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A sweet, yet simple day for our girl. Our young lady. Our twelve year old.
There were hugs and special gifts from excited brothers. Croissant french toast a'la the big daddy. Balloons that only arrive on birthdays. A delightful greek play and thirty chocolate desserts. A treasure hunt. Dinner out and "just the cake she wanted".
All in all, a lovely day.
Back tomorrow with the birthday projects....
Just like last year.
A nice way to spend time as a family and get some exercise.
Hope your day was all you wished it to be.
All the rain and cloudy days here in the past couple of weeks delayed the maypole for the younger ones.
But, today the sun shone bright and we packed a picnic and danced around the maypole.
It felt official like Spring and soon Summer are/will finally be here. Just the scent of the lilac on the air seemed proof enough.
My three year old wasn't sure whether he wanted his photograph taken and was a bit grumpy about it. As you can see though, he figured out how to get this mama from attempting any more.
At least that finally got him to smile is all I can say.
As the trees nestle in with new leaves and the flowers bloom everywhere I know that King Winter has finally relinquished his grip and let Lady Spring bring the colors back once again.
I love this time of year.
Happy Friday and best wishes for a delightful weekend.
...it seems that my time is not my own these days. I've been attempting to get a post done in the past three days and it just isn't happening.
There's a birthday girl turning twelve this week. So, there are projects being sewn, painted, wrapped, and special cards to be made. As well as brothers who want to "make" something.
There's a six performance play about Persephone and Demeter which requires costumes, pins, make-up, lighting, lines and lots of giddy fifth graders. Not to mention photographs and videos to be taken.
There are thirty cupcakes to be baked and an extra special birthday cake that I'm attempting to figure out the construction of.
I'm making a mess, I mean organizing/downsizing in the midst of it all attempting to finish before July 1st. With that I seem to make more of a mess the more I do. Progress?
Oh, and the baby still isn't sleeping. Which answers my question about whether lattes are a necessary part of my morning...uuummm yeah, absolutely.
It's busy I tell you and as much as I want to share all of this and the rain, did I mention the rain again?, I realize that I may not get to my Monday post or my Tuesday post. I'm hopeful for Wednesday. It may even be Thursday, but I will be back soon.
So, until then I hope your week is going well.
And I'm off....
You know that feeling when your child goes to play and you see them playing but then ten minutes goes by and you realize hmmm, I haven't heard a sound...it's very quiet...what are they doing? The moment when you are sure they are into something they shouldn't be...
Well, that was me about fifteen minutes ago.
My three year old was playing in his brother's room. A regular occurrence these days as he has all "the toys". So he's playing and happy and I go to do the dishes in the kitchen/ fold the laundry...exciting things I tell you, when I realize it's very quiet....too quiet.
I hoof it to the room expecting some hanging from chandelier kind of activity only to find this...
A boy deep in thought about the world he's creating. Tractors for the farmers. Trailers for the boats. Cars and houses. A place for his "guys" to sleep.
What was I to do? Well, grab the camera immediately of course.
The interesting story is how we had gotten to this moment.
Back in 2002 when we found the Waldorf program I entered it with full force. There was what we now affectionately call the "plastic purge of 2002". I cleared out all the plastic toys and kept only the wooden toys. We filled baskets with books, pinecones, dress up silks, and wool and never looked back.
About a year and a half ago our now seven year old was attemting to create things. Tall things. Rolling things. Just lots of things. His own ideas but he wanted wheels. The wooden legos we had were great for buildings but didn't make the best cars.
So, the big daddy and I decided that maybe legos would be a great exception to the "mostly-no-plastic-rule". We both had fond memories creating as children with a pile of legos. My three brothers and I would spend hours on the floor playing together and building towns.
Of course, that was a long time ago and there weren't pirates and Harry Potter legos then. Just plain basic building blocks. Wheels. Things like that.
A search ensued and we finally found plain building pieces, wheels, steering wheels, windshields and green boards to play on. No pictures of other things. No sets, well one motorcycle because it was so cool, that needed to be only one thing. Basics. Leaving it open for his own creative spin.
Since then he has created cars, helicopters, buildings, towns and an ice cream shop. This one toy spans the ages of our children and on weekends such as our last one they could all be found on the floor playing together with legos.
It's a plastic item that I don't feel bad about. An item that, even though I love the feel of wooden toys, items made by someone I know and natural objects warming in their hands, has still provided an opportunity for great imagination to be used.
Something that you don't have to worry about them being "too quiet".
Rainy day greetings to you all today. More rain, puddle stomping, new plants settling into the ground and quiet time indoors. Hope I accomplish more this afternoon than I have this morning...I suppose there is always knitting if all else fails.
By the way, I know that April showers bring May flowers but what do May showers bring?
