2008, Photo by Kellie

2007

2007

2005, Photo by Elisa

2004 (Lucas was Thomas again in 2005)

2003

My 7-year-old really wanted to decorate for the holiday. So, although I’ve never been one for fake spiderwebs and seasonal flags and Mylar balloons, I made some concessions this year.

First, we put those fake spiderwebs all over our home’s entry.

Then we got to crafting. I bought about 15 small pieces of felt (25¢ each) at the craft store yesterday, white and black puffy fabric paint, some tacky glue, and a bag of googly eyes.  The boys and I sat at the kitchen table today for about an hour and a half cutting shapes out of felt and gluing them together. It was really fun! Asher had a hard time working the scissors, but liked the part with the glue!

Lucas made a ghost, skull, vampire bat, orange goblin, and Dracula. I made a bat, three jack-o’-lanterns, haunted house and a witch. Ian came home from work  in time to join us, and he made the light orange ghoulie in the middle. I wish I had a good picture of the piece of yellow felt that Asher completely covered with googly eyes! But such things are fleeting with a 2-year-old around. All the googly eyes ended up on the kitchen floor.

When they are dry, I’ll thread them and hang them.

Much better than any preprinted cardboard decorations from the dollar store, I think!

I bought Lucas an orange, hooded sweatshirt about a week or so ago, after a friend turned me on to Campmor. I spent an hour last night and less than 50¢ worth of felt and embroidery thread turning it into a fun Halloween outfit. He wore it to school today. I think he loves it. I like the way it has missing teeth just like Lucas does.

It feels like forever since I wrote. It’s been such a busy time for me—lots of projects all stacked up on each other, but I think I’m through the worst (best?) of it now. I’m feeling accomplished in this area of my life, but neglectful in others.

My boys have been sick and so everyone is moving slow. Lucas is now better finally and back to school. Ian and Asher are still ill and spending the days playing Legos, watching movies, reading books, building block towers, moving huge piles of toys and things from one end of the house to another, and other low-key things. Ian can work from home a little when he feels up to it.

Although I’m sorry he isn’t feeling well, Ian’s being home the last few days has allowed me to keep my work moving forward and hit my deadlines. This is a huge relief.

On the mothering side, I feel I’m falling down on the job. I mean, nobody’s dying from neglect. Everyone’s adequately nourished and safe. But I usually like to pay a little more attention to my children. It’s five days until Halloween and we don’t even have costumes in the works. No decorations have been hung. The two pumpkins grandma grew in her garden are sitting in the backyard, instead of gracing our front porch. I bought our Pumpkin Path tickets for Saturday night, but that’s about it. Lucas would dearly love to spookify our house and I just haven’t had the time.

We missed the Sacramento Waldorf School’s Harvest Faire on Saturday, which was a real shame because it’s always such fun. But nobody in our family except me was in good enough shape to go out and have fun. At least I got my Children’s Store donations in (nine needle-felted mice, some small, blank journals, and 25 sets of three note cards featuring fairies, mushrooms, flowers, and cute garden snails). I hope to do more next year. (We did more last year!)

I’m looking forward to Asher being well again. I’m always on edge when he is coughing and congested at night. He makes the most horrible choking sounds!

OK, that was fun. Now I must get back to work!

Words. Words. Words. I’m up to my eyeballs in words: editing, writing, note-taking, developing. New projects are on the horizon. Current projects are clamoring for attention, competing with each other to get a piece of me.

It’s late and I’m so very tired. It was a wordy day, so I’ll share only a photograph.

My mother's handmade socks for Asher and Lucas.

Apart from reading more than a hundred books, vacationing on the East Coast, prepping for her fall semester Humanities classes at American River College, sewing with me, and who knows what else, my mom knitted my kids nineteen pairs of socks! Nineteen!

She knows how much Asher loves to play in the clean laundry, so she saved them all up until last night, when she gently dumped them on Asher’s head to watch him squeal with glee and roll around in them. He played in the socks for about 20 minutes, throwing them around, playing fetch (as a puppy dog), and wrestling in them.

Isn’t her work beautiful? She is so talented in so many areas. I hope that I can learn to do this someday. She uses four tiny needles to knit socks.

She told me she used up a bunch of yarn from her stash. Some socks are made from several different yarns, which gives them a playful, unique character. Perfect for my playful boys.

I took these photos this morning. The sock game was just as fun as it was last night!

Some days are so busy, I only have time for a quotation. Here’s one I found inspiring today:

Take nothing for granted: the sheer act
of walking each day; fresh air upon your cheek;
each effort expended on self or another—
walking the dog, shopping for food, toiling
at home
in an office
or on the road.
Every moment is rare, short and full of glory.
Every word is magic, a story achieved through will.
Marvel at nature’s moods as mirror of your own.
Recall a sunrise or sunset, a flock of geese in the sky.
Care about parents or children as fragile gifts
like petal on a rose, like song from one bird.
Praise the simple or complex—the invention of flight
above clouds; the wheel; the bathtub; a rocking-chair.
We rise and fall in the moon or a wave,
in a smile or many tears.
And being brave is to be alive
as we give and share love always,
only and ever to survive.

