Leaving Egypt...

'upcycled' Moses (more great Passover & other crafts here)

Leaven Free Desserts

Cleaning up

Headless Felt People from this pattern.

It's Passover this week & we came to Drew's parents for the celebration. We'll be here until Thursday & are playing with felt, going to playgrounds & staying completely entertained while we're in town (Charlotte). What a metropolis! It's fun to see the city life, but our mid-sized Greensboro is the perfect fit for us city-wise.

& we've experienced what feels like a Passover miracle of our own. I will share more with that should it come to fruition, but key phrase: 'Promised Land'.

We made pudding...with wonder & zeal.

chocolate pudding a-lah my dear friend Ang who finally started her family blogging!

We watch the Office. We laugh hard & we hope there's never a final season. One recurring joke is the '...that's what she said' catch phrase at chance moments by Michael, the office manager. He over uses it & can't let an opportunity pass, no matter how inappropriate it may be. I'm implementing a new motto for this spring, something to keep me inspired & remind me that life is too short to lull along grimly--no pun intended ;)

We'll see if it works, but for the upcoming weeks each post title will be the start of a sentence that ends with this key phrase: "...with wonder & zeal", as the new banner reflects.

Everything's better...with wonder & zeal. Don't you think?

"Guys don't make passes"--so they say...

After a recent visit to the opthamologist we realized Naomi was in dire need of some spectacles. We had to wait a few weeks for them to arrive from this discount glasses site, but it was worth it. She's cute as a button. Now I expect she'll be more interested in her studies... ;)

gray & orange ones.

Pink ones.

Lambing Unexpected.

What a day to forget the camera at home. I recycle pics from our last trip.


Today we had to run 'country' errands. What does that mean? Well, first, visiting the home of a co-worker that is willing to baby-sit the bee hives while our house is on the market. More on that later. Then, 'grocery' shopping.

So, you take an address or 2, pop them into a GPS device, turn the settings of said device to 'avoid highway' & you're off. Turn where you wish, willy-nilly style, & you'll get where you're going.

That's just how it happened. Our second stop today is the most important detail of how we ended up seeing what we couldn't document via megapixel: Rising Meadow Farm. I discussed this place some here, but in an effort to buy local & celebrate the upcoming holiday (Passover) with real pizazz we went for the leg of lamb available only direct from the farm. Boy are you gonna be jealous. They told us to be there at 5:30, at which time they'd be wrapping up some bottle feeding of newly born lambs.

We get there, a-lah country style: 5:50pm. Drew headed out first to locate someone, but nothing. So, on down to the source of reckless bleating--a field of mamas & babes just baaaing away. Then, round into the barn where we were invited in to view the NEWEST lambs you could ever see, not even a day old. But wait!

The dear farmers couldn't tend to our meat buying needs immediately because--get this--there were lambs on the way; we could watch if we wanted.

Watch if we wanted?! We would have come, paid & had trouble not gathering a crowd if we'd known this was coming!

So sweet, amazing, adorable, magnificent, wonderful...they've been lambing for days & look a bit tired, but wow. The mama got one out then they took a break before (they suspect 2 more) the others are ready to come as well.

this image from here

Now we buy meat.

Is there something that pulls on your heartstrings as you purchase a leg that once belonged to such an innocent & miraculous creature? Absolutely. A connection, a REAL solid connection that is far beyond the convenience of Wendy's drive thru or the supermarket price-cut section. I won't point fingers or name names or even ask for remorse & second thoughts, but this comprehension of life, sacrifice & the work that bring sustenance to us all is a tragedy if lost & perhaps the demise of our civilization. Perhaps.

Right now, it's not lost on us. We drove home with a sense of wonder & excitement; and with 5 pounds of what will be thoroughly appreciated & celebrated meat.

How to make curls with rags: like the Ingalls

For months (since this post), we've been planning to see Little House on the Prairie the musical.

Finally on Saturday night the big day was here. To prep Naomi took a quick bath & before a little nap (which she couldn't get out of on account of the late night ahead) we tie her hair up with rags from an old t-shirt. It was so simple & the curls have lasted until today--reveal: we're not daily bathers.

Here are pictures of the process:

So with wet/damp hair, take 2x2"-ish sections of hair & wind around a 3x1"-ish piece of cotton rag, winding toward the scalp. Tie at the top keeping the hair wrapped around. Repeat until all sections of hair are wound.

Let them dry--sleeping helps kill the time. Ma would do them the night before trips to town or other fancy events:

Untie & unwind & enjoy!

Adorable under a bonnet.

& while cutting your pancake at the Flying Biscuit.

& with our whole group. Aunts, Grandmas & great Grandmas...

(it was a great time. I wouldn't expect to see any mention of this new musical at the Tony's or anything, but fun. & WAY more fun than the stomach bug that greeted us as soon as we got home...ugh.)

Picture Day

finger or no finger, that's a pretty girl.

Irish Soda Bread

tastes like orange rind, don't ever make this, seems like a great idea, cake.

our 2nd year with asparagus. it couldn't stay in on a day like today either...

wormies (note: older sister STRONGLY advising against the inevitable)

post nap:pre-waking up.

bee-smoker smoking

Recycled Paper Weaving

::A Simple Afternoon Project:

So you can't keep EVERY painting, coloring page & scrap doodle, but you can re-use some of them! We're all about printing on the back of old copies, painting on trash-mail, recycling unwanted solicitations & today we did just that.

fold a piece of construction paper in half & cut straight lines from the folded edge leaving 1 inch uncut at the top.

cut up strips of scrap paintings, etc. in all different widths.

all materials required.

