Dear Vermont, Today I Forgive You For Winter. . . Even March

I spent a half hour yesterday afternoon in the garden with my family taking photos and had this moment of realization. This is why I live here. It's not the six months of winter with another month of absolute yuck on either end. It's not because I love driving forty-five minutes to a decent grocery store, or thirty-five minutes to daycare. It is true that Vermont is not always the easiest place to live. But in brilliant summer moments like this one it is a very easy place to love.

Morning Time, Dog Days of Winter

8am, January 8th.  -11 degrees outside.  Our 3 minions keeping warm inside. (We call them our minions for some reason, even though none of them really ever do our bidding.)

Quiet House

These little rug rats are both off on their first full days at school today, and the house is very quiet.  This is the first time since Ellery was born that I am staring down the barrel of a full child free day, and I am feeling a little crippled by the openness of it.  Looks like I should have made a plan for myself yesterday.  Maybe a shower is a good place to start.  Then a to do list.

So I guess the baby-moon is over.  It's been a little challenging pushing back the wall of work that is waiting for me in my studio, so now I guess I can start chipping away at it.  It is a little daunting. Thanks so much to all of my lovely and patient customers for allowing me this time and space with my boys, but now it appears to be time to get back to it in earnest.

But wow is it quiet, and I'm missing these little faces. . .

Happy Half-Birthday To The Littlest!

One very snowy early morning six months ago today this little person came into the world.  A very happy half-birthday to you Ellery!  We adore and appreciate your sweet, soft, and fuzzy-headed baby-ness every day.

Foraging

 Summer foraging 6.21. Wild sorrel and strawberries were found and enjoyed.

Ellery and the Baby Gym

We are doing well here.  Insanely busy, what with now balancing the needs of two (mostly) sweet kiddos with the demands of business with work.  Happily people have been ordering lots of jewelry, so we are having to figure out how to balance everything right off the bat.  

Ellery is now almost 3 months old, and starting to do things.  Intentionally, I mean.  He is reaching for things, using his hands a little, and making lots of great new baby sounds.  And he is as fat as a house, and very cute.

Spring weather has finally arrived here, followed in about three hours by the black flies.  Ah, life in Vermont!  And things are getting going in the garden, which is very exciting.

I'm sorry about the lack of posts.  It is hard to find the time, although I do miss it!  I do a lot more on Instagram these days, so if you want to keep up with what is going on around here, both creatively and with the little family please find me over there.

xo

Welcome Ellery!

Our new little boy Ellery Standish H. was born on Saturday February 15th at 6:25 in the morning, weighing in at 8lbs 4ozs, 21 inches long, and the picture of health.  He is now 9 days old and has so far been doing lots of great eating and sleeping, minimal yowling, and we couldn't be happier with him.

  Here he is settling in at home on his first night, cozied up to the heat of the wood stove.

And here he is this morning, snoozing in the sun, which of course woke him up right after this picture so he ended up here:

He is very soft and snuggly, and still has that new baby smell.

Emmett is adjusting very well, and handling all of the new developments very cautiously, in true Emmett style.  So far I think he's touched the baby twice, but at least now he will be quite near him, and likes to check on him all the time and make sure he has what he needs.  He is being very helpful fetching and carrying things for his Mom who is often trapped under a nursing baby, and has also been so nice as to read books to us while Ellery is nursing.  He has also fully committed himself to the world of Legos in the last couple of weeks, and so has been spending every possible waking hour obsessively building Lego machines.

So far the transition to life as a family of four has been very smooth, and somehow it feels more balanced to me to have two kids and two parents.  I'm still working on why that is, but I think it has something to do with making space for each other, and understanding that no one person can have all of the attention all of the time.  Of course it has only been nine days. . . and we have had my mom here the whole time to help ease the transition.  So I'll have to get back to you on this idea a later on down the road.  But for now we are hunkering down for the end of winter and looking forward to some sunny spring days soon!

