2009 bids you farewell...

"Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it." ~Goethe


this year might have been my worst year yet.  i'm so glad it's over



ps: happy new years eve

sunday sunday sunday

baby camille is gorgeous and obliged me in some cuddle time on sunday!

also had christmas with adam's brother matt, his wife julie, and son caleb sunday night.  dinner and catching up was lovely!

apparently it's my birthday today and my boys have made me this delicious meal!  lucky me!

tradition shmradition

At this point in our family life(and by that i mean we are finally to a point where isaac will remember all the silly things we do) i find myself being more focused on home and our daily goings on.  with all the family around during the holidays i felt a more tugging desire to have our own christmas and to attempt some sort of tradition individual to our family.  we've been watching an awful lot(daily) of charlie brown christmas on hulu(damn commercials) and have been trying(all i can do is nag) to go see the trains downtown before they are gone.  cookies have been baked and presents have been handmades(for the most part).  i don't want to be that mom who drags her brood around the moon for a little family time.  i suppose the kind of traditions i want us to have will have to be chosen by my children, not by me(can you tell it's not in my nature to relinquish control?).  right now they're holding a couple of pull-string toys over the back of the couch and pretending to lift them as is they are weights.  awesome.

ps. we're putting in an offer on a house this afternoon.  wish us luck!

christmas

a bit of yellow recently thrifted

(we've been participating in the guilty pleasure of thrift shopping for things we don't really need quite a bit lately)

and a bit of last minute knitting...

celebrating steve's graduation(finally) from college with a proper night of bowling

...ezra mostly just liked standing so that the hand blower would blow his face.

christmas morning

my great grandmother made this ornament and it's currently adorning my parents' tree...

tonight we're having mini turkey pot pies...

tomorrow we're taking a meal(a normal sized turkey pot pie) to some new friends of ours at church who happen to be distant cousins of mine on my mother's side.  she just gave birth to their second babe Camille(older sister Nora and i are close personal friends) and i cannot wait to get my hands on her!  word is she's been enjoying some of my hats already...

"My own wish for children is that they learn to find joy even amidst the world's and their own imperfections... that they grow to have a clear but forgiving interior voice to guide them... and that they come to have a reasonable sense of shame without an unreasonable burden of guilt."  - Mister Rogers

(adam's mom gave me his Many Ways to Say I Love You book for christmas!!)

this is what we should have done all along...

so we've been down quite a road toward cloth diapering.  when isaac was born, i mentioned the idea to adam who immediately shot it down saying he would NEVER scrub poop in a toilet.  looking back, i can see how that would be very intimidating to a first time daddy.  it's not the most pleasant of tasks, i'll admit.  when ezra was born(and we were coincidentally trying to simplify/greenify our lives) i brought up the subject again and was shot down but not with the same level of disgust.  i eventually bought some second hand prefold cotton diapers and diaper covers.  those were fine, but would frequently overflow.  i upped the stakes by trying bum genius(also second hand) and they actually made his poor butt so rashy he looked like he had leprosy on his tush(i think the PUL fabric that helps them not leak was too good and was keeping too much moisture right next to his skin).  we tried the nystatin cream the pediatrician gave us thinking it might be a yeast infection.  that also made it worse.  we kept the rash manageable by doing baby powder only.  so one day i was surfing ravelry and stumbled across a wool knit diaper cover(breathable) pattern.  we lanolized it and to my amazement, it did the trick.  i had given several hemp prefolds(love!) which worked awesome not only in softness but in absorbency also(i will admit they are harder to pin, but i think the benefits outweigh that).  i ordered a few more(and might order even a few more here to make my diaper washing more relaxed) and have been pairing them with the wool covers and am thrilled to report his rash is completely gone(although it comes back when he wears disposables for some reason) and we are all a lot happier.  it donned on me today that we have been doing this for a while now and i've never shared it.  cloth diapering is such an intimidating idea for a lot of people(and us at one time!), but i am totally loving it.  knowing exactly what i'm putting on my baby and taking the extra time to do this for him makes me feel like this is what we should have been doing from the beginning.

i know this is a terrible photo, but the one on the right is one of the first covers i made, and the one on the left is one that actually fits ezra.  it took a little pattern-tweaking, but they work for us.

