Weekending

It has been a beautiful weekend here in New England. We've spent most of it outside!

Saturday morning was relaxing. That afternoon we went to pick up new sunglasses for me; to my parents where Ree played outside all afternoon; fish n chips for dinner; ice cream for dessert. Watching turkey vultures fly around a beautiful cloud & watching a wood pecker look for his dinner.

Sunday was spending time outside before Church; Ree noticing that she has SIX morning glories blooming this morning. The most she's gotten at once! She's a very proud little gardner! 

Now it's rest time for her & Momma. Later a trip to the nursery (seems to be a weekend tradition right now!) then visiting with the other side of the family.

How was your weekend?

Painting Rocks

A few weeks ago on one of our weekly nightly excursions to the beach I remembered the post Amy wrote at the beginning of summer about summertime art ideas.  One of them was to paint rocks. Since Ree is ALWAYS asking to paint I thought it would be a good idea. So the three of us spent quite a bit of time looking for some good rocks. (Note to self: next time bring a pail). We all would pick some up & examine them to see if they would be good for painting on. Even Ree had her opinion on which would be good & which wouldn't. Although we did have to talk her out of picking the biggest rocks we saw. After all we were about a mile from the car & again...no pail!

After collecting what I thought would be too many, we headed home. I then left the rocks in the trunk and forgot about them until the beginning of this week. One morning I took them out & had Ree rinse them in a bucket of water & place them on the deck to dry. She then, all on her own, decided to flip them over to dry on the other side too when the first side was dry.

I pulled Amy's rock painting post up to show Ree but I guess when you're told to paint rocks, you really don't need a point of reference. She said "Those are pretty. I know what to paint. Lets go." 

We spent quite some time outside painting. There aren't too many pictures because I joined in too. Although was only allowed two rocks to paint! She now has plans to paint the other side. Right now they are still outside as part of her fairy house. 

A very fun, very simple, very free art time that Ree loved & I loved too!!

Yarn Along

This little sweater is taking a lot longer to complete then the yellow sweater!

It also seemed a bit bigger then the last puerperium sweater I made this spring. But I kept going until the end when there were only 7 button holes. THEN I checked my Ravelry notes. Oh. I'm knitting this one on size 8 needles. The last one was done on size 5!! Oh well. That means Baby V will get to wear her pink sweater longer then a few weeks at most!

I finished the first sleeve the other night but haven't cast on for the second. Then there's the buttons to sew on. This might be a WIP for a little longer! Even though I could probably sit and have it done in an afternoon!

Last night I finished reading Orphan Train. It was good! Took me a few chapters to get into it but once I did I didn't want to put it down. It made me want to go out and adopt a child. It's also made me so thankful that I'm able to care for my children myself and provide them a loving home with what they need and for the most part want. So many things taken for granted today even though there are still so many children who go to bed at night wondering where they'll be sleeping the next night.

After I finished the book though I was lost. I didn't have any other book to read. I need to go to the library today! The Bell Jar was on hold on Monday so I had to return that without reading it! Thankfully it's already back on hold for me at the library so it's just going to pick it up!

Around the Yard::Vegetables

 

It's been about a month since I last showed you our vegetable garden. And WOW what a difference!

Everything is growing strong. We have many eggplant flowers; many many little tiny peppers, which I had thought I'd gotten a picture of but I guess I didn't! The cauliflower is taking off like crazy. We've never grown it so we didn't know what to expect. But we didn't think it would have such large leaves that over take EVERYTHING. The peppers were suffering a little bit because of it, so last night my husband pruned all the cauliflower leaves. I should take a picture of them now, they look funny! But I'd much rather have peppers & carrots then cauliflower so I'm really ok if they don't produce much.

It's time to harvest the lettuce so I'm thinking tonight we'll have a salad with our own lettuce! As I've said before we got everything in later then we wanted so we haven't been harvesting anything yet. As long as the frost holds off until November we should be good!

And thank you to Karen for pointing out that one of the pictures in yesterday's post wasn't coming up. I've fixed it now!

Around the Yard::Flowers

One of mine & Ree's favorite things to do is walk around the yard looking at all the flowers we have. It's hard work on my part to get her to NOT pick them all. I think we'll do some flower pressing this week!

