Seriously folks, why do we teach them to talk? This is little sis demanding a snack - now. A refreshing one.

Little sis is slowly gearing up for school. You might notice she is now sporting a super shiny pair of pink glasses.

We’ve had her cousin here the past day or so. Last night she asked little sis why she needed glasses…I am recording the conversation for myself…feel free to roll your eyes and move on.

cousin - “Why do you need glasses?”

little-sis - “Because my mom said so”

cousin - “Can you see without them?”

little-sis - “Of course!”

cousin - ” So you don’t really need them.”

little-sis “Yes I do! My eye is lazy!”

Some explanation, both bis-sis and their cousin are writhing with jealousy that she gets glasses and they don’t.

To be honest I am having the hardest time adjusting. I was already in the throws of “my baby is going to kindergarten” and now I am fighting off “my poor baby needs glasses” with a big ol’ stick. Frankly my “poor baby” considers them the ultimate fashion accessory and is completely thrilled at all the attention.

The only problem is they make it hard for her to suck her thumb, but they are shiny and worth it. (Aren’t most shiny things?) The case is red and she calls it her suitcase. It goes it everywhere. It is amazing to see how careful she is being with them. For posterity I also have to say some of her clumsiness is making more sense what with the lazy eye and all. I also feel a little better about her mastery of the alphabet…a few months back we figured out she didn’t know W or K. 24/26 letters isn’t so bad, right?

As a side note I cannot help but wonder what I would get if I demanded refreshment? Yarn? A nap? What would you want.

We went to the Lakeside Farmer’s Market yesterday evening. Right around the corner and I didn’t even know it existed. According to the husband it’s new. Oddly one of the things he covers at the paper is the local farmers market scene. There is quite the soap opera going on right now…apparently someone is trying to pass off produce as Virginia Grown when is isn’t. Controversial Cantaloupes and the like. Community journalists round up a lot of wackos in their jobs.

Anyhoo, we ran into our pal Mike. He and his wife retired to run a pepper farm and now sell at several of the local markets. Things were closing down when we got there and he kindly unloaded all his tomatoes. I got 53 pounds for a mere $20. Let that sink in a minute…that’s $0.40 a pound.

So, back on the home-front, what does one do with 53 pounds of tomatoes? Can, if you can. It really isn’t so hard…lots of boiling, but nothing impossible. My goal is to have at least 40 pints of crushed tomatoes put up by this fall. I am doing just part of the batch today. That’s around 23 pounds. We use a lot of tomatoes, so I am not sure this will be enough, but it can’t hurt.

I am following the guidelines here. They are the from the University of Georgia. The do I wish I had was a hand-held blender. The one from my baby food making days is long gone, but it would give a nice texture.

The only big modification I make is the cutting our the cores part. Frankly it takes to long. After I peel the skin I just crush them by hand into my pot, pull out the core and there you go. Messy, but a lot of fun.
For the record 23 pounds = 15 pints.

As a total side note I have been knitting like mad. We’re in a coll snap…highs only to the mid 80’s! I know, but for here that’s down right chilly. I also want to do a sweater for big sis sort of similar to the one Kit Kitrage wears at the beginning of the movie. I am thinking that Cascade Superwash might do the trick.

We went berry picking on Thursday with my parents. This was so much fun, and I am so sorry we forgot the camera. Between the five of us we got a little over 20 pounds of berries. At $2 a pound this is a great deal.

My jam recipe is about 5 1/2 pounds of berries to 3 1/2 cups of sugar. These berries have been pretty sweet, so it might need adjusting. I do not use pectin, as I don’t mind it a bit runny.

Boil until thick enough for you (I put a plate in the fridge and then put some of the jam on it to cool to see if it has set). Pack into jars with 1/2 inch of headspace, and I process 15 minutes in a boiling water bath for pint sized jars.

The girls dressed up to play Laura and Mary - translation “Little House on the Prairie”. In the background you can see our almost finished kitchen. (Yay!)

And a parenting tip…if you get the kids hooked on the Little House books you can trick them into doing almost anything. We haven’t had a dishwasher since February, and this summer has been heaven… all I had to do was remind them that Laura and Mary did the dishes…viola, new dishwashers.

Ever have one of those weeks where you can’t remember sitting? Definately there.

We did the lemmonaid stand for Anthem yesterday. I am not sure if this happens outside of Richmond, but kids sell lemmonade to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network. The girls had a grand time. I am pooped.

Earlier this week we did Peach and ginger preserves. We now have 5 1/1 pints. Amazing how 17 peaches can turn into so many jars. Today I am doing blueberries. Next week, tomatoes. Our are no where near ready, but my husband frequents the 17th street market downtown and has an in for a bushel of tomatoes. He could talk most anyone into selling something cheap…a scrounge that man.

So this morning I decided to sit at the movies. This morning the girls and I took the grandparents to see Kit Kittredge. A lot of fun, especially the clothes. Little sis had a hard time with the plot, but the clothes kept her interested. Just look at the button on the purple dress!! Here she’s wearing an amazing hat with a rose on it…hard to see, but it would be a lot of fun to try to do.

And does anyone else think the Kit doll looks a lot like my friend Becky from the 70’s? I wish the price was about the same…there really isn’t an affordable doll that looks like a little girls. Babies, yes. Prostitutes, yes. But nothing in between for those of us on a budget. Althought the bratz dolls would be ceap to sew for, not much in the way of fabric needed.

