Open House Tour Master Bedrooms

Hello,
Welcome from Kelly Korner!  Enjoy our Master Bedroom Tour!


Check our our First Ever Giveaway HERE

It's Thursday and time for the 4 Moms 35 Kids Open House Tours.  Today is Master Bedrooms.  Let's just say I am so late getting this post up because our master bedroom is the place where everything gets left or put so that the living room and dining room look nice, so our bedroom required a bit of work!  Be sure to stop over and see the other Master Bedrooms at Life in a Shoe.

Here is what you see as you come in the door.  The quilt on the bed was made for me by my Mother, because she loves me!!  And I bugged her for it!  It's called ......um......um......Oregon Trail.....Ah!  Stitches on the Oregon Trail!  It's been a long day and I've gotten about 6 hours sleep the last 2 nights due to little children and their deplorable sleep habits!  Anyway enough about me.  The tree on the right side of the bed was in this house when we moved in, I have tried to make it thrive, but it insists on dying a slow death.
The picture above our bed is "The Accolade".  I can't remember by whom, and the baby is asleep in there.  Dane and I got it for each other for Valentines day several years ago.

We just love it!

  This is the view from my side of the bed.  You see our dresser and Octavians bed.  This crib has served all of our children and me.  Yes, that's right this crib is 30-- something years old.  A couple kids ago my Dad refinished it and it looks great, ready for a few more.....maybe!

Ok, over by Octavian's bed you look this way and see our supplementary bookshelves.  They hold our ever decreasing dvd collection and some old magazines and some of Dane's technical books.  The door on the right is to our bathroom, which you may not see..sorry. 

This is my side of the bed.  The dresser is old, I'm not sure how old though, Mom, do you know?  It was my Grandma Frankie's, this dresser holds Octavian's clothes and blankies and some of my things.  See that black case over on the left, that's my Autoharp, don't know what an autoharp is?  Well let me show you.

Here we are, an autoharp is a folk instrument, they have been around for about 100 years.  You push the cord buttons and strum the strings.  I'm not good at it, I've never had a lesson, I just play around at it when I have some spare time, which isn't very often!  I can play with Dane on a few songs, though. 

Hey....a Quinlan on our bed, how'd he get there? 

  This is our doorknob to our bedroom, it came from, well you can probably guess, Grandma Frankie's, front door.  I was so happy Dane could make it work for our bedroom door.

Thank you so much for joining us on our little bedroom tour.  Have a great weekend and don't forget to enter our Mini Lantern Giveaway!

"What am I?" Contest Giveaway!!

EDITED:
Wow, we have had some really great guesses.  Although one guess is closer than the others.  Ok, here's some new pics hopefully they will help out!  This antique carries someones name, it is mechanical and it can soothe the soul!

Recently our family came into possession of a fabulous antique. Instead of just telling you about it we thought it would be fun to make a contest out of it!!

Do you remember the 'What am I' photos on the back of children's magazines? They were super close-up shots of everyday items. It was fun to try and figure out what you were looking at. We have taken some very close up shots of our new find and you get to guess what it might be. The first person to leave a comment with the right answer will win a Mini Dietz type Lantern!! Then on Monday we will randomly draw one name from all the comments and that person will also get a Mini Dietz type Lantern!!! Isn't that exciting?  You can enter as many times as you like, but it must be with a guess as to what the pictures might be!


                                                                      THE PRIZES

Aren't they cute?  And they really work too!  Your just dying to get one aren't ya?  Ok, here's our extreme close-up photos...................

Any guesses?  If you all can't guess after a few days I do have more pics and I could be persuaded to give some hints.  OK, have fun!

Preeesenting.........Dane the Banjo Man!!!!

It's good to know we won't be without music while we're back in time!!  Here, Dane is playing Wildwood Flower.  We recored this version to post on Daily Frail dot com. Dane learned to play by watching Patricks Daily Frail lessons and by reading his books!  Thanks Patrick!

By the way, something exciting is coming up soon, stay tuned!!

