Ribbon-Tied Oxfords

I had already put a pair of little girl's brown boots in my shopping cart at the thrift store, when Phoebe seized these little brown oxfords.  She insisted that she wanted them, not the boots.  I usually ignore such requests because she changes her mind back and forth about five times every time there's a decision. Literally every time.

But when I threaded ribbons in them instead of their brown laces, Phoebe and I were truly thrilled. We call them her "ribbon shoes" and she loves wearing them.  Three dollars from the thrift store and a few minutes of lacing - I'm pleased!

Let's Do Our Phoebes!

About a year ago, my husband started doing push-ups with Phoebe on his back for extra weight.  Then he added the lifts you see in the video (be sure to note the way he extends up on to his toes at the top of the lift). 

He also dips Phoebe behind his back. 

Phoebe adores ordering her daddy to the floor to "do our Phoebes!" She usually counts out loud, incorrectly but with great purpose, for him.

All of this strength training is good for him, fun for Phoebe, and 100% free (if you don't add up the cost of feeding and housing a toddler - let's not - otherwise, very thrifty strength training).

Every day Phoebe gets incrementally older and heavier - how many years can they keep this up? 

A Beatrix Potter Blouse for Phoebe

There are two Peter Rabbit buttons and two Jemima Puddleduck buttons, compliments of my mother-in-law redding out her button stash. 

The blouse fabric was given to me by a blog reader - I think it's actually vintage feedsack in a charming flower.  I love that Phoebe has this pretty blouse to wear under her denim jumper or overalls, or with this sweet little fair isle cardigan that Genevieve wore when she was little.

Instead of buttoned cuffs like that pattern called for, I just put elastic in bias-tape casing inside the wrists.  So much faster to sew and also faster to put on a toddler who has lots of postcards to read, marbles to roll, and dollies to tend.  And clothes to take off.  That girl.  She rarely keeps the same clothes on from morning to night if she can get into her dresser drawer without me noticing.

Pattern Weights from Ben

What do you say when someone asks you what you want as a gift?  I'm old-fashioned and don't like wish lists and telling people, although I'm modern enough to appreciate clear, direct communication of wants and needs.  So I usually come up with a few gift ideas and add clear permission to the giver to go off-list.  And I harangue my children about gifts being just that: gifts, not obligations, and to give and receive out of love.

I think Ben was listening.

He asked for tempera paint in December and set about painting rocks, leading me to fume about where these things would end up catching dust or require someone (me) to pick them up.  Thank goodness I kept my fuming inside, because this dear boy was making the rocks for me, for an eminently practical use.

"dear mom
You are always using Phoebe's toys to weight down your sewing patterns. So here are some rocks to help you with that
love, Ben"



I was so touched at his thoughtful observance of my machinations and his excellent, homemade gift that does, indeed, help me out.

It pinches my heart a little bit to think that I will be using these pattern weights long after there are no toys laying around in the dining room. 

Phoebe's House

Genevieve seized the big box that her Christmas beanbag chair came in and made it into a house for Phoebe.  She did it swiftly with a box cutter and so effectively with the fold-up door and a handhold. Let us not overlook the curtain, either.

Phoebe was thrilled. She wore her new red socks, fresh off my knitting needles, and sat down for a good play with her doctor kit.  I used the same pattern as before, with thrift-store red wool.

Flushed with success, Genevieve made a more ambitious cardboard structure, a boat of sorts, for her little cousin.  I am afraid it may have gotten smashed in the presents' melee at my parents' house, but no one seemed upset.

Gingerbread Cookies and Snow

I made the gingerbread dough and turned it over to Ben and Genevieve, who fought over it and cut out cookies.  I helped Phoebe cut out a few cookies, too.  Genevieve was so excited to do these cookies, even though she doesn't like them all that much, because she says they are Christmas at our house.  I guess we have traditions now!

This year, I tweaked the recipe just slightly and they got so good!  Plus, the kids did the cookie decorating, too, and landed on a genius flavor combination.  Genevieve made a simple powdered sugar frosting for the cookies and sprinkled crushed candy canes on top. Pow! The spicy cookies plus the sweet frosting plus the sharp peppermint:  so delicious.

Gingerbread cookies and snow - so festive! The children even had a two-hour delay and sledding out of the snow, so they were thrilled.

Gingerbread Cookies - from Colonial Williamsburg, tweaked a bit by me
Stir together in large bowl:
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

Stir in:
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup melted shortening
1/2 cup heavy cream (or evaporated milk)
1 cup blackstrap unsulfured molasses
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
2-4 drops food-grade lemon essential oil (or 3/4 tsp. lemon extract)

Stir in 1 cup at a time, mixing after each cup:
2 cups whole wheat all-purpose flour
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Dough should be stiff enough to handle and not too sticky - may add up to 1/2 cup of flour if needed.

Roll to 1/4" thickness on floured surface.  Cut into shapes. Place on silpat-lined baking sheets (or greased). Bake 375 for 10 minutes, just until top springs back when touched.

