The knitted donkey work in progress that I wrote about last week is finished. Here he is!

We decided our newest mom-made toy is named Sturdylegs the Donkey. Other name contenders—all great suggestions from Lucas—were Nightsky, Faithful, and Chimney. His names were so perfect and creative, it makes me want to knit three more donkeys just to use them all. (I doubt any family of four needs four knitted donkeys, however.)

Sturdylegs is all one piece, knitted from wool yarn and stuffed with wool roving. His mane and tail tuft is black acrylic because that’s what I had. The pattern is from Toymaking with Children by Freya Jaffke.

I’ve started knitting a cat, which is far easier than the donkey.  😉

My Lucas Baby is sick today. He is actually moaning in his sleep right now, at 1:45 p.m. The fact that he is asleep during the day says a lot. He’s feverish, with chills and whimpering. No school today, or swim practice for him this afternoon. I think Mom can stay with him while I drag Asher off to his swimming lesson.

So far, the first day of ARC swim team was more than a little confusing to me, particularly because of the altered start time for the first day, and because they scheduled Asher’s lesson for an hour later than I expected. Also, since I can’t think of a single team sport experience in my life, I expect I’m just woefully unprepared. I think we have these logistical kinks worked out and I’m hopeful that this will turn out to be a good experience for all of us. Let’s hope Asher cries less today! I have chocolate chip cookies to offer him afterward.

This is the last week of school. Three more days of second grade for Lucas! This is more than a little remarkable. I just hope he recovers enough to enjoy the festivities, like the swimming party on Thursday during school hours!

I spent about 20 minutes on the phone this morning coordinating plans with my mother-in-law, who is very helpful with babysitting and whatnot. We are both trying to wrap our minds around the summertime schedule and assorted activities to figure out when she might have the boys. I swear, this is project management at its best. On deck for summer for Lucas are:

• Effie Yeaw Junior Rangers Nature Camp (two weeks of mornings, including field trips to go fishing, rock climbing, and river rafting)
• Sacramento Waldorf School summer camp (six weeks with his friends on his turf, learning about Native American arts and crafts, building a bow and arrows, learning spinning and how clothing is made, playing games, etc.)
• CSUS Aquatics camp in August (one week of water sports)
• Time with his brother and “cousins” at Ring-A-Rosies (where Asher goes to day care)
• ARC Swim Team (eight weeks M-Th; 50 minute practices)
• Piano lessons on Wednesday evenings

We decided to go with camp programs we know Lucas will really like, where he will know kids and be comfortable. Swim team is probably the most challenging thing in this list. Last summer was too bouncy and required too many adjustments to new people and new places (my fault). We are looking forward to a comfy summer of fun. Thirteen weeks. See my fingers crossing?

One of our recent nature walks is featured on Imagine Childhood. We are grateful that our little local adventure attracted Sarah’s notice via our Flickr photos, and that she asked us to participate with other families from all over the world!

There are so many marvelous things to see and feel and discover when you hit the trails. Just pick a general destination, pack along some water and snacks, and let your children lead the way.

Why a donkey? I don’t actually know, except that it’s small and doesn’t matter. I think that appealed to me. And this pattern is more challenging that the lamb and duck that I’ve knitted in the past. I’d been feeling a lack of handwork even though I’m discouraged because the sweater I was knitting for Asher would no longer fit him if I actually finished it—yes, it takes me THAT long! (Oh, and he hates sweaters.)

Anyway, this donkey has been a good way to practice (remember) how to increase and decrease stitches, and to read a pattern. The trickiest part was increasing in the center of the rows to produce the neck of the animal. There was MATH and everything! It was a great boon to have my friend Dakini_Grl (an accomplished knitter) over for dinner the night I first attempted that! She’s the BEST. It’s actually looking like a donkey now.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Yesterday, our fabulous surprise adventure that started with a gorgeous nature walk ended with a surprise trip to the movie theater—our first as a family since 2005, when we made the mistake of thinking that 3-year-old Lucas was ready for this type of thing and tried to see a kids’ movie on a rainy Thanksgiving Day in Eureka, California. We managed to stay only ten minutes that time, before the noise and the frenetic film content thoroughly freaked out our kid. (Oh, the GUILT!) Needless to say, we learned a valuable lesson about Lucas and media that evening and we’ve been rather hesitant to try the movie-going experience since then.

But, you know, he’s 8 now. And begging for bigger boy experiences. (He is really wanting to see Star Wars, which is the BE ALL, END ALL for all second-grade boys (even Waldorf boys), and man!—if he were any other kid … ) Although I wish to protect my son from media influences that might upset him or be too mature for him, I also don’t want him to be the only kid he knows who has never been to the movies!

So, Ian and I decided to give the theater a try, reasoning that Lucas is much older now and Asher … well, Asher just isn’t as sensitive as his older brother. He also seems more media-savvy, and is quite keen to watch anything at any time. Moreover, he’ll follow along with just about anything Lucas does, which I suppose is the karma of the second son.

We didn’t tell the boys what was up until we pulled into the theater parking lot.

“What’s this place?”

“This, dear Lucas, is the movie theater. We are going to see a movie.”

“All RIGHT!”

We saw How to Tame Your Dragon and it was great fun! Some parts were very intense and I wondered if we’d be leaving before we got to the end of the film, but my kiddos stuck it out! Lucas laughed out loud a bunch of times and Asher didn’t seem at all fazed by the scary dragons, fire, dramatic flying/falling scenes, or angry Vikings (with mysterious Scottish accents). I was happily impressed with the film’s story, and as we left my boys were chattering about which types of dragons they liked best.

