Tie Up Your Pie

Quiet book update!

This first page is one I've been especially excited to make.  I was originally going to do a straight forward weaving page with just two pages of felt, but when I saw this book I knew I wanted to do a pie page.  

I liked how it turned out!  My mom has had this apple fabric for YEARS and I knew it would work perfectly.  I like it when a page turns out AND is cheap!  Win-win.  Baby also wins because he will be a pro at doing a lattice topped pies.  Mmm, flower and apple pie.

I also knew I wanted to do a page for tying bows, for future shoelace practice.  What I didn't want to do was make a page with a shoe on it and grommets and everything for the shoelace.  I can't explain this, I just didn't want to do it.  So I went simple:

Three times the practice, almost no work for me to make.  Now, you might be wondering where the holes are going to go to put this in the actual book.  I wondered this myself--after I finished.  So...we'll see what happens.  

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Book review)

Author: E.L. Konigsburg
Year: 1967
Genre: Adventure?
Reading Level: Intermediate

Summary: Eleven year old Claudia is a planner and she has big plans to run away, just long enough to get some appreciation from her family.  She recruits her younger brother Jamie and together they run away to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.  There they find not just freedom but also a mysterious statue carved by Michelangelo--possibly.  Claudia is desperate to solve the mystery before returning to her normal life but that might not be so easy.

Red Flags: Runaway kids

My Rating: A-
I'm not sure why I never read this book as a kid.  I don't remember even hearing about it until an episode of The Office and I still didn't read it.  I think I would have loved it as a kid though and I enjoyed it now.  I really had no idea what it was about (the title is completely unhelpful in that regard) so the art history element was a nice surprise.  It had a sprinkle of insight at the unexpected end and while it felt a little brief, I can appreciate a brief book.  The characters are lively, the story is fun and on the whole, it's a delightful read for young and old. 

Children's books used to be so much more straight forward and simple, and I wonder if this would win the Newbery these days.  That's not to say the older winners weren't good, but these days I think there is more pressure to say Something Important about life to be considered a masterpiece.  As far as this book goes, even if it wouldn't get a Newbery now, I think modern readers would enjoy it just as much as those in the '60s and maybe that says more about a book than a Newbery medal.

Memorable Quotes:
"Claudia would have felt better if the letter had not been so polite.  A nasty letter or a sarcastic one can make you righteously angry, but what can you do about a polite letter of rejection?  Nothing, really, except cry.  So she did."--p. 116

"'I feel as if I jumped into a lake to rescue a boy, and what I thought was a boy turned out to be a wet, fat log....All wet for nothing.'"--p .117

"'Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough.  Except the part you carry with you.  It's the same as going on vacation.  Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time.  They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.'"--p. 138

12 to 1

Hard to believe that a year ago this happened.  And yet here we are with a one year old baby.  

I love his studious face and sometimes blond hair.

He's fond of the classics already!

He is still resolute about not walking on his own, but I've seen him take a few accidental steps.  He loves to push walkers/boxes/strollers/anything and has been working on his furniture climbing skills.  He's been a thinker this month, figuring out that he can put things in boxes and take them out again.  He also started stacking rings on the pole instead of just pulling them off.  

He makes such funny faces.

Easter outfit!

As far as food goes, he eats what we eat, with some occasional adjustments.  Every morning he scarfs a banana and of course the bigger the bite the better.  Like with most baby things, feeding him solids was daunting at the start because what do you give a baby?  How much?  How often?  And, like with most baby things, it's not a big deal anymore. 

Sleep is still great, ahhh.  He had one sleep change and that is that one day he adamantly refused to fall asleep while being held like a baby.  Instead he just wanted to sprawl flat on me and fall asleep snuggling.  Do I mind snuggling with Babycakes three times a day?  Nope.

I love his investigatory process.

How to sum up a year in a brief blog post?  Before Boo Boo was born, I really didn't know how this year was going to go.  I couldn't picture any part of it--the baby, what I would do with the baby, how we would survive together.  So to say this year surpassed my expectations, well, that would be an understatement. 

Basically, I just didn't know I would like this baby so much.  I really hoped I would like him a lot.  I wished to like him.  I cautiously assumed I would like him.  But I still couldn't picture how it would go after he was born.  

But then he was born and everything changed because HOW could I not adore this tiny human at every single moment of every day?

(Still one of my favorite pictures.)

It's funny to me how unaware babies are of all the time and care that is devoted to them. Babycakes has no idea that I have anything better to do than chase him around the ottomans or waggle finger puppets at him.  

And really, I don't.  

I just didn't know!

Silly me.  Smart baby.

Triple Oops

I found this in the washing machine a few weeks ago.

 

Oops.

I ignorantly wore these pants around Kohls. 

Oops.

I let Charlie rip my glasses off my face one morning.

Oops.