From our very cloudy vantage point. We are already excited about next one, in 2024, which will be almost full where we are.
Category Archives: photography
Back to (home) School Pictures and Sewing
Usually I take their back to school pictures over the course of about half an hour after lunch on our first day back. This year it took me three solid weeks just to get everyone photographed and another two to edit the photos.
Mairi’s new dress is an Oliver and S. Playtime Dress. The bodice is linen. The skirt and sleeves were made from an older fabric that came from my mother-in-law, the style of which somehow reminds me of hand-me-downs from my own childhood.
Elijah as been at it again and made himself a new shirt for the new school year, complete with a double piped and hand-embroidered yoke.
See how they’ve grown….
Week in the Life, Tuesday
Steamed broccoli, topped with leftover turkey and gravy for breakfast.
Can you hear the constant clicking from there? Sometimes it’s maddening, but mostly it’s fun.
Happy-at-home clothes: an old beloved dress (I bought this one when I was 14!) and my folded, both of which have seen better days!
Glorious day! We brought as much of our schoolwork outside as possible.
A lot of melting and a lot of splashing!
Feeding the birds at our neighbor’s house where the chickadees will eat right out of your hand.
These days, no matter where I am, I always have a bit of work with me. Sometimes just managing to sneak in a stitch here and a stitch there is the only way anything ever gets done.
They tapped a few birch trees on one of the last days of gathering maple sap. Tapping birches is a first for us this year and part of a self-directed Woods Day school project for the younger set.
Frost burned pansies uncovered around Seraphina’s apricot tree. She asks to go and visit her tree everyday and tells people about each of our fruit trees.
Cassava Oven Fries for a late day snack. A real treat!
She helped me pull all of the evergreen boughs off of the lavender, a delightfully fragrant job.
Week in the Life, Monday
Clearly I’m having trouble keeping up with Week in the Life this year. I took all of the pictures and made a few notes, but actually putting together these long posts, at this moment in time, is a struggle. I’ve considered just completely scrapping the project several times now, but I really try to do it once a year because these are the posts that I enjoy looking back at. And I think with life being as busy as it is, it’s perhaps all the more important to try to record a few details.
Iain and Elijah stayed after work for a lesson. We woke to a dull, grey and dreary day. The kids wanted a bath. I thought I would sit on the bathroom floor embroidering. It sounded like a lovely and relaxing way to start the day, but ended up being stressful and frustrating.
Together we fixed brunch: yams, sage and onion sausage patties, sauerkraut and rooibos tea and filled the dehydrator with apple slices, while listening to an Easter Sparkle Story. Realized we are not eating eggs right now, what are we going to do for Easter?!?
Brunch all together, alongside a game of quiddler.
At every meal this little munchkin eats and drinks what she would like of her own share and then scoots herself over to the other side of the table to see what of interest might be left over there.
We normally go out in the morning for our walk before her nap, but today she was very tired and asked to go to sleep early.
Homeschool work while baby sleeps, heavy on geography and measurements.
Trying to find a bit more variety on AIP, I made a whole turkey for dinner, along with squash and gravy, thinking we would be able to eat leftovers throughout the week. Mairi and I managed to find a bit of fresh thyme to season it, under all the old growth.
More supplies in the mail. It’s been a strange week that way, so much happening all at once!
A small plane flew over while we were on our nature walk. She mistook it for one of her brother’s little quadcopters and pulling off her mitten, held out her hand saying, “catch fly-fly!”.
The experience of water is a strange thing to them right now, frozen in some places, flowing in others.
Whenever it is warm enough to take her mittens off she goes skipping down the street making them flap and singing out, “skippin’ mittens!”
At dinner Seraphine laid her tummy on the table and started biting the giant turkey in the middle!
Always a project going on! Right now it’s Wizard of Oz themed figures.
More quiet time to work on projects for my big boys once most of the little ones were in bed.
A late night for me working on our newsletter.
Week in the Life, Sunday
Him: knitting
Her: making a friendship bracelet
I have paint colors swirling through my mind. Our favorite paint company is going out of business and I frantically (before it all sold out!) picked out colors for our next several projects. It’s just arrived and I’m amusing myself by painting a swatch a day so I can see each color in place. Today’s selection is “Delicate Peach”.
We had tuna salad for breakfast, which contained “Q-mummers” (cucumbers), one of my favorite baby words at the moment.
This is what life really looks like here right now! Always food in progress, always dishes in progress, clothes drying, the latest projects unceremoniously scooped from the dinning room table and dumped on the ironing board- which never seems to get put away, boxes of next-size and season up kids’ clothes sitting about, waiting for me to finish sorting them, people everywhere; hectic, cluttered and full.
