The garage door and an accidental nightie

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend! We took the puppy to the celebration at Crescent Hill. We thought the pet-friendly event would be nice socialization for her and that if she got too sidetracked by the sights and the smells I could just carry her. That plan worked okay except I failed to anticipate the mobs of children and old men who would want to stop and pet the puppy. So we made our way slowly through the celebration and really that was just about perfect. There was enough time and puppy love to go around! My kids were also looking pretty cute in their patriotic hand-me-downs. (I [heart] generous friends with older children!)

I realized on the morning of the 4th that I didn't really have anything red, white or blue I felt like wearing. I thought of some cute cherry fabric in my stash and I had just enough time before we were to meet friends at the celebration to whip up a new tank top. Unfortunately, even though I altered the pattern I'd used to make pajamas recently the tank was still too loose and poofy for me to want to wear it out in public.  I made do with a plain white t-shirt instead and will sew sleep shorts to match this tank, now an accidental nightie instead of day-wear.  Oh well, new pajamas are nice too, and I doubt I would have wanted to wear cherries on many days besides the 4th anyway.

This project is one Rob and I have worked on together over several weekends. Our detached garage was looking decrepit, with peeling paint on the door and a rusty old light. Rob sanded the door and we painted it in white with the gold in the grid to match our front and side entrance doors. Then Rob sanded and sprayed the light fixture red and that really perked it up, making it look like a garage that really belongs to us and our house instead of an afterthought stuck in the back yard. I think I'll use red on some shutters on the side of the garage as well. The colors are consistent with what we've been doing on the side and front porches. I actually need to finish up that front porch and blog about it--the UPS woman made my day recently by asking where I'd purchased my (homemade) chair cushions in the front! I love giving this old house new life.

Wooden Easter eggs

I bought these gorgeous eggs before my first married Easter. We were still setting up our little household and I wanted some non-hokey holiday decorations. I had previously seen Pysanky eggs at a display somewhere and I found that I could order a whole box of similar ones on eBay to be delivered right to me from some enterprising woman in the Ukraine. They were spendier than plastic ones, but they've been worth every penny. I don't think they are considered true Pysanky eggs because they are wooden and appear to be painted rather than done by wax-relief, but they're so beautiful and I love getting them out every year. I keep them in a glass bowl on my dining table.

 

This year I decided to use my Ukrainian eggs as inspiration for an Easter project with Dorothy. I showed her the eggs and told her a bit about them, then we made our own. Like the inspiration eggs, ours are made of wood. I first painted them a solid color, some with acrylics and some with the latex paint sample jars I've been collecting during our home renovations. Then we used permanent markers and acrylic paints to put on our designs. Ours are not as intricate as the Ukrainian eggs, but maybe the Ukrainian artists weren't trying to paint just beyond the reach of an impatient toddler! Once the designs were finished and dry I sealed them with a high-gloss glaze. That made them look shiny like our Ukrainian eggs and it seems to have made them more durable, seeing as how they've hit the wooden floor any number of times thus far but don't seem worse for wear. We only painted some of the wooden eggs I bought; it's my hope to do this project for several years in a row and see how our skill progresses.

I'm also hoping this project excuses me from dying hard-boiled eggs this year because I secretly dislike that project. I think hard-boiled eggs taste and smell nasty and the project is so messy. Dying shirts is worth the mess because after the project is over you get a shirt. After you dye eggs you just have colored hard-boiled eggs which taste just as bad as the originals! Plus Dorothy already dyed some at school and at Grandma's. Now I'm just justifying, because clearly I'm a bad mom who is trying to get out of dying Easter eggs.  :)

In which we get expensive new windows and immmediately cover them with Valentine window clings

We've been busy around here.  Too busy to blog.  But I'm so eager to share my progress!  Here's another before.

And after.  It's not done, but we've come a long way.  The wallpaper has been stripped (thank you Nana!), the walls primed and painted, and a really painful amount of joint compound was applied by my bare fingers to a crack that ran all the way around the dining room between the crown molding and the ceiling.  Ouch.  But I'm loving the colors and the way things are coming together.  I need one more vintage Louisville postcard for the frame to the right of the pass-through (Churchill Downs, I think--I found one online), and I want to make a family calendar for the other side.  We ripped off the old, ugly rubber baseboard in the kitchen but have not yet purchased new, wooden baseboard.  Pictures still need to be hung in the dining room and some of the trim is not yet painted.  But wow!  I'm feeling so pleased with how "mine" the house is starting to look.  I'm also vowing to take a break from major painting for a few weeks, though.  We need a break to focus on other things and avoid total house rehab burnout.

