Love

It's been too long!  A lot has happened in the past month. 

We were down in the San Antonio, Texas area. And our daughter, Hannah, got married!  The wedding day started off with blue skies and midday we all gathered and at the end of the day good food, and a swim in the hot tub.  I have so many photos. Hannah made goodie bags with Korean tea, coffee and other delectables for all. Our new son-in-law is great.  He fed our little Elijah with chopsticks, I have a few photos of that. Elijah adores him. A visit to the airport where YunJae teaches, Landa park, walking around the historic Alamo, feeding the koi fish, the city streets, Mexican vendors (I bought a beautifully embroidered dress), La Panaderia bakery, an outdoor Christmas market, a few cafes. The time with all our immediate family, Olivia flew in from Cincinnati, plus her Godmother, my sister, and another sister and 4 of her kids, my aunt, met YunJae's brother and some of their friends.  Also, the warmer weather, palm trees, flowers + the Riverwalk there is lovely. We stocked up on groceries at Trader Joe's. I have missed living just 2 miles from one, the nearest is 1 hour 15 min. by car now. But really, our daughter now has a husband who I can tell really loves and cares for her and I trust them to build a good life together.

All that made for a fantastic trip, even though we found out that George didn't just sprain his ankle, but fractured his tibia, a buckle fracture which isn't awful, but he was unable to walk for a week. Overall, we had such a great time together.

We had the stomach bug, possibly norovirus, but are back to health, thank God.  Some friends of ours have had great struggles recently. Most of all is Deacon Jorge, who is in his 40s and has had brain cancer and serious surgery, his nose removed years ago + so many more little things.  His wife has become a good friend to me.  I hope I can be a good friend to her, because she and her dear husband deserve all the best.

It snowed this morning.  We have had quite a white fall and winter so far in upstate New York and I love it.  We went hiking in the state park near us this morning.  Looking forward to celebrating old calendar Nativity in 6 more days!

24th anniversary

I was 23 when I married my husband.  It's now 24 years later and feels like an extra special day, since it falls on a Sunday, and is also the same number date as the years we've been married!

Our daughter, Hannah, is now 23 and we are getting ready to go to San Antonio, Texas for her wedding!

We had our turkey early, as Thanksgiving falls during the Nativity fast, a 40 day period, where we fast from meat, as well as some other things.  I made cranberry sauce using dried, sweetened cranberries soaked in hot water and the used my immersion blender in the wide-mouth pint jar and just served from it and put a lid on it, to store in the refridgerator.

A few days ago, we woke up to at least 6 inches of wet, heavy, beautiful snow!

I made several pies, apple, pumpkin and hazelnut (instead of pecan). The hazelnuts had to be toasted, first. I poured them out on a tray and gave them a few minutes on top of our woodstove.  I make all my pie crusts in the food processor, either with butter, lard, rendered from our own pig's fat (can you tell I'm excited to have raised our own pig and have it as food?), or coconut oil.  I tried a gluten-free flour blend with lard, didn't turn out well, edible, yet crumbly.  So, overall, it's felt like a cozy fall, with savory foods and the wintry scenes from our house.

Crochet pumpkin

I found a tutorial on how to crochet a pumpkin last week and just finished it today.

https://brianakdesigns.com/pumpkin-spice-crochet-pumpkin-trio/

For some reason, I thought I'd do it in a day, but there are always other things I need to do.  She has 3 of different sizes stacked, which would be nice as a centerpiece on the table for Thanksgiving, if I can do 2 more by then. 

I used one skein of wool that I bought in Rhinebeck at the sheep + wool fest a few weeks ago.

All the leaves have fallen to the ground after a really lovely fall.

We also had another birthday in our family this past week.  

I baked a pumpkin and pureed it and have already made 2 batches of muffins with a sweet cream cheese middle and pumpkin bars, but am now hoping to make a savory dish with some, maybe pumpkin curry soup?

Baptism + cookies

I have a new Goddaughter, Mary, who was born in September and just baptized this past week. It's our tradition to have the baptism at 40 days.

So, as I did last year for our Elijah's baptism,  I made butter cookies in the shape of a baby like "matryoshka."

My favorite recipe for 

Butter cookies (this is the recipe my mom always used, about half the sugar that the average sugar cookies recipe calls for and they are scrumptious):

1 cup softened butter (2 sticks)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder

Blend butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together well.  Sift the flour and baking powder together and add to the butter mixture.  Chill for about an hour.  Roll it out to about 1/4" thick and then cut and bake at 425'F for about 5 minutes.  Allow to cool.  And then you can ice them!  ♥

Rhinebeck

There's a sheep + wool festival every fall in the town of Rhinebeck,  NY.  I was invited by a nun who weaves on a loom and wanted to go, but injured her foot and was unable to drive herself.

I took Elijah with us and he watched the llama, alpaca and sheep intently.  I bought some colorful yarn and was inspired! Many women were wearing a sweater designed by Andrea Mowry, but with their own color selections.  At 2pm they took a group photo on the hill there.  Such a great community feel! Here's the fest website:  https://sheepandwool.com/

We've had a few days of summery weather this week, although we did have a frost last week.  Yesterday it was 76° F and sunny!

Animals

We got a kitten from a friend today.  

Yesterday we had a nice surprise. One of our hens brought out 9 little chicks that she hatched!  I have no idea where, likely somewhere in the barn.  Over the past month, we loaded our barn full of bales of hay to feed the animals over winter.  We have 3 cows, about 15 sheep, 4 hogs, 6 bunnies, and now 3 cats, and over 50 chickens, if one counts the new chicks!  Most of them are not yet laying, either they're too young,  some are 4-5 months old, others are molting. 

I have been sick this past week and haven't had the energy to cook.  My husband ordered pizza one night. A video of Elijah with his 1st big slice of pizza to himself.

I am frustrated that I still can't seem to share photos here any longer.

ONE

Elijah is one year old and has done so many things lately to show he is growing and understanding. He signs for milk now, and I think he could have done it a while back, but chose not to, for some reason. Our oldest daughter, Hannah, took a course for American Sign Language (ASL). I know just a handful of signs, like thank you, please, more, all done, yes, no.  I'll try to teach him more.

George and Paul started pottery class which is once a week for the next few weeks. We are headed to co-op shortly.  I teach a nature study class to the 5-6 year olds. They are also doing gym and indoor swim lessons with other homeschoolers 1pm every Tuesday.  

Olivia has been working nights as an RN now. 7pm to 7am. Sounds like everything is going well.

Most exciting, Hannah is officially engaged to Yun Jae!  We are planning the wedding now.  I worked on the invitation, and we decided to order it not as paper, but a magnet with a photo and date.