This week has finally brought with it a taste of winter. The past few days it has been snowing on and off. Today we are suppose to see the most of it.

Not as much as we saw in our previous home but enough to close the school for the older boys. (Much to their delight I might add!)

Ariella and Gabriel enjoy watching the snow come down and begin to pile up on the sidewalk. They are still(!) getting over being sick, in fact Gabriel took a turn for the worse last night so I am closely watching him today. I don’t want to risk them going out in the cold so we are enjoying a nice quiet snow day indoors coloring, reading stories, and playing dress up.

Taking care of sick little ones while determinedly fighting off getting sick myself has left little time (or energy) for reading this past week. I am still enjoying The Peach Keeper, even if it is at a very slow pace.

I just finished up Gabriel’s vest last night while watching the snow coming down and have yet to sew on the buttons. I really wanted an action shot of him wearing it but he was just in no mood for trying on Mommy’s knitwear today. I’m worried it may be a tad too small. I knit the 2 toddler size but am now thinking perhaps I should have made the 3. It may fit him for a very short time.

I can’t seem to decide on the buttons. I rummaged through my vintage button stash that I have been hoarding for nearly 8 years now and came up with three choices.

I would much rather use some handmade wooden buttons like these but would still need to get around to ordering them and I don’t want to wait even that long for him to wear the vest. He just might outgrow it before I get around to sewing the buttons on! Which ones do you prefer? I’m leaning towards the dark blue ones.

Thanks again to Ginny for hosting this week’s Yarn Along. I look forward to reading all of your posts.

I apologize in advance for the heavy picture post! I just couldn’t resist posting them all!

Our days living in the Gorge are rapidly coming to an end and I suddenly feel this frantic urge to revisit some of the beautiful places to see here. I truly feel so lucky that I have been able to call this undeniably gorgeous part of the Pacific Northwest home for the past 5 years now.

Yesterday found my husband home for half the day so we took advantage of the morning and went on a little mini field trip with our younger two children, Ariella and Gabriel. We ended up at Multnomah Falls first and then stopped at Horsetail Falls on our way back home. We went at a very casual pace for the little ones and it was so much fun to see the waterfalls through their eyes.

The last time I stopped to visit Multnomah Falls I was 7 months pregnant with Ariella. (And can you believe we actually hiked to the top of that waterfall that day! That is quite a hike for a pregnant lady!) Multnomah Falls was a little overwhelming for Ariella. It is so massive and high up. I believe it intimidated her some. Gabriel would have had us hike to the top if we would have let him! He had so much fun on the trail. (Multnomah Falls has some wonderful native legends to it and I recommend reading about them here if you are interested.)

We had the most fun at Horsetail Falls because it is not as well-known as Multnomah Falls which translates into: not as many tourists there. You can also get right down to the bottom of the fall which we did and let the little ones run around.

They enjoyed climbing on the rocks and tossing pebbles into the water. It was wonderfully cool by the waterfall and I could have stayed there all day.

The Gorge is full of amazing waterfalls, some much more accessible than others. One day my husband and I would love to go and try to see them all. Hiking in the Gorge is a beautiful treat to explore.

I hope to squeeze in a few more local field trips in the weeks before we move. I’m beginning to miss this wonderful area already.

These days we have been so focused on our house hunting to the point where other things in our lives are being placed on the back burner. This is in turn beginning to take a tremendous toll on me.

Every spare moment we are running out to go look at more homes. We live a rather large distance away so these searches are no small feat.

Our teeny tiny one income budget is not making this house hunt easy either. The home that we put an offer on that I mentioned about fell through. The seller was asking for way more than what the house is worth and we just couldn’t do it. I was heartbroken at first as it was a nice home in a beautiful neighborhood within walking distance to the library. Perhaps it is for the best as maybe there is another home out there that is meant for us.

One thing I have learned in this house search is just how much I want a small piece of land to homestead on. A half an acre would even be fine with me right now. We have always known this is what we want but we did not realize just how strong that pull was till we began looking at homes with almost no yard.

On Friday we are to go look for the second time at a home in Washington that is sitting on a half an acre. It is a rather small home so in some respects I cannot believe we are even considering it with our family of 6 but considering it we are. Taking a second look is always good. It fits nicely into our budget and even has fruit trees growing on it already. We shall see what Friday brings.

One thing I now know for sure—I do not want to skimp on this dream if we can at all help it. The garden and land and what comes with it is just far too important to me.