Emmett's New Reading Corner

We have been continuing to put together Emmett's new room, and this weekend we finally got to put up the picture ledges for his books in his reading corner. The design concept behind this idea was both aesthetic and practical.  On the practical side, he has trouble putting his books away on a tight bookshelf, squeezing the books between each other and making space can be very frustrating.  So this way I thought it would be a snap for him to be able to pick up his books and put them away. (wishful thinking? quite possibly) Also, I think they look cool, visually striking, and it gets the point across about what the space is for.  It is also a great way to fill up a big wall, and if you are light on big pieces of art, and heavy on books like we are, it is a great way to fill the space.

And I think the fact that Emmett was really excited to help us put his books up on his new shelves is a good sign for their appeal and functionality.

I'm starting to feel really glad that we went with very minimalist and soft colors, like grey, white and a little yellow for our basic design scheme for his room.  As soon as he started adding his own things, like his books, games, puzzles and toys the room is suddenly filled with a fiesta of primary colors.  If we had done the room with wild patterns and paint colors I wouldn't be able to stay in there for more than 30 seconds.  This way it will keep the room feeling a little more calm and restful.  Oh, and in case you are curious, the triangles on the walls are decals from urbanwalls on Etsy. They couldn't have been easier to apply, Emmett even helped, and I love the effect.  And since I used a random pattern I didn't have to worry about lining anything up.

So it's not done yet, we still have to get the right rugs and bedding, lighting and bedside tables.  But he is very psyched about his new room, and I think we'll move him in there next weekend.  Next project: the redesign of Emmett's old room for the new baby!  And I think we'll continue the soft color theme in there as well.  Sometimes there is just something so nice about white. . .

No Rush Weekends: A Mini-Manifesto

I'm trying to institute a new household policy around here, and it's called "No Rush Weekends." And even when the whole household can't follow it, I try to follow it on my own as much as I can.  Now that Emmett goes to school five days a week we are trying to be more like normal 9-5 families, and just work on the week days and do family and personal things on the weekends.  For years TH and I have been fitting in work in whatever tiny slivers of time we can manage to scrape together, be it nap time, school time, weekends, whenever we can slip away and cross one more thing off the never ending list of work tasks.  It is kind of the trap of being self employed, and the down-side of setting your own hours.  It is very hard not to take work home with you, especially when your studio is attached to your house.

But now I am trying to set some boundaries for myself, which is, of course, a hard thing to do.  But I finally realized that no one was in charge of my schedule except me.  And I am trying to be more disciplined during my work week so that I can relax with less guilt on the weekends.  Seems so obvious now, when I write it down.  But I hardly ever sit down and read a book, or a magazine, take a walk with a friend, lie in the autumn sun, enjoy the outdoors, or do any of those wonderful things about living in the country.

And a lot of this process is also letting myself, and all of us, off the hook for many of the things we all feel pressured to spend our time doing, like active involved parenting, and house cleaning, and all of those sorts of productive activities. If Emmett wants to wake up on Saturday and watch a movie? Fine.  If he wants to go outside and sit in the dirty driveway in his underpants, that's fine by me too.  If he immediately wants me to play trucks, or read him a really long factual book about construction equipment?  Mmmm, maybe in an hour or so.  We all need a little time for independent play.  Am I sitting and leafing through a magazine, or catching up on my blog reading in the middle of a shitstorm of a mess?  Very probably.  Sounds kind of selfish I guess, but it is pretty wonderful to just sit and breathe, without always working my way down a list of tasks, or running out the door to a playdate or the children's museum.  And yes, eventually the laundry and the vacuuming need to be done.  But not clogging up the weekend with work stress makes those tasks a little less onerous as well.  And sometimes this means that an order goes out a day later than I had hoped.  And for now, I guess I'm ok with that.

And of course one of the most amazing things about this is that we actually get to do things together as a family, all three of us, instead of one parent working while the other takes care of Emmett.  Now we can do outings, or not outings, all together, and get some nice calm quiet time together, and have time to enjoy each other.  If we never take the time do that, what on earth are we working so hard for the rest of the time?

