The ol' homestead

Well yesterday Cowgirl Cutie was looking at some crafts and found a tutorial on an Ipod Nano cover that she really wanted to make. Since she really does not get much time on a sewing machine, she was excited to be here to make one. We looked through our fabric stash and she found some cute polka dot/striped fabric that she wanted to use. We then pulled out some purple felt and that was our 2 fabrics we used.

Two fabrics of your choice (CC used a printed cotton for the outside and felt for the inside)

Scissors.

2. Cut one 24 x 8.5cm rectangle from each fabric. Place right sides together, and sew almost all the way around with an 8mm seam allowance. Leave about a 3cm opening on one of the short sides.

3. Snip the corners and turn inside out through the opening. Use a pointed object (like a knitting needle) to poke the corners out.

4. Iron out the seams well.

5. With a 3mm seam allowance, stitch across the short side to close the opening.

6. Next, place your iPod pretty much bang on centre of your rectangular piece to determine where you need the opening for the lead to go.

7. Mark the opening and sew a buttonhole (notice we have switched sewing machines to use the vintage sewing machine buttonholer thingy.... that CC almost rolled laughing in the hallway but she finally came around to see that the thingy was really cool after all)

8. Fold at the buttonhole as shown in the photo. Insert one end of your ribbon about 2cm from the bottom.

9. Still with a 3mm seam allowance, start from the bottom and sew all the way around (sandwiching the ribbon between the layers), and thereby also topstitching the flap, until you reach the point where you need to insert the other end of the ribbon.

10. This is where it gets a little fiddly, but don't worry. It's the trickiest part, but you're almost done! Stop sewing about 3cm from where you need to insert the ribbon. Sandwich the ribbon between the layers like you did on the other side.

11. Making sure the ribbon is stretched taut across the fabric, sew until just before you reach the ribbon, then stop with the needle still down.

12. Now push the opposite side towards the presser foot, as shown in the photo, and continue stitching under the arch of the ribbon, until you reach the end. It's a bit fiddly, but you can do it! Now just snip off any loose threads. Add a button for decoration on the ribbon if you like.

Struttin' his stuff...

Isn't he GRAND!? Thats his mate in the background, he likes to strut for her.....

first he struts this way, then he turns and struts that way, then he spits pft pft pft, all for her, to impress her (I am not sure if it impresses her or not, but it does me, I think he is grand!)

my cow damaged cruiser

10 Reasons to LOVE Whole Wheat

1. It’s more nutritious, providing several more minerals, vitamins (18 more to be exact!), and natural photochemicals than white flour.

3. Get cleaned out. Whole wheat provides more fiber, preventing constipation & diverticulosis. The American Dietetic Association recommends 20-35 grams daily, the average American consumes only 12 grams.

4. Lose weight and keep it off! Whole wheat has a lot of fiber which has almost no calories, keeps you fuller for longer, absorbs 3x it’s weight in water, cuts absorption of calories, cleans out impurities, requires more chewing, and takes 1/2 as much to fill you up and takes longer to digest.

6. Lowers blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and risk of adult on set Diabetes.

10. Eating Whole Wheat keeps your body both emotionally and physically used to wheat.

Car cow tipping

The making of the snowmen...

Sour Cream Cinnamon-Sugar Candy Cane Twists

A week before Christmas and all through the house...

....and so this is christmas...and what have you done....another year over....a new one just begun.....

WOW, is it cold! I hope you are staying nice and toasty inside if you are having freezing temps and ice like we are. I have been going out to take water to the chickens and doing outside chores a few times a day as everything just freezes right back up very quickly. I would like to have a white Christmas but not an ice Christmas.

With Christmas fast approaching I have been working on the last few stockings.... this is one I did for my sister...

I have also been doing some crafts... the girls and I were involved in our yearly ornament exchange. We have done this with an online craft group for several years now and it is lots of fun. This is the ornament that Little Miss and I did. They are accordian folded pieces of paper that are put together to be a star. We then glued a button in the center and tied a piece of ribbon to hang it

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Last week we had a Christmas party for the girls in the homeschool group. We had 7 girls that brought undecorated cookies and spent the afternoon listening to some Christmas tunes, decorating cookies and just hanging out. WHAT FUN!

