Just checking in

Good morrow everyone! 

Spring break is upon us and you are overdo for a dalton family update!

Since our last meeting, we have been iced in, rained out, snowed on, iced again and now flooded as everything tried to thaw and dry out. And naturally, thunderstorms are on the horizon as we begin tornado season. Don't be surprised if you hear about dallas and Mosquitos in the news a lot this spring. It's gonna be a bad one.

That said, we planted our early spring crops just before the first freeze and everything survived! At least until the chickens jumped the fence, ate the kale and thinned out the lettuce. Everything else is going strong and I plan on getting the rest in the ground as soon as possible. Which is difficult for me as I have commitment issues with silly things like plants and stickers and scrap fabric. I mention this because we have started the process of buying a house. I loathe doing all the work of putting in an amazing, organic, square foot garden thoughtfully companion planted and rotated from last years planting just to leave it all for someone else who may not appreciate, or eat, any of the produce.

*Le sigh*

But with scrap fabric! I am bound and determined to turn this pile into a skirt, 3 dresses and a car seat cover! Hopefully I can get it all done before we find our new home.

Also, taking apart that bunk bed again is not on the top of My Fun Things To Do list. But at least the kids sleep in their room for a while now. 

There's always more paper

So i used to write a blog, fairly regularly even. This blog to be precise. I know I warned you it might be quiet for a bit while I tended to other creative areas in my life, but I didn't mean to go dark! Sorry!! 

I did put a pause on practicing my photography skills and since the painting class has an online discussion forum, I've been focusing my energies there and completely blowing off this space. The baby has hit that toddler phase when all photos are blurry anyway and the big girl has been in school so when she's home she's been painting with me and we haven't had much to share here. 

I did want to share about a recent project we completed. Our library sponsors a preschool art workshop once a month that currently doesn't allow paint brushes. Basically, the librarian reads a book about brushing your teeth and we paint with toothbrushes. That sort of idea. This time we heard a story about a girl who doesn't want to comb her hair and then we used combs to paint with. As we sat waiting for our turn with the bowl of purple paint, I decided to follow my intuition and just grab the bottle and squirt a glob on each of our papers and see what happened. I noticed some of the other participants were having a hard time releasing the need to make recognizable shapes with the edges of the comb in a similar fashion to using a artist's brush. I grabbed the nearest comb and said loud enough for the frustrated patents to hear "let's see what happens when we use this side of the comb. There's plenty of paper." My daughters and I started combing the paint up and down and back and forth across the page watching deep lines appear. On a hunch I grab a few other colors and squirted more globs on the page and combed the colors together in a square fashion. As I did this I double checked that my oldest had enough paper and was okay staying firmly in her Purple Phase and that my youngest hadn't eaten any of the tempura. As I glanced between the two I noticed the little boy sitting near us abandon his need to make purple stars and blue rectangles. He grabbed a new piece of paper and used a spoon to slap down a glob of red paint and began to experiment. The stress that had been building in his mom's shoulder melted as she noticed him engaging thoroughly into the activity. We kept adding more colors and started swirling the colors in a big circle. I stopped just before everything completely mixed to brown and began washing all the chairs that bore the mark of a visit from my youngest.

 

 Something about that experience didn't agree with my typical recycling of my paper afterwards- discarding coffee filter hats and recycling ice paintings usually leave me guilt-free but this one wouldn't let go. So I brought it home with me to find that the assignment for my painting class was to paint from my center, or from my natural state. 

I believe my natural state is one of curiosity as I find peace, joy and fulfillment in searching for answers to questions, even unspoken questions. I also enjoy watching children explore, guided by their curiosity, uninhibited by what they "should" be discovering. That said, I used the piece we started at the library for this project. I sat down at the kitchen table and just began to fill in the empty spots with whatever color called to me. My oldest came up to me and started suggesting which shapes to include, saying it needs more pink. I followed her lead and when she asked if she could help me paint I knew we were on the right track. 

I have a hard time letting her help me with my creative projects. I wasn't encouraged to explore painting or other drawing activities as a kid and so I am conscious of accidentally discouraging her creative interests. I want her to feel free to express herself however she needs to but at the same time I want to own my own creative needs and paint according to my own intuition and spirit. So when she asks' "mama, can I help you?" I have to answer carefully. "What shapes should I paint?" "Would you like to try this on your own paper?" But in this case, i let her help make some embellishments and this was our result

And so with that, I want to encourage you to try something new guided by that little voice that says "do it!" Some times it's hard to hear this voice under all the negativity and demands on your time, but it's there. Trust it. Amazing things are inside your spirit waiting to get out. And there is always more paper.