We did squeeze in some Valentine-making time.  I let Dorothy use the hot glue gun for a while, then changed my mind after she was such a wimp about touching some glue before it set up.  Maybe it was a bad call to let her use it in the first place, but I really do think she's a wimp.  :)  Either way, we glued faux flower petals, scraps of lace, and hearts we punched out of pretty paper onto purchased blank cards.  Kind of like halfway homemade.  Dorothy enjoyed making them, which was good since we needed enough for her whole class.  I also had adorable coupons printed from Pear Tree Greetings and I thought they turned out very sweet (the photo is on one side, the coupon is on the other).  I think the print quality is better for the money than from some photo sharing sites I've tried.  I sent the coupons to our family and they've been well received.

We've also been busy getting more colds and ear infections--argh!  It seems like the kids and I have been endlessly sick this winter.  I'm blaming too much upheaval in our home and not enough downtime, but maybe it's just that both my kids cannot keep their hands off germy objects or out of their mouths.

Christmas sharks

If I thought it was going to be difficult to unpack and get tidy in the new house before, I clearly didn't realize how much worse the situation was going to get with the addition of all the Christmas paraphernalia!  Between the fancy pink Polly Pocket camper (it's called a glamper, no joke) accessories and the noisy baby instruments it may be spring before I find a clear spot on this new floor to set my foot without stomping on something precious or loud.  But we had a good Christmas!  Here's me and my girl in our matching pajamas on Christmas morning.  They aren't homemade; they are from Target.  :)

And baby Worth sporting his White Socks bib (I did sew that, but it was before I knew we were moving) and shark hat.  The hat has a story.  I finished most of my shopping as soon as I found out we were moving, wrapped up the gifts, then sent them off to Nana's.  I blogged about that at the time.  But of course my early shopping did not account for closer-to-Christmas requests from Dorothy.  I could not have predicted that the item she would get her heart most set on receiving from Santa Claus was a shark hat and mitten set that matches those owned by her little preschool crush.  I had to e-mail the boy's mother to ask where she'd gotten them, then get myself to the Gap in the midst of all our move craziness to secure the hat.  Fortunately, the store did have exactly two hats left when I got there--one in Dorothy's size and one in Worth's, so of course I bought them both.  If I'm buying my daughter a shark hat from the boys' department, why not also purchase one for my son?  Dorothy was extremely happy with her her new shark gear and has mentioned several times how she and her little friend will now have matching hats on the playground.  I'm totally charmed that 4-year-old love is taking the form of identical fleece hats in the form of marine predators.  I'm also totally into the hats myself--they are so unexpected on both my pink-clad daughter and my rosy-cheeked baby.  The kids kept getting pawed at and cooed over by strangers at Costco today.  Who knew that shark hats could be such a thing?

This picture is being included just because I love it.  It's Dorothy expressing her love for her newly-unwrapped skunk toy.  I bought a bag of seemingly new (with tag) Beanie Babies at the thrift store for about a dollar, then parceled them out to the kids and wrapped them individually from Santa.  Dorothy loves stuffed animals that are about that size and heft, and I like toys that don't fall apart in the washing machine.  (Beanies wash pretty well, in my experience.)  She told my mother that her skunk and owl toys were her favorite Christmas gifts.  Not a bad second life for those erstwhile "collectors' items."

I'll post more house photos soon!  I'm probably going to spend the rest of the winter on befores and afters, kind of like the camper, but first I just need to get more boxes unpacked. A planned trip to IKEA later this week should help me with some needed storage; right now I'm a bit stymied by not having the right places to put the things I'm unpacking.

The stockings were hung

by our new chimney, with care!  And cheering!  And lots of exclamation points!  We got access to the new house today and rushed over to take care of first things first, like hanging our stockings.  I think we all feel better now.  In addition to our stockings we took over some fragile items (lamps) and some that would be overly difficult to pack, like my stand mixer.  It sure gives me a mental boost to know that my stockings and my stand mixer are waiting for me over at the new house!

