MommyCoddle

kite flying 101 and why I'm losing my mind

(almost...)
Did you know, according to my extensive online research that one can have TOO much wind when flying a kite?
We've had these two kites stored away in the closet waiting for the perfect day...and yesterday seemed like the day. Our very nice kite, already equipped with a tail (also important acc'd to my research), did nothing but climb, climb, swirl and nose dive. Over and over again.

So when we came inside  with such kite-flying bad luck, I (of course) googled " how to fly a kite", wondering how on earth it was possible that I didn't know how to fly a kite. We had all the elements--good kite, good wind, and fast little legs. So, apparently after doing a little research, it IS possible to have too much wind. So, that's where we'll leave it for now.
Emma had no problem handling the defeat. Someone else took it a little harder:

Meanwhile, Emma has found a way to cause me to come frighteningly close to losing my mind.

I'm on my fifth (or sixth, I've lost count) potholder in less than 24 hours. She has only mastered putting the first rows of loops on the loom and takes great joy in making up different color patterns. I am left with the over-under-over-under part and the finishing. The over-under part is maddening. I have those words, "over, under, over, under" going through my brain even when I'm not at the loom.

I know I could just turn the girl away, but she's begun to make these deals with me that are hard to turn down. For example, today's deal was, "if you'll just make the rest of my potholder and finish it for me, I'll put Mary to bed for naps and read her a story." Seriously, now. Can a mother turn down an offer like that??! They were in there reading Mother Goose. She even got her a glass a water and tucker her in.

But, I have told emma that if she makes me get out that red plastic crochet hook and do anymore potholders in the next few days, this will happen to her. I think she's got the message.

*******
The camera in emma's hands
Some of my favorites:
here
here
here

The Weekend Report

::new kicks. still working on the tying part. but she's getting there::

::snuggling in a favorite spot, sucking on a favorite spot. (so good when you finally get control over that fist and get it to stay in your mouth.)::

::rushing to bring in the hay before a Monday of rain (which has yet to show up)::

::doing all we can to avoid nature-deficit disorder, (my new read)::

::coming in for bed under a beautiful sky::

swallows in the sky {interrupted}

Wow. I certainly didn't mean to disappear from this blog for the whole week. Life has just been pleasantly full.

The swallow mobile for Elizabeth's room is now finished, but still hanging in front of a family room window, getting lots of attention from the wind. It's been hanging with a single swallow on it for over two weeks so it feels good to have it done.

***This is now the fourth time today that I've tried to sit down at my desk to write, but each time I'm interrupted. Case and point, I'm being interrupted right now by a frustrated five year-old who's trying to make a mobile of her own. She has me tracing an intricate drawing of a horse and cutting it out for her mobile. And she keeps "messing up the coloring"....which means more intricate tracing and cutting for me.  Ahhhh...but we press on.

Hope you all have a pleasantly full weekend as well. I'll be back in the new week with more. Tomorrow my mom and I are heading to Baltimore for pre-birthday lunch and shopping. Can't wait.

living 05:: the weekend report

::a good bluegrass concert (moved to a dry location) ::

::a tuckered out girl::

::a wee bonnet finished (just in time for summer?!), a tired model::

takin' it easy

My sister and her kids left this morning after being here at the farm for a week. It was lots of fun, especially for my girls who now have better tan lines and more poison ivy and bug bites creeping up their legs and elbows than they've had all summer.

Just in the time she was here two litters of kittens were born, five frogs were caught, a minnow and small blue gill came to live in our fish tank (which need to be returned to the pond), marshmallows were roasted, a craft was completed, round bales were climbed in (more leg scratches), and new fast friends came to be.

It was fun, but it was definitely a lot more action than we're used to around here. My sister's kids are movers and shakers! So today we're takin' it easy. After hanging out in the lobby of the car dealership for an hour and a half this morning, waiting for an oil change, we came home to a quick lunch, long naps for all and now, a-hem, a movie and some popcorn. Why not? We're laying low, avoiding the oppressive heat outside and re-adjusting to our life minus our cousins.

