new cardigan

I finally got the vintage buttons on Charlie's sweater, so am finally "legal" to post! The pattern doesn't go as large as I needed it to, so I had to up-size this on my own. It came out great, but just barely fits.... Looks like I may be trying my hand at blocking today...

here's the pattern...

http://stockinette.wordpress.com/patterns/baby-sophisticate/

yarn is Manos del Uruguay from my stash

I was warned...

My friend, Carrie, warned me about this. Warned me that I'd have a very tough time keeping up this blog. It is so very true. Summer brings outdoor activities, traveling and longer day light hours. That coupled with trying to savor every moment until I go back to "out of the home" work (which in some ways I think will be easier than my 168 hour/week at-home job, except that I'll still have the same kid snuggling, laundry, cleaning and meals to juggle once I get home, plus I will need to get the kiddo off to daycare with clean clothes, enough diapers to make it through the day and a lunch that looks organized and healthy lest the daycare providers realize I'm a procrastinator and not always organized. ugh!) Long excuse short, I've not had as much craft time, nor creative time. I'm already mourning that this is not likely to improve anytime soon. Such is life.... I'm excited and sad for this next step. Adam and I fear Charlie will come home with all kinds of new tricks he's learned from his daycare cohorts, and will realize he has been shielded from all of the cool things in life at his ripe old age of 17 months. I think we worry too much. (Do we??!?) My biggest fear is that I will blink and he will be all grown-up. I know it is going to happen. If I blog somewhat often, maybe that will have a way of slowing down time??? Please say it will... =)

swimmer's ear prevention

After swimming, squirt a mixture of 1/2 rubbing alcohol and 1/2 distilled white vinegar into little (or big) ears. This restores natural pH balance and the alcohol dries up any water in the ear canal. I put my mixture in an empty travel sized contact solution bottle, and removed the label and wrote in huge red letters on the bottle what it was. Can you imagine if I mistakenly put that on my contacts? OMG.

(recipe from Charlie's swim instructor)

brew!

The brewery is up and running, and I'm really not joking that much when I call it a brewery. Look at Adam's new system! The day pictures are of the trial run with water during the day. The night pictures are more true to form. When you have a little one, you must brew when you can, and that is after the beastie calls it a day ;-) Adam began his trial run at 2PM yesterday and finished the inaugural batch at 2:30 AM this morning. He is ironing out the bugs so I'm sure it won't be such a lengthy process in the future. Poor guy spending 12.5 straight hours dreaming of sweet beer... somehow I don't think it was that painful!

The wooden paddles were made for him by his grandpa in Louisiana. They are beautiful!

For those of you interested, this is the beer he cloned: http://blog.stonebrew.com/?p=277

More beer postings are promised, for sure. Gotta post something! I haven't been able to get out my sewing machine at all since we've moved. I am knitting though. You can use quilts without binding them, right?? =)

magic tub potion

Poor Charlie had quite the diaper rash earlier this week. It is slowly getting better, but in effort to "super-duper" heal the area we have given him chamomile baths the past 2 nights to soothe the sore skin. (I'm posting this because I just walked into the bathroom and saw random small puddles of yellow liquid in the tub and wondered which boy to blame - ah yes, the chamomile remnants! Ha! Lucky for the boys...) We have bulk chamomile for tea and for my body care recipes so we just took about a quarter cup and put it in some cheesecloth and tied it up into a big tea bag and put it in the tub. I can't say that it alone is responsible for healing the sore tush, but it is indeed getting better quickly AND he fell asleep within 10 minutes of getting out of the tub, an hour earlier than normal. Not exactly scientific, but I'll take it!

more summer dining

delicious! and every veggie we ate was from the CSA basket - basil included. phew!

dish 1:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Summer-Corn-Salad/Detail.aspx

dish 2:

new red potatoes and new green beans cleaned and cut into bite sized pieces. boil for 15 minutes or until just tender. drain and add milk, butter, salt and pepper (a childhood fave - YUM)

perfect summer meal

tomato and cucumber sandwich with fresh veggies from the farm (will taste better when from our garden) +

left over baked beans +

Corona with lime

=)

Yum

Oh, and baby is asleep

and papa is outside playing with his brewing equipment.

Don't get me wrong, I like them and all - nice to have some quiet and yummy food solo sometimes ;-)

play silks

I made Charlie some play silks a few days ago. So easy! I put each scarf that I bought on Dharma Trading Company (36") in a quart sized mason jar filled with water, about 1/8 cup of white vinegar and food coloring (as much as it took to reach the color I wanted). I then put the mason jars in a water bath about 3" deep and boiled them in the water bath for 15 minutes. Rinse until water runs clear and hang to dry. You can also dye these with Kool Aid, but I could not find any single batch packs anywhere.