Conversations with lil' b

After going to OMSI, pretending to be chipmunk in full costume, and gather nuts into a tree with other "chipmunks", lil'b told me that "chipmunks eat donuts." What? Is this really what she gets out of OMSI?

Today while getting ready for bed she told me that she want another girl, just like her, and she asks if I could "grow one in my body" for her. Nice. It was extremely cute and sweet, and also made me feel like she viewed me a baby making machine.

While sitting at the breakfast table, lil'b holds out an imaginary something close to my mouth, and says, "Here's Cheep." Thinking and not thinking much about it, I pretend to eat the imaginary something, then I glance over and notice the horrified look on my daughter's face. Quickly realizing that cheep meant chick, like little chicken, and I just "ate" it, I pretend to spit out the cheep. Then I say, "Where's the cheep?" She looks at me sort of irritated and disgusted and says..."In your mouth." Me, feeling rather low at this point, show her again how I can imagine to take the "cheep" out of my mouth, and I GENTLY put it back in her hand. She sort of agrees or puts up with my adult stupidity and walks away cupping her cheep. I imagine her thinking, "Well, I'm not giving you anything again."

Tea for Two

Recently , I had the pleasure of inviting a little elephant and ferocious lion over for tea.





Thanks to B's dad and step mom, we acquired a delightful tea set for Christmas, and here's it getting put to use. It's so precious, and dainty. Tea with one of lil'b's best friends, Boo.

First Loaves of Bread

After being inspired by some other women's bread making abilities, I decided to make my first homemade bread. Well, how it really happened is we ran out of bread and I didn't have the car or the desire to go to the store, and I thought this would be a good time to give a try at making bread. So about 11 am I set out to give it a go. After reading the directions for making Honey Whole Wheat Bread! Yum! in my handy dandy Betty Crocker Cook Book, I realized it's a similar process to making pizza dough which I do about every week. So, it turned out to be easier than I excepted. There is truly something wonderful about making homemade bread. First, it smells wonderful even when it's just sitting on the counter rising. It feels peaceful, and made me feel that this is how life should be. I realized while kneading the dough for about 10 minutes (plenty of time to contemplate life), that bread making is cool. I hope one day I will be able to say to lil' b, "Can you go make some bread?" and she will be able to. In our day and age when everything is so processed and package, to me, it seems so precious to be able to pass something simple like bread making onto my kids. Well, first step- make your own bread.

I actually skipped a step accidentally. I was suppose to knead, rise for 60 mins, then roll out, shape, then rise again for 35 mins. Well, I read the directions wrong and skipped from kneading to shape and rise, so I just let it rise for 1 1/2 hrs. Here it is rising.

And , even with my mistake, it turned out. It was delicious. I am truly amazed how good it turned out. I will definitely completely follow the directions the next time, because it will make it even better and yummier!!Here is my egg salad sandwich I ate afterwards, with HOMEMADE BREAD. I couldn't believe it. It was euphoric. I felt like a proud puffed up mama hen. I throughly enjoyed the process and will be making lots more homemade bread, in fact I'm about to right now.

Bird Cages

These are Bird Cages by Tamar Mogendorff. Aren't they beautiful? I saw them in Little Circus' shop. She has a blog I've read to pretend that I can still read French. It's very sweet and I wish I could actually come up with sentences to say to her.

Wiener poopie

This is one of the funniest videos I've seen in a while. Please watch it. It'll give you a good laugh.

What Have I Been Up To?

I know you all have been curious, just kidding. But here it is anyways. I feel like a spastic crafter. I can't really stick with anything for very long. After X-Mas, I got really into sewing little stuffed bird ornaments, then I went to crocheting cupcakes (finished just one and now I'm done(phew, glad I got that out of my system), then crocheting flowers(fast and fun, great combo), now to embroidering which what I've doing most lately, and loving. Oh yes, and today I made lil'b a crown. Here's some pics, which I admit showing off your crafts has to be sort of narcissistic, but when I spend so much time with this, I want to put it somewhere, so here it is.



I now have made three of these crowns. They are so fun! Anyone need a crown?

This is a drawing of Belle's I copied onto some muslin, and embroidered. I love it. The idea came from Soule Mama's blog. It's her view of Jonah and the Whale.
This little tree was unfinished, and now he has some leaves and a border.

I'm Only Human

Today, lil' b and I went to the library to pick up some books for her, while dad stayed behind with our sick little Bug. On the drive into downtown, it started to snow, which made the event even more fun. We picked out our books at the library, and it was still snowing as we skipped down the street back to our car. While loading lil' b into the car, a grizzly elderly man, with thick dark rimmed glasses and an air of "I don't really like kids", walking towards us, stopped and commented, "These are the best years, don't miss out on them because soon they'll realize that you're only human." I was so shocked by his comment, not because I haven't heard it before, but because I never would have expected that old man to say something to me, and especially a something endearing to children. It really touched me to see this old man's emotions well up just by seeing my lil' b. Kids are amazing.

As we drove away, I couldn't stop thinking about what he had said, because it's so true. I am only a human and man, I am going to make some awful mistakes, I just know it. I'm human, so I have to. And it scares me to death. And the process of her realizing this has already begun. I've already had situations where lil' b caught me acting in a way I teach her not to act. Saying something to her in a rude tone, and she tells me I'm being rude, and I have to apologize. So humbling.

A lady at church said a really similar comment, just last Sunday. After watching me hold Bug, she came up and said, "Aren't they so wonderful?" referring to children, and I said, "Yes, they are." Then she told me how her boy was 25, getting married, and such a great man. She said it amazes her because she was a single mom and knows there were plenty of mistakes down the road. I told her that it scares me to think about what will be my parenting mistakes. My parents were good parents, but there were mistakes and shortcomings. There has to be, and sometimes it's painful to realize that. The lady and I got distracted, and she walked away, but came back 5 minutes later. She told me that the cracks in our parenting are there on purpose, because that's where God comes in. That's where He takes over and molds them and teaches them to persevere through trials. I thought this was very interesting and encouraging. All of it made me want to live more in the moment with my kids, savor this special time, and realize I'm only human.