—Rochelle Lynn Holt

With the change of seasons, it’s time to move the warm-weather clothing aside to make way in drawers and closets for cold-weather clothing. I spent a couple of hours yesterday doing just that with Asher’s things.

This might be a rather tedious task to perform several times a year, except it makes me feel connected to moms and families all over the world whenever I do it. It doesn’t even matter what hemisphere you’re in. Chances are, if you have kids, you also are busy buying, making, sorting, evaluating, mending, packing, and unpacking belongings for your children because they’re always growing.

Will this fit next summer? Is this shirt still nice enough to save for the baby? Who has a child the right age to get more use out of these boots? Do these pants go into the donation box? These questions are being asked everywhere.

I pulled lots of 18 to 24 month clothes out of Asher’s dresser and filled a big shopping bag and a box full of clothing we no longer need. Some pieces are handmade by Grandma Sydney, including little matching Hawaiian shirts and shorts sets. I’m very happy I know a little boy who will grow into these things soon enough. It feels good to pass them on to dear friends.

We are rather lucky in that we have a mountain of things in our garage waiting patiently for Asher to grow into them. I pulled out the 3T box yesterday and pawed through it. The pants are all too big still, but many of the shirts will be useful this winter and beyond. It was a little like shopping for new things—kind of exciting in that way. But it was more like rediscovering old friends. I sometimes remember who gave the item to Lucas, or who made it for him, or where we were when we bought it. Even some of the stains are familiar. As I pulled out items from the box that was nearly as tall as Lucas is, memories of younger Lucas flooded my mind. It was bittersweet.

Ian has occasionally chafed at the amount of space all this STUFF takes up in his garage. But I know he’s happy to be saving the money because we don’t have to outfit our toddler from scratch. I’m so grateful to have the hand-me-downs, to use them again for Asher. I really like that these clothes get an extended life. What about the things that don’t yet fit? They go back into the garage to wait a bit longer.

My darling husband had a birthday last Friday; he turned “26” (which stands to reason since I turned “25” again this year and he’ll always be older than me).

Asher and Lucas and I baked him a lovely apple cake. The kids chopped the apples. It went kind of like this: “One for Daddy’s cake. One for me. One for Daddy’s cake. One fore me.”

Here’s the cake before we frosted it with butter cream frosting and topped it with colorful sprinkles. Damn, it was good! Moist and spicy with nutmeg. I used the Apple Hill recipe and it turned out perfect.

I roasted a chicken (and basted it with butter, garlic, and curry powder), which was beautiful and golden but I didn’t get a photo. I prepared a wonderful spinach salad and cauliflower purée, too. (It’s delish and a lot like mashed potatoes but not nearly so carby.) Ian’s sister and her boyfriend (we love them both dearly) joined us for dinner to help us celebrate. They brought the “Beatles Rock Band” game with all the equipment. We all played the game together and had a wonderful time!

Lucas was great at singing “Yellow Submarine.” I haven’t sung into a mic in … well, 20 years. So that was both weird and really fun.

Asher liked the colors on the game, but got discouraged or embarrassed at one point and gave up.

On Saturday, a beautiful, chilly fall day, we got to celebrate with just grown ups. Ian and NoNo and I ate lunch in Placerville and then drove to a little town in the Sierra foothills called Fairplay. It’s south of Apple Hill and has lots of wineries to visit. We went to three of them and tasted Sirahs and Syrahs, and Cabernets and Sauvignon Blancs, Zins and Merlots, Muscats and Ports, and a couple of varietals that I’ve never before heard of. It was lovely, although I found after a while that tasting every other wine was a better plan for me.

At the Winery by the Creek we got a treat we’d never before experienced. We tasted wine directly from the barrel. Young wine is weird and you have to try to “taste it forward.” For me, that didn’t mean much, but that’s probably because by the time we arrived there I was mostly done with wine tasting. We considered the merits of wine futures for the first time. NoNo was really tempted by both the Zinfandel and the Port, but left without buying either.

Ian and I came home with about six bottles after our adventure. We gave one to my folks as a way of thanking them for watching our boys for the afternoon.

Welcome to Asher’s Store. He has lots of merchandise, but also something of an inventory problem.

He uses his “computer” to work all the time. “Don’t touch my stuff!” he tells us one minute. The next, he says “Come buy something in my store and pay me money.”  Because of the computer he is able to take credit cards.

He carries a wide selection of tools and books, and random gizmos of all sorts. Some items cost 36 cents. Others cost “40-85-shs dollars.”

“Sit down and pay me money.”

It’s good that he has the latest in price scanners. It makes his service so excellent. You can bet I’m a repeat customer.