We let our child have fun. Sometimes.

I finally decided it was time to do something with my 2 lbs of wool batting I bought back in December 2007. I got totally inspired by this blog post on wet felting, and I could no longer deny that our walls needed some felted wool artwork.

We've never done anything like this before, didn't have clear instructions, so we pretty much winged it. Good thing is quite fool proof :) We also dyed our wool batting in Kool Aid, which Maya had a lot of fun doing and kept asking me to let her taste yet another color of Kool Aid solution (yeah, 'solution' is the right word!)

I think Maya did an amazing job on her first wool felted artwork ever!

Mama's lunch

And breakfast. And dinner. I can eat this 3 times a day and I often do, unless I run out of roasted peppers. I roast mine in the broiler part of the oven, or in the open flame (on low) on the stove top. Let them cool down in a bowl, peel, dice, mix with olive oil, salt and ground black pepper... Yum!

Me? Trouble??? NEVAH!

I sent the first photo to my mom last night, and this morning I got an email from her where she mentioned that Anya must be such a mellow and easy going baby, judging by the photo... Seriously what else could you assume looking at Anya being all cute with her grandma?

You'll never assume that the reason grandma came to visit that day was because we made an S.O.S. call the night before, because Anya decided to stop sleeping at night and Mark had to skip work at the end of the week.

Wait, I blogged about it before? I guess the last two nights are stating to take their toll on me again. Yep, she's back to keeping us up at night. I think July has been her record worst month of sleeping. Ughhhh... Good thing she's a cute baby during the day...

Obligatory picture post

I feel like my blog looks a bit odd with three posts in a row that don't have any pictures, so this post is my attempt to make up for the picture-less week on my blog. I have nothing else ready except for a self-portrait photo taken about a week ago, so here it is... I may have some *real* photos coming later tonight ;)

Featured

My confession for today... I'm a birth junkie. I love birthing. I love those unforgettable first few seconds when a mom gets to finally meet the little human being that grew inside her body. It's magic really. Nothing less than a miracle. My dream is to photograph births, some day, when my kids are old enough to be left with someone for a few hours and when I am old enough to learn how to drive. It's the kind of thing that I would pay to do for others, that's how much I love births.

My birth experience with Elijah was amazing, and with Anya it was simply incredible. Both times I did HypnoBirthing, which completely changed my attitude towards births. So all this time I've been on a secret mission, trying to share my love for HypnoBirthing and to show that births don't have to be painful and dramatic as media portrays them.

As shy as I am generally, I have NO problem sharing my births with complete strangers. So shortly after Anya was born, her birth video hit YouTube (thank goodness for the fantastic outfit I found to birth in, hehe) and I've been getting extremely positive comments and emails several times a week, every week ever since. Recently Anya's birth video made it to two blogs that I read, so I feel quite honored :) Here are the two posts that featured my video:

The True Face of Birth

Bellies and Babies

I am a Mom. What's your superpower?

I have to admit, it takes some sort of super power to get off the couch while nursing your naked baby, tear off 3 paper towels and get them wet, then clean your toddler from head to toe after he finished a messy lunch, and wipe the table and chair to make sure he doesn't get into the mess again. All this is done with one hand, because the other hand is still holding the naked nursing baby.

I guess that's the superpower you get as a compensation for sacrificing your short term memory and a few dozen of IQ points.

Lose/lose situation

It's when you can't decide which is worse: shaking your sore brains while having headache and bouncing on the ball to keep your baby quiet, or have your eardrums pierced with "give me ball, or give me death" kind of scream...

Wheeeee!!!

Yet another one of my confessions... As much as I love to see our kids play in water and dirt, or make creative messes at home, I *hate* the clean-up afterwards, maybe because it always reminds me of handling a bunch of hot potatoes that you can't set anywhere - you have to handle things lightning fast, and use both hands and legs to prevent creative messes from getting out of control. Still, I really enjoy the times when kids are having fun playing outside (and not just throwing sand on each other's heads).

Back from the dead [tired]

This past week was rough. Anya decided out of the blue that sleeping was no longer fun so she tried her best to keep us up all night, and all day, and then all night again, and... well, you get the idea. For the night time Mark and I have our specific duties when it comes to Anya being awake. I nurse, Mark bounces with her on the ball if she's restless. Well, during those few nights last week the only times when Anya slept were either when Mark was bouncing with her or when I was nursing. If Mark tried to set her down when she seemed to be asleep, she would instantly pop her eyes open, start squirming and acting very mad. Same story during the day... By the end of the week Mark was so tired that he had to take a day of, and I... well, moms don't get a day off. I mean it's not like I can go and spend a day at friend's house sleeping all the time... Well, maybe I would if there was a friend I could go to...