A Living Room Tour

Welcome from Kelly's Korner, I hope you enjoy our Living Room Tour

It's time for the 4 Moms 35 Kids Home Tour!!  Today is Living Rooms.  Be sure to see all the other fine homes at Life in a Shoe.

The first week was the Outdoor tour, last week was Kitchens!

Here is a the view when you enter the front door, the first thing you see is the Music Wall.  Danes banjo, Kegans mandolin, Donagans guitar, there's also a scrub board and small guitar there too for when the littles want to join in.  Dane LOVES his banjo and is very good, in this humble wife's opinion.  He longs for us all to play together some day.

You also see our screen and dvd player, Wii and assorted other electrical stuff!  Oh, and the fish and my dog India, in her crate!

This is the view from the master bedroom, here we have Dane's big chair, our leather couch, and some child back there down the hall.  We LOVE our leather couch and chair, they are perfect for a family our size.  I don't know why we didn't get them sooner.  These were bought last year at a black Thursday sale.  We got a great deal on them!!  And they still look brand new, which is saying something for this house!

Here's a better look at the furniture. The sheepskin on the couch is a favorite of the kids they call it "huggy-ruggy" and fight over it on movie night!  You can see my sewing machine, I would love to have  a sewing room, but since there isn't an extra unused room sitting around I prefer the living room for sewing, I can still be a part of what is going on with the family, and get some work done in the process.

This is a shot behind the couch, we left the castle and blocks the littles got for Christmas here quite by accident, but they love to play with them back there.  They are allowed to play quietly while we have read alouds for school, or when we are watching a educational video.  By the way our TV is just a screen we use it for movies and Wii only no real TV.

These are the bookshelves that flank our wood stove, they hold about half of our families books!!  You can see our Easton Press book collection on the top shelves.  Having good quality books to pass on to the next generations is very important to Dane and I.  As soon as you finish reading one of these books you may very carefully write your name and date in the front, we hope to have a great family history recorded in these books!

Our wood stove works great, too great, most of the time it runs us out of the room because it's so hot!  But we're glad we got it, it's nice to not have to depend on the propane man for heat!

This is really the entry way, but it's all just one room.  The shoes go on the shelf, the coats hats and whatever else needs hung go up on the hooks.  Dane and I made the hook board a couple of winters ago, after we put it up we realized it needed to be much longer!!  It looks fine now but when every ones coat is up there it's a crowded mess!  We really love our giant clock, but sadly it will not be joining us back in time, as it's run by battery!
Well, that's about it for our living room, not very big or fancy, but we sure like to spend time together in it!!  Oh, you'll notice our walls are all pretty dark, I love these colors, my house can look like fall anytime of the year!!  plus you can't see all the finger smudges and assorted things that get smeared on walls by small children!!  Although if they get bumped you do get a nice white mark!
Have a wonderful day,
Misty

Sweet baby Octavian and my sweet doggie India sharing some quality time!

 

Zucchini Fritters

It's that time of year, when you are faced with armloads of zucchini not only from your own garden but from those of your friends and family!  Your own family threatens mutiny if you bring one more bowl of the boiled vegetable to the table, they don't even want it fried anymore.  No More Zucchini, they chant!
If this your problem, then I may have a solution for you!  Cue drumroll, please..........

ZUCCHINI FRITTERS

Aren't they loverly? This is a great recipe for those late summer days when zucchini is more than plentiful. 
Ok, here's the recipe, it's not one you really measure, but I tried to put amounts to the ingredients

1 cup Bisquick

2 cups grated zucchini

1 or 2 eggs (I like 2 eggs)

1 cup shredded cheese

salt and pepper to taste

I grate the zucchini then let it sit in a colander while I mix up the rest, then I squeeze the juice from the zucchini so it's not quite so watery.  You can also add diced green chili, yum.

You'll want to melt some butter and oil in a skillet, then drop the fritter dough by spoonfuls into the hot grease. Flatten them down some so they won't take so long to cook.  When they are golden brown on one side, flip them over.

Yummmy......by now the children were begging for it to be dinner time!  Depending on how big I make the fritters this recipe will usually feed all 10 of us.

