Tiny hat

One tiny hat off the needles and ready to go in the mail. No, this one isn't for Carmel, but she is such a willing model I just couldn't pass up getting a few shots of her in it first.

Her momma will be knitting her one soon and with a very similar yarn (same yarn actually, just different colors). I am in love with this self-striping yarn. It makes me look WAY more capable with the knitting needles than I really am. Love that.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Chickie Google Chunkin'

I made this doll for Owen when I was pregnant with Carmel. I thought we could use it to practice what it might be like having a new teeny little babe in the house. Originally weighing in at 6 pounds, my poor son couldn't even lift her and eventually my niece ended up ripping the dollies arms off just trying to pick her up.


When I first made this little baby doll we called her Heavy Baby because she was modeled after one of Joy's Waldorf Dolls by the same name. I sort of made up the recipe for her based on this photo stream which, as it turns out, happens to be a great tutorial for making a weighted baby doll.

She has gone through a pretty radical overhaul since I first made her. She was WAY too heavy to begin with but now she only weighs about half as much as she did. Her arms have been reinforced (just in case anyone feels the need to swing her around over their head by her arms. That happens you know.)she was given a new cute little outfit and finally, thanks to Owen, a name.
Carmel's new best friend: Chickie Google Chunkin'

Pine cone people

I have been feeling inspired lately (originating here, because she is such a good birdie momma) to spend a little more time caring for our bird population around here. So, last night Andy took Owen outside to collect some pine cones for a little project I had in mind for us this afternoon. This time of year nearly all of our pine cones are tightly closed up, but after they overnight next to the wood stove they are perfectly ready. Ready to become little pine cone bird feeder people, that is.
I have seen this activity in several different books. This one and this one are really my favorites because they have so many activities that are fun for me too (which is essential because, come on, the project manager really needs to be enjoying the activity especially when tiny participants are involved? Right?).


I had originally imagined them being cute little fairy-princess-like bird feeders but they didn't turn out like that at all. They turned out more like funny little bug-eyed bird feeder people instead which is probably better. Better because pretty soon the birds are going to come and pluck their eyes out and I'd hate for the feeders to be too cute when that happens. I hope this doesn't traumatize my children. I can just hear the therapy session 20 years down the road "and I loved it..and then...and then... this bird came and started ripping its eyes out...and my mom...and my m m m mom was just laughing...it was terrible."
So then, without dwelling on any of the drawbacks here, I think we will all enjoy watching our birdies pluck away at these little guys.

I'm that guy!

There are a few things that go on in our kitchen that Owen HAS to be a part of. It never really occurred to me until today after spending, what seemed to be, the largest portion of our day in the kitchen. Between breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner, I can't even count how many times I heard Owen call out, "NO, I'M THAT GUY!"

Starting from breakfast when Andy was getting ready to crack the eggs this morning, Owen yelled "No, I'm that guy. I'm the egg-crackin' guy!" Yes, Andy allows his son to crack every egg that is eaten in this house. Ahh, crunchy eggs? crunchy pancakes? Just pretend you don't notice and keep on eating! That's really the only thing to do.

At lunch, it just so happened that the cheese-slicer guy showed up. Now, this is a little touchy. I love my cheese slicer. I coveted it for many years before it finally ended up in my kitchen. It used to belong to Andy's closest friend and I was always certain he never really used it. I would find myself thinking about it at the strangest times, maybe while I was changing a diaper or something, and I would just blurt out "I'll bet he doesn't even use that cheese slicer!" Anyway, after a whole lot of that type of behavior, his cheese slicer finally ended up in my kitchen. It was MINE ALL MINE, but you know, now there is this cheese slicer guy who slices all the cheese. He really does do a fine job of it. I just miss it a little, that's all.

So for dinner tonight, I was getting ready to peel some vegetables when the peeler-guy showed up. I had forgotten of course that this is Owen's job, and really, I couldn't be happier about it. I have to say at this point, if you have an almost three year old then get them a peeler and turn them loose on some vegetables because the entertainment value is unbelievably high on this one. They love it.
And I almost forgot. He is also the food-grinder guy. He makes sure all of Carmel's food takes a spin through the food mill before it hits her plate which has to happen because our little girly still doesn't have even one little tooth in her mouth yet (I really love that food mill, thank you Anke!).
So overall, (and in the words of the boy himself) he's "a weally good (h)Elper-guy!"

Fresh outlook, clean floors

I finally caved today and decided it was time to wash the floors. There was no more putting it off. It HAD to be done. Like so many other things in my daily life, scrubbing our floors is one of those things I never really look forward to doing but I always feel so happy I did it when it's all done (exercise is another one of those things that comes to mind, but I've really given up on that all together).