Unfold the construction paper & weave, weave, weave! (we even through in some strands of yarn for fun)

the finished products are great! Laminated they'd make great place-mats...

A quick & easy project for little fingers (& it was much fun for me too).

Counting & Bagging Beans

Back to the old grindstone...

I've been out for the count when it comes to child-rearing. They're alive & fed, but these past few weeks have been slow going when it comes to brain food & entertainment. I'm fully recovered from the ills of weeks past & everyone seems on the mend. What a rough winter!

The sun has blessed us with rays of inspiration & today--after taking the weekend & monday to re-coop some of the damage done by several weeks of neglect--we are back on it.

It's like the metronome battery is recharged.

So, beans are on today's menu. Naomi & Drew worked on 'math' skills making a chart of numbers 1-10 & counting out the appropriate amount of beans for each number square.

Then, Naomi begged to sew. "I'm a five year old, so that means I can sew now," she declares.

A quick bean bag project out of the captivating fabric given me by this fine lady & that.

our 'bean' of choice. Really a lentil...

filling the bag.

side 1 & side 2

I'm sure this new & 'sew simple' toy will bring hours of fun. It's already brought 1...

Vintage Swap Results

You may have noticed the Vintage Swap button in the left sidebar. Heather of Shivaya Naturals started this fantastic activity & this was my first go-round participating, what fun!

First I met a sweet lady, & then I slowly gathered a mixture of items to send her:

Then, a few days after her package was sent out, I received this in return:

I made out with some really sweet finds, like doilies that make me grin & material to inspire more crafting, note cards, & even an awesome tunic that I can't wait to wear! Nicely done Tracy--it was a pleasure to 'meet' you! & thanks Heather for organizing something just for smiles.

Babushka or Matryoshka?

We keep bumping into these adorable traditional Russian nesting dolls.

First we got this great book from the library. It's really cute, with great pictures. Naomi loves it.

The Littlest Matryoshka

Then I found this great pattern that I'm going to try this week--consider that a promise !-) or should I make these?

& there's this beautiful fabric by Heather Ross.

A cute card-craft.

& there are more books that look great on this 'subject':

The Magic Nesting Doll

Sasha's Matryoshka Dolls

& so much more...

Hoot Hoot! Baby it's adorable...

I just acquired the trunk for the weekend & I have to drop a note here on how cute it is.

The line as a whole is a throw-back to an era of simplicity; a time when less was more & details weren't overlooked on account of abundance. Truly nostalgic prints, but wait--it also FEELS great! The softest cotton & sweetest accents like rope style belts & dainty buttons, ric-rac & pleasing pleats...

Love it, love it.

& Melissa is generously offering the trunk show rates to anyone via the blog (that's like 25% off!) so, make sure to contact me if you see THAT spring outfit for your little one.

View the whole line here.

If you'd like to come see in person, I'll have the trunk in Greensboro tomorrow morning at my home & on Sunday afternoon just outside Raleigh--contact me for more info!

Living Without Plastic

Our Attempts to Taper down our Plastic use

It's report-card time. I'm giving myself a mark on the no-bag month of February. C+. We were about 50/50 which would normally be an F-, but we learned a lot (& my opinion is that should I take an exam NOW we'd get a C+). I will say that our awareness has intensified, not simply on the grocery bag front, but gahly. plastic is EVERYWHERE! It really is the main thing we throw-away around these parts, and it's essentially unavoidable. Grocery bags are just the tip of the ice-berg.

We've picked up a few new tricks though and are implementing several small changes this month to help ease the severity of our participation in plastic consumption; end big sentence.

Our One Small Change is to let this plastic thing invade our lives in other ways. Ziploc bags we use a lot of. We freeze much of our garden in the summer and fall, not to mention the bags used to freeze the deer meat we were blessed with this year. We're looking into alternatives, any ideas? Part of the problem is freezing isn't really the most efficient way to save (think about all that energy loss), but we're not in a place where root-cellaring is an option; perhaps down the road. In the mean time we preserve in cans & our ice-box.

and that blahg-y feeling is lifting. I still need tissue close at all times, but my head is clearing and the beauty of the past couple days makes me wake sans-desperation. Excited even...

On top of a trip to the playground with Aunts, Uncles and cousins on Saturday, we took full advantage of the temperature and sun yesterday, too.

The strawberries are admitting it's spring-ish.

Naomi hoed and planted carrots in her garden bed.

Does your husband make Amish Bread? yum... (he substituted succanat for sugar and olive oil for vegetable oil--so proud. he's always been a strict recipe follower, I think i've had some influence)

We laid a small brick walkway in a mucky spot.

And we retreated, exhausted by fun. Now I'm off to address the cleanliness of INSIDE the house.

We dream a lot about our future, but yesterday was suited more towards this quote and we were encouraged to be content where we are until our time comes to move along:

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." -Albert Einstien

And while I'm here: What day is a command to move on?