We've Moved....

So as not to make Alice feel like she wasn't part of the show, I've moved to www.twolittlecowhands.blogspot.com

Mommy will be sharing crafts and tales and she'll be the voice of the blog.

Over and out, Clyde

February Fun...

Well, it's winter and we've got cabin fever pretty bad. It's been a little nicer this week and we've been trying to spend as much time outside as possible, at the park, the zoo, and the ranch. Alice and Clyde seem to have unlimited energy and it's hard to get them tired out.

This is Alice in a "hay cave". She loves eating dirt, playing in toilets, jumping in mud puddles, and dollies.

Clyde doesn't want to go anywhere without a rope. He turns every piece of string or cord in our house into a rope...

Josh and Tiffany, Mason, Hydee and Hanna came to visit us (along with about 25 other people) at the ranch to go for pony rides. It was good to get to see them and we miss them when they're in California.

It's not always fun at the ranch.... Alice is getting her eye teeth and these few weeks have been pretty difficult. She's very independent, determined and vocal.

Here we are at the zoo with our friends from Seattle.

What do you do with this?

Enough pork to feed Ben's family, and that's saying something! Day 1 is solomo (fried pork cutlets with roasted peppers on top)... any ideas for days 2, 3, 4, 5..... I think we'll be eating pork for a while!

I mean it, I'm serious

I know what I like and I know what I don't. I really can't wait until I get to dress myself.

Thanks for listening, Alice

Kids Room(s).... Done?!

So Katie (Ben's sister) made fun of my FB post in early January saying I was going to try to complete all my projects... she said something about my being too ambitious. Well, Katie, I was just trying to get them done so I wouldn't have any to do (I'm actually more lazy than ambitious). My mom came over for 8 hours and helped me sew and I finally finished my kid's room. Since then I've eaten lots of bon-bons, read the entire Twilight series and the first Hunger Games book, and spent too much time reading crafty blogs and not making a darned thing! It's getting hard not to start a new project, but I have to say those books were better than I had expected.

For those of you who haven't seen it, my kids live in what probably was an attic years ago (1oo to be more exact). When I bought the house it was the master suite, but the ceilings hit me and Ben in the head, so it was the guest room and TV room until it got remade into the kid zone. The main area is for playing, etc... Because the ceilings and the knee walls are especially low, it's really hard to get a good photo, so keep that in mind. Here it is:

This is the biggest part of the room, basically a big alcove at the top of the stairs. It's the play zone. We've loved this Nilo play table. It's super duper strong so when the kids climb all over it I don't worry. The shelf is from target.com. I like having things on a shelf instead of a toy box so the kids can see what they want and not have to pull it all out (of course they still do that, but it gives me hope that maybe someday they won't).

This is looking down the stairs. The door in the back is to the bathroom. To the right is Alice's alcove. She doesn't get a room, just an alcove. That's her dresser there. The quilt is something my brother got me in China in about 1992 or so. The print is from Land of Nod and my sister gave it to us when Clyde was born. It's an ABC print with cities from around the world.

This area is in the same big alcove as the play table and shelf. It's the reading/movie watching area. The ottoman is one of my finished projects. The guys at Mill's End fabric made me the foam cube over a year ago and I finally covered it with an old (and kind of cheap) quilt I had. It's a 20x20x20 square which I would change by making it a little shorter but still 20x20 if I did it again. The center of gravity's a little high and the kids often tumble off, but luckily our carpet makes for a soft landing. It's pretty awesome for putting my feet up though. On the floor is a cute blanket Ben's mom made for Clyde. I love using blankets instead of rugs for kids. I had a great braided rug in Clyde's old room (now our TV room), but it was really hard to clean short of taking it to the cleaner's when it inevitable got spilled or spit up on. Now I just use blankets and throw them in the wash.

This is the kitchen my sister Catherine got the kids. I tried to arrange the food, kitchen etc. so both kids could play at once. This introduced pink into the mostly primary color room, but I had been planning on incorporating a little pink into Alice's alcove, so it works.

