At this time of year the hardest thing for me to do is be patient, because by nature I am NOT a patient person. When the skies are sunny and the temperatures soaring, I want to be in the dirt. And when I say “in” the dirt, I mean IN the dirt. I am probably …
There are some children that you can’t keep indoors. These children wake up in the morning and the first thing they do is seek out a large window and play weatherman. “Can I go outside now?”, is the mantra you’ll hear in lovely or inclement weather. The house is too confining for them. A whole …
Here is the 4th free applique in our Santa’s Workshop Applique Collection. All perfect toys to find under the tree Christmas morning! When my son Adam was a wee lad, he had a Teddy Bear that he loved. He called it Pot Belly Bear because it had a pot belly. Children can be so literal! …
When one of my babies asks me for something, I tend to put everything else on hold. A couple of weeks ago I got a text from 10 month old Peanut asking me for a toasty sweater for a South Carolina winter. (It’s pretty impressive that a 10 month old can text, isn’t it?) Anyway… …
Back when my son, Adam, was 18 months old, we managed to lose his favorite blankie at a street fair. When we realized it was gone, we went looking for it, going up and down aisles, asking vendors and attendees if they saw his blankie. It was never recovered 🙁 I’m not sure why anyone would have cared to …
Every once in a while I need to go through files on my computer and do a little housecleaning. I came upon this blog post I had written some time ago. Why hadn’t I published it? Probably because it does embarrass me. I actually thought about deleting it, but finally decided, no, I’m going to …
What does an artist look like? She looks like this and this and this. Pixie sculpted her own bird after seeing my Paper Clay Totem. May we always endeavor to see the artist in all of our children and encourage their creative pursuits. Here is an excerpt from the classic novelette The Little Prince by Antoine de …
Being raised with three brothers and no sisters there wasn’t much room in my life for fussy dresses. I needed to run, jump, hang upside down from monkey bars and generally do things that dresses tended to balk at. But, oh, for the holidays, my mother insisted I wore super girly dresses, with petticoats and …
I would like to thank everyone for your kind words, warm thoughts and prayers. They truly touched us and helped sustain us during a difficult time. As expected, my father died June 14. Thanks to the wonderful facility he was in and the merciful help from Hospice, he was able to pass peacefully, pain-free and …
As many of you know my father has been battling Alzheimer’s disease for many years. After a stay in the hospital last week, he has returned to his care facility and is now under the care of Hospice. We have been told we will only have him with us for a few more days to …
I had been intending to post weekly updates of our garden, but somehow there just doesn’t seem to be enough time and things in the garden change so quickly that the photos always seem so far behind what is actually happening. I also wanted to share a post on setting up the garden… and do …
One of my earliest school memories involves me at the painter’s easel back when I was in kindergarten. I absolutely loved it when it was my turn at the easel. All those beautiful juice cans filled with paint and the lovely cream colored paper waiting for my brush. I can remember what I painted that …
