It worked great and was a nice ending to our dandelion and violet crafting. We also did a little printing with the flowers and a hammer. Both girls *loved* that art project.

I’m also doing a little crafting after the girls go to bed. Jason is out of town this week, so I’ve spinning and plying while watching the first two seasons of Doctor Who. I had a mishap with my wheel the other day- the nylon tube that attaches to the pedal broke, but I’m crossing my fingers that my temporary fix will at least hold until I can be the rest plied. I’m planning to start a pair of longies with it on our camping trip next week.

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We made dandelion syrup and violet syrup last week. We will miss all the flowers when Jason finally mows! We’re always the last on our street in the spring to mow- I’m sure our neighbors are not happy…

I also blended up a batch of chive, spinach, sorrel pesto. I love having garden greens again.

And a little messy chalkboard fun was had today, too.

We have one of the older, more gentle editions if Oak meadow kindergarten that we’re using and it’s going great so far. I was worried it would be too slow, but Eleanore is loving the focus on one story/letter/number of the week. Even though she already knows all of her number and letters, the extra focus is really improving her handwriting practice.

She especially loves her Main Lesson Book and asks to write in it every day. Some of our pages so far:

She also loves to do extra practice with her numbers outside of her main lesson book.

Of course we’re also doing lots of crafts, outdoor play and nature exploration. Our days certainly don’t look like school at home, but right now it’s working for us.
Adelaide is getting in on the fun, too. She absolutely loves the Wee Sing Fingerplays cd that goes along with Oak Meadow, especially Eency Weency Spider. Both girls run around the room singing and acting out the verses.

If you’re on my Facebook, you already know I’ve had the quilting bug lately. It all started with a 1600 jelly roll quilt for the girls’ bed and that’s what I worked on today- another 1600 in flannel from my fabric stash. I did we’ll and think I used almost all of my flannel pieces.

Yesterday I cut lengths of flannel into 4″ wide strips:

And today those strips became these two tops. I had expected to only be making one quilt, but apparently I cut way too many strips, so turned it into two. They will become car and camping quilts for the girls and I’m HOPING to finish them before our camping trip to the Smokies next week. We shall see…

And my other project has been working away in my crockpot all day… Rendering pork fat. A few months ago we joined a raw milk share and I love the meat offerings they have. I’ve been able to get a kinds of different things- chicken liver and feet, pork fat, and I’ve kept us quite stocked in bacon from the coop. This baby loves bacon…

And speaking of the baby, I also just finished these longies over the weekend. Just need to weave in the ends.

Yesterday the girls and I did some tie dyeing. We all ended up with dye spattered all over our hands and feet but had a great time.

Adelaide was quite enjoying dyeing her own skirt and t-shirt and Eleanore did too!
I dyed a few gauze swaddle blankets I sewed for the baby as well as a shirt and skirt for me. We also dyed some playsilks but the girls immediately grabbed those to wear.
Here’s how they turned out.

We’re expecting baby #3 this September! This was a very early ultrasound to confirm the baby wasn’t ectopic like my pregnancy last summer, but I’m sure you get the gist  
I’ve had awful morning sickness this time, which thankfully seems to have mostly subsided.  Now I’m just craving bacon and chocolate milk like crazy! Eleanore is super excited on the prospect of a new baby sister. She’s not too enthusiastic that it could be a boy though…

The girls have been busy creating, too. We have been making our house look a little more spring-like, even if there’s still snow on the ground. We made this really cool Easter Egg Garland. We couldn’t get our water balloons blown up, so we used regular balloons. It was very messy, but I think they turned out really nice.

and Eleanore *loved* painting these tape resist Easter eggs, so we turned those into a garland for our other window. We just cut egg shapes out of thick paper, stuck masking tape all over them and painted with water colors. Once they dried, we took off the tape and the masterpieces were revealed. If you look closely in this picture, you can see a woodpecker outside the window on our suet feeder!

But Eleanore’s favorite craft is this one. She sewed her own monster from an old sock. She was so proud of herself to stuff it, cut out the felt for the eyes and mouth and sew it all by herself!

My little girl is so grown up!

Eleanore worked and worked to get hers *just right.* I think she pulled all the tissue paper off three times before it was to her liking.

They are simple, but with the afternoon sunlight shining through them, they bring us a little wintertime cheer.

I also finished up Eleanore’s new pair of mittens a little while ago.

Just a basic mittens pattern – simple and quick.

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