the ice-cream bribery worked like a charm... good to the last drop! ****** today has been a very productive day... i dropped adella off at co-op this morning and went home to work on my cursed bird skirt. after some thought and a bit of winging-it (excuse the bad pun) with the machine embroidery, i ended up with something over halfway decent i think. i'm not completely in love with it, but satisfied. it looks huge in the picture, but it actually fits quite nicely. i used the same pattern from when i made my flowery favorite skirt. strangely enough, i forgot to take pictures of my secret knitting project! but, here is a sneak peek at the yarn i used (not all together - they were 3 seperate projects): also, last weekend i scored a huge old chalkboard from a junk shop close to my work. i came out of a sunday school classroom, and is perfectly old-school - metal frame and all. stig repainted it a few days ago and today we hung it in the hallway. it looks great! adella and stig got to work right away: **** tonight i'm babysitting rachel so beth and todd can go to the movies. we're doing an X-Men movie night out swap. next week beth is coming over to put adella to sleep so stig and i can go out to the movies! it's been ages since we got to go out! i think it was around Christmas. seriously. so, gotta run!

you may have noticed that i've not posted any knitting pictures lately. it's not because i haven't been knitting; it's just that i've been working on some secret knitting. i'll say no more. but now that the secret knitting is done, i can show you this: my fast-growing obsession - log cabin knitting, an idea from my beloved Mason-Dixon Knitting book. i LOVE it! this little piece is just an experiment using some scrap cotton yarn from my stash. adella has already been calling it, "baby blanket," so i'll be binding off and giving it to her, for all her little ones who love to sleep so much. but i am already dreaming of log-cabin knit blankets, pillows, more blankets, more pillows, dishcloths, coasters, rugs,... i promised my self that i wouldn't start any new projects until i finish some others that have been sitting around waiting for me, but i just couldn't help myself. my fingers have been itching to try log cabin, and now i am hooked! in garden news, i planted a few new perennials yesterday, and they are happy in their new home. the garden is starting to look really nice and colorful, and finally filling in a bit. by next spring it will really be beautiful. in the meantime, i'm having so much fun with it. here are a few pictures (i'm making them small but you can click them to see a bigger image). the top picture is the far left end of the garden, and going down the page is a piece-by-piece panorama of the garden, form left to right... looking at the pictures, it still looks pretty sparse, but it has come a long, long way from last spring... adella had a few friends over to play this morning and now she is pooped out, asleep. naptime has been really hit-or-miss lately, but today she finally fell asleep - late, but i'm letting it slide today. stig is upstairs asleep now too. he did an awesome job cleaning the basement today (not exactly an ideal memorial day off work, but it had to be done) and he is pooped out too. in a few minutes, i'll have to do the dirty dirty job of waking those two up from their naps. maybe i can wake them with promises of ice cream and they'll forgive me. here's adella and orange bear funny corn face

okay, another super-quick update today because adella is nap-less again today. lately the only way she will fall asleep is when we are driving in the car around 12:30 or 1:00, or when she is just so sleepy and cranky that the passes out on the couch at 5:00. 5:00 is not prime naptime. if she sleeps then, she'll never go to bed, and that will throw our whole routine off and we'll all be perpetually cranky. so, i'll see how much posting i can do before my "free" time is over. yesterday we took a hike with our friends - the weather was beautiful once again, and we took a short hike through the woods and ended up at a lovely lake with a sandy beach. pictures: once we got home, we got out adella's new (bigger) pool that we bought yesterday and splashed around some more. isn't she a cutie in her new swimsuit? this morning i had to go to the courthouse to try to get excused from jury duty. amy and henry came over to watch adella and play while i was gone. to make a long story short, i did not get excused. the slightly longer story is that i had been feeling anxious about the idea of little me standing before a judge and pleading my excuse while being eyeballed by a crowded courtroom full of people. i show up and sure enough, the courtroom is so crowded that we can't all even sit down. the judge is sitting way up high and holds one of those wooden hammers. he starts by giving us examples of some of the more common excuses, and then follows each one by saying, "i won't excuse you for that. i may postpone your jury duty for a month, but i won't excuse you." and of course caring for a small child or an ederly parent was on his list of unexcusables. after forty minutes of growing nervousness and increasing public speaking anxiety, i started seeking out an exit route. on my way to the door i convinced myself that i would just go to the restroom and come right back, but before i knew it, i had made a beeline straight for the elevator and punched the 'G' button. so, long story - i may be sitting on a jury in a few weeks. i'll let you know. and here's adella and henry swimming/sweeping/playing in the pool:

