Here is Will at two weeks old in his oh-so-tiny pants. At nearly 5 weeks, he’s already so much bigger than in these photos.
And this is the vest I knit for Bea — she wore it when she was four months old. Then I lent it to my sister for her babes, and it came back as a newborn vest — thought I sent along washing instructions but you know, sometimes things get tossed in the dryer accidentally. It’s still darn cute. 
Bea adores dressing up her new doll brother.
We’ve been experiencing a typical spring — days of sunshine and mud and hope alternating with days of cold and snow boredom. We’ve spotted a few slips of green outdoors — most notably our chives and some dandelions sprouting. But we also decided to bring some green indoors. We are conducting a twig study, with lilac, plum, and basswood branches clipped from our yard. And we made a terrarium. Just enough green and growing to get us through to the warmer side of spring.
How we kept busy indoors this winter:
Adeline got really into making her own comics (templates here and here). She’s still using the techniques she learned from Ed Emberley’s thumbprint books.
This accordion turned out to be a very worthwhile Christmas gift.
Sometimes an impromptu photo shoot is a good way to pass the time.
Ed Emberley again — this time we were inspired by The Wing on a Flea to make pictures out of simple shapes (we printed some from here to cut out.)
I am in love with Mr. Printables. We’ve spent many hours printing, cutting, gluing, and playing with the wonderful creations there (including the dolls above and the calendar below). Cutting out and pasting all the elements onto her own calendar really helped Adeline understand how calendars are organized — but it was quite a lot of work, and February might be the only one we make this year!
Made by Joel is another site for great printables and inspiration.
We’ve been studying a bit of Shakespeare with the help of this great book, watching this animated version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Adventures in Learning blog has some really fun ideas.
We “joined” the Dinosaur Train Nature Trackers club.
We’re loving the Willowbee Tree stories from Sparkle Stories.
Spring is nearly here and I feel as though we’ve been sprung from a cage. But in many ways our time indoors this winter has been full and pleasant, so I’d like to take a minute to record what we’ve been doing. I’m sure by next winter I’ll have forgotten most of these ideas and the links to them if I don’t write them down now, and perhaps you might find a little inspiration, too.
Adeline and I have been slowly working through Drawing with Children (an amazing book I learned of here), and during our last lesson Bea was more eager to join in than before. We collaborated on the above drawings (I drew the palm tree and the baby birds) and I must say it was wonderful to work with a child who is not as much of a . . . perfectionist as my other child is.
We’ve been studying Mary Cassatt and we made these parent and child drawings (Adeline’s is on the left, Bea’s are the two on the right).
We read a really sweet book about a girl who makes a butternut squash into her doll, at which point Beatrice decided to adopt the squash that had spent most of the winter on our kitchen counter as her own “Bernice.” She’s been with us for many weeks now, only slightly more soft and dented than she started out.
I was inspired by this post to get the girls involved in planning for this summer’s garden, and I was very surprised by their enthusiasm for the project. We spent well over an hour one night poring through seed catalogs and drawing up plans, only stopping reluctantly for bedtime.
I haven’t unpacked my sewing machine since we moved — and did I mention we’re approaching one year in this house?! For several reasons, it has been easier of late to pick up the knitting needles rather than try to tackle the half-unpacked boxes in my sewing space. So. Here are a couple finished projects: first, an Irish hiking scarf for Adeline made with Brown Sheep Serendipity Tweed. I’ve used this yarn for several projects, as it always seems to be on sale at our local yarn shop. And I finally realized during this project that I just don’t love it. It is a cotton/wool blend and I don’t like the way it drapes. And knitting with yarn you don’t love is just laborious. So I’ve given myself permission not to use this (or any) yarn I don’t love in the future — and I’ll be more careful when picking out yarn from the bargain room.
Next up: tiny pants in KnitCol for the yet-to-be-born one. These were so fun and quick to make! I promise you that the legs aren’t really lopsided, it’s just the angle of the photo. I’ll get a better picture when he is wearing them.
I figured since the needles were flying I would try to squeeze in a few more projects before spring (and baby and garden) brings my knitting season to an end. I may have been overly ambitious in my planning.
Some of them may languish half-finished over the summer, but for now I’m enjoying working on a boneyard shawl, a puerperium cardigan, and a little something for Bea.
In a little over two months we will be celebrating our 1st anniversary in this house. And I feel like we are still unpacking and moving in. In the past couple months we finally hung some stuff on the walls, put up shelves, did some little projects we’ve been intending to do since we moved in last May. We now have enough space for our books. The girls have a gallery for their art. We even made a heart mobile for Valentine’s day (that may just stay up all year round). It’s good to feel a little more settled — and organized!
My girls have never made gingerbread houses before – and it would never have happened without these kits.
Adding O Antiphons to our Advent devotions (free ornaments here).
These photos are from yesterday, April 22nd. Yes, that is snow.
We waited for snow all winter, but it didn’t decide to show up until April. I’m going to venture to say (without bothering to check the facts and look up the actual numbers) that we saw more snow in the month of April than in all the rest of winter here.
But the thing about April snow is that you know it can’t last too long. The grass underneath is already green(ish) and our lettuce has sprouted. In a day or two (at most a week or two), temps will be rising and we’ll be tending the garden.
Also, April snow just means more opportunities for Adeline to wear her new vest (the Neighborly). But she has some stipulations: she will only wear it in the house and not out in public. Apparently she’s embarrassed, even though she picked the yarn (knit picks Chroma in a now-discontinued colorway) and couldn’t wait for me to be finished knitting it. When she was two she refused to wear the things I made her out of sheer obstinacy; now that she’s five she’s afraid people will laugh at her handknits. Did I miss some very brief magical window of time where she would actually, willingly, joyfully wear the things I knit her? I think my next few projects will go to someone who really appreciates all that hard work: ME! 🙂
Just two weeks before Bea’s birthday last July, Adeline decided she wanted to sew her the ragdoll from Sewing for Children. But oddly enough, two weeks wasn’t quite enough time to get it finished. She kept working at it though (with much help from Mama), on and off through summer and fall. But somewhere along the line, Adeline decided that since she hadn’t finished it in time for Bea’s birthday, maybe she could keep it for her herself. And make Bea another one later. Riiiiight.
So this is Watermelon. There are plans to make more clothes for her, of course. And the book has patterns for shoes and a jacket, too. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. We’ve had it for a couple years and made several projects from it, though none of the others have made it to the pages of this blog. It has plenty of projects that even the littlest sewists can help with. Adeline is currently working on the applique pillow project. She says it’s going to be a gift for Bea . . .
making life 