Fresh New Start

Our Suburban Homestead is starting fresh with a new site and name. Bring your favorite cuppa, and come follow our journey over at Simple Whimsy. This site will remain as an archive of our journey over the last 2.5 years. Thanks for reading!

Two Princesses Take on the Town

I've been a bit quiet on here the last couple of weeks while we moved and settled into our new home. We have been busy checking out all our new town has to offer, and let me just say that I am very impressed and happy with our decision to move here. One of the highlights has been the Saturday farmers market on the square. Having access to quality, organic, local foods played a part in our decision of where to move, and this town does not disappoint! This morning we headed to the market with two little princesses in tow.

Layla was wearing a dress from when I was little with her princess tiara. It is not uncommon for her to don dress up clothes as regular attire...

Aelyn LOVES riding in the wagon...

The market has an impressive variety of vendors and over 50 stands...



Little taste tester...

Afterward, we hit up Cool Beans Cafe for a tasty lunch...

and some pumpkin spice latte goodness...

On the walk home, Aleyn got a turn at wearing the princess tiara...

Some of our farmers market scores included zucchini, squash, onions, tomatoes, and cashew butter. We also scored some batter of unformed "Goo Balls" from Plant Kingdom Bakery.

...and 100% grass fed ground and stir-fry beef from Green Vista Farm. (Why grass fed you ask? Check out Eat Wild for some good information. And if you haven't yet seen it, you NEED to watch Food, Inc. It will rock your world.)

Autumn Apples

Today marks the first day of Autumn 2010. Mother nature obviously forgot to check the calendar, because the 80+ degree temperatures were definitely more characteristic of mid July than September for Northeast Ohio. We decided to celebrate this beautiful day by picking apples at a favorite local orchard. Layla picked almost all of the 20 pounds of deliciously crisp and sweet Cortlands on her own. I contributed a few to the bucket but mostly intercepted Aelyn's off-the-ground-oozy-wormy-and-not-so-good-for-eating apples before they joined the harvest. We had planned to gather another 20 pounds of Jonathans as well, but the dark clouds rolled in with thunder and lightning in tow. We thought it best to take what we had and head back to the barn before the skies let loose.
Some pics from the day...









Let the applesauce canning begin!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Milking Milkweed

Wikipedia Milkweed info
More Wordless Wednesdays at 5 Minutes for Mom, A Beautiful Mess, and Wordless Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Cutie Close-up

More Wordless Wednesdays at 5 Minutes for Mom, A Beautiful Mess, and Wordless Wednesday.

Free Money

When Lane arrives home from work each day, he empties out all his pocket change into a large mason jar. Layla recently discovered said jar and has been exploring coins and regularly claiming its contents for her own. She says she is saving up "for something special."

Wordless Wednesday ~ That Looks Yummy...

More Wordless Wednesdays at 5 Minutes for Mom, A Beautiful Mess, and Wordless Wednesday.

DayBreak Lavender Farm

"Here’s your sweet lavender
sixteen sprigs a penny
that you’ll find my ladies
will smell as sweet as any"
~Lavender Sellers’s Cry (London)

Could there be a more perfect day than this? A picnic lunch with friends amongst the heavenly scent of lavender. Free range chickens greeting us as we ate. Tire swings, bare feet, rows of purple, wildflowers, and giggling children. Bliss.






Well, besides the part where the baby put chicken poop in her mouth...
DayBreak Lavender Farm's Site

Knoebels 2010 and Family Visit

Every summer our family makes a trip to Knoebels Grove Amusement Park. Since our girls are not the best travelers, we gave ourselves extra time and figured we would break up the trip and stay in a hotel when we reached about the half-way point. This would have worked out nicely if the navigator (that would be me) would have been paying attention instead of facebooking on the hubby's iphone. I thought, "follow Rt. 80 for 273 miles" was pretty clear but apparently was mistaken. Instead, I looked up 2 hours later and was seeing signs for Pittsburgh and it's eastern suburbs, because hubby got off of 80 and hopped onto the PA turnpike. This mishap added another hour to the trip. Once we finally made our way diagonally up through the middle of PA to Rt. 80, we found ourselves stopped due to a truck fire. As in engines off and backed up for miles.
"I have to go potty," was then heard from the backseat. Perfect!! (sarcasm). So- Layla got to have her first "pee beside the road" experience.

We did finally make it to Knoebels although it was much, much, later than anticipated. We met up with some of the family and had a great time riding rides and eating some park treats. Aelyn mostly hung out in the Ergo while Layla tore. the. place. up. She went on the biggest and craziest rides that she was allowed- even the Paratrooper twice in a row.

Since my mom had just had her double mastectomy, her and my dad were unable to make it this year. We spent the night in another hotel and then headed south to spend the rest of the weekend with them. While there, Aelyn got to celebrate her birthday for a second time and received some lovely gifts. One of her favorites is this step stool made by my dad (finishing touches courtesy of my mom).



The rest of our visit was pretty low-key. My parents have a wonderful yard for the girls to play in and explore. Layla loved having her cousin Skyler around to play with...

Layla always amazes us with her ability to find the tiniest things. Here she was showing "Poppy" a cicada shell that she found.


Afterward, there was some garden harvesting.

Layla consumed this tomato, a green pepper, and 5 banana peppers during the process.

Skyler really wanted to play chess with Layla, but it was a bit over her head. He had to settle for some intense games with uncle Lane instead.

After a rough night of sleep on a deflated air mattress, we ended our visit with breakfast at the Red Caboose Motel and Restaurant. This is one of those touristy type places that, growing up in the area, we never really visited. The motel rooms are all converted train cars, and the same goes for the restaurant section. Layla thought this was the neatest idea and wanted to unload the suitcases immediately.


Perhaps we'll have to make reservations during our next visit...

Wordless Wednesday ~ Layla and the Ice Cream Cone

More Wordless Wednesdays at 5 Minutes for Mom, A Beautiful Mess, and Wordless Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday

More Wordless Wednesdays at 5 Minutes for Mom, A Beautiful Mess, and Wordless Wednesday.

From Chaos to Organization and Back Again

It wasn't long ago that I was a somewhat naturally organized person. Clutter is an area that causes me a great deal of stress. I like my books organized neatly by size, cds in alphabetical order, my clothes folded a certain way and then put in the drawer in a similar fashion. I like symmetry and bare surfaces. When I got married, I quickly learned that my husband's brain just did not work the same way, and I would need to let go of a bit of my obsessiveness if our marriage was going to survive beyond the first month. And then we had our girls. And with children came more stuff. And more stuff became clutter...
Today, I thought I would attempt to bring a bit of order to one of my personal clutter areas- my sewing notion drawer. This is what it looked like before...

I made a run to Joanne's with the girls this morning and got one of these...

And while the girls were napping, I purged and added a few things to the donate bin. The items that I use on a more regular basis were mixed and matched into a configuration that worked..

during which time Aelyn woke up from her nap...