A quick apology.

So, I as I miss yet another singing Sunday, I just want to apologize. I have a nasty virus of some sort. I'm still on the fence of wether or not it's a cold or flu.
Anyways, I will do a double post next Sunday, with twice the awesome music.
Been living on this stuff today, what am awesome Christmas present, who knew I'd have it almost all gone before New Years!

In the spirit of Christmastime- Singing Sundays.

So, Taking into account that tomorrow is Christmas eve, This is my top five favorite Christmas songs. You know those ones that make it feel like Christmas, even if it's dreadfully green outside and raining...

• Christmastime is here- Vince Guaraldi Trio
• Happiest Christmas Tree- Nat King Cole
• Christmas Song- The Chipmunks
• I'll be home with bells on- Kenny& Dolly
• Little Saint Nick- The Beach Boys

Where did the year go?

I cannot believe that it is only a few days till Christmas! I feel like the year just flew by, and I have a feeling that the years will be getting shorter and shorter. Time to enjoy my last 6 months of being in my 20's. yikes!

Finished the boys backpacks last night, they turned out great! If I were to make another I would use a stiffer fabric.

very late- singing sunday

 This Very Late singing Sundays  double post is going to be a pretty one. The first five are videos I find visually appealing for one reason or another. I apologize for the photo geek in me that can't help but love a video that is lit well.

•  jealous of your cigarette- hawksley workman
•  beirut- elephant gun
•  woke up this morning- sage francis
•  gotye- easy way out
•  tune yards-bizness

 The second five are the prettiest songs I have listened to in the last few years of my life. The ones that break your heart or make you feel like you are floating on a cloud.

• the paper kites- bloom
• great lake swimmers- your rocky spine 
• michael Kiwanuka- home again
• bon iver- i can't make you love me
• sunrise sunset- we are trees

Festive feeling.

After a very busy week of handmade presents, I am happy to say that I am close to done!!! I have a few sewing projects and a stocking to fill for Dave and that's all folks! I have been going full steam ahead Hoping to be done this coming week, so I can have a nice and relaxing December of just cookie making :D

One project I have started I can share, because the boys are too young to read blogs. I am sewing them little toddler book bags from brown corduroy with an underwater themed applique. So far they are cut and appliqued. I may start sewing them tonight, or next week. I will post how they turn out.
Here's the applique:

 With a full weekend of working and photographing ahead of me I look forward to Monday and decorating the house for Christmas!  Our house rule (originally asked for by Dave, now I go along with it too) is no decorating before December 1st. I look forward to putting up my pom pom garland that I made last year, getting a REAL tree (FINALLY!!!), and getting the boys to help decorate. It's going to be a lovely month!

                                                                     Last December!

                                              Crazy how much the boys have grown!

On a quick last note, I realize I missed singing Sunday last week, I will make up for it with two themes of top 5's this Sunday!

And so it starts!

We started our Christmas crafting and homemade gifts. Our first is salt dough ornaments for family and friends. This is the only one I will be blogging about until after Christmas, for obvious reasons!
So far they are coming out pretty good, nice to have something that both boys can help with.
They are pretty excited about the whole process, we are trying to do everything homemade this year, and most of it they can help with :)
Here is a small update of pictures,

Start to finish; ornaments before baking, after baking, flowers Dave brought home for me, Solomon meets and falls in love with Fiona, Odin barefoot. even when it's cold enough to be bundled, Solomon working hard at the tool bench.

reasons you should know OK Go- singing sundays.

Not only are they fun and the kids love their music as well as I do, but they make some of the best videos! I don't even have cable TV, but I frequent youtube to see what they are up to.
These are my top 5 videos and songs for OK Go;

• This too shall pass
• Skyscrapers
• Last leaf
• Here it goes again
• Primary colours

The last one is one they did for Sesame Street, awesome, and yes I had to put that one on the list.

morning flowers.

This is what I woke up to; the beautiful sunrise sending the most bright and warm beams into my kitchen. Perfectly lighting up the gorgeous flowers Dave brought me home for being me. Doesn't really get much better then that.

where the wild things are.

This is a typical morning for us, crazy boys.

Music that makes my day- Singing Sundays.

So, I am going to start a regular post that has to be music related on Sundays, Singing Sundays! I have a crazy love for music and am always looking to devourer more.
I find I have a rotation of music that I always listen to and then I have the new music I have discovered within the last 6 months. It's the new music that I can play over and over and it can always get me through a bad day. Here are my top 5 songs I have been listening to lately that I just can't stop listening to;

• She comes to me in dreams- Great Lake Swimmers
• Gold on the ceiling- The Black Keys
• Maker of my time- The Paper Kites
• Chinese translation- M Ward
• You- We Are Trees

A couple of those bands are bands that I love and have been following for years. A few of them are new to me in the last little while and I am so glad I discovered them :D

Starting off November right.

 

A lovely walk, on a foggy morning. Some playing on the soggy playground. Some strolling on the trampled leaves. We love our walks, especially Odin when it ends at the playground.

My cute little trick or treaters had a great time trick or treating for the first time this year. (yes you read that right, first time) Odin flat out refused last year, and the year before that we just didn't! Awful I know, even with the worlds greatest Halloween costume!(he was a banana)

Odin was an ironic Halloween character this year, a firefighting dragon... he chose this idea himself! I can't wait to hear more of his costume ideas in the future. Hilarious kid!

Solomon was an adorable Lion, it was that or a bear. He chose Lion. They had fun, collected WAY too much candy, and now I need to find a place to hide it.

Hello November! and on to a long to-do list!

 

Spooky!

