:::a year of handmade:::

or more then a  year... i've been saying i will post about this for so long, thank you for waiting and enjoy!

i thought it started with birthday #3 (5/11). and a "babies" skirt.

but i realized it actually all starts a few weeks before

with two crowns i made for sibling friends turning 3 and 5. 

 there was an "s" one for another special little lady also turning 3 but i forgot to take a photo.

(all crowns i've made are from the pattern in the creative family.)

from the year before; this one for my niece,

and this one for a 1st birthday of a super baby boy.

and then i realized it started even before that with a recreation to help act out a favorite story: "the 500 hats of bartholomew cubbins" by dr. suess.

i couldn't make more appear magically underneath but he was ok with that after i explained i just don't possess that kind of magic yet; but i'm working on it.

now back to the birthday #3 handmade:

its' a lazy day's skirt by oliver + S, a free pattern. i love this pattern, it's super simple, i've made a few. 

here's one i made for my other niece, r, for her birthday, a few years ago (6/09). 

it was my first, it was a joint effort by me and my boy, it took days of nap time.

they're good even to be not lazy in, like when you climb to the top of a lighthouse.

(she did the climb herself!)

i made two matching doll sized ones for her "babies".

here it is with the "babies" shirt i embroidered for birthday #2.

and flying with googles. 

sorry i just couldn't resist, i love when she wears it, (and googles) 

i have a ton of pictures of her in it, i could go on and on...

like here. 

ok i'll stop, and get on with it!

little turtle bags, two. one big one little.
she opened them and gave the big one to her brother.

she keeps fairies in the little one.

shark appliqué t-shirt for birthday #6. (11/11)

playing golf in it.

and a sailboat one too.

this is how you wear your birthday crown outside, in november, to eat cupcakes by your birthday bonfire.

not from this year, but you remember these, here it is being loved and used!

a crown for the kindergarten crush;
or betrothed, depending who you ask.

celebrating spring, the solstice and easter with another lazy day's skirt and a lion appliqué t-shirt; which was also the wrapping for "the invention of hugo cabaret", great book! 

collecting eggs with one of the turtle bags (right).

(i didn't make the sailboat bag, my mom got that at a store that sells local handmade.)

the lion shirt 

(at the children's zoo in central park, playing in the turtle eggs).

lazy day's skirt

a nice close up. i love the ribbon hem, it makes it so easy.

ok last one... i love paisley with polka dots.

there was some embroidery

this one you've seen.

there were pot holders galore, i must say i was ecstatic and nostalgic at the same time with these. especially after this first one when he said, "let's make one with a pattern" oh boy, yes! please, let's!

which brings us to birthday #4 (5/12). 

i made bean bags for the balance beam we got her.

(banner from the creative family). 

and a pink, sparkly, tulle lazy day's skirt.

one of two exceptions to the green birthday that was desired.

a green ukulele. 

i didn't make that, but if we're catching up i should tell you, it was a super green birthday.

with a new green bed.

the sibling crowns still being loved one year later for 4 and 6. 

and the other exception to the super green birthday; a sparkly red dress. (i didn't make that either, that was from a grandma)

then there was tie dye.

aaaand i think that brings us up to date. i think. it's been busy and fun. i hope you enjoyed. as always thank you to soule mama for her inspiration and books, and to you, for wanting to see what came of it.

happy handmaking!

this moment

{this moment} - Joining Soulemama's Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

gooooooo family!

last year i wrote about the first time i ever swam our lake. this event happens every year at the celebratory weekend of festivities. last summer was the first time we lived here for it, this summer it was awesome.

the weekend started with the lake swim, (wait, wait, wait! technically the weekend started with tom taking a long weekend from thursday, so we enjoyed the olympics, swam and floated had impromptu dinner with friends on the deck, fab fri and then on saturday...) i swam again and this time i was the only one in the under 40 women's division; so i got a trophy. which is just wrong and funny since every one of the 12 or so women in the over 40 swam it faster then me. but as one of them pointed out to me there were plenty of under 40's still in bed or at the nail salon (or, i was thinking, too tired from motherhood) and i should be proud for showing up and finishing strong. the best part was i shaved 6 minutes off my time from last year, which is huge!! especially for me who is never speedy. i can swim for a long, long time just not fast but i have been working on my breathing and endurance at a faster pace, so ok i'll take it. i only have a few more years till i'm where i belong at the bottom of the list in the over 40 anyway. my support boat was super cool, with tom, r and z cheering me on.

