I Highly Recommend Devil's Den to You

As a little reward for staying happy, productive, and composed through the Christmas holidays, our little gang of girls+Matt spent December 30-31 at Devil's Den State Park. It's only an hour from Ft. Smith, high up in the Ozark Mountains. There are all the usual hike-y, scenic, mountain spring-y, forest in winter sights, but the big draws for me are two-fold: (1) an extensive cave system, ranging from cakewalk to not fully mapped; and (2) a cozy, tiny cabin with a big stone fireplace.

Did we love it?

We loved it.

And now we are home, and the pleasure of that is immense, as well.

Sketch Books for Everyone, and Everyone for a Sketch Book

I think my personal favorite little giftie that I slipped into everyone's stocking on Christmas Eve is one of these nifty little Moleskine sketchbooks. Add to that about a million colored pencils, and everyone in the family has been quite inspired:The girls draw pictures and stick on stickers, and ask me to do "color work" with them (I have to write the name of each color (usually in that color) in list format, then draw a box next to each name so that the girl can color the box in its appropriate color--for some reason the kids freakin' love this, and as I've suspected for some time that Will's going to be a whole language reader, it's cool by me.

Our two sketch book rules: (1) You may not tear pages out of the sketch book; (2) You must fill in every page of your sketch book before I will give you another. Yes, I am in charge of sketch book supply and demand.

Matt's the only one who actually "sketches" in his sketch book, of course--you've seen other evidence of his great artistic merit. I, however, am the only one who creates pretty much no artwork of any kind in my sketch book. As far as I'm concerned, my sketch book is instead the Great and All-Powerful Book of Lists:I adore it. Ample and bountiful pages for lists of every kind and dimension, bound in a book small enough to keep in my back pocket, permanent enough for me to keep and refer to and not lose, communal enough that I can write in it while the girls work in theirs, special enough that I can take the care to fancy it up.

And yes, I get stickers, too.

Vintage-y Mama and Papa Goodness

My Mama died a few years ago, and she was very unwell for a very long time before that, so the last time she redecorated her house was, um...a very, VERY long time ago. That means that basically everything in Papa's house now is crazy-awesome in that big orange mushroom, brass, seashell, and wood paneling kind of way.

Interesting fact: On a trip to Graceland a few years ago, Matt and I were stunned to discover that Elvis' kitchen? Looks exactly like Mama's! Y'all, they have the exact same countertops!

Here is some of my favorite stuff:
Big ceramic cat. One time when I was in college, I was saying something to Mama, and she didn't hear my right, and thought that I was saying that I wanted to take this big ceramic cat away with me, and she FREAKED. OUT.

Mama's bell collection. There are two more knick-knack shelves just like this one to the left and right in this hallway, which is so narrow that Matt, who lumbers around like some kind of bear-man, is always just about to crash into them and knock them all, shattered, to the ground every time he goes to the bathroom.

Chairbacks of the dining room chairs. The dining room sits in what used to be Aunt Pam's bedroom, until they knocked the wall out. I don't know what Pam did then.

Photo of my cousin Amy as a child. Cousin Amy was quite a bit wealthier than me, and her parents always generously brought Mama bags and bags of her outgrown clothes for me every time they visited. Amy was older, however I was much fatter, and being forced to try on dozens of her adorable, barely-worn, stylish, too-skinny clothes every few months is among my more miserable memories.

Mama's snowglobe collection. She collected snowglobes late in her life, so that when we were still dating Matt gave Mama that snowglobe of San Francisco there in the foreground.

The 70s-era orange and yellow mushrooms have been right there, in the kitchen, over the wood paneling, for as long as I can remember. They face across the breakfast nook a giant wooden fork and spoon, and a little wooden crate with a plastic hen and a couple of plastic eggs in it.

The Serenity Prayer, cross stitched perhaps by my mother? Its sentiment is well-taken, I hope, in a life in which I, myself, can't control nearly as much as I'd like to or feel called to.

See? Awesome house. And I haven't even told you the best part, that I've spent practically the last 24 hours taking a bunch of Mama's old records, the OLD old kind that's like resin on wood or something, not vinyl, and downloading them to my computer through my brand-new UBS turntable (good story there--more on it later). Papa sees me surrounded by all these record albums and he's all, "Do I go into YOUR house and dig through all YOUR closets?" And I'm all, "I wish you would, if you'd find a bunch of really great and valuable records that I was storing like shit so that they're getting all warped and not only did I find a box and correctly store them upright for you, but I also ripped them all and put them on CDs for you so you can experience their memories anytime."

Of course, Papa is pretty deaf, so I don't think he necessarily heard any of that.

