Alt, liebt Hund

This past week we lost our dog Kato to old man-ness. We actually had to have him put to sleep because his legs just gave out and he wasn't getting better.

He was a really sweet dog, always just wanting love and cuddles. We got him when he was seven years old, but he was as much a part of our family as if we'd had him since he was a puppy. Really, the best dog you could ask for. He loved to sing Jingle Bells and Happy Birthday, I'll miss that a lot. He loved Luckie and the baby and followed us around the house all the time while Johnny cooed and laughed the whole time.

Kato-Bear, we'll miss you old man. Thank you for being such a cheerful part of our lives!!

Vier Monaten

Four month old Johnathan is a super special kid! Of course, haha..

He loves his Auntie:


He's always moving, moving, moving. I got him a little play gym and he looooooves it, he kicks it all over and is occupied for quite a bit of time :)




I love this shot:


But for now he's sleepy baby because he got a couple shots today.


We love him soooo much! He gets more and more fun everyday. He coos all day, I think he's trying to say "Heyyyy," something that is said all day long to him. He smiles and smiles and we love every single minute of him.

Sonnigen Tag

Look what I bought Johhny (who's four months today!). It needs handles and a rope pull, but it's really cool!


Proof that the sun shines in Deutschland!


It's a good thing, that so called sunshine. We don't see it here often in the winter, and it's driving me nuts... It's so rare that I frantically ran around the house taking photos of whatever just to get in some good light!
And now I share:


A seriously good stack of pancakes (a la Chris) and warmed blueberries...and maple syrup of course!


Tricia's haphazard and lovely dressing table. I think it looks a little boudoir :)


Johnny's rocking horse. His great-grandpa made it for Chris many many years ago and now it's been passed along.


The living room window! I'm wicked proud of all my ALIVE plants (three blooming orchids at once?!) and they really can cheer you up in the middle of winter. Even the hibiscus is about to bloom for the first time in two years.


A stack of new-old skirts I was able to work on this week, hopeful for spring. Some are shortened skirts, some are dresses turned into skirts and some are shortened dresses to wear over jeans.


The bazillion stitches on the new-old sewing machine.


The sun shining through our tablecloth curtains in the bedroom.


And this is silly but it makes me super relaxed; my new laundry system. Actually, the only laundry system I've ever had, heh.


That's right folks, our house has graduated from laundry living on the floor to sorted bins and folded clothing right out of the dryer! Well, for the most part anyway :)


Yes, the baskets are in the tub. We don't use it since we have a stand-up shower and it's the only place they will fit. You work with what you have, right?

Happy Thursday!

Makin'!

So, finally back to the sewing machine! Working on an extra special bag for a long-past-due trade. There is much more waiting in the wings, but for now there's this:


Just trying out my newly learned pleating and zipper skills. I'm very happy with it! I love the awful 70's colors :]

And for Johnny:


My dad bought him this cute hoodie for Christmas, but he only wore it once and then the season was over. So I reworked it into something Dad would still be proud of and would work for the remainder of winter/spring:


Yay Beatles! That piece of fabric is from a goody bag sent to me from Katie's four year old's birthday party ;D Cool kid, mine can only aspire as of yet, but now he's on his way...

And one more pair of sweater pants:


I like the cable knit on these ones. (I hate taking photos as night, the quality takes a wicked dive.)

I am really happy to be back at this. The baby sleeps well nowadays and so I think I'll certainly be able to get a few hours of sewing in a week. He's also very good at entertaining himself on the floor lately, so maybe even daylight sewing will be had!

:}

Really delicious roots.

I've been making an effort to buy most of our veggies from a farm down the road. On Friday I go and buy a handful of goods and then figure out the rest of the week how to use them. This has been interesting because it's winter. In Germany. Luckily they have avocados from France :) I also scored a huge head of cauliflower, which I normally won't touch, but it made a really good curry with saffron basmati rice.

Mostly we're learning about root vegetables, because that's what's left after the cold and snow come and the sun leaves for these many months.

Last week we had celery root and potato au gratin. This week it's beet, carrot and parsnip soup! I've never had celery root, parsnips or fresh beets (only canned and pickled) until now.


Pre-peeled roots...


Peeling the beets was by far my most favorite thing I've done all week, haha! It's been awhile since I could dig in and get my hands dirty doing anything (usually it's painting, but beets will do!). Did you know that carrots come in almost every color? I want to grow purple ones!

Tricia and Chris are being great sports with this food experimenting!

Beet and parsnip soup:

2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 parsnips
2 carrots
4 beets
5 c. water w/veggie bullion OR 5 c. veggie broth
salt, pepper
juice of 1/2 a lemon

Peel and chop the parsnips, carrots and beets, set aside.
In a large sauce pan heat the oil, add the garlic and onions and cook until soft.
Add the rest of the veggies and cook for 5 minutes stirring to keep from burning.
Add the water/broth, cover and simmer until all veggies are soft, about 30-45 minutes.