Our stockings each have a bit of a story.  Mine (first) was a gift from Rob during the Christmas of our engagement.  Rob's is from his childhood.  Dorothy's (ivory with the silver tree) has eighteen silver hooks sewn on it.  Each Christmas Santa brings her a sterling silver charm representing something special about her year, and he hangs it on a hook on the stocking.  By her eighteenth Christmas she will have a nice collection of meaningful charms that she can choose to leave on her stocking, or put on a bracelet if she wishes.  I like this tradition because it takes up less space than ornaments, and can double as something functional (wearable jewelry) instead of just (pardon me) a box load of crap that she feels like she has to keep until one of us dies.  Not to be all anti-sentimental, but I just am not in favor of traditions that burden people with lots of stuff they must store.  The cat's stocking is next, and then Worth's.  I had a hard time thinking of how to adapt the charm tradition for him, but I did come up with something.  His stocking has big circles on it, and eighteen of them are well-centered on the stocking.  Santa has purchased a good supply of silver letter beads and will string one word in the center of a circle each year.  It's not wearable, but at least it will never take up more room than a stocking.  Santa still hasn't decided what word will sum up Worth's first year, though--for some reason "victuals" keeps coming to mind, as that boy is such a big fan of his dinner!

There's no place like...

Worth met Santa this week!  I don't like screaming pictures with Santa so I opted to be included after it was clear Worth would not willingly participate in a hand off.  I have a similar picture of Dorothy, Santa, and my arms from her first Christmas.  I have no pictures of Santa with Dorothy since then, what with the unwillingness on my part to hand a screaming child over to a scary stranger in a red suit, and her unwillingness to get anywhere near him.  (The picture looks like an old Polaroid because I downloaded this software and am now slightly addicted to using it on my photographs.  You should try it--it's fun to watch the picture develop over the course of two minutes!)

And the packing continues.  Poor Rody Pony, getting squashed into a box!  We were sure we'd have the keys to the new place by now but we don't.  There was a problem on the seller's end with one of the repairs we requested taking longer than expected.  I'm trying not to feel excessively frustrated about it, but it is frustrating to have thought we'd have access to the house by now but not.  My plans to move everyday items (like most of the kitchen and closets) by tote and unpack them directly into their new spots have fallen through, so now we need many more boxes, much more packing paper and a lot more takeout than we'd thought.  Still, I'm trying to focus on the merry Christmas we're going to have around our new hearth, and being glad our conscientious seller is taking care of everything at the new house.  I'm thankful for the Vietnam Kitchen down the street and for disposable diapers for one week only!

Black Friday skirt

I am not a big fan of shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  When I was a kid we always spent the day out in the country at a farm belonging to family friends.  When my husband and I were first dating, we enjoyed the "cheap date" quality of milling with the shopping throngs and having lunch out, but now most years I'm happy to leave that scene alone.  All my Christmas gifts are Internet-order or handmade (sorry Toys R Us, but your cheap, bad-quality, made-in-China, creativity-sucking, ugly plastic crap just doesn't do it for me, at any price or any time of day), and I have enjoyed spending this peaceful chilly Friday cozily alternating snuggling my ailing baby with working at my sewing machine. 

I bought some nice black jersey to make a skirt several weeks ago, but with all the real estate hoo-ha I hadn't had time to put it together.  It was a bit hard to cut this project out with much of our square footage being sucked up in towers of packed boxes, but I'm glad I got it done so I can wear it over the holidays.  I based the skirt on Simplicity 2758, which is a pattern I've made (and blogged about) a number of times.  I like the cut of this skirt, and when I make it in stretchy knit I get to skip the zipper, making it that much easier to sew and leaving time for embellishment.  I serged the bottom of the ruffle to look a bit raw, and the overhanging lip of the main skirt panel is serged in the same way, which is inspired by the look of store-bought clothes I've admired lately.  In ten years we'll wonder why we wore clothes that looked like they weren't finished.

