Pumpkins at Smiling Hill Farm

We got a late start on our fall activities thanks to some serious colds, but we're getting there! We made it to the pumpkin patch on Sunday, and the apple orchard on Wednesday, so we're all set on Autumnal produce. 

We Cleavers are creatures of habit and tend to go to the same places every year - so this is LMC's third year at the Smiling Hill Farm pumpkin patch. It's always interesting to see what's different with each round - what is she most interested in? (Answer: rainbow ice cream), what isn't she digging? (Answer: that incident with the turkey has made her nervous about all barnyard fowl).

It's also fun to get the random recaps that she'll spout out days or even weeks later, when she sees something that reminds her of her little adventure. 

I'm hesitant about pulling out the carving knives just yet, so we painted our pumpkins again this year. I didn't put on any sealant first, so they're already peeling, but I think they're beautiful anyway.

We've hung our bat lights and have been watching Curious George A Boo Fest on repeat, which means she goes around wishing everyone "Happy Halloween, hold on to your hat!" We're thinking about making a No-Noggin scarecrow this weekend. I have to admit of all the children's programming, I like Curious George the best (which is good, because LMC loves him).

 I've also been prepping LMC for costume wearing in the hopes that she'll actually wear her costume I'm making (since the wear rate of things I make for her is dismally low). What are you going to be for Halloween? Alice! What's mommy going to be? The queen. What's daddy going to be? The hatter dance! (Close enough).

I love prepping for Halloween.

---

Raspberry Picking

At Snell Family Farm

---

Summer Groove

It's mid July and we're settling into that summer groove. The kind of groove that makes me want to wear a swimsuit under my clothes all day and listen to nothing but oldies. Hot, humid days require that we pull out the kiddie pool or sprinkler in the afternoons, and if we have more time, a trip to the splash pad or beach may be required. 

It seems like there are five choices of what to do every weekend. This week we chose the free "Discover Ballet" class at Portland Ballet. Mr. Cleaver and I both got in on the action, and it was loads of fun, though I think Little Miss Cleaver is still a bit away from actually taking classes on her own.

The garden is hitting it's groove too. We've been harvesting a handful of sugar snap peas every few days, the tomatoes are getting bigger, the lettuce is growing, the bush beans are flowering, and our first blueberries have started to turn blue. We had fresh pesto for our pasta. last night.  It's a good time to be outside. 

---

4th of July Weekend

We had a wonderful, summery long 4th of July weekend. There were strawberries, birthday cake (for Mr. Cleaver) and Inside Out at the Drive-In, which LMC stayed up for the entirety of, and fireworks watching on PBS.

What are your favorite summer things to do?

• Martha Stewart's Marvelous Black Forest Cake
• Maxwell's Strawberry Farm
• Pride's Corner Drive In

---

One Person's Weed May Be Another's Flower

One of my favorite things about being a parent is the chance to see things from LMC's perspective. For example, in her mind, the way to play football is to throw the ball and then fall down. In her world, everything with a skirt, peplum, or just a swingy hem is a "ballet skirt" and requires dancing. Knitting means taking the needles and poking them into the fabric. All of which are not inaccurate.

And of course as we grownup are mowing, uprooting or spraying dandelions, most kids are building bouquets and making wishes. When does that shift happen? When do we move from fun to the fear of an imperfect lawn? There are an awful lot of pretty "weeds" out there, but one man's weeds is another child's flower. It's only a weed if you don't want it. 

I makes me wonder, are there other things that I'm assuming are weeds, that just might be flowers?  That the traffic is the chance to sing along to one more song? That my to do list is not a series of chores, but opportunities? There are some things that are just the pits, no matter which way you look at them, but maybe not as many I might have thought. 

---

Memorial Day Parade

{this moment}

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.* 

* via SouleMama

Spring in Southern Maine

It finally feels like spring! The grass is getting greener by the day. the daffodils and tulips are in bloom and I'm cleaning up flower beds and laying down mulch. The blueberry bush is pruned, the veggie garden fence has gone up, and the sand pit has been raked out and is ready for play. Free Comic Book day happened and we've pulled out the sunscreen and the Seadogs hat. 

It'll still be a while before its warm enough for shorts, but that didn't stop me from sewing a pair for Little Miss Cleaver. The pattern is the KID Shorts from Dana at MADE. While I don't love that all the sewing instructions are on her site instead of included in the pattern (meaning I'm following instructions off my phone), the fit seems spot on (I made a 3T, lengthened the to the 4T hem), and the finished product is uber-cute, if I say so myself. I even got to sew in my first Ms. Cleaver label!

It took about 1.5 hours to make from taping together the pattern to finished shorts, and I imagine future pairs will be even quicker, especially if I do the more straightforward versions. It warmed the cockles of my sewist heart when LMC wanted to try them on as soon as she got up from her nap and wear them over her pants for at least an hour before the need to put a ballet skirt on trumped it.