Just wondering...
This is the highchair we have loved and used for a while now. I've enjoyed its all wood construction making it easy to remove all the strained peas and orange carrots that my children like to paint onto it. Up until now it has been great.
With our littlest one though there seems to be a lot of slipping and sliding around in the seat. For some reason I don't remember this being a problem before but maybe I have forgotten. Instead of continuing to try out new tying techniques with various dish towels I decided to sew a small cushion for the chair. For comfort as well as necessity.
I used some of the fabric left over from the playhouse. It was a fairly simple construction and it fits, mostly. I used some cotton batting and made a cover in muslin for the inside. In reference to the above mentioned peas and carrots I decided to put velcro in the top cover making it more convenient to throw the whole thing in the wash.
Overall, it has been quite a hit. Not only does it keep our girl from slipping and sliding but she might just be a bit more comfortable. She smiles and seems to have renewed vigor for pureed apples and smooth sweet potatoes.
whew. Sewing to the rescue again.
It rained here this weekend. All weekend. We nestled inside and had a lovely-relaxing-rainy-the-children-got-along-kind of weekend. Fridays sunshine made the weekend seem even more cosy and romantic.
We tucked in. Everyone slept just a little bit later. The children created a new game together and played it all weekend long. There were paper wallets made and houses constructed. Dress-up clothes worn and most of all they laughed. Contagious laughing. They didn't cry, bicker, or annoy each other. whoa.
The big daddy created the most delicious shredded chicken dish, yum. I had time to sew, in the middle of the day no less. I created and thought about plans for our girl who will be twelve at the end of the month.
The baby was happy to watch her siblings. She also started dancing. A back and forth up and down kind of movement when you sing or she hears music. There was lots of singing by her big brothers to get her to do it again and again and again...
After a busy time last week it was really nice to have time to relax. With four children this kind of calm doesn't come often and you have to be ready to enjoy it when it does. It felt like a real weekend and all of us soaked it up.
How was your weekend?
A simple bag for my littlest one. Though she's not walking or carrying anything around yet I figure it will happen soon enough.
Also, I can make it for her and show you the pattern in the process which seemed like a good enough excuse to pull out the sewing machine.
I'm loving the look of linen combined with other fabrics these days. I paired this linen with a soft, "vintagey" cotton floral. There is something about this combination that makes me think of Spring and Summer.
So let's begin shall we?
Step one:: Start with the two fabrics you would like to use for your bag. You can use any fabric you have on hand. You can make it any size you want. Small to large. Rectangle to square. Whatever you want. How cool is that?
Cut your fabric in the length and shape you would like your bag to be. My bag is approximately 23 inches long and 9 inches wide. Keep in mind that you will be folding over one side to make the flap.
Cut out the strap in the length and size you would like. This particular strap happens to be 2 1/2 inches wide leaving room for a 1/4 inch seam on either side and 23 inches long.
Then, sew fabric with wrong sides together with a 1/4 inch seam.
Okay, easy so far right?
Keep in mind that you want to leave a space open large enough so you can turn it inside out. The strap is sewn on three sides and an inch or so on each end of the fourth side. This makes it easier to get the rough edges turned under when you iron.
Step Two:: Then Iron. This to me is what takes it from home sewing project to looking professional.
tip-- I also use an old wooden crochet hook of my mom's to really push the corners out from the inside to get a nice square on the edges and corners.
Step Three:: Sew an 1/8 inch seam all the way around the body and strap. This will catch the area of the bag and strap that were unfinished.
Step Four:: Determine how big you want the flap to be on the front. Pin the strap to the back to make sure it's the size handle you would like and then sew. Sew in a rectangle shape all the way from the top to the bottom or leave a space as I did for the other children's bags to slip a belt through.
There is your handle. I usually will go over each handle twice to make it more durable.
Step Five:: Turn it over now and decide how big the bag will be and pin.
Now is the fun part. Sew up and down the edges on either side. I do this twice to make it extra durable.
Fold the flap over and Voila! Your bag is made, seamed and lined. Easy Right?
Only one step left...
Step Six:: The big dilemma now is how to close the bag. As you saw on the other bags I made I used a combination of closures. You can make ties (which can be sewn in when you sew the body pieces together) or use buttons and a loop.
For this bag I used velcro and piled shell buttons on top. It works great. It will be easy for little hands to open later and great for me when I have the baby in one hand and I'm reaching for the toys inside with the other hand.
This bag will provide a great place to put all the toys she loves to have in her mouth. Toys that, because I rarely haul a diaper bag around anymore, usually have been knocking around in the bottom of my purse.
Yeah, a small bag is definitely better.
So there you have it. A tutorial of sorts. Hope it inspires you to make a few of your own.
Have a lovely weekend.
