Mary started the Christmas season feeling overly burdened by the season, what with being a “Mary” and all. As if sharing a name with the Virgin Mother of the Savior wasn’t enough, her name is also a homophone with the salutation of the season: MERRY. She makes it look easy, but believe me, it is not.
Mary is on a crusade to make homemade gifts for all of her family members. Also all of her friends, classmates, people she rides the bus with, and she’ll throw in a free Christmas gift to anyone who signs up for Disney + before the end of 2019. She’s so ambitious and excited about it,
We have a rule in our family about Halloween. If it involves any help or purchasing from me, you must decide on your Halloween costume by October 1. (Or, in Anna’s case, her Halloween costume was decided for her six years before she was born when my mom bought David this toddler-sized dragon costume.) Komodo
Anytime an entire week goes by without a new blog post you can assume one of two things: One or all of our kids has a fever, ear infection, an orthopedic injury, is throwing up, or all of the above. I’m fumbling through some sort of craft that requires skills that I’m teaching myself with
Last year, right around this time of year, David sat down at the table with construction paper, scissors, and glue, and independently handcrafted a valentine for his best friend. I was really, really impressed. I hadn’t given much thought to the valentines he was going to give out to his class, but right then and
On the first day of summer break we shared a big bowl of watermelon on the porch, then kids made a mud pit in the back yard while Anna and I sat on a blanket at a safe distance. When we got too hot and dirty, we all jumped in the pool. Before nap time,
This is Mary’s new iPhone. My niece made it, and it’s easily the most coveted item in our house. Everyone wants it but no one can touch it. After all, Mary has a data plan to consider. Mary uses it like a fully functional phone — she takes pictures, she texts, she FaceTimes my mom.
Before Anna was born, I planned our Christmas card — a combo birth announcement/Christmas card with four kids in matching pajamas. Tom’s going to read that, wrinkle his forehead, and say, “You said you don’t have the brainpower to make a grocery list. But you’ve been strategizing our Christmas card for two months?” Yes, Tom,
This is one of the most simple, best ideas I’ve seen in a while, and we’ve had so much fun this summer participating. Ah, there’s one of the great things about this — anyone can participate. This project is easy, free, fun, inspires creativity, gets you outside, and encourages community. It does everything except fix
In the past year or so David has become increasingly interested in creating. He loves to draw, color, paint, cut, glue, and everything else. I love watching him, in part because a few years ago he didn’t like any of it — coloring, using stickers, or even playing with Play-Doh at all. Anytime I brought out
David’s preschool class has a stuffed narwhal as a mascot, and in just a few short months David has turned into quite the narwhal aficionado. As we were thinking about Christmas, David wanted to get a narwhal for his teachers. While I thought that was a great idea, there were just so many licenses and permits
It’s almost Thanksgiving, and I wanted to do a little something for my kids’ preschool teachers. I sort of struggle to tell my kids’ teachers that I’m thankful for them because just saying it seems rote. I’m thankful for you, but do you have any idea how thankful? Seeing my little boy blossom as a student who loves
Here we are, on the other side of Halloween 2016 and can I just say: WHEW! We made it, guys. I don’t know what it is about walking with my family through our neighborhood in the dark that takes it out of me but MAN am I wiped out today, maybe for the rest of the
I take a lot of photos. Every time I upload photos from my DSLR, a computer pop-up says something like, “28 items were successfully imported” and I think, “That’s more than a whole roll of film. I just took a whole roll of film of my kid eating breakfast.” When I was a kid back in
Every year around this time I start to get an regular orders from my Etsy shop. (Which, side note, so impressive, right? There are people who are Christmas shopping ALREADY. In OCTOBER! I imagine these people also show up to places at the afore-scheduled time. And probably also clean their home’s windows.) As a result I start carrying knitting
Last year at preschool, David’s class sang a song that he called the Octopus Song, even though it’s actually called the Butterfly Song. He specifically loved the line, “If I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord for my good looks.” And because he loved the song so much, and because he related so much to