Spoon portions of the whole pot into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Return to pot and add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the lemon juice and serve :)

I made baked macaroni and cheese to go with this... Yuuuummmm....

Paper me!

We had a swell Carnival party on Saturday night, lots of fun, costumes and food! Yay! I wore a top hat, my sister was a fortune teller and Chris had tattoo sleeves, very strange to see, haha...
Thank you to everyone who could make it, it made for a very happy birthday! My sister is wonderful and I'm glad that Chris didn't have to work the next day!!

And then, there's this:


It's a wardrobe, full of these:


That, my friends, happens to be ME! My friend Angela is a great artist and she hand drew me into a custom paper doll with all the fixin's...


I've always wanted hair like that. I'm pretty exited that some one interpreted my hair as that hair, hehe...


See? It really is me!


And a snoozing Baby Johnny! (Freakin' AWW!!)


Can you believe the details? How cute is that? (Did you notice my leopard flame tattoo?! You can click on any of these photos to enlarge them and see all of the little buttons and stitches.)



I'm blown away, seriously. What a personal, thoughtful and unique gift! I hope she makes one for everyone she knows- I'd love to see what she can come up with! ;D

Woooo for art!!

Make Music, Not War.

I have a sadly unfinished sleeve tattoo on my left arm, as you can see in the previous post. It's got a music theme and I decided a few years ago that I wanted it to encompass all my favorite eras of music. The one unifying theme in all the music I love is that it all seems to be a sort of rebellion of its time, freeing new generations from previous uptight ones or protesting war and oppression. Not all generations are fortunate enough to witness change through music, but I have a lot of respect for those musicians in the past 100 years that were able to open hearts and change minds and stay true to their art. I was lucky to have parents who encouraged us to listen and learn and I'm hoping to pass that on to our son.
So here a few ideas I'd like to incorporate in my sleeve when I do finally get around to finishing it:

The instruments involved are super inportant.



Obviously in earlier music dancing was a huge part of it.






Then art became intertwined with music like never before...










And I think I need to throw some plaid in there for good measure! It's interesting to me how 'fashion' goes so well with music and always has.





It's not lost on me how these different generations of musicians sometimes down-right hate one another. Punks don't take kindly to hippies, that's no joke. My grandpa's generation thinks mine is noisy and crazy and quite useless musically, I'm sure. But each one has it's own something special for a time and then graciously (or not so graciously!) makes way for a new sound and message for a new crowd, and if we are fortunate enough to learn from previous artists we can probably hear what the new ones are saying and then maybe we can become more understanding of one another!



If it was good in the past, it'll still be good today! ;D

Winter and then some.

It never occurred to me that my birthday was in the middle of winter. But then, I grew up in Florida where we spent the first week of February sunning ourselves on the roof, not trudging through icy sludge and spinning our cars out on the slick roads. I know, surprising right? You'd never know I've ever gotten any sun with the lovely shade of pale I'm sporting these days...

Last week we got a healthy serving of snow, and then some more. Nothing like the twelve feet or so that my family in New Hampshire can get, more like twelve inches really, but still more than we've seen in our four years living here. It was beautiful and I managed to grab a photo before it all melted in the past two days.


Germany is strange in that all the fields and trees manage to stay green under all the snow, so when it melts it's like it just never happened...

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Here's the picture of Johnny in his Yoda hat that I promised:


I'm going to stop posting these on Facebook because then everyone gets a double dose and that gets annoying, not that you don't want to keep seeing my cute kid's face everywhere! If it's blog worthy, it stays on the blogsphere!

Like the sweater and sweater pants I managed to make in the past two weeks:


The sweater is crocheted for a friend's baby. The pants are made from the sleeves of a thrift store sweater that Katie sent me. It is wool and I just threw it in the washer and dryer to get it a little denser. I'll lanolize them so they are leak-proof. Warm pants that are waterproof? Handy for a cloth diaper baby in winter! Not to mention they are so adorably hippie!

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We are going to eventually teach ASL (American Sign Language) to Johnny. I think we can start soonish, I have to read about it a bit before we jump in.
Anyway, I found this great teething ring on Etsy:


It's from Little Sapling Toys and for every toy you buy they plant a tree :) It's one of his favorites so far, beside this, from Green Mountain Wee Woolies:


Nothing fancy, but they entertain him nonetheless.

Oh, and he gave up his pacifier! All on his own, just wouldn't take it one day and hasn't since. In fact, he screams louder if you try to give it to him, haha...

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Now, I leave you with a parting shot of the family, because I can:


Thank you Tricia for managing to crop out the out-of-season Christmas pants and Chris's BDUs! ;D