Nuggets.

Because Taylen is already in bed, we have a game of cards waiting to be started, and mom wants to make a pumpkin pie tonight, this will be short.  The events of the past two days: a run around the surge pond, some auntie time with Taylen, wildlife viewing, watching videos of us and all our cousins when we were kids, crafting, and woodwork.  Here's a peek:

Some Auntie & Taylen time while everyone else went to the gym

Playtime with Nana

Wishful thinking for the guys as this 4x5 fella kept showing up in the backyard.

Mom and I sewed while Belinda got a nap.  I made him a Bobcat shirt, despite their sad showing in the big game last week (I'm always a little torn during Cat/Griz time...)

Mom and I work best when we put our minds together (she keeps reminding me of this).  A true Colstrip shirt; don't worry--it's mostly steam that comes out of the stacks.  As a kid I thought the stacks actually made clouds.  This created great confusion on days when there were clouds but no steam...

More signs of the big guy and his girlfriends out back.

Sunset from the driveway.

Working with my pops in the shop.

A man and his toys.

My new boots!  I lived in Montana for 25 years and this if my very first pair of cowboy boots.  I bought them at a second hand store in Colstrip (read: a house filled with other people's stuff run by a high school classmate's mom).  I love them!

I should probably go help with this pie now.  Happy humpday!

November Rush

Thanksgiving Holiday.

I'm sitting on my parents' couch watching August Rush with my sister-in-law.  We've had a busy day: chasing my nephew, crafting, cooking, listening to hunting stories that didn't go as planned.  It's a holiday.  We played in Billings with my grandparents for a night and I've been enjoying the snow back here in Colstrip, watching deer bounding across the backyard.  We even checked out the local co-op (read: my 3rd grade classroom turned into a store selling socks and jeans, as well as Robeez for Taylen).    It was a good day with my mama and Belinda, ending with Kermit the Frog soup and chocolate chip cookies (half and half GF and regular), as well as a little Kirkland red wine and now some wind down time with a tired mama.  It is a holiday indeed.

cutest little cowlick ever

also quite possibly the cutest kid ever

crafting with his mama and my sister-in-law (yes, that's snot and tears on her shoulders.  She's a trooper.)

Copying Terri's Xmas trees from old sweaters

My GF cookies: I just replaced the flour in the Tollhouse recipe with
1/2 C chickpea, 1/2 C coconut flours and a little cornstarch. 

Kermit the Frog Soup (Mom's recipe)

Boil 2 C stock, add 3 stems of broccoli and one onion, chopped into small chunks.  Cover and boil 10 minutes.  Chop in food processor or with immersion blender.  In another pan, melt 2 Tb butter with 2 Tb flour (I cheated today, but you could probably replace with Arrowroot or cornstarch, or else just brown rice flour), and "cook til smooth 'n bubbly", stir in 2 1/2 C stock to boiling, boil 6 minutes.  Add 1 T boullion (we didn't today since we used stock, but it may add more flavor), some salt & pepper, a dash of nutmeg, and 3/4 cup whipping cream to the broccoli/onion mixture, then add the roux to thicken it.  Serve with crackers or just by itself.  Ty claims that mom had to name it Kermit the Frog because no kid would ever willingly eat soup with broccoli in the title.  I think he's right.

I think I'll be back with more this week.  But for now I'm watching a movie.  Happy holidays!

Hang on Little Tomato

Audrey is having a baby.  I lived with Audrey and her husband Joran my last semester in Missoula, and they now live up in Washington.  To my knowledge, Joran's first mention of being ready to have a kid was when he found a blog of a dad who had tracked statistics about the kid--like how often he fed at night, and how often he needed a diaper change, what proportion of those times was poop vs. pee, etc.  He's a stats guy.  In fact he has a PhD in statistics.  So I wasn't surprised when she told me she was pregnant; I just can't wait to see what his data entry looks like.  When Audrey would get stressed out about school, Joran would play this song for her.  I thought this little gift would be perfect for their little tomato.

We Brew

So it turns out that making beer is essentially just like making tea.  You take a bunch of dried stuff, add it to boiling water, and let it sit till it's good and ready.  Okay, there are a few more steps to the ale-making process, but it is more similar than I would have ever expected.  Graham has brewed a few batches, but this was the first time I got to be a part of it.  We spent a surprisingly sunny afternoon on the back deck brewing a new batch, and then spent today bottling the batch he and my dad made a couple weeks ago.  Below is a quasi-step by step of the process, which is by no means meant to be an instructional tutorial.  Just a photo-documentary of my interpretation of the process.

