I cannot survive with out tea.  I have no idea how other pregnant women give up drinking caffeine because it is the only way I can make it through my normal day, never mind nine long tired months.  My Grandmother always has a cup of Lipton tea in her hand, and at the end of my day I have to gather all of my own half-finished tea mugs from around the house.  I keep a pitcher of iced tea perpetually brewing all summer long.  Aside from getting me out of bed in the morning, black tea makes a great stain and dye.  I used to work for the photographer Sally Mann and at the time she was tea-staining giant 3′x4′ prints in gallons of Lipton.  The smell of the studio and constant brewing of tea made me feel a little less homesick.  I love the aged, mellow quality that tea-staining gives to materials.  To stain fabrics, I brew Lipton tea to a color that looks right, throw in a handful of salt to make the dye a little more permanent and stir in fabrics.  When the color seems a bit darker than I want, (it will lighten as it dries), I wash the fabric by itself.  The tea will eventually lighten over time and washes, and the staining can be repeated.

*Robin Shells in the Back Yard

*Back Yard Kites

*Perfect Mother’s Day Breakfast: Dough Doughnuts, Cut Flowers (which Ada and Chris wake up early and sneak out of the house for and then let me arrange myself),  and The Times (which I am still not done reading but will finish before the end of the week)

*Ada’s Class Turtle at the Art Show

*Wisteria from the Back Yard

*Mother’s Day Flowers

*Jadite at Moon River Chattel (which I resisted)

*Strange White Pigeon on the Sidewalk

*Bunk Beds!  (Finally arrived after several delivery attempts and are now in the middle of the room, waiting for us to move the bookshelf.  And we got them way on sale)

Have a great weekend!!

My kids love stringing beads and making necklaces.  These pony beads are large enough for little fingers to grasp, and are a good exercise for fine motor skill development.  I originally put sets of beads and leather cord inside our Easter surprise balls this year.  The leather cord can be knotted on one end when stringing and then simply tied when necklace is complete.  We decided to make this set as a gift for a friend.  These kits would also make great party favors.  To make your own Beaded Necklace Gift Kit you will need:

*Variety of Pony Beads, Sequins and Other Beads with Large Openings

*Leather Cord to Fit Bead Openings

*Small Clear Plastic Envelopes

*Wooden Box

1. Open large packages of beads, place a few into plastic envelopes and seal.  We organizing our beads by color and shape.

2. Measure and cut lengths of leather cord and wind into circle.  Be sure cord is long enough to fit over child’s head when the ends are tied.  (Or you could also make bracelets).  Put into envelope and seal.

3. Place plastic envelopes into wooden box.

4. Wrap up the Necklace Kit or place into party favor bags.

5. Have fun beading!

My favorite craft fabric/yarn/craft store Brooklyn General had a huge sale a couple of weeks ago.  I went specifically for knitting needles, and of course came home with more projects than I have time to do.  The Liberty Prints fabric taunted me from the wall as I was finishing up my purchasing.  I decided to get one yard of this beauty with no idea of what it would become.  I ended up making simple skirts for the girls, and had enough to make a sundress for Josie.  (Three projects from one yard!)  I based the skirts off of this pattern for a simple skirt by MADE.  (Danamadeit.com is such an an inspiring blog full of tutorials and color!) For ours skirts we made a single layer and did a basic turned hem instead of serging.  The skirts are super easy to make and if you are a faster sewer than I, (not at all a difficult task), you could finish a skirt in an hour.  So satisfying!  The girls have been wearing the skirts for two days now and I’ve decided to make them a summer supply out of different fabrics.  Hooray for warm-weather clothes!

We finally have a back yard!

After one year and nine months of waiting, the girls have finally been allowed to run around in the grass.  We had no idea it would be such a project to get the yard ready, but it is so nice to have a quiet, clean, safe place for them to run around.  These are the steps we went through to clean it up:

1. Chris cut down some of the brush.  There was a huge overgrown shrub in the center of the yard when we moved in, as well as the metal awning, a 300 lb stone sink covered in ugly ceramic tiles, a long cement walkway, chain link fence and rat burrows (!).  We soon discovered that the soil was full of broken glass, metal and trash from the last 100 years.  We were naive about what it would take to get rid of the rats and trash (and hadn’t noticed them when we inspected the house).  We spent many nights wondering what the heck we had gotten ourselves into.

2. Get rid of the rats.  After many calls to 311 to deal with open trash next door (I love NYC!) and many visits by the exterminator on our side, the rats vacated.  At one point Chris and I devised an insane concrete/rebar fence to barricade ourselves from the rats.  Luckily, the other methods worked first.  This felt like a HUGE relief and victory!

3. Chris builds a soil-sifter out of screens, wood and a wheelbarrow and begins to sift through the soil to remove glass and trash.  He uncovers tons of marbles, broken mantles, flagstone, rusty metal, broken and intact bottles and a tiny Frozen Charlotte doll head.

4. In the fall we hire fence builders to clear brush, remove most of the cement path, cut down trees, remove the metal awning and replace the chain link with a white cedar fence.  The change is amazing!  After three days and a big trash truck full of debris removed,  the back yard and fence look so much better!  By removing the metal awning, so much more light came into the kitchen.  The beautiful fence finally gave us a sense of privacy.  The fence has two gates, so we can leave our yard through our neighbors’ yards should we need to, and the cedar smells amazing.

5. Chris continues to remove trash with the soil-sifter.  He and ‘Uncle Frank’ rent a truck and bring 3 more tons (!) of trash to the transfer station.  They come home with a plan to start a scrap metal business.

