Scenes From a Kitchen

I hung a swing for Leo in the doorway between our kitchen and dining/work room. So that I'd have a place to put him when I needed to put him down, and he didn't want to be down. And because our house needed a little more motion, noise, and chaos, especially during the pre-dinnertime hour.

Zeb, still wearing his pajamas at 5:00 p.m.

Jaz, still fitting in baby swings at the age of nearly 7

Lena, on the verge of a nervous breakdown

My wife went a little crazy from the, well, craziness of it all,
but all the kids were happy and dinner was made.

Sometimes I'm a genius.

Sweater--->Pants

So, remember how this is really a craft blog? Despite the fact that I haven't blogged about anything especially crafty since the iDye Trials, in early June, I have, indeed been continuing to have crafty thoughts. Finally, early last week, everything lined up just right in terms of thoughts, motivation and free time, and I set to work on my first kid-free crafty project since Leo's birth. Leo was, not surprisingly, my inspiration.

Ever since Leo outgrew all of those cute, tiny bamboo cloth diapers that I dyed back in June, we have been nearly exclusively using prefolds. We've really used all of the possible types of cloth diapers over the years, but often find ourselves coming back to prefolds for their simplicity, softness, and affordability (which means we can easily buy a full 3 dozen, which is what I would recommend for anyone who's already doing at least a load of laundry a day like we are my wife is). I especially love to combine a high-quality prefold diaper with a wool cover, for un-paralleled breathability and squishiness. And during the cooler months, my ultimate cloth diapering system is to use prefolds underneath wool pants, eliminating the need for a separate cover!

We have a pair of wool long underwear that have managed to last through all three of our older babies (and, I believe, Eli and Aryeh as well), and are still in great shape. We also inherited the wool pants that I knit for my nephew, Ezra, as a birth gift. But I've really been wishing for a few more pairs of wool pants to help keep Leo warm and dry this winter. Not having the patience to knit them at this moment, I figured that it would be a relatively quick process to sew some out of a felted sweater. And it was!

I felted an old sweater of mine (covered with stains, and a bit moth-eaten in the sleeves) in the washing machine (basically I just washed it on hot), and then made a pants pattern out of a pair of Leo's pants. I used a pair in the 12-18 month size--that we just bought last weekend, during the diaper-bag/diaper mishap in town--because I just can't bring myself to buy or make anything that fits my children exactly. They seriously grow, like, all the time. Anyway, I just traced around the folded pants on cardboard, making sure to leave at least 1/2 an inch of seam allowance. I altered the shape of the patter slightly because I wanted the pants to be a bit roomier in the bum, and slightly belled at the bottoms.

the pattern pants

Next, I cut the pattern out of cardboard,
and used it to cut out pieces of sweater.

At this point, I moved to the sewing machine, which is when I realized that somehow, in the move, I'd managed to lose the foot of my sewing machine. I searched everywhere for it, but no luck. It was such a bummer to finally have a moment to work on this project only to have to stop due to technical difficulties.

I took the kids with me to get a new foot for the machine the very next day, but it took five additional days for me to once again get a chance to work on the pants. Lena took everyone out for a walk/rollerblade/scooter ride today, and I sewed the pants together in no time. I was so anxious to finish before they got home that I forgot to photograph the process. But it was quite simple. I just sewed the outer sides together first, then the front and back of the rise, and lastly, the inseam. I folded over the waist and added some elastic, and hemmed the bottoms to make them look a little more tidy.


Leo tested out his new pants all afternoon, and they worked great, and are pretty cute (although certainly a little on the big side)! No dampness was able to seep through the pants, even though I hadn't yet lanolized them. I will definitely be making another pair with another of my old sweaters soon, though I think I am going to tweek the design a bit--partially just for fun--to see if I can eliminate the front seam.

If anyone else is looking to make a pair of pants out of an old sweater or even just an old shirt, there is a great tutorial here. Have fun!

Winners

I apologize for the delay in posting an update to the photo vote. I was waiting on my wife and her dorky sweet graphing skills, so that I could include this visual aid:


There were three clear winners, and Lena and I have decided to take your wonderful advice and choose these photos to be permanent fixtures in our home.

