Celebrating 2 years!

Wow. 2 years. I feel like I'm in uncharted territory. I could imagine every age until now, and the rest is just unfathomable. One day she'll be able to walk downstairs unaided, she'll learn to brush her own teeth, she'll go to school, and, oh my, I'm not ready to go beyond that yet. I know I'm getting ahead of myself. The last two years didn't fly by as everyone said it would. In fact, it's seems like a small amount of time for all that we've crammed into it.

We invited a few Trinity families from our neighborhood with kiddos close to Eden's age over for cupcakes and crafts on Sunday afternoon. Eden has been interested in Bambi and Princesses lately- no trouble guessing which we are encouraging.

Dessert was applesauce spiced cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese frosting topped with woodland creatures and trees.

 Thanks Aunt Jillian for my Christmas present last year! The cute cupcake toppers are still coming in handy.

We had apple cider in mason jars (leftover from canning applesauce, which was in fact used in the cupcakes), giving me the perfect excuse to use the cute paper straws that are popping up all over etsy.

Oh, and Eden LOVES fire...

 

and cupcakes. Good combination for a happy birthday girl. Thanks Grandma for the cute dress! It was perfect for the day's festivities.

For the craft we had the kids "make" dioramas. We glued a background and some moss into brown boxes, collected some acorns, leaves, and sticks, and bought a few small plastic animals.

Thomas deserves all the credit for finding the cutest shrubbery our neighborhood has to offer.

 

I was a little worried about the project. SURE I'm all but certified in K-12 art eduction, but definitely not in toddler art education. I was hoping sticks would be as much fun as they sounded and I was right :).

There was lots of playing. 6 kids is probably the max our house can handle at a time, and I'm proud to say they all played well and there were fewer tears than I can count on one hand. A big attraction was Eden's tree tent.
 

 To thank her guests we had make your own trail mix.

 

We even remembered to have the last guest snap a picture on their way out the door :). Eden's Bambi doll is definitely her favorite present. 

Sharing new toys proves to be one of the hardest tasks a toddler has so we opted to save her last present after the party had ended, and no, it was NOT Thomas' idea. I'm sure I'll eat my words, but 2 year old "boy" toys are more fun than 2 year old "girl" toys.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes and presents!! We pass along all your hugs and sweet words and it's obvious Eden feels very loved.  Now I have to go clean out the basement to make room for all these toys!

Commisioned-ish

I get a lot of comments from people about commissioned work or interest in sewing/painting/drawing/baking lessons, but it often doesn't work out. People are rarely comfortable taking me up on my offer and I have enough projects of my own that I don't pursue their interests very strongly. Once in awhile everything comes together and I get to try something new for an excited audience. For the other parties involved, the memories are probably vague, but crafting with friends leaves me with strong, vivid, wonderful memories. Painting with April Dudley and Elizabeth Carter, making cards with my mom, baking with Anna Middlebrook, working with my sister, getting knitting tips from Abigail Wilson, ... I really wish I could go on and on, but did I mention how rarely this actually happens?

Eden and I attend a story time organized by our childrens librarian at a local bakery every Tuesday. It's quite fun- themed crafts and snacks, they really do a nice job. Another mother, a good friend and neighbor, was asking the librarian about resources for making your own flannel boards. The librarian was at a loss so I offered to try. We decided to do Old MacDonald for a trial run. Last night I watched a bit of Hulu and free handed some barn animals to see if  cheap, acrylic, embellished felt would be too heavy to stick to the flannel.

My friend is going to make the flannel board properly before we make more, but they seemed to work when I draped a piece of flannel over an arm chair. 

Now that I know I can do it, my friend is coming over Wednesday to learn the process and make the barn.

And who knows, maybe a sun, fence, tree, farmer, letters E, I & O... it could go on and on.

The librarian wants to see a portfolio when it's all finished and is considering commissioning a set. And on top of that, she wants something personally done for her daughter's birthday! Hopefully I'll be working on that this week and posting details soon.

I'm really excited about the potential crafting with friends stacking up: teaching someone to sew so she can make aprons for her nieces for Christmas (admittedly my favorite prospect), helping make 100% wool blankets for a sensitive skinned cutie, throwing a knitting party, helping someone learn to quilt.

My mom recently visited us for a week and we had a splendid time (especially Eden with all of her new toys :). I'll post pictures soon.

Fall

I better hurry up and talk about our Fall before winter comes. I have to say, after all the people kept telling me that the cool summer and the beautiful Fall make up for the snow, I'm a bit dissapointed. It was a pretty hot summer here, although I'd take it over Texas any day, and the leaves just weren't that spectacular. Also, the snow is kind of fun, so there's really not that much to make up for.

