Adding to the Family Tree!

 A few weeks ago I made a very special road trip to welcome this little cub into the family

Our girl and her husband welcomed a healthy baby boy into the world!

Praising God for this incredible blessing

To say I am smitten is an understatement.

Oh, my, he is precious and watching our girl become a Mama is just a double blessing

They are using cloth diapers. which have changed so much since we became parents! Our girl said it wasn't really any more trouble and the diaper designs were just too cute to resist. 😄

Father and son bonding time

It was fun to watch the two of them navigate their new roles and begin to figure out what works for them. They make a good team and Lucas is off to a great start!

Adventure lies ahead!

Still Here

 To say that life has been crazy lately is an understatement and I can't share a lot of it here yet, but it's been more than 2 old people can juggle. Everyone is healthy and honestly, all is well, we're just juggling a lot of plates and it feels like more are being tossed into the air at every turn. 

No worries, I know that God is in control, and we're just praying for wisdom, discernment, and revelation.

But that's why I have been absent in this space - our attention has been directed to those spinning plates.

Amidst all the insanity, I CAN share a funny exchange from this morning.

My FIL is 86 and he drew a cow elk tag this year. With everything going on, it's horrible timing, and DH wasn't sure he could make it happen, but we packed everything up and got ready to head out with plans to leave at 3 a.m. Sleep has been hard to come by lately and I didn't want DH doing all that driving alone.

I told my MIL to make a list and I'd clean while the boys hunted. I was going to make sandwiches for them before we left. I had cookies in the deep freeze. I had Taco Soup in there too that I was going to take in case we stayed the night. Alarm set for 2:30 so DH could saddle and load his horse and we could head to the mountains.

Then DH's phone rang at 1:53 a.m. We both heard it, but we keep it in the dining room and it was faint. He was only partially awake, and thought it was my alarm, but I quietly got up and looked. I missed the call, but it was his dad. So he got up and called him back. They had snow and the roads had been icy the day before so he wanted to call off the hunt.

Makes us sad for him, but it was a smart call. After all of our running around, we just had to chuckle.

So now we were awake and as we were laying there, DH said that he thought he forgot to turn off a pump last night. With the constant phone calls from various entities and rushing to get ready for his dad's hunt, it was understandable, but unlike him. So he drove up to the highway line (about 5 miles) to turn the valves, sending the water north.

As he is pulling on clothes at 2 a.m. he tells me, "Close your eyes and count sheep".

I piped up from under the quilts, "Are we going into the sheep business now?" Because the way things have been going, anything is possible.

He answered as he turned to walk out the door, "No. I'm not that far gone".

😂

And thus, you finally get a post because we are awake, it's too early to field and make phone calls (with anyone but my FIL 😂), and my plate spinning skills are dismal at 3 a.m.

S'mores Quilt

 Back in 2013, when I saw this pattern 

in this quilt magazine

 I knew it was a quilt I wanted to make. In fact, I riffled through my scraps and made a block immediately. 

And then it was set aside for a variety of reasons (for 10 years?!) ...ranch duties called, there was a need to make a quilt for a sick friend or a new baby, garden and yardwork could no longer be neglected, family and friends came to visit, I was cooking for a crew, helping DH, holidays arrived...you know the drill...life! But I often thought about the quilt and sometimes I would find scraps and toss them in the bin for more blocks. I was stumped on the sashing though. I didn't have anything that I thought would work, but I figured I'd make blocks and worry about sashing later. Then one day, while perusing an online quilt shop earlier this year (maybe Whittles) I ran across something that I thought would work for $6.00 a yard. Yes, I think this will do nicely.

When I was looking at other S'mores quilts recently, I saw that Jo from Jo's Country Junction was working on the same pattern. Her quilts are always so wonderfully scrappy and inspiring. So then, I was itching to dive back in. 

I have an overflowing scrap basket, but it's been so long since I've sewn with these reproduction-ish fabrics that I had to dig way deep. That scrap basket really needs to be sorted in the worst way! Surely there are some great scrap quilts hiding in there!

I piled scraps and stash favorites and  cut a little from each

 (yes, this takes longer than pulling from a scrap user system, but I'm just enjoying the process)

and I started making blocks again. I didn't sew a single stitch in October and it felt so good to put something under the needle again

If I didn't have enough for a block, I just made them scrappy and knowing me, these are going to be my favorite.

I have always loved this block and after I saw that Jo endorsed this ruler, I ordered one to help with accuracy for what can sometimes be a finicky block. I am pretty frugal about collecting tools, and although this one is designed for a 4" and 8" block (plus a snail trail block), I wish a 6" block was included because I could see using that size for other projects. There is a companion ruler for one, but that's a lot of $ to shell out. 

I still have a lot of cutting ahead of me, but I made a dozen blocks this weekend and hope to add to my pile throughout the month. Jo was right, these are fun to make!

Texas Ranger Cookies

I'm sharing another treasured cookie recipe again today. I'm sorry if I'm saturating you with cookie recipes. I think this is the last one, but it's a family favorite and I don't want to leave it out. I think I found this one in a cookbook probably about 25 years ago and it has stood the test of time. 

I haven't made them in a while, but DH has been on the go a lot lately. Since the ranch sold, this place has been absorbed into a larger ranching conglomeration comprising of numerous ranches and everyone gets pulled from their homebase and gathers to help on all the other ranches during Spring and Fall Cow Works. In the last 12 days, we worked 2 days here, 8 days on the other ranches, and 1 day helping neighbors. It's a 3 hour drive to one of the places and a good hour to any of the others so DH is spending lots of time behind the wheel and I generally send him with a tumbler of hot coffee, a protein shake, a banana, and a few cookies and this cookie is really good with coffee.

 Texas Ranger Cookies

1 C butter, softened

1 C sugar

1 C brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla 

2 C flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 C oats - quick or old fashioned 

2 C Rice Crispies

1 C coconut

*Cream sugars and shortening. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Blend into creamed mixture. Stir in oats, cereal, and coconut. Scoop onto parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake for 12-14 minutes at 350°. In a previous post, someone asked a question about how many cookies that particular recipe made. Answer: I have no idea. I'm sorry, I just don't ever count them, but this time I kept that in mind and I got 62 cookies from this batch. Hopefully some of them will make it to into the freezer.