my naughty almost three year old

All the signs of a three year old have arrived and he is discovering the art of being naughty and delights in the reactions of his playmates when he has done something naughty to them. Arghhh I am nipping this one in the bud quite quick. So we left a playdate quite early and came straight home where he had to sit quietly and read to himself while Asher napped. So here is how I just found him an hour later. The posture is just so much a demonstration of his little mischevious nature these days. He doesn't have a diaper on, he has been doing amazing during naps and even had a dry diaper the other morning when he awoke, so lets hope he doesn't leave leave me anything to be irritated at upon his waking. My mother, when she was the most angry at me would always say, "Someday I hope you have child just like you!" The curse/blessing has been quite evident from the very beginning and I know that I was actually oh so much more naughty then he has ever been.

Asher's new rocker baby needs a name

First of all he isn't done but I had to share him as a work in progress at this point. The pattern comes from a book called "Knit Babes" and he has been quite fun to create especially since they had no examples of gender neutral or male dolls. I haven't decided on how to do the face or to make his pj top. He has a total 80's rock star mullet of curls. Asher absolutely loves rubbing his face against it and I hope this babe gets worn to pieces with love. He does need a name though....any ideas?

Flat Stanley pays us a visit

Our cousin in Indiana has sent her friend Flat Stanley for a visit and we are to document his visit and send back photos of what he has been doing. He has been traveling around in Emmit's backpack and enjoying the sunshine and afternoons outside with us.

A Pic of Dennis & kiddos taken by Parker, Jody, and Mark

spring green and polenta

I am absolutely obsessively in love with my new spring shoes. I may even have to sleep in them. Thank you so much Dennis!


Asher loves to watch the squirrels outside our window. Spring has arrived, we haven't had to turn our heat on for a couple of days and there are bulbs pushing through and flowers starting to open!

Asher discovered polenta today and I learned how to make it and discovered that it is a 100 times better then the tubes we have been buying. Asher now insists of feeding himself as much as possible. There is something so photogenic about a food covered baby in a high chair!

a late happy first day of spring post

Spring arrived, Asher turned 8 months, the snow melted yet again and Asher pulled himself up to standing and it actually feels warm and like spring. It is 60 degrees! I just checked. It is so exciting. Poor Emmit, who has never had a harsh word to say towards Asher, is suddenly experiencing the trauma of a little brother who gets into everything. Nothing is safe from him. Emmit is keeping a countdown until his third birthday and today it is 15 more days until the actual birthday although we will celebrate his party on April Fools Day so as to be able to have his chosen menu of strawberry cupcakes and bagels w/cream cheese before Passover begins! We are seeing lots of signs of spring although none of them pictured here. I felt like doing a little ode to Asher since he has been a bit of a challenge lately. Gone are the easy days of laying him on the floor or bouncing him in his bouncy seat. We are babyproofing all over again like crazy!

Dennis and Asher get their quilts

I attempted to make a more neutral looking quilt for Asher and a green tree themed quilt for Dennis (okay I get to benifit from it too since it is going on our bed). My friend Josie "http://mrmonkeysuit.typepad.com/" walked me through doing the edging which I love so much. I had a lot of time to quilt this weekend since Asher took three hour naps every day and was asleep by 5pm each night. I didn't even notice until now that I was making a green quilt over St. Patrick's Day weekend. I started this quilt a long time ago with Dennis's love of trees in mind.

Nature EdVenture at Allegany State Park

the snow has returned

We are all a bit sad to see the snow return. We were all excited that it was almost completely melted away and starting to talk about flying kites, picnics, going to the playground and riding bikes when this crazy storm of snow blanketed us again. Dennis and Emmit are off on an adventure to Allegany State Park where they are doing an environmental education overnight with some friends of ours to learn about "sugaring the maple trees to make maple syrup". Asher and I were paid to go but he has just been a bit off his rocker this last week with his sleep that it seemed best for the two of us to remain. Dennis and Emmit just headed out into the snow and flooding but with promises of better weather down south. Asher has been asleep for his morning nap for well over an hour and we are now half an hour late for a St. Patrick's Day brunch at our friend's house. I won't wake him though. I have tons of new fabric to play with this weekend and a warm cozy house, lots of freshly made muffins and at this moment some wonderful quiet! We had one of Dennis's colleagues over last night for dinner and I made our favorite Red Curry Squash Soup with Coconut Milk and Prawns! It is from the new cookbook by Moosewood called "Simple Suppers". I always make it with some coconut rice and it is an absolute favorite meal. Emmit calls the rice "Sunshine Rice" because the turmeric makes it yellow. I am almost done with a quilt for Dennis so I will post photos of that once it is done and Dennis and Emmit return with the digital camera.

a doll quilt

Emmit watches me make quilts for lots of special people in our lives and asked that I make one for his (my old doll) whose name is Johnny Baby (that was her name when I named her at age 2 or 3). How could I resist. He picked out most of the fabrics and colors.

recycled overalls project

I am really wanting to post more of my artistic crafty creations here so here is something Emmit and I created for Luis for his birthday. Broken overalls seem to pile up on my sewing desk because I can't bare to toss them and never seem to make it to the store to buy the replacement parts. So here we have created a backpack from them instead. Now we can't wait for the next pair to break because Emmit would really like one for himself. I think the photos are rather self explanitory and I apologize that I have no idea how to rotate the photos because everything digital related becomes far more complicated in this house due to Dennis's profession.

