Weekend Highlights

Friday night I finished my first crocheted piece where I actually followed a pattern. I read and understood all the abbreviations and directions and ended up with this loose cowl, or neck warmer. It is super comfy and I think I like it more than the scarves I have been making lately.

Saturday, Nana and Pop came to visit. We are trying to see Nana and Pop at least once a month and even that seems too little, but we make the best out of the time we can be together.

Nana and Pop brought Seth a crinkly Baby Einstein book which he absolutely loves. Seth loves to read. We can sit and read several books at a time without him losing interest. I love it and he seems to love it! Seth has been playing with this book all day today. He loves the crinkly sound that it makes, but I think more than anything he loves that he can gnaw on it.

Local Bounty: Jerusalem Artichokes

This week I picked up some Jerusalem artichokes at the O'Daniel farm. I have never tried Jerusalem artichokes and I actually didn't even know what they would look like when Seth and I went to pick them up. Well, they look like this:

They are actually a species of the sunflower plant. They are also called sunchokes or sun roots. These are the roots. They do not come from Jerusalem and they are not actually even an artichoke. Strange name, I know. You can eat these raw, sliced thinly and added to a salad, or they can be cooked. When eaten raw they had a hint of a carrot taste but other than that they were pretty bland, basically they could just add a little bit of a crunch to a salad. It was recommended by the O'Daniel that I slice them very thinly, add salt, pepper, and olive oil, and then roast them until they were soft. That is exactly what I did and the taste changed quite a bit. They tasted like a mix between a potato and carrot, similar to a parsnip. They were not bad at all, but I will probably pass on this one from now on. I am glad that we tried it though.

A Day at the Park

Yesterday after we finished playing 18 holes of disc golf we headed over to the playground so that Seth could have a few firsts.

First Time in the Swing

First Time Peeking through the Window (or whatever this thing is)

First Time Sliding Down the Slide (with Daddy)


We had a fun afternoon at the park!

Homemade Moby Wrap

I like using slings, carriers, etc. when I am out and about because Seth is getting heavier and heavier by the day and carrying him in his baby car seat is getting harder and harder (for me). I like using my Infantino baby carrier when I go out, and I mostly use a ring sling when I am at home. Sometimes the Infantino baby carrier gets uncomfortable if I wear it for a while and it jiggles Seth a lot when I do a lot of walking, so I knew I had to find something better to use when doing lots of moving and walking (like on a disc golf course). I came up with a homemade Moby wrap. Homemade because it is super easy to make and very, very inexpensive. I tried it out today on the disc golf course because the weather was so nice and Seth and I loved it! Here's how to make your own:

1. Purchase between 5 and 6 yards of jersey knit material. (I purchased 5 yards and probably should have purchased 5 and 1/4 yards but five yards still worked. I bought jersey knit that was 50% cotton, 50% polyester. It provides just a little bit more stretchiness. It was $2.00 a yard, but Wal-mart had some designs for $1.50 a yard.)
2. Lay your fabric flat and fold it up so that you can cut it down the middle lengthwise. Once you do this you will then have two wraps that are 5 yards long.
3. Go to the Moby website and learn all the different ways you can use your wrap.

Local Bounty: Brussel Sprouts

This week we lucked up. I am a huge, huge fan of brussel sprouts and was very sad to see that they were not included in the weekly produce email sent out by the O'Daniel's. When Seth and I went to pick up our order though, there were two bags for sale. I was so excited.

All Things Go In The Mouth

We have entered an "all things go in the mouth" stage around here.

Seth likes to suck, chew, and gnaw on just about anything
like...

fingers,

toys,

more toys,

Mr. Cow,

Mr. Pig,

and even the dreaded thumb.
Taking the pacifier away at 6 months old is probably not going to be a big issue. :)

Busy Making Scarves

For the last few evenings I have been working hard on these latest creations. One hot pink scarf for a friend and another scarf for my mom to wear with her black coat (an excuse to practice making another scarf). They were both mailed to their new homes today...

and sent with lots of love. :)
(Nana, this was Seth's way to send a hug and maybe a little bit of drool too.)

5 Months Old

Seth is 5 months old today!

He is such a sweet, loving boy!

He is very inquisitive.

