“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.” -joining Soulemama!
Making + Listening: Blogger Swap Edition
MAKING (or made): I’ve finished my blogger swap gift and will hopefully be sending it out tomorrow. I did a little snooping around her blog and discovered she liked the color purple as well as lavender and was a big coffee fan as well (I’m hoping all these clues do not give it away), so with those things in mind I set to work on some hand-sewn coasters, so that she may have a lovely resting spot for those cups of early morning coffee. I made her a card of lavender with pen and watercolor and I had to throw in a bag of Ventura’s best local coffee as well. I’m hoping she enjoys these things. I know I sure enjoyed making them for her.
As for LISTENING: We are still heavy in Elizabeth Mitchell music. Ellie loves having it on in the morning to dance to, snack to and play to. I have had on George Winston’s Winter Into Spring record playing in the afternoons. It helps to relax me and helps to set a calmer mood for the rest of the day. And, I have to confess, life with a toddler has me quite out of the loop of musicals and movies (stuff before baby, I was very much current on). Well, I kept seeing all this talk about the new Disney movie Frozen on social media. I haven’t seen a movie, let alone a Disney movie in over 2 years, so I really had no clue this movie even existed. I know, I know. But, because of all the talk, I finally you tubed some clips and oh my goodness, I had no idea my favorite singer Idina Menzel was the vocal talent! And the music (that I’ve heard so far) is so very lovely. I may just have to sneak away sometime soon to see the movie for myself. And being a fan of Disney music like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, it will be fun to share some of my favorite songs and movies with Ellie one day.
-joining Dawn for her Make and Listen Along!
Flea Market Finds
Every Wednesday, you’ll find Ellie and I at the flea market. We spend the morning strolling through aisles of vendors peddling their antique or unwanted wares. We wait for the train to come by and wave at the commuters getting on and off and then head back into the marketplace to see if we can find any treasures. I look forward to Wednesday Flea Market day every week. I’m a sucker for garage sales and thrift stores and this is like one big thrifted garage sale rolled into one. Some days we leave with nothing and others we find fun little treasures for our home collections. We bring our treasures home, spiff them up and bring new life to them.
This week we found a few things:
Some lovely fabric scraps
Some New (old) records. I love George Winston and was excited to find his very appropriate Winter to Spring record as well as Autumn.
And we found this fun addition to our musical instrument collection for Ellie.
Some decent Flea Market finds today!
Valentine Goodies
I never shared the little Valentine goodies I made for Jeff and Ellie, so I thought I’d pop in real quick with some photos.
I whipped up a little batch of felt shapes sewn onto flannel for Ellie. She’s been really interested in shapes (specifically hearts, triangles and ovals). She has a lovely book about shapes that she brings to Jeff to read every night and also has a new-found love for her shape sorter we got as a Christmas gift. I thought having some soft little shapes to go up on her board might be fun.
I also discovered this wonderful book, thanks to my online breastfeeding support community. A beautiful story about the joys of extended breastfeeding.
When Ellie realized what the shape felt pieces were, she ran to her board and placed them on and then went to find her sorter and got out all of those shapes relating the two. This girl is a smart cookie!
For Jeff, I whipped up a little hand-sewn and embroidered banjo. I had been wanting to try my hand at embroidering a banjo for a while now and thought it would be a nice little gift for Valentines Day. He now has a banjo and a hop plant. I’m thinking about maybe putting these in a quilt for him one day. As for now, they’ll hang in his office or somewhere in the house and hopefully remind him of how much I love him. Here is the card I made for him too. Hope everyone out there had equally lovely Valentines Day’s. xoxo!!!
An Afternoon in the Gardens
Jeff took the day off of work, so after nap time we decided to go somewhere we had never been before. We picked up Nana and Papa on our way and headed to the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens. A lovely place for all of us to explore. Ellie enjoyed it very much, insisting on being barefoot and hiking down the rocky dirt paths ahead of us. This child loves the outdoors.
We were only there for maybe fifteen minutes before my camera battery ran out. Of course. So, half of these photos are iPhone photos. I was very bummed, because the beauty of this place made me itch for my regular camera. I was glad to have my iPhone though to at least document my silly girl enjoying nature.