So I was scrubbing away with a little Carmel tied on my back when Owen came downstairs and decided I needed some help. What a difference those little hands can make on a project. Did it take me three times longer to finish the floors with his help? Yes, but the outlook he brings to scrubbing the floors is well worth it.
He was so happy to be sloshing water around all over the floor. His little eyes were bright and shiny and he had the sweetest smile on his face while he was wringing the water out of his towel. He was so taken in by the details. The warm water. The smell of peppermint (Dr. Bronners soap). The water hitting the floor and then puddling together. I couldn't help but think I've been missing all the fun. Now I'm not just talking about scrubbing the floors nor am I saying that scrubbing floors is all fun, but watching my sweet boy enjoy himself so thoroughly while doing it made me wonder. How many things in my day do I view as drudgery that his fresh eyes might see as pure pleasure? Hard to say, but I think I should pay more attention.

*Edited to add:

If I implied that I scrub my floors everyday I didn't mean to. So, just for the record, I don't.

Caught in the act

It looks like we have a climber. Carmel tried to make a break for the kitchen today by climbing over one of our book baskets we've been using for a gate.
A few minutes later she managed to get her knee up on our coffee table like she was going to climb on top of it to reach a toy.

She's busy. I have fear.

Saddle up!

We had such a nice visit with our friends down the road today. It's always a pleasure to get out and have a nice walk with another family that likes to get outside too, however short or chilly the trip might be.

From the outside:


From the inside:

Owen loves that his friends have a horse inside their house. Oh, does that look like just a saddle to you? Nope, not in Oweyland! That is a full blown, straight up HORSE. I so love the land of pretend.

Have a great weekend.

Cold frames

Andy had a free afternoon this week to work on a project he has been thinking about doing for quite a long time. He is always working from his wife's very long to do list so it's rare when he gets the chance to do something from his own.

With some wood pulled from the barn, a few cuts, some screws, and a few pieces of glass he had squirreled away, we ended up with these in the garden just before dinner. I was only able to get a picture of two of the cold frames, but there are actually three. Well, kinda four.

The fourth because Andy ended up having to "rework" (that sounds so much better than tear apart and redo) the one Owen and I put together in order to get the glass to fit.

So now, NOW, our toddler gardening cold frame is ready to go.

Ahh, things always turn out so well in my husbands extraordinarily capable hands! He's so wonderful, that guy of mine.

A name...

The votes were cast and the results are in. This, of course, was all between Owen and I who just couldn't agree on a name for this little goaty of ours. Owen said, call it Little SkunkNut. I said, call it Cougar (a recommendation put it from Kristen and Company. Thanks for the suggestions, by the way.) Andy said call it whatever you want.

It was very hard to choose between all the names. They were just so funny, clever, and cute. Thank you so much for giving us some ideas. Owen even had come up with a couple of funny ones, one in particular I really liked. I had a hard time letting go of it even though he had retracted it as a suggestion from the goat name category....Google Chunkin'! (This actually turned into a doll name later....Chickie Google Chunkin'. I will introduce her to you sometime soon. We like her. She's cute.)

And so,with that all said, please meet...

MILK DUD!

Isn't he so super cute? He came out to meet Carmel and I while we were sitting outside enjoying some of the warmer weather we had today. It was somewhat of a surprise considering we were separated by a fence.

It just so happens that this little MilkDud of ours is so small that he can just walk right through the fence like it isn't even there. A fact that makes his goatmama very nervous, I'm sure.

After kicking his heels up while running circles around us for several minutes, he finally decided to come over so we could all get a better look at one another.

It was so very sweet to see these two babies meet for the first time like this. Aren't they cute?

Toddler gardening series 1

So this is the new series- Toddler Gardening. I don't plan on doing this post everyday of course, but I would like to include bits of how Owen is helping out and enjoying himself on the gardening front from now until harvest time this year. Hopefully we'll be able to include a little of the Carms enjoying some of the summer garden treats too. PEAS! YUM! I can't wait.

Here is the first in our series of toddler gardening. Building something that resembles a cold frame. It's not beautiful, but hopefully it will work.

After we got the box built we went to a friends house to pick up some glass (thank you Rachel) to put over the frame. A little backwards. We should have picked up the glass first THEN we would have known how big to build the box. Details. Details.
I am so very excited about this though because I just know my wildly creative friends are going to have some great ideas. I hope you all will be able to chime in on this series and let me know what your garden plans are for the kiddos this year. Ohhh won't we have FUN!!!

Too early?

Now, I know it seems just too soon, but still I can't seem to shake it. I can't get it off my mind. Is now the right time, I ask myself. Should we wait a few weeks longer? Maybe we should wait. To start seeds or not to start seeds. And you know, these catalogs never help matters. It's always the perfect planting time in those warm colorful pages.

So, with this whole planting conundrum on my mind, the tots and I went outside and that's when I saw it....

THIS!!!!
AND THEN THIS!!!!

IT'S A SIGN! Right? I am being told that it's time to start some seeds. Let me tell you, if my daffodils are telling me it's time, then it must be time. And so, I will begin. Ahhh, but I will not be starting this alone. There will be a new blog posting series around here you just wait and see. More on that tomorrow.