Just for the record, this one is MY absolute favorite.
I don't think a photo has ever captured My Love quite so well.

This one will go in our bedroom.

And some of YOU GUYS are winners, too! We randomly (Luke and Jaz picked your names out of a hat) selected boo, michelle, and CD and SP to each receive a $100 gift card to Sarah Prall Photography. Please email at me totallysmittenmama at gmail dot com so that I can send you your gift cards in the mail. I can't wait to see how YOUR photos turn out!

Thanks again to all who voted!

Yikes.

Leo turned five months old yesterday.

And he let me photograph him showing off his new skill.

Yikes.

Gratitude

Among so many other blessings,

today I am especially thankful to the Universe
for bringing me these five loves:

May all of your bellies and hearts be FULL tonight!

Full Hands, Happy Heart

Last night we got a call from the boys' school saying that the school building's electrical panel had been damaged by a water leak, and that school would be closed today. We woke up this morning to a new message: school will be closed tomorrow as well. Hooray for two extra days of Thanksgiving Break! I can say that last sentence both genuinely and sarcastically, depending on the way I look at it. The only real difficulty that having Luke and Jaz home today posed was that I had planned to do several before-break errands (namely grocery shopping, which I should have done four days ago), and was already feeling less-than-enthused about bringing just the two littlest ones along with me (not that I ever feel especially enthused about grocery shopping, even when I'm going solo).

So it was my first time heading out for a round of errands-shopping with all four boys by myself (surely, I have had all four at home and at outdoor venues (parks, etc.) by myself plenty of times, but shopping is a different scene). We managed to go to three different stores, and the bank, and made it home in one piece (or rather, five pieces). One time when I was grocery shopping with Luke, Jaz, and Zeb, before Leo was born, and a fellow shopper asked me, "how do you do this with three kids?" My response: "I try not to." Mostly I go shopping in the evenings or weekends, usually only bringing one kid along for the fun. And for good reason.

Grocery shopping with four children age 6 and under is an adventure in and of itself. Doing so on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving? A crazy adventure. But the truth is--and this does not surprise me, really--I love moving through the world with my four-pack. I sometimes see us from a birds' eye view: myself walking calmly, straight ahead, with baby strapped to my body, and the kids running circles around me, but moving forward at the same time. I lost sight of Zeben more than once (and he lost contact with his shoes more than once), but I was never worried about him. I could always hear him. Yelling, "mom, mom, don't forget we need this!" And then appearing with something (a dog toy, a can of sardines, a box of chocolates) that we absolutely didn't need clutched in his paws. I started putting these unwanted items down on random shelves because the store was so crowded that I couldn't imagine finding where they belonged, and Zeben noticed and scolded me, loudly, "MOM! That does NOT go there!" I had to explain that sometimes we simply can't do our best job at helping to keep the store organized (and that it would be much easier for us to do so if he only took the things off the shelves that I asked him to get).

Mostly what I love about being a swarm of craziness, moving through the store, is that I think we bring joy to people. Certainly there are some customers who must grumble under their breath when one of my kids cuts off their cart or spills a sample of apple cider on the floor, but for the most part, our collection gets a lot of smiles. Today, we even got laughter. One woman apologized for laughing, "I'm sorry," she said, "I'm sure it doesn't help for me to be finding humor in your predicament." And I corrected her, and said, "oh no, finding the humor is the only way I know how to do this. And if you find it funny too, then that is a relief to me."

At one point I was nursing Leo, holding him with one arm, while walking through the store, pushing the cart, keeping my eyes on Zeben, re-directing Luke and Jaz away from the boxes-of-individually-wrapped-snacks aisle and selecting a few quarts of yogurt, when I started feeling like Leo's latch was a bit pinchy. Luckily Leo popped off soon after I started wishing he would (I didn't have an extra finger to pop him off myself), and I realized that he'd been latched on to an area of my breast just beside the nipple. I now have a lovely hickey to show for it!

By the end of our shop, our cart was filled to the brim, the baby's diaper was saturated (and soaking through his wool pants and onto my shirt), and the three older kids were all eating ice cream. I forgot to get cream cheese (an absolute staple in our house these days), but otherwise managed to do okay, groceries-wise. And nobody had too much of a meltdown, either. I left the store with Zeben in the sling on my left hip, Leo under my right arm, pushing the cart with one hand while Luke and Jaz rode on the sides of it. My hands were so, so full, and it felt so very good.

