Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Not my child.


Clearly this is not my child. No child of mine would display such enthusiasm when presented with broccoli.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Feelin' Crafty...

Definitely better than feeling crappy!

Thanks to a perfect storm of inspiration, I decided to try my hand at felting sweaters. I'd seen a kid's vest on a blog that I follow, and after felting a whole bunch of sweaters from my grandmother (felted cashmere, ohmygod) I noticed that an old, wool, royal purple sweater (that I had worn for the better part of 10 years) felted down to pretty much the perfect vest size for Charlotte. So I sliced off the arms and cut up the middle, and suddenly, a new vest was born. I do want to put some sort of closure on it, though.


Difficult to get a good picture of it, since she steadfastly refuses to hold still these days. And, I just noticed that she only has on one shoe. Curious.

Felting things and upcycling the result is officially my new fave. I'm 3/4 done with a pillow cover out of some cashmere sweaters, and honey, let me tell ya, I'm obsessed!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Eight months

I know, she's now nine months. What can I say?

To recap:


Now:

She likes:
eating food
moving
putting everything in her mouth

She dislikes:
Holding still (still)
Diaper changes
Missing out on anything

She's been so, so busy this month. Crawling and cruising are some of her favorite things to do. She taught herself how to walk with the Winnie-the-Pooh walker on loan from our friend and neighbor, and Winnie is her buddy. Charlotte's got that daycare-kid runny nose and cough all the time now, and we love she hates the NoseFrida.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Late Fall Weekend

My dear friend Lottie came up (from the wilds of Brooklyn!) to visit this past weekend. I picked her up at the train station in Poughkeepsie, and we went to the Mid-Hudson Children's Museum. Even though Charlotte was developing a double ear infection, she seemed to have a great time. The Museum is definitely geared towards bigger kids - at least, kids that are walking - but they had a room for the under-three crowd that was super fun.

I'm not sure who was having more fun here...

They also had this cool water table that was a model of the Hudson River. The concept was well over Charlotte's head, but she had a good time splashing.

After playing for close to two hours, we went to get lunch. Charlotte enjoyed her Cheerios, as always. Lottie and I enjoyed our sandwiches.

The following day, Charlotte's cold was not getting any better, so she slept a lot. After her morning nap, we took a quick trip up to the playground so we could go on the swings - her new favorite thing, truly.
You can tell she really wasn't feeling too great, but me, I was loving up my cuddly baby! Hat tip to Lottie for snagging this photo.

Then, we took a trip to Brewery Ommegang and Fly Creek Cider Mill.

And I finally got a shot of Charlotte with pumpkins.

All she wanted to do was eat the stems. All Lottie and I wanted to do was enjoy the 40+ samples that Fly Creek has in their store.

We had such a good time with Auntie Lottie. She's one of those friends who are really more like family: the family you choose! Charlotte thought she was great.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Week Eight: Year of Less

  • I put three towels in the donate pile, and one in the rag bag.
  • I took out three boxes from the coat closet.
Incidentally, I cleaned off the top shelf of the fridge, too, and cleaned the tub, and vacuumed at least twice. I think that's enough activity for one week. Ha.

Week eight's goal is not so tangible. I'm going to try to
  • not move onto another task before finishing the first. 
The very thought of this rankles me, but it's got to happen.

Friday, November 2, 2012

I'm nothing if not obedient.

(HAHAHA let's all laugh at that one).

Since Kiki was bummed there weren't any pics of Charlotte in the last post, I present you with this:
Charlotte in a bonnet. With her Winnie-the-Pooh-Walker/constant companion.

The bonnet was made by a woman whose blog I read religiously. I did a custom order through her Etsy shop, KnittingMomma (Natural Earth Farm and Fiber Studio). She also knit us a most delightful little vest, which I'm sure will be in a post at some point. And, bonus - for the next week, they will be donating 10% of their sales to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund. I may do some Christmas shopping there.

Happy Friday!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Weeks Six and Seven - Year of Less

So in Week Five, I decided to not assign myself any new goals. I'm so thankful I did, because leaving for three days really messed up my schedule.

It took me a full week to get my head back above water. Houseguests this past weekend helped force the issue of a "clean" house, which was helpful. Charlotte's tendency to put every.single.thing in her mouth, including cat litter, forces me to vacuum more often than normal, which is also helpful.

Additionally, unnecessary prep for Sandy was a blessing in disguise, as I got all the dishes and all the laundry done in advance of the storm. It's still in baskets, though. That's a never-ending struggle.

I have to dial back the number of goals, I think. Three goals a week is not particularly sustainable. A, I'll never actually achieve them all. B, I'll run out before the year is up. So in the spirit of reasonableness:

  • Reduce the number of towels in our towel cupboard to 8. There's only 2.5 of us in the house. Why do we have over twelve towels? 
  • Purge the coat closet. Why are there empty boxes in there? Why are there coats in there with the tags still attached? 
There! That seems manageable.