Neon pillows should be sewn while wearing sunglasses

Finally, another day off, and I am getting to the next step.  This requires tacking little stitches into the interior rounds to keep the pillow straight and centered while I begin the reducing rounds around the outside of the pillow, essentially crocheting the rest of the project with the 'removable insert' inside.  If it ever needed to be washed, it could be - with some careful snipping of about eight little tack stitches.  This one is going to turn out just a smidge smaller than the other two that are on our bed - but that is okay, since it is for Esme's room and she is smaller, right?  There were some quilting rags that were in a bag waiting for a project and they went inside it with the stuffing to give it some heft and keep the corners filled.

Not much else, reading, scrapbooking some fabric pattern and other decorating and art ideas... reading the Fifth Elephant, drinking coffee, folding laundry and scratching a puppy behind the ears every once in a while.  I'd like to add another skirt onto my wish list for crafting.. and a pair of pajama pants although I've been telling myself that one for a year and haven't made another pair, yet (but, three skirts - so that is something).  Esme will be at home in an hour, so, I'm glad I've made some progress today besides sleeping in and lounging over some frozen waffles and maple syrup.  The winter cold has made lounging quite desirable, especially with feet tucked underneath knitted blankets.

Esme and her new pillow

after which she spent many minutes stacking them all up on the bed and claiming they were hamburgers or pancakes and we needed to have dinner.

Handmade art by Mom for Esme's room

I still get my paintbrush out once in a while -although not for anything as elaborate as I used to make.  Here is a pirate painting for Esme's room and also some animals I painted on her new closet doors.

Pirate dreams painting - details asked for Esme are the scene on the left with the treasure island and the dreaming pirate, and the stars, and a 'whale' which I made an attempt at by the sunset/sunrise.

Once the closet was in place in her room the doors looked a little plain.  So, I grabbed a paintbrush and freehanded some animals onto it - I had intended two giraffes facing each other and instead made a tiger in pants and shoes, and a giraffe with a coat on :) 

We already have some dresses hung up on hangers inside and I am trying to get her to keep her boots and shoes in here at the bottom - socks and loose thins in the shelf above.  She has taken the dresses on hangers out and played with them saying it is dress up time - is this too small - is this just right?  Try this on, won't you?  I need to get more hangers - and looking at her clothes I know that August is just a little ways off.. I will need to get sewing if she is going to have something in decent condition for school every day. 

I just haven't had a lot of time for sewing since that last coat.. and even that took me weeks from cutout to finish.  Note to self:  Need pants too, have one pair cut out but they are summer length - and now that she requires nearly a full two yards for a pair of pants, they have gotten more expensive - not as much as jeans, though... still have to think if we might have her try on some jeans to see how they fit, and compare the investment now that she has grown so much.

 Esme with her horse pretending the pirate ship is a castle and she is a 'knight girl with the armor'

This is where the painting is in her room, by her sleeping light on the shelf. 

4 years, 8 months

Esme can play with her Legos without much help now, except assembling some of the more fidgety parts, insides of window pieces etc... she is not making anything elaborate, but it is cool to watch her making walls and windows and doors in her little house-like structures. She is also capable of making multi-step plans for things she wants to do - gathering the materials for it, and doing most of the task herself.

Example: She went and gathered up many bottles of acrylic paint from the school room downstairs, after locating her palette and clearing space on her table to put paper down. She took her water jar downstairs to rinse and fill with new water. Sometimes we are having a mom/dad discussion and she still can't take not being the center of attention - so I encourage her directing her frustration towards something else... and it is nice to have and watch her plans come together then. Her painting scheme came together today while we were talking about a server backup for something Mark was working on.


sunset with sheep eating grass
when the sun goes down he will sleep and snore
she was not done with it yet...

She is learning to mix purple here - and likes that very much. The purple will become a 'big dark' and she will add a moon.


When she decided it was 'done' we can hang it up now

She asks many more questions now, lays out long descriptions and 'then this happened' type stories.... she still has some trouble with time in general. A lot of things are still 'yesterday' which can mean 5 minutes ago or three years ago... she is experimenting with other words like 'this morning' but doesn't know which to use yet. It is all coming together - and very interesting to watch it do so. Her reading and counting are things she is interested in, but not focused on. She is very into building things in the sand, with rocks, with sticks, painting and using blocks. Her imagination is immense and intense.

She can understand a lot, but usually finds her own way to interpret it and then clings to that interpretation pretty hard. When I was stuck in Minnesota she describes it as 'you were at work in the water, with Nana, and Daddy came and rescued you, on the airplane, with the truck.' She said that Nana had to take her medicine and grow in her heart, and she grew in her heart, too - and now she is bigger, and can do more things like spell words and look in the microwave without a chair and build Legos. Not too bad..

She also really likes going to our flea market - and seeing the chickens and ducks. We are looking at pictures of Araucana chickens, their eggs and babies and she is having a grand time with that, as well as learning how to navigate back and forth without help from the image viewer to the page, look through the page, and then go back without having to type anything back in. She isn't great at spelling yet... although she is trying it frustrates her quite a bit. It doesn't help that I type so much half of my 'important' letters on my keyboard are no longer visible :)