Ornaments and smiles

Our mostly-handmade holidays were a success. The majority of the ornaments were made by me (with help from the kids, of course), our pj's were made by Marisa of Funky Giraffe (who also stocks with me at K&F Shops), and I made all the cloth gift bags. This was the first year that we have put up a tree, and it really makes the house look bright and festive.

A Long Year

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I've last updated this blog. Now that Blogger has updated the way that photos can be loaded, I'm hoping that it's a little easier to integrate pics into posts. The old way was really frustrating and contributed a ton to my lack of posting.

As can be expected, the kids have changed a ton in this last year. They are really creative, and have such cute and funny ideas. We have started doing some homeschooling/unschooling, and lots of crafts. Lately, we are working on winter crafts and holiday decorating, and I hope to soon have a bunch of photos of all of our projects.
 

Buy Handmade

It was a good day. I made some pants for the kids. Reversible flannel ones with penguins on one side and owls on the other. They are a big hit, and after every diaper change, the kids demand that they are put back on immediately. In fact, they must hold the pants during the diaper change, presumably so they don't get away.  After finishing the pants, we all went to COSI and finally got a membership. I've been meaning to for a while, but our friends kept inviting us as guests so we didn't need to. We can have a guest on our membership too, so I'll be able to do the same for someone else now. At COSI, we went to the Sesame Street Presents: The Body exhibit and the kids had a blast running around pushing buttons and exploring. They particularly liked the little grocery store setup. I was pretty impressed with their food selections. 

Almost everything that the kids are wearing is WAHM-made. Their new penguin pants are somewhat visable in the photos, then they have on long-sleeved onesies dyed by Janessa of Maple Leaf Designs who is a local dyer and good friend. On top of that they are wearing advocacy saying shirts made by SaySumthing. One of the shirts says Tree Hugger, and the other says Think Green. Both shirts were also dyed by Janessa. We are waiting for a couple more SaySumthing shirts to arrive in the next week or so and I'm excited to be able to have the kids wear them. They say Buy Handmade, and I think I'm going to try to make that our theme for the coming year, regardless of the proposed CPSIA regs. 

Chocolate disappointment

I just made myself a cup of hot chocolate (with a tiny bit of mint) to help get into a festive holiday mood. I have so much sewing left to do for the holiday sale, and need to build up momentum. Chocolate usually does the trick. Anyway, as I was mixing my organic free trade cocoa, cane sugar and unsweetened soy milk, I remembered the very first time that chocloate made me sad.

I was about 7 and needed some chocolate milk. I had made myself nestle Quick plenty of times, and loved the little sweet floaters of chocolate dust that would collect on the surface. Well, we were out of Quick, so I got the Hershey's powder out of the cabinet instead. (I'm sure that it's obvious where this is going). I did know that it wasn't presweetened, so I added some sugar and stired it up. There were more floaters than with the Quick, and I was thrilled. Until I tasted it. I felt so betrayed. I did everything I could think of to save it. I heated it, I stirred with a wisk, I may have even put it into a tupperware and shaken it. Nothing worked to make it drinkable. 

Now I know how to make a proper cup of chocolate milk (or soy, or whatever). But, almost every time I do, I'm brought back to that sad day in the kitchen trying to wash the horrible bitterness of unsweetened cocoa out of my mouth. I wonder if this is one of those universal experiences that many children have, or if I was just a strange one. 

Busy all the time, yet still a to-do list a mile and a half long?

I haven't updated in over a month!! How did that happen? 

I feel like I'm working all the time, and getting so little done. My days are all toddler, evenings are dinner, bath, and night-night. That just leaves the night for all things Bootie. And I try to fit some sleep in there too. I think that I was expecting to be able to get a little more done during the day as the kids get older. My expectations are changing constantly as reality trumps my guesses. But, when I stop to really think about it, I am helping two really amazing kids learn and grow, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as slacking.

I've been trying to work a bit each night on things for the upcoming (Dec. 6th)  Holiday Craft Fair at Sprout Soup. I'm planning on having a nice selection of green/reusable holiday items and some cute gifty things in all price ranges.  It's a little bit of a departure from my usual products, but I'm feeling the need to help reduce the amount of disposables in my community and offer a more sustainable alternative.

I've also been working on some really fun custom orders, for some of my favorite customers. Which I should get back to.