love these!

how long has hallmark been doing this? where have i been and why didn't i know?

they are carrying vintage fisher price toys as ornaments. and knowing hallmark, they probably have had different ones every christmas. oh, a collection of these would be so great on our 5' tall white vintage tree....maybe we should have a toy tree... how fun!


but wait...need a great gift for a girl on the go? these are a stellar present.






anything that uses i.p. freely in it's description is noteworthy! you know how much i love bust magazine! here's their description :


"I.P. Freely! Now you can pee all you can pee without copping a squat. Just take the flat cardboard cone and press down until it pops open, then press it over your poon and you'll be able to pee standing up. Perfect for camping, festivals, bus and plane bathrooms. One pack contains 3 biodegradable cones."

oh i know some ladies who could get a lot of use out of these!

omi and cake

jasper, my mom and charlie brown at the hague in norfolk, virginia

i have been really missing my mom a lot lately... . she was so full of love, happiness and spunk. she was beautiful and creative. she loved animals and had a bunch. she would hold my hand walking down the road. she held my husband's hand in our wedding pictures and hugged my friends. she always sent me care packages after i left home, even as a grown up. she drove 13 hours to stay with me when i had bronchitis and walking pneumonia. i was married without children but she came to take care of me anyway. one of our favorite things to do together was get a coffee and people watch. wishing i still spoke german so we could converse without other people able to understand us. she loved jasper immensely, she had a rule to not go longer than 2 months without seeing him when we lived 5 hours apart, carried a picture book with him that she constantly added pictures to and when she moved to the same area as us we had a standing weekly lunch date. before i knew i was pregnant with marley she knew. and before we found out what our new baby was, she and jasper knew she was a girl. sadly she died rather suddenly when marley was only 7 weeks old. the last picture taken of my mom was holding marley when she was born. it took me years to stop the habit of wanting to call her, i still slip up. last weekend i decided to drive to eugene to get some things that i knew would remind me of her, some yummy german food. i knew from years past that the world market store carried some of my favorite traditional german cakes, christmas stollen's.

mmm.... dense, slightly sweetened with yummy almond paste in the center.

they also have a great selection of marzipan in various shapes (almond paste candies), our favorite candy by haribo (best gummy worms!)

bummer though, they did not have our favorite kind. the ones in the center bottom.

and the dense pumpernickel bread i grew up eating and continued to eat at my mom's house.

very dense, thin and super healthy. mom loved it with a little butter, thin slices of meat and some gourmet cheese. it didn't bring back her laughter, but luckily we have movies for that.

A letter to the Sun

Dear Sunshine,

I really want to write you an apology letter. I complained about your heat a lot when I lived back East. I totally took you for granted. I did not appreciate your warmth and brightness when you were around me all of the time. You were there for me every day. And now, things are so different. Lately you only come around for a little bit every day. I know from last year that this is how our relationship is going to be for the next 8 months! That is such a long time, and it makes me so sad to think about it. I worked really hard last year to not think about your absence. I shirked your importance, what was I thinking? I am so sorry. I can't believe I told people that I thought I could live with you in my life less than you were. Please accept my deepest apology. I realize now how happy you make me feel, even if you are outside and I am inside...I feel your presence, I feel happier, more creative and not so down on life's little things. I am only going to think of you in a positive light from now on, I promise. Again, I am so sorry Sun.

Sincerely, Kat

i'm a winner too!

hello my bloggy friends, how is life? my part time jobness took off this week with a bang! it's good because the money helps, and i have to say even though they are both physical jobs they're fun and change every time. i am working in catering and housekeeping. i am looking towards the future as well and am going to attempt to take the g.r.e. soon, know what that is? the gradute entrance exam for graduate school. see, now that i have put that out there in public blog land i have to follow through, or be publicly humiliated. i have pangs of feeling sad about how hard it will be to craft, but i just look toward the future.... and regular stability. good things like that. and have no fear, i am still knitting, and doing little side jobs with that, bonus! (thanks kari!)

i did have the rug pulled out from under me halloween morning. i am fine but if i allow myself to i get very caught up in trying to figure out how half of my life has become a big blurry smear with no clear information. it only affects me, not my siblings and not my sweet little family, so i am trying to keep perspective, and not get too caught up in solving a big mystery. the truth is, it may never get solved.

that is where i have been, oh and sitting in karate class. my little man literally thanks me every time he goes for bringing him. he loves it, and especially loves the self-motivation involved in it. i think the family who runs the business are amazing, and so it feels good to merge lives a little with this love of karate.

you know what the best thing is during the craziest times? good friends! i have had several therapy sessions on the phone over the past week with some great friends and family and i want to say a very big thank you, i love you all dearly and am so appreciative that you let me work through things my way, which is talking and talking and talking about it.



and then to top it off, a dear friend attended the angry chicken book signing for her new book, won the loot at the give-away, and got the extra book she won signed....FOR ME! i'm a winner too, i never win these things and carolyn included me in her winning. i love my friends, it's so nice to be thought of. thank you, thank you! i cannot wait to see the book and try a few projects, maybe for christmas.

happy halloween!

