Sticky Kisses

The Big Bad Internets

2012-01-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

Awhile back (maybe over the summer?) I heard an interview with John Melancamp (maybe on The World Cafe? How do you spell his name?) and during the interview he started talking about the Internet and how he thinks it's more dangerous than the atom bomb, and the biggest evil ever invented. At hearing that, part of me thought, "Gosh, he's got some issues with paranoia" and another part of me thought, "Hm... he might be right!"

Then the other day I got to talking to my mom about how the difficulties of parenthood for mothers of my generation are not at all the same as the difficulties for mothers of her generation. It seems like these days "perfection" and "most" are all that matter in parenting style. It makes for a stressful job. As she said, it can take the fun right out of parenting. And she's right, and I started wondering what happened in such a short time, and then I realized: It's The Internet!

Instead of being a regular mom with a regular life and two or three good mom-friends, we mothers of today are put on show to the rest of the WORLD. Through Facebook and other social networks, through blogs just like this one, through Pinterest and Twitter (ok, social network..) and...... well, I can't think of anymore examples right now. But we are on show all the time to everyone--to moms we know personally and moms we've never met and never WILL meet, and I think we all feel this unspoken standard that we have to live up to. Taking a picture? Move that bucket of dirty mop water from the background! Making a blog post? Conveniently leave out the part about breaking down in tears three times in one day! Let's keep it funny! Sharing a newly finished craft? Always shoot from the best angle and make sure the photo is taken from a distance that sufficiently hides all flaws! In fact, just Instagram it and it immediately looks a million times better! It's all about keeping up with other Online Moms. We have to be as good as everyone else. And it isn't good for us! This front we all put up isn't good for our readers! Because, let's be honest, we ALL have those "train wreck" blogs that we keep going back to and reading, even though they make us feel like dirt. No, we can't be as good as that mom. But we HAVE TO KEEP READING. HER LIFE IS SO PERFECT. I WANT TO BE HER.

Meanwhile, the children are drawing on the walls with permanant marker. Again. (But it never happened unless it's posted online!)

And I feel like the competition that lives in today's parenting circles is much less about the kids and much more about the moms. Nobody really cares about who the smartest child in the room is. Nobody cares who potty trains first, or who reads the earliest, or who is visiting the NASA headquarters by invitation at age four. It's all about the moms. And specifically in my own social circles (as if I can even call myself a member of anything remotely "social" except for online!) it's like the moms are expected to do EVERYTHING. Well, I homeschool and I have a little side job from home (which practically pays the mortgage) and I practice these seventy arts/crafts and I have fourteen zoo animals that I take care of nine times a day and I cut my own firewood with a saw I made myself, which I carved with my fingernails, and I suck venom out of my kids snake bites instead of calling the doctor because I'm JUST THAT HARDCORE. And what's just plain "organic" anymore? We only eat food that is SUPER-DUPER-MOST-ORGANIC-IMAGINABLE. In fact... we actually just eat air. Food has too many bad extras.

That sounds judgmental, but it's not meant to be. Hellooooo, I'm completely guilty of all that too! "Oooooo, we eat deer meat, we are awesommmme." Yeah, have I mentioned that we have an entire deer in the freezer that we haven't touched because suddenly I can't stand the idea of eating any kind of meat at all? (thanks, pregnancy... I hope this is a temporary thing because I used to enjoy many kinds of meat very much.)

But I do have to say.... our new ukulele is really cool and I love it.

However, that does not make ME cool just because for having one.

Honestly, I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm not pointing fingers and telling people to stop being who they are--which is to say, more successful and productive that I am! I'm trying to say, NOBODY has a perfect life. NOBODY can do it all, no matter what their blog says. For every fantastic accomplishment posted on a blog, there's a mountain of laundry that remains unpictured. In every perfect family there's a toddler who never got the nap he really, REALLY needed. And it's hard to remember because nobody wants to post about the unhappy things and the unsuccessful projects and the culinary flops. We only want to post about the good stuff, and the stuff that makes us look good, but we all wish we could read a little less perfection and a little more real life in the rest of the Internets.

Am I right?

So let's all make a Chinese New Year Resolution--let's all try to not let ourselves get dragged down by the Internet! NO MORE FEELING LIKE YOU'RE NOT AS GOOD AS THE NEXT MOM. Everybody does her own thing; Nobody can do it all. Everybody posts the good stuff; Nobody wants to read about family drama. (Well... ok... we probably all do, but it's really none of our business.) Everybody has that yucky bit of tummy flab that puffs out over your cesearean scar, or stretch marks or wider hips or extra pounds; Nobody has her same body post-baby. We are all different and we are all doing our best and we are all doing the parent-thing our own way, and that's just as it should be because we are all individuals looking through these virtual windows into other people's lives where only the best stuff shows.

Attachment Everything

2012-01-27T08:37:00.000-05:00

I have an additctive personality. Martin does too. That's why we can never dabble in drugs or alcohol. I'm not ashamed to admit it, but knowing how frustrating this can be (not so much doing without the drugs... more like being obsessed with something to the point of hating it), I'm sorry so say that my kids (especially Anja) seem to have inherited this trait. It's really coming out this year too--right around Christmas time she became completely obsessed (OBSESSED!!) with a few different things. One thing was the story/song/movie of Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. she's still stuck on that. Another was the Nutcracker. She talked about it nonstop for days until we saw the production and then she barely talked about it anymore. Funny. Well, she's been obsessed with the Nativity since Christmas and organizing home productions of it, handing out parts to all of us, etc., for the past few weeks and now alongside that, she has become more obsessed with the Disney Princesses than I ever thought was possible.

I don't have a problem with Disney Princesses like some people do. I watched the movies when I was little and didn't come out with any horrible scarring to my self-esteem; I also played with Barbie dolls. I'm not judging... everyone is different. All I'm saying is that I don't really have a problem with my kids liking the Disney princesses so much... especially since they were obsessed with them LOOOOOONG before they ever saw a movie. But over the past week they have watched "Beauty & the Beast" at my parents' house, and Anja loved it! (Greta doesn't really watch.) But even before seeing the movie, she would see a picture of the princesses and she would ask Martin and me to tell her every detail of their stories. It's been many years since I've seen any of those movies and some of them I've never seen at all, so I mostly just tell her the actual stories, with some details from the movies (like names and funny characters) thrown in. After she knows the names she can assign us all parts and we have to BE those parts. Recently she's really been into Aladdin, which she calls "Jasmine" because our Aladdin part (Martin) is always at work. And why would we name a production after someone who's never in it? Anyway, this talking about the princesses and their stories is nonstop to a level I hadn't known was possible in four-year-olds, and it made me realize... THAT'S why people hate the Disney princesses! It has nothing to do with self-esteem, victimizing women, too much emphasis on exterior beauty, etc..... it's just that the parents are so exhausted from hearing about and telling about and discussing at length each and every detail of each and every story of each and every princess that are driven to HATE all things Disney princess--and maybe they don't even see why!!! That has been my observation lately.

Meanwhile, as Anja grows increasingly obsessed with Disney princesses, Greta has her own little attachments. She found this little plastic rabbit, covered in fuzz (this thing is very old... and has seen better days. I'm not sure what the fuzz used to be like, but I'm SURE that there was more of it at one time, years ago.) She promptly named it Sam and brought it home and now it's her best friend. She draws pictures of Sam, Sam goes everywhere with her... it's kind of weird! And cute!

Back during our anniversary I didn't have enough money to buy Martin the gift I'd wanted to get him, which was a fiddle. I didn't want to settle for something made in China, so I got him a lame book and that was it. But lately I came into having a little extra cash of my own, so I sneaked down to the music store here and I bought him this ukulele. It's great! I'm pretty sure he can learn to play it easily because it's pretty basic. It's fun to think up songs that would be great for it... and I can't wait for him to learn it so we can play together! I've learned "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and it's super fun.

The same night I got the ukulele I went to the knitting store (that was my cover to make it a surprise... and Anja knew about the secret plan all day and kept it a secret!) and picked up this yarn to make myself a new sweater. It's sort of a variation of The February Lady Sweater that I found on Ravelry, which is a variation on Elizabeth Zimmermann's "Surprise Baby Jacket," which I've never made but have thought about making. I've actually never made any E.Z. patterns. She works mainly in circular needles... which is a turnoff for me because I am a bit of a loser. But I feel like I should at least try one of them sometime. Maybe this summer when I know what gender this new baby is I'll make him/her a Surprise Baby Jacket for the fall. I did find some really fun purple and green yarn at River Knits the other night.

This is Greta. !!!!!! What happened to my tiny baby!?!?!?!?!?!? You can't see her little crossed ankles hanging down from the chair, making her look even older. she's been asking to have her hair ina ponytail lately--like me! What a compliment! (Anja asks for her hair in a ponytail too... like Jasmine. haha.)

From Clare's blog I found the recipe/idea for this "snow dough." We made it yesterday and the girls loved it. This stuff is incredible! It's just flour and oil... but the oil amount is perfect. Not enough to make it all greasy and nasty, but just enough to make it clump up a little bit when you press it together. And it makes it REALLY easy to sweep up. It's kind of the consistency of wet sand, except way easier to clean up than sand, which NEVER cleans up... this stuff just brushes off the body (or out of your hair) and sweeps up so easily! It did fill in the cracks of our tables and chairs though... That'll have to be scraped out with a knife, I guess. But it was totally worth it.

2012-01-22T22:31:00.001-05:00

(Christmas morning.... they got a little coffee maker. Hee hee!)

One thing that has happened to me since becoming a mom isthat I think about Time a lot. Beforehaving kids, I was really good at living in the moment—literally. Like down to the absolute MOMENT. But now I think of “moments” as being much morebroad… for instance, this time of having my girls so young and sweet—not babies—butlittle people. It won’t be long beforewe are pulled in different directions, being in activities and school andhaving friends. It won’t be long beforethe pace of our life quickens and we aren’t spending an entire day playingpretend. Today at mass they sang TheServant Song, which is a song I played at my good friend Alison’s wedding. When Alison got married Anja was not even ayear old and I was not yet expecting Greta. Now Alison herself is expecting her second baby!! It’s SO WEIRD to think of how time goes byand nothing is the same from day to day anymore. Before kids, I had this small but very funlife… play music with lots of people, work in this store or that store… dowhatever I want… and it felt like it would be like that forever. But now I look at my kids and I think, “Howare you growing up so fast?!? How am Igetting old so fast?!?” And I try to payattention and remember that even when Greta is throwing a temper tantrum, inthe blink of an eye, she’ll be twelve. Or sixteen. Or thirty. Yikes.

Anyway, there’s been a blog post going around on Facebookabout “Don’t Carpe Diem” or something like that… and I read it and I liked itbecause it’s so, so true. You don’trelish the tantrums—come on, NOBODY does. You don’t savor reading The Little Engine that Could (I hate that book)for the bazillionth time in one day. Youdon’t wish that the spills and messes and arguments and insisting-on-ridiculous-thingswould last forever. And that’s just thekids, not including the five million things you have to do WHILE you’resettling arguments and explaining things to toddlers who don’t understand andwishing you were reading ANYTHING other than Watty Piper. But the truth is,this little tiny window of time that is so sweet and free is fleeting. And I think something that’s helped me reallylive in the moment during this time is reading Amanda Blake Soule’s blogarchives. I started reading them two summers ago when Greta was a baby andthere was still a daily naptime, during which I could do whatever Iwanted. I got through a lot before ourcomputer broke and since I’ve had the iPhone I’ve been reading them again, butonly once in awhile. And I don’t oftenread her current posts, except when Martin sometimes prints them out for me toread. But every time I do read a currentpost, I’m amazed at how time has flown. Her boys—who were toddlers/preschoolers when she started her blog, andher third baby wasn’t even born yet—are practically grownups now. Her oldest is TEN. I’m pretty sure he wasthree when she started blogging. Maybe4. In any case…. The change isenormous. And it’s so neat to have thosetwo times of the same family in my mind back to back and it really helps tomake you realize, Oh! My kids reallyWILL grow up… and it will happen really quickly!

Anyway… it’s been kind of a fun little thing for me, keepingup with both eras of her blog. (thearchives are WAY better, by the way… back before she had thousands of commentsper posts and many of the comments were from her mom and sisters.) So if any of you moms of young’uns out thereneed a boost, you might try reading those archives and then peeking in on hercurrent blog every once in awhile. It’s a funny thing.

In other news, we did go sledding yesterday up at my parents' house and even when Greta fell face-first into the snow she still wanted to keep on sledding! It was their first time sledding adn they LOVED IT. It was so fun to take them! And afterward my dad made them hot cocoa and they got to watch a little bit of Beauty & the Beast--their first time watching one of the Disney movies! Not that Anja hasn't been completely obsessed with the Disney princesses for quite some time... but she was thrilled to actually see a bit of the movie. Anyway... I'll save my thoughts on Disney Princesses for another post. For now, we've had a big weekend--it's bedtime!

Making Mrs. Thaw

2012-01-20T21:21:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a snowy day. It snowed all day and we got alot more than had been forecast for us. But it was also really cold, so we didn’t venture outside… instead we stayedin and gave our Nature Table a little bit of a facelift. It was lovely during Christmas—all the littlegnomies had presents and a Christmas tree and I made a little Holy Family dollset. It was very nice and we had a whiteground, even though we had a brown Christmas. But all that was put away and our table has been empty sinceEpiphany. So yesterday we laid out thewhite tablecloth (ok, pillowcase) and rearranged a little bit. Then we made Mrs. Thaw! I have this book (which doesn’t actuallybelong to me…) that has some really great nature table ideas. And in it, they have King Winter and Mrs.Thaw… Mrs. Thaw comes along with her broom to sweep away the snow in earlyspring. Isn’t that adorable?! So we made Mrs. Thaw, but she doesn’t have abroom, and since it’s still the middle of winter, she is sleeping in a littlebed that Anja made for her. (well, actually, she WAS sleeping in her little bedbut she gets played with a lot. I don’tknow where she is at the moment.) Sothat’s what we spent all of yesterday afternoon doing while we watched the snowfall. It was really nice.

And now today the snow is falling again. This is the best kind of snow… it’s beensnowing almost constantly for two days, but we still only have a couple ofinches. We’re supposed to get a few moreinches tonight before we warm up in a few days. I’ll be sad when winter is over. I really love winter and it’s coziness. Of course, I bet I would love it a lot lessif I didn’t have this nice warm house.

I mentioned the fact that Anja has been going to sleepwithout her “bont-bont” and during my last post she was out with Martin. Well, when she got home she announced quitesuddenly that she was just going to kiss us goodnight and go to bed. What?!? My baby?!?? But it was true. She did it. That night Martin went up with her and tucked her in, but since then(this is night #4, I think) she has just kissed us goodnight down here and goneon up by herself. And she falls rightasleep! It’s incredible. And every time she leaves the room Martin andI make pouty faces because we can’t believe how big our little Pie is.

It’s going to be really weird to have a newborn again. I’m so used to saying “Put on your shoes, let’sgo” or “go put on your pajamas and pick out a book” that it’s going to bestrange to have to do things FOR a little person. And by “things” I of course meanEVERYTHING. Gosh, I barely wipe bottomsanymore. But I’m really looking forwardto being able to have control over somebody’s daily clothing… I have officiallylost control over what my girls wear (except on Sundays, and even then we letthem sometimes choose their own tights and shoes) and sometimes it’s reallyobvious by what they pick from their drawers. But that’s okay! They areindependent thinkers, right? And it’snot like we leave the house anyway.

Except tomorrow… I’m hoping we get to get out and play inthe snow tomorrow since it’s Saturday!

Happy weekend!

Goodbye, Bont-Bont!

2012-01-17T22:06:00.002-05:00

So, I’m not the kind of person who feels very comfortableforcing my kids into doing things…. You can see this by the fact that Greta isstill nursing at night, even though I hate it. But what can I do? It is the way she goes to sleep, it is acomfort thing to her, and I don’t feel like it’s spoiling her… especially sincenursing has all those huge benefits. (Even if I’m not especially feeling those benefits lately, I’m sure sheis!) So anyway, up until this week, Anjahad still been going to bed with a bottle of milk. I could tell she was growing out of itbecause she would drink down her bottle, hand it to me, and then flop over andgo to sleep. We had suggested a coupleof times that she go to bed without it and she was excited until it wasactually time to go to bed, and then she decided she’d rather try anothernight. I started to worry that she’d betaking her bottle off to college with her, until about five days ago, we lostit. I have NO IDEA where that bottlecould be. We have looked everywhere, butit’s vanished. So the first night thatwe couldn’t find it, we were a little bit nervous… we told Anja it was lost andwe gave her a mug of milk before bed. And she was totally fine with it, and drank her milk and went tosleep. I am worried that someday I’llstumble upon it and it will be who-knows-what color… but I try not to thinkabout that part of it and just be glad that Anja was so awesome about the wholechange. So it was forced, I guess… butit was kind of a natural force.

However, tonight she had a hard time falling asleep. She said it’s because I kept covering her upwith her blankets and she was hot. (Iwas covering her up because I was freezing!!) So Martin took her out to the Starbucks drive-thru to get me a beverage. Yumm. And when they get back, Martin is going to put her to bed and I’m goingto sip my yummy beverage and begin work on the robes I’ve promised to make thegirls. I spent $16 of my own money and a$30 gift card at Jo-Ann’s and I got some seriously cute flannel to make theserobes. I really hope they turn out! I also had in my cart a number of remnants,but I knew I wouldn’t have enough money for them, so I put them back…. All exceptone that I needed for another project. But when I got to the car I realized I’d also bought another remnantthat I’d meant to put back…. And annoyingly, it was one that I had chosen to bethe trim of a tablecloth I intended to make with a different remnant that I HADremembered to put back. Bah! However… all things work out in some way andI have already found another project for that nice piece of brown fabric.

Because I don’t think you can return remnants, can you?

You might remember my recent post about the UPS truck alwaysparking across the street and my longing to receive a surprise package fromthat truck. Well, today it actuallyhappened! The girls and I were sittingon the couch reading stories and I saw the UPS truck park in the usual spot andI thought sadly, “another package, not for me.” But then BANG-BANG!—I DID get apackage! And it was a total surprise,although as soon as I picked up the box, I knew what it was. It was Anna Maria Horner’s “Handmade Beginnings,”a book I’ve been drooling over for a very long time and was talking to Martinabout last night. And while I wastalking, and not paying attention, he got on Amazon and ordered it for me. Ihad no idea! So it was a big, wonderfulsurprise today. And I want to makepretty much every pattern in the book. Ithink my first will be the booties…. Because I have plenty of fabric forthem. In fact, I might end up makingmultiple pairs. But I also want to makethe Four Corners shirt and the Mariposa tunic.

My belly is mostly still fat, which is annoying, but I’mstarting to wear my smallest pregnancy clothes. My sister brought a huge box of shared stuff over this weekend and I’dforgotten about some of those cutie clothes! Being pregnant is kind of exciting because you get a whole new wardrobefor free.

My pictures aren’t working again. Sorry.

Pillow Talk

2012-01-14T12:59:00.002-05:00

So, my pillow has gone flat on me. It's lasted me many, many years but suddenly at the beginning of this week I started waking up every day with that annoying my-pillow-is-too-flat neck ache. At first I thought I'd just tough it out, you know, wad up some baby blankets behind my pillow or something. But then I had this small memory of having an extra pillow or two in a closet somewhere... somewhere.... Oh, of course! That closet in Martin's weight room! The one who's door is completely blocked by STUFF, including but not limited to, a bookshelf full of ammo boxes! (Ammo boxes equals lead, by the way. In other words, heavy stuff.) But once I remembered the extra pillow, I was determined, so I braved all hazards and eventually got to the hidden closet, and was able to open the door enough for me to get into it. And do you know what I found? Not one pillow... not two pillows.... I found TEN PILLOWS. !?!?!? Who has ten pillows stashed and forgotten in a closet?!? TEN!!!!! And to think, for the last four or five years, Martin and I have been trying to figure out how to make our sad, flattening pillows last a little longer. And these aren't just more sad, flat pillows that are hidden in the closet. (Well, okay, a few of them are... and one of them might be legitimately flat because it's my old, old pillow from when I was little and it has a hole and all the feathers have fallen out. But I probably shouldn't even count it as a pillow since it's more like a rag with a couple of feathers stuck in it.) But the real treasures were these four fluffy, clean, practically unused pillows. I put them in clean white pillowcases and they have changed my life! My neck doesn't hurt anymore! I have trouble falling asleep now because I just lie awake enjoying the fluffiness beaneath my head and neck! It's AMAZING!!

