DIY indestructible toddler book

You can purchave Tyvek envelopes in any office supply store.  Alternatively you could by Tyvek sheeting at a home supply store.

Line up the ends of the envelope & sew with your sewing machine. I sewed about 4 lines of stitching using a tight stitch.

 

Measure to desired length & cut envelope ends off.

Slice the envelopes open using a sharp kitchen knife.  However, I might consider leaving the envelopes whole next time & stitching close the open ends.  The pens do leak through to the next page. Leaving them whole would give you a more finished look.

Draw on the extras to test your pens & see what works.  Sharpies & Faber-Castell PITT artist pens are what I've used.

Voila!  You have an indestructible book for your kidlet!  Wash it! Dry it! Put ketchup all over it!  Enjoy :)

2 years to the date!

Well, the title reveals nothing of the post, but rather a happy accident that it is indeed exactly 2 years since my last post.  Just done making cut out cookies with Chad & Finn...such a fun Christmas memory surfaces ~  making cut out cookies with Mom: she wanting to keep the kitchen contained, neat, orderly...John & I resolutely doing anything but.  Powder everywhere, making funny decorations (not the sort you want to send to the neighbors!), sneaking tastes of the raw cookie dough!  So it is that Chad & I carried on this messy tradition with our own little guy...though we are still the ones making the mess and eating the dough! 

Take my waking slow

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Great nature has another thing to do

To you and me, so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

* Poem is The Waking by Theodore Roethke. My ability to properly copy this poem is hampered by the blog publishing capabilities. It was written as a villanelle with 5 tercets and a quatrain. The spacing is not correct here.

Joy!

New Beginnings

In the beginning of October, Chad and I said goodbye to 7 wonderful years of Portland living and moved to the much smaller Bellingham, Washington. We moved into a cozy apartment (complete with cat curled up on the furniture) less than a mile from the coast and have both started our new jobs. The house sale is going a little slower than we'd hoped, but not a terrible surprise in the current housing market.

We did not have the opportunity we'd hoped to have friends over for a goodbye BBQ and we extend our apologies to each of you for leaving so quickly. This has truely been a whirlwind experience (READ: hectic and humbling!) I'm taking the opportunity to see how many days I can go without purchasing items and to re-evaluate just how convenient and frivolously I've been living these last few years! Olive is our little optomistic. Her happy-o-meter clicks over to "ecstatic" on a daily basis. She has been hiking, swimming, meeting neighbors, sharing a small living space with the cat and all the time with an enthusiastic tail wag. I don't know what we'd do without her!

I hope this finds you all well and many of you enjoying the rejuvenating rain of the Pacific Northwest. Below are a few picture highlights of current events in the last month.....

Megan says goodbye to some awesome co-workers (Dr. Knowles, M, Cheryl Einerson NP)

My dear friend had her baby ~

Little Maxwell Patton Cordeiro is born 10-27-09

My nephew, Andrew Michael Gruber was born 11-3-09

(pictured above are sibling: Abigail, Ethan, & Andrew (aka Freckles)

October with the Cordeiros

Sarah (Max), Grace, Matt on Sauvie Island at Pumpkin Patch
Sarah (Max) posing for a local midwife's article "The Littlest Pumpkin"

Chad and Olive posing (Olive got impatient and is the little blob towards the bottom of the picture)

A warm, sunny day in October - out hunting pumpkins :)

Olive & Her Frisbee

Turns out Olive is nuts about frisbees!