I don't have any pictures of our outing, for obvious reasons, but am attaching one from a little over five years ago, that captures my feelings about today.


I will be posting results from the gift card drawing and photo voting tomorrow (assuming the fabulous foursome gives me a break at some point)!

Time Flies

December 6th, 2003

Six years later, sometimes I just need a reminder. They were my babies.

Random (and Real)

After a rather cold and wet October, we've been experiencing an oddly warm and sunny November. Walking into a local shop yesterday and hearing holiday (read: christmas) music playing felt very strange (dude, isn't the rule that they're supposed to wait until after Thanksgiving?), mostly because it was 60°+ outside, and we weren't even wearing jackets. We are not complaining about this unseasonably mild weather in the least. Rather, we plan on enjoying every last drop of warmth and sun that New England has to offer in November, storing it up, like Frederick, for the long winter that is sure to come (I mean, it has to, right?).

Today was another be-outside-from-breakfast-to-dinner kind of day, and I managed to take 301 photographs (thank goodness for digital cameras!). So what follows is a photo post, of sorts.

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Sometimes I think people would probably be able to guess that Leo is our fourth baby, even if none of our other kids were around. You know, just from the way we hold him.

Lena collecting things (including the baby) from the lawn

The other way Leo loves to be held:

Lena and Leo, twins born nearly 32 years apart

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We have added the phrase "I'm bored" to our list of "forbidden" words (others on the list include "stupid," "dumb," and all the traditional swear words that the kids have picked up on). Instead, the kids are now supposed to say, "can you help me think of something to do?" So when Jaz came to me with this particular request, as I was deeply engrossed in removing the root system of the Mountain Laurel I cut down yesterday, I quickly got him set up with one of my favorite projects: "Sticks & Hot Glue."

Luke and Jaz collected things from the yard
and then glued them onto pieces of firewood.

Jaz carefully mapped out his house

Lukas, never one to dawdle with this type of thing, quickly finished his:

"Country Getaway" by Lukas

And then, graciously, took glue orders from Zeben as he helped Zeb to make Zeb's own masterpiece (I told Lukas that Zeben could work the glue gun all on his own, but Luke assured me that that would most definitely not be safe, and quickly convinced Zeben that he should NOT touch the glue gun, like ever).

"I want glue right here."

Lukas aims and pulls the trigger.

Zeben attaches a third "tiny tree."

Zeben's "forest"

Jaz, as is typical in these types of situations, spent hours working on his creation, even adding miniature acorn furniture to the interior of his "log cabin."

"Log cabin in the woods" by Jaz

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Sometimes, Leo thinks I'm hilarious.


Sometimes, I'm only mildly amusing.


And sometimes, I think he's the funny one.

More on this infamous "funny face" in an upcoming post!

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Collecting eggs is so outrageously entertaining (seriously, still!) that sometimes I put the already-collected eggs back in the chicken coop just so the kids can experience the joy of collecting them again.

two white eggs/day is all we're getting these days,
but we're grateful to be getting any at all

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Just as the kids were finishing up with their hot glue project, more fun arrived! Katie and Aaron and Eli and Aryeh! To add to the excitement (and blood sugar levels), I made them all some hot chocolate.

Eli and Lukas drinking cocoa

EVEN MORE EXCITING,
they drank their hot chocolate around a fire!

Lena and Katie and Aaron made the fire.

Everyone was being silly, and I started taking some pictures. I love this one of Lukas:

We decided to take advantage of the good spirits and good lighting and try to get some "holiday card" worthy photos. Eli and Aryeh went first.

Looking Serious

Looking at an airplane

Smiling to the right of the camera

Smiling at each other

Getting Bored

Not willing to give up on the opportunity to get a good holiday-card-worthy photo of someone's kids in the amazing light, I made my own foursome climb into the tree. They were less than enthused.

But I love these pictures anyway.