But that wasn't even all I found. Aside from the ten pillows there was also an entire BOX of sheets. Now those I remembered. They are actually pretty useless because they are queen or full sized and we only have king and twin-sized mattresses now. So I put them in that box intending to use them for quilt backs. But I hadn't remembered them until I saw them!

Another weird thing in that closet was a white terrycloth bathrobe that was in that closet when we moved in, but I thought we'd given it to Goodwill. Some things in our house were big scores. But I don't think I could ever wear somebody else's bathrobe. I don't wear bathrobes anyway, I think they're icky. (Nevermind that I just spent my entire JoAnn's gift card on flannel to make my children bathrobes. On grownups they are icky. On children they are cute.)

This picture is of Greta painting. Do any of my readers use Instagram!? I love it.

I'm at Starbucks right now. (Hello, more giftcards!) It's part of my afternoon out with myself. JoAnn's, Bed Bath and Beyond (again, gift card... this one was from the first Christmas we were married. Luckily, it hadn't lost any of it's value and I got a set of sheets and a bathmat. FOR FREE!! I hadn't been in that store for many, many years... i just can't fathom paying $40 for a soap dish,) a mocha treat here and then I should go to Target to get butter but I probably won't because after all this fun, who wants to ruin the high by going to the grocery store?

But I'd better be heading home now because I'm hungry. And I really should resist the urge for one of those ginormous brownies and instead go home to some sort of relatively healthy lunch.

P.S. Blogger has changed it's format since the last time I was blogging regularly and I'm getting lost a lot.

Crafts and Swimmers

2012-01-12T11:52:00.001-05:00

I’m trying a new thing with the pictures, and I hope itworks. If not, hopefully I’ll get itsorted out soon.

You know how sometimes you get to thinking about Eternityand trying to get the logic of it and if you think about it too long it getskind of freaky and you have to stop? Well I started thinking that way about unborn babies last night as I wastrying to fall asleep. Specifically,about MY unborn baby and how weird it is that it’s swimming around in there,bumping me and keeping me from falling asleep. It is so weird that they are living like little fish who don’t even eatwith their mouths. All they need is thismagic jelly cord and they’re good for survival for NINE MONTHS. It’s not even like they’re scuba diving withlimited oxygen. They’ve got their noseplugs and somehow with this belly button lifeline, that’s all there is toit. But then, after all those months ofbeing fish, as soon as they’re born they suddenly need to breathe air. ?!? It doesn’t even make any sense! And when I told this all to Martin, his response was, “Doesn’t it make youthink of what a miracle it is?” And Ihad to be honest and say, “No. It just freaks me out.” And it’s bad enough when I get to thinking about it when I’m not pregnant, but when I am,and when I’m feeling the bump-bump-bump in there, and I think about that weirdumbilical cord…. Ich. It’s just kind ofyucky.

But aside from being weirded out by the being swimmingaround in there, I am REALLY excited for this third baby. More excited than I was for either of myother two (not to say I wasn’t excited for them; obviously I was… but this timeI am COMPLETELY excited without reservation.) Why is this? Not much haschanged. Our income is the same, our houseis shrinking around us, we can’t fit three carseats into our current car. (Okay, well TECHNICALLY we can, but you can ask my sister about what a joy thatis.) But I’m so excited! Maybe it’s because after having two this timeI’ll know what I’m doing. (Haha, that’sa joke.) Maybe it’s because I’m boredevery day and I need something to give me something to do because I’m not busyenough. (Another joke.) Maybe it’s because I miss breastfeeding somuch. (Joking again! Greta’s still at it!) Seriously though, I do miss the tiny babythings and how much they need you in a different way than how preschoolers needyou. Preschoolers need you to help thembutton their fifteen costume changes per hour, and they need help spellingtheir words and remembering the lyrics to the songs they’re trying tosing. But they don’t want too much help…it’sdefinitely not okay to sing the song for them, or to write the word for them…oh no. But babies need help witheverything and they need lots of snuggles, for which preschoolers just don’thave time. I seriously miss diaperingand I’m SUPER excited to start expanding our cloth supplies. I miss the quiet one-on-one time that a newborndemands. Last night at 3am Greta woke up(she had to go poo poo but wouldn’t admit it.) We went downstairs and had a little snack and a drink of water and didsome coloring/drawing. And it wasactually kind of nice. And yes, I muchrather would have been sleeping in the middle of the night (especially afterTWO HOURS of being awake with her) but it was so quiet and cozy and she was socheerful. Just like those early daysmiddle-of-the-night feedings when even though you’d rather be sleeping, it iskind of nice to be snuggling up with your baby.

Don’t worry. I know I’llchange my mind when it’s actually happening. It’s just been so long since we’d had a BABY around here! It seems like Anja and Greta grew up at thesame pace. And now they’re such bigkids! It’s crazy!! And it’s tons of fun, in a different way.

Okay, time for a subject change.

I received a JoAnn’s gift card from my mother-in-law forChristmas and I intend to spend the entire thing on flannel. I’d like to make the girls each a cozy robeand with anything left over I’m going to make cloth baby wipes. We also got a Hanna Andersson catalogue inthe mail yesterday and they had some dresses in there that Anja loved thatwould be SUPER easy to make. So I’mgoing to see if they have any of their summer fabrics on clearance and start inon the spring/summer handmade wardrobe.

I know there are better fabrics you can get online, and Iwish I could have the nerve to buy online because I also know you can scoresome good deals. Not to mention thethrill of getting a package in the mail. My neighbor buys stuff online and sometimes the UPS truck pulls upacross from my house and I look hopefully out the window…. “maybe Iaccidentally ordered something wonderful in my sleep?...” Of course, I didn’t. Because I don’t actually like ordering stuffonline. I like to touch my purchases,especially fabrics and yarns, which is the only thing I would ever considerbuying online anyway. Oh well. Maybe I’ll open a fabric shop in my BackRoom.

It’s snowing!! We’refinally getting some good wintry weather. Not a moment too soon.

I’m telling you, this tethering thing is incredible.

Back at the Kitchen Table

2012-01-10T22:34:00.001-05:00

So, now that we have this laptop, and now since we have thisall-powerful iPhone, and now that we’ve figured out how to do that tetheringthing through the iPhone, I am at last able to enter back into thetechnological world from my kitchen table! This is pretty incredible. It’sbeen a long, long time since I’ve made a blog post in this fashion….. Geeminy,an entire year and a half. Whew. Well, it’s good to be back!

My parents are without a computer these days and my mom,even though she says, “Isn’t it nice to not have a computer?” has developed atwitch and the other day when I was there with my laptop she started drooling alittle bit while she was watching me update my blog. And the truth is, yes, nothaving a computer is VERY freeing and a wonderful experience. But sometimes things happen that I just wantto share. And when things come up andyou really want to make a blog post and you just CAN’T, that’s when not havinga computer is really, really obnoxious.

But other than that, it was nice to not have one. Especially when we had the iPhone, becausethen I could still look up recipes. Andspeaking of recipes, you should Google search “Hershey’s Hot Fudge Pudding Cake”right now, and then make that recipe. I’mnot joking—RIGHT NOW!!!! It is the mostmagical recipe ever. Not only magicalbecause I just can’t understand how it happens (you put all the ingredientstogether to make a regular cake mix, then you put a layer of dry ingredients ontop, then you dump hot water over everything and don’t stir—and somehow, thiscomes out LOOKING like a chocolate cake, but when you dig in with your servingspoon, THE ENTIRE BOTTOM IS DELICIOUS HOT FUDGE) but it’s also magical to EAT.

Okay, the next recipe is for the best pancakes you’ll evereat. I found this recipe tonight when Iscorched two separate batches of tomato soup. (Talk about annoying.) I think IGoogled “Pancake recipe” and I used the first hit, which is a VERY simplerecipe from AllRecipes.com. The reviewswere all great, so I tried it, and ohmygoodness, these were the best pancakes I’veever had! It helps that I tend to us alot of butter when cooking my pancakes, and it might have helped too that Iactually ran out of baking powder so I substituted the last half baking soda,half cream of tartar for the last teaspoon of baking powder…. Not sure if thatreally did anything but make them more salty, haha. Anyway… they were awesome.

Okay, this is not what I was itching to make a blog postabout. I came here to talk about babythings, specifically the adorable dress--which is NOT pictured above because I can't find my pictures at all on this weird computer... what was I saying about being glad to be back in the technological world?!-- which makes me kind ofyearn for another baby girl, come June 13^th-ish. (Ultrasound exactly matched my thought duedate, which according to Mrs. Beardmore’s theory, guarantees this baby is agirl!) We’ve never had a warm weather baby… Anja and Greta were both born onsunny warm days, but came home to a string of cold wetness. (In Greta’s case,it was cold snowiness. At the end ofMarch.) So to think that I could have ababy actually tiny enough to wear this during warm weather makes me pretty hopeful! I have a very small box of baby girl thingssaved back from the loads I delivered to the used children’s stores about aweek before I found out I was pregnant again. And if I am surprised and this isa boy baby, I will be very glad I got rid of so many boxes (Eleven diaper boxesFULL!) of girls clothes.

Oh! And speaking of the ultrasound, which was yesterday… wehad finally decided that we WOULD find out the gender (a first for us!) becauseAnja really, really wanted to know, and also because sometimes she startscrying just thinking that it might be a boy. (I’m not joking. I wish Iwere.) So we thought if we found out nowthat it’s a boy, we could make the preparation more fun, rather than droppingit on her at the birth when her life is already being turned upside down simplyby there being a new baby of either gender there in the first place. And she was really excited to find out, andboth girls came along to the ultrasound (Greta was totally not interested, butAnja thought it was cool) and then… then!.... the baby’s legs were pressedtogether and the technician said she couldn’t even take a guess. BLAH! So we still don’t know! Oh well….At least we tried. And funnily enough,Anja doesn’t really seem to care anymore.

In other news, we went to see The Nutcracker on Sunday andit was just as beautiful an experience for Anja as it was last year. It held Greta’s attention for about tenminutes…. Eventually she and I went outside and when we came back in for SugarPlum’s dance (there’s something about that pink, sticky-outy tutu that is justso magical!) Greta waited for a silent part and then shouted “BAH!” and was pretty pleased with herself.

Sometimes I can’t believe how different Anja and Gretaare.

Oh dear, it’s 10:30. I’d better hang this up. Nice to know I can blog anytime though! Welcome back, Sticky Kisses!

Will This Work?

2012-01-10T21:57:00.000-05:00

Blah Blah Blah! Test Test Test!

It worked! We're tethered!

.......... more later ..........................................

A Brand New Year!

2012-01-05T18:50:00.001-05:00

Way back in November my good friend, Perkins, gave us (*GAVE* US) a laptop. Isn't that amazing?! She'd gotten a new one while she was still in school, and this one was just sitting in her car. It works perfectly, except for the fact that it has to be plugged in. But who cares?!? It's still a computer!!! So we are back to being a family with a computer, which in some ways is very convenient. We still don't have internet yet, but it's so handy to be able to type stuff up and go to a coffee shop or something and just click "send" or whatever. I'm very happy to have it!

Our Christmas was very fabulous. Very. Fabulous. We spent Christmas Eve with my side of the family, as we usually do, and we ate a lot of good food and there were many extended relatives and friends joining in the celebration as well. I was lucky enough to recieve a Kindle Fire (whoopee!) while Martin was the proud recipient of a shotgun (of course) and the girls were generously given Bitty Babies, which were, by far, their favorite gifts of the entire holiday. The dolls were immediately named. Greta's is Baby Pajamas and Anja's is Balloon Rose. Very nice. And suddenly these dolls might as well be the only dolls they have! It's really funny. And cute.

We went to the Children's Mass on Christmas Eve, which, sadly, was not our best Mass. We sat in the very back pew, the girls were sleepy and hungry and not wanting to be there AT ALL. It was hot and stuffy and we couldn't hear anything and even when they went up to the manger scene for the homily, which I thought they'd be really excited about, they evidently thought they were going to get INTO the manger scene, because just being near and listening to Father's homily was not cool enough for them. However, the tradition of taking a piece of straw from the nativity made them both very happy. For about two minutes.

On Christmas Eve that same good friend of ours, Perkins, spent the night and got to share with us the magic of Christmas morning with kids. SO FUN. All the family stopped by throughout the day, and after the morning time, when we were all by ourselves again, we had the most delightful, lazy, quiet afternoon and evening. I made Traditional Austrian Cheese Soup (thanks, Joannie!) and it was a hit with everyone. It was such a happy day.

The next day (Boxing Day) we gathered with Martin's side of the family to celebrate. Another very fabulous day and I had made enough soup to take up the leftovers! One of my favorite things was a shirt from my sister-in-law that says I [heart] npr. LOVE IT! And it fits perfectly, which is also very awesome.

I'm having a hard time uploading my pictures onto the blog on this computer. In fact, I'm having a hard time even FINDING the pictures.... I know they're on here somewhere...... I'll get my hands on them eventually.

And when I do, I will post them.

Oh, New Years! Also, surprisingly fun! Perkins (she keeps coming up, doesn't she?) treated us to dinner at Olive Garden along with our friend Joel. So fun! Afterward I went on to play down at a shop on Main Street, where we thought the other three could come along (my dad even came down to sit with the sleeping girlies so Martin could come out with us) but it ended up having an enormous cover charge, so too bad for them. They went for beers at a cute little pub-style bar and were back at our place by 11:00. (Well, except for Joel, whose appetizer of mussels didn't agree with him. I'm glad I didn't eat any!) So at midnight, Perkins, Martin and I clinked our beverage glasses of coffee, orange juice and beer in our cozy living room and listened to the fireworks. Good thing our super loud neighbor came out on his porch and shouted "Happy New Year" or, gosh, we would've missed the big moment.

That night Greta and Martin both came down with the beginnings of an icky cough/cold that lingered on for days. Bleh. They seem to be knocking it now though, at last. Greta was croupy for a couple of nights--never a good things with her. Funny, with Anja, she wakes up croupy and you tell her what's up and she calmly goes along with sticking her head in the freezer and sitting in the steamy bathroom. With Greta, she gets so overwhelmed she just gets more and more worked up until one night the LAST time she had croup, back in November, I ended up taking her to the emergency room because I couldn't get her calmed down enough to breathe! This time around I decided it would be better to sleep with the window open for an hour at a time throughout the night than to wake her up to go through the usual croup routine. It worked! The first night we did sit in front of the open window together, but I never had to take her out of the bedroom, which I think is what freaked her out in the first place that night we went to the ER.

Anyway. Enough of the boring stuff. Monday is a big day! It's Ultrasound Day! I am looking forward to this ultrasound a lot. I want to find out the gender this time... I've never wanted to so much before! But Martin is still a staunch believer in the surprise-at-the-moment-of-birth-gender-discovery. Which I am too, when it actually happens! But right now I have this great opportunity to find out whether this little being who is making my jeans too tight and who makes me feel like I have to empty my bladder every eight minutes is a little boy baby or a little girl baby. I could be able to say "Elka, stop stepping on my bladder!" or, "Francis! What are you doing in there?!?" Imagine! And I am a naturally curious person, too, which doesn't help. *sigh* so on the one hand, Monday will likely be a hard day for me, but also an exciting one since we get to see arms and legs and nose and eye sockets, etc. The girls and Martin are coming along this time, and Anja is especially excited. I've shown her pictures from HER ultrasound so I think she knows not to expect a photographic image of the baby.
I hope so, anyway!

Tomorrow. Epiphany. Down come the Christmas decorations. Sadness. I'm afraid Anja will cry a lot when we take everything down and put it all back into it's big box and stuff it back into the closet, but we're going to keep the lights and garland up over our big doorway, so hopefully that will be cheery enough for her. And I don't suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, (I LOVE WINTER) but it still might do something to keep us smiling until the crocuses come up.

I'm lucky to have this laptop!

Growing Anticipation

2011-12-22T23:19:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I finished one gift, today I finished another. I still have four more gifts to make and assorted baking obligations. I've been making a lot of cookies but they keep disappearing. And just as odd, my kitchen chairs keep rearranging themselves. I come into the room and see that the chairs have pushed themselves over to the kitchen counter. The counter where I leave the cookies before packing them into tins. Hm. Maybe I have really hungry chairs??

Tonight Martin and I went out to dinner at a downtown Italian restaurant to celebrate our five year anniversary! The girls had a fun time staying home with their AuntT. Our friend Joannie met us for dessert which was great.

And so the preparations continue!

Decking the Halls

2011-12-20T15:08:00.001-05:00

I can't believe that Christmas is just a few days away. I'm doing all I can to get things wrapped up (haha, a pun!) before Saturday so that I don't spend all of Christmas Eve running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I am not making as much this year, but I'm really happy with everything we've gotten for people. We started budgeting/shopping many months ago and I feel like that gave us the chance to be truly thoughtful, rather than what we often are, which is more like waking up on December 24th and saying "what?! It's Christmas already?!" ok, I admit, that's more MY attitude than the ever-prepared Martin, but still. I'm happy with our givings this year. And I did manage to make a FEW special homemade things.

Martin and I will be celebrating our 5 year anniversary on Thursday. I had lots of good ideas for this year's traditional gift theme: wood. Sadly, I wasn't able to find just the right thing. So unless something falls into my lap in the next couple of days, I'll be giving him a lame-o flame-o anniversary gift. Boo.

I got my hair cut! I got it layered with swoopy sort of bangs. A fabulous change for someone who hasn't bothered to get a professional haircut in more than two years.

"The bump" is growing. Unfortunately, it's growing in the belly as well as the *ahem* behind.

...And the Christmas goodies just keep rolling in....

Secret's Out

2011-12-11T10:25:00.001-05:00

So, it seemed like just about the stupidest idea in the world to advertise this to the blogosphere while it was going on, but for the past year-and-a-month Martin has been working a second job. It started last fall when our original mortgage company sold our mortgage to an ultra scummy company and our monthly payment jumped up something like 80%. (ok, not THAT much, but the increase was huge.) we had about one month's warning for this. We knew the solution would be to refinance and get away from scummy NationStar, but that takes time and we had to keep paying the sky-high payments until then. At Martin's regular job he can't guarantee to be out of his office by a certain time. During busy times he is sometimes at work until 8 or later, so an after-work job was a no-go. Martin found an ad on craigslist for a nighttime security guard job on Friday and Saturday overnights, midnight-8am. And for awhile it was PERFECT! but then the new wore off. There were still the obvious advantages: extra money (he committed to a year, even though we were able to refinance by late winter and get our payments back to reasonable) we still could go to church as a family, and I had this amazing opportunity to stay up late watching chick flicks every Friday and Saturday night!!! (this is in fact how I got my green sweater made so quickly. I stayed up late knitting every weekend! For a long time I had this great routine--put the girls to bed, Martin napped on the couch until he had to leave, and I would get myself a Starbucks drink and sit at my kitchen table knitting and listening to the folk music programs on NPR. Lovely! But then I finished my green sweater and summer came and we wanted to be more active than during the winter when Martin would sleep during the days as soon as he got home. Meh. Still, he stuck it out until the date he'd set! And that date was TODAY!! two weeks ago he began growing his beard back (he had to shave it for the job) and this morning he came home at 8:00 for the last time. Hooray!

You can see why it would have been foolish of me to basically say "hey all you lurking Internet loonies! My children and I are all alone overnight! Come and get us!!" haha.

In other news, I've been scoring some beyond-belief deals on clothes to fit my growing-but-not-exactly-maternity-clothes-ready belly/waistline. My new rule for shopping is that I will not pay more than $5 per item. And then I find $2.99 racks!!! I am buying clothes for less than the cost of a peppermint mocha. Awesome.

We have seen the Christmas tree at the Union and the girls loved the gingerbread house there. We are enjoying Advent SO MUCH and I am impressed by Anja's spirit of preparation.

Now it's time to read some stories to my cute children who are being piglets this morning. So cute! Here's hoping this posts!

Exhaustified

2011-12-03T20:03:00.005-05:00

This was the best picture I got during my little Christmas card photo shoot the other day. For awhile they were being AWESOME, but my camera was being way less than awesome and every single pictures was nothing but blurs. By the time I found my phone and started using that, they'd both lost interested in the photo shoot and had started fighting. This was the one picture I got where one face at least was clear!

