Buzzmills

Riding the rails...

Riding a steam engine through Amish Country...I could do that all day long...

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!  Enjoy.

Celebrating Nine Years...

Today Brad and I are celebrating nine years of marriage.  Nine years.  And, in those nine years there have been four moves, many job changes, two kids, lots of laughs, some tears, and some arguments...it's been a full nine years of marriage.  

We are strong, happy and in love!

You may (or may not) remember from last year that I like to follow the traditional gifts for anniversaries.  This year the traditional gift for nine years is a pottery and willow.  The modern gift is leather.  I love the challenge of finding a gift to give that follows tradition.  Plus, it gives me something to go on ;)

So, there were many ideas for pottery and willow...paint your own pottery, a willow of some sort for our garden...hmmm?  But then, with a search on etsy, I found the perfect gift which incorporated both pottery and willow.

A pair of beautiful handmade bird and willow pasta bowls from Take me Homeware.  As luck  clumsy hands would have it, just after I found these beautiful bowls, I accidentally broke two of our pasta bowls within days of each other :(  So, these will be quite welcomed in our kitchen.  These bowls are beautifully made and bonus, they are dishwasher safe! 

But, while I do love these bowls (and hopefully Brad does too!), this post isn't really about them...

While I usually tend to stick strictly to the traditional gift ideas and then tend to poo poo the more modern gifts (because they often seem like more expensive and commercial ideas) I broke my rule this year.

The reason - because the modern gift this year is leather.  The traditional gift for our third anniversary was leather and since I ran out of time that year I merely gave Brad several leather photo albums with a promise that "By the end of the Leather Year I will fill these".  Ahem, they are all still empty.  Well, all except for our wedding album now.

Up until a couple of weeks ago we had a beautiful leather wedding album sitting in our home completely empty.  It (and several other albums) made it through two moves empty.  Empty albums and a box of photographs from our photographer sat together hiding away for no one to see.  How sad.

So, while the kids napped and Brad worked I poured through pictures, listened to music and got to work.  

It was an enormous and emotional task.  All of those memories really came flooding back to me.  The excitement.  The nervousness.  The exhaustion of all of the planning and the making and the doing.  The pure happiness!  

It was a beautiful day.  We had a blast.  Much of the evening was a blur.

Aside from reliving the emotions of happiness and joy from our wedding day, something surprised me a bit...I became overwhelmed by the memory of all of the help we received from our family and friends.  And, looking back through all of the photos I was reminded of what an amazing group of people we surrounded ourselves with that day (and continue to), what a blessing it was to have so much help.

That being said, I wanted say a big "Thank You" to our family and friends who helped to:

fold and glue and cut and make these invitations with us

be our cake taster

do my hair and make up

pick flowers

make bouquets, and boutonnieres, and corsages and centerpieces

crochet flowers

fill honey pots

make and assemble fans

wipe down chairs after an out of the blue summer storm moments before the wedding

set up tables and chairs

take down tables and chairs and clean up

make desserts

make breakfast 

let me sleep in their bed 

store my wedding dress for me

deliver a last minute shipment of ivy for aisle decorations

Oh, and I know there are many many more things that I am missing or didn't even realize occurred...but thank you all for your amazing help and support!  

And lest you think that I'm leaving here and not saying enough about my loving husband ;)  Don't worry...

These words, from one of our favorite songs, were floating around on one of the tables at the reception (along with some of our other favorite songs and poems and quotes)...

And, while there is definitely a lack of time to be wasted around here nowadays...I would gladly waste it with Brad any day...It's his gift to make me laugh that brightens so many of my days!

Oh, and, in case you were wondering...the cake smash was not planned and neither of us was angry because of it (others frowned a bit), it suits us!

A New 'do...

Last week Violet and Henry got their hair cut.  

The big four year old made a big "grown up" decision to cut lots of hair off and went from long to short.

She loves it!  (And I do too.)

However, there will be no ponytails or braids for a while, so naturally, we needed to make some new barrettes (or bring back some old ones), right.

Perfect to pull back a bit of hair to see those big eyes!  

My grandmother always told me to "keep your hair out of your face!", if only I had had some pretty little barrettes like these ;)

Boats...

We made boats.  Nothing fancy.  Simple.  Have your noticed a trend here?  I like simple.

So with some wood circles, hot glue, mini clothespins, craft foam, and ribbon we had some boats.  It's nice to have a varied craft supply.

They floated and they sailed...

We had fun.
I attempted to make a gif...although I'm not too thrilled by it.  Oh well.

Also, the wood was a bit too thin so it became water logged fairly quickly and the boats began to tip over a bit sooner than we were hoping.  Boo.  None the less, we had fun.  And once they dried out (fairly quickly)  they were ready to go again.  So we experimented again...

I made some out of yogurt cups...total FAIL...I will need to try that again.  But, Violet made this completely on her own and it worked!!   Lots of fun...I think we shall continue to experiment with some boat making.

A Rainbow Road Dot Pillow...

The other day Violet sat with me in the guest room/office/sewing room and stared up at the fabric on the shelf...day dreaming up something...

"Mommy, I want to make something."

"Something with fabric."

"Something that has lines and is like a rainbow."

"But it has to be clear, so that you can see all of the colors."

Alright, we discussed further.  From her description I realized that she wanted to sew something similarly as she did with her Violet Flower.  And that, by clear, she really meant white.  And that she wanted to make this rainbow something in to a pillow.  But a small pillow.  A pillow for "like my dolls or me if I want..."

So we set to work.  

I found some white linen in my stash and plucked an embroidery hoop off my wall (yeah, I guess that's weird, but helpful!).  I used a ruler to lightly draw lines across the linen for Violet to follow.

She sewed running stitches across each line in a variety of different colors, which took a few days...

And then, the big moment...using the sewing machine!  

(Don't mind the pattern on the muslin here, it's an unused scrap that I used to back the linen...)

She happily helped me stuff the pillow and I sewed the opening closed.  A completely thought up Violet project, finished and named by her "it's a rainbow road dot pillow!".

She picked out this amazingly soft Valori Wells flannel for the back.

I'd say she is happy with her end result!
And, I am happy because we made it together, sitting on the couch, chatting and stitching.  And she looked up at me and smiled to say "I like making things with you mama".  "Me too!"