And of course this won't always work.  Craft shows are always on weekends, for one thing.  And this system will only cause less stress if it is a flexible system.  But I am trying to take that extra step to ask myself "Is this something that can wait until Monday?" before I break up my weekend zen.  And of course I mostly really enjoy my work, so it is a slippery slope. But it is still work, and this is the proverbial "stop and smell the roses."  I'm just getting to it now at age 35, but I'm glad I'm finally here.  Here's hoping I stay here!

The Baby is 4!

And I guess he isn't a baby anymore.  No more diapers, no more crib, a new school, some great friends, and some long, long legs.  A lot can happen in one year.

Tom Hutten outdid himself again this year with an amazing cement mixer cake.  Emmett has already wished for a cold planer cake for next year, which may well take a whole year of planning. (Curious what a cold planer is?  Click here)

We had family and friends visiting from out of town for the big birthday, so we decided to forgo the big kid party this year, and wow am I glad we did that! Emmett was already completely emotionally wrung out from the family celebrations and school celebrations, that I think one more thing might have put him right over the edge.  Being the center of attention can really be exhausting, poor little dude.  And us grown ups were pretty tired too.  Celebrating for four straight days is a big undertaking, I don't know why I didn't realize it would be.  Am I the only Mom who feels this way?  But it was wonderful to have all of Emmett's special people here for the weekend, and see him so celebrated by people who love him.  What a wonderful thing a loving family is.

Togetherness

I'm sure a lot of you have spent lots of time with family this summer, maybe even big family vacations or long visits.  It is one of the best things about the slower pace of summer, being able to have a leisurely visit.  My brother and his family have been here visiting for the past ten days, and will be here for a total of two weeks, which is an amazingly long visit.  And even though it isn't really the best time for a vacation for me, due to the ever-looming pile of orders waiting for me in both studios, having them here has forced me to slow down a little bit and enjoy what summer in Vermont has to offer, for which I am grateful.  My friends up here and I often lament the fact that we never do the lovely summer things we intend to do, like hike and swim and even just sit around on the porch drinking iced tea.  So I am very glad I made myself take the time to go swimming at Buttermilk Falls, our friends' pond, the town pool, and today at Lake Rescue.  We've also been to Bromley Mountain Adventure Park, cooked hot dogs and s'mores over an open fire, the little boys caught frogs and went fishing, and we've all done some good puzzling over mysterious pond creatures.

 But with a large group of people always comes the problem of how to feed them all, and really, who is going to do all those dishes?  How does your family deal with this challenge? I'd really love to hear, so please leave some of your ideas in the comments!  Ever since I was very small my family has created a daily chart to try to evenly split up the work (and fun) of feeding a small hoard.  My mom has always said that vacations for her when we were small children was "just a change of sinks." And so as soon as we were old enough we got drafted into service.  The chart with a family of 4 was pretty simple.  But now with a combined family of 9, look what we have come to:

I mean just creating the chart is a huge challenge in itself.  Luckily I have an older brother who loves to sort things into columns. ;p  So we have a childcare column (which right now is just taking care of Emmett, which is great for us), a table setting column, cooking, clearing the table and washing the dishes, and then "Riley" is for the people "leading the life of Riley," or in other words, just relaxing and doing nothing.  And somehow I just realized this year that the only way this system works is to absolutely not feel guilty about being Riley when it is your turn, and really enjoy it, or otherwise you just feel like you are cooking and cleaning all the days long.

Of course Olivia does almost nothing except lick the occasional plate and generally be in the way.  But she looks good doing it, doesn't she?

So that's how we do it.  It's a lot of work feeding 9 people every lunch and dinner!  I don't know how those big old farm families did it on a daily basis! There must be a trick to it, and you probably don't make lobster pasta much.  But for 14 days we are going all out!