gather ideas throughout the year to suggest. It’s become a tradition in itself to unbox past years’ crafts to set out as this year’s decorations. 

Thirteen years later, spread out from one end of the country to the other, Fall Craft Sundays are still celebrated in each family’s own way.  There are grandchildren that now watch designated movies each year and make handprint leaf crafts that are mailed across the states to Grumps and Gigi to hang on the fridge for the season. We are still making modified versions of old family recipes that remind us of the days seven of us squished around a table filled with piles of acorns and paints, string, glue, fabric or yarn scraps, pinecones, whatever the medium of the day was. Sometimes now I am alone on these days to watch a favorite fall movie or make a special dinner for just the two of us and work on my own fall project.  Or maybe one or two very big kids come over to surprise me for a Fall Craft Sunday, knowing that there will be a favorite meal to eat and a craft ready to make. My hope is that every Fall they will remember how happy and inspiring it felt to be together as a family for the season.

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I frequently had passing thoughts that Fall Craft Sundays would make a great book, full of recipes, craft tutorials, stories, photos, and ideas of traditions for others to adopt. But mostly a scrapbook of memories for my family and extended family to look back on. 

Given the current state of our country with a global pandemic it seems like the perfect time to extend this special tradition with others in hopes that it will bring you closer to your family as it continues to bring our family together.