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We ended the day by pretending it was still summer, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, and planning a canoe camping trip for [next] August. We thought it had gotten really late (so dark!), but we'd finished eating by 5:30. It's definitely not summer anymore.

The kids were asleep by 7:00.

Yard/Work

For years now, we've spent many a lazy Saturday morning yearning to be homeowners if only so that we'd have yard work to do. "Imagine," I remember telling Lena, "how satisfying it would be to spend the day working on our own land." And she would agree, dreamily. And we'd both sigh. And I might spend an hour or so searching through the property listings as result. This is one of those situations where you could imagine that once we actually did buy our own house (and its accompanying .22 acres of yard) that we'd think back on those old, wistful conversations and say, "we were out of our minds to wish for more work to do," but the reality is that, so far, spending our weekends doing yard work is absolutely a dream come true. It truly is everything we hoped it would be.

We have big plans for our yard. Just like the inside of our house, we'd like to make the outside into an entirely useful space. We'd like to grow as many fruits and vegetables as we can, and also incorporate a collection of dynamic kid play spaces and grown-up sanctuaries. There is a lot of work to be done, on top of the usual mowing and raking and weeding. Up until today, I've spent the vast majority of my yard work hours building the chicken run, which I finally finished last week. We gave our girls a good chunk of space because we're not sure how much we'll be letting them out of the run to roam the yard (mostly because we're not sure how much we want to be stepping in chicken poo). This photo collage shows almost the whole run (you can see one white hen in there, for scale):

I was definitely flying by the seat of my pants while I designed and built it, but I'm happy enough with the way it turned out (I was able to build it all with left-over fencing material that the previous owner had left in our garage, and one side of the run incorporates the fence that the previous owner built). At some point, I would like to add a chicken wire roof to even better protect the hens from predators.

Today I got to do some jobs that I've been wanting to do since before we moved in, but that had to wait until after the chicken run was finished. There was a line of useless, overgrown shrubs/bushes through the middle of one side of the yard, and I'd been aching to yank them all out of there. Our plan is to plant fruit trees in their place come Spring, but I couldn't wait until then to do away with the bramble. Leo watched from his perch in the baby swing while I sawed and clipped and hacked away (unfortunately, I did not manage to take any before/after pictures, but I assure you that the difference is incredible).

"are you sure you know what you're doing with that saw, mom?"
Leo looking skeptical in the swing, 4.75 months

And today Lena got a chance to fly by the seat of her pants, when she spent a few hours cleaning the gutters of our house (now that is one example of yard/house work that we never fantasized about . . . but that was still satisfying and kind of fun). When we bought our house, there were literally plants growing in the gutters. So we knew that cleaning them out was a priority. But it took us a couple of months to procure a ladder long enough to reach them (thank goodness for friends with big ladders).

My Love and the long, long ladder

Lena got right to work, armed with our hot pink dish gloves and one of our grilling tools, just exactly what anyone would use to clean the gutters, right? And she did a most excellent job, I might add.


The kids were not as involved in the dirty work as I might have initially hoped they would be. Luke and Jaz did spend some time chasing the chickens after they escaped under the hedge into the neighbors' yard, and Zeb was often by my side, requesting worms, but they were all three mostly just running around playing. And since the kids playing in the yard fulfills another huge, decade-long fantasy, that felt perfectly OK to me.


Jaz showing off his chicken-chasing skillz

We ended our work day with a wagon ride into town for ice cream (and ended up staying much longer, and having dinner and doing some sale shopping at our favorite, local outdoor apparel store). All in all it was about as perfect as a day can be, in spite of the fact that we forgot to bring a diaper bag with us (because that's the kind of mamas we are), and Leo had a bit of a blow-out, and we had to buy him a new prefold (thank goodness Cradle sells them pre-washed!) and diaper cover and a pair of pants. In some ways, the diaper drama even made the day more perfect. More reasons to laugh.


Leo's first ride in the wagon!

Looking forward to another day outside/working tomorrow.
Life doesn't get any better than this.

If you haven't had a chance to vote for your favorite pictures or enter your name in the drawing for one of the 3 gift cards, please do so by Sunday (11/22) at midnight, since I will be ordering photos and drawing names on Monday morning. Thanks for all of your fabulous input thus far!