Grains

Going into the pot of water

Boiling.  This was almost as cool as watching the Mud Pots in Yellowstone

After the grains were strained out of the "tea" (technically wort)

Emergency sewing session (so nice to be needed!)

I made a bag for the hops so we could skip the straining

A handful of hops

Adding the yeast

Sitting for a couple weeks

After the second fermentation, ready to be bottled

 After sitting in the fermentation bucket, the beer is poured into this carboy for it's second fermentation.  Shown here is the batch G & Dad brewed up, but I'm going to skip ahead and show the last steps with this brew.  Remember it's the Cold Smoke clone I mentioned earlier...

Siphoning the beer into the sanitized bottles

Getting every last drop.  There was lots of sediment so we ended up with one "chunky" bottle

Capped and ready for aging

The name came pretty quickly.

That's it!  Okay yes, I skipped some details in there, but you can see that it really is almost as simple as boiling some water and adding a bag of tea.  Almost.  The name pays homage both to the original beer as well as the time spent among the true brewers.  Thanks dad and Graham, sorry I wasn't around to bug you with my camera for the original process.  Off to have a pint!

Cross It Off the List

I am a master at starting things.  I took a "quiz" at a convention during grad school and it labeled me as an "Artisan"; it described an Artisan as one with great enthusiasm for new ideas and energy for starting new projects, yet prone to fizzle out and not follow through to the finish.  Make a to-do list but not cross the last thing off.  That describes me pretty well.  Today, I finished some things.  I finished a baby gift which will now be a Christmas gift.  I finished my book club book, Sometimes a Great Notion (if you haven't read this Oregon classic, go check it out!  It's long but a great read).  And I've been starting and finishing dozens of Christmas ornaments.  Yes, I said Christmas.  I'm getting an early start while I'm excited, anticipating the fizzle out come December.   

Bird mobile pattern from Spool Sewing.

The ornaments were hung on the hooks with care...

Now that I've finished the aforementioned projects, I'm ready to start (and continue) on a couple others.  One of my goals is to finish the quilt I started for myself last year on my birthday, by my birthday this year.  Mom and Dad were in town last week and mom and I did a little shop-hopping while Graham and dad did some hops shopping.  There is a bucket of a Cold Smoke replica burping in our basement as we speak (we'll keep you posted on how close they got to the right taste...looking forward to that), and there are piles of fabric waiting to be turned into baby quilts.  And waiting to be cut and sent out to all you Reimers kin for the next heirloom creation.  The gal at Cool Cottons was oh so helpful picking out fabrics for another quilt that has been brewing in the creative spaces in my brain.  Dad was oh so helpful with moving furniture around to rearrange my craft room and the living room, and mom was oh so so helpful sorting out my fabrics by color so they are in nice little piles instead of a heap-in-a-bin!  I feel like my creative juices are flowing a little more freely with an open and cleaned up room though I know Graham is putting money on the day it looks like a bomb exploded in there again.  But for now, I'll keep it clean.

Watch your mailboxes for your very own swatch!

Shelf from Ikea for $35.  It almost fit in the Subaru...

Mini quilt for Dad

July's Babes

I'm finally getting to our summer babes!  After all that anticipation and visiting friends with growing bellies and stories to tell, July brought 3 new babes into the world (well, 3 in our circle of friends, I should say).  Here are just a few shots of them. Afton & Ruthie were anxious to see the world, so they came a little early and were so itty bitty.  We like to claim them as our own in conversation...they are just too darn precious not to.  And we finally finished our collaborative quilt project for the twins this week!  They are backed in flannel and turned out so stinking soft I almost didn't want to give them up.  We hand tied them (thanks girls!) and they came together so perfect.  Enjoy some baby drooling!

A few days old in the NICU

2 weeks old wearing the onesie I made.  Not sure which this is...Ruthie maybe?

The finished quilts! 

Ruthie is glad her sister won't steal hers.

Look how big they are!  11 weeks here and their first trip to "Uncle & Auntie's" house

 We finally got to meet Juniper down in Eugene last week, and she has already gotten so big!  It's such a contrast to go from the twins to her, both in size and personality.  She is so smiley and giggly!  Her nursery is covered in bike stuff, so the pink fabric was a perfect fit (duh, that's why I picked it).  I haven't finished one of the projects I started for her way back in March, but by golly, Christmas is-a-comin'. 

Burp cloths