My niece Psalm turned one a few weeks ago, and I made this countdown calendar for her. I got the pattern from The Sugar House Shop — it works like an Advent calendar, but you countdown to a birthday. I wanted to share it here because I am oh-so-very happy with how it turned out. I at all wasn’t confident when I
Growing up we always dyed Easter eggs on the night before Easter, so I planned to do the same thing with my kids. This year, I had meant to prepare by boiling the eggs and setting aside bowls and food coloring, but the whole thing completely slipped my mind. The whole thing slipped my mind
A few weeks ago I was filling out a preschool application for Mary Virginia. The application asked lots of questions to help the teachers get to know her, including some of her social and academic skills. One question asked which numbers she could recognize, and I wasn’t sure how to answer. Then I thought about
When it’s cold, I cook exclusively in the oven. I’m not kidding, I scour the house looking for things I can bake. Cookies, bread, pizza, roasted chicken. Pancakes? Can you bake pancakes? WORTH A TRY! The house just feels so much cozier when there’s something in the oven, doesn’t it? This is completely unrelated to
I rarely put on makeup these days, but when I do Mary Virginia is always underfoot. “Mommy, can I have lotion in my hair? Can I have deodorant on my belly? What are you puttin’ on your mouth?” If we’re going somewhere that requires more than me redoing my ponytail when we arrive, Tom and I team
I haven’t been blogging as much in the past few weeks. This website has taken a back seat, as have replying to emails, wiping my countertops, and putting away laundry. And when David says, “Watch me!” and then jumps on the couch and does a somersault the exact same way he’s been doing for a solid year, I
When I asked David what he wanted to be for Halloween last year, he emphatically said “A STELEKON!” So I started looking around on Pinterest and trying to figure out how I could make on myself. Emphatically. I found a bunch, but this was easily my favorite. Comfy, cute, and cheap to make on your
I’m going to begin with a tangent, but stick with me, because this rabbit trail is leading straight to a toddler activity, I promise. I am a person who enjoys an ice cold Diet Coke, or twelve, and if you also enjoy Diet Coke then, like me, you have probably encountered friends and strangers who feel obligated to
Mary Virginia turned two last weekend, and we had a little party to celebrate. And by “little” I mean little. Because normally when I say “little” I mean that I restrained the guest list to our 20 closest friends and their 400 children. The theme of this party was “mama just had a baby.” I
After the race and egg hunt, we had a pre-Easter celebration with my parents and my sister’s family. As we were planning the weekend, my sister emailed me and suggested we dye eggs as an activity with the kids. She hadn’t had a chance to do it and I hadn’t either, so Saturday seemed perfect.
As of the past month or so, David has suddenly become very, very interested in crafts. He loves it all — cutting, coloring, gluing, stickers, painting. This is a new development, I used to have to work really hard to get him interested in crafts. I don’t know if it’s because he’s older, or because of crafts
I love beautifully-wrapped gifts. I really enjoy taking time to wrap gifts well and make generous bows. The presentation, I think, is part of the gift. I love neutral wrapping paper and prominent bows. That’s what I do for baby showers and birthday gifts and especially Christmas. Never in my life have I ever used
When we play with Play-Doh, David usually doesn’t ever really form the dough “things”, he just smashes and drops it on the ground and asks me to flatten long pieces into roads for his cars. Meanwhile, his sister constantly tries to sneak tastes the Play-Doh even though, after every time she manages a bit in
As Thanksgiving approaches, lots of my friends do “thankful” activities with their kids. The idea is simple, ask the kids what they’re thankful for and display their answers — and yours. This is our take on it. I decided to trace our hands and hang them like a garland in our dining room. Initially I
I’ve been falling behind on blogging lately. When I started blogging three years ago, I made a loose goal to post at least twice a week. Recently, I’ve been scrambling to meet that goal. One reason is this: I didn’t realize how much I relied on photos for blog content until I no longer had a
I thought long and hard about a theme for David’s third birthday. For his first and second birthdays I chose based on the decoration potential. This year I thought long and hard about David’s interests and finally, reluctantly, chose to throw him a Lightning McQueen party. He likes Lightning McQueen a heck of a lot