An Ode to Floam, Whatever it's Made of

Fun as Christmas is, it does involve, for us, a ten-hour car trip (twice), a week-long stay in a relative's house (on an air mattress), lots of unfamiliar food (i.e. sugar), and constant exposure to people we don't often see (grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins). The four-year-old is just this year old enough to thrive on this (except for the car ride), but the two-year-old has spent an unsurprisingly large amount of time coping by crashing out at unusual times...
...and in unusual circumstances:
I'm finally learning a couple of parenting tactics, however, and so as you might have noticed in my last post, every single present in the girls' stockings was something To Do. I can make my babies quilts and clothes and lovies any day, but what they need when they're away from home in a house with no kid infrastructure of its own and no same-age kiddos around is wholesome, creative, engaging activities.

Hence the Floam. I don't know what this stuff is made of, and my sense is that it's likely an ecological nightmare, but wow, it's fun. It's made of these little pellet things held together by something sticky but that doesn't make your hands sticky, and you can squish it and pull it and tear it-- --and mold it and squeeze it--

--and when you're done with the highly cathartic sensory experience, you can make a snowman----or a heart for your suspicious-looking lover:

And perhaps because our generous loved ones also gifted my babies with lots of colored pencils and stickers and books and puzzles and musical instruments, and the coveted BALANCE BIKES, or perhaps because the babies are older now and a little more sure of themselves in an unfamiliar surrounding, but there has been a *little* less fussing and fighting and TV-watching and candy-eating this holiday, and a LOT more happy coloring and listening to books and working puzzles and playing games with Grandma Beck.

If this keeps up, I might someday renege on my vow never again to step on a plane with them.

Christmas Stockings on Parade

The best thing about sewing felted wool stockings for my babies is seeing them fulfill their happy purpose in life:

(the matching bracelets sewn by my Christmas in July swap angel)

(travel-sized blank sketch books for everybody)

(stickers and coloring and Floam)

(see the crocheted dolphin, also made by my swap angel)

And then we ate breakfast and played Rock Band and opened presents and ate Christmas dinner and played with blocks and ate more of Uncle Art's devilled eggs and put together dinosaur puzzles and ate blueberry pie and put together the girls' train set and ate pumpkin pie and sketched in our sketch pads until Sydney fell asleep face-first on the dining room table.

P.S. My adorable Cousin Katie, currently eating party mix and playing on her new Linux laptop, says hi.

Teeny Tiny Trainland

Last night we completed one of our happiest holiday traditions--a Winter Solstice evening trip to the Indianapolis Zoo (here's how I feel about zoos) for Christmas lights, carolers, a holiday dolphin show, and Trainland, the conversion of the White River Gardens greenhouse into a giant showcase for dozens of model trainscapes.

Um, yes, it was 3 degrees, with a windchill of 20 below. We wore hats. And scarves. And coats. And jackets with hoods under that. And sweaters under that. And long-sleeved T-shirts. And socks up to our knees. And boots. And jeans. And snowpants for the littles. And mittens (all but Momma, who loves the fancy camera with its tiny little buttons more than she loves her fingers).

My Papa, who since my dear Mama died has discovered a love of model trains, asked for photographs of the Trainland exhibit for Christmas. Here (Spoiler Alert, Papa!), are my favorites:

Don't you wish you'd come with us?

Next year.

Ghosts of Goodwill Past and Present

It was a happy year at Goodwill. Our town's two locations (also known as the College Goodwill and the Townie Goodwill) and their quarterly 50%-off Storewide Sales allowed me to clothe my family and craft within my ethical belief system and also afford to feed my family, too, occasionally.

At the March sale, among other items, we got all of our springtime clothes:
See? Even our first-born wears SOMEBODY'S hand-me-downs. Is that fair, or what?

At the June sale, the start of craft fair season, I boosted my recycled/vintage craft supplies, among other items:
And then the girls threw them all over the floor.

At the September sale, we started living the dream with our brand-new DanceDanceRevolution mat:
I am getting REALLY good, and Matt is almost ready to start moving his arms when he dances.


At the December 6 sale, among other items, it was long sleeves and sweaters for everyone:

And bare feet, of course--oh so practical in the -20 degree wind chill.

And Saturday, happily, was a bonus before-Christmas 50%-off Storewide Sale. Among other items, we scored Uncle Wiggley--

(a terrific game for arithmetic concepts, by the way, and I was seriously in need of more math ideas); stretchy cotton sweaters for little-girl skirts--(somebody else had that idea first, but I can't find the link just yet); dinosaur fabric--for dinosaur quilts; a VERY nice coat that will get several years of use by two children for $2.50----a very nice shirt for me that you have to squint to see through the camera-shake, finger over the lens, and two two little girls----and? Best of all? A SECOND DanceDanceRevolution dance pad.

You know what that means, right?

Dance-off.