So, one of the things I really hate about parenthood is when I have to read those books to my girls that have scenes where the characters are going to sleep. They always look so cozy, so sleepy, so wonderful. I read those and I think, "please, can't I go to bed too? Please??" And of course, the answer is always "No, it's only 3:00 in the afternoon." (Or sometimes it's "No, you've only been awake for an hour and a half.") It's so sad for me. And then by the time it is time for me to go to bed, I don't want to because I get this burst of energy that comes with the knowledge that I have a few hours in which I can do ANYTHING I WANT. BY MYSELF. My days have become pretty exhuasting lately. Not necessarily in a bad way......... it's just that our days are very full of activity... and talking.

As you know, Anja is 4 years old now, and evidently 4-year-olds are very curious people. Anja lately is wanting to know every detail about every subject in the whole wide world. She wants to know how electricity works. She wants to know why bird poo-poo is white when her poo-poo is brown. She wants to know all about deserts and hippopotamuses and she wants to know every last detail of the Life of Christ. But it isn't just the facts she wants. Oh no. Anja wants to know the emotional details about everything as well. "Mama, what did the poor animals eat if the Baby Jesus was lying in all their good hay?!?" I spend my whole day, every day, thinking up answers in words suitable for a four year old while maintaining honesty without making her afraid of everything. "Yes, Anja, if you ever encounter a hippopotamus in the wild, he will probably eat you. But don't worry--chances are you will never see a hippopotamus in his natural habitat, or at least if you do, you probably won't be all by yourself." And the questions are CONSTANT.

Meanwhile, as Anja and I are involved in a steady stream of question-and-answer sessions, Greta is trying to kill herself. Greta is one of these energetic children who doesn't stop until someone gets hurt--and really, she has to be the one getting hurt before she stops. She just goes and goes and goes. It makes going out in public somewhat difficult. And it doesn't help that she has a true talent for running into large store displays. (She seems especially attracted to the cardboard kind that spill their contents and fall over easily.) Earlier in the week the girls and I went to Barnes & Noble to try and do some Christmas shopping for Martin. We did get the shopping done, but it took a long time and it was not what I would label an "easy" outing. Greta was dead set on getting Daddy a game. (Barnes & Noble has quite the game selection now, did you know that?) So we visited the many shelves of games, where Anja asked me the detailed playing instructions of each game as Greta ran laps around the display shelves. Eventually we got away from there and a long time later, with our purchases, made it up to the checkout. Anja happily participated in the standing in line and the checking out politely while Greta "swam" on the tile floors. (In case you don't know what "swimming" is, it's when she gets down on her tummy and pushes herself all over the floor like a little otter. It seems more acceptable when she does it in the privacy of our kitchen. Also, she usually wears a swimsuit.) Anyway, we did make it out of the store, across the parking lot, and to our car (which currently is my parents' van that we are borrowing while our car sits mostly dead in our driveway) and we even got all buckled in (miracle!) before we realized that Greta had lost her [very small] panda bear inside the store. Oh, tears. We called right then and then went back later that evening, but nobody had turned it in and we couldn't find it anyplace. Bummer. Probably some other little child has a new toy. And it would've been mostly okay because Greta actually has two of those very small panda bears.... but then last night she lost the other one at some point when we were down in Indianapolis. Sadness.

But even with the exhaustion, as long as we stay in the safety of our own house, our days at home are glorious! We've been planning and making some small Christmas presents for some people in our families. Lots of fun. Advent is wonderful with kids. Anja and Greta are REALLY enjoying it this year... the singing, the candles, the nativity scenes, the looking forward to Christmas. The planning gifts, the trying *every* grocery run to remember to buy molasses so we can make gingerbread......... did I mention the singing and candles? It's a wonderful time. And surprisingly not busy...... we don't really do the holiday party thing (it helps to have no friends), and everything else that goes on we can just pick and choose and decide spur of the moment whether to partake in any given activity. (Example: Dickens of a Christmas was today; we didn't go. But this week they are having Christmas festivities every day over at the Union and I expect that at least one day we'll be able to hop on a trolley and get over there to see the giant tree and hear some music!)

Oh! I've just been invited to a music show in the living room! I'd better get in there....

I hope I didn't paint a negative picture of my children in this post! It's just all those sleepy, cozy childrens books I'm forced to read every day... *yawn*

Double grr.

2011-12-01T23:14:00.001-05:00

Great long post was written.

Apparently the "publish" button and the "delete" button are a sort of all-in-one deal.

Grrrrr.

Birthday Pictures... And I Can't Fix my Blog!!!

2011-11-15T18:39:00.007-05:00

I am having some blog issues. Is it looking to anyone else that all of my sidebar information is now all the way at the bottom instead of in the sidebar? It's very annoying and I don't know how to fix it! Anyone with any information on how to solve this little problem is welcome to give me some tips.

And now, here are some pictures from Anja's birthday last week: The Festive Table.

Notice the store-bought cake. I am not usually one who buys birthday cakes... Not that I'm AGAINST it by any means.... I'm just the type of crazy mom who takes special orders for birthday desserts, right up to the very last minute. (Gee, sound like Halloween?) Anja's order this year was the same as last: Stringy Monster Cupcakes, from one of my cupcake decorating books. No problem! I can do that! Just give me a few minutes to get my stomach under control...... Just a few more minutes.... What? It's already 4:00? Everyone's coming over at 5:00 for cupcakes and ice cream? Where's the ice cream?! Where are the cupcakes?!? WHERE ARE THE INGREDIENTS FOR THE CUPCAKES?!?!? I had nothing. I was not exactly unprepared, it's just that the idea of going to the grocery store makes me nauseous, let alone actually baking something in my kitchen. Do you know what our grocery routine is as of late? We go to Target (I can't do Aldi, as there's no place to get away from all that food) and while Martin and the girls do the food shopping, I go browsing in the clothes and tiny baby things. Then Martin sends me a text message to tell me what checkout line they are in and I meet them there. I try to time it so that I never have to see any of the food out of their bags, but sometimes I just have to avert my eyes. So for Anja's birthday, I thought for sure I could do it..... but it turned out I couldn't. So we ran out at 4:30 and bought a Happy Birthday cake that she was very happy with.

She opened her presents first thing in the morning. She's never been so excited about her own birthday before!

Cutie Patootie Avila!!!!

Blowing out the birthday candles. (See those cookies?! I DID make those! From scratch!)

Anja received this kitten from Ooma for her birthday. It's one of those creepy Fur*Real pets that makes scary noises and walks and purrs. She named it Thunder Snow and then to match it's WWF name, she dressed it up like and 80's rock star. Remember how Anja had such good style back when she was 2? I'm not really sure what happened to it.

And here's our old friend, Ratty! For awhile I thought he was dead. I hadn't seen him in so long, but the other day he was back, hopping around in the rain. I realize he's all wet and not looking his best, but check out that tail. He is definitely not a purebred squirrel. If he weren't so charming I'd be afraid of him. But we've given him so many nicknames he's kind of like a member of the family. (In fact, Greta just came up behind me and saw this picture and said "There's Ratty!") Pretty gross though, huh?

In other news: Saturday was the beginning of shotgun season for deer. The weekend was windy and yesterday was nasty so today was the first day Martin got out to hunt. I am proud to say that he was only in his stand for about an hour before he shot his first doe. Way to go, Martino! As we speak he's stringing it up from our tulip tree in the backyard and tomorrow he'll get to work butchering it.

Today instead of doing laundry, which is slowly taking over our house (I shouldn't admit this but I've stooped to the point of piling dirty clothes into empty cardboard boxes. How disgusting is that?) I worked on a baby quilt for the new baby. I know. My bathroom is in a State of Emergency, and I am spending my time crafting for a child that won't be born for at least 6 months. Sheesh.

And speaking of that new baby, Martin has started calling it "Elkis." This is because a boy will likely be the name not given to Anja and Greta, which is John Francis--whom we would call Francis. And a girl will very likely be named Elka, which I think is an absolutely gorgeous name, and which is the Polish form of Elizabeth. I LOVE IT. I had never heard this name before, but it was the name of an author of this children's book we got called "One Little Chicken." I saw it, and loved the name immediately. I texted Martin (I was at the library; he was at work) and asked him if he liked that name. His response was "Yes! It's a good Jewish name!" And that little book turned out to be a retelling of a traditional Jewish story. I think it IS a good name. I like it better than the similar German name, Elke (El-key) which is the German form of Adelaide, and is a slightly more common name.

Have I bored you to death yet with my names obsession? That's good because it's WAAAAY past bedtime. Martin got his deer hung and is back to get us. Time to go home and go to bed!!!! Hooray!!! I love bedtime!!!!!

Apologies

2011-11-14T18:01:00.002-05:00

My apology is for the layout of my blog and how weird it is. I'm going to be messing with it in the days/months to come. Don't be alarmed.

The better apology (my sister will appreciate this) comes from my mom who apologized to me tonight, not only for the horrible dress she made me wear to my piano recital AND talent show in 4th grade, but also for the WORST HAIRCUT EVER that she made me have FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE. I had this horrible, horrible, wretched, horrible haircut from the time I was in first grade to the summer after 6th grade. I remember the last time I had my haircut in that awful way because it was for my cousin's wedding that summer and after that she said I could grow it out. And I did! Right away!

I told her she's lucky anyone married me. I also told her I wasn't too embarrassed for Martin to see the video of me in that dress from the piano recital.... 'cause I know his mom made his sisters dress the same way. :)

Where We Finding Baby There Be Milk Nearby!

2011-11-11T15:03:00.011-05:00

Wow, I'm a pretty big loser for not updating for this long, huh? I have some pictures that I took from my Facebook mobile uploads album--so if you're friends with me on Facebook, you've likely seen all these pictures already. The night before Anja's birthday Greta and I went out on a sort of date... we had dinner together at Panera, then did some last minute birthday underpants shopping for Anja. (And I would like to say that even though Martin made fun of me for buying her underwear for her birthday, it might've been the gift she was most excited about. So, Ha!)

This is on Halloween night, when we'd all had a bit too much sugar. The girls dressed up as little chicks and they were very cute! I think I got some good pictures on my camera, but of course, that is at home and I am up here at my parents' house. I was a little bummed that at the last minute they decided not to be the characters of Little Red Riding Hood, but I was luckily able to whip up matching chick costumes in two days (thanks to my mom's awesome, jam-free sewing machine!) and the girls were very happy with them. Halloween was really fun.... our kids are pretty shy and Anja in particular was not really digging the hoards of people out and about, even if it was all in the name of candy. But I think during the gorge-fests in the days following, they were glad they'd been brave and gone trick-or-treating.

I participated in my first ever craft fair last weekend! I sold exactly ZERO of these little gnomies I had. However, I had a lot of knitted kittens and except for the three that Anja sneaked into her pocket, they all sold! I also sold a few of my sewn cards, and that was it. I would not call it a huge success, but it was DEFINITELY a lot of fun. My sister, my mom and I all had this big booth right next to the kitchen where a little bakery business was selling cupcakes and stuff. Surprisingly, I didn't have ANY cupcakes, but I did drink their yummy hot cider. Turns out my sister and I are going to have a booth at another craft fair coming up at the beginning of December. This is okay, since I hardly sold anything at the last one! But it still makes me nervous because while I'll be making stuff for the craft fair, I SHOULD be making Christmas presents for, you know, people I actually know. Like my family.

This is a picture of the skunk that Martin shot out in Virginia this summer and it signifies the text message I just got from him a few minutes ago that said "Vacay starts now!" Tomorrow kicks off shotgun season for deer and Martin has all of next week off of work to focus on lowering our annual grocery bill.

Anja turned 4 on Wednesday! She is EXTREMELY excited to be a four year old. I myself can't believe it.

And this is the self-portrait Anja drew a few days before her birthday. The round things on and around her feet are her slippers. Later she got out the glue and cut pieces of ribbon and glued them onto the hair, and then drew clothes and she added the body after she realized she'd forgotten it, too. Complete with belly button. So in the end, I'm glad I got a photo at this stage of the picture because it turned out to be the most comprehensible.

We had a little span of time a few weeks ago when we thought Theodore would no longer be living with us. And you can use your imagination to figure out where that would've put him, since I doubt anyone would've responded to an ad that said, "Morbidly Obese Cat with Severe Dandruff Seeks Loving New Owners Who Are Very Forgiving Of Him Leaving Poop Smears In Their Bed." I mean, I guess they might've responded privately, by throwing up, but they definitely wouldn't have called the provided phone number. Anyway, he was having some serious hygiene issues due to his being vastly overweight and therefore unable to clean himself after *ahem* toileting. Martin called the vet, told them the story and said if there's no way to fix this issue, he's going to have to be given the prick of death. Luckily, our vet told us there might be a last hope: some special prescription cat food and a daily dose of fish oil. Also, we've been letting him outside again. He appears to be losing weight and his bathroom area is MUCH cleaner since starting the new diet! He still has some dandruff issues.... but I guess I can deal with that. The girls are glad to have him still living with us. As you can see, he's not always amused by their games, but hey, he doesn't move either, so I don't think he has too much room to complain.

So, we've been hanging out at my parents' house a lot lately. This is due to the fact that I've really started hating food. Raw vegetables literally make me throw up, if I see them sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me. I've also recently had a terrible urge to give my hair a new 'do. A serious chop, or style, or bangs or something... OH WAIT.... Maybe I'm pregnant!? As a matter of fact, I am! And except for the aversion to all things edible, our whole house is very excited about this new addition, due in early June. June seems awfully far away... but I should be glad that I'll have so much time to knit cute clothes!!!!! And again, except for the nastiness of the 1st trimester, I'm excited to be preggo again. It's been awhile! I'm excited for all the babyish things... diapers, and baby wearing, all those cute weird sounds they make, seeing a little personality emerge from a wrinkly pink blob.... It seems like so long ago that I had the baby experience. Greta will be well past three by the time this next baby is born, and she hasn't been in diapers for almost a year. Plus, nobody lets me dress them anymore. I need a baby to dress so the world can know that I really don't have ridiculous taste in childrens clothes!

So that's the news around here. Oh, also, my girls have become kind of obsessed with Lady & the Tramp. It's pretty cute... they don't watch movies at home, so it makes Ooma's house extra special if they get to come over for dinner AND watch Lady & the Tramp AND have baths with colored water. And they have no interest in any other movies. They are just really obsessed with Lady & the Tramp. It's cute!

Oh, let's be honest. Everything they do is cute!! Tee hee hee! If I could post a sound clip I'd post Anja singing "the Three Little Kittens" and Greta singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb." We've been having tons of fun recording our singings in the audio memos on my iPhone!

Apples & Pumpkins & Sunshine, Oh My!

2011-10-21T14:37:00.023-04:00

At this point it's been a number of weeks, but awhile back we visited the apple orchard/pumpkin patch that we like so well, Stuckey Farms, down near Indianapolis. Such a great place! This visit was by far the busiest, and the absolutely most gorgeous weather. EVER. We spent pretty much the entire day down there which really wiped out the girls... but we went to my parents' house for dinner, which helped them get through the evening! This post might be picture overload (might? Let's face it: It is.) but I had trouble weeding out. The sky was so blue, the light was so bright, the leaves were so green, etc.

This is what we do for entertainment while waiting for the tractor ride to come and take us back from the pumpkin patch.

The best part of this trip was on the tractor ride back with our pumpkins, Greta was getting pretty restless, so I was trying to make conversation with her in an effort to distract her and keep her from throwing herself from the wagon in a fit of rage. I said, "Greta, we'll carve our pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. What do you want yours to look like?" She gave it a good long thought. "Ummm.... I think a bottom."

With Halloween comes Anja's favorite candy: Candy corn. This stuff nauseates me. I can't ever remember liking it, and about once a year I think "Maybe now I'll like it" and I'll taste a piece, and, no, I still find it disgusting. But Anja can't get enough of it. Yesterday she told me, "Mama, the candy corn with the brown on the top? Don't worry, it's just a different flavor, it's not rotten!" Thanks, Anja, I was worried!

And speaking of Halloween, I am rocking the frugality contest this Halloween! I've been really striving to get the best deals on stuff. I had 3 Jo-Ann's coupons, which only work for regularly-priced items. (Annoying, since most of their store is on sale.) So I've really been working to get the best deal, coupon or no coupon. Which included making two trips out there yesterday. But it's worth it! So far I've gotten all I need for Greta's costume, a booklet of fall stickers for the girls, and a little Halloween decoration for our door, and the pattern for Anja's wolf costume (best deal: originally $13.49, I paid .99!) all for roughly $10! I am SO proud of myself. Now I just have to get the hairy fabric for the wolf costume, and I'll be all set! I'm excited! Anja is most excited. It was her idea to be the Little Red Riding Hood characters!

I apologize for the incomplete birthday post. My birthday was most wonderful, as I said, but my post erased the whole part about the second day when the girls had pony rides. When we were returning the cabin key Martin saw the information for the stables, so we drove out to see what was available. It was a slow day, so we were the only people there (it was early, too) and the guy at the stables just kind of handed us a pony and told Martin to keep him on the gravel and don't let him eat the grass. He didn't tell him how long to go or anything, so Martin just took the girls one at a time on a nice slow pony ride on the nicest, softest, MOST ADORABLE PONY EVER. I wanted to take the pony home with me. Seriously, it was so cute. And SO SOFT!!!!!!!!

Now this outdated post is posted.... and tonight WE ARE GOING TO SEE TIM O'BRIEN AND I CANNOT WAIT HE IS SO AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, one of my long-time loves. I loved Tim O'Brien WAY before I loved Martin (shhhh, don't tell Martino!) It's a family-friendly show, and we've been trying and trying to convince Greta to come with us--I think she would absolutely LOVE it. But she says she wants to stay at Ooma's house. Whatever. Someday when she's older and Tim O'Brien is too ancient to perform anymore I'll tell her about the chance she passed up when she was 2. And she will have to live with the regret for the rest of her life. But, whatever; it's her choice.

Ugh! Incomplete!

2011-10-09T00:18:00.001-04:00

So that last post did not publish completely!! It only published what I'd written and saved up at my parents house and then I finished it on my phone, but it didn't publish what I'd done on my phone! And now I'm so irritated I don't want to type it all out again! Grrrrrrrrrr....... Maybe another time soon. With more pictures. Sad faces.

Birthday Goodness

2011-10-08T15:46:00.014-04:00

Every year for my birthday Martin tries to surprise me with something. Every year he pretends he's going to work, when really I know he's scheduled a vacation day. Every year I guess his gift well in advance. (This happens every Christmas too.) He's just not very good at surprising me, and I'd like to think it's because we know each other so well! However, this year, he succeeded. Now, to give myself credit, I had originally, long ago, guessed that we might be going camping, but then I thought it would be too expensive and troublesome, and cold, etc., so I thought that couldn't possibly be it. And after that I had no guesses. So I guess I did kind of guess it, but since I didn't believe my own guess, I think Martin wins. Anyway. On to the story of the event.

He waited until the night before my birthday to tell me he'd taken not one, but TWO days off of work and had reserved a cabin down at McCormick's creek for a night. Hooray! We put the girls to bed and got straight to work packing up blankets and pillows and a little bit of food so we could head out first thing in the morning and get down there in time to enjoy the park before our check-in time at 4:00.

I'm going to omit the story of our morning and how we couldn't convince the girls to get out of the house and then once we did, all they wanted to do was go to Barnes & Noble and play on the train table. So we did that. And then they wanted to go home and eat hotdogs. (!?) We ignored that request and headed down to the park instead. (Oops, I guess I told you all about the morning..... but I did leave out the fit-o-meter levels throughout the morning.) Once we were on the road, Anja was ready to go! The drive was beautiful and when we passed the Elk farm some of the big elk were right up by the fence, and one of them was vigorously shaking his huge antlers! Those are amazingly huge animals! Beyond the elk farm is the buffalo farm, but they were too far out in the field for the girls to see.

We ended up getting down there around 2:00, which ended up being perfect because by the time we got there everybody had to go potty and we couldn't find a bathroom anywhere. We did find a little picnic shelter so we grilled some lunch, ran around in the leaves, played on a small little playground and walked a little bit on a trail that ended up being pretty overgrown with thorn bushes, so we turned back.

Then we noticed a bigger field and a bigger playground across the little drive. I don't think we actually made it over there until the next day though.