Mary Virginia’s birthday was over a week ago and I’m just now getting around to the details. Things were so busy last week after the cupcake sugar-high David still hasn’t come down from, Father’s Day, and Mary Virginia getting Hand Foot Mouth Disease. You read that right. Just when I thought Rickets was the only childhood
I found this idea for making a car track using Washi tape on Pinterest. Since we’ve been snowed in a lot in the past few weeks and were looking for activities, I decided to give it a try. The idea is simple enough. I already have Washi tape from packaging Etsy orders, exactly three square
I opened my Etsy shop back in May. In the first six months I only had one order, and it was from my mom. But I didn’t mind, I was busy with a newborn and a toddler, and a patron-less Etsy shop is much less stressful than a patron-less brick and mortar shop. Then suddenly,
October 31 is sort of the deadline for carving pumpkins, right? So this morning, as soon as Mary Virginia went down for her nap, I took David outside to carve our pumpkin. I was hoping for a really fun, sensory experience, but I’ve done this nonsense long enough to know it probably wouldn’t go how
Every morning Mary Virginia takes a nap around 9 a.m. During that time I get overly-ambitious about my life and start a ton of tasks. Laundry in the washer! Muffins in the oven! Sensory bins with David! Maybe I’ll reply to some emails, plant some flowers and knit a hat! Might as well because the
To uphold my mother’s reputation, I want to start by saying that I grew up in a very anti-TV home. We rarely watched TV as kids. In MY home, however, my son had developed a healthy addiction to Elmo by the time he was 19 months old. Back then David watched TV every now and then, but
Choosing a crib bed set was really fun for me when I was waiting for David’s arrival. We didn’t know if he was a boy or girl, but there were still plenty of options. I used mostly navy blue in David’s nursery because 1) I was sure he was a boy 2) if I was wrong, I
In 2012 I made it one of my goals to “Reduce clutter, organize and make our house more liveable.” I reiterated the goal in 2013: Reduce clutter, and all that. I want to reduce clutter and have a well-organized home, not because I love organizing (I like organization, but I don’t revel in the act
A few weeks ago my mom and I were cruising Pottery Barn Kids and we saw these chair backers, and my mom was like, “Oooh! Those are cute. I bet they’d be easy to make.” Then we kept looking around and saw these and decided that maybe, just maybe, we could make them, too. So I
Every now and then I pack up a bunch of toys and games and whatever else and send it to the members of my family that live in Taiwan. Many of the things I send were made in Taiwan, shipped to American where I purchase them, then send them back to Taiwan. The irony is
Tom and I love throwing parties. We’ve thrown birthday parties, Christmas parties and 10K parties. When I’m planning a party I usually don’t worry too much about dishware and decorations and instead focus on having a lot of food and making sure everyone feels welcome. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a well-set table and
Berkley Grace was born July 1 in the middle of a heat wave, so it’s unlikely her sweet baby feet will be even a little bit chilly in the next three months. But I made these bootees for her anyway. I used this pattern, which was quick and easy to read. I’ve made several pairs
It’s almost Father’s Day. I bought Tom’s gifts over a month ago, and I’ve been excited about them since, I dunno? Maybe January? His gift is not at all practical, nothing he asked for and have nothing to do with being a father. And I think he’s going to love it. To give the gift
I’ve been a knitter for years, and I’ve been knitting for other people’s babies for just as long. The most popular item I knit is these hats. It’s from a pattern I learned from a friend’s mom. Through the years I’ve knit hundreds of these hats, so I’ve got the pattern down. Now that I
These bows don’t come naturally; I worked as a gift wrapper at JCPenney for three years. Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve.
Aren’t handmade gifts the best? I’m a knitter, so before David was born I made him a teddy bear. It was one of the only gender-neutral patterns I could find. I also knitted half of this blanket, just up to the initial part. Then after out little David arrived, I knitted the “D” and finished
Check out these alphabet magnets my friend Candace made for David. Aren’t they awesome? She used instructions found here. I can’t wait for David to start playing with them. Our cat Brigham likes them, too. (Actually, he’s just starved for attention. We haven’t so much as looked at the poor guy since we brought David