We woke to a dusting of snow here in Kentucky this morning.  I called Dorothy over to the window and she was utterly thrilled.  She had her snowsuit in her hand and was ready to go out and play in less than an inch of snow before I'd even poured my coffee.  Rob had to meet with a client so he couldn't take her, and there was no way I was dragging my sick baby out into the cold, but I also hated to deflate Dorothy's enthusiasm.  She was willing to wait until her father got back, but we knew the snow wouldn't last that long, so I came up with an alternative solution.  I took a plastic container out onto the deck and scraped the snow off the railings and into the dish.  Then I gave my little housebound snowbird an assortment of measuring cups and kitchen utensils and she had a blast scooping, measuring and dishing the snow.  She crammed the snow tightly into an empty salt shaker and felt clever, like I'd never get it out, and my salt shaker would be inconveniently jammed with snow forever, right here in the warm house.  "How will you get the snow out, Mommy?  Will you have to use pliers or some scissors?"  Only time will tell, Dorothy...

Fall fun

Yesterday I finished crocheting a sweater I started last fall.  I was pregnant, and I was pretty sure the style of this cardigan would work hanging open over a baby bump.  The further I got on the sweater, though, the bigger my belly got, and I finally decided it was going to look stupid and I quit.  It was fun to pull it out this fall, though, a nearly-finished sweater, and just complete it and wear it.  I haven't blocked it yet, and I definitely think blocking will help the shape a bit, but I'm still really pleased with it. The wool is nice and warm, too, so even though today was chilly I felt comfortably warm out in the air but not overly bundled inside the car and house.  The pattern is available here, though I didn't follow it exactly.

Today I wore my new sweater on a lovely walk down Hillcrest Avenue in Louisville, a pretty street in any season, but particularly nice before Halloween.  The street has become known locally as a Halloween destination, with many of the homes decorating exuberantly.  We've taken walks down Hillcrest on sunny mornings before Halloween each year since Dorothy has been old enough to care, and it's become a fun tradition.  Some of the decorations could be gruesome (especially for my small ones) by night but are funny and interesting by day.

This caterpillar drawing came home from school with Dorothy recently.  Her class focused on caterpillars and butterflies for a while, which included artistic representations of both.  This cheery caterpillar drawing of hers has totally stolen my heart.  I want to do something special with it but can't decide what.  Maybe have it put on a Sigg bottle?  Or a t-shirt for her cousin for Christmas?  Or a mouse pad for myself?

Pumpkins

Another busy week around here.  Lots of fall fun, including a trip to the pumpkin patch.  We've had several house-showings, which is driving us a little crazy at this point.  I think we've given up hope of actually selling, and just wish people would leave us alone.  Why do we keep giving free tours of our home to people who will just say things like "oh, it's so cute!  We just love it!  But we needed an extra bathroom."  Or first-floor bedroom, or extra square footage, or garage...it's always something that we clearly didn't have based on the information in our listing, but for some reason people want to come see it (and not buy it) anyway.

This photo was an accident--he looked away as I was taking it, but isn't his hat adorable next to the real pumpkins?  I made that for him last year.  I'd just made a similar one for Dorothy and she insisted the new baby would need one too.  Obviously she was right.  Speaking of her being right, today she was putting on her ruby slippers and talking to my mother-in-law.  She said, "when I wear these shoes, people always say, 'are you Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz?' But I'm like, 'ummmm, no, I'm Dorothy from the city.'" 

When did she become such a teenager?  She also seems to have a particular interest in a boy from school, in a way that seems to indicate to me that she's got a budding awareness of "special" boy/girl relationships.  She always tells me what he's up to, talks about him often, and last night after church choir (which they also both participate in) she said, "C. sat next to me at choir, then I patted his back, and he went [ insert giggle silly face with tongue sticking out and full body wiggle].  Then after choir I gave him three different hugs."  Oh my!

Today we made cookies, without boys.  (Except Worth, I guess, who was kept happy with pea crisps while we baked.)  The last few years I have tried several different recipes for pumpkin cookies, but to be frank they all sort of suck.  I mean, the are edible, they made from butter and sugar after all.  But they aren't good like pumpkin-bread-in-cookie-form or anything.  Today I thought I'd try a different route and make a recipe for applesauce cookies, but sub in pumpkin.  I also added pumpkin pie spice, and substituted chocolate chips for the recommended raisins.  They taste good but are too chewy, and the bottoms basically scraped right off when I severed them from the cookie sheet they were stuck to.  Parchment might have helped with the release, but not the texture.  I think it must be hard to develop a pumpkin cookie recipe because of all the moisture in cooked pumpkin.  If anyone has one, please let me know!