[My, my! Movie tix for our family of four: $33!!!]

A tidal wave of work is coming my way, so the projects I presently have in hand consumed some of my weekend. This isn’t really so bad, except the weather was heavenly and my darlings headed off to the zoo without me on Saturday. I realized after they left that I’ve missed rather a lot of Asher’s zoo trips. This must be corrected soon.

Two strategy guides are hitting my inbox this week. A development task that was pushed off in favor of helping another editor with an urgent deadline is now coming due. My novel edit is due on Friday. Whee!

And still … I walked away from all of this to join my family on a little surprise adventure. We have a lovely book called Best Hikes with Children Around Sacramento and today we tried out a short, easy hike in Granite Bay at a place called Miners Ravine. It’s only a half-mile loop, but it sure was pretty! Honestly, California in the springtime—even in the Central Valley—is fantastic.

The bees were out in force! Many wildflowers were tickled by their buzzy paramours today. I took lots of wildflower/bee photos. Cuz I’m that kind of girl.

I don’t know for sure, but I think this white bubbly stuff might be spittle bug spittle.

We found a granite rock with lots of acorn grinding holes used by the Native Americans of the area—Miwoks, I believe.

Isn’t the automatic timer on the camera cool?

Purple lupines and pink clover.

Lucas found a treasure! And see his gappy grin? He lost another top tooth last week. The seventh, if I’m not mistaken.

We came across a shadowy pond with yummy reflections of the live oaks overhead and ceaseless ripples from bugs’ movements.

This granite boulder was enormous. Wherever Lucas goes, Asher must follow. ‘Twas ever the way for brothers.

It was such a great day! I’m glad to be taking advantage of this cool, comfortable weather while it lasts, and am very much looking forward to trying more local hikes recommended in our book. Our adventure ended with another exciting surprise, but I’ll save that for a different post.

I’d been saving up this hammered botanicals project ever since I saw it on a blog I read, called Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish, last March. (How could I not read it, with a marvelous name like that?) Oh, here it is! I was afraid I might not be able to find it. (The Internet is AWESOME!) Anyway, the Dim Sum author, Lucia, found it in a terrific book called Nature’s Art Box, which is on my wish list.

Anyway, I thought that these smashed flower prints would be a perfect project for my boisterous, bashing boys. I learned a lot during this project, not the lease of which was it’s best to follow directions. Alas, I’m the dive-in-and-figure-it-out sort of person.

We used:

• white cotton fabric
• scissors
• pinking shears
• hammer
• scotch tape
• flower cuttings from our garden
• phone book
• watercolor paper
• watercolor paints and paintbrush
• dollar store certificate frames, 8.5 x 11 size

Lucas enthusiastically helped with the hammering, but I couldn’t get Asher to join in. When dealing with a 3-year-old, timing is everything! And the time I had set aside to do this project was All Wrong. Asher wouldn’t even come outside to see what we were up to.

We found that the roses and pansies gave brilliant colors. The mallow flowers and Spanish lavender were subtler. Creating the watercolored mats fell to me. (Are they really mats if the fabric print goes on top of them?) I didn’t want to try to cut the mats precisely; laying the fabric on top of the watercolor paper seemed just fine.

Originally we made six of these. Then I read online that a mixture of alum and water would help keep the colors fresh. Fortunately, our friends had some alum that we could borrow. Unfortunately, three unexpected results happened when I lightly sprayed the fabric prints with the solution.

1. The color from the smashed roses bled like crazy, running down the hanging fabric (which you can see in the photo below in the center)
2. The color from the dark purple pansies bled outward (I learned not to spray as much solution, and still the capillary action of the water caused the dye to spread)
3. Unbeknownst to me, the fabric on two of the prints had actually taken up a tiny amount of newsprint from the phone book pages when we were hammering the cuttings. It was invisible before I sprayed the prints. Afterward, ack! Some of the newsprint words appeared in our lovely botanical prints. (You can see a big black W and other type on the right-hand print in the photo above)

None of those three surprises made me happy. And if I were to do this project again, I’m not sure if I’ll bother with spraying them with alum. Perhaps the colors from the flowers and stems will oxidize or fade over time. I don’t know. Also, I’ll make sure to put white paper between my fabric and anything with newsprint on it.

When all was said (cussed) and done, and after two pieces of glass from our frames were broken (more cussing after the children were asleep), we ended up with three pretty prints, ready to give out to grandmothers on Mother’s Day.

The grandmothers seemed pleased. 😉

I don’t wander very far from home, most days, and yet I always find something that inspires me and fills me with wonder. I’m grateful for all the beauty that I’ve soaked in this spring. I’m trying to use it to stoke my own internal creativity and patience.

Graceful catkins decorate this tree, which is the last one to leaf out in my backyard. I wish I knew what it is.

I forget whether this is a “Sterling Silver” or “Blue Girl” rose, but man, it smells sweet! It’s silly that I don’t remember, since I placed it there myself!

Wildflowers we found at Sacramento Waldorf School farm, when Ian, Asher, and I went looking for Lucas.

A rainbow of wheelbarrows at the SWS farm. They just looked so useful and beautiful at the same time.

Mint returning in my food garden plot, next to my parsley. I was told I’d regret planting mint directly in the ground instead of in a pot, but the truth is I am happy to see it coming up. Lucas frequently goes nibbling his way through the garden plot and enjoys making all sorts of mint soups and drinks.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.