I wishe my photography skills had been more "on" while we were here. I just couldn't get fabulous pictures like I sometimes can.... and it's too bad because the lighting and the leaves were so beautiful! The next morning was even more perfect, and of course, I left my camera in the car.

At about 4:00 we drove back to the main office to pick up our cabin key. We had no idea what to expect with the cabins.... it was pretty cheap, so we were not expecting much; a cement floor in a bunker-style room was about what we'd been envisioning. Boy, were we wrong! The cabin was ADORABLE, with wood floors, a large sitting room with a gas heater that looks like a wood stove, rustic furniture, a bedroom with two sets of bunkbets, a kitchen with a fridge and stove, and an extremely clean bathroom with a shower, toilet and sink. It was awesome! There was also a little screened in porch with two rocking chairs at the front, where Martin and I sat after the girls went to bed. It was so perfect! All the cabins (I think there are 12) are in this little neighborhood-y kind of place, which is a paved road, and at the end is a trail. We took a little walk down the trail, ran around the road (It is a loop at one end) and just really enjoyed ourselves. There's a deck with a picnic table outside the cabin so we had dinner outside.

A small tour:

Anja played "little deer lost in the woods" a lot, under the dark bunkbeds. This is kind of her "Deer in headlights" look to go along with the game.

Martin fixing dinner. Next to the counter was a funny wooden door-window that opened onto the screened in porch. When we got home from one of our walks, Martin handed me the girls in through the window. They thought that was hilarious!

Martin mixed up some dry hot chocolate mix and brought it along in a jar, so the girls got hot chocolate before bed.

The view from the pull-out sofa bed.

The girls looking at their new Highlights magazine while Martin were cleaning up the place and getting ready to check out.

The kitchen and bathroom beyond. See the cute shelves above the fridge? We put all our food there and it looked so cozy.

It was SUCH a good birthday surprise!

Heaven Help Me

2011-09-30T23:37:00.001-04:00

My dear Martino and I just had a "discussion" about our finances. Since we use a cash-only spending system, the discussion went pretty much like this:
Martin: where's that twenty dollars I gave you?
Me: (mumbling) I don't know.
Martin: did you put it back in the envelope?
Me: I can't remember (mumble, mumble.)
Martin: hey, why do you look upset? It doesn't matter!
(seriously, he really is that nice!)
Me: I can't keep track of our money. It all just disappears, I don't know where it goes, it just walks away! I can't handle it!!
Martin: (blank look.) you just take it out of the envelope when you're leaving for the store and put what's left back in the envelope when you get home. It really is that easy.
(oh yeah. He. Said. That.)

And of course, it is NOT "that easy" as I proceeded to tell him. Half the time I leave for the store without ANY money because after I've gotten our children dressed, snacked, out the door, in the car, buckled up and provided them with about ten (hundred) traveling companions EACH I am in such a hurry to get out of the driveway before someone decides they have to go to the bathroom that the money that is necessary for this grocery trip is the last thing on my mind. And putting it back when we return? HA!

For one thing, I have a certain daughter who is extremely "helpful." and her helpfulness would be really cute if it weren't so contagious. So instead of me handing a cashier money and she handing me my change, we have to divide the tasks evenly. Ok, mama gives the cashier the bills; Anja receives the paper change, Greta receives the coins (which get dropped on the floor, of course, multiple times) and then there's the receipt. Greta ALWAYS wants to carry the receipt, but she doesn't care enough to actually hold onto it so she keeps dropping it and I have to chase it down until something distracts her enough that I can shove it in my pocket without her noticing.

And I love Aldi, I REALLY love that place... But. I really cannot stand how when I push my double-wide cart through, which holds two children in the children seats and NO GROCERIES, they NEVER seem to notice and just cheerily fill up the child seats of the cart I'm trading for (that might only make sense to fellow Aldi shoppers) so that instead of just popping my kids from one seat to the next, I have to get them out of the cart completely and rearrange my groceries so they can ride. And of course, as I'm doing this, Greta is running away. Through the automated doors and toward the parking lot. I kid you not, this happens EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

And when we get home I have to get all the groceries in, along with both girls, who are, of course, beside themselves with hunger because we've been out of the house for five minutes, so I'm fixing snacks as I'm putting away frozen broccoli and with all that brand new food, can't we just have a little taste of everything, Mama??????

Meanwhile, any change we got at the grocery store has sprouted legs and wandered off.

And here's the kicker: I only have TWO. There are people in the world with more (way more!) children who do things like run home businesses and do their own taxes. If I ever have more than my two girls I won't be able to leave the house!!!! How do they do it?! Where do they put them in the grocery carts?! How do they keep track of their change and their receipts?!?

Of course, our days at home are (mostly) pictures of peace and beauty (I'm really being serious!) during which the three of us do lots and lots of singing and reading stories and playing a wide array of pretend games. And we can bake things and dress up and do puzzles! But ask me to leave the house and follow a list of instructions in chronological order? Oh ho ho, dear Martino, it is NOT that easy!

P.S. We aren't really quarreling. The above story is true, but after my detailed explanation as to where the grocery money goes, he understood completely.

Signs of the Season

2011-09-28T19:30:00.014-04:00

I know there is a time of year that things are supposed to slow down, but when is it, exactly? Not summer--everybody's in a hurry to do! Do! Do! in the summertime, and in the fall the Mighty Craft Bug hits (just in time for Halloween--we're being the story of Little Red Riding hood this year!) and it's the Christmas-Present-Buying season, and Anja's birthday and then the Holiday Season..... definitely not slow. And after Christmas I guess things slow down a little bit, but that's when garden planning starts and I start wanting to get out to the yard earlier than I should and this year we're hoping to get Anja started in something fun for her like a tiny people ballet class (can you even imagine the cuteness?? Also, we're trying to get her to stop growling at strangers and we're hoping some kind of organized class might help....)

Anyway. Things are not slowing for us around here. In fact, just take a look at our nature table.... it is busy, busy, busy. Do you see the little fire we built for the gnomies? And Anja put all the creatures around it. And she hung her apple fairies (thanks, Little Red Whimsy!) from the Season Tree, which is also covered in some gloomy, grey fleece.

We are planning to go apple picking this coming weekend, which will be Anja's best memory for the year [again] and she will probably cry and cry and cry when it's time to leave [again] and say that she wants to live there forever [again.] At least I hope so.... the crying is not so fun, but I think she passion she feels for apple orchards is kind of beautiful.

And of course this past weekend was the 44th Feast of the Hunters Moon! These are my favorite purchases from this year:
A fabulous HUGE mug and these adorable little sheep, which were the funniest little fad of the Feast this year.... started by my nephew Carlos, we just kept accumulating flocks and flocks of these little sheep! And they are SO CUTE!! These are only two of them.... we have a total of five. Three littles and two parents.

And what would be the Feast without the Highland Games? Martin won me a nice crock which is now holding my pretty white wildflowers that grow at the edge of our driveway. Love it! Last year he got candle holders!

And Anja enjoyed playing in the straw. I'm not sure she ever realized or cared that Martin was participating. Oh well.

And can I just say..... my little girls were the cutest little 18th century french children EVER!!!!! And yes, I was pretty proud of my sewing excursions the week leading up to it. I made 8 skirts, 2 capes, two chamises and a matching outfit for the girls' little dolls, Salad and Annie. (Can you guess which doll belongs to whom? Okay, I'll tell you.... Salad belongs to Anja. And Greta is obsessed with the name Annie. And the name Alice.)

Here are Daisy and Miranda, always good to see every year!

And of course, I have to include a picture of Martino by his fire. HIS fire. He is very posessive.

So the Feast was a success. Saturday morning Greta woke up in a foul mood and so the whole day was a little stressful, trying to head off every tantrum, and I was afraid the next day would be more of the same. (We ended up not camping out because it was pretty rainy.) Surprisingly, she woke up SO excited to go back to the Feast! And they were tickled to death that we were going to Mass AT THE FEAST. So on Sunday, Greta called it Feast Church. Silly, silly. On Sunday we were all dirty and smokey and exhausted and cold and damp and the last thing I wanted to do was make dinner and the second-to-last thing I wanted to do was wash dishes that come with getting carry-out. So we went to Pizza Hut and gorged on their cheap, greasy buffet and it was perfect. And then we went home and collapsed.

Continuing our signs of Autumn, here is a perfect spider web hung from the center of our porch light with a big, fat, ugly spider right in the middle of it.

The picture really doesn't capture it's coollness very well, but trust me... it was creepy to the extreme.

And to prepare for Old Man Winter who is lurking just a few months away, I knit these hoods for the girls.

Greta's is red and has a button, Anja's is pink and has a tie. I think they turned out ridiculously cute for how ridiculously easy they were to make!! They begin at the seed stitch edge and are really just a rectangle sewn down the back. I got the idea from a pattern for a hooded scarf in a book, and I added the seed stitch and left off the scarf part. And I added the button/tie to take the place of the scarf, which (obviously) holds the hood on your head in the original pattern.

And that's it! MY BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Most Eventful Weekend

2011-09-20T22:35:00.001-04:00

This is now an outdated post and I will make a new one soon. But LAST weekend provided a lot of excitement such as a Hatke family reunion, Greta having pinworms, some serious rockstar faces by Anja and one of our neighbors being found dead in his apartment.

But now the pinworms are gone, Fall has arrived and the Feast of the Hunter's Moon was the most recent and very fun event. Pictures soon. I will say that my girls were the most adorable little 18th century French children ever. I did a lot of sewing the week prior. Today the pack baskets are being returned to the Seasonal Closet until next year. It's always kind of sad when the Feast ends.

But those details are for another post!

I am Cold

2011-09-15T21:54:00.001-04:00

Hello, Autumn! I finished my cowl/tube/loose scarf-like thing without annoying ends (inspired by Soulemama archives) last night, just in time for today's pleasant chill.
I like it. I get the feeling that Martin is laughing at me as I wear it, but I'm trying to tell myself that it doesn't matter because in the end I am the warmer one. Also, he was the one trying to convince me last night that I should keep going to make it big enough to be pulled over my head as a hood. Um, no thanks. I'm 27, not 77. (he thinks I care too much about fashion and not enough about survival. He seems to think a woobie will save my life.)

Anyway. After a very full day we had an AMAZING dinner of squash soup and biscuits, then went for gelato at Greyhouse. It was a good family date. Sadly, I'm not able to get the photo to upload to this post. Gee, big surprise.

Grr.

Playroom Pictures

2011-09-12T07:05:00.001-04:00

On the Flip Side

2011-09-12T07:02:00.001-04:00

Gosh. It looks like I've missed Father's Day in New Zealand AGAIN.I don't know how to make links with BlogBooster, but if you look in my lower (smaller) collection of links, you'll find Tiny Happy. I don't read her very often anymore but back in the olden times she was one of my favorite daily reads. I checked it her this morning and remembered why! Her blog is sweet and simple and pretty. She doesn't do a lot of showy stuff to gain attention and a lot of her projects are kind of the same, but I love them! She seems so peaceful and calm.... AND, since she lives in New Zealand you can read her bits of springtime as we lean toward winter here in the northern hemisphere and realize that not the whole world is dead and sleeping and cold.... Just us! In other news, here is our new playroom with MANY MANY MANY thanks to my sister and brother-in-law for GIVING us (for free!!) the laminate flooring. I'm happy with the room and the girls are so excited to have a fun space of their own. And of course there are a few things to add, but it's great now the way it is too.

Craft Binge

2011-09-05T19:09:00.001-04:00

Sooooooo, I've been seriously moved by the crafting spirit lately. It all started with a simple valance for my kitchen window (goodbye dirty curtain, hello cheery sunshine!) which was followed by a matching curtain replacement on the big cabinet, which was followed by... Well, I just can't stop. Some of the stuff has been confiscated by my little helpers (example: the crinkle toy that now belongs to Pink Adorable Adorable) and some of the stuff has ended in utter failure (example: cute wallet that is seriously NOT cute.) but there have been some small successes too, and the little addictions (knitted kittens, anyone?) just go on and on and on. Good thing there's a craft fair coming up in November!
Window valance.
Other curtain. Way cuter than the old one.
Little burlap bag
Hood for Greta
Chair makeover
A few fabric cards
Hood for Anja (not for Jack)
Hood for tiny baby (modeled by Pink Adorable Adorable's identical twin, who belongs to Greta and is named Adorb.
Aaaaaand, the current project:
I'm very excited about it! It's going to use the rest of my green sweater yarn and I *shouldn't* have to buy any more. It's sized for Greta, but I'm afraid it'll be kind of small. So it may be going in the craft fair too!

Happy Labor Day to all and many thanks to Blog Booster for FINALLY cooperating. (I've been trying to make this post for days!!)

Down on the Farm

2011-09-01T12:08:00.016-04:00

Aside from feeling like we need to squeeze in every moment of hose play that's left in the summer, we've been having fun in other ways as well. Martin now rides the bus to work with his bike every morning, which guarantees me the car EVERY SINGLE DAY. It's really, really nice. I always thought my life was relaxing without having the car, but it's actually even better to have the car! I never have to think about anything! Today and yesterday (and again in a couple of weeks) Greta had some sessions over at the Baby Labs. It's not the ones that pay but it was fun to see how well she participated with a stranger. It took her awhile to warm up, but luckily the girl had a cup of cheesy bunnies to offer, which just happens to be Greta's favorite snack in the world, so she complied with every request from there on out!

On Tuesday we invited my mom to a picnic at Prophetstown. It was THE PERFECT DAY to be out there. There were almost zero other visitors, plenty of sleepy animals to visit, and the temperature was amazing. Amazing!

We very generously offered the goats our dress hems for a nibble!

We saw the chickens

And the pigs

The peacock and his special lady friend (not pictured)

And we spent a lot of time with the big work horses. They kind of follow you around. It's really cute. And then they stand all lined up like this. I think they must be German.

And since there were almost no visitors, there was almost no traffic, which meant that we could spend an hour walking from one end of the gravel lane to the other to look at the colts and the cows. (We saw the colts.... we never actually made it all the way to the cows, but we did view them from a distance.)

Here come the horses, following after!

As she walked, Anja made up a little song. It said something about summer days and walking in the sunshine, but I couldn't make out all of it and if she catches me listening she stops singing. But it was very beautiful.

Greta looks so tiny beside these big horses!! Look--she's about as big as that horse's head! Greta LOVES pigs. She really dislikes cows. They kind of terrify her.... but really the whole reason we came out here was to see the pigs; she'd been asking to see the pigs for a few days. Very cute.

Last night the girls and I were completely beat from our day. We'd been to the Baby Labs in the afternoon, then I took them for ice cream because they'd been so incredibly awesome. When we got home it was meltdown time, from which none of us really recovered.... so after dinner we all headed out to Barnes & Noble for a nice relaxing evening. And it was awesome. Greta played at the train table the entire time, Anja looked at books, Martin and I sat (sat down! In chairs!) and drank mochas and browsed craft/home/survivalist books. It was the exact thing we all needed.

I know it was only a few posts ago that I said SouleMama was the only blog I regularly read whose author I don't know personally, but since then I've even stopped reading her. She annoyed me too much. I've started again reading her archives (I'd been reading them last winter and spring until our computer croaked) again and I'm only up to early 2007. She was a completely different person. She was HILARIOUS in her writing, and so down-to-earth. So REAL! And her kids were roughly the ages of mine at that time, so I can relate a lot better. Not that there is anything to relate to in her blog now...... she just posts about perfection, "bliss," and her ideal homestead. I don't need to read her fakey blog to know about homesteading and I get tired of hearing the word "bliss" in every post. Gag. Life is NOT all cracker jacks and skittles, no matter what she'd like her readers to believe. It actually makes me miss the old her, and debate reading her new book (which is co-written by her barfy husband who gives me the creeps and whose writing is what made me need to quit reading her blog for fear of strokes and ulcers.) Anyway. I know that all sounds uncharitable.... but I can't help thinking of her as a big sell-out.

But I'm REALLY enjoying her archives!!

Oh, but one of the big things that makes the difference between then and now (soulemama) is that she used to post crafts. She was always making stuff and posting the results with or without the patterns. Clothes for her kids or bags or ANYTHING... and I miss that! She never seems to be making anything anymore. I know over the winter she posted a lot of knitting, which I did enjoy a lot because I was also on a knitting kick, but since her baby's been born she's just been posting about the blissfulness of her house and property.

Although she did have that one post about her cool door in their kitchen that they painted with chalkboard paint. THAT was a good post.

Maybe I need to get back onto Ravelry for inspiration.

I'm rambling now............... can you tell?

Man vs. Woman

2011-08-27T12:13:00.003-04:00

This post is dedicated to all the friends and family out east who are probably getting a lot of extra crafting time as Irene moves in and keeps them inside for a few days!

We have three chain craft stores in our town: Michael's, Jo-Ann's, and Hobby Lobby. I really like Hobby Lobby and they have BY FAR the best paper supply of anyone. But their fabric and notions and yarn selections are less than impressive, so I don't usually even think to go there. I mean, unless I'm looking for ultra-cheesy raffia-covered holiday decor. Which I'm not. Ever. So I usually have to choose between Michael's and Jo-Ann's. And this would be my review of them: (picture is of the knitting project piece I finished last night with only that much yarn left!! And since the skein came from the clearance rack at the knitting shop, it was a huge relief not to have to rip out and remake the entire thing a little bit smaller, or go shopping online for some matching yarn!! Thank you, knitting gods!)

Okay, back to my review: I hate Michael's. They have a good paper section. They have an impressive cake decorating section. They have awesome clearance items for incredible prices. But oh my golly that store makes me claustrophobic!! It's so dark and so cluttered and holy moly if I ever take my children there I usually regret it A LOT. Not because they are ill-behaved. THEY never break anything! But if I'm there with my girls I HAVE to get a cart (to keep them contained, and so I'll have a place to keep my goods) and the carts don't fit through the aisles, so I either bump into other customers or knock down entire display racks with my huge cart. (actually, they have those craft store mini-carts, but it doesn't matter. They still feel giant.) You know those terrible strollers with the non-swivel front wheel that you have to move by lifting up the handle and moving it like an inchworm? I have to do that in Michael's with my cart that carries approximately fifty pounds of child as well as all my purchases.

And while I did have a lovely time by myself there the other evening (I tried to put the claustrophobic thoughts away,) overall I'd much rather go to Jo-Ann's.

And evidently, so would Greta!

Last night was Friday night and we felt like we needed something to do. We had the idea of going to a kid-friendly place to get drinks of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety, but Greta said she wanted to go to Jo-Ann's. (Out of the blue, this was her suggestion.) It just so happened that I needed to get a zipper for a project that was almost finished, so it was really a good idea. The problem was that when we were finished there it was 7:30, on a gorgeous Friday night, so everyplace was PACKED. And with two little ones and it being coming up on bedtime, we didn't really feel like playing the restaurant waiting game. Sad. But at least I got my zipper, and Greta picked it out and it just happened to be the EXACT coordinating color to my project! When it's finished I'll try to remember to post a picture. It's a little wallet. So Greta was definitely my little craft fairy last night.

And I enjoy so much being in Jo-Ann's, with it's brightness and well-displayed items. It is a cheery experience! Not like barfy Michael's. Gloom.

Ode to Matilda

2011-08-25T12:45:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the first anniversary of Matilda coming to live inside our house. What a surprise that the timid little puffball living under the neighbors' porch didn't just let us take her in, but has also become such a friendly, loving, snuggly little member of our family. I love this cat!

And today is the anniversary of Martin giving me Theodore. Five years ago! What a surprise his time with us has been too--growing from such a starved-looking little kitten whose ears were too big for his tiny head to the beast he is today, whose head is too little for his gigantic body. His weight is really quite astounding.

And those are just the anniversaries in our immediate family. It's also my sister-in-law's 31st birthday and my sister and brother-in-law's 10th wedding anniversary!

Happy day to all!

Keeping Up With the Craftistas

2011-08-23T10:14:00.001-04:00

I've gotten away from Blog reading in the past year we've been without a computer. Browsing is not so easy on my beloved iPhone, so I've pretty much stuck to the list of people I actually know in real life and Soulemama's, which I still read daily. This system keeps me pretty well grounded while providing me one blogsworth of unattainable inspirations. Most of the blogs I read are real lives of ordinary people. Even if they do only show the sunny side in their writings, I recognize that because I know them; they are not keeping up a face for their international following. And even if soulemama does make me long for a life I don't have, only one blog like that can't be too harmful to my self esteem... Right?

