full weekend

it's monday and i'm just thrilled to be looking through some of the pictures we took this weekend. i had to post some here, i think they summarize a lot of what has been going on around here. it's a lot of good stuff!

first off, we learned this weekend that henny loves being in the swing. at this age bee didn't like it so much so i think we were surprised and exited to see the sheer joy on his face. that smile got bigger and bigger the faster and higher we pushed him! we got so many amazing shots of him but here are a couple. 

this past weekend was also D's birthday. we had a lovely night out, adults only, which was such a treat. and of course on the big day the kids were up before 6! don't they know that mommy was up late? it was all good because it gave D some time to sleep in while we wrapped presents and made the traditional "cake", which is really a fruit platter with candles. bee was so excited about it all and her enthusiasm made the day so much more fun. her favorite contribution to the celebration was a card with (you won't believe it!!) an elephant driving a car! 
in other news, bee now dresses herself, with her own choice of clothes. this has been a great change in our routine. she disappears into her room and returns dressed, with no arguing or reminding. as you can imagine, this has resulted in some rather interesting choices. this weekend she debuted my favorite outfit so far. she proudly declared that it all matched, "see, all flowers!"
and finally, henny capped off the great weekend with this new trick. the picture says more than words ever could, so here he is:

stencils

last night i tried out making some stencils and using fabric paint on some of the kid's old clothes. i think it turned out pretty well. i had hoped to use freezer paper for the stencils but ended up with this thin plastic that i found at the fabric store. i am actually quite glad in the end because it was hard to cut the details on the stencils and if they were done on freezer paper they wouldn't be reusable, and these are. 

i chose a bunch of pictures to trace from kid's books. these are the ones i liked best. the moose is the "hungary moose" from harold and the purple crayon, and the ballerina is from a ballet book that bee has. i am in love with the moose, maybe next i can make the deserving porcupine! 

paper girl

little bee has a new responsibility. she has taken on the task of bring in my newspaper before breakfast each morning. she begged and begged to try to do it and we gave her the whole speech about cars and whatnot. now after a few tries where we pretended not to be helping but were closely watching from a few feet away ("just checking the flowers", "just looking at the car"), she really does it all on her own. we stand in awe in the kitchen and watch her every move from the window.

bee puts her shoes on (after she realized that her feet were "disgusting" from going out barefoot one time) and the tiptoes up the driveway. she stops about halfway up to check for cars. today there was a car and she waited and even yelled back to tell us that she saw a car. once the coast is clear she dashes up and peeks in the box, just to make sure it is there. then she grabs the paper and carries it as carefully as she can. more often than not the sections fall out and the fliers hit the ground, but it all makes it in the house in one way or another.

it is amazing to see her pride in doing such a big girl thing. it is also scary. and really above all else, it is so damn cute!

(notice how green it is here now!!)

my view

every day. often three times a day. for nearly nine months. this has been my view.

as i sit in the rocking chair, in henny's room, i stare off at this. sometimes my mind wanders to nothing. sometimes i am planning the day in my head. sometimes i just look at henny and stroke his hair. i admit that i also sometimes do the most un-earth mama thing and pop my earphones in. but no matter where my mind is this is what i see. i think i know every crack in the floor, every way the light shines in, depending on the time of day and of course i know every speck of dust and dirt from the chair to the bathroom (and that spoon that somehow got under the crib! and what is that, a dollhouse guy's green coat over there?!). 

i took this picture because i know that this is one of those mundane things that i will struggle to recall someday. maybe our house will be changed and surely i will be changed. maybe i won't even remember all the time spent in that chair. hopefully this picture will bring me back someday when i am far from here. these days where it seems like i am often putting henny down for a rest all day. these special days where i get to spend so much time alone, quiet, nursing and dreaming with my baby.

bundt cake! no sticking!

i have been having the itch to do some baking. i have also been trying to lose weight and the two do not go well together. nevertheless, today i gave in and bee and i made a sweet little bundt cake. it was most exciting because i don't think i have ever had a bundt cake come out without sticking. this time i was all set with some cool tricks that i found online (like placing the cake-in pan- on a steaming hot towel to give it a little spa treatment to loosen it up). but then when i flipped it over.... bam! it just popped out, like magic. success! 

i used this recipe from epicurious. but i added raspberries because we didn't have enough blueberries. and i also used lemon instead of orange and vegan shortening instead of butter. oh, and we put a sweet little brown sugar glaze on top, literally the icing on the cake!

and now i'm about to dig into it as soon as i hit publish!

(and that tablecloth you see there... i found it here. nobody wanted it and it is handmade for our table, probably a million years ago. it was all stained from the cedar chest but i did some work with a sink full of vinegar and now you can hardly see the stains. unless you know about them, which i do, so i see them lit up like times square. but beautiful and exciting anyway! i love it!)

q & a

q: is it possible to get a baby out of his car seat while simultaneously eating an ice cream cone?

a: yes.

the bright side

that last post was so bad. 

here is a bit of brightness. the weather is just amazing right now. so warm! i took some great pictures of the kids outside the other day. they are so sweet. if christmas was coming, i'd say they were card-worthy.