I'm hoping to sew two more pairs before shorts weather is truly upon us, and then I'm delving into some serious me sewing. I have some grey gingham that I got on vacation last summer that is calling out to be an Archer button-up and I picked up a Watson bra kit and some denim for Ginger Jeans from Grey's Fabric as well as Cascade Duffle pattern that I'll be sewing into my new winter coat come September or so.

I've been super busy with knitting projects of late (look out for a lot of new stuff this fall!), and haven't had much time to sew and I forget how much sewing means to me. To be able to single-mindedly focus on seam finishes and fabric selection and to make something useful and beautiful.  

Happy Birthday TWO you!

Little Miss Cleaver is officially two! And as timing would have it, her birthday fell on Maine Maple Sunday - so it was a BIG day for a big little girl.

We kicked things off with cards and presents from Mom and Dad in the morning. She decided to open the books first, with Nothing Like A Puffin eliciting a demand for Daddy to "Read it." But as great as books are,  it's hard to say what was the bigger hit, her new tool box, or the new playhouse.

Follow my trend of Pinterest-inspired projects, this playhouse tutorial worked out pretty well. Two extra-large moving boxes from U-Haul, one roll of colored duck tape and about 40 minutes of cutting and taping, produced what can only be called a new favorite hangout. I wanted it to be big enough for her to stand up in and this just barely made it. It's a tight squeeze when I'm asked to go in, but it's a perfect fit for her.

As we have for the past few years, we drove up to Sebago for a pancake breakfast at the town hall and then a quick jaunt to Grandpa Joe's Sugar Shack for the warm syrup on ice cream and sugaring demonstrations. It's always cold on Maine Maple Sunday, but this year it was really cold, so we spent most of our time huddling by the evaporator. And since it hasn't really warmed up yet, there wasn't much sap to boil, and we picked up the last pint of syrup they had (sorry everyone else!).

If we weren't sugar-ed and present-ed out from the morning, we had applesauce cake with maple buttercream frosting and more presents with Memere after naptime. LMC's uncle made the stuffed monkey, which is entirely hand-stitched and amazing.

I'm a sucker for traditions and in moments like these, those traditions really bring to the forefront how much LMC has grown and changed since last year and how much I've grown and changed over the many years I've been visiting sugar shacks and eating pancakes. 

When my mother moved out of her house a few years ago, my brother, at my request, tossed 2 milk crates of my journals and sent about 8 years of my scrapbooks from my middle and high school years. I shelved the scrapbooks and have only recently been looking at 1998 a lot, because LMC likes the Winnie the Pooh cover.But looking back at that year, i doubt that girl would have any inkling who and where she'd be now and how she'd be so different in some ways and how very much the same in others. 

With LMC its such a fascinating process as a parent to watch her grow and become more independent and opinionated and more herself and to wonder, which of these things will stick and what will change? Will she always love fixing things or will it go away along with the preference for pink socks? Or will the pink socks be a signature style? I can only hope that as a parent, I give her the room and support to explore and find out for herself.

I've packed away the birthday crown for another year, but I look forward to seeing who LMC will be when she wears it again.

Works in Progress

Between the snow and the seemingly never-ending stream of sickness in the Cleaver household, there's been a lot of indoor days. Some with just enough energy to build a fort to "nap" in, others of a more productive sort. 

I finished piecing my quilt top, made my "sandwich" and have begun the actual quilting of my quilt. Huzzah!

I decided to hand-quilt it. I'm enjoying the ever-so handmade nature of my uneven stitches and since there's no deadline to be finished (I started it over 2 years ago after all), there's no need to rush. I haven't done much beyond those few test circles, as my hand-work time (read: evening tv time) has been filled, as it most usually is, with knitting.

I've finished one sample sock for a new pattern (and if you're interested in being a tester, let me know!) and have been working on a number of swatches for all kinds of different designs. I sat yesterday with a stack of stitch dictionaries and post-it notes and came up with at least one idea I really adore for a submission call. I had to tell myself to bind off the swatch because I wanted to keep knitting it.

On days I've been home with LMC, for illness or weekending reasons, she keeps me on my toes- sometimes literally, as she's become very interested in ballet, which to her means yelling BALLET! and doing something akin to an arabesque attitude. I have since taught her to plié as well.

I'm not sure where she picked it up, as the only ballet I can recall showing her prior to this was bits of the nutcracker at Christmas and the occasional SYTYCD clip.But perhaps it stuck as the other day she found and insisted on wearing mommy's "ballet shoes."  Then again it could be something from daycare, as it took me a while to figure out her "ski" impression from school - there's only so much those daily report sheets tell you.

In there anything you've been working on lately?