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MOVED!

31 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Uncategorized

This blog has moved permanently to:

http://heirloomfarmhouse.wordpress.com

Please subscribe over there! Thanks!

Heidi at TWO

02 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Kids, Sewing

Heidi turned two yesterday. I know parents say it all the time, but I really do wonder where these last two years have gone. WOW. At two, she:

HATES to have her picture taken. It’s rare that I get a good one when she knows I’m taking it.
Her most used phrases are: “I, too.”, “No!”, “Yeah!!!!!! (with LOTS of excited emphasis)”, “Dat’s awesim!”, and “I di-it!”.
She hasn’t had a haircut yet.
She LOVES Dora the Explorer.
She has a HUGE word vocabulary. She can pretty much name anything.
She can rote count to seven.
She loves to be read to and points out EVERYTHING in the pictures.
She has really good manners “Peeeeease!” “Tank oooo!” “Oooo elcome!”
She loves fruit.
She is ready to start potty-training, but she is scared of sitting on the toilet.
She is very independent. Sometimes too independent. Like this morning when I helped her get dressed and then she proceeded to put leggings on on top of her shorts. And then became VERY upset when I took them off because it was 90* out.
She loves dresses, skirts, hats, and hair pretties. She also loves to wear said things with her mud boots.
Her favorite color is “ellow!” Or maybe it’s not her favorite since that’s every color (besides pink). The sky is “ellow!”, that cup is “ellow!”.
Gives big bear hugs and says “My mommy! My mommy! My mommy! Mine! Mine! MIIIIIIINE! My Mommmmyyyyyyy!” when she sees me when I pick her up from daycare! (This makes my heart nearly explode with joy!)
She still needs me. And I love that.

(PS: I made her little dress based on this tutorial. I am sooooo not big into “characters”, but she loves Dora so I couldn’t resist. She couldn’t get out of her jammies fast enough to climb into her “birday dess”.)

Self-Portrait

01 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Uncategorized

I would like to think I have fairly discriminating taste in art and I have to say, I have never seen a drawing quite like this one in all of my museum-going. B-E-A-UTIFUL!

Ben has been adding two lines (legs) onto circles (head) to represent a person for a long time, but this is a first for hair, arms, and hands as far as I know! Sorry for the low quality of photo, he was making and erasing these photos so quick that I just grabbed the camera and shot. And then he pulled that little green lever over and his drawing was gone. Forever. Like it was nothing special.

Wild Child

01 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Kids

Ben has gotten big into “pumping”. He hasn’t quite mastered the regular swing pumping-with-your-legs-to-keep-momentum-up thing yet, but he’s getting there. He has, however, mastered how to get this back and forth thing going. And, boy, does he ever! It goes super high and super fast and he absolutely demands your attention when he’s doing it (“Wookit me, mommy! I going high! High into the sky!”) Heidi, being in the “I do it! Me, too!” phase so typical of her age, wants to be on there with him. And so here she is, hanging on for dear life in her tutu she’s obsessed with wearing.

Two Kinds of Birds at Our Place

01 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Country Life, Home, Kids

I am 28 going on 88. Seriously. Nothing was more thrilling to me five years ago than finding a pair of pink stiletto boots on sale for $150.00. Now the first thing I do in the morning is check to see if “my Finches” (as I have begun to refer to them as) have enough to eat until Ben wakes up to help me fill the feeder or if I need to go out there right away so they don’t go hungry.

I thought getting a bird feeder would be really fun for the kids, and Ben does enjoy filling the feeder and counting the birds (“There’s four now, mommy! And another one is waiting on the branch!”), but I think it would be even more fun for the kids if this was a novel sight. But the feeder is this busy all day long. They fight each other constantly. There’s usually a couple birds waiting in the branches to get on! And they’re eating me out of house and home and I’m constantly going into Ace Hardware for more feed. Good grief.

In other bird feeding news around our place…

This is Ben’s new nightly ritual. Feeding his Beanie Baby birds butterscotch chips. In bed. And they must actually eat them somehow, too, because they’re never there in the morning!

Birthday Banner

30 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Sewing

I was able to finish this Birthday Banner today when Heidi was napping and Ben was watching a movie. I’m so, so happy with how it turned out! I can’t wait to take pictures of Ben and Heidi on their birthdays beneath it! And it’s a good thing I got it done because Heidi turns TWO tomorrow. Two. T.W.O. Unreal.

Anyway, I got the pattern out of Alicia Paulson‘s book, Stitched in Time: Memory-Keeping Projects to Sew and Share, which is one of my favorite crafting books I own. Every project in the book is so sweet it’ll just about give you a toothache and the instructions are super easy to follow. I highly recommend it!

Alicia is the designer and creator of the most amazing little sewing and crafting projects of Posie: Rosy Little Things and the wonderful writer and photographer behind Posie Gets Cozy, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite blogs. It’s not only one of my favorites, it’s one of the most popular crafting/sewing blogs on the web. A couple weeks after I found her site, I got stuck in her archives and did the “just one more post” reading thing until after 3:30am. Totally worth the exhaustion the next day, too. Definitely check her out! I can’t wait for her second book, Embroidery Companion: Classic Designs for Modern Living, to come out in August. I’ve done a little embroidery, but I’m hoping to do more. And the skirt on the cover makes me swoon. Oh, and the design on the blue pillow if you follow that link? Ridiculously cute! That’s going to be perched on Heidi’s bed come winter for sure. And the kerchief is a must-do, too.

Anyway, back to the banner. The only change I made to the pattern was to use stencils for the lettering rather than the freezer-paper method she suggested. Stenciling is much less time-consuming, but it is also much less fool-proof (the ‘H’ in Happy is a little smudged, but nothing too noticeable). I have to say, it’s really darling hung in the corner of a room strung between two walls as well. Maybe I’ll take a picture of that tomorrow.

400 Feet From My House

27 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Country Life, Home

I don’t mean to make you feel bad about where you live. I’m sure it’s real nice. But this is what I get to watch every day from my house and backyard in the summer. Not bad.

Painting Rocks

27 Jun 2010 2 Comments

by Sarah in Kids

Being that I’m an art teacher, it shouldn’t really surprise anyone to learn that I do lots of art and crafts projects with the kids. I’m a pretty cool mom when it comes to this, I have to say. I don’t freak about the sticky glue hands or spilled glitter. I even buy pompoms, sequins, and googly eyes. But, oh my goodness, it’s so nice when the weather cooperates enough to do these things outside in the backyard so I don’t find remnants of said projects for months ground into the kitchen carpet. Yes, I said those two words together. Kitchen carpet. The bane of my existence. Well, second only to the bathroom carpet. Jealous, aren’t you? Lord help me if this doesn’t change soon.

Anyway, I digress. Today we were rock painting. Ben made me a purple paperweight in addition to this beauty.

Heidi, on the other hand, concentrated almost all of her efforts on painting the plastic lid I used as a table protector rather than the rock. Oh well. She got into it!

Little Purple and Green Number

27 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment

by Sarah in Garage Sale Finds, Kids

She may be all about dresses and hair pretties, but she is also all about doing whatever the boys are doing. Here she is, dismounting from 20 minutes of pretend driving the lawn mower, complete with engine sound effects. I love this dress— I picked it up on a garage sale last summer for fifty cents. Gotta love it!