And I'm full of {un}productive things like making myself a new flickr icon and getting lost looking at the very first pictures I ever uploaded to my flickr account. This picture is me when I was little (that's obvious)...I'm guessing I might be five years old, sitting on the back steps of the farm where I grew up. This was always one of my mom's favorite pictures because she said the goose and I were both smiling. I'm trying to remember how I ever had the courage to be holding the goose because I distinctly remember carrying around a ping-pong-shooting gun to "shoot" the nasty geese that would come at me, necks down, wings spread, hissing.  The gun was also for the rooster (ironically named, "Friendly") that treed me in the lilacs behind the back porch.

In the same way my husband gets sad watching old video of the girls when they were younger, it's killing me to look back at some of these old flickr shots.  This one. and this. Not to mention this or this or this!
So don't do it folks, don't dare go back and look at those old photos. Unless you want a serious dose of nostalgia over days gone by.

Alright, enough. I need to pull myself together and get something accomplished---at least get dinner put together. We're packing a picnic and heading to a bluegrass concert in the park tonight. I can't wait. We're bluegrass lovers around here. And I'm hoping this humidity will break in time. The sky looks dark and promising.

I'll be back later in the week after I dry my eyes and pull away from page 35 and 36 in my flickr account. The swallow mobile is almost completed except for some balancing issues and new curtains are in order for the girls room thanks to some on-sale fabric at IKEA.

Happy Wednesday!

living 4 :: no humidity

last week. a temperature drop and no humidity. perfect for being outside.

::heading down to the garden for a little lettuce harvest::

::happy baby on a blanket under the tree::

mary's love for elizabeth is pretty intense at times.
I often have to say:"mary, give elizabeth a little space."

::good boy::

::little climber::

what I did on my summer vacation

(the polaroid project: emma. thrifted polaroid camera. lots of berries.)
Do you remember that always being your first writing assignment when you started school up again in the fall? I can remember doing some exciting summer activity and thinking, "this will be great in my beginning of the year story!" I was always one to like a good story, even if all the facts weren't technically accurate. I can remember in preschool telling the teacher that we had a new calf on our farm that we were bottle-feeding. (Not true). And I was totally busted when my teacher phoned my mom to see if we'd like to bring it in for show and tell. woops.

But back on topic...
I know that so many of you around blog land are doing wonderfully creative and fun projects with your children this summer. (Things that are worthy of being in that first writing sample of the school year, I'm sure). And as I was tooling around flickr last weekend, I was wishing there was a place for us to compile some of these ideas. For one, it's inspiration for me, as a mother, to see what others are doing. And on the other hand, it's also inspiration for my children.

(picking, what else? blueberries.)

(emma: documenting my attempt to teach myself the guitar this summer)

Many times, I've brought my girls over to the computer to show them a project that one of your kids are working on. And after being a bit awed at first, it usually charges up their creative juices and off they go to try their hand at something similar. I love the sharing of ideas and creativity. Which is probably why I'm so drawn to blogging in the first place.

So, the obvious choice was to create a flickr group. A place to display and pool our ideas. And it doesn't have to just be project ideas. I think we all love seeing finished projects or those favorite sketches done on a scrap piece of paper. So I'm hoping you'll join in. And when you post those pictures to your flickr page, I hope you'll take a moment to add them to this group as well.

For some reason, I really hesitated to write this post--you know, just one more "group", one more thing to do, but you are all full of so much inspiration. And I think it's worth sharing and pooling our resources. I hope you'll feel the same....

Join in here.

{kind of}making the cut

When I get a piece of fabric that I love, I have a hard time cutting in to it. It's silly really, because why have it hiding away in my cupboard, when it could be made into something I might actually use and enjoy. I don't know what it is. For one, I just don't trust my sewing skills enough. And I can never decide what it is worthy of becoming--a simple pillow, a quilt, a bag...? So, the truth is, I've got a big stash of fabric that I love and have yet to work up the courage to actually cut into. Cutting, stitching--it's all so permanent.

But, when Kristen sent me a new batch of fabric recently, she made me promise I'd cut into some of the fabric that she'd given me in the past. So this week I finally worked up the nerve and put some to use. Technically, I did cut the fabric but I think this is really baby steps in my "favorite fabric cutting therapy".

I got the four cork board tiles at Target. And my initial thought was that I would use these as little inspiration boards above my desk. But once they were all made, the idea of sticking little pins through the beautiful fabric was too painful to think about. So they became some fresh artwork for above the bed.

So I did it. Baby steps, but I did it.
And a big thank you to my husband who measured and hung the boards while I got to slip out of the house and run a few errands all. by. my. self. xo.