But, sometimes I stray.

Sometimes I go to lots of inspirational crafty blogs and I drool over their work spaces, their houses, their all-creative-all-the-time lifestyles. And I inevitably start feeling bad about my own. Today it was Sew Liberated. (Now, I really like her and think she is by far the most honest, down to earth craft blogging mama out there.) She had posted about her studio, which I couldn't really tell if it was her space as well or only an art space for her two-year-old son. It doesn't really matter, because her post was about the things for her son. Lots of "stations" and organized activity trays. A cutting station, a mailing station, a clay station. Designated props in a designated space for practicing these necessary skills. I read it and looked at her gorgeous pictures and thought wimpily, "I don't have that. I am a failure."

And then I thought with sudden gusto, "The hell I am!" we don't need a special room for skill activities! We DO those things! In real life! Where things like that really happen every day! Often Anja helps herself to a blank notecard, pen and envelope from the big desk and writes to one of her cousins or grandmas. When I write a letter or card I let the girls place the stamp and seal the envelope. It's real life! And when I am crafting and using such essential skills as cutting, they are cutting alongside me. Real life! I AM NOT A FAILURE!!!!!!! I keep telling myself this. Sometimes I even believe myself!

The other morning Martin made a paper chain counting down to a goal. When he showed it to Anja she asked if he was going to make one for when he never had to go to work again. Ha! He calculated it and found he would need 8,000-something links. Gee, how encouraging.

And fruitflies are gross.

Cycle Me This

2011-08-21T00:48:00.001-04:00

I got a bike!
And I love it! I especially love the rubber band Martin fit into the corner of the basket (basket!!) so I can transport jars of flower bouquets home from the farmers market. And the funny story of how we got the bike is that Martin answered an ad on craigslist and it turned out to be people we know. Funny!

I'm really excited to have a bike. I doubt I'll be as hardcore as Martin with his (though i've promised the girls I'll get a pink bell) considering what a rarity it is for me to go someplace by myself, but I'm happy to have the option and since we got a baby seat too, all we need is for Anja to have some wheels of her own and we'll be set to hit the trails!
I'm going to try really hard to get back to blogging from my phone. I think the key is short posts.... So let me start practicing that technique right now!

Catching Up on Pictures

2011-08-16T20:05:00.006-04:00

I finally realized I could just upload my facebook pictures onto my parents' computer and then use them on my blog! This is helpful because I do have pictures always on my phone, but I don't always have my camera SD card on me. ('Cause why would I?) So here is a little catching up in pictures. This one is called "Shocked Annie." I just won a CD at the Shirley Martin awards ceremony! Photo credit to this one goes to Steve Fletcher, and I have to say that he and his wife have been such a blessing to the Shirley Martin Scholarship and to SAMI in general over the past few years, volunteering so much of their time and enthusiasm. And their daughter Amanda rocks too!

On Martin's birthday when he got home from work we jumped right on the trolley and took a ride over the bride to eat dinner at Panera. Last summer Greta developed a fear of busses and trolleys and this year she has thankfully forgotten about that fear and LOVES riding.

Awhile back Anja had a hard time going to sleep one night, so we made a cake! I later turned the cake into cakepops. Such fun times! And look at our matching aprons! I made the one for Anja when I made mine, when she was just a tiny baby. I've been waiting about three years for her to be able to properly fit into it!

This is just a pretty (Instagrammed) picture of the girls in the backyard.

And this is a funny picture of Anja that I took of her when she climbed up into the tree. I forget what I said to let her know I was taking her picture (probably "Anja, I'm taking your picture") but she made this face completely on her own. Awesome. She's really become quite the little tree climber lately too!

Every time somebody has a baby I get to thinking about the newborn times and everything that goes along with them. Burping. Diapering. Staying up all night with a crying baby. And that unique newborn cry is something I always think of. Everyone always told you that you'd quickly learn the differences in the "hungry" cry and the "tired" cry and the "gassy" cry, etc. It took me a long time to learn all that, and it was much easier with Greta, I'll admit. But I've found lately that the cries keep developing and I keep having to learn them. But I'm doing well now! I've learned to recognize from the next room the difference between the "my sister is choking me" cry and the "I put both legs into one leg hole of my underpants" cry. There is a trueness to the cry that means "I've fallen behind the bed" while the high-pitched scream that means "I can't reach the soap you put on the top shelf so I couldn't reach it" is something that can be ignored until I've turned off the dish water and dried my hands thoroughly. It's really amazing! Thank you, my girls, for always teaching me new things!

And speaking of new things, it was really fun to see all the pictures on facebook this morning of the children going off to their first days at school. My nephew Christopher LOVES school, and according to my parents, he had a marvelous first day of 4th grade. As for us, this time of year makes me thankful that my kids are so little. I'm not ready for summer to be over yet. Thankfully, for us it's not!

We attempted to walk up to my mom's house today, but got less than halfway (in about 45 minutes) before we made a collective decision to walk back home for the car. We were NEVER going to make it. But I'm so glad we turned around, because we got to stop and watch a cicada emerging from its shell! It was SO COOL. I kind of can't get over how truly cool it was. And then a few yards down the same sidewalk we came to some big flowery bushes where two hummingbirds were feasting! We stopped to admire them, and one of them flew RIGHT UP TO US, and started squeaking at us!!!! IT WAS SO ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, I have never been that close to a hummingbird, let alone had one TALK to me! So in the end, it was a really great walk. Well, until Greta fell and konked her head on the sidewalk. But even that turned out to not be a big deal. And to be fair, she didn't really FALL.... she was pretending to be hopping like a bunny and she got a little confused or something... in fact, I'm not really sure how it happened. At all. But somehow she knocked her head on the sidewalk and I had to carry her the whole rest of the way home. The end.

Have I blogged about Martin's bike? Oh my goodness, he LOVES HIS BIKE. Definitely the best fathers day present he's ever gotten! He rides all the time. And, in fact, he has been putting his bike on the rack of the bus and then riding his bike home at the end of the day! This is a really fabulous setup for everyone involved. I get the car every day, but I don't have to go pick him up at the end of the day, AND, he doesn't have to wait for the bus after work and then get carsick on the ride home! (For some reason the bus ride home always makes him really carsick.) And he has set up his bike to be pretty much a vehicle with a rack and a pannier, a bell, lights, etc. Everything he needs for fun and safety!

Oh my gosh! We're playing Pandora on my dad's phone while I type this and a song came on that I sang at my friend Alison's wedding!! How fun.

I played music with Kim and George at the new NPEN (Natural Parenting Education Network) grand opening last Friday and it was really fun! I love being a musician because not only is it perfectly acceptable to drink on the job, but the wine is always free! Haha, just kidding. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not much of a boozer. I did enjoy the bit of white wine that night.

And of course it's always good to play music with good musicians!

A Birthday to Celebrate

2011-08-15T21:32:00.002-04:00

This morning almost as soon as she woke up, Anja informed me that today is Squeaky's 18th birthday! Squeaky is one of Anja's imaginary animals--a cat, who is the mother of Smodo. Not only that, but this evening on the way to the birthday party (which was relocated to my parents' house because Martin was stuck at work for soooooo long) Anja told me that Squeaky has a new kitten, just born last night, named Oatmeal!! Congratulations, Squeaky! We made cupcakes. We had to go to the grocery anyway so it didn't really matter that we didn't have any cocoa powder--except evidently they aren't selling that at Aldi anymore. So I had to make another trip out later in the day and I went to Payless, where I couldn't find ANYTHING, except a lot of familiar people. We were there FOREVER, wandering the aisles and talking to people, and having people being clearly annoyed with us for taking up so much room in our huge car cart. They only had a place for organic cilantro and the bin was empty, and I couldn't find the cocoa powder until I went the opposite direction down the baking aisle--it was halfway covered by one of their obnoxious hanging "buy this! buy this!" displays. Grrrrrrr..... So eventually we made it to the checkout and then at last back to our car where Anja exclaimed, "I'm not wearing any underpants!"

Which reminds me of an evening last week when we had dinner with a young couple (one of whom just happens to be my cousin) at Mrs. Schap's place, and I was really trying to make my girls look their best, but then Anja went to the bathroom and after awhile called out to us, "Mama! I have a big poo-poo stuck in my bottom!!" Classically awesome times.

We had a string of rough days at our house, with the girls fighting constantly. And vicious fighting, like clawing and hair pulling and pinching, etc. It was bad. And really annoying. But just as suddenly as it came on, the girls are suddenly best friends again, playing so nicely and getting along! And so, life is good again. Thank heavens!

One thing we've been doing lately is listening to an old Wee Sing tape. It's the Wee Sing Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes and it's really fun! Greta especially loves it. All the nursery rhymes/songs are woven into a story about how the children of the nursery rhymes are going to the birthday party of Old King Cole in Londontown. Every time they pick up a new gift for the king along their journey, they set off again saying "Here we go to Londontown!" So all day today Greta has been saying "Here we go to Londontown!" and it it unbelievably cute.

And now it's REALLY late, so it's time to get jammies on and head home. I hope to start posting regularly again soon, but really, we are having so much fun enjoying the last weeks of summer that I don't seem to have the time to make blog posts (with one-finger typing.) Maybe someday we'll get ourselves another computer!

(As for the floors..... let's just not talk about it.)

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Building Projects

2011-08-02T13:09:00.002-04:00

Anja built this little tower in my mom's basement the other day. For a baby who showed absolutely ZERO interest in blocks, she suddenly has started building quite elaborate towers and "barns." This one seems especially well thought out.

And while Anja works on building with her wooden blocks, Martin and I are working on building with other sorts of things. Like building floors with the laminate flooring my sister and brother-in-law gave us from the garage sale (!!!!!) and possibly building a kitchen table after the HUGE disappointment of going to get the perfect table from the ReStore, only to get there and find it gone. Sadness. Plus, I seem to have formed a habit of ripping up carpet... and I found a little bit of wood floor and a little bit of plywood in different parts of the upstairs. So now we've got about ninety projects lined up in front of us, and since we can count our spare minutes on one hand, it looks like we might be in over our heads!

Anyway, the garage sale was a success! We all made a little cash-ola, all got a little sunburned, all had a good time. And best of all, we got rid of a ton of stuff!!

Otherwise, summer just keeps chugging along and I am noticing the days getting shorter and it's starting to make me sad. My friend Alison always got really depressed on June 21 because the days would only start getting shorter after that. I am beginning to see how she feels. I do love Fall... REALLY, love it... but I'm not quite ready for summer to be over! We have many more dates with the river before it can be over. (Luckily, being in the throes of a record-breaking heat wave makes it easier to believe summer will last forever!)

I wish I had more pictures to share... but I've been using my phone camera for most things and I am making this post from my mom's computer. (She fed me pasta with garden tomatoes and butter--YUM.) Now I think I'll go sit in a rocking chair on the front porch.

Oh, that's another project... my beloved rocking chair has an arm that looks like it's taken it's last mending. I'm afraid it's dumpster-bound, and that makes me REALLY sad. But I can't imagine that arm ever staying on again. Sadness.

The sun is shining! Soaking up the sun is better than going to the grocery store!

Toxilicious

2011-07-27T17:12:00.001-04:00

Four and a half years ago, we bought this "cute" little house. Since then, we've hit nothing but trouble. Have I ever blogged about the fact that I was never, for YEARS, able to get my shower walls clean? Then one day the walls started peeling, revealing big cracks in the vinyl. Turns out the shower walls had been PAINTED. Evidently, to hide all the cracks. And I have no idea what paint they used, but whatever it is, it doesn't clean well. Or at all, in fact.

But time here has made us grow to kind of love the place in spite of ourselves, and after having been keeping our eyes half open for once-in-a-lifetime incredible deals on land for the past few years, we finally decided to instead focus our efforts at making this place into our dream home. After all, there are some enormous benefits to living downtown. Like all the money we're saving by having only one car! And being able to walk everywhere! In fact, I was going to blog about this today--the fact that we're going to buckle down and make improvements here and turn it into a truly ideal urban homestead.

Then I got really ambitious and I decided to get straight to work. I went out and bought paint and started ripping up large pieces of carpet to paint the floors underneath (which we'd always thought were plywood.) my first glace at the floor underneath said "wide plank wood floors!!" and for about half an hour I was glowing with happiness. I ripped up more carpet--with gusto!

But, what the heck? These aren't planks. They're squares. And they aren't wood, they're... Particle board? Or something.

Time to call the expert.

And the expert said he didn't know of wooden tiles of that size ever being made. And he said that what we had under our carpet was something that used to be called (enter three letter abbreviation I don't remember) but now is referred to as letter-A-letter, which stands for (this is about the time my stomach was sinking, because I just knew what was coming) something-Asbestos-something. Greeeeeaat. I just uncovered a whole lot of toxic material in the room which is essentially my children's playroom.

Now, my dad ASSURES me that asbestos can't hurt you unless it gets in your lungs and that the tiles made containing asbestos keep them fully encased. And believe me, I trust the expert. The people I don't trust are the nitwits at NHS who did things such as painting over the cracks in the plastic shower walls instead of replacing them. The people who hung coat hooks on walls with double-sided sticky tape. Those are the people who would've sanded down half the floor (therefore releasing the fiber particles of death) before deciding it was easier to just put down (the cheapest) carpet (imaginable.)

It looks like we have a bigger project in front of us than we'd thought.

I asked Martin if we could sell the house for 20,000 and rent a nice apartment. And Anja, always looking on the bright side, said, "we can't move! You still have to finish the back room!"

And of course, we do.

A Hefty Difference

2011-07-25T14:21:00.001-04:00

I found the picture of Boyette's 2008 to compare to Boyette's 2011. Um, yikes!

Summer Journeys

2011-07-21T16:26:00.041-04:00

Oh my! For a family who has NEVER travelled, the 2000+ mile trip we just took around the East part of the country was quite the journey! We visited numerous friends and relatives and had a blast. (Warning: The following post will be heavy on pictures, lighter on description.)

We visited my brother and his family in Virginia first. Along with them are our friends Nick and Clare and their three children. Both families are rural dwellers, each with their own fantastic little homestead. Not only that, but they live on the outskirts of the cutest little historic town! We tried to give my brother's family some breaks from their kinfolk, so as to not overstay our welcome. One way we did this was by tootling around the little town of Strasburg. They have a great little cafe called Cristina's, where we got cafe au laits and snickerdoodles as an afternoon snack. We tried to hit up the indoor flea market, but that wasn't such a successful part of the outing.

Ben and Anna have been having a predator problem around their chicken coop. Namely a skunk and a fox. Luckily, they have Martin and Nick who would rather do nothing more than sit in folding chairs under a tree with their shotguns ready to protect the hens.

Oh, this is back at Cristina's. My pictures got a little mixed up. Um, Martino doesn't look very cheery, does he?

Anja's cousins's house has oodles of blackberry bushes growing around the property line. She loved going over with Zita to collect blackberries. And eat them! Anja is crazy about blueberries, but she's always complained of seeds in blackberries until this trip.

And having Angelica as a personal art instructor is nothing to sneeze at!

Julia

One day Anna took us over to a stream fed pond that is so clear and cool. The little kids LOVED playing in the sand, and Greta is a such a little fish! This picture is Anna and the baby of the family, Ronia. Zita

Ben and Ronia

Greta with the sand

Angelica spent almost the entire time in the stream catching crawdads! She ended up with 19!!

We had a cookout with many old friends--the Marmalejo family and Billy Weber!! The last time we saw Billy Weber I was trying to convince him that Martin was soon going to propose to me.

Anja's been climbing trees lately.

Here are Billy and Lauren.

Anja and Angelica were instant friends. We've always compared the two personalities and laughed at their similar ways. They really hit it off this visit, despite the five year age difference.

The night before the cookout was one of my favorite nights! Anna and I really wanted to go for margaritas, but my girls were not being fully cooperative and she had friends already meeting up at a place in town. Martin was planning to take the kids someplace to distract Greta, so we kind of led Anna to believe that we were going to go to Walmart and then she and I could go out for drinks. But thanks to my trusty iPhone, we looked up the restaurant where her friends were meeting, and instead of leading her to Walmart, we led her there!! She was surprised and I was happy. Her friends were SO nice. A very fun night. On the way home I recieved a text from Martin: "One less skunk." We smelled it all the way down the road, and the whole house stunk!! So the next night for the cookout, Anna made a cake for Martin's birthday (which is really still a week or so away) and Ben made a cocoa powder-in-stencil skunk! The heart is to signify Clare and Nick's wedding anniversary, which was that day. FUN TIMES.

On Sunday after Mass we went to brunch back at Cristina's and afterward we set all the little girls up to watch the 1970's animated movie of Charlotte's Web. Anna and I were sitting on the couch behind them when we realized they were all wearing coordinating outfits! Amazing!

And here is a photograph of two sisters sitting the exact same way. TOO CUTE.

For some reason, everyone was having plumbing problems while we were there. Clare and Nick's well broke and Ben and Anna's tub drain was completely stopped up. Martin gave a good effort at trying to fix it, but nothing seemed to work. As of now, the story is incomplete. Maybe one of them will post the outcome in the comments.

Isn't Ronia so gorgeous?!

If you've ever met Angelica, even once, then you surely know of her love of chickens!!

Other highlights of the time in Virginia were the first night we were there, when everyone in my family was asleep and Ben was out with his friends and Anna and I sat at the kitchen table and drank beer and chatted. It was really peaceful and nice. Also, on one of the last days we were there, we decided to spend the day with the Marmalejos. I was grouchy because I was really craving a pot of coffee all for myself and because I really wanted to browse the flea market and my kids just wanted to break everything. So when Clare and Nick met us there, Martin told Clare and me to go through the flea market by ourselves and they'd watch the kids back at the cars. We did that, and while we were gone they were supposed to decide what we were going to do with the rest of our day. Well, when we returned, they let us know that they were going to watch the kids for the day and Clare and I would have the whole afternoon to ourselves! Yahooo! We hit up a quilt store (I got a stack of precut squares for a good deal), a fiber store (They had cuts of wool, and I bought enough to make a bag. They also had raw wool and drop spindles, so Clare is going to start spinning.... HER DOG'S FUR.) Both shops were very adorable. And I'd just like to say that our husbands did an incredible job watching all four little girls for the entire afternoon. So fun!

The next leg of our journey was toward Tennessee to visit Martin's grandmother. We set off on Sunday evening intending to drive through the night. (I have to say that we were SUPPOSED to leave that morning after brunch, but I sort of had put in a load of laundry that morning and then kind of forgot about it, so late in the afternoon when Martin asked about the laundry, I had to tell him--oops!-- I'd never put it in the dryer....... well, so we ended up leaving a little after dinnertime instead.) But driving through the night with little kidders is the way to go, I think, and we pulled into Mammoth Cave National Park around 8:00 Monday morning. We were so dirty and stinky and tired, but it didn't much matter. We stopped at one of the lookouts to change the girls out of their pajamas and into their clothes (is this reminding anyone else of my previous post?) and then headed to the main cave place. Now, Martin and I have been to Mammoth Cave together THREE TIMES before this time, and we had never been in the actual cave. We'd only ever gone hiking. So this time I was kind of excited to actually see the main attraction. But, ooooh, I forgot that Greta was with us! As we gathered with the rest of our tour group, tickets in hand, at the mouth of the cave, Greta then and there decided that she wanted nothing more in the world than to nurse. RIGHT THEN. *Sigh* The tour (including Anja and Martin) went on without us while we sat in the coollness and nursed. But it was okay! Because we got to walk up and down the nearby trails and we saw a baby deer lying down right by the path!! Very cool. Unfortunately, no pictures.

So Mammoth Cave was neat (Anja told me all about the inside of the cave... she summed it up by saying it looked like our basement) and from there we continued on our way to Tennessee. Now, the plan had been for us to drive through the night AGAIN to make it to Martin's grandmother's house on the very, very western part of Tennessee. Thankfully, we didn't have to do that because I have this fabulous friend named JOANNIE who just happens to live in Nashville, and who just happened to have moved three days before and had this totally empty apartment available for us to crash in! It was really the best thing ever. We took showers and the girls had a bath and then we ordered dinner from this super yummy place called Calypso and we spread newspapers on the floor and ate it out of the styrofoam boxes. It was perfect. (apologies to Joannie for posting the attractive picture of her wiping her mouth. But the one where you were in the middle of chewing was blurry, so I had to use this one!) Now, my fantasy of my first time in Nashville had included me busking on the streets and hopefully earning enough quarters to buy us each a cup of coffee. But right before dinner a big, slow storm moved into the metro area and all my hopes and dreams were crushed. But that's okay. Seeing Joannie was good enough!

