Pinning it Down

Do you find yourself pinning projects to Pinterest, but rarely getting around to doing them? Do you need a bit of encouragement to make some of those projects come to life? Join Pam and Sarah every Tuesday for the Pinning it Down link-up, where we're making a Pinterest project happen in our homes every week.

I tried a great recipe this week.  When my husband and I were dating, we lived some distance apart.  Sometimes we would meet at a halfway point at Chicago's and have pizza.  Occasionally we would order dessert, and if we did, it was usually their skillet chocolate chip cookie.  When I saw this recipe, it reminded me of dinner dates with my husband, and better still, it only dirties one pan!

This was quick, easy, and delicious.  It only calls for ingredients that I always have in my kitchen.  I stirred up the dough while dinner was baking, and then baked the cookie in the already hot oven while we ate.  Happy birthday (29) to me!

No ... no ... no ...

Lucy is gradually learning the things she is not allowed to play with.  She lacks, however, the self-control to actually leave those things alone.

Every so often, when I'm busy with Linus and she has wandered off behind me for a moment (if she's out of sight for more than a minute or two, I go to see what she's up to -- usually she quickly reappears), I'll hear her saying "No ... no ... no ... no ... no ..."

When I get close enough to see what she is doing, I invariably discover that Lucy is holding something she is not allowed to play with.  She generally relinquishes the object without too much fuss.
             "That's right, Lucy.  No."

Love

We just came home from a walk.  I thought we were going to have to cut it short when Linus started fussing early on, but then he fell asleep.  Since he was asleep we walked a little longer than we might have otherwise to give him a nice little nap.  The weather was beautiful -- sunny, 68.  Toward the end of our walk, Lucy sang me a little love song, "Mama ... mama, mama ... ma-ma ... MAMA!

I love you, too, Lucy.

7 Quick Takes

1.  I saw this on Fr. Z earlier today, and it looks like a good idea.  Remember, a bishop is responsible for the care of all the souls in his diocese; he is the shepherd.  Remember also, that although God gives him special graces appropriate to his office, the bishop is still a frail and fallible human being.  Remember furthermore that our fight is against principalities and powers, etc.  The fallen angels hate and work against bishops even more than the rest of us.  Whether you think he's doing a great job, or you think there are a couple things he could do better, your bishop needs your prayers.  This website organizes people to pray a rosary for their local bishop (or any other bishop).  Just sign up, and they will send you an email reminder of the day you promised to pray for your bishop.  Check out Rosary for the Bishop.  I think it's pretty cool.

 2.  I took this picture after Lucy had fallen asleep on the couch snuggling with her daddy.  She's holding a tiny icon.  It has a magnet on the back, and it is usually on the refrigerator, but on this particular day it captured her attention and she wanted to hold it and look at it.  She fell asleep holding that little icon, and she looked so sweet that I took a picture.  When she woke up she saw it in her hand and said "Ooh!" and carried it around a while longer.

3.  My old camera was on its last legs, so we used some money we were given as a Christmas present to buy a new camera.  I think the dark corners on the upper left and lower right of the picture above were caused by the lens cover not opening completely.  I'm delighted with the new camera.  This is one of the pictures I took trying out the new camera.  In this picture I was testing its ability to focus very, very close to the subject.  What better to photograph than my wedding and engagement rings?

4.  Lucy has recently become a very helpful little girl.  She puts dirty clothes into the hamper.  At bathtime, after getting undressed and putting her clothes into the hamper, she takes her shoes and toddles (in nothing but a diaper) to the other end of the house to go put her shoes under her bed.  She also brings toys to Linus when he gets bored and starts to fuss; I only had to explain to her once that she should hold the toy by his hand instead of trying to shove it into his mouth!

5.  Linus also likes to "help" with laundry.  He is very entertained if I fold laundry on top of him.  It doesn't result in the most neatly folded laundry ever (although, to be honest, I wasn't going to be winning any laundry-folding contests anyway), but it does result in folded laundry (which is better than wadded up in a laundry basket) and a happy baby.

6.  Lucy has been steadily acquiring new words.  When she finishes with a meal and I ask if she wants to drink any more milk she says, "Away!"  When she sees her brother bouncing in the jumperoo she says, "Juh, juh, juh," and bounces herself.  Chair comes out "choo" (it took me almost a week to figure out what that word meant!), and she refers to the rocking chair as "rock-oo" -- her first two-syllable word (that is, two different syllables).

7.  But when I walk into the room and Lucy says "MAMA!" several times with great enthusiasm, my heart melts.  Aren't babies wonderful?

Have a great weekend and go visit Conversion Diary for more quick takes!

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

{Pretty}

We went to the fabric store a couple weeks ago to buy the last few supplies for a project (I'll talk about that at the end of this post).  I like to look in the remnants bin. I found some really pretty fabric.  I brought it home.  I had some vague notion of making napkins with it.

My grandmother gave me some placemats, napkins and napkin rings as a wedding gift.  I love them.  The placemats, unfortunately, are a really silly design.  They're made of paper.  They can't be washed.  They get marks on them when they get wet from condensation on cold glasses.  I live in a very warm, very humid climate.  There is a lot of condensation on cold glasses.

