Nine

This boy. I tell you.

Bless. His. Sweet. Sweet. Heart.

This is the boy, who when playing with Legos' Power Miners, is baffled that the Rock Monsters are normally depicted as the bad guys."They're only defending themselves and their resources". I know. No &%%#. Like I say, This. Boy.

Since he could talk he's been about fairness and justice. Nothing I did, he just came this way. Seems they really do come with a core of who they are...

This boy who cheered for his little sisters today as they knocked pins down during our celebratory birthday bowling outing.

This boy who still likes to be my companion. Who still holds his dad's or his mama's hand when walking down the road or across the parking lot.

This boy who after 2 hours of hard pushing and was then c-sectioned...this boy who was gray and limp ... This boy decided to stay and let me be his mama. For this, I am daily and ever after honored & blessed. Thank you baby. Thank you for being born and sharing your beautiful, bright life with us.

ps. photos courtesy of my love, N.

Organized

Or, trying my best to be.

The above is the view from what will be my new creative space once I settle in. Someday. Yes, someday soon...

In other news, I thought it might be fun to carry over a little of my new found organizational gusto to this space. It will give me an opportunity to share a little bit of quite a few things that I love ~
Inspired by Jodi, having h nature and our local community
Friday - Fieldtrip Friday, peek into designated days seems like a super swell idea - so here goes!
Monday - Mama Musings, snippets of mothering, the good, the bad and the beautiful
Tuesday - Action Tuesday, highlighting a fabulous awareness project or Tiny Space Tuesday where we'll share a little peek into how our home functions.
Wednesday ~ joining the gang over at the Fishbowl
Thursday - Take it outside - connecting with our environment and local community
Friday ~ Fieldtrip Friday ~ a peek into our homeschool journey
And Saturday? How about ship off Saturday where I post a winner for a little handmade goodness? For this week, here's a little Acorn love in the form of a crown - Good Luck!



Ah, I feel so organized already...;)

See ya summer

Hopefully sooner rather than later - fingers crossed!

While I do love a change in the seasons...winter seems to creep up so fast and stay so long. A little too long in my opinion but, then again, I do choose to live in Maine.

Still, this change? You can feel it. That fall crispness. Coldness really but, we like to call it crispness for a little romantic effect. Tonight? Downright cold. Apparently not too cold for the bats though. After dinner I took a walk down to the dock and saw, right above my head, 2 little brown bats cavorting around for their dinner against a sweet pink blue sunset sky. That scene amidst the crazy call of a loon and the sound of the lake's waves lapping against some anchored boats made me so grateful to be right where I am. Chilly air and all.

Our day today? Still cleaning out. Getting a little tired of this clearing out business but, really, it must be done. Where did all of this stuff come from anyway? Goodness, I remember moving all we had in the back of a bike trailer (ummm, maybe just a few years ago). Maybe a dozen trips and it was a done deal. If I tried that now, I would be hauling this stuff til Christmas. At least.

We're getting there though. Soon. Any day now. Really.

You know, it will be soon though. 'Cause frankly, I miss my babies. They have been keeping busy though as you can see...

Little Miss and her paint exploration:


...she obviously thought it was a taste test of sorts...



And some seriously gloopy goop. I will spare you the after photos of the deck. And their clothes. And their hair. Yikes.




Feeling brave?

Magic Muck from this
3/4 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup water
5-7 drops food coloring

Mix water and coloring together in bowl.
Slowly add cornstarch to water/color mixture. Do not stir!
Let the mix stand for 2-3 minutes.

Get messy and have some fun!

Boxed In

Outside.

Attempts to carve a little sewing space out of our garage (really just a built on space used for storage) yielded this find:



What a beauty 'eh?

I called over, "Hey girls, look what I found..." and like cats to a can of tuna (our cat actually could hear the sound of the opener on metal and would come running), they were by my side. In an instant, girls and box were outta here.

They set up house in the sun, box flap "porch" and all. Seems it got a little too toasty so they packed up and moved house to a shadier part of town - the backyard.



All day yesterday this was their thing... finding things in the woods and from inside to set up house. First thing this morning, the fun was on again.

Later in the day, they got a little hankerin' for some home improvements. It was time for a little construction (or deconstruction actually) and some windows were cut into place.




Nothing cuter than some little hands and faces peeking out of the "window" of a cardboard box.



