Trying new things

I've been wanting to try needle felting for a while and last night I finally picked up some special needles for felting wool. I didn't expect this to become so addicting! I love the simplicity of needle felting, just cozy up on the couch, surround yourself with fluffy clouds of colorful wool (dyed with KoolAid by Maya and me for making wool 'paintings'), put on a movie and start pocking that wool with the needle :) VERY relaxing... Seriously, somebody should've given me a warning. WATCH OUT, NEEDLE FELTING WILL STEAL UP TO 3 HOURS OF YOUR PRECIOUS SLEEP! (good thing we have an alarm clock named Anya)

I ended up making a mushroom (the kind that accompanied illustrations to every folk tale of my childhood) and a 'harvest' fairy. Don't laugh, this was my first attempt and the 'wheat' turned out more like a rocket or an orange squid. I'll have to fix that tomorrow ;) (oh, and today I also added a bunny, a carrot and a pumpkin, but haven't taken any photos of them yet).

The current state of things

not sleeping. mess. not sleeping. more mess. not sleeping again.

I guess that about sums it up. Anya still can't figure out how to sleep at night and I fear she's going back to her 'no napping' routine as well. Cute as a button, as always though :)

Our house is a disaster and we can't do much to make it look more decent right now. It takes Maya and Elijah about 10 minutes in the morning to throw toys on the floor, shred paper all over the living room, spill all kinds of stuff and/or food on the table, open 3 boxes of soy milk and spill that on the floor while filling the cups to the rim, go around the room touching everything with i-won't-eat-with-a-spoon hands, all while fighting each other and screaming. Ahhh, the joys of motherhood...

Then if I do get a few minutes to catch my breath during the day, I usually spend that time for eating my breakfast (in the afternoon), and staring at the ceiling afterwards. Mark's coming home means kids losing their minds and getting yet another burst of energy which they use for... you guessed it, making more mess, fighting, running around like crazy and such. So we try to remove them from the house then get back even more exhausted just in time for late dinner. 1.5 hours later they are in bed, Anya is giving up on fighting her tiredness and drifts off to sleep in the arms of ever-so-bouncy Mark and the peace is restored... for an hour or two.

And yet, amidst all this craziness, I find those priceless moments that make up for my state of constant frazzled-ness. Like Maya getting all giddy about her dress-up clothes that mama was forced to buy at the kids consingment store just to get out of there as quickly as possible. Elijah babying his beloved trucks and diggers, carefully wrapping them in his blankie and asking me to give them hugs and kisses. And of course, the star of the show (or queen of the house, jailer of the prison, take your pick), who is getting better and better at her scooting/crawling skills and now manages to make rounds in the living room leaving a trail or drool (or rather licked floor) behind. How can I not enjoy it all? :)





Then somehow I manage to sneak it little sewing projects here and there. They are not perfect, but I don't care about 'perfect' right now, just 'good enough' for the sake of some kind of accomplishment will do.








That's it for today. Time 10 minutes of sleep before Anya wakes up. But I do have post tomorrow about Maya's idea for dinner (after she gave up on expecting mom and dad to feed her)

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!

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?