It has been a few busy weeks in our household, so I wanted to make sure I got on here to say,

                                                     HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

                                     I hope all the little trick-or-treaters have fun.

Giving thanks.

I am so grateful for everyone in my life, nothing makes that more notable then being around people you love on days like today, and yesterday.
Odin and I had been dying to try something we saw on pinterest (okay, I was dying, he thought it was cool) and they couldn't have turned out better :)

A treat.

A sneak peek at a little treat I am making myself during today's quiet/ nap time for the boys.
It will be a t-shirt dress to wear with tights or jeans made from two of Dave's old t-shirts! I'm SO excited to see how it turns out.



















It turned out great and fits perfect!

Sunny porch.

This is my absolute favorite place in my home. Like everything with me, it's a work in progress, but I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out.

Gardening, a learning curve.

This year, we grew baby carrots. Next year, maybe bigger baby carrots!
Baby steps,right? ;)

Pictures add years?

I know that the saying is "pictures add 10 pounds", but after editing some photos last night I had a realization. My boys are growing up! (No, really?! you say) Sometimes I really need to step back and look at them for what they are in this very moment.

I'm no quitter.

Okay, well I am. I've decided to quit Facebook. Even though there seems to be no real explanation or apology, or even an acknowledgment of the privacy breach going on there. I'm done. There are so many reasons, but the latest is the final straw for me. (They are denying the whole thing.)
I won't bore you with detail, just now I know that I need to upkeep this blog much better. No longer a side project, more effort needs to be involved.

Facebook has been a crazy time warp for me, getting lost in the webs of other people lives. It's nice to keep up with peoples lives, but unfortunately, it also takes away from my own. I think removing myself from it for a number of reasons, is a good thing, especially the privacy issues. I often wonder how many people have a love-hate relationship with it, like I do. Maybe even with social media in general.

Good Bye Facebook, It's been too long.
 

Thorns in the morning.

There is seriously nothing like picking your own berries and sitting in the backyard, enjoying every bite with your kids. Seeing them appreciate the time it takes to grow things, harvest them, and then eat them. It's a life lesson worth learning :)
We found this tiny little bush on the side of our house when we moved in last year,  thought it was a poor little rose bush. Even contemplated pulling it out, because we really want a producing yard. Flowers can sit under the magnolia among it's roots, but other then that, we want food!
So we decided to leave the poor little twig of a bush, to see if it would do anything come spring. Well boy did it surprise us. Came up huge, green, and full of life! Not to mention much more distinguished leaves. That helped us determine that we had a 'raspberry bush', then came all the tiny little white blossoms. When the green berries started appearing on every part of the bush I was ecstatic, I couldn't believe such a small bush could produce so many berries. (yes, I get WAY too excited about these things)
The morning the first berries ripened my son pointed out the 'rotten raspberries', that is when finally got the proper label for this poor bush, we had a blackberry bush.
It has given us a ton of berries, and still is. We couldn't be happier with our decision to leave the tiny dying bush alone last year :)

Early morning yard.

I apologize for the lack of quality in these images, but I thought it would be a nice thing to post. Odin and I are outside every morning (rain or shine) to weed the gardens, pick flowers on the lawn, or just sit outside. I love this time with my oldest, while my younger son naps. It's lovely :)

Propaganda at its best.

I'm sure you are well aware of Times latest magazine cover; the well posed, young beautiful mother breastfeeding a toddler in the most awkward position. With the infuriating title "Are you mom enough?".
I thought and thought about this cover. Why did I want to defend it? why did it make me so angry?, what was the purpose of making such a huge group of people upset?
The part that got me was I honestly felt that the cover did not really match the inside article. The article wasn't that bad, not something I would personally use for any sort of research when it comes to parenting, but not a bad read. Most sensational writing should be taken with a grain of salt, I feel this way about a lot of things you read in magazines. They are not books.
I found it kind of sad that this cover is forever going to be a label of attachment patenting. I don't feel it represents any of it, with the exception being extended breastfeeding.
I practice a lot of attachment parenting methods, not because I feel the need to be labeled as one thing or another, but because I simply enjoy them for my family. It's what works for me, for my family. What works for one family does not work for the next and so on. We all need to support each other during this trying journey as parents, not knock each other down. It's not a race, there should be no competition.
The Time cover does show a woman breastfeeding, that's great! Unfortunately it does it in a way that makes women who do not breastfeed, or women who do not breastfeed to a specific age feel inferior. This is not what the breastfeeding community should be doing. Period. Not to mention the position in which she is breastfeeding...
The positives of this cover are that it gets people talking, thinking, perhaps even strengthening their own ideals. That, to me is a good thing. I also do believe that our society needs to be more exposed to breastfeeding, and less upset about seeing a boob. The negatives of this cover, sadly, are too many to list.
The whole point of my post today is to Mom's everywhere, you are more then mom enough, you need not pay any attention to a sensational magazine cover; they just want your money.

Baby's on the move.

It is amazing how fast time flies when you are a Mom, even more amazing how fast your children seem to grow up while you aren't looking. I can't believe that my mat leave is almost over and my baby is crawling! Seems to have mastered it overnight. Nothing is safe! The nice part is he is able to go play with his brother without much effort. Good for him, yes, but it remains to be seen how long Odin will politely tolerate the crashing of his Lego houses.
Today I am preparing the beautiful hummingbird feeder Dave gave me. It is glass and will hopefully not attract the wasps. We shall see how good I am at up keeping all the feeders and gardens this year :) At least I have a very handy partner, as well as a great little side kick while the baby naps.
On a side note, I made my mothers amazing scone recipe for the millionth time. I still can't get them light and fluffy like my mom makes them. Never.