I set up my tripod and got gradually closer and closer so I could get a picture of the mom on the nest.

Then I got out my step stool like I have been every day to take this picture:

It ended up blurry because I was under a swift attack. The mama was really brave today. I could feel her wing against my hair. I’m afraid tomorrow I may really get pecked. I may have to talk Barry into giving it a try.

The babies look much bigger, probably double what they were when they hatched, and much darker. I wonder when their eyes will open.

It’s all in the works.

The fiber gathering is this Saturday in DeGraff, Ohio. I even talked my friend April into sharing a booth with me. She developed a pattern and has been knitting stuffed bunnies like crazy. I can’t wait to get pictures of each of them to put up here because they are so cute I can hardly stand it!

Here’s some yarn I spun yesterday so that I can put my “Learn to Spin” kits together. Jonah helped me dye it. It’s black cherry, grape, and orange.

Things I love about our back yard:
cherry blossoms
new grass
sand box
gold finches
red buds
baby oak leaves

The weather has been beautiful. The kids are out there every second that they can be, digging in the new sandbox Barry built, climbing tress, picking dandelions (which I strongly encouge)…

On my list of things I want: a hammock to string up between trees.

Today the kids helped me make my biggest piece of felt ever. Then I cut it up and we broke out the Kool-Aid. I’m pleased with the colors we got. These are going to make some cute little journals, don’t ya think?

First, here’s Super Fluff

What can I say more? Logan’s hair is awesome; especially right after a tubby! And look at those hands. Their huge!! This kid is a monster. He has no fear. Oh, and I must mention, razor sharp claws.

And now for my crowning achievement of the last few weeks. Meet Rupert (or Ruby if it ends up being a girl when I get it dressed).

He’s a “rug bear.” I hooked his body pieces with ramboulet (some kind of sheep) and angora yarn I spun on one of my drop spindles on a linen foundation. He’s fully jointed with glass eyes, regular DMC floss nose and stuffed with poly fill. His paws are made of merino wool felt I made all by myself.

Anyway, I’m super-duper excited about him. I’m working on a little friend, so stay tuned…

Easter Greetings! (a little late)

and these are some of the cutest ever– my niece and nephew Cameron and Kendall.

I can hardly stand it that I’m so far away.

His entry today will be much more exciting than mine. We went in the back yard and tried out the kids new sleds. They’re just pieces of foam laminated to slippery plastic and they go fast! It was a beautiful winter day.

Here are some pictures from last week, or I guess the week before last:

(The first picture is bigger because the lighting is so much better. The second one kind of gives you an idea what the finished product looks like.)

“Wooly” is knit with my handspun French Angora yarn and stuffed with clean, but unspinnable angora fluff. She now has a little red scarf and a teddy bear buddy named “Gordon”– I guess pictures for another time.

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, but just can’t figure out how to write about it. I feel this urgency, need, drive, desire–something like that, I don’t know what word to use–to make art.

“One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.”

That’s a quote from Oliver Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstacy, and it’s been going through my head today. The problem is–I feel the must, but I can’t!!! I can’t draw!! It is overwhelmingly frusterating. I am so out of practice…

Anyway, knitting and spinning just aren’t doing it for me.

Brenna’s Primary lesson yesterday was about honesty. At the end of the lesson the kids just got to color and Brenna figured out how to write this all by herself. Yes, my four year old is a phonics genius!! And, she even put a period at the end of her sentance!!

(It’s supposed to say “I can be truthful for others.”)

This is a treasure.

I have more pictures to add. I took some on our good day on Friday, you know, the day I bathed all three of my children. Well, I felt so ambitious, and my kids were too clean, we had to make play dough for school. What mother in her right mind would make play dough for her freshly bathed children? I don’t know. I obviously wasn’t in my right mind, and now light blue (food coloring just isn’t potent enough to make anything other than grayish ugly light blue) salt dough is smashed into my dining area carpet. (Someday when we’re rich we will put tile down in the dining area. Carpet and eating toddlers or play dough playing are definitely not a good combination.) So, my good day got a little stressful…but then, while I was trying to clean up the salt dough mess, Jonah went to the bathroom by himself. Which was fine until he washed his hands and filled the sink up , and then tried to scrub it with half a roll of toilet paper. Wet toilet paper doesn’t have a whole lot of scrubbing power, but it sure is fun to watch it break up to little bits in the sink full of water, then pull the plug and watch it go down the drain–for awhile. Because eventually it stops going down the drain because it is completely clogged. Anyway, my day was pretty good until then. I didn’t take pictures of any of that, though. I just wanted to run away.

So we went outside and spread out some blankets under a tree and read a little bit of Wind in the Willows. The kids were being good, so I gave them suckers. I simply had to ruin the clean kid thing even further by letting Jonah drench himself in sticky slobber. (You have to click on this picture to get the full effect of the slobber. I mean, there is some slobber!)

Barry unclogged the sink. He can do anything.

We went for a pretty fall walk yesterday, so I have to include these pictures too.