Oh, one other fun thing about the drive toward Nashville was that the girls fell asleep in the car after lunch. Since we had plenty of time to get there before Joannie got off work, we pulled into a Starbucks and everyone slept in the car while I went in and enjoyed a drink and a lot of time reading while my phone charged up. It was perfect!

We left Nashville the next morning and headed on toward South Fulton. We went straight to visit Martin's grandma and sure did surprise her! I think she had less than an hour's notice that we were coming. After a short visit we went to check into a hotel, where Martin did the best thing in the world. He got us a SUITE!! It was soooooooooo great. We ate dinner at Applebee's (I got a huge sangria--YUM!!) It was good to visit with Martin's grandma (she is so spry... and hilarious!) for the two days. On the second day we drove over to Reelfoot Lake, where they have an assortment of birds of prey and snakes and things. They have bald eagles! They are a refuge for them... all the birds have been injured and may or may not be returned to the wild.
Anyway, when we got there the bald eagles were not there. But just as we were wondering where they were, up pulled a pickup truck full of animal carrying crates, full of... BALD EAGLES! And a hawk. We got to see all of them right up close and the rangers were SO NICE. After all the birds had been released again, they said, "Come on inside, we're going to put the snakes back!" They'd had the animals at a junior ranger camp someplace. Anja got to pet two of the snakes. Very cool!

Here is the hawk. I forgot to get my camera out for the eagles because I'm kind of an idiot.

On the inside of the building are lots of interesting exhibits.

Outside on the way to the boardwalk we saw the Theodore of squirrels. He was SO FAT. And really not afraid of people. Martin kept telling me to get closer and closer to him, but I was afraid if I got too close he'd jump on me or something. I still can't believe how fat he was.

Across the street from there is Boyette's, a yummy catfish restaurant. Here Anja and I are posing with the jars of buttons--they collect these buttons from the bellies of the catfish! I have a picture of Anja and me in this spot from the last time we were down in Tennessee, just after Anja's first birthday. Maybe I'll be able to find it and post it separately.

Greta REALLY warmed up to Mimi.

We left South Fulton at bedtime on Wednesday and drove through the night back home. When we came in we both had a strange feeling of not really recognizing our own house. It's really good to be home. I haven't taken such a long trip in many years. Actually, that might be the longest trip I've ever taken. But it was great! So fun to see all those people and go so many places. But I have to say... I so enjoyed being home all day today, living out our normal Saturday routine, and cooking dinner in my own kitchen. Wonderful!

And on a sidenote, I'd like to say that having two little girls (as opposed to having two baby girls) is SO MUCH FUN. Just now, they were up in the playroom at my mom's house, and I would go to check on them and stand at the bottom of the stairs and hear them playing together upstairs. So cute!!!!

And while the heat is pretty oppressive, I am LOVING the summer vegetables that July brings!!

Riverfest, Etc.

2011-07-11T20:53:00.009-04:00

So sorry for the lack of posting lately! Because I'm cheap and refuse to pay for ANY app on my iPhone, I'm using the free version of BlogBooster, which seems to have some kind of psychological problem. One day I can do exactly what I want, the next day my text disappears with the addition of pictures, while sometimes the whole app just freezes up for DAYS at a time (it's still frozen today from a post I tried to make last Thursday) and I can't use it. So... my apologies.

This weekend was the annual Best Festival of the Year--Riverfest! What a fun, family-friendly day this is! Complete with a lot of unattractive pictures of ME! I played music by myself for the first time in a looooooong time, and of course, I was so bad it was painful. And then, when I had time left for one last song, Kim showed up and saved the whole thing by playing "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and leaving everyone with a good memory of the Annie Hatke performance. Thanks, Kim! And thanks, Greta, for being so sad while I played that I had to hold you for that last song, which resulted in this very cute picture. And thanks, TusaRebecca, for those pants I'm wearing!

Um, can you say CUTE OVERLOAD?!? My adorable niece and nephew!!!!

And as if that weren't enough cuteness, here we have these four cousins who had the best time ever watching the first of the canoe races from this big log, and playing in the sand.

So cute!

And what could make a festival completely fabulous better than FREE pony rides?!

Not sure where Anja is in this picture, but we look like a cute family, don't we? And check out poor Greta's rather uncomfortable looking wedgie. Youch. (Also notice that she's covering her ears, and then look down a few pictures to find out why. And note that this picture here is taken in a location that was REALLY REALLY far away from the ponies.)

This year instead of being a substitute paddler, Martin was a steersman in the blue canoe. He was on the water ALL DAY LONG, and ended up with a nice sunburn across his thighs. When Anja saw his legs, she said, "Daddy! I really like your legs! Pink is my favorite color!"

Greta was less than thrilled about the ponies. One of them was neighing. (For the record, nobody was actually neighing when this picture was taken. But a pony waaaaaay over by the trailer HAD been neighing about twenty or thirty minutes before and the memory lingered.)

It was a great day! For everyone!

The post I was trying to make last Thursday when BlogBooster so rudely let me down was about being homeless and how sometimes I feel like I am a homeless person, or that maybe other people think I am. I used to wonder about this when I was single and had nothing to do with myself and would walk around downtown all day. But now it's worse. Now I look like one because when we drive to Logansport for the evening and eat dinner at an outside ice cream and tenderloin place, afterward we pull our car up against the fence at the far end of the parking lot, strip down our sticky kids, give them baby wipe baths, may or may not let them pee in the gravel between the car and the fence and put them in jammies (which I carried along with me in my ginormous tote bag that holds more possessions than you can possibly imagine) then head on our way, trying not to make eye contact with any of the employees as we exit the parking lot as fast as legally possible.

And then the next morning I had to walk down to the river from my house with both of my kids, my aforementioned Magic Tote Bag (which always LOOKS full, even though you can still fit much more into it), two bags of vegetables, a half loaf of bread and two danishes all in a wagon that has a terrible clacking problem and is covered in ribbons. And of course the food came from the end of the Farmers Market that is closest to my house, so I had to clack-clack-clack aaaaallll the way through the crowds and STILL on down Main Street and across the bridge. Then I had to look for somewhere to put all of my groceries and possessions for the day once I got there, and I had dropped my kids off with my sister, who tried to tell me where her booth was (so I could stash my stuff there) but she didn't do a very good job of it, so I ended up having to see and talk to A LOT of people and try to explain my situation and why I had SO MUCH STUFF with me. And I'm not sure they knew about the parade either, so the decorated wagon probably looked pretty weird too.

And so I just sometimes wonder what people must think of me.

But overall, we've been having great times! And there are more to come, of course, because when you're a stay-at-home mom, summer lasts right up till the pumpkin harvest!! (And our pumpkins are doing GREAT this year! Way better than any of the other dead stuff in my garden! They are doing so well in fact, that we had to relocate our trash receptacles and should probably warn the neighbor about the creeping habit of the vines....)

Happy midsummer to you all!

Oh. Again.

2011-07-03T01:08:00.001-04:00

Huge long post was written here. Took two days. Huge long post just disappeared. *sigh*

No More Babies sniffle

2011-06-28T08:14:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I look at Anja and Greta and I think "what happened to you?! You're not babies anymore!" it happened kind of suddenly, but in everything we do this summer it's being made apparent that these girls are quickly turning into little kids. Yikes!!!
Anja can go on pony rides without an adult hanging onto her shirt
And she can write
And she can throw a pingpong ball into a glass of water to win carnival goldfish.

It's amazing!!! Greta is quickly growing too... She's been out of diapers for a looong time now, and she communicates like a normal person. She has regular conversations like a regular child. she and Anja sit in their carseats and talk, talk, talk. They make up games, they pretend together, and--maybe the biggest indicator of their growing up-- they FIGHT. Ugh. That I could do without. But it's still a clue to their level of big kidness.

In other news, Martin took a long bike ride this morning (while I was still a morning zombie) and when he got home he told me he'd stopped at K. Dees to visit with Kim... And to prepay a treat for the girls and me! So if they ever wake up, we'll be walking down there this morning. Thanks, Martino!

Big Fiddling Weekend

2011-06-27T07:41:00.001-04:00

We had a great weekend! The Fiddler's Gathering was full of great music, yummy foods and so many familiar faces! My big regret is that we didn't camp. It would've been the perfect year, the girls would have LOVED it, and it would've given us more of a chance to be at the saturday evening show. (as it happened, Anja and Martin went while I stayed in the car with sleeping Greta.) Well, live and learn... Next year for sure!
The girls really enjoyed their elephant ear and lemon shake-up, and on Sunday the crowds cleared enough that they were able to run wild all over the place. (Greta has no concept of personal space; she doesn't understand that you can't just plow into complete strangers and expect them to be ok with it.) I forgot to put in earrings on Sunday morning, so Martin and Greta sneaked off and bought me two pairs! But one of the best parts was when we moved up to the benches (from our blanket under a shady tree--top spot both days!) for the last show.
They were mesmerized. They just sat there and watched the band, it was amazing! And of course, they applauded too.

Anyway, so fun! So many little kids running around! So nice to see all the old musician friends I don't so often see anymore! And we got fed by our families up at the river ( and lake!) so that was an added fun bonus! The only bummer is that I COMPLETELY spaced the Corpus Christi celebration at St. Boniface. Ugh. I really need to start using a calendar. (I'm supposed to play a Farmers Market or two this summer at some point... Don't ask me when, or even which location! I don't know!!)

Today Martin has taken a vacation day, so we plan to relax and each get a little "work" done (like knitting and catching up on the crosswords) for ourselves. You know, things that don't often happen when you work seven days a week, lol. (ok, I knit all the time. It's the crosswords that don't get done!)

Oh, and to follow up on my recommendations, I watched the Time Traveler's Wife movie. BARF. I'm not one who gets SO irritated about movies not aligning perfectly with the book, and this one did an ok job of that... It was just an amazingly poorly made movie. It didn't make any sense! And it was sooooooooo dramatic (in the vomiticious sort of way) I couldn't really stand it. It took me two nights of watching it in very short intervals before I finally finished it. Too bad, because it could've been a great movie. Oh well.

And my new music recommendation would have to be the French-Canadian band from this weekend (I don't know how to spell the name and the program is in the car, but it's raining.) they were AWESOME!! I loved them.... Definitely my favorite band of the weekend.

And now, while my children are still sleeping (Anja slept until 10:30 yesterday... Um, big weekend?) it's time for some coffee and kitten snuggling. Happy day!

Ride, Ride, Ride

2011-06-23T19:37:00.001-04:00

I often have trouble when it comes time to buy Martino a gift. Part of this problem comes from not having much money of my very own to spend on him and the fact that I think it's pretty ridiculous to spend his money on a present for him. So, yeah, money is what makes it hard. Anyway, for Fathers Day I had the idea to get him something i knew he wanted, but would never get for himself: a bicycle. I think it was a perfect gift for him! He's been making up all sorts of unnecessary errands so he can ride his bike around and he tells me over and over how much he likes it. This makes me so happy!! Successful gifts are a great thing.

Here's our humble city garden. It makes me happy, even if the tomato plants are looking pretty runty.

It's raining here, but it's supposed to be perfect weather for the Fiddlers Gathering this weekend!!!!!

Annie Recommends

2011-06-20T20:10:00.001-04:00

After a long time without posting, I have nothing but a few book and music recommendations to share with you.

MUSIC:
1. Ari Hest. Modern acoustic folk; favorite song "Give It Time" from his new album called Sunset Over Hope Street. Some of his songs are a little too.... Whiny folk singerish for me, but this one has me totally hooked. He's like a young John Gorka. Love him.

2. David Mallett. Um, god of the earthy folk music of the 60's-70's? I know i've posted about him before, but I just cannot believe that I've been playing his songs myself for YEARS (!!! Not kidding!! This year marks my brother's 10th wedding anniversary and his wife taught me one of his songs before they were married! Yikes!) without crediting him or realizing his incredibleness and buying all of his albums to listen to constantly forever after. The only album I have is Inches and Miles. My favorite songs on it are.... Ok, I admit it, all of them. The album is only ten dollars on iTunes and worth every single penny. David Mallett is also the person responsible for The Garden Song ("inch by inch, row by row!") a favorite of every kindergarten music class. And one of my favorites too! Don't think of him as a kids music guy though... He's not at all. And he's incredible. (and still touring!)

BOOKS:
Ok, I know my family is probably sick of hearing about this book (I might be mildly obsessed) but "The Time Traveler's Wife" is more than a novel. It's like a piece of weird, beautiful art that keeps you thinking about it long after you've left the gallery. It's a story of perfect marital friendship, true faithfulness, and, um, time traveling. Yeah, I know that part sounds a little sic-fi, but I swear it's not! It works! It's what makes the story so lovely! And oh my gosh, I am not one who cries at books or movies (I think the only movie I've cried at the end of was We Were Soldiers) but this one is a serious tear-jerker. I had to force myself to finish it. It has a little run of sadness, but the very very end is just wonderful. And PS, if you've only seen the movie, it doesn't count. From what I hear they are very different. I almost want to watch the movie, just to get mad.

Those are all my recommendations for today. I hope everyone had a happy fathers day!

Summertime Funs

2011-06-11T15:00:00.003-04:00

Our fabulous neighbor(s) Kelsey and Bri gave Greta this tent for her birthday back in March. It has been a great many things from day to day... a circus bigtop, a cat house, a dog grooming parlor... But the other day we dragged it outside to the backyard and had our lunch in it! It was a happy time.Have I mentioned how obsessed I am with the Instagram app? If anyone reading this has an iPhone and doesn't have this [FREE!] app, YOU NEED IT. It is very fun and completely addicting.

And among other fun things....................................

Ta-Da!!!!!! I stayed up late last night and finished my green sweater, TWO WEEKS before my unrealistic deadline!!!!!!!!! I can hardly believe it!!!!!! I am very, very, VERY happy with it. I'm much happier with it than I was with the brown sweater. This one didn't take any tweaking at the end--everything measured just right. The neck is funny, as all my sweater necks are, because I don't know how to do neck shaping. LOL.

My sister and I went to a fiber arts festival last weekend in Franklin, Indiana. It was a very fun time! We just took my two girls and her baby Avi, and everyone was so happy all day long! They had a few lambs and sheep, and SO MUCH FIBER. Unbelievable. Three fairground buildings full of vendors! I got a skein of hand-dyed cotton in a mix of purples and greens, and Sarah got enough grey wool to make her hubby a sweater. We also picked up a hank of un-dyed cotton and were going to attempt dyeing it here at our parents' house today. I remember one time we were doing some experimental crafting up here and the day ended with the microwave catching on fire! Hopefully the dyeing endeavor ends with less drama!

I love summertime!! Greta has recently developed a fear of the car. If it were winter, this might be a problem, but in the summer, not so much! We can walk *almost* everywhere we need to go! Today we walked up here to my parents' house. (My parents must be getting really sick of us. We've been spending A LOT of time up here lately... most especially every Saturday!) This morning we went to the Farmers Market to pick up our CSA (and they told us we have a $10 credit because they didn't give us our full share last week!) and to visit with everyone we saw. Before that, we'd been up bright and early for the library book sale!!! Nothing gets Anja out of bed, dressed and out the door faster than a library book sale! We got some good things this time, it was actually a really good sale. I wish I'd been in the market for more fiction books, because they had TONS.

Trying again

2011-06-08T08:18:00.001-04:00

Whew, it's hot! We've been spending a lot of time in the sprinkler here at home and in the kiddie pool up at my mom's house. I love summer!

I made the most amazing brownies the other day... How can you go wrong with five eggs and a bag of melted dark chocolate chips stirred in? Boy.

My sweater will surely be finished for Fiddler's. I'm past the shoulder of the second arm! (working shoulder down.) not bad!

Let's see if these pictures can be seen this time.

Animals of our Life

2011-06-05T18:32:00.004-04:00

Clearly BlogBooster takes some getting used to... I would not call my last post a success.

But here is a little post about some of our locals, whom I've mentioned before on the blog. Ratty Squirrel is either dead or has been evicted (I've seen some robins nesting in the porch roof next door, where Ratty used to hang out), unless his fur is changing and this is him: Can you say "not right"?!

What's with the camouflage fur?! Pretty icky, and he's around ALL THE TIME. But you know, I don't think it's Ratty Squirrel.... Ratty had absolutely NO hair on his tail. None. He was a true Squirrat... and of course, one I found that the squirrat is a "mythological" animal, he packs his things and leaves the neighborhood. Of course.

While we were getting into the car today, we heard a big *thump* and found this little baby robin--he'd smacked right into the back of our car! Martin tried to pick him up to move him, but he hopped away, so he just poked him until he got safely away from the car. Cute, huh?

And for our last animal of today's post, here is a duck:

One day she came out of her room dressed like this and told me she was a duck! She wore yellow all day... Conveniently, it rained later in the afternoon, and she got to wear her yellow raincoat!

WE'RE GOING TO THE FROZEN CUSTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blog Booster Changes Life

2011-06-01T22:21:00.001-04:00

My sister-in-law told me about an app called Blog Booster. It makes blog posts from your iPhone a cinch! This is my first attempt.

Ok, well my picture failed to upload, but that's ok....

I now will publish this post and see what happens. I'll check back soon!

2011-05-29T23:03:00.000-04:00

Oh, Greta. How you love your food.

Martin's been working a second job since Christmas. I kind of keep forgetting to mention that on here! So the girls and I have been spending a lot of time up at my parents' house as a result. Yesterday they made little Mimi bread loaves. Anja said hers was too pretty to eat... Evidently Greta did not share that opinion.

Looks like we'll be going to Virginia in July!

This afternoon both girls took a nap so Martin and I took advantage of their lasting good moods and had a date! The first real date in aWHILE. It was fun! A long time seated on the patio at Pepe's watching the people go by and sipping margaritas followed by a trip to Starbucks to sober up. Ha, that's a joke.

We're in the market for a couch. Thanks, Matilda.

I still love my iPhone! But w I want to call it MiPhone. Get it? Because it is MINE.

Tomorrow is calling for sprinkler weather! Hope everyone had a good day off. We'll be doing yard work and lots of it.

2011-05-27T06:25:00.001-04:00

Whaaaa?!? If you want to read the post I made at my parents' house last night, you'll have to go back a few posts to may 17. So silly that it posted there! But there it is.

Sent from my iPhone

2011-05-22T15:29:00.000-04:00

Greta was nursing the other day and got distracted by Anja, so I assumed she was finished and I pulled my shirt down. She immediately pulled it up again and said clearly, "No, I'm not quite done." I think I should start attending La Leche League meetings! Hahaha!

2011-05-21T14:08:00.001-04:00

Today's blog post features this starving squirrel. I bought her from a pet store, where, according to her, she was NEVER fed! Poor thing!

And speaking of weird squirrels, we have a guy we call Ratty Squirrel living in our neighborhood. We googled squirrel-rat and found a picture of one that looks exactly like Ratty. Evidently the "squirrat" is a mythical creature and we now believe that our personal fortune is jumping through the tree branches outside our house, expertly avoiding photo opportunities. Hm.

2011-05-20T13:51:00.001-04:00

This will eventually be a sweater for me. And if I knit my little heart out for the next four weeks I MIGHT get it done in time for the evening concerts at the Fiddlers Gathering, where it's often handy to have a sweater (and preferably one that matches whatever cute skirt you decided to wear that day.) wish me luck! I'm not even halfway done with the back, so don't worry, my expectations are realistically low.
Someday my dreams will come true and I will be transformed into a billionaire octopus. I will be able to buy all the yarn I want without even having to feel overwhelmed. With all those arms, I'd be able to do it all! Sigh. Maybe someday.

2011-05-17T14:36:00.012-04:00

These pictures are from sometime back in April when we took a little daytrip down to one of our favorite places, Paoli. If you've never seen Southern Indiana in the springtime, it's well worth the miles and hours, no matter how far the distance from home.

We had lunch here at the Lost River Market. Picked up some of their fresh deli sandwiches and a few snacks (raspberry yogurt covered pretzels, anyone?) and it was such a sunny day, we sat out on their patio to eat.
Inside the store they have those little kid-sized carts!

