this moment {summertime studio}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

summertime

There is nothing quite like live music outdoors in the summer.

Especially when it includes lots of space for kids to run, and hula hoop, and throw frisbees and have an impromptu game of freeze tag with new-found friends.

A blanket picnic with extra homemade chocolate chip cookies.

A little girl so eager to dance she can barely eat.

A setting sun casting long, long shadows making little ones look oh so tall.

Fresh air, and trees, and simply slowing down.  Oh so needed.

The fireflies just beginning to come out as we head back home.

Nothing quite like it indeed.

and then there is this

A good friend, who also happens to be a reader of becoming claudine, came for dinner recently.

A short time after she left I received this text:

"Thanks for dinner!  I think this picture is worth a blog posting!"  

Attached was this iPhone picture she took of our backyard as she was leaving:

That pretty much tells the story of what has been going on when I don't have time to actually tell the story here.

this moment {new goggles}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

dad

This picture was taken a week ago.  My Dad holding Pal, the newest of his ten grandchildren.

I love his hands.  His hands that gently and strongly hold my sleeping baby have worked so hard and given so generously these forty years I have known him.  As I know they did before I was born and as they continue to do every day.

Thank you Dad for holding me so gently as a baby and for continuing to hold me in every way as I grow.  I love you, Happy Father's Day.

this moment

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

thrifty thursday {linking up}

Joining Lady Cordelia for Thrifty Thursday.

Today I get to share a before and after thrifting find, making the thrifting twice as fun!

I picked up these sweet little chairs a few weeks ago, at the same time I found this fabric.  I hemmed and hawed before deciding to get them, mostly because they too came from a moldy basement.  But the style was oh so cute and they were $6 for the pair.  I figured if I only even used them outside that they would be worth getting.

So last weekend, in front of an audience, Honey transformed them into sweet little red chairs for our backyard.

summer adventures

I am planning summer daydreams for myself again this year, and am putting the final touches on that list of wishes, hopes and fun things to pursue this summer.  Knowing the power of putting these daydreams into writing, my struggle is to keep the list from getting too long!

But I believe I am not the only one deserving of summer fun, so last week the kids and I created our  collective wish list of summer adventures.  Ideas came from great books (Hand in Hand and The Dangerous Book for Boys) and in brainstorming together.  We put words and pictures onto cards which we will use as inspiration and reminders of what fun can be had during these long days of summer.  I imagine the cards, and the ideas they contain, will be a welcome (and necessary) jolt on a day when we need some adventure.

As I look through the cards, I delight in knowing the fun that lies ahead.  S'mores, skipping stones, creating tissue paper lanterns, looking for cloud shapes, swimming lessons, catching fireflies, building forts, creating fairy houses, are just a few.  We will keep adding cards as ideas come to us, and I imagine we may repeat our favorites. 

Like my favorite of reading outside on blankets.  Please, let's repeat that often, my adventuring children.

whole hog

Within the first few hours of summer vacation I took the kids -- all four of them -- strawberry picking.

I've admitted here before that I've been a bit nervous about summer.  Actually I've been a bit nervous about summer since last fall when I realized that this summer will be the first one for me to be home full time, and with four kids to boot.

So, to start summer off, I slathered them in sunscreen and loaded them into the van and took them strawberry picking.  I went whole hog I tell you.  I figured if I could do that with four kids in tow, then I can do just about anything with four kids in tow.

As it turns out, I could do it.  And that brilliantly sunny day in the rows of strawberries my calm and confidence as a mother grew.  A bit, but bit enough to be felt, as it does every time I feel I have gotten mothering right.

Over 7 pounds of strawberries were picked, mostly by the kids.  We ate our fill for lunch, shared some with friends and our letter carrier, and had fresh strawberry pie with homemade whipped cream for dessert that night.  Some delicious whole hog I tell you.


I look forward to sharing a new project with you tomorrow -- something you will be able to join in!

this moment {strawberries}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

quite like summer

It is looking quite like summer here.

:: homemade teacher gifts

:: bare feet almost all of the time

:: bubbles

:: ice cream to celebrate the last day of school

:: buying supplies for canning, after all strawberries are early this year 

:: flowers blooming

:: loving Hand in Hand and the inspiration it will provide this summer, a gift from a dear friend

:: planning for swim lessons and digging out goggles and sunscreen

:: delving into multiple projects at once, with oh so many I want to do it is hard to concentrate on just one

:: discovering a great kid movie that makes us delight that our summer is here

I adore the very beginning of summer, as it stretches out wide and warm with promise of adventure.  This will be my first summer home full time.  I am a bit nervous, to be honest, having never done it quite this way before, and with four.  But my nervousness is waning as the excitement builds for the fun we will be sure to find. 

uh-oh

Take a close look at this newspaper classified ad.  See the magic words?

vintage fabric

Who wouldn't pack up the kids and drive a half an hour away, in the pouring rain, just to see what vintage fabric might be mine.

There were boxes and boxes and boxes of fabric pieces from as early as the sixties.  Unbelievable, really.  They were selling it for 25 cents a yard.  25 cents.  I could have bought ten times what I did, but was stopped by the unfortunate fact that the fabric has been stored for years in a moldy basement.  Drat.  So I quickly picked a few that I really liked in the hopes that I can get it all clean.

And having to only pick a few this time (because you know there will be more times) isn't all bad.  You see over the past several weeks I have bought accumulated more fabric than I can ever sew into things.  Of course I have an idea of what to sew with each of the fabrics.  But oh the time it will take. 

Time.  Always well-spent when at the sewing machine.