Celebrating Life and Love

She turned 1 and We turned 9.

We didn't throw a fancy birthday party (anyone who knows me, also knows that's I'm the last person to do it. I did manage to throw together a gluten-free rhubarb cobbler, if that counts). We just did our best to smile, laugh, and provide unlimited amounts of love for the little person who didn't even suspect she just turned one. I stayed up late enough to be awake during the exact time when Ivy entered this world, read her birth story and shed a few tears of joy. Joy is her middle name, and she's living up to it every single day, even when she spends a good deal of her time clinging to my leg and wiping her nose on my freshly laundered clothes.

from this:

to this:

Anya was sharing her imaginary cookie, Ivy enjoyed every single bite of it

Then, just 3 days later, Mark and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. NINE years. Really? We are one of THOSE couples who've been married, for like, forever and now has a house full of kids? I used to think families like ours looked so 'grown-up', and now we are one of those families, and I still don't feel like 'them'. It's been a fun ride so far, with it's ups and downs, but in the end, absolutely worth it. We've been growing together, laughing together, discovering who we are in our daily lives. It's hard work, and I am constantly filled with gratitude knowing that I get to do it all with Mark, my friend, love and eternal companion.

We've been enjoying hiking all these years, before we got married, after, and even while having little babies in our midst. So it was only natural that we decided to go on a hike/trail run for our anniversary date. It was raining. In other words, it was perfect.

simple things

Last week I felt like celebrating. Nothing in particular, maybe just the fact that I was finally feeling better. So I put my makeup and running clothes on (yes, I felt like doing it), and asked Ivy if she would join me for a few fancy shots with our Mac's PhotoBooth. She said she had better things to do (not really), but she could probably find a few minutes to pose with me in front of the computer if I promised her a snack at the end. Deal. All the blurry shots aside (that girl won't sit still when there's some huge shiny screen in front of her. what's up with that?), we ended up with this one as a winner, just before she decided to go for my nose with her untrimmed claws.

Next day it was Sunday. At the beginning of Relief Society meeting at church, there was the usual question if anyone had anything exciting happen that week. I almost raised my hand. Almost. And I kept wanting to raise my hand for the next 5 minutes. Always stopping at *almost*. The thing is, I couldn't really pinpoint in my head what was so exciting that happened that week. Nobody in our family got married, or had a birthday party, or had a new baby. Yet, for some reason I felt like I could be that person with a raised hand.

I kept thinking about it, and realized that while nothing big happened to rock my world that week, it was full of small simple things that, when added up, could beat any 'big' event. Planting our tiny garden, how could I forget that. Maya learning to play new songs on the piano. Elijah and Anya expanding their singing repertoire. Feeling better and finally going for a run after a week of couch life (even if said run didn't go all that well. at least I came home with a bunch of vintage buttons. long story...) I am sure there were many other moments which I can't even remember now (should've written about it a week ago, right?). And even though it's easy to underestimate their power, I can't deny the amount of joy they bring into my daily life, leaving me overwhelmingly grateful for each day I get to spend with my loved ones.

Later that Sunday we went for a walk around the neighbourhood. I saw this house with all its colors, and it made me smile (and obviously, stop and take this picture).

We stopped to visit our friends, who are old enough to be our grandparents. What a blessing this friendship is for us. And it comes with free rhubarb.

We got plenty, more than we needed. So we shared some with a sweet lady who was kind enough to give us some irises and a peony (oh how I love peonies) from her garden.

On our way home, I was admiring this tree. It just seemed like this was perfect time and a perfect place for it.

Mark was sporting his new haircut from the night before, and it was no small feat. He only gets his hair cut once every three months. Partly because we can't find time to cut his hair more often (only in the evenings and only when all 4 kids are asleep at the same time for at least an hour), partly because I like it when his hair gets all shaggy.

