i'd very much like a yard please

Today I asked Miryam what she'd like to do today and she replied "I'd very much like a yard please". I hear ya kid. Between the cute phrasing and the sentiment it's a bit of a heart breaker. Here is a picture of the yard:


The picture is from our annual Mother's Day Brunch in which out small apartment & yard crams in at least 6 children, their attached adults, and a ton of yummy food.

It's worked out well for us thus far. The porch is nice and wide - space for a table for al fresco meals for our small family, a wading pool and two Adirondack chairs (with arm rests wide enough for a cold beverage). The sidewalk is perfect for chalk and bike riding. There is a maple tree (not shown) for leaf gathering and shade and a teeeeeeeeeeny-tiiiiiiiiiny patch of grass. We spend a lot of time out there in the warm weather but it's starting to get a bit cramped. With two kids now, I am dreaming of a fenced in yard that I can send Miryam into the run a big and make some big messes and some gardening room for some raised beds...and maybe a few chickens (I'm getting ahead of myself). Part of the charm of our apartment (beside the cheap rent) is the one-mile walk to Main Street. I can handle a small yard/small home if we are surrounded by community (and friends with bigger homes and yards). But I think we have hit the point were we are busting a big at the seams.

I'd very much like a yard please.

So we are looking for a home. Because we can't afford my farm-house-with-acres-in-the-country house yet, we are looking for something in the middle - a sizable yard and a reasonable distance to a main street. If we were in the country with acres we would be able to be more self-sustaining in terms of entertainment but because we'll have a smaller yard I want to be close enough to town that we can keep car-dieting.

Please send us good home-buying vibes, ok? I gotta get this girl a yard.

a little bit of crafting

Just before Éamonn was born I went through a serious spring cleaning/nesting session of about 3 weeks. We cleaned every closet, dusted books, got rid of a lot of stuff and started organizing what we kept. That whole "a place for everything ..." theory. We also cleaned out the car to get it ready for me to be able to do some solo trips with the littles. And that necessitated a little crafting. First on the list was a first aid kit.


I had these visions of being at the park with one child bleeding and the other crying and me looking like a deer in the headlights. So I whipped up this bag for the car using this tutorial. I hadn't made a zippered pouch before but the tutorial was really clear and it was super easy. The red-cross is attached with wonderunder and then a zig zag stitch. I lined the pouch with the same fabric and then packed it up with the essentials including some comfrey salve that miryam feels is complete magic.


Then I started working on a car bag to hang on the back of the driver's seat to keep some of miryam's stuff in to keep her occupied on long drives. I'll show pictures when I finish it. To go inside I made a pencil pouch. It sits open nicely next to her in the car seat so she can choose colored pencils without loosing them all over the floor.


I embroidered it using a chain stitch and a few french knots. They were a first and not as terrible as I thought.


It's also lined with a blue floral from my stash. Miryam loved it and it's gotten a lot of use already.


I want to get the car bag finished soon and think up some other goodies to pack in there. I gotta say that crafting is slow going with a newborn and a toddler but I feel some coming in my near future. If only for sanity's sake!