A beautiful mess

"What a beautiful mess. What a beautiful mess I'm in." ~ Diamond Rio

Lately I'm finding myself feeling comfortable in the fullness of motherhood. I do miss the free Maiden of my youth from time to time but I'm willing to bet this is normal, healthy even. Every so often tapping into that youthfulness helps me remember to laugh, puts household stress in the appropriate place and renews my creativity and playfulness so I can better connect with my children, my partner, my Self. 

But ah motherhood. The nurturing of others, the constant raw emotions that hurt for children the world over, the moving into wisdom that only comes through experience. I do have to remind myself to let my inner Crone, that contentment with staying home and doing things my way all that time and getting stuck in routines, I have to let her stay asleep just a bit longer. My children are small. Yes, they benefit from routines and wisdom and the security of knowing momma has done this before, but I benefit from not getting stuck.

I am curious how, now that I have two, I feel more comfortable with this role. With the coming of motherhood and my first child I was not comfortable being at home all the time, allowing boredom to sneak in and force inner quiet and personal creativity. Now that my second child has enter toddlerhood and doesn't need me as much as she did in infancy (and boy do they NEED you then!) I feel a little more space in my days. A little more spontaneity returning. A healthier blend of maiden and mother energy. It's freeing, like the feeling of coming of age with new horizons to explore. 

So, with this new accepted growth comes a new adventure. I'm taking an online painting course that is challenging not only my creativity but also my psyche. We are exploring metaphysical themes, having philosophical discussions and painting through our questions to our answers.

It has already been a beautiful experience highlighting just how unbalanced my home life truly  is! Food is being prepared, laundry and chores are being maintained, sick children are being tended to, but yet the house is a constant disaster. I'm taking a few minutes to read assignments in the morning, Emagene and I paint and create through Aoife's nap, and then I join in the online discussions while Pete bathes the girls. All times when I used to run around putting up toys and folding other people's laundry and other general tidying. You can imagine the state of my house! Why does including daily self care mean the highlighting of everyone else's need for MY care? Ah motherhood. 

I wish you could see the state of my soul! 

It is healing. Reconnecting my maiden and mother, searching for a way to include the crone so the rest of my family doesn't implode from the stress of living in chaos.  It is a beautiful mess. I may be absent a bit from here and from Facebook during this month-long class but I will return, hopefully full of bliss and ready for a more balanced, creative approach to life, especially now that the weather has changed to perfect and the children have learned how to play together.  

May your soul find wings and laughter in every day!

New dresses

It was warm last week, just for a couple of days, and this momma got a touch of Spring Fever. Naturally, I decided crafting was way more interesting than the spring cleaning that actually needed to get done.

Photo courtesy of Emagene

With a bit of help from Mr Kitty I managed to get a few things off the machine rather quickly.

 

Emagene's dress, which twirls nicely, is Simplicity pattern 6204 and was comfortably simple to sew. I even managed a zipper without my zipper foot!  (I have a box of extra feet and bits but they've been used to keep little hands because between the helpful moments of pushing the backstittch button and I do believe some crucial parts to fancy feet have gone missing.)

 

Aoife's dress was a little something I made up based on one those free patterns you can get at JoAnn's while you're waiting  your turn at the cutting counter. The original pattern consisted of sewing two bandannas together and adding shoulder ties. I just measured my child and cut fabric to fit her and then followed the pattern's sewing instructions for armhole placement and called it good.

 She seems to like it.

Knitted lovelies!

In all this nasty cold weather I've been wearing this to stay warm:

It's a knitted headband my sister made. I love it! I knew you would too so here's the link to her etsy shop where you can go get one for yourself. http://www.etsy.com/listing/117503075/knitted-headband-with-crocheted-flower

She makes other things too but since I don't knit I only hound her for things made of yarn. She made one for emagene too! 

Season of learning

So we've entered the season of darkness. The time of year spent indoors. The perfect time of year for learning; specifically for learning a new handcraft or skill.

Last year I refreshed my embroidery skills with a little motivation from this project by SouleMama and this project I found at JoAnn's. And while I worked on it often, I was out of practice and literally had to pull out and resew nearly very stitch. So it still looks like this:

The previous year my writing and photography skills were developed when I start this blog. 

Before that I was preparing for my first days as a mother. 

Before that was mostly career and school related.

So what shall I look into learning this year? Well, I've always wanted to write a book of some kind. Perhaps this season will be spent researching a topic and engaging in writing practices and challenges. Perhaps when spring comes I'll have something to show from my practice and research.

Perhaps.

But then again, I asked Pete to get me a guitar for my birthday...

What's tugging at the edges of your curiosity this season?