It had been socked in with fog all morning down by the beach, but by the time we made it up to the hills of Santa Barbara, it was a beautiful, sunny day. The gardens had a lovely main meadow full of poppies and other California wildflowers and a path that took you through a coastal redwood forest.
It was like Disneyland for this little one. She wanted her shoes off so she could experience every sensation. There were rocks (and benches like this one) to climb and dirt paths to run along. When the trail got a little tricky she was not thrilled with Mama or Daddy when we tried to help her by carrying her. She wants to do it all by herself, all the time.
We will definitely be returning to the botanic gardens again. There was so much more we didn’t get to see before dinner and a long drive home came calling. A lovely afternoon in nature.
Weekending!
This Saturday we made our way back to the beach again with Nana and Papa and Auntie Lindsey. Ellie was in her element, scooping sand between her fingers and running along side of us down by the water. It was chilly be the time we made it down there but Ellie didn’t seem to mind in the least. We took a walk through the local marsh, hoping to spot some ducks and found pebbles, pretty flowers and interesting birds a long the way. Before heading back to Nana and Papa’s apartment, we did a little bit of antique-ing and shop browsing. Jeff found an old banjo record.
Sunday the weather was beautiful. The day started off rough when we attempted to eat out for breakfast and an 18 month old little person had other plans. But after a well needed nap, we enjoyed a beautiful day with the in-laws again, playing outside in the sensory tubs, taking a little bike ride (Ellie rode in the trailer we borrowed from a friend), dancing to some family banjo and guitar practice, folding linens and finishing the evening off with delicious homemade lentil chili.
How was your weekend?
– joining Amanda over at The Habit.
Portrait Project
7/52
eloise: My funny valentine. I never knew I could love someone so very small, so very much. You have my heart sweet girl!
-joining Jodi for the 52 project!
{this moment}
“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.”
– joining SouleMama
Happy Valentine’s Day to each and everyone of you!
Making + Listening: Valentine’s Edition
MAKING: There has been lots of making and listening around these parts. Now that Ellie is feeling better we’ve had some painting sessions…
And some afternoon walks where we collected sticks for another Simple Things Notebook inspired nature craft. Ellie did the stick collecting, I did the hot glueing.
And the big project I’m working on is putting together something special for the blogger swap. After spending an evening visiting all of the blogs involved in the swap, I can tell you I am a little worried my contribution won’t match up. These bloggers are AMAZING at what they do! I started working on a set of hand-sewn coasters to begin with. I’m excited about the fabrics. A couple of them are from the Downton Abbey collection which I find just lovely. I hope my blogger swap partner will find them lovely too.
LISTENING: Little Bird has been on repeat for many days now, but we have also managed to have some classical playing in the evenings with dinner. I had picked up a lovely french classical c.d. on my honeymoon in Paris. It used to reside in my classroom and was played often in the early mornings upon the children’s arrival. Now it’s come full circle. Playing in my own home for my own daughter to enjoy.
-joining Dawn for Making + Listening!
Little Birds
Ever since those regular beach days we had a few weeks ago and chasing sea gulls over the sand, Ellie has been noticing birds a lot more. While she was sick we you-tubed some Elizabeth Mitchell music videos and one of them was this one. She loved it so much we downloaded the album (I, myself am a big Mitchell fan so downloading the whole album was no big deal) and Little Bird, Little Bird has been on repeat ever since. I have also been wanting to replace the hot air balloon residing in our master bedroom (we have three from Ellie’s birthday, placed all over the house) with something a bit more natural looking. I loved Dawn’s Alphabet Glue migration birds and I thought it might be something my 18 month old and I could work on together. I cut out some card stock birds using the pattern from Alphabet Glue and let Ellie paint away (this child surprises me every time with her painting skills. She knew to stay right on the birds and did a marvelous job).
And during an afternoon nap one day this past week, I was able to sneak away long enough to paint two of my own little birds. I used our Western Bird Field Guide as inspiration and decided to try for a sea gull look inspired by Ellie and my favorite beach visits.
My pictures do not showcase the light, airy colors Ellie and I both chose. It’s hard photographing a mobile.
But, I’m enjoying it hanging in the bedroom next to the nightstand. It gives the room a natural feel with the beachy stick we found on our weekend seal walk and it makes me happy to think that Ellie and I both worked on it. Ellie smiles and signs “bird” every time she sees it.
summerplayshouse 