We got a coneflower yesterday & I was taking some pictures of it. When I was finished I glanced down and screamed pretty loudly. My foot was touching the tail of the garter snake. I don't like snakes no matter how harmless this little guy is. Ree came running over to see what was wrong "It's just a snake Momma, no big deal."

We have no plans today so I'm thinking a morning outside with some sketch paper & pencils to see if we can draw the new cone flower!

Weekending

This weekend began Friday night with pizza & weeding the walkway & vegetable garden's. Just as we were getting ready to head inside we found a baby robin that was in the midst of fledging his nest. He ended up on our garage roof where he still was that evening at 11! 

Saturday morning the bird was gone so I hoped for the best. Ree & I spent the morning sewing some blocks for her quilt. When daddy got home from work we headed to the county Fair. Ree loved seeing all the farm animals, big tractors & the spinning wheels! She was tired out by the time we headed home! 

We ended the day by JUST catching the end of the beautiful sunset. Sunday morning was our usual with a stop at Home Depot. After we got home we headed outside to walk around & take some pictures (a flower & garden post coming this week!) Unfortunately we found the poor baby robin still on the roof but not in a good way. After lunch & Ree in for a rest I did the food shopping then dishes. A pretty laid back Sunday for the most part!

Joining Amanda

Scenes from the week

This week the weather has been beautiful and we've been able to get outside after dinner every night. 

Ree loves helping digging holes for our new gardens. I enjoy sitting in a chair knitting while they dig the holes. We usually stay out until just after sunset when all the bugs decide to come out.

I'm ready for Fall but I'll miss these beautiful late summer evening!

Making & Listening

We've been busy again this week making things!

I've been trying to de-clutter a little bit. Especially the table space in this house. Half of our dining room table is usually the dumping grounds for "stuff". Paper, junk, towels, toys, whatever anyone doesn't want to put away. Every so often I clean it off and LOVE the empty space. But it doesn't last long. 

I finally got the fabric needed for Ree's big girl quilt and decided I wanted to at least cut it out downstairs. I knew that I'd have to cut at least 226 pieces of that white fabric up there. It'd be easier to do it downstairs so Ree could also do her things without interruption. So I cleaned the table off & have been cutting all week. I have enough ready to make 26 (out of 56) squares. I may start sewing today or tomorrow just to mix things up a bit!

Ree has been busy collecting wild flowers outside. She puts them in little jars & lines them up on the counter. The other day she found the card board heart admist the mess I was cleaning & asked if she could have it. A little while later she asked for some glue. As the table was clean I gave it to her and went back to doing my things. When I turned around she was gluing her flowers to the heart. Yesterday she went out to pick more flowers & when I asked what she was going to do with them all, she replied "Add them to my collection so I can study them." A little botany project going on it seems! Thankfully daddy knows the names of almost all the flowers since she keeps asking!

For listening it's basically just been the sounds of late summer nature. I've asked a few times if she'd like me to put music on but she says no, she'd rather work in quiet. That works for me too!

Linking up with Dawn again this week. Go check out her post, she has a giveaway going on!

Yarn Along

Per Ree's request I've been working on a yellow sweater & a pink sweater for her baby sister. I finished the yellow one this past weekend. It is so tiny! The pink one should be finished soon. I was working along on it then ended up buying all the fabric (almost) I need to work on Ree's big girl quilt. Now I've been cutting it out and getting ready to start sewing that.

I had been having horrible insomnia at night so that's when I got all my reading time in. I just finished Wintering a novel of Sylvia Plath. I found it fascinating to read about the last few years of her life. Up next is The Bell Jar. Except that something changed and I've had no problem falling asleep at night the past few nights. So we'll see how much reading I get done now!

Weekending

Friday night began our weekend with pizza, knitting & the first Patriots pre-season football game! Thanks to Amy for pointing out that I do indeed get the channel they were playing on! 

Saturday was errands; chores & getting ready to hit the "Big City" that night for Waterfire. We walked all around Providence (with many, many, many breaks for the pregnant Momma!) It's one of our favorite outings of the summer. We used to go to almost all of them. But now that we've moved out of the city & Ree is bigger...we try for one or two a year!