Each day he appears to become more and more like a big boy...

but we still treasure him being our baby boy.

Feeling the Love

When I was still teaching, there was a house that I would pass by twice a day, once on my way to work and once on my way back home, on my hour commute. I absolutely loved this house. There really wasn't anything all that fancy or fantastic about the house, but I could tell that the family that lived in the house had fun. Every holiday, and I mean every holiday all the windows and doors were decorated. It was decked in ornaments and wreaths at Christmas, hearts were dangling from every window as Valentine's Day approached, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, Independence Day, you name it, it was decorated. I always loved passing by it.
I am not too big on decorating the outside of the house unless of course it involves flowers, but I love to decorate the inside. In hopes of making my home feel as fun as that house on Covington Street, I thought I would find easy ways to decorate for SOME of the holidays and each season.
Here's how we are feeling the love at the Tillery household in addition to the heart garland:

Heart cookie cutters on red ribbon above the kitchen sink.
I felt cookie cutters were appropriate for the kitchen. This could become a trend.

Felt roses and red tealight votives (also used at Christmas) on the mantle

I traded in my coffee beans for heart candy in the glass candle holders on the dining room table. Heart candy is cheap. :)

Last but certainly not least, the heart shaped candy inspired candy dish that was given to me a few years ago by a student.

Water Damage

My attempt to save money by utilizing the local public library has failed. Yesterday I received a letter in the mail stating that I owed $26.95 for a book that I had recently returned to the library. If you know me at all, you know that I treasure any and every book. I absolutely love books and have thousands of them that I have accumulated throughout the years. The letter did not say why I owed money for it, but I had a hunch. On our way back from one of our recent trips to Jackson, I noticed the bottom of my bag, that was holding my books and yarn, was wet. Bryan's new-to-us car had a leak. It was good to discover the leak, but bad for my bag of books. The bottom right corner of my library book was damp, not bad, but still damp. The next day, the ink where the library stamps their name on the outside of the book had bled just a little. The pages weren't crinkly, you know how they can get when they get wet, well they weren't like that. So I didn't think much about it at all. I sure didn't expect to have to replace the book over some ink bleeding on the outside. Keep in mind, none of the print on the pages where you read were affected at all.
This morning I went to pay for the damage I had caused which was way more than if I had just bought the book anyway. I had also bought the Kindle version because I wasn't quite finished with the book and I could not renew the book due to a hold on it because it was requested by someone else. I read fiction pretty fast, but not nonfiction. So, now I own two copies of the book, one very nicely protected library version and one electronic version. Maybe I should just stick with reading the books I already own or can get for free, because the whole library thing is not too cost efficient.

I-Spy...

I spy some eggs...

I spy some eyes, or potato chips, or pencils...

I spy a finished quilt!!!!

That's right, my first real quilt. Sewn, quilted, and bound. I definitely learned a lot about quilting during this project and let's just say that this I-Spy definitely has a lot of character (in other words, mistakes), but I hope that Seth enjoys it in the coming months. I have learned that quilting takes a lot of time and hard work. I learned that I really need a walking foot. I found out after I had quilted mine that some of the bunching and struggles I had, would not have happened if I had invested in a walking foot. I learned that quilting definitely takes practice and I can't wait to get started on something new!

Nap Time

Just in case you haven't seen clip from Modern Family that I was referring to in my post about establishing a bedtime routine, here it is:

Snow, Snow, Snow

Friday evening the snow rolled into Bowling Green. We ended up getting between 6 and 7 inches at our house which was actually the second snowfall that we have had this winter. A few weeks ago, we had a light snow and didn't get a chance to let Seth experience it then. I don't know what we were thinking!

So this time around, we wanted to document the experience. Bryan decided (before letting me know) that he was going to walk out on the front porch and let Seth feel the snow really quick (no kidding it was less than 20 seconds probably, so don't get too worried about Seth not being bundled up). I grabbed the camera as fast as I could and this is what I caught. Seth was not so fond of the the freezing cold white stuff. I have a feeling he will enjoy it more as he gets older.

A little while later, we tried touching the snow again with Seth sporting his cute winter hat. He still wasn't so sure about it, but at least he was willing to touch a snowball.