After all this madness, Anya finally went back to her normal sleeping, right after we sent an S.O.S. call to Mark's mom and she promised to come and help us out. And wouldn't you know it, the first night Anya started sleeping better, Mark and I spent 3 hours working on our projects. And the funniest thing is that instead of working on one of 238 unfinished projects, I picked a new one, something that I've never even done before. How smart is that? I mean, the baby is sleeping, mama is still about 78 hours behind on her sleep, but who cares? I have the whole night ahead to create something, even if my eyes are red and my vision is getting blurry from being tired. So what did I make? ;)

It's a necklace :) A while ago I saw a photo on Flickr (I'll post link later if I can find it) of someone wearing a perfectly happy necklace and I knew this was it, I had to find one with the colors I liked. I waited and waited, and last week I really felt like I needed something to lift my spirits, so off to the bead store I went. As per usual, I spent twice as much time as I thought I would ( although Mark would argue that it was 3x) but I ended up finding my perfectly happy beads. Being the total dummy that I am, I asked the sales lady how to make a necklace that I had in mind, and of course she had to start her explanation by saying "well, it's one of the trickier ones". Boy, she wasn't kidding! It only took me 3 hours and one very sore thumb to make it. But I am happy :) Happy to have my happy necklace and to feel like I finally made some kind of accomplishment last week besides surviving.

The only photos I have of it were taken while I was nursing Anya ( I took some other ones too, but the files turned out to be corrupt, grrrr...). Don't be fooled and go 'awwwww' looking at me 'lovingly' holding her head. It was done in an attempt to restrain her from doing what she always does. The truth is, she is a terrible nurser, for the lack of a better fitting word. She never sits still, always kicks her legs and squirms with her whole body. Watching her head reminds me of watching a clock arrow - moving up, then to the right (or towards my stomach), then down, then to the left... over and over again. Nursing her always requires both hands (could always use 3rd one for holding her down, and a 4th one would be nice for reading a magazine for once), and a permanently fixed head in a "I am watching you, aaaaalways watching you" position...

Then here she is mad for me interrupting her 'workout':


And finally cute for a moment (now you can say "awwwww")

Etsy world

Never heard of Etsy? Well, what are you waiting for? Check it out now! It's the ultimate place of all things hand made. Oh, and vintage lovers' paradise too. There's no limit to talent, from fabric covered buttons and key fobs, to handmade furniture and organic clothing.

Speaking of Etsy and organic clothing, this is what arrived at my doorstep today. No photos by me yet, but I'm wearing one of the skirts as I type and the fabric is a dream for hot summer days. Thin, soft, airy, and of course organic! All the way from Thailand in just one week? You bet!

Skirt 1

Skirt 2

WIP

Or in other words, Work In no Progress... I had all the intentions to finish this Mei Tai last week, but after having a week of almost non-stop whining, I just don't have any energy to sew. So instead I keep looking at the colorful pile of fabrics that are meant to be made into something functioning in the future...

On a subject of cloth diapering

We started cloth diapering (CDing) when Elijah was about 2 months old so it was a natural decision to continue doing it with Anya as well. We are loving pre-folds with Disana Tie Nappies, rarely even have to use wool cover over this combo. I also noticed it's easier to hold your baby when there's added 'bulk' around their bums ;)

I have to admit I get lazy at times, fall behind on diaper laundry and secretly wish I didn't feel guilty for using disposables. But I guess CDs are in my system now, whenever I 'cheat' and use sposies for a change or two, I start experincing some kind of withdrawal and dream of piles and piles of freshly laundered colorful pre-folds. I guess it's a good thing to be addicted to, right?

Saturday hike

Nothing like a good outing to complete the weekend. We try to do it on Saturdays, although we could probably do it any day of the week, considering that we never manage to get out of house before 7 p.m. Last night we had all intentions to start the hike at 6:30-7 p.m. In reality? Didn't start it until about 8:30 p.m., which is why we had to pick a short one. So Ensign Peak was the place to go!

Ode to Solar Oven

A couple of months ago Mark finally got himself a solar oven, something he'd been wanting for a while. We cooked several times in it, but today's dinner was definitely the winner! Perfect for summer because all the ingredients came either from Farmer's Market our own garden. Easy too, no recipe required. Really doesn't get any better :)

Here's what we used:
baby potatoes
green beans
garlic
fresh basil
fresh oregano
extra virgin olive oil
salt/pepper
(next time will add whole cherry tomatoes)

Cooking time was about 3.5 hours and potatoes came out perfectly cooked, as well as beans, which stayed a bit 'squeaky', just the way we like them.

Before:















After:

What this is all about

I feel a little strange putting up a 'normal' post without introducing this blog first so here we go...

I've been feeling lately that I'm just really bored, don't have enough things to do, go to bed too early because I've exhausted all my creativity and the only thing I can do with all that free time is sleep. So of course having my own blog will be just perfect for me, because I can make a new post every day, and maybe even several times a day...

You don't think I'm serious, do you? :) If you have at least one child person in your household, you'll know that all you 'free' time during the day is spent on damage control. Now multiply that by 2 and add a baby person who likes to distract me from being a good damage controlling mama person and instead tries to encourage me to exercise my abs by bouncing with her on the yoga ball. In exchange she rewards me with no-crying sounds. This lasts until about 10-11 p.m. when all kids are sleeping and Mark and I have a wonderful opportunity of going to bed and getting some rest. So 3 hours later we do...

Now this doesn't make any sense... Why add another blog to my endless list of things to do? Simply because I often feel like I need my own personal place to express myself, talk about my happy moments and my frustrations, my children, my goals, dreams, creations, progress, and many other subjects that matter to me.

So off we go!