In between house-showings and pumpkin patches this week I did something that makes me feel really smug and obnoxious--I ordered my Christmas cards!  I know it's early, but it was this gorgeous afternoon, the kids were playing out front, and from the basement I'd just unearthed the holiday dress I'd purchased on clearance last year for Dorothy.  It has a matching dress for her doll, which is always extra special.  Dorothy saw it and had herself and her dolly dressed in no time, so I popped the baby into this little fleece Santa suit left from Dorothy's babyhood, and clicked away.  I got adorable photos of both kids in their holiday get-ups, so I figured I might as well finish the task while I was on it and selected a pretty photo card online.  Now bring it on, season-accelerating commercial world, I'm ready for you!  Before you even change your displays from spooky to Santa, my holiday cards are done.  Pow!

I am a dork, but you are reading my blog--please love me anyway.  :)

I made a camper fridgie

More spookies in the house! A few years ago I got this brainstorm on how to display some of the crocheted doilies that have ended up in my linen collection from various dearly departed relatives. I dyed them black, starched them stiff, and hung them in my windows with suction cups and little plastic spiders. This way I get to enjoy the beauty of the fancywork done by the women who came before me, but I don't actually have to use white doilies on my dresser. Dorothy has enjoyed arranging (and rearranging) the spiders.

Think back twenty or thirty years and imagine your grandmother's refrigerator.  It has a little crocheted yarn shape of some sort attached to it with a magnet, doesn't it?  Fridgies are a bit of an art that time has forgotten (and maybe that's for the best), but I revived it for this little project as one of the details to finish of my camper's interior.  My camper doesn't have an actual fridge, but I've attached this one to the galvanized metal backsplash I glued up over the propane range.  Very appropriately campy, I think.

All four sides of the camper are now painted and it's mostly ready to go.  I hooked up the water as a test, and it works.  The propane range does not work but I'm hoping it's just because the tank is empty.  I've been stashing bedding and kitchen essentials in it (a camper quilt is forthcoming but not done), and today I completed the very important task of putting together a camper art bag, with supplies for sketching or painting scenes, rubbing bark, collecting leaves, and gluing googly eyes and fake hair to acorns.  I foresee many hours of mother/daughter fun at picnic tables, stringing nature finds on fishing wire and creating little woodland whimsies with the help of glitter pom-poms!  I also found an old notebook, filled it with lined paper, and tucked a pen inside.  I hope to keep a camper journal with as much or little as we care to log, as a record of our travels.

Skeletons in my...china cabinet

 It's that time of year.

 The spookies are coming out, hiding in nooks and crannies.

Dorothy and I are equally thrilled.  These picture are all scenes inside my china cabinet, where we just put out tin Halloween plates, shiny leaf dishes, and (naturally) poseable skeletons.

4th of July

I'd hoped to make myself a patriotic bandana to match the kids' outfits for today but didn't get around to it. I did pull out earrings and a bracelet I made from really neat red, white and blue chevron beads a while back. A friend once gave me the tip of storing sterling silver jewerly in itty bitty ziploc bags (available in the beading section of discount stores) and it works so well. I think this is the eighth year I've worn this set and I've never polished the silver parts, because they don't tarnish in their little baggies during the rest of the year.

And here are my wee Americans, all decked out in their stars. Unfortunately the baby's romper is too big, as I suspected, and in this picture the sleeve falling down his chubby little shoulder makes him look like he's wearing a dress. Sigh. But in person I think he carried it off with masculine dignity! I designed this little card in Photoshop and had it printed at Walgreens through Snapfish to send to family. So much cheaper than ordering their cards and I can order just the right number (no pack of twenty cards when we only have two sets of doting grandparents). We had a great afternoon celebrating with family and neighbors, and are joining a neighborhood gathering for fireworks later tonight. I tried to explain the nature of the celebration to Dorothy, and I think she took in some of it. May she grow up to value diversity and tolerance in our great land, and to accept good-naturedly the fact that her father and I are about to torment her by singing the Star Spangled Banner on her kazoo.