Photos @ the Buffalo Botanics w/Ikonta

Self Portrait, Dennis
Our good friend Dorthea (Greta's mom)
In the garden
Jesica

We were at the Botanic Gardens on sunday and I took some snaps with an old Ikonta camera. It is a German made camera dating from the 1920's. It uses medium format film (6x6) and with an additional flash, makes some good pictures. You also cannot go wrong with botanic garden lighting.

Sunday at the Botanical Garden in Buffalo

Asher and Mama! Poor guy has been rather cantakerous which is not like him at all.

ahhhh

The sun is out, it is in the 40's and will be close to 50 in a few days, I got almost 5 hours of time all to myself, and both boys are currently asleep at the same time for their afternoon naps. It is a day of mini miracles! I love Fridays because Dennis is home and the weekend feels nice and long. They had brisket at the Co-op so we are having Sari's famous brisket tomorrow night! Life is good. Oh and a shiny red trycicle is hidden along with some child sized rolling pins for a very much enthusiastically anticipated birthday that is less then a month away. Oh I hear someone stirring, not sure which one but once they are both up we will take a walk before dinner. Emmit and I made a quilt for his doll together yesterday so I will post a photo of that too.

quote

"I can't wear overalls Mama because I have to be able to nurse my baby"- Emmit (almost 3)

Emmits' first art opening at the JCC

moments from our weekend part one

We had a nice weekend. Asher and Emmit are starting to "play" with each other although supervision is still required as I caught Emmit trying to feed Asher a blue colored pencil today. Here you have Emmit looking like he is doing some sort of interpretive dance??? Asher now has two teeth and here is the first photo where you can actually see one. I made the green hat and Emmit has a matching one. I like to think of it as the little acorn gnome look. Dennis just pointed out that he posted and of course he posted a photo that I have posted but oh well you can look at it twice. Tonight will be night #3 where Dennis and I sleep on the couch in the living room in order to get Asher to sleep through the night in our room. The first night was rough, last night was not bad at all and hopefully tomorrow we can transition Asher into Emmit's room. I like to think of myself as doing "Attachment Parenting" until about month 7 or 8 when the sleep deprivation starts to overtake my sanity and I can no longer pretend that I am surviving on negative hours of sleep. We have more photos to post so I will work on that in the next couple of days. Tomorrow Emmit celebrates Purim at school and I made him a cape and crown so there will need to be a photo of that.

Low view

Ahh, what a nice weekend. Lots of quality time with the family. We went to the art museum, a birthday party, an art opening, and had guests over for brunch and fun. Jesica and I also had a date night and got some quality time together to imagine our future.

A new month and thus that much closer to spring

Okay so I am once again seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you all for your emails of concern and kindness. I slept for a nice 3 1/2 hour chunk and then a 2 hour chunk (thanks Dennis for getting up with the kiddos) and it makes all the difference in the world. I think the nasty cold is starting to subside although both kids have horrible night coughs. It is March which means we have survived the harshest months Buffalo has to offer and my optimism is strong that it is all down hill from here to spring. I am even feeling motivated, on this day without any plans at all, to take the kids out for a walk. The forecast is for 37 today and a whopping 41 for tomorrow. I know that my former Arizona, New Mexico, Northwest self would cringe at those temps but here it is so exciting and warm enough to go outside at long last. Hopefully the stroller will be able to tackle the still existing snow. Emmit is busy on the floor cooking muffins by placing muffin papers into the muffin tin and then putting acorns (collected in the fall) in as the muffins. Dennis and I were talking about what a great age Emmit is at. He has a great sense of humor, can clean up after himself more and more, is a great communicator, loves books, is quite mischievous, can play by himself, is completely enveloped in his imagination, and can give us the most amazing gifts when he thanks, appreciates or tells us of his love for us. The latter is what is the most unbelievable perk. Asher is also equally amazing and changing so rapidly. He is the squirmiest and most strong willed little guy with unbelievable physical strength. He has really mastered crawling this week and is starting to sign a little and I swear he said "all done" this morning at some wee hour when he was done nursing. So far he signs "milk" and "all done" but we just pulled out our baby sign cards and Emmit is learning them just by looking at them and we will start teaching him more. Asher is quite the charmer and will tilt his head backwards while he is sitting in your lap in order to look at you upside down with his huge amazingly loving eyes and smile. I am a total pushover with this guy and his smiles and puppy eyes. We have had little luck Ferberizing him to sleep through the night though as his will is far stronger then ours and that is where the sleep deprivation comes in. He has no problem putting himself to sleep and back to sleep but after about midnight he has no intention of doing so. I guess there is plenty of time to sleep at some later date in life and as long as I get a couple chunks of more then two hours I can survive the day without going insane! Happy Purim to those that are celebrating this weekend. I still need to sew that crown!