Thursday, April 28, 2011

Benjamin

Current faves: smashed bananas, milk, applesauce and sweet potatoes. Sisters, dogs, chickens. Chase's beard, my hair, anyone's earrings. The bath, before it gets TERRIBLE with the HAIR WASHING and the SCREAMING. The pirate bunny toy that Audrey made for Jane, and a stuffed horse from an old Ikea barn playset. Also this toy, which has been a favorite of all our babies.


He likes to say "dadadada" for a while and then he says "DADADA" and then he gets himself too excited by this whole talking thing and starts crying.

He also has a series of ear splitting shrieks, coos and other musical noises to remind us that he's in the room, in case we forgot.


He likes to sit on the floor and look at his big sisters. If they smile at him or talk to him he gets so excited he wobbles and wiggles and tips himself over. Then Wren scoots him onto her lap and practices her "babytalk" which is shamefully unbearably irritating to me, but Ben's very favorite thing ever.


He DOES NOT like teething, although he does like chewing on anything and everything that moves anywhere near his mouth. He does not like it when I eat broccoli, or pretty much anything in that family. He doesn't seem to be crazy about peas, and although he enjoys -playing- with those rice husk teething snacks, he seems to smear more on his clothes and high chair than end up actually in his tummy.

He does not like sleeping at night quite as much as I wish he did. And he also does not like watching me blog, particularly. So I'll stop there, with a brief picture of our Benjamin at 6 months old.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Wren and Penny


Penny is hands down Wren's favorite of the chickens, and not just because she's the bravest, and therefore the easiest to catch.


She really is a sweetheart, although I can't pin down where exactly she is on the pecking order. Louise is the fastest, maybe sharing that title with Sal, and we hardly ever catch either one of them. Lil was the biggest for a while, and is still pretty big. She coos and sings funny little chicken songs, and seems to be pretty mellow and stately. Honey and Ginger are inseparable, which is sad because of course we're going to separate them eventually, when we give one of them away... Ginger is a a bit bigger than Honey though. They are this buttery golden yellow color- so fun to see little patches of sunshine scratching around the yard. And of course they leave fertilizer behind them.

Sometimes they even fertilize the playscape.


But Penny. She is smart. She knows that Wren is her ticket to all the mealworms she can eat. She knows that if she runs up when Wren walks in the yard, she'll be scooped up and carried around and possibly fed delicious treats.

This is one smart bird. And when she's done cuddling, she's done.

chocolate bunnies and baby dedications

We had a pretty awesome Easter. Baskets were found, demolished, and then filled with our dyed eggs, all within about 20 minutes of waking up.


It probably took longer than that, but the night before was not a stellar one, in terms of SLEEPING, for little Ben. So honestly I'm pretty fuzzy on the details of anything that happened before my second cup of coffee.

We hosted Easter this year, since our church is in the evenings, and everybody else goes in the morning. It makes sense for me to be the ham minder. I might have a badge made. Ham minder extraordinaire. Everything went fine, although next year I will attempt not to set two loaves of bread on fire. Obviously, it was intentional. To represent the cleansing of our sin, as our Lord defeated sin and death and rose again. But you know, next year I won't do that. I'll use a timer.

And then, after I lounged about eating cookies while our guests cleaned the kitchen, it was time to load up the car and head to church, to celebrate Easter and to dedicate baby Ben.


Chase took this picture of me as I'm trying to climb in the car with a bundt cake (for the church party) and my 14th coffee of the day. I also had my purse and a diaper bag and at that moment was forgetting to bring the kids baskets for the egg hunt. We had just attempted to take a "family going to church" photo (total fail, Jane is smearing chocolate on her face in every shot) and so we were running super late for our OWN BABY'S DEDICATION. Surprising no one at church, I'm sure.


And here's baby Ben, being dedicated at Mosiac, along with a whole crew of like minded up and comers. The girls were about to embark on their 3rd sugar crazed egg hunt of the day (this time with more ants!! and pinatas, and confetti eggs!) and then we were all going to go home and drop into bed, completely exhausted, and so so thankful.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

on deck

This is my first attempt at a triangle quilt. It's really my first attempt at any quilt where it really matters that all your edges line up perfectly.


It's sort of modeled on this one from the Purl Bee only with a spectrum instead of blue and orange stripes.

Chase can attest to the stressfulness of this work- I am not fun to be around when I'm attempting to line these up (and failing. and doing it again. and failing).

I finally got the top pieced and need to move onto the binding, and get this in the mail before it's intended recipient arrives on the scene. I learned that I CAN make a triangle quilt (almost) even if it's a wonky one whose triangles don't always line up. And I learned that maybe I should stick to patches until I can dedicate more of my brain to my crafting. Currently about 50% seems to be just trying to keep my awake.

Monday, April 18, 2011

a weekend in projects

House projects...


This is a closet bunk- the girls have been in the finished product for two nights and seem to like it just fine. I'll put some pictures up as soon as I get a last coat of paint on it.


Garden projects were on the agenda, but really all I did was water and pick a little basket of snap peas. The peas are our first fruit, not counting the salad greens, which I have been enjoying but no one else will touch.


Ben had a teething project. He spent all weekend (and all my patience) working on that one, and now he has two little teeth poking up from his bottom gums. He (and therefore everyone else) has been in a much better mood since they finally broke through.


And we had some resting projects too. Ben can usually be counted on to calm down if you get him outside, so we spent a good bit of time on blankets, either in our backyard or next to Jane's soccer field. Their team was soundly beaten again this week by the Dragons. Coach Chase needs to get his act together. Geez.


And Jane took this picture of some attempted rest, that of course wasn't going too well. I think it was waaaaaaaay too early to count as morning, but Chase and I were outvoted - 3 to 2. So morning was declared, pancakes were made, and pots and pots of coffee were brewed.

Which reminds me. The weekend is over. It's almost 1, time for the first round of school pick-ups, and the second pot of coffee.