5/6 triathlon, r is 2nd from the right (photo by j.b.)

r participated in his first triathlon in the 5/6 group. he did great!! then came the sand games where the kids participated in a frozen t shirt contest, (nothing like a wet t shirt contest!) egg toss and sack relays. the adults got to play too, tom sack raced with total style points. even though i'm in the under 40 bracket these old lady joints can't take a sack race.

kids sack race gooooo r!

adult sack race goooo tom!! (photo by r.l.)

then came the best part. on friday night, for the first time, r swam the 25m lane from end to end with no break and no stopping. this is huge for him!!! then on saturday for the games he wanted to do the breast stroke race for the 8 and under. when z heard that, she wanted to do the kick board race (they let 5/6 year olds use a kick board and a buddy if they want it in the -8, she's 4). ok sure, let's do it, and they did it!!! they did great!! they were so proud of themselves and it was awesome to see the people that i grew inside of me swimming on their own with confidence. after the races they said they needed to do that again right away. good thing there was a family relay. they were begging us to do it, of course we did, even though the wind was picking up and one of us wanted to go sailing ;) so right after the adult freestyle race, where i swam in the lane between 1st and 2nd place, which was super fun and i wasn't last; i wore my american flag swim cap to cut down on the drag from my skirted tankini...

the family relay was amazing. it was the first time we did something like that as a team (besides a sailboat race) and it was so fun!! r did the first leg with his breast stroke, z did the 2nd with her kick board then me and then tom; our anchor, which is so right in so many ways. what a fun day. we were at the lake from 9am till 9pm, good, good times.

oh but they weren't over!! sunday am held the kids lake swim. tom and r were support boat for one of our swim counselors who swam so fast, she was second to reach the finish. then we prepared for the sister lake sailing challenge held at our lake this year. it was windy and perfect weather, tom and the sailing club defended their winning status from last year and fun was had by all, and we finished the weekend of encouraging and cheering for our family as a team and all of us in individual events where we all did our personal best.

tom got a new sail, it's the red and white stripes

we hung out, swam the lanes where r practiced his version of backstroke and freestyle while pretending to be michael phelps. then we came home to watch an awesome thunderstorm pass through with brought us a magnificent rainbow to finish off a great weekend with "gooooo team c" still being chanted in my head.

this moment

{this moment} - Joining Soulemama's Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

(it's got to be two this week. the baseball photo was taken by the sister)

the splinching revisited

this time last year* i wrote a status update on facebook that said, i had been splinched while disapparating. if you are not a fan of harry potter that is the term used when part of you is left in a place, ripped really from you, while the rest of you appears in the place you meant to go. i was, and it wasn't healing. it felt like it was my heart and soul.

what happened was we moved. and not in the ordinary way, it took about 3 years. which in hindsight was excruciating. we found an amazing place with an old, old, little house. we called my uncle to see what he thought. he's a contractor, a state inspector and well... my uncle, so we figured we could trust him. there was no way to salvage the place, it didn't even have a foundation, it was built as a summer cottage in 1925. he said to knock it down and start over. i was pregnant with our second child and we didn't really want to do that, but every time we stood in the yard we wanted to stay, so we went for it;  she was four months old when we signed the papers. then there were the permits.... tons of permits. we're in a protected area and on a lake so the town and the state were involved and well, imagine the dmv but slower and with more politics. i handled most of the paperwork. then i did most of the everything else handling of the tangible parts with two small kids in tow, while tom did the figuring and finagling parts along with his whole full time work support a family gig. it was amazing, exhausting and terrifying all at the same time. and that was just to get it built.

october 2008, r is almost 3

march 2010

then we moved in. and i thought: finally, it's over, we can relax. but that's not how it worked. to say the adjustment was hard on my people would be using vocabulary poorly. it was insane. my intense, brilliant boy went berserk, the independent baby girl clung.... everyone's center was knocked off balance. we moved on december 3, 2010. somewhere around october 15th 2011 i felt the shift of everyone finally feeling like we belong here, we were finally settling in. i kept eating chocolate everyday just to be sure.

then about a week after i felt us all shift into this new place we got slammed with an insane october snowstorm, had no power for days, nj was a mess. the trees still had their leaves, the weight of the snow just snapped the branches off. it was crazy. some of them had lost all of their branches and they laid in a circle surrounding the trunk. it was a sad time for trees. it was a very unsettling time for people who love trees. the day after our power came back we flew to phoenix for my brother's wedding. we came home to a 6th  birthday, thanksgiving, the holidaze. AND THEN phew, january; but our centers were still oscillating.

our first christmas 2010. i did the masonry on the fireplace myself. i loved building the hearth of my home with my own hands. i kept thinking about it as hearth=heart=warmth, i also kept thinking of charles ingalls building his hearths, i felt connected to humans building homes from animal skin tents to log cabins,  it was amazing to do. it was also really exhausting.

and now, now my friends, we're really settling in, and it's wonderful. i thought that in february, now in july it's even nicer. it's a beautiful thing to live life with more joy then stress.

july 2012, z 4, r 6 1/2

it is a beautiful and strange thing to never want to go anywhere anymore. i was born with wanderlust in my blood, tom was too. i've lived a lot of places, i've never wanted to stay anywhere, i've never really felt like i've wanted to.

i do now. we do now.

it feels weird to love a house, a stationary place so much. we love it here. here at these coordinates but also here in this space and time where we've chosen a life and a place to live it that supports everything we believe about how we want to raise our family, spending as much time together and enjoying each other within the pleasures of nature as we can.

i guess that's why it feels so good; it's home, an imagined home come true.

.......

we didn't get ice this year so tom was able to sail in every calendar month; that's him out there at the end of the rainbow and on christmas.

he also loves to be teaching the kids

the kids love being on and in the water

.......

*when i say last year i mean february 2011, i started writing this then, i'm still working on finding time for complete thoughts.

as i publish this today, i realize it's 7/28, i like that.

this moment

{this moment} - Joining Soulemama's Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.