Here's a quick snapshot I took of the treeline in front of the elementary school, about 2 blocks from our place:

We took a walk through a forest preserve a couple weekends ago. This was by far the prettiest foliage I saw, but  it was a forest preserve, it'd be lame if it wasn't. Eden was pretty giddy about playing in the leaves:

Chronologically, the apple picking happened before the last few pictures, but it's too hard to move them around in blogger. There are a LOT of apple orchards around here. I went three times :). We now have a ton of canned apple sauce, canned apple filling, and a frozen apple pie. Eden was mostly interested in picking an apple, taking two bites, and then trying another one. The trees were so ripe that the branches bent down to her height:

Our family tradition is to bake an apple pie the first day of fall.It was extra special getting to pick our own apples. I still need to work on my crust skills. Seriously? Something is wrong with me because there is NEVER enough dough to hang over the edges and I'm always piecing it together. Cute little leaves hide the fact that this looks like a Frankenstein pie. I really wish I could take private pie lessons from Billie Kinnaird:

Our little village of Highwood is trying to get on the map with a record breaking Pumpkin Festival. For four days they blocked off part of our downtown at night, had live music, local food, a gourmet farmers market, a "hayride", and pumpkin carving stations. For $2-$3 you bought a pumpkin, carved it, got a light, and placed it on one of dozens of scafoldings that went up and the streets. We are only 3 blocks from downtown, so we walked down 3 out of 4 nights.

This is Eden on the first night, when there was actually some open space on the "dance floor" in front of the main pumpkin display. In between sets, a dj blasted monster mash, i want candy, thriller, and other such halloweeny songs. She LOVED it. She twirled (her idea of dancing) for a good 20 minutes until people around us started asking if she was ok (she was stumbling a bit from all the twirling).

This picture really needs some photoshopping help. I think I may be asking for some action sets for Christmas:

On the last night all the pumpkins were lit. They did not break the record, but got impressively close! They needed 32,000 and got 26,200. Last year (the first festival) they only had 500. It was a really spectacular display that my iPhone doesn't do justice:

 Here's our pumpkin:

 Eden loved climbing on the giant "daddy" pumpkins:

I suppose I should update everyone on our normal, day-to-day lives. Eden has been fighting cold after cold, as we knew she would, but thanks to a recent doctor's visit, we finally feel on top of things. She was switched from her inhaler to a nebulizer. While this warrants WAY too much television, it is extremely effective. And after just a few days on the treatments, we can already start scaling them back. Hopefully in 2 weeks we'll only be administering one treatment a day, before bedtime. She is doing a lot of independent play these days: tea parties, castle building, book reading. We still have a "quiet" time, but she doesn't usually take naps. This has been traded off for sleeping past 8:30 most mornings (bedtime is 7:30). I'm pretty sure this is the sweet spot of sleep behavior. She is also well behaved for the most part, she is a poky little toddler and needs to be asked a few times to do most things and is often distracted by shiny things. Her language skills have really taken off and she can carry on conversations, though she is shy to do so with anyone but her parents. She really enjoys our Music Together class and playgroups.
I have started working out at a gym- so not me, but it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. I have a trainer for a few sessions to learn how to use the strength training equipment and they have a nursery for Eden. Zina (the kids korner employee) really puts me at ease about leaving Eden there three times a week- she is this super sweet Spanish grandma. Thomas got me an early Christmas present- a new laptop- so I can run my birthday present- adobe creative suite. Hopefully soon I will be dedicating a couple hours a week to learning Illustrator through online tutorials while Eden hangs with some of her buds. I'm currently working on re-doing Eden's room, new quilt and curtains, making a few Christmas presents, and still toying with something to sell on Etsy (don't hold your breath!).
Thomas is swamped, poor guy. He is really enjoying his material this semester, but is struggling with feeling balanced in his life. Too much work, not enough play! He did get a break recently to fly to Washington DC to see his good friend Matt Haynie marry a lovely girl. We are both really looking forward to a more extended break with family at Christmas time.

More posts about our house and some creations coming soon!

Camping

It's a bit belated, but I felt like I should blog some camping pictures and tales. Several weeks ago we headed up to the Wisconsin Dells on a Friday, roughly a four hour drive from Highwood. Our intention was to stay at Mirror Lake, but the campsites were already full, so we were directed to the Rocky Arbor State Park a few miles away.

We packed for car camping. A tent, some camping chairs, cooler, camp stove, toys, and apparently way too little bug spray. I'm not sure anything short of biohazard body suits would have saved us from the treachery awaiting us.