6. We move the few shrubs we saved to the back corner of the yard, plant bulbs and wait for spring.

7. Our spring bulbs start to come up and we plant our first family tree.

8.  We make and bury our family time capsule in the back corner of the yard.

9. After much deliberation, we decide to hire a company to lay sod down in the back instead of doing it ourselves.  We initially had trouble finding a company that would work with such a small yard, but finally ended up using Kings County Nursery in Brooklyn.  They were right down the road from us and showed up a super-quick 30 minutes after I called for an estimate.  They were very reasonable and did the job in under two hours.  We opted out of using the standard pest control and root stimulators (both chemical) for the sod.  Although our soil looked rich, we are trying to amend it after years of mistreatment and did not want to add any other chemicals to the yard.  The pesticide that sod companies use to control grubs is usually Sevin.  Sevin is known to be dangerous to both children and native insects such as honeybees.  Although the nursery assured us that Sevin would only be used under the sod, we did not feel comfortable adding it to our back yard.  We felt confident that the birds that make daily visits to our back yard, the earthworms in the soil and the rich brown dirt back there would make the sod happy without adding chemicals.

10. We have the heavy stone sink removed.  After much deliberation about whether to try to salvage the sink, we decide to let it go.  It was likely original to the house, but had been left out in the weather and had a strong adhesive on it that we could not remove without further damaging the soft soapstone.

11. We water and water and get an old-fashioned push mower to trim and the grass turns green!  The tulips open, the wisteria blooms and suddenly we like our back yard.  After a torturous two weeks of no foot traffic, the girls are allowed to run on the grass.  Finally, instead of me warning them not to touch anything in the dirt with their hands, they can be barefoot!

*We still have a list of plans for the back yard.  The wooden stands in the far back corner are for our bees which will arrive in June, (late this year due to a chilly spring in Upstate NY).  We will continue to fill in our garden with flowers as we watch and learn and inevitably make lots of first-time gardening mistakes.  I just got my vintage clothes line in the mail from Ebay, (post coming soon).  I cannot wait to hang out our sheets and dry them in the sun.  Chris wants to build a play house for the girls.  We want to eventually replace the remaining concrete patio with flagstone.  We want to re-side the laundry room that juts out into the yard, and turn it into a potting/bee supply shed.  And then we will tackle the inside of the house….

Here are some progress photos:

When I was pregnant with Ada five(!) years ago I worked as a shoe designer.  In an office.  I had air conditioning and sweet coworkers who would bring me snacks when I was hungry, (which was all of the time).  I sat at a desk most of the day and noticed every little kick and movement the baby made.  I don’t think I realized how spoiled I was at the time.  Being pregnant with two other children is a whole different animal.  I rarely sit still in my day, there is hardly ever a period of quiet in the house and I am generally too busy to pay much attention to this pregnancy.  This baby does seems to love bedtime stories and moves all around as we lie in bed and read to the girls.  Our evening routine is one of the rare times I notice the baby moving.  When I was on maternity leave before Ada was born, I spent hours knitting sweaters for her and wondering who this little person in my belly would be.  (Everyone I walked by on the street liked to spontaneously share that my huge belly most certainly contained a boy).  Today is a rainy day in Brooklyn.  A rare day in which we don’t have too much too do outside and the dampness has negated any yard work we had planned. The rain tapping on the roof is making Josie look a bit drowsy.  I am hoping for a long nap from her.   And maybe, just maybe an hour or two of quiet knitting and thinking about who this next baby will be.

*Manly Narcissus from Our Garden

*Cherry Blossoms from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

*Back Yard

*Josie, Asleep on Her Books

*Back on the Ground at JFK

*The Kids, Watching Fish at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Hudson Valley Seed Library offers heirloom and non-GMO seeds wrapped in beautiful packages.  Each seed pack is designed and illustrated by a different artist and contains a bit about the history and origin of the seeds.  The girls and I recently planted some of the borage and Basil seeds in our garden.  The borage is for the bees and the basil is for our salads.  Hudson Valley Seed Library’s seeds would make perfect wedding favors or party thank-yous.  The seed packs are not only pretty, they are also playing an important role in preserving heritage seeds and plants for the next generations.

*Yarn, yarn, yarn and patterns for baby sweaters from KnitWit on Congress Street.  I especially liked their selection of Maine-made yarns and picked up some pretty Swans Island colors.  (I got a little ambitious, and am trying for three sweaters for the new baby by August).

*German Kite Making Paper from Circa Home on Congress Street.  I can’t wait to look up some kite patterns to make with the girls.  Circa Home is relatively new and has a well-edited and affordable mix of vintage and new housewares, toys and office/art supplies.  I fell in love with a set of vintage children’s gardening tools in the window.

*One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey, Seaweed Soap and Cotton Dishtowels by the Yard are from Folly 101 on Exchange Street.  I remember my Great-Grandmother always had dishtowels like these, bought by the yard and then hemmed at home.  I picked up the One Morning in Maine book as a shower gift.  It has the most beautiful vintage illustrations and makes me want to move out to a remote island on the Maine coast.  McCloskey also wrote and illustrated Make Way for Ducklings – one of our all-time favorite books.  Folly 101′s owner Astrid is also a stylist and has a great eye for simple, beautiful housewares.

I had a great weekend visiting family, watching the water and wandering around Portland.  But I am happy to be home again with my family, and happy to have some new projects to look forward to.