Lily's Quilt.

I’ve had a request from family members to post pictures of Lily’s Christmas present. As we all know, Lily is a voracious reader and so I decided for Christmas that I would make her a reading quilt with blocks from some of her favorite books. Here’s what made the list:

Harry Potter
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Boxcar Children
The Fablehaven series
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
The Wizard of Oz
The Graveyard Book
The Mysterious Benedict Society
The Sisters Grimm
and
The Chronicles of Narnia

It was really fun making the quilt because I got a chance to be creative and while I’m no artist—it was fun to figure out which scenes represented each book. As for the appliqué itself, I mostly copied images from the books or from images online. There was no freehand in this. Lily was delighted with the quilt which made it all the more fun and it was an absolute surprise which wasn’t easy as the little girls saw what I was working on each day and had to be redirected as Lily walked in the door.

Its purpose has been filled as I often see Lily wrapped up in it as she’s reading her books.

Anyway, what do you think?

Here are some of the blocks up close.




This one is probably my favorite, because I was thinking that it'd just have to be a boxy, boring boxcar. And then I saw this silhouette in the book and thought I'd try it. It worked!


This fairy one was the first one I did and it gave me hope that I might actually be able to pull this off.



The back and binding.

Jane Elizabeth: January 26, 2007

Jane turned three a couple of weeks ago. When she was born, Alice was only 18 months old and, needless to say, the first year or so felt like a blur. When Jane was born we were 99% sure that her name was going to be Beth. Then, in the hospital—as we looked at her, I mentioned Jane—and as Lily said, “it just felt right.” Canyon had the honor of giving Jane her middle name, Elizabeth, named after—who else—Elizabeth Swan from “Pirates of the Caribbean.” It doesn’t feel like three years since she was born, but as she is already acting like a 5-year-old—I guess it’s appropriate.

Here’s what we love about Jane:

She loves to snuggle.

She has perfect hair with just the right amount of curl.

She talks like she’s ten.

She gets whatever she wants and can be a real stinker (I guess that’s what happens when you’re the youngest).

She wants to do everything herself.

She loves her sisters and brother.

She’s what we like to call, independent. Others might call it stubborn.

She’ll eat anything.

All of her baby dolls are named Janie (after her of course).

She knows exactly how and when to turn on the charm to avoid some serious discipline.

And we can’t imagine life without her.

Happy Birthday Jane!

Ode to the Pacific Northwest.

How do you do it.
Rain, day in and day out.
It is dark.
It is cold.
Sun? Not even in our vocabulary any more.

What we do to keep our Sanity.

I did find this today. At least I also had something to do. Enjoy.

Winter.

It’s been warmish of late, possibly all of the rain storms that we’ve been getting. We took advantage of the warmer weather and went for a walk in the vineyard before dinner the other day. We saw 5 deer, 2 emus, an undetermined number of horses, an abandoned foxhole, poppies starting to bloom, the white castle house, and empty wine tasting lawns. Jane was only scared two times and warned us about the ‘muddles’ extensively.

Just incase you weren’t sure, a muddle is a puddle of mud.

Little House by the Vineyard.

Our slaves Lily & Jane drying and putting away dishes.

So I guess that Ma Ingalls knows how to live without. There were times in her illustrious career as a pioneer mom where she lived on brown bread alone. And no white sugar, not even for company. However, Ma’s got nothing on me. I am a living, breathing pioneer. It all started this summer when the microwave broke. Who needs a microwave anyway? We’ve been living microwave free for six months now and I haven’t missed it for even a second (actually it’s really the only way to melt butter to room temperature without actually leaving the butter out in room temperature). Ok, maybe for a second. But, let’s be honest, one can live without a microwave. Then one of the faucets on my kitchen sink went out. No biggie, you only need one faucet on a kitchen sink. After all, Ma didn’t even have a kitchen sink, let alone a faucet attached to one. Then the TV went out. Don’t panic, we went out and bought a new one the next day—even Ma would agree to that. Now, most recently we have lost our dishwasher. Ok, now I’m starting to notice.

So, I’m washing dishes by hand. You heard it, by hand. It’s been a great experience for the kids and the dishwasher makes a superb drying rack. Really, I could get used to this.

So where is my contractor husband through all of this? He’s at work, fixing other people’s microwaves/sinks/dishwashers. Someone’s got to make a living.

After I finish washing all the dishes from dinner last night, I’m going to go and watch TV.

Signing off,
Ma

My new dishwashing apron. Much cheaper than a new dishwasher.

P.S. I don't want to hear other people's sob stories about how they lived for years without a dishwasher (Brooke, Isaac), just be impressed. Ok? And feel sorry for me, a little.

Sunny With A Chance Of Showers.

So I’m just going to jump into this post as if I’ve been posting regularly for the past several months and that I haven’t been slacking at all. Guilt free. Forget all the Halloween and Thanksgiving photos and delightful stories because I’m going to pretend like I was already on top of that and you have been laughing and crying (tears of joy and amazement, mostly) all along this Autumn journey with us.

So yesterday we had one of our little friends over and the house was full of dress-ups, dolls, barbies, sugar and spice and everything nice (you get the idea). It was a non-contested girl day and to enhance the girlyness—word?—of the day we were baking a pink cake with white frosting and a Cinderella topper for Grandma (isn’t that the kind of cake that most grandma’s would want?). The girls then, delicately and with much pomp and dressed-up circumstance, decided to take their barbies outside for some girl-time on the trampoline and the slides. They were aptly prepared for the crisp weather with sleeveless slips and see through pink ballerina skirts. I’m not sure they were wearing shoes—it didn’t seem important at the time. I was taking laundry down to Lily and Canyon’s room and as I was cursing the lego-strewn floor and clearing Lily’s bed of 432 books I happened to glace out the window. Alice was pulling her panties off and lifting her dress and as I was pondering what was happening and trying in vain to open the window fast enough—saw her pee, delightedly, all over the sidewalk. The stream, of said pee, was strong enough to put a race horse in the gates to shame. The other girls seemed just as delighted with this not-so-feminine turn of events. I then saw the other girls starting to hitch up their dresses. I ran to the other room, thinking, somehow that it would be faster to open that window. I opened the window and yelled “No! No! No! No!” over and over again. It was like it was in slow motion as I watched my newly-potty-trained-princess, Jane, hike up her skirts and also pee a stream that was other-worldly in its quantity and velocity. Their laughing and giggling, apparently overshadowed my frantic screaming. And then just when I think that they couldn’t be acting more like their brothers and cousins—they surprise me my taking it one step further, even defying any little boy I’ve ever known—as Jane gloriously begins to splash in the newly made puddle as if she’s in a spring shower with her galoshes. Mind you…she has bare feet.

I finally came to my senses and actually went outside to stop the peeing. Jane got plopped in the bath and I think I made it pretty clear to the other girls that they should use the toilet to pee. Ok, I’ll admit, I used some pretty strong language—I think the words NEVER and EVER made it into the exclamation. I thought we were never going to live through the Canyon-peeing-wherever-he-deemed-appropriate-even-right-outside-the-entrance-to-the-Logan-Temple-at-Marty-and-Bonnie’s-wedding-Scare of 2005. But this has topped it.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice…yeah right.

Poet Laureate

Last week the little girls and I went to the park. It was beautiful, sunny, warm and we stayed for hours. Our faces were red with sun and play and the girls went on several adventures. As they came back from one of their adventures, Alice came to me with a bouquet of dandelions gone to seed. She handed it to me and said:

"These are for you. They're not flowers--they're wishes."

I love living with poets.