This is Alice's alcove. The rosebud pillowcases were something I found on the ranch and have no idea where they came from, but they're old. They were the inspiration for a red & pink themed girl's room that would coordinate with our primary color scheme in the main area but give it a feminine feel. My mother made the curtains from a long insulated panel I got at Target. We used blanket binding and a cute crochet lace to finish them. The dresses turned out great and I am now recommending that everyone decorate their baby rooms with baby clothes. They hardly wear them, so it makes sense to get a little more use out of them! Free decorations - I love it!

Clyde's room was originally the master closet. When we put in air conditioning, the ducts were run through here. We had Ben's Uncle Richard frame around the ducts and make some shelves, a window seat and a built in bed with storage drawers. I sawed off the closet rods to make Clyde a small closet. Mom and I finally made the curtain a year later. The roman shade I made was so complicated with crazy dowels and ropes that I also thought might be dangerous, so I redid it with little ribbon loops that you just slip on two mug hooks. Safe and easy!

This is the closet. The fabric is some vintage cowboy print sheeting that I got on sale at Caledonia (a very nice but pricey fabric store on Americana). You can see the baskets are on a ledge that's concealing the ducts.

The lighting was terrible with the bright sunshine coming in, but here's Clyde's bed and window seat, great for reading him bedtime stories.

Now we're working on a cushion for the window seat, but it's really just a figment of our imagination for now. Hope you enjoyed the tour.

The Wises... dolly versions

I wanted to do something unique and thoughtful for my sister's family for Christmas. They have two small boys, so I decided that I'd make them some dolls, as that's something they don't have in abundance. Then I thought it would be fun to make dolls that represented their family. At first they looked like aliens, but after I added the hair it wasn't as bad. Meet the Wises:

Janelle is in her Asics running shoes, bike shorts and a tank top. Elliott and Harrison are in hand-me-downs from Clyde and Tyson's in khakis, Clyde's old loafters and a Carter's baby dress shirt. Making the khakis was the hardest part of the clothes. If I did it again the necks wouldn't be so skinny, but all in all it turned out all right.

Clyde got kind of attached to the Elliott doll before Christmas. He shared his toys with him and set him up to watch movies. It was really cute. We even took the Elliott doll to Clyde's ear tube surgery so he'd be there for moral support.

Christmas Shopping Guide (for reference for next year)

Do you have some small children on your Christmas list? I have resolved to get Christmas done ahead of time this year, so I thought I'd help you do the same with some helpful hints tor the little ones on your list (and their parents).

I'm talking about one and two year olds in particular since that's my current area of expertise. Here are my tips....

1. Go with something dangerous
2. Make sure it's something that needs cared for
3. Make sure that it's beyond a toddler to do the caretaking
4. Get something that has further equipment or feed needs and don't provide those

In other words, get them a pony! It'll be added work and worry for mom and dad, but the kids will love you forever and ever....

Meet Daisy, one of the two new additions to our family:


Alice still prefers just the saddle...

The second addition is our new puppy, Jigsaw, who is also a surprise Christmas gift for the toddler children. We do love both of our new additions, but we're just now getting over the shock.

Happy shopping!

I love Christmas!

The other day we went to our neighbor's house and she had a big tree in her living room. Mom says it's a Christmas tree. I wanted one too. Daddy cut one from the forest on the old railroad at Grandpa Harry's ranch. Mommy put on the decorations (and took this horrible fuzzy picture - the lighting was all wrong).



Mommy keeps telling me I have to be a good boy so Santa can bring me presents. I met him. I told him I want two small swords. When I was meeting him, someone made me a balloon sword and I was fighting... Alice didn't like Santa.

We got all dressed up and my sister looked so grown up!

I like to see all the Christmas lights too. We went to a big park where there were lots of lights and I climbed the mountain to see all of them.