The witch Hazel in the front yard. This was a Mother’s Day girft the year after we moved in, so 2004.

We got started on the garden about 3 weeks ago. In addition to these we planted peas and beets. We are far enough south that we have about a month until the lettuce spinach and such bolt, but they make good baby-veggies salads.

The bucket on March 15th:

Here’s the bucket today:

And the peas:

The blue bucket is the girl’s old toy bucket…it took some maneuvering, but we finally sod them on the idea of “recycling” it.

We’ve had a busy week…spring break and all. We’ve been learning about quilting this week, so a lot of sewing. We checked out a ton of kids books on quilts from the library, and spent an afternoon looking at all of my old family quilts. Here’s the rundown.

Monday: The husband’s family stopped by for several hours. We had scones and tea.

Tuesday: The husband took the day off to work on the new room we’re adding on. More on that in a latter post.

Wednesday: The girls and I went out to the park, and library and fabric store. I’ll be honest, the park and library were totally a bribe for good behavior at the fabric store.

Thursday: we went to the Valentine Museum here in town with my parents. They have a lot of textiles and we were hoping to see some quilts, but not much in that vein was out. Then over to St John’s church…it’s where Patrick Henry gave his “Liberty or death” speech. That part was sort of a hoot. There were at least 7 guys dressed in colonial garb. They were doing a reenactment of the speech for a reporter from the Pilot & Ledger Star. We skipped the speech, but the girls still liked all the “old fashioned” people.

It is from a pattern I made a while back. We’ve adjusted it so it has the exact right amount of twirl.

And as a funny postscript today she asked if we could take creme-brulee into school instead of cupcakes. Hard to say no, but I do not think they’s appreciate the blowtorch.

I am not even looking at my last post date. The girls and I are on spring break, so it is a perfect time to get back in the swing of things around here.

Tonsils are out. Little sis has now been 4.5 weeks without a fever. She hasn’t gone that long since August. I have had both influenza A and B, and yes I did get a flu shot. Big sis is actually mad at me over that one. I talked her into the shot last fall with a lot of mumbo-jumbo about not getting as sick this year. Well that worked out.

So there is quite a backlog of non-illness related stuff to post on. My current obsession? Ginham Embroidery-also called Chicken Scratch. Apparently it was often used on Aprons.

This is from Posie Gets Cozy. It’s a detail from a smocked skirt she made…is it not amazing??

We are pretty much sewing obsessed around here. I am starting the girl’s spring wardrobe. Lots of orders for skirts this season, so I am perfecting the tiered skirt I made for big-sis’ first day of kindergarten last year:

Not the best photo ever, but big-sis has worn this skirt almost every week for over a year and a half. It is very well loved. Maybe even enough that she’ll forgive me for the flu shot…

OK, It has been so long I almost feel like I need to reintroduce myself.

Hi, I’m Becca. I used to knit.

So, what’s been up? Work, illness and tonsils have dominated recently. Tuesday little sis had her tonsils out. Hoary!! Poor thing has been sick since Christmas day. We’ve had 10 days with fever of 104 or more. One 7 hour stint in the ER. Four different antibiotics. These are my last four sick days of the school year.

All that said she’s pretty mad at me about the whole thing. She wants chips and salsa, now. Between that and the fact I keep waking her up to take yucky medicine I am not fer favorite right now.

Today she’s a bit better. She has more energy and I am not needed constantly. So my goals are to :

1. Make oatmeal
2. Knit a bit for the first time in three weeks
3. Make chicken noodle soup
4. Shower
5. Deliver popsicles
6. Clean toilets

I know, try not to be jealous.

And a side note to Diego. No, I really don’t want to help you rescue animals. That’s your job. Mine is sitting here trying to coax a 4 year old into taking one more dose of antibiotic. Stop staring at me like that. I do not care that is is the smallest baby mane wolf or that it might hurt itself on those thorns. Circle of life, dude.

I am cleaning out some fabric. As I mentioned a while back I inherited a huge mess of fabric from a childhood neighbor of the husband. She’s in her early 90’s and just recently has settled into an assisted living facility. She was a lifelong sewer and I can not even begin to describe the bounty.

The problem is there is a bit too much bounty, so I’ll be slowly putting batches of it up for sale over the next few weeks. Here’s a sample. It is a double-knit argyle pattern with metallic sparkles. It is amazing, but I now literally now own reams of double knit fabric. Too good not to share.

There are a few other things for sale.

Well, we ended up getting about a half inch yesterday. Not enough to cancel school or make snowmen, but it was pretty.

We ended up home anyway. Little sis has a raging tonsil infection. She has officially been sick since Christmas Day with this bug. Took her back to the doctor yesterday and this time we got to see our regular guy. Apparently the other doc we saw the first time prescribed the wrong amount of antibiotic. She was getting 1/2 tsp instead of 1 & 1/4 teaspoon. Not too happy about this. She is much more sick now, and has had a fever of 104 for three days.

Little sis with her Webkinz “Beatiful Sparkly Jewel”- and yes that’s the full name

Sorry about the vent. She is doing better now that we have the correct dose. The next step is to talk to the ENT about removing tonsils altogether. Anyone done this with a 4 year old? I had mine out when I was 22, and I hate to think of putting her through that, but since the tubes this past fall she has not gone more than 5 days in a row without a sore throat.

Off to make jello!