Have you looked at the SweetPod flickr group lately?  Well, I’ll give you a few of the highlights, but you really should just mosey on over and look at them yourself.

Isn’t this such a great manly carrier with the denim and the scooters? (from Sew She Sews)

Speaking of scooters, here’s another fantastic one:

I absolutely love the fabric choices on this next one from Liz. I think I need to make myself one.

I can’t get over how cool it is to see how people are using my pattern.  Really, you guys are awesome!  It is so fun to see how people put together fabrics and lug around their cute babies.  I’m so excited that people out there are as excited about the SweetPod as I am.

So, about the Saddle Bag pattern.  Many of you have been asking when it will be ready.  It is still in the works.  I’ve got the pattern pieces digitized, I’ve got instructions typed up, but those illustrations are holding me up.  They’ll get done, but I can’t say when.  It seems I have a very hard time holding myself to a time line.  Things like reminding a little boy to go potty, cleaning up the mess when said little boy goes potty in the wrong place, and doing laundry have taken precedent.  Not very exciting, I know, but my life does revolve around bodily fluids and not sewing contrary to popular belief.  I wish I could be more specific, but I seem to totally misjudge when I can get things done and feel like a loser for not keeping commitments, so I’m just going to keep it vague for now.

In the mean time– keep sewing your SweetPods!!  It is SO FUN to see them!

In Ohio we belonged to a wonderful CSA and got boxes full of produce every week.  We haven’t joined one here, but this year I’ve made a goal to find farms where we can pick our own produce and do as much of that picking as we can.  I think its important for my kids to learn where real food comes from and that it takes hard work to get it.  I’m hoping to find some orchards in the fall where we can pick fruit too.

A couple of weeks ago, after swimming lessons and lunch and a little rest, I took the kids out to Berry Patch Farms on the opening day of strawberry picking.  They opened at 8 AM, but we had to go in the heat of the afternoon after people had been combing through the 7 acres of strawberries all day.  I had a baby on my back whose left shoe must have fallen off in the garage as we were leaving our house, so he had to stay on my back.  There was a big thunder storm the weekend before, so the tractor couldn’t give us a ride out to the field because of the mud.   We had to hike, the organic fields were full of thistles, and the strawberries full of holes from hail damage.  As you can imagine, that led to a lot of whining on the boys’ part.  I don’t think Jonah picked a single strawberry because he was too hot and they were too hard to find.  Brenna was a splendid picker, though.  She combed through the plants and found the best berries there were.  After her and I (with a baby on my back who wasn’t super excited about all the bending over) filled up 3 little containers full, we called it a day and good education on how expensive food really is and how hard it is to be a farmer.

I wasn’t satisfied with the amount of berries we had, and promptly gobbled up, after that outing.  We needed more, so Brenna and I got up early Saturday morning to comb through the fields on their final day open.

We got there before the sun was high and hot, and the hail damaged berries were long gone.

In half the time we spent picking on our last trip we filled an entire flat.

Brenna had fun searching for the tiniest ripe berries she could find.

I needed the quiet time out there finding sweet treasures with my girl.

When we got home, Barry and I made homemade strawberry freezer jam– one of my very most favoritest foods ever.

We went swimming tonight so the kids could show off their new skills to Dad.  Just as we were heading out to the pool an evening storm rolled in, so we ended up finding a random park with a shelter to eat our picnic at and went swimming indoors at our nearby rec center.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

(Underwater photos by Barry and the kids.)

I’ve been wanting to make some Montessori dressing frames.  Now I don’t have to figure it out, I can just follow this tutorial!

We’ve been going to swimming lessons every morning for the past 2 weeks.  I couldn’t wait to get Ian into them, but we had to wait until he was 3.  Since he was little tiny he’s been a little fish with absolutely no fear of the water.  He was just 1 when we started our move from Ohio to here and for part of that time we lived in an apartment in Montgomery, Alabama.  It was hot and humid, so after hunkering down for a day inside an air conditioned apartment we would head to the pool.  The second he could he would run to the water and tumble in head first.  Very cute.  Very scary, but very cute.

These days I think his daily morning swim is wearing him out.

What do you think?

Sew Mama Sew is gearing up to carry some super cute knits.  I’d love it if the fabric fairy sent me a couple of yards of each of these, please!

One thing I love about our church is the program of Family Home Evening.  Every Monday evening we are encouraged to gather our families together to sing, pray, have a lesson, do something fun together, and eat yummy treats.  In our family we rotate who is in charge of each thing, so the kids get to teach lessons, choose songs, plan activities, and make treats.

Last night Jonah was in charge of the activity, and with it being the summer solstice he decided we needed to swim until sunset.

So we did.

We built sandcastles.

Hunter learned a new word.

Goose, goooooooose…

After a hot day the air had cooled off, but the water was pretty warm.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.

I am so thankful for this tradition we so faithfully keep in our family.  Gathering 5 little ones around the piano after dinner clean-up (and all the prodding and nagging that often entails) does not always feel like the fun, or sane, thing to do after a busy Monday.  Often the treat is a hurried Tupperware full of “shaker pudding” (instant Jello pudding dumped with milk into a Tupperware and shook, shook, shook by the child in charge of treat) or graham crackers dipped in milk, but by the time we have sung together, by the time a little person has taught their lesson and shared a heart felt testimony about their love for the Savior, by the time we’ve finished honoring a child’s wish to jump on the trampoline all together or play a game of Bananagrams we go to bed happier than we could have imagined in those harried minutes of wrangling.

It’s a miracle in the making…

one week at a time.

Is it any wonder that Hunter’s first word, after bird, was Daddy?  He does have the best Daddy in the world.  I am so proud to be on his team.  He makes life fun and beautiful and joyful, this husband of mine.  He is a model of patience and love.  I want to be like him when I grow up.

We adore you, Barry!  Happy Father’s Day!

And happy Father’s Day to all of the Papas and Grandpas and Uncles out there too.  My life is full of wonderful men.  I love you all!

Aren’t these butterflies lovely?  I would love to have some on my wall.  I wonder if there are patterns for making them somewhere out there.  Oh yeah, I don’t crochet.

When I made this little batch of shirts for Hunter, Logan was insistent that he knew exactly what needed to be printed on this one, so I did what I could to make his vision a reality.  We got out my dusty gocco printer and the fabric inks, and just like that we were done.  It was one of those projects that made me wonder why I don’t do it more often– it was so quick and painless and made my Logan so happy and proud.

It is a rare thing to have something so potentially messy go so smoothly, but it sure is a happy day when things work out.  I think with a big brood of small people the more spontaneous projects are the ones that end the best.  For me, at least, when i plan and prepare I have way too much invested in the outcome to be adequately relaxed, patient and kind about the process.  Does this ring true for anyone else?  I need to somehow find a happy medium between the spontaneous and the planned so that there can be more happy collaboration between the kids and I.  How do you guys plan happy creative projects with your kids?