And while we are on a subject of haircuts, Elijah finally got his fringe trimmed. That very morning, right at the kitchen table after he finished eating his oatmeal. I missed seeing his bright eyes.

Anya was being her usual self, walking with my hand in hers, only letting go to pet a kitty.

(yes, mosquitoes love her too)

And to make our evening walk complete, we found some beautiful poppies growing not far from our house.

Like I said, it's all about simple things...

Never too late

I dared myself to look at the last date I posted anything. Over a month ago, oy. And it's not for the lack of things to write about. After all, in the last few weeks, we've had 2 funerals, a birthday and an anniversary... And then there are 3 April birthdays that I didn't get a chance to write about. So in my own fashion, I'll start with the most recent 'event' and hopefully will be able to do some flashback blogging in the next few days.

The 'event' I'm referring to may not seem that big to some, but it made for a pretty exciting night around here. We finally planted our 'garden'. On Monday. On May 30th. A bit late? Maybe. But to me it's better late than never, especially since we are mostly planting herbs this year. Our yard in this house is nice and spacious (at least compared to out previous one, and for the neighbourhood we live in), but it's all grass with small grass-less parts around the fence. And since we are renting, we can't really landscape it the way we'd like to. So we are trying to use the little space we've got, planting all kinds of herbs in clay pots that we found sitting around in our backyard. In my mind I'm hoping for something like this, but knowing that between Mark and I, we've got at least 2 brown thumbs (both of them are mine), I can only hope that some of our herbs will grow big enough to be used for a dish or two. My guess, it will be mint. After all, it's pretty indestructible, from what I hear. Or is it?

The prospect of our plants dying in the near future aside, I think it's still worth doing all this work, if not for harvest, then just for the sake of learning and discovering things. I, for example, spent 15 minutes squealing with joy outside once I realized that the bush hiding in the corner next to roses had delicious looking green currants on it. I can't even begin to describe my excitement over this. I LOVE currants, black ones especially. I grew up eating currants all summer, then collecting buckets full of them, hand-trimming the ends on each berry that needed it with my mom/aunt/grandma/great-aunt and then smashing the berries mixed with sugar to make the most amazing currant jam. Living in UT, I was only able to find currants at the Farmer's market and they are expensive enough that I only buy them in small batches, which get frozen and rationed over the winter time, being added in small handfulls to green smoothies on special occasions. I still don't know if our bush will surprise us with black, red or white currants, but having it in our possession, even if it's only while we are renting this place, makes it [for me] about the most valuable thing located on this property.

While digging for some dirt to mix with compost, kids were thrilled to find lots and lots of fat juicy worms. Sadly, to our kids they as close to pets as they can have in this house.

Speaking of kids, they are still a bit too excited about all the planting we did on Monday night. They simply don't know what to do with themselves in the backyard now, while there's a wheel barrel half-filled with soil mix waiting to be used. Which, of course, leads them to all kinds of trouble, like digging where they are not supposed to dig (and killing half of our Thai basil in the process) and stripping naked in our not-private-at-all backyard just to run around through the sprinkler. I have to admit, the sight of Elijah making laps in his birthday suit with the most gleeful expression on his cute mug made it impossible for me to go out with a straight face and tell him to come inside to get dressed. Luckily, Mark was home by then :)

Catching up

It's been a while since I dedicated a post to just knitting and nothing else (or joined Ginny's Yarn Along, for that matter). Mostly because April has been such a busy month for us, I just didn't have enough hours in the day for either blogging or knitting. Instead of sharing current projects today, I'll dedicate this post to Baby Surprise Jacket (or BSJ, as it's often referred to in knitting world), since I finished it about a month ago, if you don't count the fact that it remained button-less for almost 4 weeks.

This project was so fun to work with for a couple of reasons. It was my first time knitting with EZ's (Elizabeth Zimmermann) ingenious patterns. The term 'pattern' is used very loosely here. No dry boring charts or row by row written directions. In fact, there's nothing boring about EZ' writing. And she's pretty entertaining to watch in "Knitting Workshop" even for someone like my husband, who has no interest in knitting unless it produces an object he can wear or admire (or when it works as a sedative on his wife).