We brought Jack with us. He really enjoyed it!

After the good lunch we headed down to this lake..... I can't remember what it's called, but the drive to it from Paoli was beyond gorgeous.

I heart Indiana. It was a fabulous trip!

In crafting news, I've been mostly just knitting, knitting, knitting. I'm working on a green sweater for myself now, which is (so far) turning out pretty well. I've not been sewing much, but I did make Anja a skirt the other day out of this weird quilt top that had been sitting in our back room (which is competely empty and stripped of carpet!) for four years. I cut it into two wrap skirt-ish things, then sewed one up for Anja. It's not really a wrap skirt--that seemed a little troublesome for a three year old--it's just made with an elastic waistband. She loves it! With the other piece, I intend to make one for Greta.

Now this is the part of the post where I talk about how obsessed with my animals I am.

I try not to talk too much about my animals. I know it seems kind of weird. Two beautiful children and I can't get enough of my cat? Hm. I'm pretty obsessed with my kids too, though. Today I called Greta back into the kitchen after breakfast so I could wipe the jam off her hands and face. She came in and put out one hand, then held up the other one and said "I wiped this one on some underpants."

Anja is very imaginative. She's come up with a holiday called "Bone Day" which is when you sing "Happy Bone Day to You" to your dogs and give them bones! We got some bone-shaped dog biscuits at the store that day, and got a toy bone for them too. We sang the song A LOT... to everyone we saw too, not just dogs! It was a happy holiday.

Also, Anja has a whole houseful of pets (and she doesn't REALLY live with me... she lives in her own pink house, alone... well, except for the pets. And Greta lives in a purple house next door.) She has a cat named Squeaky who has a kitten named Smodo. She has two dogs, Dogalina and Raincone. They are yellow labs! Such a beautiful imagination.

Greta is obsessed with lights. When the lights are not turned on in a room she tells me "A cow is mooing!!!!" So.... that's Greta these days.

My garden! We've collected some lettuce and my peas are doing great! We bought some really, really sad tomato plants for fifty cents, and I'm hoping that with a little TLC they will produce much fruit for us throughout the summer!! Also we've planted radishes, carrots and onions.

I'm at my parents right now.... and it's way past bedtime, soooo.....

HAPPY SPRING!!!!!

Where's my text???

2011-05-16T21:57:00.001-04:00

Ok, I keep trying to make blog posts with my pictures, but I can't get the text to show up. Have I mentioned how much I love my iPhone? I even love the annoying clackity typing sound. Here's a picture of the barn at prophetstown! Please leave a comment if you see this post. I'm not sure I'm doing anything right on here.

2011-05-16T21:52:00.000-04:00

2011-05-13T22:48:00.000-04:00

Trying again here on the ole iPhone. No, definitely new iPhone, and definitely beyond my brain capacity. I'll keep this short in order to lessen my frustration when it doesn't publish:
- bought yarn today. Will be sweater for me.
- summer weather is lovely, but when will my house get clean if I'm outside all day?
- been clearing out the pumpkin patch. (of weeds, not pumpkins) hopefully we'll get it fenced in before the vines creep onto the sidewalk.
- Matilda went into heat.
- Matilda got spayed.
- Martin hosted a self-defense class here last weekend so the girls and I were supplied with much entertainment!
- I don't like spiders.
- Anja just had her half birthday. That means she's halfway to being 4. I'm just not sure I can handle that.
- on Monday I attended my sole social obligation of the year, the Shirley Martin songwriting scholarship awards night. I was feeling pretty good about myself, thinking I didn't look too bad, I wasn't seeming to be too uncomfortable with being out from my rock, my kids looked presentable. Then I got home and saw that I had blueberry juices smeared all across my forehead. Goodbye, self confidence! Thanks for the nice ten minutes!
- I'd like to figure this thing out and get myself back into the blog world.

Next time I'll try picture AND text!

Sent from my iPhone

Gnome Homes

2011-05-11T16:09:00.000-04:00

Last night was my annual obligation: The Shirley Martin Scholarship for Young Songwriters awards night. It was great! Martin mostly stayed outside with girls and this is what became of their time outside: This is a tree outside of the TAF building, and all the sticks propped up in the limbs are Anja's special placement of them. She made a gnome home!! One of those clusters of sticks is a front porch.

This is one of the little "rooms" she made with pieces of bark that she found. There were two little spots like this.

She was so proud of herself! And I was proud of her too!! She kind of came up with it by herself... we have a little fairy home under our tree in the backyard, but we've never known of the gnomes to visit.

I have an iPhone! I got it for Mothers Day... I guess I never explained that here. So now I have internet access, but I'm still figuring out how to make blog posts from it. Soooo.... hopefully I'll be back on here regularly before too long.

Checking in... Maybe...

2011-05-10T06:40:00.001-04:00

Old and Out of Touch

2011-05-02T13:28:00.003-04:00

Last night was kind of cold and kind of damp and after the girls went to bed it was the perfect night for sipping vanilla chai on the front porch swing. So Martin headed out to Vienna to pick up a couple for us. He texted me quite awhile later, "I am old and out of touch." I replied that Vienna makes me feel that way too, but had something happened?

Turns out he'd been asked by a group of college kids to take their picture. Of course, he said he'd be glad to, and one girl handed him her iPhone. (I am laughing even while I type this.) He didn't know what to do. He actually held it up like a camera, screen facing toward the group, and was looking for a button to push. He got all flustered and the girl came to help him, then he evidently proceeded to take really bad pictures. They wanted a picture of all of them jumping, and he just couldn't get one of them in their jump. And then, instead of saying something mean and sarcastic as he would usually do in an embarrassing situation, he was just like, "Oh, sorry... I'm sorry I missed it again... um.... I'm not very good at taking pictures..." and finally the girl came up and took her phone back and that was it. He came home. His exact words were, "It was so bad, Annie." For the record, Martin's mother AND my mother both have iPhones, from which they text each other, and us, daily. They are both in their 60's. And my husband, who isn't even very close to being thirty, couldn't figure one out AT ALL.

Oooh, Martino. I know I've always said I'd like to grow old with you, but at this point I'm not really sure how much "growing" can be left to do in that direction.

Roughly Around the Time of Greta's 2nd Birthday...

2011-04-02T16:59:00.010-04:00

I didn't mean to post this blurry one...

This rug has a nice story behind it that has to do with Greta running to it screeching joyfully, pulling it off the shelf at Target and into the aisle where she rolled around on it and wouldn't get off for a good ten minutes or so. She was absolutely in love. So when it showed up in our living room on the morning of her birthday, you can imagine her surprise and delight!

Have I ever posted pictures of Greta's little sweater? I can't remember. Anyway, this is it... it rolls badly so you can't see the purple stripe along the edging, but that's okay. It's warm and cozy.

We've been up here at Ooma and Oompa's house all day! It's fifty-something degrees outside, so the girls played in the newly filled sandbox and I sewed the buttons on the Springtime Garden Sweater, which is what Anja's wearing in the first picture up at the top there. I think I like the finished product! I knit it in some fun nubbly cotton (Mission Falls) that my mother-in-law picked up at the Trinity Mission for 50 cents a ball! Nice.

Santa Got Hosed!

2011-03-27T21:08:00.017-04:00

The other day we were at Target in the baby doll aisle (because we are ALWAYS at Target in the baby doll aisle) and we saw a doll that Santa brought to the girls for Christmas. At the time it was just a single doll (Cinderella) in the package, whose dress comes off. Now she has a change of clothes as well. I pointed this out to Martin. "Yeah!" he said, "But it's the same price! We totally got ripped off!" He kept going on and on about it, completely ignoring the fact that I was kicking him and telling him to shut up about how much Cinderella cost from the checkout aisle at Target. Finally he gave me that look that says "What? Why are you kicking me?" Me: "Cinderella came from Santa, you moron!" Martin: "Oh. Well... Santa got HOSED!" And now some pictures. Sisters helping put on shoes: Cousins dressed as ballerinas:

An extremely unattractive picture of Anja sitting in the window because my mom was looking over my shoulder while I was posting and wanted to see what this picture was:

Jack (aka, best dog in the world), wearing shoes and socks and beads:

Grace with her sleeping baby sister:

Cousins!

My sister and her baby girl, Avi!

WHERE'S JACK!?!?

Anja being a ballerina:

Anja

Anja with a lollipop:

Anja sitting on the kitchen counter looking sad, even though she was very happily eating apple slices at the time:

Celebrating Johnny Appleseed Day by painting with apple halves:

A couple of cute feet:

Greta reading Goodnight Moon to Jack:

Most Beautiful Cat in the World, Matilda:

Cousins, making bread pudding!:

We've all been sick around here with a monsterous cold/sore throat, which because we are us, also includes ear infections. Blah. But at least we're not throwing up! Last week it was fevers, so I consider runny noses and ear infections a step up.

Greta turned two! I forgot my SD card so I have no pictures of her birthday to share today. I can't believe my baby is two years old. *sniff* The day itself actually will probably go down in our family's history as The Worst Birthday Ever, but it doesn't matter. We've been lighting candles and singing Happy Birthday to Greta every day for more than a week, so I don't think the events of the actual day really matter so much. Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

Wellllllll..... I wish Winter would hurry up and end because I'm freezing and I'm tired of being freezing. I've planted my peas and lettuce and radishes. It was 70 degrees when I planted. This is a far cry from seventy, that's for sure. It was 26 degrees at 11:00 this morning!!!

Not much else is new around here...

Anja Louise, Age 3

2011-03-09T16:18:00.009-05:00

Have I mentioned I love three-year-olds?

Hot Off the Needles

2011-03-09T15:46:00.007-05:00

Wahoo! I finished my very first adult-sized sweater yesterday! I had always intended to call it the "Wing-It" sweater.... Little did I know, it would turn out having wings for sleeves! LOL!

Overall, I think I'm happy with the result. Not exactly what I was expecting, but definitely wearable.

And there's nothing like a photo shoot in your dirty bathroom mirror, right? I definitely should've cleaned the mirror beforehand... Also pictured is my awesome new camera!

Raglan sleeves, coconut buttons, seed stitch edging.... I think I like it.

Beyond Anger

2011-03-05T19:00:00.002-05:00

Okay, really.

I've always been against progress. You should've seen the fit I threw in highschool when my parents replaced the carpet at our river cottage. I just don't handle change well, and I'm not ashamed of it either. Why can't things stay the same? Why does all this damn PROGRESS have to screw up my perfectly merry little life?!

Earlier this week I noticed that NPR has begun to refer to themselves as "public media." They're really stressing the "American Public Media" part of their organizations. They chummily say "Brought to you by APM... American Public Media." BARF. Because their news isn't confined to their radio broadcasts. It's all online as well. LiveStream Audio! You can find every program in full in our Archives section! Want to contact us? Find our email address on our Website! Do you know that they don't read the local snow closures on the radio anymore? They give you the newest closures, then tell you you can find the full list on their website. Martin is told by text message that he doesn't have to go in to the office during a blizzard. Everything is so amazingly technological these days, it seriously disgusts me. If you want to be tech savvy, go right ahead. But I don't see why everyone on the earth has to follow suit just because it's convenient. Convenient for whom, anyway?

Mothering Magazine has now become a "web only" publication. This infuriates me. I am absolutely crazed by this. Mothering Magazine has been my drop of love in the mailbox for the past three years. Before I was a subscriber I would go to Barnes & Noble and flip through the pages while enjoying a mocha. (I didn't buy it, I admit this. I wasn't even pregnant when I started read Mothering, and I thought it would look really weird to be buying a magazine on natural parenting when it wasn't even a guarantee that I'd ever have children.) Since those days I have looked forward to every issue, checking the mailbox repeatedly until the mail arrived, day after day, until finally the blessed new issue would be there! And Martin would happily send me out for my bit of time alone to have a cup of coffee and enjoy every page of every article, every pretty advertisement, every letter from their readers. I enjoyed every PAGE of Mothering Magazine and I never threw away an issue. I have them all still... I've even ordered a few issues from the days before I had kids. You might say I'm a little bit obsessed. I don't care.

And let me tell you something else: I've been to the Mothering.com website. I've been there maybe two or three times because I find it to be SO overwhelming and SO confusing that I just can't stand it. And now I'm being FORCED to keep up my subscription to this fine magazine ONLINE?!?!? IT'S A NATURAL FAMILY MAGAZINE. I cannot BELIEVE that they've moved to be "web only." Ugh. The very term makes my skin crawl.

I am fuming. Really fuming. I might add that Martin saw the email in his inbox saying that the online issue was now available.... he didn't READ the email though, so I just did, and so just found out about their new..... sculduggery.

And you know what else? I don't WANT another computer. We've been talking that maybe we need to break down and get one. I've been missing the blogs more lately, and paying more attention to emails and stuff.... or at least thinking about them more. But I'm done. I'm moving to the Ozarks. Or the Amazon. Yeah, I bet that got you! Remember when the Amazon was a river? Does the word "rainforest" ring a bell? Type it into Google and see what comes up. Those times were long ago.

It's a sad, sad, sad, sad world, that's for sure.

Fun with Camera

2011-02-25T19:35:00.014-05:00

Here's evidence that my camera arrived this week! Wahoo!

Yesterday Anja was standing on this chair (which I've had for AGES) and the seat gave way and her leg went right through!

So I made this silly cushion. It's nothing spectacular except that the stuffing is from my teeny-tiny scraps/thread scraps collection! You see? IT PAYS to be a packrat. The fabric came from my stash too. The funky bright yarn is Noro somethingorother and will become a hat for Anja.

And this is who we're calling Jack Calico (Calico is our way of compromising with Anja, who wanted to name him "Black White and Brown".

He's a good addition to the family so far... the only problem is that this lady doesn't come downstairs anymore. I'm not sure what I think of that...

New Things!

2011-02-19T13:59:00.013-05:00

Well, my lack of technology is getting worse. My cruddy little phone is on its very last leg. I'm pretty much limited to text messaging because everyone I actually talk to on the phone sound like they're on the moon. It's very, very, very obnoxious. Luckily, Martino has ordered me a new one from eBay for not much money. And it's pink!

The other new gadget Martino got me (this one as a BIG SURPRISE) was a nice new camera!!!! I'm really excited for it. It hasn't come yet, but I am sooooooo excited for it!! I can't wait to start taking good, flash-free pictures that aren't always blurry!!!!!! It'll be good too, since we've been tossing around the idea of getting a computer. Martin is on board for this online, at-home test scoring job, which is really only twice a year (fall and spring) and last fall he did it from work and it was tough. The time before, he did it from home and it worked out pretty well. So before this spring gig starts, he'd like to have a laptop. I'm not sure we'll get internet at home right away, but it'll be nice to have the option of being able to go someplace and enjoy a cup of coffee and some free wi-fi to make a blog post. ALSO, if we ever do get a computer AND internet at home, I'll start my Etsy shop back up because my pictures will be a million times better! And I've been crafting things all winter that might as well be listed in an etsy shop because I'm not really going to use them. So, anyway, it might not be long before I'm not needing to come up to my mom's anymore to do all this blog posting. It'll be nice, I think. I have a feeling that when I'm taking better pictures I'll want to be posting them to my blog!!!

One day during the most recent cold snap (before the delicious warm spell) we went up to the river for the day. It was beautiful and very cold. We had good warm stew to eat.

And the girls throroughly enjoyed sliding down the "slide" up in the playloft (which Anja calls the hayloft.) They'd never been up there much before... or maybe even at all.... and it was SO FUN. Martin and I sat up there with our knitting (me) and book (him) and just laughed and laughed at them playing. They played so hard that they fell asleep less than ten minutes into the drive home--and it was only 3:00 in the afternoon!

Shortly after we got there we realized there was no water coming into the house. Martin tried everything and finally figured there was a frozen spot somewhere in the pipes. That made toilet flushing somewhat difficult. This was Martin's solution:

We dumped it all into the tank and made one community flush at the end of the day. That's what being resourceful is all about, right?

Valentines Day was SO fun! For having written Valentine's Day Schmalentines Day only five six years ago, I've really made a turnaround since having children. I really enjoy making the holidays special. We started Valentine's Day with heart shaped pancakes and all day long enjoyed making valentines for people, recieving valentines from people and eating a lot of chocolate. For a special little gift each girl got a new notebook to be their sticker books for the year. Last year Anja got her sticker book for Epiphany but this year we forgot to get it for some reason, so we saved the idea for Valentine's Day.

And this is what a real man's gun looks like:

I like to think of that flower as a symbol that Spring is really coming. I am so ready to plant. We're going to be buying CSA this year (yay!) and planting our usual garden, plus hopefully adding to our few berry bushes we planted last year (assuming with doubly crossed fingers that they survived the winter.) We're planning to fence in our pumpkin patch so it looks a little nicer too, and so we don't have any more tragic baby pumpkin deaths due to growing over the sidewalk and being run over by the trash can!

And now onto the crafting of late:

For Valentine's Day I made these pants:

They are reversable! They fit both girls--for Greta they can be rolled up to show the coordinating print on the other side and for Anja they are just long and snuggly. The inside is green and brown. I think they are cute and Anja likes them!

The other thing I made is this rug:

Two wool blankets felted, cut and sewn together. You make cutouts in the top blanket so the bottom color shows through. Isn't that a brilliant idea? I got it from the book AlterKnits--Felt by Leigh Radford. I love it! I am really, really happy not only with how it turned out, but also with how it fits in that newly arranged space and ties the room together. Without knowing it, I made this in the same colors as our bookshelf in the same room!

Really, really happy with it.

And this is the newest addition to our family. Welcome to the desk, friend!

I have no idea why it took me eight months of not having a computer to have the bright idea to buy a typewriter, but as soon as I got the idea I was desperate to get one. One day this week Martin came home for lunch so I slipped out (without a coat because it was sixty degrees!) and walked down to the antique store. They had this, and even with it's missing the number 1 key and the T that sticks, I couldn't resist. I walked home proudly with my little typewriter in its little black box! And since I had been up to see the Typewriter Man a day or two before, I know I can get it repaired and find new ribbon from it through him. And he's only a few blocks away!

A Winter Sunday

2011-02-06T15:55:00.011-05:00

Happy Superbowl Sunday! Go Cubs! Hahaha, just kidding. I know the Cubs are a hockey team.

We more than survived the snowstorm. We were right on the edge of the blizzard (north) and the ice storm (south) and so we received a good layering of something like sno-cone. Interesting! Yesterday it was all covered by a few more inches of snow. Winter is a good season. We began the snowstorm by making a blueberry coffee cake. It was SO GOOD! A recipe from my all-time favorite cookbook, Simply in Season.

Blizzard warnings are good times for getting some knitting done.

So yesterday I got this great idea to rearrange the house. Not the entire house... just the completely over-cluttered dining room. The little table that once was a nice place to set a vase of flowers became the table for my sewing machine, resulting in the slow deterioration of that entire wall of the room. The place was a wreck... and it's February now, which means I've been looking at this wreck of a room for MONTHS. Time for a change. Enter: The Landing.

You might remember our first arrangement of the Landing when we first moved in; it was our Book Nook. A marvelous little space, my very favorite part of our house by far. But then we started having children and the amount of stuff that comes with having babies kind of squeezed the books out of the way. Since then the landing has been the space where all our dressers live. And then they were joined by a box of fabric. And now? Now it's my craft space. Sounds great, right? WRONG. The landing is tiny. Waaaay tinier than my dining room. So a craft space that was cluttered and messy just got more cluttered and about 500% messier. We have nowhere else to put our dressers, so they are still there. I covered one with fabric and am using it as a sewing table. So every day when we need something to wear, we'll have to basically dig it out from under my sewing table.

Another really awesome thing about this decision is that my sewing machine is at least 7 years old, and probably more like 17 years old. I know it's at least 7 years old because that's how long I've had it. No wait... more like 8 years now. Anyway.... I know for a fact that my mom didn't buy it new, so it's got at least a few extra years on it. My point is, it isn't silent. Which is fine! Great! Be as loud as you want, sewing machine..... when you're placed anywhere in the house EXCEPT NEXT TO THE ROOM WHERE MY CHILDREN ARE SLEEPING. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

And of course, there's also the issue of getting my ginormous trunk full of fabric up the stairs. Ha. I guess that's why I married Martin.