This week's Mash Up

He was kicked out of the bedroom during the great flea war of spring and still protests his exile by stealing any sleeping area he can. He also laid across the laptop keyboard when I was typing and he had given up asking politely for breakfast. We were completely out of cat food. Oops!

The beginnings of something wonderful. Hopefully.

On the topic of Aoife, Emagene sums it up well: eat, poop, cry, fart, sleep.

Other Emagene sound bites:

"Swings go faster. Fans go higher" 

While Pete is talking with the baby, "I'm trying to eat here, dad!"

My living room after kids.

Taking Advantage of Awesome City Programming

i just found this end of summer nightcap hiding in the drafts folder.  Thought I had posted this just after Labor Day! So... Better late than never. Enjoy!

Our rec center is awesome! This community is extremely homeschool friendly and, as half the population is college kids, the city keeps its kids' programs alive by making them super affordable! We were able to go to a pool at least once a week, attend an Ooey Gooey Crafts program every other week, and take a weekly tap class without going broke.

Here's a story in pictures of our summer fun, putting our municipal taxes to good use!

A wet and crafty time

It's summer reading program time. At our local library this means reading 20 minutes a day for 10 days, turning in a log and getting a prize. It also means story time at the local water park or story time at the library. We choose the library because I just don't want to deal with having to leave the water park by a certain time with my little mermaid, or risk a meltdown versus paying the day use rate for the park. Fairly standard summer reading program stuff. 

Weekly storytime is a program we attend all year long. They have a theme of the day with 3 books, a handful of songs and rhymes, and a puppet show. The whole thing lasts about 30 minutes, which is perfect for the 1-5 year range it's aimed at. They pass out song sheets with a list of suggested titles to further explore the theme at home. But my favorite thing by far is the play to increase literacy ideas on the back of the sheet. Since this week's theme was bath time stories, the play idea was obviously homemade bath tub paints. 

We moved into our house a little over a year ago and inherited the last guy's kitchen cleaners. Being am Eco-friendly family, we haven't used his dish soaps at all. Well, we did use one bottle of dish soap to make bubbles and today we used the other to make the paint. A bit of soap, some cornstarch, a few drops of food coloring and we have a rainbow of bath time magic. 

We just got back from a preschool craft class at the rec center earlier in the week that featured finger paints, so this activity worked well on a hot Friday afternoon after grocery shopping all day. Not to mention that my painter is also my fish, what better way to mix her favorite activities than a cool bath and Wall paints??

Naturally I helped a bit, but she thoroughly enjoyed the freedom to get messy and create! 

Add a warm shower and a rag, and my bathtub actually came out cleaner in the end

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I'm sure you can find recipes for this stuff all over Pinterest and other craft center blogs. I won't clutter the interwebs with a repeat recipe, but I will pass on a tip from my childern's librarian: food coloring works the best as a paint dye. Some mixes call for tempura paints or other color additives, stick with the food coloring. And let the kids mix it in. It's fun to watch the paint turns colors as you stir!

Busy bags

One of the ladies in my community posted this link with the awesome idea of doing a busy bag party ourselves. If you have no idea what a busy bag is, I suggest following the link, but I will give you a brief overview.

Busy bags are educational, mind enriching, activity bags that are self contained, easily transportable and usually homemade. Seriously, that link above is full of amazingness!!

So in preparation for our gathering and swapping of bags, I made a mini felt board.

As you can see the board and all it's pieces fit inside a ziplock bag and can easily be stuffed into a diaper bag or purse and taken along for use on plane rides, in waiting rooms, in the car or at home when mom is burnt out of ideas.

As I gathered felt and hot glue, I searched for inspiration on how to make the board part not a flimsy, frustrating mess for a 2-year old strapped into a carseat. I didn't find any help, so I'm gonna share what I did, in case someone else goes looking.

First: I started by cutting the sheets of felt into quarters.

Then I sized cut up pieces of cereal boxes to hot glue between the pieces of felt, making enough for all 10 Momma's that would be at the bag swap on Saturday (everyone makes a different batch and then we all get together, swap them and leave with 10 new activities to entertain and stimulate our children's brains).

Afterwards, I hot glued a box piece to one piece of felt and then glued the other piece of felt over the board, sealing the edges and making it a reversible board.

Finally, I cut out random shapes that fit the scale of the board and could easily be used for creating multiple scenes. 

Naturally the next step was to let Emagene try it out and see if it "worked." Apparently it does!

 The turtle and flower blossom are from a set of felt stickers I found at Joann's fabrics. They were too cute not to include, but i highly recommend de-sticky-ing them by rubbing them on the carpet or something. They are easily reusable stickers, unless they stick together at which point separating them is nearly impossible!

And there you have it, my go at busy bags.