Admittedly, I think some of their inspiration came from this book - one of our dearest faves around here. Until yesterday, they had never had the opportunity to have so much fun in such a big box. They've made trains, boats - all manner of transportation and exploration with smaller boxes we've had on hand; but a house box?

Now this was something new.

Swirl

Cinnamon Swirl.

Over breakfast we started the dough. Throughout a day of semi-solo imagining, reading, organizing and exploring we were brought back together every now and then by this bread.

While it rose, we scattered a bit to our own projects and then came back to check its growth and give it a good punch. Later, we again returned to the bread to roll it out, add some butter and sugar, form it into loaves and let it rise a third time.



Touching base again, we popped it in the oven, scattered a bit and then finally, about 45 minutes later, we sat down to some sweet warm goodness - and called it dinner.




We use a recipe from my husband's grandmother for rolls ~ its perfect for this cinnamon bread. Slightly sweet and super moist. Give it a whirl!

Dissolve 1 Tblsp yeast in 1/3 cup warm water
Add 1 tsp sugar, let stand til foamy.

In a large bowl, mix 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 1/2 Tbsp shortening (we use Spectrum organic to avoid the hydrogenated oils) in 1 cup hot water. Cool this mixture then add 1 egg and yeast mixture. Beat in 2 cups flour. Then fold lightly 2 more cups flour. Cover and let rise a couple of hours.

From this point on you can make knotted rolls by rolling strands of dough and tying them in a knot or you can make toasting bread. If you are feeling especially ambitious, you can give the swirl a whirl by melting a stick of butter and mixing together about a cup of brown sugar with 2 tsp of cinnamon.

Labor

Brilliantly gorgeous weekend. Bluest skies...fullest moon. Heaven.

Sick kiddos?

Not so much bliss.

Or so I thought...we stuck pretty close to home and actually had a sweet time of it - coodies and all. Even got some painting done on the house. Yeah, that's me on the ladder and the baby far below. Hmm, maybe this wasn't such a good idea...I figured it was better than having her strapped to my body while high on the ladder...No babies were harmed in the painting of this house. I don't even think any paint was ingested. Honest.

With my love working away all day Saturday I had a mind to get some things done. Nothing big, just paint the house, clear out the garage for a studio space, make a bunch of homemade magic from flour and fabric. The usual. Ahem. Maybe not. A girl can dream can't she?

So, aiming high, I set to work. We did a little painting then, as the kids needed, switched gears to the garage. These guys, well okay this one guy, has a hard time letting go of toys so we usually just move them to the garage. Now, the special ones we hang onto but this child has toys in there that are just dust collectors at this point. To remedy the situation, I had him create a little garage sale with me as his best customer. I told him I would pay him 25 cents (and not a penny more mind you) for each toy he got rid of. He's a clever one too I tell you because he starting deconstructing these toys and saying "OK, a quarter for his helmet, a quarter for these straps...". Uh uh. Hold it there little man. I didn't just roll off the potato truck, but nice try.

Happiness reigned in the end as he ended up with $6 (wait, didn't I already pay for these toys the first time around?) and I had a bit more wiggle room for a sweet little studio.

As for the flour and fabric goodness, does a store bought blueberry pie from the freezer count? It's organic...really - we hit an awesome sale a while back as our grocery store was phasing out their Vermont Pie Co. pies. $5. No lie. Just good pie.



Sweet little weekend.

Every moment is new

It was bedtime and it was time.

Just time for these guys to be in bed. Time for the long day to end.

I was just about done with little miss and her selective hearing capabilities for the day. I needed her to please listen and just come on into bed for storytime. Yet, there she was... a foot from the doorway and staring at me. I motioned for her to come in and she just looked at me and reached for the door to close it. "No, we don't need to close the door...it's time...". Click. Or, maybe a bang would be more appropriate. She had shut the door. I marched on over, practically threw open the door to see her standing there - orchestrating an invisible symphony to U2's MLK with her small hands. See, she wanted the door shut so she could orchestrate in the darkness of the living room. I stood watching her, my eyes filled with tears, then closed the door again softly. A few minutes later, I opened the door again to see this big 7 year old girl, swaying in her daddy's arms to this.

Every moment is new. A gift. A chance to see things anew. Perhaps even providing a little redemption at the end of the day.

I've tried to keep this image with me as we have moved through our days since (not always successfully)...how appropriate too...

Orchestrating.

Conductors of our own lives...our own symphonies. Moment to moment.