Carm's "new" chair

Lately our meals have been a test of great speed and agility. Mostly these tests are in the form of trying to quickly leap from our seats to catch any number of meal-type items being whipped simultaneously from our tiny kitchen table by both infant and toddler. At any given moment we might find a fork, butter dish, plate, and/or salt shaker all whirling through the air at the same time in some erratic flight pattern. It's any ones guess if we will actually save the item from certain death, but still, it's required that one try. The butter dish was our most recent casualty. Shattered glass. Mutilated butter. Poor beautiful butter dish. R.I.P.

Now I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to put Carmel in one of those attach-it-to-the-table highchair numbers, but I can assure you it was NOT the right decision. We were having to move everything out of Carmel's reach because, as Owen says, "she's a little grabber." She can cover a good 55% of the table which really leaves the rest of the meal-type items on Owens half, until he starts juggling the dishware and we slide it away from him towards the other side of the table.... You see the problem here right?

So, this morning Andy headed to the barn and fetched the highchair we had used with Owen.

Owen and I spent part of the morning getting it cleaned up and ready to go and tonight for dinner we were able to try it out. Now I figure that tonight we were able to use, in total, 60% more dinner table space than we did last night. So, there's the 55% that Carmel was using and then the extra 5%, you know, comes from the space that my butter dish is no longer using.

Right, so, dinner was nice tonight. I do miss the butter dish though.

a little love

In the spirit of our Valentine's weekend here, I thought I should include a few shots of two things I really H E A R T.

1. The way this boy eats his Sunday morning pancakes.

2. Trader Joe's!

YUM to both.

Happy Valentine's Day

A friend sent this postcard to us last week and I just had to share it because it is so beautiful. I love it so much (thank you Kristen). I want to frame it use it as a Valentine decoration for next year just to brighten my February days a bit. I wish the sparkles showed up in this picture, but they don't. They're there. Believe me. Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day!

Aunty cards

We have been working on some Valentine's cards for the last two weeks around here. And really, it's not that we made many cards, it just takes us that long to get a project finished. That's just the way it is with these little people. There were many times I fooled myself into believing that great progress was being made toward the completion of these cards, and that's just when these little elves would want to switch things up a bit. I would look around and find one gluing the cards to the furniture and the other tiniest elf deciding to just make a quick snack of them.

But eventually things came together, as they always do, and we were able to seal them up and send them out (most of them anyway). Owen was using the globe to show me where they would end up after we mailed them. "No dear, it's Minnesota, not Mongolia."

Owen was a bit sad to watch his letters fall into the mailbox with no way to get them back out again because really, is there anything more fun when your TWO (almost three) than putting things in a box, and then taking things out of a box, and then putting things in a box, and then taking things out of a box and then......? No. No. Nothing is more fun than that. And so it was with a heavy heart that he dropped his last letter in the box. As he tried to peek through the opening to watch it fall, "That's Minnesota in there," he said shaking his head in disbelief. Oh, I love that kid.

I suppose we should head to the kitchen now to make some heart shaped cookies with little red sprinkles. Cookies will cheer that boy up!
Have a Happy Valentines day. Have a great weekend.

Doing the math...

Waking up. Wondering what kind of a day it will be. Mmmm, Andy's special recipe whole wheat pancakes. That sounds sooo good.
Bah. No eggs. "But wait!"

Andy runs out to check on the ducks.

And the day went as follows:

ONE perfectly formed duck egg.

ONE very delicious stack of Andy's special recipe whole wheat pancakes (yay ducks!)

ONE tiny little girl takes her first step all by her (very proud) self.

ONE very lovely visit with friends, which led to...

ONE very lovely walk with said friends.

ONE very long nap, both Owen and Carmel.

ONE full hour of knitting on Carmels sweater during nap time.

ONE very special visit with two very special people after nap time. Oh how we love that na-na and papa.

ONE jar of applesauce opened for an after dinner treat.

ONE cupful of very special early fall memories peeling apples with grandma and grandpa.

Working up the totals here....

ONE very fine day. How's my math?

Thankfulness

I have this image taped to my kitchen window above the sink. I spend quite a bit of time looking at this young mother while I do the dishes (no dishwasher, you know, so I have plenty of time to do that). Looking at the hurt and concern on her face, I always want to reach through the picture and just hold her.

The photograph was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1937 to document the effect the great depression was having on many of the poor, and it is just one of six that she took of this woman and her family. I always wonder what that momma is thinking and how she must be sick with worry over the health and well being of her children.

This photo has been plastered in nearly every history book from grade school to high school and beyond, but it never occurred to me to notice it until I became a mother. In this photo, we are the same age. She is with three of her seven children. They are all starving.

For me, she represents women all over the world, all throughout history who wonder, and have wondered, how they will feed their children and keep them safe. Every time I find myself ready to complain about, well, not having a dishwasher for example, or the dog hair on the floor, or too much laundry piling up, I can look at this woman and silence those thoughts. I have so much to be thankful for.

She inspires me day after day and she encourages me to give thanks for all the good things in my life.

Redness

I'm so glad that Valentine's Day is coming up because this month really does need a little red in it.