today has been, quite possibly, one of the most perfect days ever. we started the day with a picnic hosted by amy and henry. amy made a scrumpdiddly-umptious spread of food and we all hung out, talked, and knitted atop a $250 wool blanket (i'm not kidding) spread on the green green grass while the kiddos played. that lasted for about three hours, which is almost amazing, since usually within 15 minutes of arriving anywhere, adella tries to either escape or cover herself in mud. i was prepared to pack up and go at the first sign of either, but she played happily with henry and elijah, and much fun was had by all. here's a few pictures: next, we went home. adella napped in the car while i went to the basement to dig out her little pool. while it was filling, i went to the mailbox and found.. a letter! a real old-fashioned letter, from my dear friend emily. by the time adella awoke, the pool was ready. she never even made it into the house. we spent the next three hours splashing and spraying and having lots of watery fun. adella made up a new word today. when i asked her what she was doing, she said, "chalking, mommy!" i can't believe i don't have more pictures of this. i put the pool at the end of the slide and oh, wow - so much fun. adella's very own water slide!

co-op went great today. we played outside almost the entire time, and the kids did really good sharing and playing together. on any given day, a group of 6 or 7 two-year-olds could easily turn into a total nightmare, but today was not that day. it was a really nice smooth morning, and we all had fun. the bubbles were a big hit with everyone.... the pictures are a bit blurry, but still, you can sense the fun and excitement... and of course, we took a break and shared a snack... after everyone left, i worked a little on the skirt that's been in progress forever. i wanted to try an applique, and for some reason i thought it would be a cute idea to do a bird. on my skirt. what was i thinking, since i don't even like birds? but this was a peacock, so i thought i'd ignore my dislike and fear and give a bird another shot. i fused it on with wunder-under, tried it on, and... not only was it ugly, but i went to adella's room to look in her mirror and there was a bird flapping around! in her room! i slammed the door before it could peck my eyes out, had a silent heart attack, then frantically called my neighbor to come and get it out. no answer. i went outside and there was one of the friendly band hippies. i explained my strange fear of flying things with sharp beaks and little claw-y feet, told her there was one of them in my house, and she agreed to help. she and another girl came over to rescue me, but right as we opened the door to see it, it flew right out the window. whew. that was too close. i'll save the pictures of the peacock skirt for when i've purged it of the bird curse, and when it is a little less ugly. i need to do a lot more to it before then. i'm not sure what yet... in the meantime, here's a project that actually came out cute (adella in her knitted sundress):

another quick update, because i am tiiiiired tonight. we skipped the new dawn picninc yesterday and i spent the afternoon mulching the garden instead. adella tried to help but only really succeeded in ripping one of my tomato plants to bits. the garden fun was over after that, and she was in bed by 7:00. this morning was knitting, at jessie's this time. it was fun, but i did not get as much knitting done as i'd hoped due to jessie serving coffee and muffins! i would have thought that the coffee would speed up my knitting action, but instead i just jabbered away and forgot the knitting in my hands. this afternoon was pretty boring - rain kept us inside... i did manage to fold a basket of laundry, so at least i was a little productive. and tomorrow, bright and early, amy and i are on co-op duty for 7 little two-year-olds. they'll all be coming to our house, so i'm really hoping for nice weather so we can be outside (but not in the garden, hopefully). oh, and... papa and pippi are coming to visit! we just got word that their trip is set for july 20th. we're all looking forward to seeing them again. and it sounds like we'll be going back to the aquarium in gatlinburg again too, so i know adella will be thrilled about that too. papa and pippi and fish! oh my!