A star-spangled birthday

Friday I made a fun excursion with my dad and the kids. We drove to a local lake with a beach, where some friends of mine have been going regularly. It was really fun, we'll definitely do it again. We were almost surprised by how beachy and relaxing it was, even though the drive was so pleasantly short. It was weird to come home and shake off sand all over my own home, instead of a hotel room! I recently unearthed a little Playmate cooler of just the right picnic size in our garden shed--I think it must have been Rob's before we married, and it just never found its way into a spot where I'd use it until now. But somehow it seems to have fueled a spate of picnicking for us lately. I keep three plastic water bottles in the freezer, then pop them in when we're ready to go--no loose ice, no mess (and the bottles found a second useful life). And I have to confess...my favorite way to picnic lately has been to grab the cooler and the ice bottles, then stop on the way to our destination and fill the cooler with takeout! We'll have to head to the beach with it again soon.

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday, and since she and my father-in-law are now living close by we were able to celebrate with dinner at my house. It feels much more satisfying to be able to cook someone a birthday dinner than to make a phone call. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I didn't have to decide whether or not to use patriotic dishes on our dinner table for this 3rd of July meal, but rather which set of patriotic dishes I would pull out. Hey, some people like cars, some people like gadgets, I happen to like dishes. A lot. Anyway, I chose these fun tin plates, where each one is a bit different and reflects a different American pastime, and Dorothy decorated some place cards (folded index cards) and we set a cute little red, white and blue party table.

All American

I've been back at the sewing machine this week, and unfortunately my house is suffering from it. Now I've got to put it all away and focus on another open house this weekend--oy. But in the meantime I've finished a sweet project for my little cuties. I made the kids matching outfits to wear on the 4th of July and I really like them. Dorothy's dress is from Simplicity 5695 and Worth's romper is from Simplicity 5316 (altered for shorts). I was thinking a shorts and shirt set for Dorothy, but she chose the dress pattern from several I laid out for her. The disappointing thing is that Worth's really doesn't fit. I'd made this pattern before, as a gift, and thought I remembered it running rather true to size. But when I chose a generous size for my rapidly-growing little man it turned out way too big. In retrospect I don't think I did a great job leaving enough seam allowance either, which also probably helped it turn out big. I'll still put it on him for the 2010 4th (and a picture with matchy sissy), but I think it's more likely to look good on him next year.

Feet, fathers, and a cold jar of something

I haven't had much to blog about this week. While recovering from a summer cold, I've been spending most of my down time backing up photos and burning our family movies to DVD. I don't even try to "keep up" with things like that--I just take care of it all in one big effort every six months or year or so and that seems to work well enough. It's fun when I do, because we have a great time reviewing Dorothy's progress and re-watching some favorite old family movies.

The picture above is Worth's feet this morning. I made these shoes (crocheted then wet-felted) during that last painful week of pregnancy, when I just kept churning out booties and hoping to go into labor. I watched the Olympics while I did these one night. I love them, but I don't know what they are supposed to be. Jester feet? I think they look a little like leaves, as if his chubby little legs just sprouted out of them. I've been waiting for him to grow into them, and now he has. Fun!

This project was actually from a couple weeks ago. I was tempted by a set of clear plastic iced tea tumblers at Costco, but felt like I didn't need any more drinking plastic in my life. So I assembled this instead. It's a wide-mouth canning jar with a stainless steel drinking straw. I used a metal punch to poke just the right sized hole in a heavy-duty plastic lid, so it's reasonably spill-proof, easily washable, not plastic (except the lid), and cheap! This week I've been guzzling juice out of it as I try to kick this cold. This size jar fits nicely in my car drink holder, but I can use any size wide-mouthed jar.

And last but not least, Father's Day! Dorothy and I put together a nice little gift bag for Rob with a Dorothy-decorated coffee mug, a picture for his office, a whole stack of Dorothy art, and an impish pair of cufflinks from Etsy with little treasure maps on them. I think he likes it all (although he unintentionally attempted to dissassemble some Dorothy art that was supposed to stay folded--oops!), and now we're off to spend the rest of the afternoon appreciating him however he wishes!