The fabric coordinates beautifully with my napkins and napkin rings, so naturally I made placemats.  I'm thrilled with the way they came out.

{Happy}

This is a very happy baby.  He loves his jumperoo.  He will jump in it for half an hour or more at a time.  I'm so glad to have a way to entertain him.

{Funny}

She's wearing my t-shirt.  The one I plan to wear for Mardi Gras.  She insisted.  It drags the floor.  I let her wear it long enough to snap few pictures before taking it off her for fear she would trip on it.  Silly girl.

{Real}

 The chapel where we go to Mass on Sundays didn't have a green cope to use for the asperges (sprinkling holy water before Sunday Mass).  My husband did lots of shopping for fabrics online.  He ordered this stunning green and black brocade.  We were at the fabric store to buy the lining and thread.

 It's hard to take good pictures of shiny fabric.  The solid green silk is really beautiful stuff.  My husband designed the cope.  He ordered the fabrics and figured out the dimensions.  I did most of the cutting and all of the sewing.

I'm rather amazed that I can really make something like this.  It was exciting to see it in use last Sunday.

Yarn Along: Finally Finished

There's this blanket I started several years ago.  I didn't realize at the time just how long it would take me to finish it.  I had just discovered tunisian crochet and I had just finished a granny square blanket, which took me less than a month.  I enjoyed the tunisian crochet, but I got bogged down and basically abandoned the project, which sat in a box under my bed.  A couple of times I got it out and worked on it some more.  Last year in March I set out to plan all my Christmas gifts.  My parents had just moved to Alaska, so a dense, thick wool blanket seemed like just the thing.  

I worked on it, and then knitted a pair of mittens, and then worked on it, and then knitted a dishcloth, and then worked on it, and then sewed a skirt for Lucy, and then worked on it some more.  It progressed, slowly.  The beginning of Advent came.  I prioritized.  Gifts that had to be shipped to another part of the country got finished first.  Then came gifts for people I would see on Christmas day.  Then there was this blanket.  I wouldn't see my parents until the next weekend.  By the time they left I had all the pieces finished and sewn together.  It just needed a border.  It wouldn't have fit in their luggage, anyway.  Today, I finally finished it.  Now I just need to find a box to fit it and mail it to Alaska.  Christmas has come and gone.  There's no rush.

For this week's reading picture I gathered up all the books I have in progress.  Mostly I've been reading Mamarazzi.  It has lots of good ideas and wonderful pictures.  Lucy keeps wanting to steal it and look at the pictures.  I've been learning.  The other books I'll talk about some other time.  Right now, I need to go fix dinner.

Pinning it Down

I just recently started exploring Pinterest, and after being initially overwhelmed, I love it.  There are so many clever ideas and when I put them next to each other and start thinking about them they combine in different ways in my mind and eventually become something that I could actually do.  Today's post, not surprisingly is a combination of ideas.

I plan out menus every week before I go grocery shopping, but sometimes my list and the accompanying meal plans get lost in the shuffle of papers on my desk, or Lucy (my toddler) steals them, or I'm just too lazy to go hunting for it when it's time to start dinner.  I needed a way to have the plan where I can easily glance at it to remind myself what I had planned.  I pinned an idea (and saw a couple others) that involve using the glass in a picture frame as a surface for dry-erase or wet-erase markers, and I was planning to use one of these printable templates in the frame, but the printer and I weren't getting along and I didn't have time to fight with it, so I made my own.  (Of course, now that I look at the links I see that the original idea used it as a menu board as well).

I've been finding it helpful.  My mother-in-law says it's the cutest thing she's ever seen, but then, she says that rather frequently; she tends to gush a bit.

Go visit Amongst Lovely Things to see what clever ideas other people are trying out.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

{Pretty}

These are tulips I bought at the grocery store.  The funny thing is ... What Lucy sees in this picture is the stairs!

{Happy}

Four little denim skirts for four little girls.  I was really, really happy to finish in time for Christmas.

{Funny}

 Lucy is wearing her daddy's shoes.  She likes to play dress-up, so I have pictures of her wearing all sorts of silly things.

{Real}

The real here is that while this was yummy, it was after getting everyone up very early to go to a very early Mass because a bridge closure precluded our attendance at our usual Sunday Mass, and Lucy refused to eat it.

Celebrating Epiphany

The wise men have joined our creche.
We had King cake after dinner ...

complete with a baby.

And we marked the door with blessed chalk.

Happy Epiphany!

Tonight

The best thing that happened today:
While her brother was sleeping, Lucy climbed up onto the couch and snuggled with me for about ten minutes.  She pointed out my eyes (Ah) and my ears (Eee) and my glasses (Ga-ga), and then she made pretend snoring noises when I closed my eyes.  The quiet moment was lovely.

What Lucy is doing lately:
Lucy pulled one of her skirts out of the laundry today and pulled it over her head like a cape.  Then she looked at me and laughed (as if looking to see if I thought it was funny) and pulled it off again.  Then she did the same thing several more times.  That child is such a ham.

What Linus is doing lately:
Linus has been practicing rolling over.  He rolls from front to back quite competently, and can roll almost all the way onto his stomach from his back.

A picture:

The wise men will join the rest of the creche tomorrow.