It wasn't immediately clear that our trip was a bit mosquito doomed. It started with this scene, Thomas pitching our awesome, open tent, and Eden totally having a blast:

She LOVED the tent. We took her pack-n-play and a blow up mattress. She spent a ton of time inside
reading books and watching the trees above. The weather was great, warm with a good breeze.
We realized quickly on the first day that when camping with a toddler, altering your expectations is one of the most important things. We managed to hike the trail with her jogging stroller, but there were definitely some rough spots where I wondered if we would make it. Keeping her content was not as difficult as I had expected. There were lots of rocks, leaves, and insects to explore, but her parents got BORED. I think we're used to hiking more, canooing, staying up late with friends, etc.. The combination of having a toddler and going by ourselves meant those things were very limited.
For dinner we pre-made a batch of our favorite chili, and it was delicious. It made me really miss Nacogdoches, our church friends, and our fire pit. Thomas made a fire while I put Eden down (with no fussing!) and we roasted marshmallows.

Our first night of sleep was very pleasant. We were able to leave the rain  flap off and sleep under the stars. Eden slept from 9pm - 8am. It was extraordinarily relaxing.

The mosquitos were pretty bad the first day, but all in all, it was very enjoyable.

The second day we spent the entire morning procuring more bug spray and trying to find a swimming spot.. Eventually we made it to Mirror Lake, which was relatively mosquito free and had a couple of good hours.
Eden loved being in the lake and building sand castles. When we got back, we did a bit more hiking/climbing, which was nerve wrecking for me while it was happening (heights+toddlers), but seemed fun after it was over. That's about the time the mosquitos became unbearably thick. We ended up driving our cooler and chairs to the front of the park where there was a small playground and some grills. We had hotdogs with leftover chili and let Eden play for a few hours until bedtime, when we were forced to got back to the mosquito den that was our campsite.

That night we had to use the rain flap so there were no stars or breeze and it was really stuffy. At 5:30am a thunderstorm hit that woke up Eden. At 7am we gave up trying to get her to sleep again and packed everything up in the rain and headed out. Thomas is a saint because he did most of the work while Eden and I stayed in the car. We all had at least a dozen mosquito bites by this time.

Here's what the mood looked like:


























We headed to Paul Bunyan's Breakfast Buffet, got a meal indoors with no bugs, and then headed to Madison, WI for a little vacation from our vacation :). I LOVED Madison. It was a lot like Austin. Cute shops, great organic/hippie/ethnic cafes, and lots of people watching.

I have a tendency to look back on things with rose colored glasses, so I would probably say it was a fairly enjoyable experience that I would easily agree to doing again. Luckily, I have a husband who knows my heart and got me this souvenir to remind me of my true feelings:

Cookie Faced

The beginning of the semester has definitely been busy for Thomas (I will get him to write a post soon on his schedule), but it has actually been pretty busy for me too. Trinity Wives Fellowship has created a subdivision called Trinity Moms Ministry, which is very exciting. I have been doing the flyers/brochures for all of the events, of which there are a lot! Playgroups, prayer meetings, informational talks, baby and me support groups, and moms night out. We had a kick off party the first week to introduce the new events and get to know new moms on campus. It was definitely weird being considered one of the older members (very few people come in January like we did and it creates a weird fit). It's hard for me to get out of my box and relax while socializing at this type of event, luckily I got to use one of my better skills which is bringing the food :). I made Chocolate covered marshmallow cookies and had a few left over.

So I brought them home. Thomas had a few and there was one left.

Somebody around here makes the BEST faces when eating chocolate cookies:

And here are a few from a cookie event in June that are too good not to post.....

Ren Fest Recap

We headed to the Bristol Renaissance Fair this weekend. It is very similar to the Texas Renaissance Fair, but just a bit less, mmm, passionate. It is much closer for us, only 30 minutes away, along the Wisconsin/Illinois border. Unlike camping, this was an activity that was more fun with a toddler. We dressed up a bit. I wore some blue, gypsy wrap pants, funky jewelry, and some glittery makeup. Thomas wore a celtic pirate outfit. Eden was a little pixie.

It was perfect weather- high 60s, low 70s and very sunny. As always, there were a lot of fun shows. We caught Barely Balanced Acrobatic Daredevils, Gypsy Geoff the Flame Juggler, and Jousting. I also took Eden on a few rides. This is one place where there were a LOT of under age 2 kid friendly rides. Our favorite was the pony!

This was actually her second round and she's a bit less excited, but still very happy. She loved petting the ponies after the ride was over.

Eden loved all the people in costume, even the large troll who wanted to eat her (until he noticed her boogers).

So, yeah, boogers. We only made it 3 days into September without getting sick. Here's hoping (and praying a lot) that our plan of action keeps this cold quick and mild!