I don't have any "before" pictures handy, but it went something like (beginning at far left) kiddie piano, long table with sewing machine, ginormous trunk. This is what it looks like today:

Notice the cup of tea sitting on the ginormous trunk that's just been shoved out of the way and almost immediately became the set-up surface for a bunch of little tin soldiers that came out of hiding with that canoe shaped shelf behind Anja in the picture. The chair and crate table used to be upstairs on the landing.

And this is the only part of the upstairs sewing/crafting area that I'm happy with so far:

Something along the lines of organization.

Anyway. Frustration reigns today, but I'm hoping to get the place in order eventually and make myself be happy with the setup because if that trunk gets moved upstairs, I can't imagine Martin volunteering to bring it back down again anytime in this century.

And here's Anja and her favorite horse (as well as a sort of "before" picture of the landing):

Now that things are scrambled in the dining room and weird little things are emerging from hiding places, we were able to be entertained by our fine young musicians!

They've taken to decorating themselves with markers lately. I think they might have futures as tattoo artist musicians.

So at this point we've been living without a computer for seven months. That's a good part of a pregnancy (no I am not!). And for a good part of that time it was really awesome and I almost never thought of the computer or the internet and I came up to my parents' house many many times without even thinking about sitting down at the computer. Well, maybe it's just the longness of winter finally getting to me, but I am missing the internet. I'm missing the blogs I used to read. I'm missing my own blog and being able to quickly post about some funny little family happening. I really like my little life and miss sharing it with my blog readers. *sigh* Also, without being able to hop online and search for recipes with specific ingredients that I have, our dinners are getting a little monotonous. Oh well. Winter is a good time to sit and knit mindlessly without distraction. And I still believe that my days are richer without having the magnetic pull of the computer on my kitchen countertop. And I still would like to make it a whole year without having a computer at our house. BUT. For the past week or two, I've been actively missing it.

That's all for today. I hope you all are having a cozy winter. Also, for any of you who have the Simply in Season cookbook, the girls and I made the Cinnamon Bread yesterday and it turned out REALLY YUMMY! It was great for the girls too because the recipe yields 2 loaves, so they each got to put the cinnamon and sugar on a loaf and roll it up themselves. Fun for all, and a tasty Sunday morning breakfast too.

Hunkered Down

2011-02-01T11:23:00.002-05:00

Hello, BLIZZARD WARNING! I made a quick dash over to the library to post my excitement. I've been wanting to get to a computer for a few days and make a post... partly because I was disgusted with society, but now I've gotten my soulemama fix and am feeling a little less annoyed. (My annoyance had to do with a generally lazy society and the mentality that someone else always has to fix things for you. When did people forget how to take care of themselves?!)

So, I've been collecting some knitting books from the library and in one (something about vintage baby knits) I found a pattern for little baby pants, worked on straight needles! (I don't do circular, remember.) They are freaking adorable, and I am afraid that I've.... been bit. (again.)

I don't have any yarn for them, but I did get my hands on this wonderful cotton (mission falls) that's in a very springtime green that I'm working into a little baby sweater. I'm calling it the Springtime Garden Sweater. I think it's going to be cute! And I'm pretty sure it'll fit Anja, but if not, it's lucky I have two baby girls!

Baby girls, who really aren't babies at all any more. In fact, yesterday I was nursing Greta while she was picking her nose, and I realized I'm nursing a little girl, not a baby. How did that happen?! Greta seems so much older than Anja at that age. She talks ALL THE TIME and really well. In fact, she speaks way more clearly than Anja does, and tries out words more bravely than Anja. Greta can name almost all of her cousins.... Anja only says the name of four. She still calls Avila "my cousins' new baby." Haha! Greta calls her "ya-ya" which is adorable. And Greta's got all this fluffy hair now! And Anja's hair is so long she wears it in pigtails, which is great, because left on its own it kind of goes wild. She's got a pretty crazy mop.

And Anja is getting too big too fast too. Last week we read "Charlotte's Web." !!!!! A CHAPTER BOOK!!!! She was asking if all spiders are mean, and I said oooooh no, no, no... and I told her about Charlotte. She immediately wanted to read the book. They didn't have it available at the library, but we happened to be at Once Upon a Child last week (where I also picked up for $2 a pair of green corduroy pants that will soon have felt vegetables appliqued onto them) and found a brand new copy for $1.50! What a bargain. So we bought it and started reading it that day in the car. We finished it in five days. Every morning Anja would come downstairs and ask me to read her a chapter of Charlotte's Web. She looooved Wilbur, and she really loved Templeton too.... oddly enough, she didn't really care much about Charlotte or the fact that Charlotte dies at the end of the book. But anyway, we're into the world of chapter books now and I am not sure what to think about that.

But in all this sentimentality, I have to say that I LOVE having two "kids" instead of two babies. It's so much fun! We do such fun things together during the day. Today to celebrate Blizzard Day we made a blueberry coffee cake. They love to help me bake! And they're getting really good at stirring without flinging ingredients all over the kitchen.

The guy next to me is totally rocking out... and burping. Do I laugh, or throw up a little?

Oh my gosh, the other day Martin told a really gross joke that made my mom run to the bathroom. She called out "I'm gagging!" And then a minute later she said, "I threw up a little in my mouth!" Oh my gosh, I'm trying not to laugh out loud right now around all these weird dirty people in the library computer lab.

Well, I'm on Martin's library card (I've lost mine) and he wants to jump over here too, so I'd better not use up all the time. We're well stocked on toilet paper and canned goods, and yesterday when Martin left work one of his co-workers said, "See you Thursday!" It would be a cozy break. We were reminiscing this morning about the blizzard of 2007, when we'd just moved into our house and everything was closed except Chumley's so we walked down there for beers with downtown friends. And I think it was that same snowstorm when Martin picked up that hitchhiker during the snow emergency. Looking back on past events, everything seems so weird and funny.

Okay, it's time for me to leave. I'm feeling claustrophobic. And I am feeling the very strong need to wash my hands. And body.

Pictures of the Season

2011-01-20T18:55:00.034-05:00

Here are some pictures from our winter/Christmas 2010-2011.

Some Christmas crafting:

Mary and Joseph decided to take a truck to Bethlehem this year.

We went to the Union to see the tree and gingerbread house. We met this VERY enthusiastic woman visiting her daughter!

We made brownies for the garbage men and our postman.

The girls got a Celebration Ring to begin our Christmas season! And Auntie Perkins was there to join in the festivities!

Anja recieved a Hello Kitty backpack from AunT!

Christmas Eve at Ooma and Oompa's house:

I made Bella a crown and cloak.

Christmas Morning! Santa brought balloons!!

AND CINDERELLA FROM THE CHECKOUT LINE!!!!!!!!!!

A nice Christmas morning shot

They got some stickers.

Greta pretending to sleep on Anja's Hello Kitty pillow. (How is she so into Hello Kitty? We have no idea!)

Didn't mean to include this picture....

See that box in the background? Our friends gave us a WAFFLE MAKER! Talk about the best Christmas gift EVER!

My mom got Martin a gun. Um, yeah. Uncle Joel and Martino.

Uncle Joel and Auntie Perkalator on WAFFLE NIGHT!!!!!

Oops, I put this one in twice. That's because they are such good friends!
Our friends the Meeks made fairy headwreathes and fairy wands for the girls and brought them over one day. What a wonderful surprise!

The gingerbread house... how did this get here? And another...

Anja and I went for a date to see the Nutcracker! SUCH FUN!! And she wore her ballet slippers!!!

This is Anja, on a table, in a tutu, drinking a bottle.

Possibly my favorite picture of Anja ever.

And this is Greta being a puppy.

And this is Anja and Martin building a snowman on a snowy day before Christmas!

And we are having a delightful life otherwise! Hope you are too!!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2011-01-10T16:11:00.004-05:00

The Christmas season is over now, and I can safely say it was the best, most magical Christmas EVERRRRRRRR thanks to having two little fairy princesses who are old enough to really (and I mean REALLY) get into the festivities. SO MUCH FUN.

Post-Christmas activities so far have included a nice stomach bug and Anja's first viewing of The Nutcracker put on by the local Ballet Company. It was magical for her! She sat through the whole thing so beautifully that even some old ladies at Panera afterward commented! (Evidently they'd been sitting right behind us. Weird, huh?)

Today we are at a tea party at Ooma's house, put on by Anja's cousin Grace, who does put on a lovely tea party.

A crafting update:

It was a handmade Christmas for sure, mostly sewing projects, and a few knitted things handed around to family members and friends. I've been really hooked on embroidering felt adorableness onto anything I can find... and I've been starting a few different knitting projects as well. Also I've been experimenting with greeting cards, made out of different things both glued and sewn. Kind of fun!

A Girls Update:

Greta talks now. Not just random words here and there, but like really talking. I mean having conversation talking. SO much different than Anja, who I'm not sure had a working vocabulary of ten words at this age.

But Anja's vocabulary now? Now Anja says things like "Oftentimes Daddy goes to work" and she talks most of the time in narrative style, telling me as she runs through the kitchen, "'Oh my goodness!' the little girl exclaimed as she ran through the kitchen!" It's actually a little bit weird.

I can't believe that Greta is fast approaching her 2nd birthday. Where did the last two years go?! And Anja is marching through her third year of life. Craziness. And my nieces and nephews?!? HUGE! And you know what it all comes down to? I'm getting old. OLD. On Sunday we saw a family who was always the young family supplying new babies. I'm not sure how old their youngest is now, but definitely not a newborn and the older ones, who are supposed to be toddlers are GINORMOUS. Like, facial hair ginormous. And I just don't know how that happens! And then I look in the mirror and I notice that I'M getting old! (Thankfully I still don't have facial hair...) But wrinkles and general oldness are taking over. Sad, sad, sad.

On a brighter note, yesterday while Anja and I went to the Nutcracker, Martin took Greta on a date for the FIRST TIME EVER. This is good news for everyone!

Snow tomorrow!!!

Old Man Winter

2010-11-26T17:49:00.025-05:00

Wow! It's been a month since I've posted, and usual, at my parents' house, I'm not really able to make a much of a blog post. Sorry! But here in pictures is what we've been up to (excluding Halloween, which I forgot to upload pictures for) as of late:

We've been going to the beach! And doing a lot of frolicking

We've visited apple orchards, pumpkin patches and farmyards to enjoy the wonderful and fruitful season of Fall. We've been hugging sheep

And kissing goats!

Can it be? Anja's THREE!!! We had a party for her at our house the Sunday before her birthday.

I made a fabric garland

And String Monster cupcakes (upon request).

We've been wearing Christmas pajamas for more than a month.

On Anja's "very birthday" we gave her a few small presents at breakfast

Followed by a bus ride with Daddy to Barnes & Noble, lunch at Chick-Fil-A, then a little outing to the library to apply and receive her VERY OWN LIBRARY CARD! In Anja's mind, this makes her a legitimate human being.

I've been snuggling Theodore.

And Greta.

And doing a little bit of crafting.

(I made the sweater, not the bunny.)

Matching jumpers, anyone?

We've had other family birthdays!

We've been doing lots and lots and lots of art.

And just as much story reading.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And just today we travelled down to Crawfordsville to choose a Christmas tree from our favorite tree farm. They big hairy men gave the girls candy canes, and they were delighted!

And along with the first Sunday of Advent comes the first of the absolutely winter weather. Brrrrr!!! I'm not sure I'm ready for this. I'm not sure I'm ready for Advent either. I've got a lot of Christmas presents on my "handmade" list, and a frighteningly short amount of time to get all of them completed. Yikes!

I hope all of my readers are doing well and had a happy Halloween and a happy Thanksgiving. Both our holidays were wonderful. The girls were Woodland Princesses for Halloween! Lots of fun. I can hardly believe that Anja is three years old. Craziness. But have I mentioned how much I love having two girls so close together???

Oh, October!

2010-10-12T17:35:00.002-04:00

My favorite month is here at last. It's the month of my birthday, of Halloween, the peak of the leaves, and Uncle Johnny's Redneck Party. Wool sweaters, wool socks, birkenstock clogs, and knitting up hats that may or may not fit better than last year's hats. Hot tea, hot cider, hot coffee.

And all these damned black walnuts! Standing in our kitchen you'd think you were in a war zone with those things dropping against the house and roof all day every day. On Sunday we decided to finally do something about it. We gathered, hulled and soaked all the maggot-less ones for a couple of days and today my once-white backing for a finished quilt top is now kind of a pukey greenish-brown. I may give it another soak tomorrow, if it isn't raining. I'm proud of our dyeing adventure. I've planned to dye many a thing with many choices of organic matter, but I only ever get as far as the foraging stage. I tend to pick, pick, pick, then leave all my stuff lying on a table someplace. I've never gotten anything to the stove top until this weekend! And that was really thanks to Martin, who kind of did all the work.

The Feast. Was it the best ever? Maybe the second best ever. The girls were AWESOME and aside from being our all-time favorite event of the year (right up the with the Fiddlers Gathering), we had new fun this year through Anja and Greta's enthusiasm. Anja loved every bit about the entire weekend. She even was able to sell some soap for our booth! She would hold up a bar and say "we have soap!" very sweetly. She was good at taking money from people. Saturday was cold and rainy, but we stayed dry and warm under the booth. We didn't camp because of the cold and wet, and Sunday was sunny, but still cold, but we were all bundled so it didn't matter. I came away with some great pottery deals, including a pair of taper candle holders that Martin won for getting 2nd place (again!) in the Highland Games! Go Martin!

My birthday was marvelous. Martin took the day off and we all had a quiet day at home together. I'd like to point out publicly that my nephew, Christopher, gave me a skein of yarn he bought at the Feast WITH HIS OWN MONEY. Such a treasure! I bought some buttons on sale at Jo-Ann's and I think the yarn will become a little sweater with those buttons. Martin gave me "What's New, Cupcake?", the sequel to my beloved "Hello, Cupcake!" book. And we had dinner with Martin's family at Qdoba, after which the four of us headed over to the Horticulture Park to play in the enchanted forest for awhile before bedtime. A lovely day!

And other than that, everyone around here just keeps on growing. I can't believe Anja will be three in less than a month. I can't believe how big Matilda has gotten. I can't believe how many cupcakes I ate for breakfast the other day!

Catching up on Pictures!

2010-09-29T19:02:00.024-04:00

Matilda--newest member of our family. This was taken before we adopted her, when she was still living on our porch.

Anja spends a lot of time perched on the end of my sewing table.

Martin reading to the kids at the river.

With our friend Lina and her girls Sophia and Brigita

Some unbaked focaccia that turned out really yummy.

The two cats. Matilda = 3.5lbs. Theodore = 30lbs.

Late summer walks

peach canning successs

Anja and Matilda share lunch

Fresh blueberries

Going buckeye hunting in the rain

At the Linden Conservation Club

Funny Hair Greta

Oops! Sideways!

Limited Out

Picnic at Wabash College

If you didn't see the post that includes words below this one, take a look! I'm still breathing!

Knitting and Knotting

2010-09-29T18:31:00.002-04:00

Fall is here!

'Tis the season for hot chocolate, hot tea, woolly striped socks, and large crafting projects. I'm excited! Around our house we've been drinking up the last of summer, enjoying the warm days and packing the travel bag with fuzzy footie pajamas. (The only thing better than a toddler in footie jammies is the sight of TWO toddlers in footie jammies!)

Our yardsale was a success. It was especially successful for me, because I came out of it with two new pairs of pants, a new pair of shoes, an adorable wrap skirt, a sweater, and a nice pile of clothes for the girls.... all courtesy of my sister and sister-in-law!

One day last week the girls and I took a trip to Battle Ground. Greta wasn't sleeping, so on a long drive to try and get her to sleep, we stopped off at the Nature Center and went down to play in the creek. It's sometimes easy, living in a place with so much history, and so much to do, to forget about the little treasures that are right out your backdoor.

This past weekend was the annual Walk for Wolves out at Wolf Park. Anja LOVED IT. SO MUCH. It was really, really fun. Afterward we went to the river, hung out with family, and played in the water. Anja has been really into the idea lately of going to the beach... so an exposed sandbar in the river was good enough for the middle of Indiana. We caught a crawdad and Anja found a mussel shell that she wanted to make into a jewelry box. We are still looking for a tiny enough hinge for it, but we're working on it, and Anja probably will never loose her enthusiasm for it.

Last night we took a picnic dinner to Wabash College and ate dinner under a tree and then let the girls run around. We showed Anja all the places Daddy lived and worked and went to school. It was a gorgeous evening.

I bought a candle at Hobby Lobby the other day. It smells like fall and is wonderful. Every time I go to Hobby Lobby I remember how much I love it (they have EVERYTHING!) but I don't think I love it as much as Anja, who has been saying that her NAME is Hobby Lobby, ever since our trip there.

I'm knitting a wool diaper soaker and it's turning out GREAT! It's on straight needles--hoorah! I'm also close to being finished with Greta's sweater. Other projects include a chemise for Anja to wear to the Feast this weekend (it turned out amazingly cute, with cotton lace edging); a girl-sized quilt covered in adorable appliqued owls, using scraps from a box my mother-in-law brought to me from HER mother's quilting supplies; another girl-sized quilt started long ago and just getting finished; cloth diapers, thanks to Anne!.... and then all the Christmas presents. Also, I think I found the pattern for the sweater I will someday knit for myself. Not the hourglass sweater of Joelle Hoverson.... I've instead gone with something I found in "Knitting Noro" which is really cute and versatile, but which I won't be knitting in Noro.... I think I'll use a green I found at the knitting store from the Cascade "heather" line. Unless I look at it again and it seems too "heathery".... if you know what I mean.

And while I'm sitting at the kitchen table nightly knitting my wool soakers and baby sweaters, Martin is standing nearby, practicing his knots. He's tied many a knot around my wire stand that holds my fruit bowl. And when he's not knotting, he's filling our freezer with squirrels.

The Feast is this weekend! We might camp... wish us luck!

I have limited time, but I do have pictures..... So I'm going to post a few of them!

Winding Down

2010-09-03T18:43:00.003-04:00

It feels like summer is winding down. I guess it kind of is, since this is Labor Day Weekend and all. Seems like just yesterday I was getting out my white pants, and now I'm already putting them away. Actually, I'm putting them in the yardsale we're having tomorrow. Okay, I'll be honest: I don't really own any white pants. But if I did, you can bet they'd be going in the sale tomorrow.

Every few years we have a yard sale and my mom's house. Location, location, location! We're collecting all sorts of junk from our Big Back Room, clearing out our closets, and anything that isn't gone by 2:00 is being hauled off to Goodwill in one large load. The yard sale is the reason I'm here at my parents' house right now--we brought a load of stuff up here and the girls (who didn't want to come here when we were on our way) didn't want to leave. So now Martin is making trips back and forth bringing the rest of our stuff up here. I'm tired already, but it's worth it to be rid of so much STUFF.

The heat has broken and we've really been enjoying it. Sadly, my tomatoes and green beans are the only produce I'm getting, and even those aren't giving me enough to can... we just get a handful at a time for a meal. Not one single pepper flower all summer long, and now my pumpkins are full of blossoms again, but we've never had a pumpkin. Kind of a bummer, but we have bigger and better plans for next year.
The girls and I have been taking walks again, now that the heat index is less than 110 degrees, and we've discovered a buckeye tree up the street from us! We've been filling our little red wagon with spikey balls and bringing them home to break open, polish up and admire. Also, the oak tree down the street is dropping it's ginormous acorns, so our nature table is filling up fast as Autumn approaches!

Anja's imagination has really taken off lately. She is always pretending to be different things, usually animals. One day though she was a "dragonfly princess"! Also, she tells us stories that she makes up. One of them involves her going into a hole in our kitchen where the baseboards don't quite meet, and borrowing toys. Evidently the hole is also filled with real live cats and dogs. She tells the most magnificent stories!

Martin is taking an HVAC class this semester at Ivy Tech. It makes for long Thursdays for all of us, but that's okay, I think it'll be worth it.

We are going into our third month of being computerless. I love it. Only once in awhile do I really MISS having the internet. For the most part, I don't think of it, and often I come up here and think I should satisfy some "craving" for internet time, but the craving isn't really there anymore. Tonight I felt like I should make some sort of substantial post, just in case anyone still checks up on the old blog, but really I've pretty much kicked the internet habit and am happy to be without it. I've been writing letters to people and spending a lot more time watching my kids play. All good things!

Alright, more garage sale preparations to make! I'm so happy for the cool fallish weather!