We made pretzels for our Super Bowl feast last weekend. I’ll take any excuse to celebrate this time of year. The pretzels turned out great. Brian won our Super Bowl bingo and surprise, surprise the Super Bowl was actually an entertaining game this year.
Fruit pizza, deviled eggs, pretzels with cheese sauce, stuffed mushrooms and sausages with mustard. Mmmmm.
We’ve had some epic lego building lately.
And some penguins…
No sun or snow these days. To cheer myself up I bake and sew.
I seem to have started a quilt – without even thinking about it much. Well that’s not exactly true. I’ve wanted to make a big postage stamp quilt for a long time. I cut a bunch of 2 inch squares about four years ago. I started cutting them because I can’t stand to get rid of any scrap of fabric. So those squares sat patiently until last week when I was feeling antsy and needed something to do with my hands. And look how far I’ve gotten – 12 blocks of 6×6 squares!
Who knows how long it will take me to finish this quilt. Really it doesn’t matter – what matters is that it’s giving me some peace to sit and choose the fabrics and sew them and press them and then admire them all together. And also to remember the projects that each fabric came from – it’s a quilt of little memories.
This time of year I need some color – so the girls and I did some paper marbling. You can find directions online – it’s really fun and easy! I recently bought some liquid watercolor paints that are perfect for dribbling onto the shaving cream. I also bought a gold paint that looks beautiful mixed with the bright colors.
Here are a few of the finished papers. They look better in real life. Now we have to decide what to do with them – maybe some Valentine’s cards.
For the past several months Bea has preferred sleeping without a nightlight. She’s growing up. For me it feels like a huge change because nearly every night that she has been my daughter I have looked in on her before I went to sleep myself. Now her room is dark and I can’t see her sleeping face. That ritual of peeking in on my sleeping daughter is done. Seeing her sweet sleeping face just before I tuck myself in was something that calmed me. And now at night I go upstairs and wander half into her room not sure what to do with myself there in the dark. It feels so strange. I know we are embarking on an age when she will pull away from me in so many ways. I know that it’s natural, but I’m bracing myself.
Here she is in the Spring of 2011.
I finally got around to un-decorating the house this week. It’s no good to do it while the girls are home – they just whine and protest and get in the way too. But I sort of love getting all the trinkets and little bits of Christmas packed away. It feels good to leave a bunch of surfaces empty and to give the place a good cleaning. A fresh start.
In place of the tree we have a view of blank wall and that feels nice to me this time of year. We’ve had a super cold week so the girls can’t even play outside for recess. I’ve been wrapping my hands around mugs of tea and covering myself in wool. Cotton just won’t cut it this time of year – I must have wool slippers, wool blankets, wool sweaters and wool scarves.
Thankfully the sun is shinning in through the frosty windows and I can sit and work on my book of 2016 photos while the sun warms me. Happy 2017 – I hope the sun is shining on you too.
Swiss Christmas feast:
I hate it when someone else finds the perfect gift for Brian:
For people who do not like going to the antique store our girls sure had a lot of fun:
Seems like we do a lot of coloring when the girls gather around Grandma J.’s table. These tiny presents were made by Claire:
Envelope houses made by me (mostly):
I bought a bunch of costume jewelry at the antique store. It sure was fun to sort through:
I want to make one of these:
Jennifer helped the girls make lip balm with bee’s wax from her bees. So cool!
Walking in Jennifer’s woods:
Visiting a puppy – Bea can hardly stand it – she wants a dog sooooo badly.
Cooking Christmas goodies:
Got to spend Christmas Eve with Great Grandma.
Jennifer made matching pajamas!
Eating chocolate cake after opening presents:
Last minute cookie decorating:
We walked along Midland’s Main Street and stopped for coffee:
Ice skating:
Wow – what a fun Christmas week we had. – we’re back home now and I need a nap!
I’ve finished my downstairs bathroom – yah! No more chinoiserie wallpaper and grungy paint and red floor. Here’s a before photo – yikes.
Here’s what it looked like for a while this summer – yikes!
And now here’s how it looks today.
I scraped all the old paint off the tile to reveal the original lilac color. The floor matches the rest of the back of the house – instead of having four different types of floor. I removed the wallpaper and painted the walls fresh white. I got rid of the blue toilet and replaced it with a white one. AI bought a vintage Crane Henry Dreyfuss Diana sink to replace the old vanity. And I added a shower head and curtain so Brian can use this bathroom after he exercises.
I never expected to have a purple bathroom but I’m pleased that it feels clean and I like that the original tile can shine again. My favorite part is my cool console sink – I saw the same sink all over the Alden B. Dow home when I toured it last time – that makes me like it even more.
Here’s Claire demonstrating how it feels to have this messy project finished.
Laowai 