serenity now.

isaac's photography is getting really amazing(this would be me looking through a cookbook)

ezra's been doing a lot of holiday baking... at miji's house.

red(not-so-warm) shoe day - their request

water on water street

this morning we have a foot of snow and no word of it stopping until tomorrow morning.  i am, of course, THAT lady who runs out of milk during the heaviest snow storm in years and walks to the grocery store(the walking part was more a desire; the milk, bacon, cottage cheese, and oats a necessity).  it was one of the most enjoyable things i've done all week.  i love the quiet of the snow that forces us all to slow our pace.  

ethereal lights

train tracks

when i returned, my tracks were almost gone...

so we snuggle in with some ricotta pancakes, bacon, coffee, iron, and wine

hoping your day is as beautiful as ours!

no chestnuts roasting yet.

so it's beginning to look like christmas... a little bit.

 

 as usual, there is a looming quota of hats to be completed

 

and supplies are being gathered...

...we'll see.

thanksgiving and such

making this for myself

 

spinach quiche and chocolate chip cookies to warm the soul

 

LOTS of playing in leaves

 

 

a little bit of family time

 

a ladybug in my mom's hair(have i told you how proud i am of her for not dying it?)

 

my new knitting friend: matt found this nifty(and handmade!) little contraption at a pottery studio in annapolis and it is THE coolest idea!  being the proud owner of a cat and two boys under the age of 4 means that yarn frequently goes rolling across our floors.  this has been eliminated.  i am so happy(!!!)

hope your thanksgiving was as warm and loving as mine!

why?

why isn't this movie coming to any theaters near me??

on a happier note,

 boys

 

have i told you how much i love those doorknobs!??!

isaac was a cowboy and ezra was his horse for halloween

(how did it take me this long to post this?  oh right, my life is on hold right now)

all of my stuff is packed away(except the yarn!)

corn

 

i love this boy and his love for leaves

 

 

holly and isaac

 

a bit of yellow for you

 ...and also some briars

bella

 

 andrea found the cutest wetbag with owl fabric.  this is my favorite.  i am jealous.

house update

so thursday we put an offer on it, friday we were straight up denied, saturday someone came and looked at our house, sunday we looked at other houses, monday we put a second offer on it, and today we found out someone else put an offer without a contingency last night.  UGH!

the times they are a'changin

i know this sounds like i'm going to whine, and i'll admit i do kinda want to, but i will refrain in hopes that you won't turn away right now and move on to more interesting reads.  last night we put our house on the market.  tonight we put in an offer on a house we've been eyeing(contingent on us selling, of course).  we've spent a tiresome 2 1/2 weeks getting our house ready and it's finally official!(and also frighteningly real)

it's quite a fix-er-upper(which we like) and huge and beautiful and next to a good school and accommodating(we want to grow a bit and have chickens and goats eventually) and has great doorknobs(important!).  i am trying really hard not to move in emotionally, can you tell?

isaac has already told me(unprompted) he wants the green room to be his.  shocker.

an oldie but a goodie

i am self-admittedly an enormous fan of Amanda Soule's.  her creative, nurturing spirit has been a tremendous encouragement to me as a woman and a mother.  her blog, SouleMama is an uplifting and intimate window into her life and work as a mother of four.   on friday, she reposted an old entry from 2005 in which she beautifully expressed a lot of the same sentiments i have had about being a mother.  i read this post about a year ago and it resonated very deeply.  the charting of a new path as a mother, the isolation, and the gentle and respectful way she has chosen to raise her children are beautifully articulated and i hope it will lift you up as it has me.

a day with daddy

 

 

walking down the trail aunt erin built in dunkirk park

"On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree." - W.S. Merwin

shell fossils

 

fern forest

more fiery trees

sleeping babe in sling(i'm gonna miss this)

uncle stephen's second hat

self-portrait

aren't magnolias magical?

 lots of tickling/wrestling has been happening everywhere we go...

this is the doorbell of an awesome house in friendship(maryland) that steve and holly looked at the other day.  they ended up deciding it needed too much renovation, but it got our wheels turning.  maybe we'll put our house on the market next week...