Hello?

Another video blog day. I've had a terrible time with allergies, which has now progressed into a sinus infection. I have had little energy left for creativity, projects, or much else.

Ben, on the other hand, is all energy all the time. When not playing piano, he picks up nearby objects and pretends to be on the phone. Occasionally, he's actually using a play phone.

Playing Piano

All of the children in my family, and both Josh and his sister took piano lessons as children. We all five took lessons from the same woman, in fact. For my college graduation gift, my grandfather gave me a piano that he carefully cleaned, re-felted, and tuned after purchasing it from an SBU auction. Piano playing is one of Ben's favorite pastimes. It will be before I know it, when he is old enough to start lessons. I think we will choose a different instructor, though.

Wooden Toys

I am in love with wooden toys. I know they get a bad rap for paint peeling and some containing lead paint, but for the most part, they are great. Ben has wooden puzzles, a set of wood blocks, wooden stacking rings, and his newest - a wooden hammer and pegs ($3 at a thrift store!) He also has one of those wooden activity centers like in doctors offices. Maybe it's the simplicity of these toys without any batteries or flashing lights.  Or the appeal may be my own nostalgia, picturing my own grandkids someday playing with these toys, but either way, they are my favorite.

Spring Break

Spring break hasn't meant the same since college. I love that by teaching, I am able to continue to relax and refresh for one week each spring. But in college, I used this week to travel the country. In my four years of college, I visited Oregon, Arkansas, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Illinois. My friends and I mostly took road trips, particularly in the years I drove a conversion van. This makes my visit to Bolivar to see grandpa a little less exciting, but so much about my life has changed that sleep and laundry are far greater priorities for this week.

Ben and I both enjoy the extra time in pajamas. He has started mimicking behavior, and was feeding his dog a play bottle this morning.

He also had some awesome bed head, to go with his hip pajamas.

Outside Playhouse

As if Ben doesn't have enough, I came across this outdoor playhouse and it was a heck of a deal. I regularly frequent Children's Orchard, a used children's clothing store in Springfield. It's a chain, and I linked the title to their national website. They offer cash or store credit for used children's clothing, toys and equipment. This fits perfectly with my values of frugality, reusing, and not keeping what we don't need - even in storage.

On a regular basis, I try to bring in boxes of Ben's clothes as he outgrows them. I keep a running credit with the store and have come across great deals on a stroller, dress clothes for Ben, nursing clothes, and I even bought my Maya Wrap there.

At my most recent visit, I came across a mint condition playhouse, as pictured above. Within ten minutes of them bringing it out and assembling it, I bought it and they had to take it apart all over again. It included the printout of the same item new - priced at $250. The store priced it at $100 and I had $75 store credit, making it a $25 purchase. How could I resist?

The employees knew it wouldn't last long because it had been kept indoors only (until know) and is in such great shape. Ben is still nervous about crawling outside for some reason, but he'll cruise around cautiously, favoring the doorbell which makes different noises each time he presses it.

The slide is another one of Ben's awesome birthday gifts, and it seems to fit next to the house in his outdoor play area. We still haven't decided if his setup would be more practical near the clothesline or the garden, each on opposite sides of our house, but both requiring our time and attention. I'll probably ask Josh to drag it around to each side of the house at least a couple of times before I decide.

Ben's Birthday Party

The weekend following Ben's birthday, we had a small family gathering to celebrate. We didn't have a theme or matching hats, but we did have good weather, farm animals and time to walk the trail and spend time outside with our nearest and dearest.

Because everyone's Saturdays are so busy, we decided to have a birthday brunch and serve breakfast food. It made good use of our eggs and was quick and easy to prepare. After presents we had homemade cupcakes, but Ben got the special birthday cake as seen in the picture.

Ben got his first real pair of cowboy boots from PFI, given to him by my parents' neighbors. He was pretty excited about them. He later discovered they are perfect containers for his wooden blocks too.

He received too many wonderful gifts for me to post a picture of him playing with each, but the tricycle above was another big hit. I love that it straps him in for now, but most of it comes apart and will leave him with a stand alone tricycle when he's old enough. We've already taken this one all over the farm and down to the pond and back. It's quite a workout to push that uphill through the weeds.

I hope no one felt left out, but I really enjoyed keeping his birthday a small family affair. The breakfast idea was a big hit, because everyone had the rest of the day to themselves and we had time to recuperate and clean up before going to a church event that evening. i'm still not entirely sure where we are going to put everything he got, though.

First Time Coloring

As suggested by our Parents as Teacher's person, we have started letting Ben practice coloring. He's a big fan for brief increments of time, followed by attempts to eat the crayons and paper.

I love the Crayola big pad of paper, and he actually did much better when the paper was held vertically, but I couldn't do that and hold the camera at the same time. After he had this paper pretty well covered, I cut it up and made it into thank you notes for his birthday presents. The "washable" part of these crayons proved to be true, as he enjoyed coloring his shirt as much as he enjoyed coloring the paper.

After a day of appointments, Ben has graduated from helmet therapy. These pictures are actually from a few days ago. His head isn't quite where they hoped it would be, but the surgeon said that we can expect no further change and the doctors are all pleased with the growth and shape of Ben's head. Considering his age and all he's gone through, everyone is impressed with how great he looks. We will continue to have annual checkups for the next couple of years, but the prognosis is good.

At the later appointment, his pediatrician postponed his vaccinations again because his ears are clear but he has a red throat and low grade fever. We're going back in another two weeks and hoping for health.

Happy Birthday Ben!