Christmas is so fun. I hope I get lots of toys!

-Clyde

South for the Winter...

No photos because it's been a crazy week and the camera's still in the bag...

While not as long a migration as most birds, we have made our now annual migration south to the Treasure Valley. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with bits and pieces of both our families. Now for the unpacking -- arg! If you're in or around Boise, come see us! We had a great summer and a cold fall and we're ready to be back in civilization.

It's Officially Winter....

You know it's officially winter when:

New snow falls on top of old snow before it melts....
All the leaves are gone...

There are icicles....
The temperature barely gets up to freezing...

But how do you really know it's winter??? This is when you know:

When it takes 4 men and a tractor to get you unstuck, that's when you know it's winter!

In other amusing snow news, I was certain we had a prowler last night. I kept hearing these noises around the house and then when I woke up all the way at 2 a.m. I realized it was just snow falling off the roof and not a prowler.

Shipping Calves

So it's getting cold up here and now is the time we take all the baby calves away from their mommies and ship them off to sunny California where they can get all fat and happy (until they're sold again and wind up as T-bones). Mommy was in charge of weighing them this year. She got nominated for her penmanship, which isn't all that great but better than cowboys and old men. Here's one of our days...

The first truck, loaded and ready to go, with Jughandle Mtn. in the background.

Mommy's domain, the scalehouse:

Our daddy the cowboy on the white mare:

Now the mommies will stay here a few more weeks until there's too much snow to get to the grass. We're moving back to Boise in time for Thanksgiving. Our 6 months in the mountains is up for this year!

Halloween

Mumsy brought Clyde the kimono jammies from her Japan trip, so I decided to make him a panda mask. Total cost less than $1.00 and turned out pretty cute. Alice was given the darling bunny outfit by a family friend. Clyde was pretty excited about dressing up but still didn't get the concept of Halloween. We dressed up most days that week. They both of course loved getting treats. The photos were taken at a friend's place on Payette Lake. I tried to get some of both of them, but they're squirrelly these days!

Messy Eater and Other Food News

Alice loves to eat almost anything, but she doesn't always get it into her mouth...

Clyde is a kind of picky eater; this week he loves red meat and isn't as in to chili macaroni. The one thing he always loves? Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese (yah, I'm that kind of mom). I tried making it, but he wanted "the orange kind." Oh and yes, those are his jammies and that's lunch. What can I say, they're comfy and fashionable, so why put regular clothes on?

One of the guys that works with Ben gave us some venison (pictured) and some elk. So we've been enjoying that this week. I have to admit that I really don't find it appetizing until it's not recognizable.

-Laura

A night with Mumsy...

We got dressed up and went to visit Mumsy. She said we were so pretty and so handsome. She really liked my cowboy boots. She gave me my cowboy shirt. Alice was so pretty. She even had a bow. Daddy says bows are for girls. Mommy and Daddy went away and we stayed at Mumsy's house all by ourselves. I got to look at my playhouse and play a big drum. We even got to take a bath and sleep at Mumsy's. She read me so many books! It was fun, but I was really happy when Mommy and Daddy came to get me the next morning.

-Clyde

Auntie Shelley's house...

Clyde and mommy built two houses today. Mommy designed the bottom one and Clyde directed the design on the top one -- it's for Auntie Shelley!

Snow!!!

We were all pretty excited to see the snow this morning, but I'm awfully sad about our two previously beautiful cottonwood trees. The leaves hadn't even turned yet, let alone fallen, and the super heavy snow just ripped them apart...

Clyde was pretty excited and helped build a snowman that his dad named Peanut Butter. Clyde didn't like that one bit, "It's not peanuh butteh, it's noman!"

Alice was a little less enthralled with the winter wonderland.

Since it's gotten colder, we're running the wood stove most the day. It's obviously somewhat of a hazard. Clyde gets it and stays away, but Alice didn't understand, so Ben and Clyde built a "gate" - it's not JPMA certified, but it's working!