Thursday, October 20, 2011

Buy Stock in Sprinkles ASAP




No, this isn't a Christmas post. But I only had red and green sanding sugar, because the last time I tried decorating cookies with Jack was over ten months ago. I was planning on making pretty autumnal orange and red icing, but Spaceboy saw the sprinkles when I was digging out the food coloring, and my fate was sealed. Sprinkles it just had to be. We'll save icing for another day, perhaps when we're out of sprinkles. Judging by today's sprinkle quota, that day might be tomorrow.

Yesterday I was caught in torrential downpour (apparently September and October are now Monsoon Season in Virginia) and my second pair of hands (the Ergo) was soaked. I'm beginning to understand why some of my friends have so many carriers. Baby Bear decided he was having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. So I put a new (to me) carry to the test with my Storchenwiege wrap. I promised we would make cookies today, so make cookies we must.


While Baby Bear fussed and bounced around up there I was able to start the bread machine and begin making cookies with Spaceboy. 


By the time we got to this point, Baby Bear succumbed to his fatigue and I was able to transfer him to the crib.

I feel the need to provide photographic evidence that I really did indeed move him from my back to the crib without him waking up. I can't quite believe it myself, especially since I am very new to back wrapping. After I put the baby down I came back in to discover Spaceboy had gone a little too far with the sprinkles (see first photo of this post). I felt a bit like a paleontologist unearthing raw cookie bones with a pastry brush. Thank you Silpat for an easy cleanup!


Everything was going so nauseatingly perfect until the boy decided to treat every cookie like his own personal artwork and had a minor meltdown when mama dared eat one of his masterpieces. Sigh. No photographic evidence of that. Sorry.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Feed the Birds


Yesterday evening while we were taking a walk as a family we came across a great cache of freshly fallen, uncrunched, perfect pine cones. After a simple stick "sword" fight escalated and ended with pine cone grenades, we loaded up the stroller with the spoils of war and went home.  I love pine cones and I've been looking forward to using them in the preschool time I'm doing with Spaceboy (my almost 3 year old). We don't get much wildlife here in urban sprawlville, mainly just squirrels, birds, rats and mosquitoes the size of turkeys. So our first item on the pine cone docket was bird feeders. I liked this one. So that's what we did today.




Right around the time we were smashing the peanut butter birdseed mixture onto the pine cones, the boy decided it was critical to FINISH RIGHT NOW AND WASH HIS HANDS. Little neurotic. We're still working on dealing with squishy, gooey stuff on our hands. We don't like that much yet. But he's much, much better than he was this spring. I think the stickiness of the peanut butter was just too much to handle.


Monday, October 10, 2011

Let's be honest


I just want to make one thing clear before I kick this whole blog thing off. The above photo is what I can see right now when I turn around in my desk chair. The baby is napping and I'm listening to 'The Mamas & The Papas' Pandora station and the sound of that snowglobe which is driving me dotty but keeping my not-quite-three year old happy.

I have a few things to say, and a few things to show you. I enjoy creating things (that's my sewing area over there behind the excersaucer) and I know I have a few friends (ok one or two friends and my mom) who have been urging me to start blogging again. I had started a blog two years ago but lost the motivation when my grandmother died. I am going to give this another try, maybe even a better try. I am going to be honest this time. I won't be vacuuming for you or pretending that I ever put away the cloth diapers. They live in that basket, my family lives in this house and I can live with that. I hope seeing my imperfect housekeeping skills inspires you to ignore the toys on the floor and paint a coconut tree with your kids.