sleep

S. still takes her naps anywhere, any time.  Sometimes she fusses.  Sometimes she needs to be wrapped tightly or cuddled.  This time she dropped instantly from play to sleep.

bringing in the harvest

Summer lingers with its warmth and brightness, but the smells in our kitchen belong to fall.  We're bringing in the harvest and sealing it in glass and plastic.  The freezer and pantry are filling up with tasty things, mementos of summer.

Preserving and freezing go hand in hand with gardening and we're delving deeper into all three.  To save money.  To not waste.  To eat local food.  And for fun.

I checked this book out of the library have gleaned a few good ideas from it.  Apparently cabbage can be blanched and frozen.  Apples last longer wrapped in newspaper.  We'll give it a try.

Do you put anything away for the winter?

birthday boy

 

We celebrated a birthday this weekend,  so I'm posting a few pictures of the birthday boy with his favorite little girl.

fireplace reno

Before:  This was our fireplace.  Dated.  Huge.  And oh so permanent.  We've talked for years about painting the thing white, not because we thought white brick would look especially good.  We were hoping for less bad.  

Just as G. was leaving to buy the paint:  "Are you sure you want white?  Is there any other colour?"  

That had never occurred to me.  Another colour!  After an hour on Google we had a whole new plan.

After:  This is our new, grey fireplace.  We settled on two tones of light grey to match our furniture.  The  new stove, mantle shelf and hearth tiles compliment other bits of black in the decor and the overall effect is in keeping with the tone of the room.  Now we can't wait for cold evenings by the fire.

first signs of fall

Crisp fall winds bring energy, renewed ambitions and fresh starts.  Even when I'm not going back to school, fall is a time of renewed intentionality.  For me that often means planning or organizing of some kind, but this year is different.  

I feel the urgency of the present.  Motherhood impresses on me how fleeting life is.  My girl grows.  Every day she fixes her earnest gaze on some new wonder -- a shadow or her own hand.  She challenges me to open my own eyes, to see her, to see the first red leaves of fall and know that they mean something that I don't fulling understand.

He has made everything beautiful in it's time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.  Ecclesiastes 3:11-12

sun hat

We have a love-hate relationship with this sun hat.  I love it.  S. hates it.  We can usually meet in the middle and wear it without doing up the straps, achieving sun protection and a happy baby.  Of course we do experience the occational mishap (see bottom left).