i have worked like a mad woman to complete pieces of the star wars outfits my kids are going to wear! jasper is going to be a jedi and marley is going as princess leia. i'm not a fan of totally store bought outfits, and i really enjoy seeing pieced together outfits. jasper loves his jedi robe, marley and the cinnamon buns on her "hair" is more of a love/hate relationship. i think it feels very weird for her to have that weight on the sides of her head and over her ears, my holy buns isn't it cute? you cannot princess leia without very BIG buns, it just wouldn't be right! i found an adult pattern for sale on ravelry for the entire hat and buns to be knitted, and tried to wing the hat myself for a child. not the best idea for me considering i have never made up a pattern before, so i frogged it a lot. i just couldn't wrap my brain around how many stitches was best to cast on and when to start the decreases. i would work on the hat generally when she was asleep, not so smart, it's a little hard to jam a hat on a person who is laying down, ha ha! it worked out though, and my light bulb moment for the cinnamon buns came on a day when i had worked and was beat, and she wanted to dress up for a school related night at a pizza place. it was a mad dash to finish, i was trying to knit tubes to stuff and then spiral for the buns. feeling like i was going to cry, i then remembered that i had some brown tights that i would willingly sacrifice for quick buns (hardee har har!) i cut the legs off, stuffed them and sewed them by hand onto the hat. they were a hit! she has the perfect brown boots, a white hoodie and a friends' white dress...perfect!

for jasper i found this pattern online for a quick sew jedi robe. sure, sure it could be quick if you don't attempt to work on it with 2 excited 10 year olds running into the room every 5 minutes to see if you finished yet. and if you remembered that in the picture they show how to cut for an adult robe so you should allow for more fabric under the arms and on the side for a child's robe! and when you decide to use the fabric you cut off for extra panels you sewed in to make up for that mistake, you actually knew what you were doing. but having to sew for a 10 year old is very forgiving, he loves it. the make shift "under clothes" should have been sewed with a much thicker fabric than i bought (i bought muslim, it was the cheapest). it bunched up way to easily, it still works though. all he needed otherwise was boots, which we scored at the thrift store for $3. what a relief, and since halloween is such a well loved holiday here, they will have 4 opportunities to wear these costumes for this halloween alone!

without more delay... i give you jasper the jedi and princess marley/leia!

colorful craziness

aren't the colors this time of year just amazing? i find that i am amazed and so thankful every day when i drive around here. this weekend we got to experience the beauty of oregon on an even different scale, we headed up to black butte in the cascade mountains. first we had to drive up through the willamette national forest, then we were in the deschutes national forest. the hoodoo ski resort is up there too. we oohed and ahhed the short 2 hour drive. we stopped our car driving to a park because the views of the 3 sister's mountains and mount washington were taking our breath away! plus i think it was a little challenging for chris to drive with the camera going off in his face every second. he has been anxious for me to see this part of oregon since we arrived here, because he and our friend drove into our new home town that way. it was the beginning of may and there was still snow in the pass. mountains are so powerful, so strong and really make us all feel so connected to the history of our beautiful country. enjoy the photos!

oh bento boxes!

packing lunches can be such a drag to me. i like different things than my kiddies and most things i would be stoked to have in a lunch are just not appealing to them. i have non-sandwich eaters too, so i knew that going into another year of packing 10 lunches per week, well 5 lunches and 5 snacks, would be a challenge. i had seen bento box meals on flickr, and mentioned on various blogs and had felt really drawn to them recently when lunch boxes were coming back with most of the food in them!

we're such visual beings aren't we? it's all about presentation and perception. and i just plain 'ole like being creative so coming at packing food in a new and unique way holds a big draw for me! i have been scouring the flickr bento box groups, which has led me to some popular blogs, which has led me to some online shops. i am totally digging the cute way the japanese shape hard boiled eggs, cut foods into shapes or just present food and condiments. i feel very inspired and have tried utilizing the few items that are available to me in a small town until i have the money to make some online purchases...oh, i have my lists ready!

this is a snack with yummy bread cut with pumpkin cookie cutters, seaweed facial features, the mushroom is bake it pretty, the silicone cups are from michael's, as are the bright picks the grapes are on and the cucumbers are cut with star cookie cutters. i left the cheese stick wrapped because marley likes to unwrap them!

this is part of jasper's lunch...the cups are the same from michael's, the deer is from bake it pretty and the stars are seaweed punched with a star paper punch.

i have also been checking out different sections of the grocery store to explore unique food like these japanese rice crackers with seaweed, the kiddies LOVE them, in an above picture are some shrimp crackers. here is edamame, a fruit leather i took out the wrapper and curled and stuck on a pick!
i have to say that i have been very pleasantly surprised at how happy the kids have received their artful snacks/lunches. they tell me how they show their friends and they get all excited and tell me they enjoyed their star cut cucumbers for example, but want them cut a different way the next day! bento box meals are meals in a box, but they also cut down on waste from lots of separate packaging. everything i have bought is totally reusable, really for lots of uses not just lunches! i went to michael's and got the silicone cups which are normally for baking, and colorful picks for the same. i picked up a few cookie cutters and use a paper punch for seaweed shapes. i really hope that buying food cutters vs. cookie cutters may be a little sharper. i also want to compare the price of the seaweed punches vs. paper in the craft store! i totally dig the condiment containers, sauce bottles, and fake grass at the online shops. so fun, i am really looking forward to exploring new and unique ways to pack lunch and present it!

i have also searched out the few american books there are, right now i really have my eye on 2




after checking out the online shops i am thinking i can use my silicone ice cube trays in fun shapes from ikea to make rice shapes... hmm...wonder what else i can do? ;)