TreasuresInTerraCotta

And if you come visit the house with all the muddy boys, you just might get a little muddy...even if you are a dainty girl. 

My blog has a bit of an identity crisis.  Am I a craft and garden and recipe blogger.  Or am I a kid and family and homeschool blogger.  Or, on the intellectual side, maybe I am a book review blogger or a contemplative Bible studier blogger.  Or perhaps, I just blog to keep family and friends updated on my little life.  All of the above and probably a few more, too. This week, I have sewing on the brain.  I planned an "enrichment activity" (AKA a sewing project) for my Texas-friend who had never used a sewing machine.  We happily sewed away an afternoon and a morning.  We made a simple potholder using a few different sewing techniques and tools. We made a potholder like this one.  Which, by-the-way, I made when my Colorado-friend was visiting.  In that scenario, she was the one teaching me.  So we are all learning and sharing and paying-it-forward in a crafty sort of way.  We sandwiched a square piece of batting between...

Lest you be deceived that my yard is an English Cottage Garden. In reality, it often looks like an excavation site. Boys love to dig and they love mud.  Calvin has moved on to more involved combinations of the two.    A knight defending his fortress.  He usually has a stick sword in his hand, so I can't believe I got a picture of him without it. It's a good thing it was only his foot that went in that mud hole.  I can't even tell you how many holes we have in every corner of the yard.  If you come for a visit I will caution you not to twist your ankle.  Still a work in progress. Landscaping is highly overrated!

Because it's November in Arizona our yard is happy and growing.  (And what isn't happy and growing is bare dirt and rock.)  The tomatoes have overgrown their colorful cages and now two of the plants are tipping over.  But they are still producing tomatoes. Roma tomatoes  Cherry tomatoes    Geraniums  Lobelia  Mini rose  Hibiscus   Bouganvillia with basil in the background Butterflies on the Lantana  And just a little bit of Fall fun: a scarecrow in our EarthBox along with corn, carrots and beets.