it's not raining

yes it is not raining at the moment! yeah!!!
and there is half a water melon ready to be eaten, everyone run out onto the deck behind the house and enjoy the moment of sunshine and no rain. it might be the last one in june... we had many many rainy days this year
the kids love the fruit and i enjoyed the happening with my camera in hand.
summer has not really been warm and sunny here, but we take every opportunity thrown our way to be out doors. especially without rain coats! the rain coat and boots happenings are still only elias's preferred weather.

atc

the june atc challenge is all about "ingredients". i have been thinking about food and ingredients in foods for a while and got thinking some more when i was reading "in defense of food" by michael pollan. it was lots of information which i knew and much more things i did not know...
eating well, making sure i know all the ingredients of the food's i eat. as well as trying to buy things with no more then 5 ingredients... yes that's a hard one as soon as it comes to shopping for treats. it does also strengthen my opinion that we should eat home cooked meals and cook from scratch, bake from scratch. i love to cook and bake and it is realy satisfying to sit around the table and thoroughly enjoy the meal the kids and i prepared. so lets move into the direction of producing the ingredients which we will be using...
summer is a good time for this, we just today harvested two heads of lettuce, garlic scapes and a few "baby" carrots.

recycling into art

amos was spending this past weeks mornings at eliot school in JP. he was attending a class called recycling into art, a lot of materials were available for the kids to work with. no end to their creativity, swooping around the room was very inspiring. amos loved it and came home with lots of ideas and lots of puppets and "stuff" he also was sewing an apron! i thought that was the most excellent idea on how to use fabric scraps and old cloths. he knows now how to do "whip stitch", and is proud to do so and lots of more sewing...

these foame thingies came from the recycle center the kids got a five minute challenge and each one of them came up with an idea. then executing the idea with all the "stuff" they could use in the room. i liked the big variaty, from "the castle" to the "tea pot" and of course a "purple puddle" could not be missed...

this is just a rendered photo i took this morning at the kids show "parade". it was fun and exciting. thank you ms l for providing such a rich experience for our kids.

indoor's

i treated myself with some books... although the one on top will become a present.

lot's of sewing going on lately. the rain does something to one's creativity i guess. elias is sewing a pillow case. picking out fabric from my stash and learning to handle the machine. he loves it and i enjoy watching him.

and of course it had to be finished up with some hand stitching. as almost all projects do, and i'm glad that there is some plain hand sewing involved.

naomi and her friend j have been playing a lot together, mostly indoors at each others houses for the past few days, as it was very wet and cool outdoors. the paper dolls, an old but still interesting fun thing to play. it's one of those never out of fashion things to play with. i had a lot of fun watching and listening to their pretend plots of what the "girl's" had to wear for this or that tea party!

tenente nogueira

i just have to share this with you guys!
after many hours of labor, it's fun to watch and if you know our friend m, then it's even better!
congratulation m, i really enjoy the music...

NY CITY zum zweiten

einige eindruecke vom verregneten wochenende in ny city! die drei maenner genossen es sichtlich und die wolken ihre entdeckungsfreude kein bischen trueben...

die freiheitsstatue, wie wir sie doch alle kennen...

die familiennamen suchen war natuerlich ganz toll. "ellis island" die immigrationsinsel vom amerika das wir aus der geschichte kennen.

ein ganz tolles foto. infolge der lange belichtung verschwanden alle leute aus dem bild, nur noch die stillstehenden buben. interessant, da die halle der "grand central station" ja super bevoelkert ist und niemals so einfach ein leer dasteht mit zwei vergessengegangenen kindern...

natuerlich musste beim times square auch die "m&m's world" gesehen sein! nach hause brachten sie ein pfund der suessigkeiten, sind sogar noch nicht mal ganz verschlungen! immer noch zeit auf einen besuch vorbei zu schauen auf eine hand voll m&m's...

every day

we live in community, we share every day with people we grew to love and treasure. it is a good thing a wonderful experience for me as well as the kids.
sometime it's challenging, for our friends as well as me and the kids. that's life and it is a much richer life as we share our everyday routines. as we work on our own things and m appears to have a snack. it's not easy for the kids to keep focused on their school work on our own food... but we learn and often we let the distraction overcome the focused work. the distraction will lead us into an other focused conversation, a teaching opportunity, a learning experience as i could not offer it.
sharing a house, a kitchen, a meal often unintended but full of life, full of love for each other and passion for the things we get tangled up in. thank you s, j and m for sharing life with us!

tiered skirt

as i told you a few days ago i could not wait long to get the "good folks" fabric from anna maria horner worked into something. this something is a tiered skirt for naomi i used the portabellopixie "gracie" pattern. super quick and really not hard at all. i was able to get it done in one evening, although it got very lat last night.

and then today we went to a friend for brunch...
skirt on girl, twirling and having fun with the flutter around her legs. in our basket we were carring fresh popovers and strawberries from the garden. a good visit, thank you for the invitation c.
i really enjoy being with the girls. joel and the boys are on a weekend trip in ny city. we will tell a bit more in the week to come!

home school share

what a great moment for amos to share his learned drumming skills last night, at homeschool share. we all had the best time and it was truly impressive to listen and see the kids works.

the string orchestra was playing two pieces without any assistant. congratulation to o the first violinist for leading. the harp and cello piece was superb, wow was about the only comment i could think of, two teenagers presenting their musical ability very professional.
there was a classical guitar, a cello, an other violin piece to listen as well as a trumpet accompanied by piano.

a sherlock holms play put on by a reading club and a was playing the electric guitar for us accompanied by dad on the saxophone and two other professional musicians (note the drum set is amos's, it was funny to see an adult at the "tiny" set!). of course we all enjoyed the DI groups presenting little bits of their work from a winter half year long gone.
thank you b for organizing the share and thank you all the kids and parents for making it happen.

ballet recital

finally i'm getting to look through the photos of this past sunday's ballet recital. elias was super nervous all morning, barely able to focus on anything. it was good that we were able to go to church. sing some good hymns and listen to an interesting sermon. it was good to just have a restful morning without a lot of hubbub going on.
then the afternoon highlight was defintly full of dancing! following a few photos.... it was really nice. all ballet classes were working together on sleeping beauty, very well choreographed for a huge age and ability span.