Last night we had zucchini fritters with bbq'ed sausage and garden tomatoes.  Rohan is more than ready to dig in!!
Do you have any great Zucchini recipes?  I know we all could use some more!!!  Leave them in the comments!!
Have beautiful day,
Misty

I've shared this recipe on the Homemaking Link-up Click here to view the other lovely ideas, recipes and encouragement.

Kitchen Open house

Welcome Those From Kelly's Korner, Enjoy!

Hello, it's Thursday and that means part 2 of the 4 MOMS 35 KIDS Open House.  This week it's kitchens and Dinning Rooms.  Be sure to check out all the other Tours at Life in a Shoe.

Our kitchen is a nice size for our family of 10, it has lots of counter space and cupboards. 

Here Donagan is drying dishes in preparation for kitchen picture taking this morning!

Thanks Donagan, for a job well done.

Ileigh deserve a thank you too as she does most the kitchen clean-up, Thank you Ileigh, your the best!

This is what you see as come in the front door, the light is terrible, with the window letting in all the sun, makes for a bad picture, but a nice sunny kitchen!  What you see is my baking table, it holds all the necessary baking ingredients. 

Flour, wheat berries, brown, white, and powdered sugar, soda, salt, yeast and baking powder.

It also holds my Boch mixer. I love my Bosch, I can make loads of bread and baked items in it!! It gets used just bout everyday. I will really miss it when we go back in time and leave it behind!!

Here is the ice cream parlor chair that has been in my family for at least 70 years.  Next to it is our ice cream freezer, it has been used alot this summer!  There is also some art work and my collection of old spoons and utensils.  Most of my collection came from my Grandma Frankie.  She loved old things and was kind enough to share her collection with me. 

Here is more of my old kitchen junk collectibles!  They hang on an old barn board.  Sorry for the lousy picture the sun was shining again!

Here we have my cast iron, I LOVE cast iron cookware and use it every chance I get!  Later I will do a post showing all my pieces and how to take clean, season and refurbish cast iron.  This cart also holds the snacks, pretzels, dried fruit, and granola bars! YUM! 

These are wooden spoons and the like that I actually use, I abhor plastic and try and use only wood or stainless steel in the kitchen!

A tour of our kitchen wouldn't be complete without a picture of the "Chicken Bucket".  It is where everything, except meat, gets scraped.  All chickeny scraps go in here and are dumped to the birdies once a day.  The chickas love us for it!

Thank You for stopping by our humble kitchen.  All of us love to cook an bake in here and really enjoy our times together.  May your kitchen full of warm memories!

Misty

Laundry Update

I thought you might be interested in how our outside drying is going.  So far so good.......except I am a "dry by the seat of your pants" kinda girl.  Meaning I like to put in a load to wash at 10 o'clock pm and put it in the dryer at almost 11, then get the clothes out in the morning!  When you don't have the option to dry in the dryer that puts a kink in the system.  So I have to do a bit of planning and am getting closer to having "laundry days" where all I do is laundry and then folks have clothes for the week.  We still have too many clothes, but we are getting there.  I threw out all the boys things that were torn and stained, that seemed a good place to start, then I moved on to what was too small for one, but still way too big for the next in line, so those went to goodwill.  It's a slow process, I have so much other stuff to do that it's hard to make sorting clothes a top priority. 

When we put up pur line we bought clothespins at Target.  They were very chintzy, not the type Dane and I remembered from our childhood.  If you snapped those old ones on your finger you certainly felt it!!  These weak and pitiful things kept falling apart when you would pin them on the line.  When we ordered our Aladdin Lamp from Lehmans we also picked out some clothespins.  WOW, is all I can say, they were so much sturdier than the Target ones. 
Here you can see how much bigger they are and how much thicker the wire in the spring is.  These hold up everything, including Danes blue jeans!  I'm so glad we went with these.  They are made in China which is unfortunate, I would love to have some made in the USA, but for now I will be grateful for these. 

So if you do some serious clothes pinning, make sure you have some serious clothespins!!
Have a beautiful day,
Misty

Yard Sale Fun!