Phoebe Rocks Her Vintage Sunday Coat and Bonnet

This coat and bonnet on our little Phoebe-bird is so perfect. Rebecca found the coat and bonnet and, wait for it, overall snowpants, while I was pregnant with Phoebe. I remember our delight over the style of the whole thing: the pleats, pearly buttons, blonde fur collar, the bonnet the bonnet the bonnet.

Phoebe was not yet named, was not yet known to be a blonde firecracker with charming manners, but this coat planted a vision in my mind of such a little girl.  And here she is.  I have no more words for how much I love her.

An Unexpected Thanksgiving

I've been through colds with my children before, but never have I seen them sink so dramatically from robust health into pneumonia (Ben) and prolonged fever and coughing that stumps the doctors, even after labs and bloodwork (Genevieve). Phoebe continues to cough and cry.  I continue in health, thank God, because someone has to make tempting snacks and tea and new bribes for forcing liquids at all hours, piling up the little dishes and cups in the sink and washing washing washing laundry and dishes. And don't forget the myriad runs to various medical establishments (my husband had to go on a 2-day business trip in there, too) and food stores to coax the healthy color back into the sickies' faces again.

We realized the necessity of canceling all Thanksgiving plans with extended family on Wednesday afternoon.  Sitting with Genevieve in the hospital lab, I quickly sketched a menu that I thought could work to make Thanksgiving at home traditional and doable. I flew down to market, forgetting its holiday hours, and got there in time to see it shuttered.  I begged the meat stand to quickly sell me something, anything, and got a chicken just before he drove off.  There was just one produce stand with all its boxes packed, but Laura dug through her boxes in full sympathy and good cheer to find what I needed. 

For years, I have wished to cook an entire Thanksgiving feast with everything exactly to my taste, recipes researched, rejected, and chosen with care, ingredients gathered for weeks ahead, and linens fussed over and prepped.  And here I was, thrown into my own feast in less than 24 hours with lethargic children coughing in the other room. 

So I am thankful for things I was not expecting to be thankful for this season: for skilled doctors who use their diagnostic tools well, sympathetic nurses, supportive parents and family who jump in with childcare and errands, the relative health and incremental recovery of my children, an abundance of food from kind market sellers, and all the big things that underpin our lives that I can take for granted.

What are you thankful for this season?

Ben, Tucked Up in Blankets

He's home sick from school today with a nasty cold.  The weather is mild - the air smells fresh and the sun is going in and out of the clouds.  My husband suggested that Ben read on the balcony to blow the germs out of his lungs.  So, with hot tea and a good book, chosen, I am sure, for his interest and not for the irony, he got himself snug on the balcony loveseat.

He's not the only who's coughing and complaining in our family just now.  I have escaped the pestilence (so far! knock on wood!).  I tell them all to force clear liquids, even in they're not thirsty, to get lots of sleep, and wash their hands before touching anything other people touch.  At night, they use humidifiers and homemade cough syrup (it's worth clicking on that link just to see 3-year-old Ben!). 

When I was growing up, Mom would have us take Vitamin C to help our immune systems.  What's the modern equivalent?  What do you give your people to boost their immunity in the season of lots of people inside sharing germs with each other?

Portraits of a 12-Year-Old

For God created her inmost being;

God knit her together in my womb.

I praise God because she is fearfully and wonderfully made;

God's works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

Her frame was not hidden from God

when God made her in the secret place,

when she was woven together in the depths of the earth.

God's eyes saw her unformed body;

All the days ordained for her were written in God's book

before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16 but I changed the voice/pronouns

And that's a Bonnie Butter marble cake from Betty Crocker's cookbook that she made entirely herself and tinted the yellow part pink.  It was delicious.

Bigger Felted Slippers for Phoebe

I measured Phoebe's feet again and used the last of the felted fuchsia sweater to make her some slipper-boots.  I used this excellent tutorial again.

I wanted to embellish the boots somehow, but I drew a total blank - perhaps in the urgency of just getting the baby's feet warm?

And until I get some puff paint or non-skid sole fabric, Ben ice skates her around the house on her slippery slippers.  Ill-advised, I know, but hilarious.

A Green Cloak for Ben

This cloak came about because Ben was dragging a fleece blanket everywhere around the house this fall.  My husband jokingly suggested I should make Ben a cape.  This made sense on every level to me. So I bought 4 yards of green fleece (his favorite color) and set to work.  I used a girl's size 6 pattern that I had already, just lengthening it and moving the arm-slits down a bit.  I have plans to make a wool cloak for Genevieve so I will show you the pattern then. The fleece was so easy to work with because it doesn't fray.  No hem needed! Ben found the perfect green buttons in my stash.

Ben wears the cloak every day in lieu of clothes or pajamas - it probably functions as a security blanket at this point, and I am wary of depriving him of it to wash it.

 It will probably be his Halloween costume, too - a green Jedi, maybe, or Robin Hood like my sister suggested.  I think we can agree that the cloak is a definite success!