And did I mention that EZ is somewhat of a knitting genius? Who else could come up with an idea to knit something like this:

that can transform into this:

Fun pattern aside, I also ended up underestimated how much yarn I would need, so I had to dig through my bins with yarn and look for leftovers from other Noro Kureyon colorways. There was a lot of alternating between the balls, cutting out certain color repeats in order to have colors that would go well with one another. But it was all worth it. Once the jacket was done, it became our go-to piece of clothing for Ivy whenever we took her outside, buttons missing and all.

I added a few finishing touches to this BSJ to make it a better fit for Ivy. Even the seaming, that I was so nervous about, turned out to be easy and neat looking (you can find more details and links to helpful tips, like seaming, on this project's page).

And here's the only photo I have of Ivy wearing it (so far). Notice, it has buttons!

Ivy with her great-grandma

Easter weekend

Our birthday marathon is over, and there's a lot of photos I need to go through. For now I'll start with most recent happenings, Easter and the days surrounding it...

On Friday we spent our evening with friends, decorating eggs and just having good slow stress-free time. Amy is always full of creative ideas and knows how to utilize every scrap of paper or fabric around her house, unlike me, who often thinks that a 'fun' project involves shopping for supplies which may not even end up being used for the said project, but instead stashed away into my ever growing collection of yarn, fabric and miscellaneous 'cool' stuff. After all, you never know when I might need that Speedball linoleum carver, right?

why buy confetti when you have paint chips laying around?

On Saturday we went to celebrate Grandma Lemon's birthday, and ended up visiting Mark's parents for a 'quick' impromptu egg hunt. We planned to stay for just one hour, so we could get home with enough time to clean our house in preparation for Easter. But for some reason I can't resist taking a nap at the farm, there's just something about the house that, as soon I cross the doorstep, makes my whole being let go of rushing and stressing over small stuff, and my body refuses to cooperate with me unless I lie down and let it rest for a bit. This time both Mark and I fell asleep and ended up snoozing away for a good hour and a half. Luckily, kids got plenty of attention, not to mention a break from us.

bathed and dressed up, waiting to go see grandmas

Later that night, after we got home and kids were sound asleep, I got to work, trying to get some projects done before Easter Sunday. No, I wasn't trying to put up fancy decorations, or finish making coordinating clothes for all 4 kids (although I kept entertaining the idea of making linen pants for Elijah up until 3 a.m.). We didn't even get our house cleaned like we wanted to. But in the end I did get a few things done. Like dyeing more eggs with onion skins, blueberries and turmeric (because 1 dozen of dyed and decorated eggs is not enough?), felting some eggs (for no real reason other than giving it a try and seeing what happens), turning my old sweater into a cardigan (had to spice up my usual t-shirt and skirt outfit somehow), and dyeing a silk scarf that I found in one of my bins with sewing supplies while I was looking for linen fabric (for those pants that never got made). I used leftover 'dye' from the eggs and the color turned out perfect, bright and sunny, all thanks to wonderful turmeric.

In the end, our Easter day was not perfect by any means. Our house could've been cleaner, our children could've had newer and somewhat matching outfits, I could've been more rested, and our dinner could've been more festive. And maybe in someone else's eyes the lack of all those things meant that we didn't celebrate Christ's resurrection properly. But in my eyes, I see things differently. I see that we spent time with wonderful friends, enjoyed visiting with family members, went to Church full of kind and beautiful people. But the best way to help me feel the spirit of Easter was Ivy's clever idea to spill crayons all over the floor at the very end of the Sacrament meeting. After all, picking up those crayons was what got me caught on my knees while attempting to sign 'He Is Risen' with tears of joy streaming down my face.