I don't usually do too many yard sales, I enjoy them, but just don't ever seem to get the chance to go to them.  This Friday the older children and I were out and about so we followed a sign and found a great sale.  It was a yard like I wish all sales were, like they used to be.  Full of old decrepit stuff, not just new plastic stuff people sell to so they'll have money to buy more plastic stuff.  This one had some really unique bottles and old tools.  Kegan bought 2 big bottles and 2 old rusty tools.  Ileigh got an old bottle, and 2 vintage books, if there's books to be found you can count on Ileighto see them!  Quinlan bought a safety razor and an animal call for hunting.  They were quite pleased with their purchases, but I was thrilled with mine!! In addition to a few tiny old bottles I got those 3 big beautiful crocks you see in the back!!!  I got them for $10 a piece.  I suppose I could have bargained for them, but I was so tickled to get them at that price that I forgot all about wheelin'and dealin'!  These type crocks can sell for $30 or more a piece!  These aren't antique, which is even better, I can use them on the farm and not have to worry about them as much. So all in all it was a great little yard sale, hope I find more like it soon!
Have a beautiful day,
Misty

......You Light Up My Life.......

Our non-electric lives are even brighter......Thanks to Aladdin.....Lamp that is, not the boy!  Aladdin Lamps are known the world over for their impressive bright, white light.  As bright as a 60 watt bulb, they are a mantle lamp that burns kerosene or lamp oil.  We have wanted an Aladdin Lamp for some time, one of the drawbacks to an Aladdin is the price,they are not cheap.  We looked around, antique shops, second hand stores, ect. and couldn't locate any.  Then we turned to the Internet, but had similar luck there.  Everyone seemed to know what they had, and priced them accordingly.  So we saved our money for a bit and our lovely lamp came last week! 

Isn't she beautiful?  It doesn't take much to excite us, the whole family was thrilled when it came in the mail!  We purchased from Lehmans, they sell all sorts of non-electric items.  Lehmans sell to the Amish as well as off the grid-ers (is that a word?), missionary's and regular folks.  We love their catalog, you can order one here.

Aladdin Lamps are mantle lamps, they have mantle much like the Colman lanterns.  The mantles are made of a nylon net that is knitted, then coated with rare earth minerals, then it is varnished to help it hold together during shipment.  The mantles are extremely fragile.  One bump or touch and they will dissolve. 

The first thing you do when you recieve your  lamp is burn off the varnish. 

You must do this outside as it burns fast and smokey.....

Once the varnish is gone you can assemble the lamp and fill with kerosene or oil, we use a refined lamp oil we bought from Lehmans, because it's refined there's not much smell at all!  The wick must soak in the fuel for at least an hour then you may light the lamp!!

The burner and gallery must warm up, then you may turn the flame up and your lamp will BEAM!!

Here is a shot of the round wick burning under the mantle. 

Our family has been having practice Non-Electric Evenings and Weekends, we have been using good old-fashioned non mantle oil lamps, here you can see the difference in the amount of light they put out.

We can't wait for our next Non-Electric event, we won't be sitting in the dark anymore!!

We have been doing a lot of research, the best book we could find on the subject of non-electric lighting is

The Book of Non-Electric Lighting by Matson.

This book covers all the lighting types, lamps, lanterns and wood stoves.  It's an easy read with just enough technical information to make it very interesting.  Hope your day is peaceful and your night is bright, ours will be!

A Few Family Photos!

Last week we were part of our 4-H groups entry in the County Fair Parade. The theme for the fair is The Wild West. We had no problem finding outfits for the parade! We had a great time and enjoyed dressing up. Ileigh made her own dress, I was so proud!

The Men of the Family

Dane, Kegan 17, Rohan 8, Quinlan 13, Ferran 4, Donagan 10.

The Ladies of the Family

Misty, Ileigh 15, Elsah 2.

As you can see we are terribly outnumbered!!

Let's not forget the baby of the Family!

Octavian 11months!

Now you know what we look like! Sorry it took so long to put up photos of us all!

We're still working on farm skills and have several posts in the making! Thanks for joining us!

Have beautiful day,

Misty