I Thank You God

I've been on a little E.E. Cummings kick lately. He is a little abstract, but he has some really beautiful stuff. This poem has been on my mind lately as I've been thinking about what I am thankful for. Just wanted to share.


i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Elinore is 3

We have finally come to the end of Elinore's three-week long birthday celebration. We've had a family party, a friend party, and finally the day with just us yesterday. She has had a great time. She's enjoyed playing with all of her new things, and I've enjoyed watching her dive into new kinds of creative play. We've already played Candyland at least 5 times!

Thanks to everyone who helped her celebrate. She loved all the phone calls, emails, gifts, and time so many of you gave. On to another year!

This has been my newest project. I found the idea here. It is all old scraps I had (and one I borrowed). I have been working on it for a couple weeks: tracing and cutting out pieces. Actually stitching them together only took one evening. This is going to be our official birthday banner. It will come out for all the birthdays and be draped across the dining room (just for the extra-special birthday person). It was kind of fun unrolling it the first time. I really had no idea how long it would be. Then to see all of these bits of things I have made, like little memories hanging in the room. I am so happy with how it turned out.

Oh my hats!

Just as I was writing a title for this entry I realized that I made all four of the hats in these photos! That's funny. This first photo is just to mark the first snow of the year. We aren't talking light dusting, we're talking 6-8" today and up to five expected tonight. It has been beautiful today. Big fat flakes and everything all freshly white. Elinore is just getting over being sick, but she was so excited to get out in it. She grabbed her snow pants and all her warm gear and got herself dressed. In the background she is licking snow off of her mittens. Tobin likes it, too, and stayed cozy warm in the stroller. We were even so blessed that our neighbor girl shoveled our whole driveway today!! I'll have to bake her some cookies or something...maybe a cake...I'm into cakes right now...

Here is something funny that Elinore said last week. At the library, she was pretending to play on the computer while I looked for children's books:
E: Mama, I need you to laugh.
Me: Ha ha ha! (faking a laugh)
E: (huge grin and giggle) I have to put that on the blog.
With that she turns back to the computer and pretends to type some more. That is when you know that blogging is really a part of your life! I couldn't stop laughing, but I was hoping no one else heard her!

These are a couple hats that I finished a while ago and recently gave as gifts. Elinore was good enough to model them for me. The pink one is for my niece. It is a mixture of the little football hat and the inca snowflake hat from Itty Bitty hats. Then I added the stars for fun. I love this self-striping yarn. It comes out so beautifully. Elinore's hat is the same brand, but in the purple colorway. Hopefully it will keep Lydia nice and warm!
This is the stripey stocking cap. This one was a birthday present for my 7 year old nephew. What a fun, crazy hat for a boy! I love the yarn for this one: Manos del Uruguay. It is made by a womens' coalition (I think, anyway). It is all hand dyed in big kettles. That makes each skein and color unique. It feels so alive in my hands, like I can imagine the womens' hands that worked the yarn. It knits up beautifully. Love it.

It has been great to pick up my needles the last few months. I felt like it really took me a while to get back to it after Tobin's birth. He was just so needy for so long. This has been timely with birthdays and Christmas coming... I've done a bunch of newborn hats lately as gifts, but mostly patterns that I've done before. Hopefully I'll have some new projects coming soon...

Pumpkin Carving

Another first for Elinore. Of course she wanted something complicated. Next year I think we'll just do a face...although, Kevin is very proud of the carving job he did. Here is our witch.

Halloween

This was Elinore's first year trick-or-treating. She decided she wanted to be a princess, and she was perfectly content to wear her normal dress-up clothes. We got some beads at Hobby Lobby so that she could make her own necklace (a real highlight) and she was delighted to get to wear her fancy black shoes (she calls them her "dance shoes"). She had SO much fun, and she came home with her basket brimming with candy. Mom and Dad will definitely have to take a parent tax out of the stash... We always get a lot of trick-or-treaters. Last night I think I tallied about 100 kids. We had exactly the right amount of candy. We gave out every candy bar and then didn't have any more kids after that. Crazy. It was such a gorgeous night that Tobin and I sat on the front steps for most of the evening while we passed out candy. He seemed to have a lot of fun, too.

The kids and I went to Prospect Park the other day to get some photos. The sun was out and it was beautiful except that it was fairly cold, so Elinore's got a red nose in half the pictures. Oh well... Both the kids have been so good lately. Tobin has two teeth on the bottom now, and Elinore has been hilarious. Yesterday I was bummed about something. I don't even remember what. I made a mistake in the kitchen while I was cooking or something and she said, "Honey," very consolingly. She is always making me laugh. We hope you are enjoying a beautiful fall full of color.