Hopscotch Camis

Hopscotch Camis GIVEAWAY!!!!

upcycling creon stumps

we all were tired of the little creon stumps, so i took out our little hearts cupcake tin and we got all excited to sort the stumps. it's really fun and we even pealed and broke up some of the not so tiny stumps...

then the tin went into the oven for about 15 minutes at 300F. i had to watch it, as i was not sure how quickly the wax would melt. and i was not intending to have a house full of waxy smoke...

and this is the result a great many very handy creons. i got one of my baggies and the perfect gift for a little friend is ready. i guess sandwich bags are not just for sandwiches...
we could not stop working, it was so much fun. we kept going and before we knew it, we had an other little sack of creons ready!

self portrait III

i have done these feet photos before, here (it's not only my feet, thea's and some other people too). for some reason i love to take photos of my feet. not any particular reason. it's a fun perspective of myself. looking down at my feet. it strikes me every time, the cloths i wear and then the bareness of the toes...
just so, a bit of me!

music in the park

the rocky nook people playing their instruments! it's such a wonderful way for us to get together and make music. yesterday it was at larz anderson park in brookline. a hand full of families bringing their instruments, gather together and play irish trad. for my self, i'm not contributing musically, i'm one of the few who enjoy to just listen. we have all our kids along, they roam freely and play base ball, fresbee and what ever else a group of a dozen or so kids enjoy doing.

of course food is important too. this time we enjoyed some grilled meats and veggies as well as lots of fruit and cabbage salad. of course dessert can't be skipped e brought some delicious chocolate treat, no one could resist those! i tried something new, blueberry tart four cups of blueberries!!! it turned out great and was gone before i was able to turn around once.

vor und hinter dem haus

vor dem haus ist unser wohnmobil geparkt. nur fuer's wochenende, den rest der zeit steht das vehicle bei freunden in der einfahrt hinter deren haus.
dies nun der zweite samstag, am vergangenen samstag hatte joel unser wohnmobil gepostet und nach hause geholt, heute hab ich es innen geputzt und joel hat den strom und wasser getestet. soweit so gut...

hinter dem haus auf dem deck waren die kinder am spielen, dies gegen abend. thea wollte unterhaltung und elias fand es auch ganz schoen lustig mit ihr zu spielen. wir geniessen die sommerabende auf dem deck hinter dem haus. thea mag elias und er turnt am liebsten mit ihr herum!

hair cut

naomi got a hair cut.... (i cut it last night)
she made her mind up a few days ago and stuck with it. here we go!
and she is very very happy with the new feel and look. be it twirling around outdoors or combing in front of the big mirror in our hallway!

pokemon

the boys have been into pokemon lately.... for some odd reason i got talked into checking out pokemon books from the library. plus our neighbors boys collect the cards. amos wouldn't want to spend his pocket money on the cards, so he started making them himself.
it was a fun start, some obstacles to overcome with the big brother wanting to make some too and be faster and pick better caracters and so on. but we talked through some rough spots and the cards are now traded and treasured dearly by both.

sandwiche bags...

i had a couple hours on my hand last night. so i came up with that little poject...
we use wax paper to wrap our sandwiches and then stuff them in a little cloth bag. the boys have over the course of last year lost the two little bags we had. the result was, that the sandwiches often "wiggled" them selfs out of the wrapping and fell apart. the need was growing for us to again put the sandwiches back into little bags to keep them from falling apart.
i wrapped my mind around some long inherited linen, which i never used. squares mostly originally intended to do some needlework. i'm so pleased with those little treasure bags.

then one thing led to the other....
i made some eye cords and naomi some more! we had fun and i remembered twirling eye cords with my great grand ant ruesi! good memories, and fun times, she taught me a lot in regards to handy crafts. and thank you k for giving me all those wonderful canvases and yarn strands.

Citrus Summer Ruffle

das ist ja ein suesses hoeschen... mal sehen ob ich diesen sommer dazukomme sowas zu naehen. bin zufaellig ueber diesen blog eintrag gestolpert von rae.
Rae Gun: Giveaway: Citrus Summer Ruffle Diaper

some more recital

that's what "pack stage" looks like on those violin recitals. when i see all these cases i'm intrigued and really enjoy the sight.

joel played around with the camera....
i have to say it was interesting lighting in that room. overall very dark for a sunny day and then all the bright spots through the windows...

flowers & music

naomi and amos picked a bouquet for me.... there is really nothing more to say, i'm just so thankful. lot's of love has been put into this gesture. i love flowers, i love the gift of giving, what else? i love my kids and am in awe of their attention.

the village frock is nearing it's final few stitches...

naomi and i picked the buttons...
i finished the frock just on time!

she loved her dress and was very happy about the puffy sleeves.
and then played so seriously for her recital solo! it was hard work, concentration from the tip of her toes to the top of her head!

the waiting students, listening, observing, dreaming...