Fall Creations

Perfect Fall day and supplies ready. I finally got all the leaves felted. I madly crocheted these all last fall with the intention of making a garland, but life got in the way. This year I finally threw them into the kitchen aid to felt them down, dried them and strung some up for our door. With our wet felting producto of brown fuzzy balls, we glued on acorn caps we have been squirrling away. I had dreamed this project to become a garland of both, but didn't have the mind power or toddler patience to create that...yet. But really an easy project, using up lots of scraps of wool and adding a lot of color to our fall entryway.

Madison WI

The boys were all troopers as we headed to Madison one blustery fall morning. The market was cold. Asher ate a ton of grapes and his poor hands were so cold, but he didn't want to stop eating- a bit of a conflict in his head. We landed in a cafe in time for the snow flurries to come through and soaked up all the warmth we could before heading to the zoo. We hung out with the River Otter as he was a lot of fun playing around in the water.

pretended to be lots of animals.

A giving his best p. bear roar.

Riding his first train.

This picture is just too cute. We were all very happy to have uncle zak for our journey in Wisconsin.

Riding the shoe slide.

Asher finding a cool way to using the parallel (?) bars.

Just slides right down them.

The red tire swing and view of my old walk to school.

zak flirting it up with my old roomie. A fun fun barn dance.

Cuddling up late with the kids that let us do almost anything, as long as they can snuggle. We were in the barn until 11:30 and then drove back to my parents.

A long, long day. Lots of people, lots of fun.

Mr. R:: 8 Months

so many months! River is showing off his personality more and more every day. He is pulling himself up on everything, pant legs passing by, walls, pumpkins, you name it. Cruising around and all. He has signed "more"- two different ways, at table by banging and the actual sign when no table is available. And there are definite traces of mama, but we won't count it as a word quite yet. He wakes up in the morning grunting a bit to say he has to poop and spends his first moments on the potty elliminating for the day- oh I hope we stay with the one poop a day for this boy. Baby yogurt poops are gone, because this boy eats everything!! He loves food. all types of meats, all types of veggies and fruits and he adores bread. He is all good!

Into the Woods::10/8

This past weeks walk was extra special: we had guests and instead of the same old same old Busey Woods we were in Wisconsin!! Uncle Zak flew out from Philly to meet us for some quality WI time and fishing with the papa. After a missed flight the night before and early morning travels, they bypassed heading straight to the river for a walk with us, A was just a little excited. And so it was we headed into the woods as a party of five. Asher found some wood piles to climb. My back got a break. And we climbed a hill (Asher at one point said he couldn't do it, he is hill free on most occasions, oh topography I miss you) A beautiful hilltop prairie. Waukesha really is beautiful, Retzer Nature Center provides such a needed sanctuary while visiting my parents.

thank you world for all this beauty.

Busy

Busy week for us, just back from a trip to WI, 39 members strong for Food Nanny's 2nd Birthday. I will be quiet this week, just our woods update and back next week some time with lots of fun things.

The boys are busy too. Asher is really obsessed with rough and tumble and when he and Ben start wrestling River crawls over to join in on the fun.... ahhh boys.

Into the Woods:: 10/2

I want this week in the woods every week. It was magical and perfect and all that I dream of from days past for my parenting adventures. I used the Montessori motto, "follow the child" as my breath to eliminate any type of control freak moments. So our day was Follow the Asher, luckily River is happy to be along for the ride.

Asher hopped up on this squirrel table to eat his own meal.

And then transformed into a tree frog. We followed deer trails to some of my favorite trees.

And in the an unexpected moment, we stumbled upon Asher's real family. If you look closely you will see his mama (left) and sister (right standing) and his brother is sitting on the ground between them behind a log.

This is Asher's face dropping a little when I tried to explain that they don't know he is family yet, and they were running away from him. I was a bit nervous at one point when the mama took a defensive stance. But for the most part we had a perfectly respectable visit with one another and they hung out with us for awhile.

Asher found some squishy (his description) mushrooms and we played in the soil that they are making from the tree.

And then we sang a song to the wind asking it to drop nuts from the trees so that we could make a gift for the deer. You see we stumbled upon there favorite feasting spot in the woods and had to leave them some presents. They were actually watching us the whole time and I am pretty sure they were loving our songs. And it was nice to relate to the mama deer out with her two little ones wanted to be protective but to let them investigate us a bit. My most favorite tree in the woods blew down these beautiful acorns for us.

The biggest hats in the woods from my beloved Burr Oak.

And something I had never noticed, this is the crumb shell that was left by the deer. We watched where they ate and left crumbs so that we could investigate. We found places where they bedded down and their food scraps. such good learning.

Then we became tree frogs again and climbed more.

Ran across the bridge and said our farewells. Perfect, Perfect walk in the woods.

Wet Felting

Something in the works.