Today Ben is one year old. He celebrated by skipping daycare and spending the day with grammy. He joined Josh for lunch and had dinner with grandma Sherry and grandpa Steve. Between all of that, I gave him his first haircut (just a little off the back) then quickly finished up his birthday present that I have been working on since a little after Christmas - Ben's Barn! It's a felt playhouse that fits over a card table.

The front is made to look like a barn door and he has a lamp on one side and a mailbox on the other. The mailbox opens and has letters that he can put through the opening. I made the lettering by printing the words "Ben's Barn" and then using that as a pattern to trace onto the felt.

One side has a vegetable garden with corn, radishes, onions inside pockets made to look like soil. Some of the vegetables have jingle bells sewn into them and others have crinkly plastic or other textured fabrics on the inside. The stems are bendy and made by sewing pipe cleaners into felt tubes. The corn is woven white and yellow corn, just like the corn we grew in our garden last summer.

The other side has an apple tree and a corral which holds his stuffed cow. The apples come off with velcro, and I may make pears or oranges to stick on there some day.

The back is our pond with velcro fish, a dragonfly, and cattails.

The inside is much less complicated, mostly covered in book pockets. 

I also used clear plastic sheeting to make picture frame pockets around the top of each wall.

And curtains for each of the side windows. The tiebacks are also tied around the legs of the card table to keep everything in place a little better.

And he has a fireplace in back. I still need to sew around each of the windows and trim the bottom a little. He absolutely loved playing with his barn. He crawled in and out through the door several times, then pulled all of the books out of the pockets, the apples off the tree, then crawled back in and out a few more times, trying to see if he could get his head through the mail slot. 

Felt is so forgiving and it is very much like using construction paper. Nothing was turned and top-stitched and everything but the lettering was cut freehand without doing much of any measuring. I sketched out my plans and I must give credit to my blog-spiration here. You will see many of her ideas repeated throughout my playhouse project, (mailbox, mesh in the windows to keep your kid from climbing through them, tree and garden ideas, etc.) and I am so grateful for her blog and sharing her creativity with the rest of us. She includes a lot more details about how to make each section and templates that make it possible to completely repeat her process.

I custom fit this to our small card table. I believe she used her dining room table, and somewhere she mentions that with felt, it is a little tricky to manage that much fabric when you are in the final stages of putting everything together. Because I did the inside and outside, I had a tough time managing the weight of the final project when I was sewing the finishing touches. I still need to go back and fix a couple of things and it's going to be tricky to keep the fabric from breaking the needle or pulling in the wrong direction.

I didn't use any patterns or templates, so I don't have any of that to share on here, but I think the best part about the barn is that I used features of our own farm and home. Ben's barn was the single biggest crafty/sewing project I have ever attempted and I think it was a big hit.

This is from his first haircut. I figured while I had the good scissors out I might as well cut a few of the long places in the back. I already don't like how old his haircut makes him look.

Peek A Boo

We finally got a good night of sleep last night, and I feel like I have the energy to write something again. Ben is doing well and happily eating, playing, and crawling all over the house like normal again. I don't have much else to update. He loves to initiate peek a boo with any available towel or blanket on the ground. We are working on waving and clapping. "Mama" refers to me, Josh, or a bottle equally, but he knows it gets results.

I am really missing Ben after going back to school. His separation anxiety is so high that he doesn't ever want us to leave the room. At least Christmas break is soon...

Ben's Remote

I haven't posted in quite a while. Ben is so close to walking and it takes so much energy just to keep up with him! In the photo he is napping with his toy remove. We have started all taking an afternoon nap together on the weekends and it is a routine I would highly recommend adding to your Sunday afternoons.

I just finished fall parent teacher conferences and it has caused me to reflect on Ben's education. I know I have said this before, but I absolutely love teaching at The Summit. Now that I have been teaching at this school and know more about what an independent school is, it is hard for me to imagine sending Ben anywhere else. Every classroom has highly qualified teachers and fewer than fifteen in each class. The children have Spanish daily and nearly twice as much time in art, music, P.E., and computer when compared to public school. More than anything though, the attitude of the school is phenomenal and everyone is thrilled to come to school every day. It is so unlike anywhere else I have taught before.

The entire school community (faculty, parents and students) have all been so supportive of me as we are nearing Ben's surgery date. I will be taking three to four weeks off, depending on how the recovery goes and how long it takes us to get his helmet. Fortunately, one of those weeks is Thanksgiving break, so I had less planning and days to miss school. The time between Halloween and Christmas is always a difficult time to be a teacher and I hope all goes well while I'm gone.

Handmade Gifts

I absolutely love giving and receiving handmade gifts. I recently gifted a pair of wool dryer balls and a sandwich wrap for a friend's birthday. Ben has received some awesome handmade gifts as well, including felt blocks, a beautiful quilt from my mother, my grandmother and great-aunt crocheted him baby blankets, and he recently received some very cute silk screened and hand-painted shirts.

Those of you who know me can probably guess which crafty friend's mom made the shirt in the top picture. My mind is already spinning with ideas for Christmas presents this year.

I am still reading Weekend Sewing, but I haven't made anything yet. I have also checked out Sewing Green by Betz White from the library. The library book includes all of the patterns in an envelope that says we are welcome to make copies, but please don't cut these patterns. Sewing Green is all about repurposing clothes and recycling fabric and thrift store finds. I should soon be recieving the newly released book Handmade Home with many more ideas. I will be sure to post with any of my creations from any of these books. Hopefully sooner than later.

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Josh spotted our fox friend out in the field one day. We were a little worried about seeing him during the daytime, but he took off just after I snapped this photo.