Seven Quick Takes

~1~

We have an odd relationship with sleep around here. There's some unwritten rule around here that SOMEONE has to be sleepless- because of the 18-month sleep regression it was Ezra for the longest  time, then for the last two weeks it has been Ender waking and needing extra cuddles. If it's not them, it's me. The nights everyone else sleeps I'm wide awake until all hours- like tonight. I'm estimating a 2 a.m. bedtime for myself. The boys were in bed around 8, Superman passed out from exhaustion around 9:30 after a strenuous viewing of half of a Deep Space Nine episode.

~2~

Wanna know why I'm not sleeping? Because the studio has it's yearly formal recital on Sunday- 43 students performing, plus me on one piece. Everyone is as ready as possible, but I have all the details floating around in my brain about punch bowls, napkins, microphones, music stands, sheet music . . . lists are made for all these things but my mind can't leave it all alone. Plus there's the whole "dreaming about the recital" aspect that makes the prospect of sleep that much more fun. Really- how many times can you dream about performing a never-ending piece?

~3~

That sweet boy "smelling" the flowers? He's actually blowing on them. He has watched us all smell them a dozen times so to make the sniffing noise he blows on them. It's the sweetest little gesture! Oh, and flowers can only be properly enjoyed if you're sitting on top of the dining room table.

~4~

I'll resume posting Montessori work and other work for three year olds next week. I know I've been leaning toward crafting and toddler-ness for the last few weeks, but there's also the simple fact that I haven't presented very much in the way of new work to Ender in the last few weeks. Would it possibly have to do with the wee bit o' exhaustion I've been experience after getting up with Ezra 4+ times each night for a few months (curse the sleep regression!)? One might suspect that . . . Ender has been working with Explode the Code and the pink series each day,  but other than that we haven't had a regular work period. The plan is for that to resume post-recital-craziness.

~5~

Head over to Chasing Cheerios to see the felt button board Melissa made for her daughter to use in practicing buttoning. I'm thinking I could make something like this with cars and trucks for the buttons . . . hmmm

~6~

You know that stash I told you about the other day? I chopped into it last night. The beautiful Red/pink Jennifer Paganelli fabric is going to be an apron for myself and the green Anna Maria Horner fabric is mostly going for an apron for my soon-to-be sister-in-law. Speaking of Anna Maria Horner, did you see Soulemama's throw she made from Horner's Good Folks line? I may be a little jealous.

~7~

One more big thing on my mind? Ezra has to return to our pediatrician next week for a follow-up from his 18-month visit. They want at least 5-10 words at 18 months, my son had 0, unless you count grunting. The child can certainly get his point across with a few well timed grunts! He now uses four words regularly (Mama, Dada, Bubba, Baby), but I'm sure they'll expect even more from him now that he is 21 months and I'm sure he'll be his stubborn self and refuse to demonstrate any language for them at all. He thinks that's funny, you know. What a cheeky sense of humor, my little boy has. Superman and I are quite sure that Ezra can speak and just refuses to do so since he knows it would please us if he would spill a few words.

I expect that they'll recommend speech intervention. A large part of me is saying that he is way too young to be worrying about this. He's a boy after all, and many boys are later to talk. He is able to communicate with us in other ways and follows directions when he feels like it, so we know he can hear and understand us. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the recommendation is and go from there.

Be sure to visit Jen's place to check out more Quick Takes.

Little Drummer Boy

I'm rehearsing to go into the recording studio in a few weeks. Last week when my baby sitter canceled at the last minute and none of the grandparents were available the band graciously agreed to meet at my place. Ender loved the djembe (and I love the drummer for thinking it was cool for my son to play on his instruments after a quick lesson on how to treat them!). Ender helped us out on a verse or two until his aunt was able to get here half way through rehearsal.

Stashed

So . . . I made it to those new stores last Friday. There was a lot of hobbling and my sisters lent me their shoulders a few times to get up and down stairs, but the important thing is that there was shopping done. Good shopping.

The four pieces at the top of the picture are for Christmas stockings. Yes, I'm already planning for Christmas and I'm trying hard not to cast on any Christmas knitting until at least July. Okay- maybe June. Seriously- my Christmas handmades list is already ridiculously large and there is NO WAY I can get it all done. But the rule is that I don't have to whittle the list down until Thanksgiving is staring me in the face.

The green and pink/red prettiness at the bottom is for aprons- one for my future sister-in-law who is joining the family in May and the other for myself since I seem to make aprons in pairs like that. Not sure why, but I do.

I also did well at the most amazing yarn shop, but I can't share my stash- my mom took it! I intended to buy 5 skeins, 3 for a baby gift I need to knit this summer and 2 skeins of Claudia Handpainted yarn that I want for socks for myself. I went to the counter to buy it and my mom took over, told me it was my birthday gift and I could have the stash in June.  Actually it's good- I have all kinds of sewing that needs to be done between now and early June and if I have that yarn hanging around I will cast on NOW. The sewing is of the "must-be-done" variety (pajamas for the boys, summer shorts, etc.) so I suppose it's good that I not be tempted by yummy yarns.

Easter Bunny Baskets

I hope your Easter was great! We had a lot of rain here so we ended up hunting eggs inside. Ezra got the hang of the egg hunt pretty quickly, but once he realized that there was candy inside of some of the eggs he was done searching! Ender was determined to find the most eggs and even the mention of candy wouldn't slow him down.

The Easter bunny brought us:



And inside Ezra's basket:



And inside Ender's basket:



The Easter bunny doesn't bring very much candy to our house because he's busy carrying it all to the grandparents!

I found the pattern for the bunny baskets at The Crafty Crow and altered it to be exactly the size I wanted. I used not quite 2 fat quarters per bunny basket, though you could also line the baskets with muslin. This is also the first embroidery I've ever done. It's not the most wonderful looking thing in the world, but I liked it well enough to learn to do more.

The little froggy in Ezra's basket is a pattern from the purlbee.com What a super fast project- maybe 30 minutes from cut to finish stuffing? It took longest to get the stuffing all the way into the bottom of the feet. The pattern calls for lentils or other bean bag type material, but we have a lot of bean bag type toys around here so I opted for stuffing.

I hope you all had a happy Easter!