The Apprentice, Barefoot Buttercup style

Im on the journey of making myself my own quilted wide blanket pod. My husband is out for the eveing so I decided that I would start doing it tonight, we have been so busy packing for our big move I have no idea why I decided to take on a project NOW...but I did, and there's no stopping me...



or is there??



This is the one evening, my almost 8 month old son decides he needs me to lay next to him in order for him to be at bliss. Nevermind sneaking off once he's snoring. Cheek to cheek, no going back to the sewing machine. Do not pass Go, do not collect 100 dollars...poo poo on this.

So I said HAHA I'll show you!!

In the pod you go.

You can learn how to sew as you sit back there, you can learn the art of making carriers. You can take over for Mom one day

this Podaegi can get done before the snow flies!

Excuse me there is a baby following you!!!

"Excuse me, there is a baby following you!"

I just had to laugh today when a neighbour of ours pointed this out to me as I carried Zayden under my heavy wool jacket in his pod to do some errands this morning. I stopped in my tracks, looked left, then right and shouted "WHERE!?! WHERE?!?!" then I peeked back to see his amazing smile and said "oh that guy, yea he seems to do that alot!"

I also must add that I am so very very happy to have discovered babywearing. Yesterday evening

my husband and I decided to bring our big old double stroller out and on our way home, at about 9:30pm, the wheels had it and the double stroller kicked the bucket. This would probably anger someone who doesnt know how to tie a baby on their back, but HURRAY! I can do just that!!! SEE YOU LATER YOU BIG OLD DUMB STROLLER! I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAYS.. although it did hold groceries quite well!!!!

upcycling fun

Upcycling is defined by wikipedia as "a component of sustainability in which waste materials are used to provide new products. It is generally a reinvestment in the environment. "Upcycling is the practice of taking something that is disposable or downcycled and transforming it into something of greater use and value." This process allows for the reduction of waste and virgin material use."

I had a beautiful old OLD dress in my closet. It is older than my Mother who is 50.
Sorta this style ( I really should have taken a picture before hand)

So since its been in my possession forever now, and I really have no use for it at all... I did the unthinkable and took the siccors to it and made yet another baby carrier. I had beautiful orange satin sitting around for the past two years, I finally found its purpose. I had enough of both materials to make myself a podaegi, my daughter for her dolls

and ofcourse Cinderella needed one too!

Teaching them to love Mother Nature, young!

So yesterday we took a biiiiiiiig long walk down the macnamara trail. http://www.ontarionature.org/network/groups_detail.php?ID=101ps_detail.php?ID=101 We found a lot of beautiful things, like mushrooms, chipmunks, acorns, streams. The kids had an absolute blast! When I was a wee little kid myself I remember my Mom doing the same. From the second I found out I was pregnant with my first, I knew that I would be teaching my children about the beauty in nature and how to respect it. Teaching them to get down low and seeing whats below there feet. They were amazed at all the amazing mushrooms and critters we came across!

So we do try to get out into local conservation parks as often as possible, but some days the weather doesnt nessesarily want to co operate. so I have taken extra effort to bring nature indoors as much as possible with the kids. this mostly comes in with indoor gardening. They love watching things grow. We have done the traditional beans in paper towel, but last year we had a lot of fun planting a pomegranate seed. We didnt really know if it would actually grow, but after a long germanation period it did! What a surprise to us to see it sprout up!

(Taken May 2008)

so as the days went by our little experiement began to grow and grow, the kids love coming to check on how BIG the pomegranate bush is getting. Ofcourse due to our climate, the bush cant be planted outside so its found a nice little home in our kitchen. We are treating it sorta like a bonsai, I gave it a trim today, it was starting to get reallly crazy. My daughter keeps asking if it will ever grow pomegranates, unfortunatly I dont think it will, but I tell her to be paitient and see if it wants to someday grow them and if not, we will enjoy the ones we buy at the market.

There is one particular branch that has always made me smile, knowing that it needed a swing on it. So tonight that is what we did, found an old broken truck of my sons, took off one of its wheels and made a tire swing with some old hemp twine and then made a little wire dude to sit on it. I can just see now how my childrens minds are going to go off into this little wire dudes world, does he swing when we are not in the kitchen? I can picture it now.

While out on our nature walk yesterday we came across a LOT of acorns that squirrels knocked out of the oaks above our heads. The kids had pockets full of them when we got home. I sudjested we put them outside for our local squirrels but keep one and see if we could get it to sprout as well.

So we have planted this little acorn in a shallow dish in hopes it will grow into a mighty oak, just in tiny size!