Busy Hands Homestead

"Boat, hand, x, o,"  she loudly declares, first with both eyes, then covering one and the other. "O, x, boat, hand", she proudly states as the nurse points to each shape on the kinder garden eye chart.  We are on our way out of the doctor's office, the eye chart being the last stop before Ivory's four year old well child visit is over.  I stand next to her, trying hard not to giggle at her earnest approach to reading the symbols.  It is hard to believe that my know-it-all, suddenly tall, with hair almost touching her bottom, reading books to me little girl has been in my life such a short time. Ivory, so excited to ride the city buses for the first time.  I was the last to know I was pregnant, and I have to admit, terrified.  Every day I rode my bike past the hospital, twice, once on the way to campus and once on the way home.  My heart would start pounding and twice a day I experienced what bordered on a panic attack.  I did prenatal yoga, ...

Ivory turned four years old yesterday. It was the first birthday that she anticipated for days, weeks and even months.  Her new found awareness, excitement and joy about her birthday made it enjoyable for me to play along in this birthday game. So late Sunday night, I was putting the finishing touches on her birthday outfit, her cake and making sure that I had my bag packed to go and bake cupcakes at her school in the morning. The outfit: The breakfast: The cupcakes : Chocolate Beet Cupcakes with cream cheese icing and marzipan flowers and leaves.  Sylvan and Ivory, oh so eagerly, awaiting their cupcakes.  The cake(s): A toadstool fairy house for the children made of a chocolate sheet cake and iced with cream cheese icing and embellished with marzipan flowers and butterfly.  A Boston cream pie for the adults.  and the party: The party was a potluck, of course. Birthdays are perfect oportunities for the adults as w...

My little girl's arms and legs are suddenly long and lanky.  The clothing that fit her so well around Christmas time suddenly is just too small.  So I have decided to sew Ivory sunny summer wardrobe. These are the results of the last three days: A sun dress with knotted straps.   A summer dress with straps that tie over the shoulders.  The bodice has a print of delicate ferns, dragonflies, snails and beetles.   Ivory is so fascinated by all things buggy and wormy right now, so I hope she loves it!  (This dress is made from a small scrap of fabric a friend gave me, an up cycled man's shirt and a cotton shower curtain for the lace!) A twirly circle skirt. A twirly circle skirt that is reversible! And a skirt that contains the fabric Ivory fell in love with at Jo-Ann Fabric's.  Her favorite fabric was the pink with the little speckles, because "It looks like a cup cake."  This skirt is going to get a matching red shirt wit...

I am making invitations for Ivory's birthday party.   Late last night I considered all the crafting materials I had stashed around the house, pulled out a few bits and pieces and curled up next to my husband on the sofa to make a prototype.  The card turned out bright and lacy: perfect for a little girl's get together in, what is here, still the beginning of spring.  Supplies: white cards and matching envelopes (I am re-purposing Christmas cards I made and turned out ugly) colored card stock,       - a rectangle, smaller than the card      - a green heart for the leaves      - a circle for the center of the flower (mine are an 1 1/2" in diameter) a sewing needle thick thread (hand quilting thread works great) a glue stick one button for each card 20 inches of lace for each card Place the beginning of the lace in the center of the card stock circle.  Tack it down with the thread. ...

Until I moved to Missoula, Montana a few years ago the only other time I lived more than a few hours away from my mom was during my semester abroad in Newfoundland, Canada.  We were next door neighbors in a few different places, and I could always stop in when ever I wanted, drink cups of coffee, sneak bites of ice cream and spend hours talking, sitting on the kitchen counter while sinking my teeth into slices of bread with Nutella. For months now, I have had a borrowed book laying across my cookbooks in my oh-so-far-away kitchen with the intent of sending the ingredients and instruction of one of the recipes to my mother for Mother's Day.  In spite of all the thinking and planning, the actual doing, of course, is a little on the late side.  The book is Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World . Sylvan gleefully helped me measure out the ingredients, grind them and bag them up. On Mother's day, I still had three little bags with bows and hand stitc...

We are planting a garden.   Onions, beets, and sugar snap peas are tucked into the bare raised beds that are on the south side of our house.  My heart swells with happiness as I watch Sylvan drop pea after pea into the water.  He is so obviously delighted by the sound.  These seeds are going to grow into little bushes of shelling peas and will line the path to our front door.  Just wait until he sees how many sweet, plump, green peas we will harvest! I am ecstatic as I watch Ivory separate the soil from the grass clods we are digging up, turning lawn into the beginnings of a strawberry patch.  The news of a strawberry bed pales in comparison to her delight in looking for worms, rolly pollies and centipedes.  When we leave for a trip to the grocery store she begs: "Mama, when we get back, can we please do some more yard work?" Progress.  On the way home  we took a detour and stopped at a ...