Saint Louis and home again

We had a great weekend visiting my in-laws in Saint Louis. We took the kids to the City Museum, and it had to have been one of the most interesting kid-oriented places I've ever been to. Things to climb on and through, slides everywhere, secret tunnels. We had a nice time and the travel part went okay, all things considered.




Yesterday was back to real life in hurry, although it was our wedding anniversary. Seven years ago today we were driving back up to Chicago to unpack and repack and leave for our honeymoon! We had so many boxes of gifts (crammed into our car and the cars of guests who also drove down from Chicago) that they filled an entire wall in my little apartment. What a generous way for our family and friends to send us off into married life! We unwrapped and made a list, but left them boxed along the wall until we moved into our house in August. I took almost a whole year to send thank-you notes.


I celebrated my anniversary yesterday with a pleasant if not-so-romantic dinner out with my parents and kids, while my husband taught a night class. There will be other years for romance. But Rob did keep with his tradition of purchasing a "traditional" gift for me, according to anniversary gift charts. He has fun thinking of something that fills the requirement and makes me happy. I particularly liked year 3--leather. He bought me cowboy boots! This year was copper or wool, which was almost too easy. The good people at Grinny Possum helped him out, and I'll be sporting beautiful handmade woolens this fall just for me.

Now I'm turning my attention to our house. We rescheduled our open house for this coming weekend, and I'm really trying to get the place in shape for a good showing. I'm washing curtains, scrubbing nooks and crannies, driving myself crazy. One of yesterday's projects was recovering our dining chair pads with new fabric. The others ones had gotten too worn from years of use and accumulated car fur. They never looked nice even after a good cleaning. These at least looked good for about four minutes, until the cats realized they were done!

The good, the bad, and the Easter

A few fun tidbits. I tried talking to Dorothy about the Christian Easter story last week, after listening to her run on about Bunny protocol for a while. Christmas was so much easier--a baby, a promise, some wise men with gifts. (There was a mermaid/myrrh mixup for her, but whatever. Mermaids seem like a much better gift when you're a preschooler.) Easter required a little more nuance and is more difficult to comprehend at any age. She listened, then said, "Mommy, I don't want to talk about this any more." Well, neither did I. I only have a masters degree in Divinity from the University of Chicago. Who am I to try to explain resurrection to a four-year-old? So I'm hoping maybe the version they gave in Sunday School was easier for her to digest? Which brings me to Sunday School...

Nana purchased adorable pastel taffeta dresses for the three granddaughters to wear on Easter. Dorothy is photographed in hers above. The posed photograph involved careful timing (mid-morning, not too close to nap, right after feeding the baby) and bribery with chocolate to gain Dorothy's absolute cooperation. Part of the chocolate deal was that she wear exactly what I pick out. I rarely choose her clothes, other than to make weather-appropriate suggestions. So she goes around looking like a preschooler who picks out her own clothes, which really is totally fine with me. It's not that I can't control my kid; it's that I pick my battles. Anyway, when Easter actually arrived today she did decide to wear the dress, but chose to wear black and yellow Batman socks under the white patent leathers. And I have to say, it was kind of cute in a punk/chic sort of way. I thought she was an adorable Easter kid, and was even feeling sort of smug in my ability to let her wear Batman socks to church ('cause come on, not all Moms would have gone with it!), until I realized she also went to church wearing no underpants. I have no idea if the people in her Sunday School class figured that one out or not. I wasn't there. I know not what was said about Jesus and the cross, nor what kind of peep show my daughter gave. Hallelujah?

This picture is me and my sweet baby on Easter. He's wearing a sweater and booties I crocheted for him right after I found out I was pregnant last spring. It had a matching hat, but gender-neutral blue and orange turned a little infant drag-queenish when I put him in the pom-pom hat, so the hat got tossed into the donations pile. Worth looked adorable and quite appropriately masculine. And he wore a diaper--I saw to that! I wore a ruffly shirt I sewed while I was pregnant and a dragon skirt I sewed last summer. We kind of matched, color-wise, which was no accident. :) Since I've already gone there with the underpants disclosure, I'll continue the bawdy theme of this post and state that while Worth did not poo on anyone during the family Easter celebration as his sister and cousins each had during their first Easters (a family tradition, it seems!), he did make use of his uniquely male ability to shoot a fountain of pee all over Nana's sunroom sofa. Happy Easter everyone!