Sunday....very early Sunday....like 4:14AM....my brave husband took his life in his hands & woke me up to see if I wanted to go out & watch the meteor shower with him. We only saw a few but it was very peaceful out there with him.

Sunday morning was sleeping in a little later then usual; Church; a trip to the beach to walk around a little bit & have lunch; Sunday afternoon was relax & knit.

A busy, but fun weekend! (Can you spot Ree in that last photo of all the stars?)

Joining Amanda!

End of the week thoughts

Sheesh this week flew by! We went camping at the beginning of the week...a post on that early next week. Then it was cleaning up from that; laundry laundry laundry; grocery shopping; etc. 

Today it's a very rainy day. Which is good. The garden needs the rain...a post on that next week too!! I've started making lists, on paper not just in my head! I've got a list of all the things I want to knit this fall before new baby comes. I wrote out a list of everyone I need to purchase Christmas gifts for as well as what to buy/make. Now I need to make a list of things that I need to do before baby gets here, aside from the sewing & knitting!

I'm working steadily on the yellow & the pink sweater that Ree says I need to make for the baby. The 5 hour baby sweater is complete except for buttons. I started the Puerperium sweater yesterday and knot that knits up quickly. After that is finished I want to work on Ree's big girl quilt a little bit. We have all the fabric for it now I just need to start cutting and sewing! 

Have a great weekend!!

Day Lilies

This past weekend we went to a local(ish) Day Lily Nursery Farm. It was beautiful there! The weather was sunny; there was a soft breeze; no humidity; big blue skies. It's called "Tranquil Lake" and as Ree & her Daddy walked all over trying to pick out just a few Day Lily's to take home with us, I sat under the shade of the trees and marveled at how very tranquil it is there.

Please excuse the crazy amount of pictures. I took a bunch of the flowers then Ree took ahold of the camera. She took some pretty good shots! (If I do say so myself!)

 

The first thing that greeted us were chickens! Ree wasn't sure at first if she liked them. But the lady who owns the place gave her some treats for them. After that they were all best friends!

It was very warm in the sun so Ree kept joining me in the shade to cool off. When she felt cooler she'd run back out to the field's of "gorgeous flowers!"

These next pictures were all taken by Ree. I love seeing things from her viewpoint. It's like getting into her mind a little bit to see what's important enough for her to take pictures of. When I uploaded the pictures from the camera to the computer there were tons of pictures of flowers; chickens; me; her daddy; and of her surroundings. Plus quite a few very blurry ones since she didn't always take the time to let the camera focus!! 

Weekending

This weekend has been filled with:

a sunset walk on the beach

afternoon naps

yard work

quiet Sunday morning with tea

packing for our "camping" trip

pulling out the gratitude journal to begin counting blessings

this afternoon will be going to nursery's to look at flowers

visiting with family

How was your weekend?

Make and Listen

There wasn't a yarn along post yesterday as I was STILL working on the baby socks (I finished both pairs last night) and the same granny squares.

My knitting had slowed down a bit because Ree and I have been doing art together. Her new favorite activity is to paint. She uses stickers, markers and pens to draw then wants to paint on it. So I've been joining her!

I thought this would be a good week to finally join Dawn for her weekly "Make & Listen Along".

I got out the watercolor paint at the beginning of the week. She first traced squares on the paper then painted them in and around them. After the paper dried she made another creation on the back. I just can't find it to take a picture of it!

I've been trying to think of other ways to include paint in our art. I visited Amy's {Art Together} Series to get some ideas. While reading her post about Summer Time Art Ideas I saw the link she mentioned about Index Card a Day Challenge. Now that ended yesterday & I re-found it the day before! (I blame the pregnancy sickness when Amy first posted about it. I'd have loved to have participated!)

Anyways, I had a stack of unopened index cards & thought those & paint would work! So Ree and I sat down and made up some. She wants to glue ripped up pieces of paper to her's. We haven't gotten that far as they needed to dry. I already have ideas for more for me to make using other mediums. While we won't participate in the official challenge we'll still have fun!

Dawn talked about making stamps today and Amy....(who I turn to whenever I need Art inspiration!!) has written about making stamps as well, so that's going through my brain. I remember making stamps a LONG time ago. Those would be fun on index cards too!

While we do our art we either listen to a local radio station or just have the windows open to listen to the outside sounds!