My drawer full of bibs just weren’t cutting it against the sweet potatoes and carrots and all the other deeply colored pureed ooze we try to shovel into our little guy’s mouth.

Here’s my solution:

The super bib from the front…

from the back…

and in action.

This photo actually doesn’t do justice to the clothes-protecting powers of the super bib.  Here the booger encrusted (though less encrusted than he might have been thanks to the retouching tool in i-Photo) baby is merely eating cereal puff things.  But you can imagine how effectively it protects elbows and shoulders, no?

I really need to make a dozen more!

Can you hear how proud he is of his fluffy-haired-quadruple-toothed-crawling-on-hands-and-knees self?

He’s unstoppable I tell ya.

Our homeschool group took a trip up to an organic farm in Platteville CO to get a taste of what it is really like to harvest your own veggies. (Most of these pics were taken by Brenna.)

We rode in the trailer behind that tractor up there.  They took us from field to field where we stooped down in search of potatoes, cabbages, beets, turnips, artichokes, carrots, onions, corn, pumpkins, celery, squash…

It was hot, sweaty work, but we came home with quite a load!

And Hunter had another cozy day of hours spent in a Sweet Pod. (The pattern writing is coming along nicely, just have to finish some illustrations and I’ll be ready for some testers!)

There was also some crazy fun things for the kids to play on back at the home base.

I have vivid memories helping my mom can peaches when I was little.  The job us kids got, sliding the warm slimy skins off the quickly boiled peaches, seemed like the funnest job of all.

So I got some of my little men to help me with a peach canning adventure.  We by no means have a year supply ( it’s more like a week if my kids had their way), but we did it.

 I bought a box of peaches at the nearby farmer’s market.  I remember as a kid going with my mom and grandma to actual orchards to pick peaches.  I can totally see my mom standing on a ladder and reaching for fruit in my mind’s eye.  Those trips to Emmet, Idaho eventually stopped as little farms and orchards became big ones or closed down and as more migrant workers came in.  The state of food and farming has sure changed in my lifetime.

We’ve got these jars full of sweet, sticky memories though–  for the season at least.

We ran away to soak up one last summer weekend in the mountains, and since I was wanting rest and relaxation we decided to forgo the tent and sleeping bags and coolers and try something new.

YMCA!!

We hiked in Rocky Mountain National Park,

and the Sweet-pod got some extensive testing.

I must admit, though, that my favorite place on our trip was the Craft and Design Center.

Big windows, open spaces, shelves and shelves of paint, wood, ceramics– everything you could ever want to make, make, make all day long.  Just the kind of place I dream of running myself someday.  Come in, pick your project, take a class, or just have at it.

Some day.

The kids all painted a wooden toy and loved it.  If only we had had more time…

Next time we go I am totally weaving a basket.

The weather has been beautiful, but too hot to just play outside without something cool and refreshing, so we declared this week Creek School.

We’ve journeyed down to the open space with buckets and intentions to stay all day.

Logan had the camera for a while.  There were lots of pictures of feet

because shoes were too big of a hassle.

I think my very favorite thing I heard was, “Mom, let me introduce you to Grandpa Tweezers.”

Grandpa Tweezers!  Well, can you think of any better name for a crayfish?  Grandpa Tweezers is the embodiment of everything whiskery and pinchy.  I guess there was a Great Grandpa Tweezers, but he was way to fast and tweezery.

But someone’s littered socks did a lot of finger protecting.

Hence the bucket full of grandchildren.

Hope you have a great long weekend and squeeze every last drop out of what is left of summer!

I am a baby wearer.  With each baby it has become more and more necessary, but this baby– he practically lives on me.  For little babies I love wrap style carriers like this pretty one my friends in Ohio gave me, and this buttery soft one I made using a tutorial by Jessica (of course).  Now that Hunter is way too heavy for those, I love my Ergo baby carrier, but getting baby on and off my back is a bit precarious in parking lots and rocky hiking trails.  I’ve been dreaming of getting the Beco Butterfly II with its cute fabric and internal panel to make swinging a babe onto your back a cinch, but just couldn’t justify spending the money.  So, a couple of orders of buckles and webbing from Seattle Fabrics later, I did the next best thing– I made one!

Introducing the “Sweet Pod” :

(drum roll please)

I made it with the same Joel Dewberry fabric as my diaper bag  , some army green twill, and lined it with a pillowcase we had because it was just the color I was looking for.  The sleeping hood tucks into a hidden pocket with an invisible zipper.  See?

Having an internal panel does make getting him on my back much easier with the added bonus of making the carrier more adjustable than my Ergo.   The whole thing has been taken apart and put back together several times.  At first my waist belt foam was too squishy, then the body was too short, but now?  Now it seems just right.

Hunter seems to think so too.

I’m working on putting together the pattern because, well, I think the world of crafty-babywearing-mamas needs it.   I mean, I would have bought one if it already existed.  I’m thinking I’ll make it a downloadable PDF and sell it from my Etsy shop.  What do you think?

I’ve got another one on the cutting table.