quick! an update before i leave for work... stig and adella had a fun day yesterday. they played at the mall playground and also watched a karate demonstration, until adella insisted on getting onstage. stig said she would go for the stage and he would follow, and as soon as he barely touched her, she would spontaneously kick her shoes off as if trying to distract him, allowing her to rush the stage. this went on for a while before he had to bring her home. i got to see a movie! in the theater! i went to see 'the davinci code' with my friend beth. it was good! i won't reveal any more in case you are planning to watch it. but i read the book a couple years ago, and loved it. and i was not disappointed in the movie. okay, off to work. this afternoon is the New Dawn picnic. ND is the group of midwives that we went to when i was pregnant. it's always fun to go and see new and old faces.

we finally got our real springtime weather back and today was SO nice! we had a very productive day. morning okay, this part was lazy. adella watched sesame street and i knitted more dishcloths. once sesame was over, we went shopping at home depot. we bought: a bag of sand to refill adella's sandbox 2 tomato plants - 'mr. stripey' heirloom and 'patio' cherry tomatoes (seems fitting since i am going to try growing these in containers on the porch, the only place in the yard that gets even remotely close to full sun) a 6-pack of impatiens - pink, for the windowboxes we came home and planted the impatiens and i discovered i had no potting soil, so the tomatoes had to wait. oh, but i did have a little soil, so i started some seeds - columbine and poppies. lunch/naptime adella took a nap, as you may have guessed. i dusted off my trusty sewing machine and got back to work on a skirt that i started weeks ago. i made my own bias tape and successfully sewed it to the bottom hemline. then i started ripping out the waistband seam that i screwed up. i got bored with that, so i made this: it used to be a skirt, now it is a handy little bag. perfect for holding knitting projects! afternoon here it is, the great toy clean-up: i dragged every single toy and chair and moveable thing off of the screen porch onto the front porch and started cleaning. everything had a yucky yellow layer of pollen and needed some good washing. now that the pollen has stopped invading our lives, i felt it was safe to wash it away. it took me and adella at least an hour or two of spraying and splashing and spraying some more, but at last we were finished, and i dragged everything back to the screen porch. stig came home and i talked him into another trip to home depot, this time to buy mulch for the garden and for adella's playground. oh, and more potting soil and another basil plant. once that was accomplished, we headed home, spread the playground mulch, ate dinner, and here we are... i hear stig trying to convince adella that it is storytime and then off to bed. and she doesn't sound convinced - i better go up and help... whew. i'm beat.

well, i chickened out of getting adella's hair cut short. though she did get two inches cut off the back, and her bangs trimmed and thickened a little, it basically looks the same. less scruffy, though. and maybe, just maybe, it will stay out of her face a little better. before (also immediately after nap and before bath) after so, i finally blocked the sweater i made for adella. and i even sewed the buttons on. it looks so good! i'm really happy with how it turned out, and even better, it fits great too! adella wore it for a little while today - long enough for me to take a few pictures...

i'm taking adella for a haircut today. how brave will i get with her little 'do? stay tuned....

curious george was a big hit, as expected. adella and i both loved it. i see a dvd purchase in the near future. here's adella, all decked out in her george shirt, ready to go: this morning we went to the nature center with my friend julia, from work. she just had her THIRD baby a few weeks ago! her son, isiaih (i know i'm not spelling that right) is a few weeks younger than adella. it was lots o' fun, of course. here's the two of them driving the tractor - adella's working the pedals and he is steering... oh, and another unattentive mommy moment. i was checking email (again) this morning and when i came upstairs (just a few mintues later, don't worry), adella had put her shoes on and grabbed her purse full of hot wheels and headed out to play. for a few minutes i tried to convince her to come inside. when that didn't work, i grabbed my jacket and a fresh cup of coffee and spent an hour enjoying the brisk morning air - just me and adella, racing hot wheels down the slide.