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Two in Two Days

I felt rather like Mickey Mouse, when he triumphantly declared he'd killed seven [flies] with one blow, when I added the tag to little Daigh's blanket on Tuesday afternoon last week.  


[Incidentally, the cart of pumpkins the Giant eats in that cartoon have always reminded me of the candy-corn pumpkins at halloween, and I always get one little bag to have out at our costume party, just so I can sneak a few for myself each year :) (ok, I usually end up eating most of them--but it's a small bag.)]

You see, I had a few rush items to finish after we got back from Washington (Saturday morning), and before I left for my brother's house (Thursday).

On Sunday, I sewed one mei tai: a gift from a first-time-grandmother to her daughter-in-law (the shower was Sunday--hope she liked it!).  They are expecting a little boy, so I got to use the same bright green and blue I used for two other carriers. It seems to be a hit! Shout-out to Pixie for picking this material :)

Yes, the wine helped, if you were wondering ;)

I didn't have quite enough of the flower material for one continuous piece for the body, but I think my embellishment masks it (and reinforces it) well enough, non?

Pockets for the boy side, too:

this is one of my new tags :) I love them!

Then, on Monday, I finished sewing up the mei tai my sister-in-law picked out for their new baby, Daigh.

and, since I had some extra material (and since he is my nephew), I made him a matching blanket, too.

All in all, a pretty crafty break between trips!  I still have a few purses to get out this week, and now I'm getting requests for aprons :) Exciting!

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Washington

Happy Lady

 Happy husband

Happy Girls

Happy Boys

Happy Nina

Happy Lake

Good night :)

Heart of the Home

The heart of our home has always been the kitchen.  Growing up,

I spent many happy hours in the kitchen with Momma and my sisters, baking, cooking, and painting (we always painted ceramics in the kitchen--as Christmas approached, the table was almost perpetually covered with newspaper, dozens of bottles of paint, and little ceramic figurines scattered about, waiting to be colored.)

Momma's remodeled kitchen

Although we didn't have family dinners on a daily or weekly basis, food was an important part of our experience. We had favorite things to eat and to make.  Momma's kitchen was always full of food and we were free to munch and nibble at our leisure.
It seemed to work best for our family that way.  When we moved to a bigger house outside the city, with a ginormous kitchen, we just spent more time in it together.  Tea parties, shrimp dinners, Saturday morning breakfasts, all happened in the kitchen.  Holidays were birthed there--the cookies and sweets and cakes and candies that shaped our savored memories of those family times could happen nowhere but the kitchen.  

 the goodies tower

tea party with the grandkids

helping Grandmama with breakfast

When we were little, she used to preheat the oven so it was warm when we got out of bed, and she'd open the door to let the warmth out while we got dressed in front of it.  I remember she used to sit on a stool in front of the oven watching her food bake.  We had many good chats in front of the oven.. such lovely memories.

"this kitchen is awesome!"

If you've ever wondered where I get my penchant for remodeling/refurbishing/building things, look no further than my parents :)  They were always tweaking things here and there in our house(s), improving little by little, making it more their own. I remember so many projects we did around the house, but especially in the kitchen. 

So it only stands to reason that my kitchen now is the heart of my home.  I gather people with food from the kitchen, and it's fun to work with others in preparing it.  Learning to make sushi rolls, chatting while the pizzas are baking, waiting for the delicious-smelling cake to come out of the oven, stirring the soup in between sips of your favorite brew surrounded by friends.  You can tell a lot about a home by its kitchen.

"the food's good, who cares what the cabinets look like!"

And I have spruced mine up a bit, having a week-long opportunity while T was out of town (it's still hard for me to cook only for myself).  I figured, if I won't be using the kitchen all that much anyway, what better time to repaint it?

So I did.

Here are some pictures. Enjoy :)

Kitchen

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Musings

I want to share with you a poem that was included in a packet of information from our adoption agency.  It speaks volumes to the goodness of adoption, and the broad spectrum of what it means to be a parent.

You cannot change the truth. 

These are your children, 

but they came from somewhere else. 

And they are the children of those places 

and of those people as well. 

Help them to know about their past

and about their present. 

Help them to know that they are from extended families, 

that they have only one...set of parents, 

but that they have more mothers and fathers. 

They have grandmothers, Godmothers, birth mothers, mother countries, mother earth. 

They have grandfathers, Godfathers, birth fathers, and fatherlands. 

They have family by birth and by adoption. 

They have family by choice and by chance. 

Childhood is short; 

They are our children to raise

They are our children to love; 

and then they are citizens of the world. 

What we do to them creates the world that we live in. 

Give them life. 

Give them their truth. 

Give them love. 

Give them all that they came with. 

Give them all that they grow with. 

Your children do not belong to you, 

but they belong with you. 

You cannot keep them from what is theirs, 

but you can keep loving them. 

You do not own your children, 

but they are your own. 

--Joyce Maguire Pavo

Taylor and I are blessed with so many children in our lives.  In many ways, we are parents to all of them--from the teeniest baby we hold to the grad students we have over for dinner.  Not that we are raising them, of course, but in opening our marriage to Love, we have to invite people in.  Those people are like children to us, if our marriage can be of some good for them in their lives.  

Here's to parenting, in all it's many and varied forms :)

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Originally uploaded by renidemus