And we also had the big motorcycle incident this week...here is Big Miss' account of the accident...

>My brother Chris' car wouldn't start last night, so me being the sister I am, I took him to work. He had to be there at midnight, and he works in Pauls Valley, about 30 minutes away. So I'm driving down this, somewhat of a curvy road *cough* while I was talking on the phone with Zena, my best friend, which was probably a good thing because I was going slower than I normally would. Anyways, I was driving around "bend" and I see this... this hand reach out towards my car from the side of the road, now what I was thinking was "Oh, great! Another hitch-hiker" but just a couple feet from him was a, if you could call it, a motorcycle that was torn into pieces, I screamed and seen an old road up ahead. I slam on my brakes and turn my car around, which I’m sure there are black marks on the road where I turned around at because I heard my tires squeal. So I turn around and Chris jumps out of the car and checks on the guy, (for just a bit of background, Chris just graduated from college with a degree in Police Science so he has training in first aid and stuff like that.) Chris calls 911, which puts him through to Elmore City’s dispatcher. He’s trying to tell her where we were at and she keep saying "I don’t know where that is", for one thing a dispatcher doesn’t need to tell you that. Anyways, Chris comes up to the car saying "you go talk to him, keep him calm, while I talk to 911" I say "I can’t handle that! There is blood coming out of his head, Let me have the phone and you go keep him calm" so finally the dispatch gets the EMS directions, she takes my cell number and name in case they can’t find us. I’m freaking out and don’t know what to do, so I call Mr. Black (my pastor who is also on the fire department) and tell him, or I thought I told him- he told me this morning I was hysterical, which is probably not a lie! Mr. Black said he would head out to find us but to call him if the EMS arrived, which about 5 minutes later they did.I also called mom who later also said I was hysterical and tried to calm me down. Now, while all this is going on, Chris is outside with, who we now know is a 26 year old guy named Jesse. Jesse kept telling Chris that he wanted a pillow, so Chris took off his shirt and I gave them a towel I had in my car. Jesse kept trying to get up and Chris said "man you got to stay down" and he kept yelling for a cigarette too. I was so scared I was crying like crazy! I could see Jesse very well because I had my headlight pointed towards them. He had on a heavy Carhart jacket and there was blood seeping through it. He looked bad, really bad. So finally EMS arrived and looked him over and put him in the ambulance. About 10 minutes later, waiting in my car, we hear something, it was a helicopter! They Medi- flighted him! Just a little later we got to leave…

The next day, Chris and I go to the site of the wreck and there is already a vehicle stopped at the site, we ask if they are family and they told us that they were his cousin’s. They told us he’s awake and okay, they were waiting for a specialist to come look at his leg, and he cut it from the ankle to his knee, past all the muscle. It was bad so I’m glad I didn’t see it. They said the doctors said he’d lain out there for about an hour before we got there!

I feel like God had put us there and the right time. People keep saying we probably saved his life. Whether we did or not, I thank God for giving me the sight to see him and that Chris was with me because he knew what to do. <

SO this is what we know. Jesse has had a hard life so far and we are pretty sure the kids were put in his path for a reason.

These things don't mix:

curvy road

nightime

consuming alcohol

speeding

gravel on road

borrowed motorcyle

no helmet

He's lucky to be alive.

The breadmaking class has been really great.The ladies think they are the ones that are reaping the benefits of our breadmaking, but I tell you, I am really the one being blessed. They are all such sweet ladies and they all have the desire to improve the health and lives of their families -the Lord surely must be getting joy from them. In our last class, we made some honey whole cinnamon rolls, whole wheat pizza dough (and then made the pizza) and a pepperoni roll up -like our reuben bread (we had them for lunch!). Yum! Next I think we will make garlic/parmesan kaiser rolls and hamburger and hot dog buns.

This is Big Miss...

The big smile is because of this...

I am so proud of Big Miss this week as she got her final grades in and it looks like she made straight A's in all her classes. Her first semester in college with a 4.0 is certainly something to celebrate.

Till next time... blessings from our homestead to yours.

Girls Christmas Party

The girls had a great time a few days ago decorating homemade gingerbread men (and ladies) and sugar cookie cut outs.