Goodies in progress for the shop. One of the things keeping my hands so full of late.
I managed to leave the house wearing all clothing I like! Of course, we don’t have a full-length mirror, so photos of myself are uhm, educational.
A day of gathering supplies: for the shop, for upcoming birthdays, for home improvement projects.
He wants to sew himself a shirt.
Out past nap time, poor little love!
Back home with our bounty for the beef and veggie stew that simmered in the crockpot the whole time we were away.
Iain secretly bought Mairi Rose the tiny sewing kit she had been coveting. So sweet.
Beautiful fabrics, each one intended for something different, looking very comfortably harmonious all together.
Stopped in at Goodwill, hoping to find a bunch of mugs and bowls. We’ve broken so many lately. All it yielded was a single specimen to add to my collection of random, mismatched, floral pottery mugs. And this little enamelware bowl!
Which I quietly packed away, along side a tiny 25-cent pot. One to serve Seraphina’s birthday treats in and one as a gift to add to her kitchen set. Three dollars well spent (including the mug).
Later in the evening our dear neighbor stopped round with a gift. And inside…
Just what I was needing!
Homeschooling these days takes place at all hours, on all days. The older boys are preparing for an important presentation.
Complete with very stylish pointers!
52/52
The last of the year. Possibly the last ever, as I feel ready to move on from this project. But surely one of my favorites.
an everything post….
Kind of like an everything bagel, only without the garlic. I save the garlic for other posts. Otherwise we’ve got it all; the 52 project, knitting, sewing, the weather, a tree…
I’m having issues with the auto-focus on my camera. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Seraphina’s new Baby Bubble Bloomeralls! Ack! Don’t you just want to kiss her cheeks?!? I modified the pattern to include a button closure between the legs for easier diaper changes/potty using. The yarn is Capra DK in ‘Velveteen’. I’ve been itching for an excuse to make her something in this color for ages now.
Ok and now the weather, because she’s out in that, in the middle of December! It’s so crazy. There’s green grass in these pictures! We were out getting our Christmas tree in sweaters. With no snow boots. This all feels very strange and kind of wrong. I’m not sure what to make of it. But it was rather nice not to have our fingers and toes going numb while waiting for everyone to decide exactly which tree was the right tree.
Books- I finished The Princess and the Goblin and passed it on to Galen. I misplaced my birthday book (this happens far more often then I care to admit) and have picked up this instead.
After cleaning out her drawers it turns out that Mairi Rose basically had the two pairs of velour pants I made her last year left to cover the lower half of her body- daytime or night time. This did not seem to be enough, so in between quilt sewing (did I mention I’m actually working on two quilts now?) I’ve been making leggings. Pretty much all the same pattern in different fabrics. I haven’t really been keeping track of them all. Let’s see, there was another pair of velour ones in a tan color, these stripped ones that I mentioned before and a pink and purple stripped pair… Basically just assume that I made any pants you see her in from here on out! I thought the last two weren’t really warm enough for winter wear (as it turns out I may have been wrong! It’s got to hit sometime, right?). As I was out of really thick stretchy fabric, I jumped at a sale and got a yard each of a handful of things. She picked out some bubble gum pink cotton fleece with roses on it. There was enough to make an attached skirt as well. She liked that idea and I figured two layers of fleece would be warmer than one.
Tomorrow we are baking cookies. I have some last minute knitting to do and if I get the chance, I’d like to do it alongside a nice period piece (tv show, mini-series or movie), because that’s just the kind of mood I’m in, any suggestions?
50/52
This week! Goodness, we have been busy. I barely took any pictures and the ones I did were literally a blur. This doleful picture is the best I have to offer. I don’t know why she looks so sad here, she was really enjoying herself.
47/52
Mairi Rose and Seraphina were off playing and giggling by themselves. I peeked in to find Mairi had dressed them both up. Seraphina looked at me very solemnly indeed and said, “tutu” with a nod of her head. Serious and important business that.
I wanted to thank you all for your kind words of support on my last post. Believe it or not, the week actually became more challenging as it progressed, but I’ll not talk about that now. I only mention it to say that many of your comments really bolstered me up and helped me along and I am grateful for that. I’d like to write to each and every one of you, but my computer time is limited. Please know that you have been heard and appreciated. I’m also deeply grateful for sweet little girls in tutus and brothers who reach them up to the ceiling!
46/52
Class observation week at ballet!