Tipster Tuesday ~ Making pants fit your tall and thin kids

I have tall and thin kids (especially my eldest who at 8 is taller than some 12 year olds we know) which can be a challenge when I am trying to cloth them. If they fit in the waist, they are way to short or vice versa. Thank-fully I have a creative mother who came up with a very easy solution.
If the slacks are to big around it is quite simple to take a piece of elastic and stretch it across the back of the slacks (or skirt or jeans) while sewing it on. You start at one side of the back(on the inside of the slacks) and make sure to sew back and forth a few times so that it is knotted, then just pull out the elastic over top of the waistband (which is laying flat) and sew while you stretch. When you get to the other side just go back and forth again to knot it and cut the extra elastic off. You may want to sew on both sides of the elastic so that it doesn't curl. Tada! You have a smaller waistband for your skinny child.

It is so nice not to have their pants falling down half of the time. Do you have any quick sewing tricks to share?

For more tips you can visit BeCentsAble.

Our first harvest!

On Friday we pulled up our first radishes! We all enjoyed butter and radish sandwiches. Sometimes I can get a little impatient when gardening and it is always fun when something is ready to eat!

The radishes were our first official harvest of something we planted but we have also been eating chives, mint and some "weeds".

The picture above is of Lambs quarter. It is a weed that is good to eat. I am not real big on just plain cooked greens but I have found a bunch of ways (including putting it in sloppy joes) to get it in our food without anybody minding.
This next picture(above) is Amaranth. Another weed that is good for you. I use it the same way as lambs quarter.
I thought I would also share a picture of my garden helpers. Here is what we set up for our beans to grow on. Aaron found most of the sticks and brought them to me. He was very happy to be told that he was a "very strong boy!"

How are your gardens doing?

Getting some exercise and saving on gas

Last night we rode bikes to church for the first time. The kids were very excited about it and had been wanting to do that for a while now. All of the kids enjoy bike riding (or riding in the trailer behind the bike ~Megan often asks to go on a "bike ride") but they were especially thrilled with the idea of riding somewhere.

We live around 3 miles from the church building. Riding there is on a nice but rather busy road (which had been our concern). The kids did very well at staying on the edge of the shoulder and Mara was a very steady rider (Jonathan always has tons of bike riding energy but Mara has a tendency to wear out somewhat quickly). I haven't pulled the trailer that often but it went just fine though I could tell I was getting better exercise than just plain bike riding.

Our goal is to make riding to church on Sunday night a habit as well as riding to the Library, Chiropractor and Farmer's market. I am trying to see just how long we can make one tank of gas last. I am also excited about getting better in shape.

Dreaming of keeping bees

Tonight I happened upon a neat article on beekeeping. It started me dreaming about Beekeeping again. I think it would be so much fun to get our own honey, as well as the benefit of wax to make candles and such from. Also having more bees around should up the productivity of my garden. Bees sound like they are fairly simple to care for, this article says they are less work than a dog but a little more than a cat.

Getting started does sound a little expensive but there are a bunch of plans available online for building your own hives and some other equipment.

This site is out of MN and has stuff for sale as well as a lot of information on beekeeping and about bees.

Here are a lot of posters that have pictorial instructions for beekeeping.

Probably a lot of my interest in the idea of beekeeping stems from one of my favorite books "The keeper of the bees" by Gene Stratton Porter. That was a book I read quite a few times (I am a rereader of good books) during my teen years.

Do any of you have any experience with bees? I would appreciate any helpful advice.

Christopher told me his new sweater 'itched'..so I found some fabric that I had rescued from an OLD sleeping bag...did this YEARS ago!!...so it was wind/water proof and it worked like a charm... He will be so pleased.

The FibreFest Fashionshow/supper was very very good...thanks Marilyn for a job well done. Her daughters are such sweeties and helped make the show!

Today is "pay house taxes" day and pick up some plant roots from Scott before he moves out of his big house on July lst... am going to try growing rhubarb in a huge pot on my deck..can't see why it won't work.