Dontcha just love facebook?  I got 'friended' by a woman whose home birth I attended about 3 years ago.  At the time, I was taken with her old house which was full to bursting with all kinds of hand-made goodies--knitted cupcakes for her daughter, felted gnomes, red Le Creuset pots (obviously not hand-made, but just contributing to the overall homey-artiness of the place).  We stayed in touch for a while after the birth, discussed getting together, never did, then gradually lost contact.

Anyway, I was thrilled to see that she has started selling her amazing felted creations.  They are so beautiful I had to share:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=25570

This is what Diego does while painting: takes a color on his brush (say yellow, for example), and smears it around the page while singing (to the tune of 'The Farmer in the Dell') "yellow takes over white.  Yellow takes over white hi ho the dairyo, yellow takes over white."  Then the next color: "Blue takes over yellow, blue takes over yellow" and so on.  I think it goes without saying that his paintings are not yet 'figurative.'    

I'm sorry to be sexist, but I think this is a y chromosome thing...

Just some pictures

Just some recent pictures of my kiddos.  I can't seem to manage to get any pictures of any of the stuff I've been making, but at least I've caught a few of the kids...and I did make Penelope's dress...

Summer vacation

Thanks to my library-savvy friend Nikki, we have the original "Annie" for a week.  We watched the whole thing on Monday and Diego and I have both been a little obsessed ever since: he prancing around the house singing "It's a knock-hard life" complete with jazz hands and fancy feet, me, imagining a whole store just full of clothes that look like what the orphans wore before they were rescued.  A store called "Smocks and knickers."  I've been searching through my fabric stash for drab blues and browns.  Off to craft...

Before photos...

What?  Your dining room doesn't look like this?  

This is one of my projects for the next few weeks: relocating my crafting to the basement.  Actually, we're shuffling a lot of stuff around in the house these days.  Claudia sleeping in the back room means we're down a guest room.  Although we never seem to have friends over anymore, we do have family visiting often enough that we need to have a comfortable place for folks to sleep.  This means moving the television (and a whole lot of other crap) up from the basement.  I'm going to try to contain my crafting stuff in the back corner of the basement so that we can have a dining table again.  

Also in the works: moving a large bookcase from Claudia's bedroom to ours, moving Claudia's clothes out of the bathroom and into her room, moving the cradle out of the dining room and into the garage, reorganizing the kid's art stuff and setting up an art table for them.

Every now and then I feel sort of hopeless about the state of this house, the size, the amount of stuff contained therein.  But today I'm feeling optimistic--like a little rearranging might just make it work.

We had another weekend of travel: up to the country this time, for the alpaca shearing and a party at Eric's afterwards.  The drive there and back was uneventful, which is about as good as we can hope for.  We've finally figured out that on a Friday, we have to either leave early, or leave late.  I think we knew this before, but somehow wanting to leave early, but not being able to actually get it together to do it was a hard cycle to break.  After the last time (with an emergency change of plans that landed us at my mom's in the city for the night) we've finally learned.

We left at 7:30 on Friday night, with the kids all fed their dinner and in their jammies.  I even went for a run before we left (I call it a desperation run, because it was in the middle of a thunder storm, but a run just the same).  Driving up at night, ,with the kids all asleep in the back, reminded me of going out to Fire Island during the winter as a kid.  I loved being carried into the house so much that even if I was awake, I'd pretend to be asleep so I could get a ride.

As the parent now (notice I don't say grown-up), I am continually amazed at how much planning and work goes into even a weekend trip.  Packing just the essentials for 5 people and one dog, even for just a few days is really challenging for me.  Plus, now with Claudia being a crib baby, we also schlepped up a port-a-crib (except we don't have a port-a-crib because I don't believe in cribs and never owned one, so we actually schelpped the co-sleeper which is twice as heavy and more difficult to assemble).  Plus, I've been bringing the jogger so that we can take longer walks with the big kids.  Loading up the car takes a really long time.  

The cabin, much as I love it, is definitely feeling a little too small for our clan these days.  After working so hard to get Claudia on a schedule, I sure do suffer when she isn't able to take her two long naps in a quiet darkened room.  And somehow, Diego and Penelope just don't really care enough to either play outside without setting foot inside, or sit silently for 2 hours as I would like them too.  Go figure.  I'll be really happy when the house is done, although the finishing work is much slower-going than the earlier building stages.  

Today in Philly is sticky and warm.  The house is a mess (this is what happens when you go away every weekend) and the kids are in their last week of school (which means I must begin my neurotic and ineffectual search for appropriate end-of-year gifts for their teachers).  I'm actually looking forward to having them both home for a bit.  I know it will be an adjustment, but with Claudia settling down and sleeping so much more, I think the big kids and I will have some fun.