The Story of Our Strawberries

On Father's Day, we went strawberry picking at Stade's Farm in McHenry.

We picked about twenty pounds of strawberries (which is a lot of strawberries).

We took our strawberries home and got to work.

We made strawberry shortcake.

We made freezer jam.

We froze some for later (maybe a smoothie in September?)

Now we are waiting for raspberries and blueberries. I highly recommend putting your little pickers and jam makers to work. A totally delightful experience -- from start to finish.

Self Portraits

Our Father's Day art project.
(Mini-canvases and easels from Blick Art Supply.)

We're Ready for the Bunny

Bring on the jelly beans.

Peppermint Bark

No baby -- just obsessive amounts of peppermint bark.

I am generally following this recipe (except substituting Andes peppermint crunch chips for a more subtle mint flavor). If you decide to attempt your own batch, make sure that you allow each layer to completely cool.

It is delicious. I will never want for Williams Sonoma Peppermint Bark again.

A Hat For My Boy Who Won't Wear Hats

Brendan generally refuses to wear hats. But I made him one any way. So far he has been willing to indulge me and wear it for about ten minutes at a time before he declares, "All done."

A Hat For Her

I made this hat for Eleanor.

My pride prevents me from disclosing how many starts and stops I had with this little number. My hat making is definitely still in the rudimentary stages. And there is one dropped stitch.

But Ellie likes it. And so do I.

A Hat for Him

A few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to make a hat and sweater for my baby boy to wear home from the hospital.

My sister-in-law was kind enough to give me a knitting lesson. Now, I have been transformed into an old lady who sits on the couch every night knitting while feigning minimal interest in whichever sporting event my husband is watching.

This little blue hat is my first real attempt. It isn't perfect -- but I am getting there. I am currently working on a slightly improved version.

I stopped by the local knitting store yesterday and couldn't resist buying this book full of hat ideas. . . . and some pink, brown, and green yarn.

Hats, hats for everyone (maybe even David).

I will get back to the sweater project at some point, but for now I am going to be making hats to cover all of the lovely little heads in my life.

The Artist

I love these pictures of Eleanor working on Mother's Day birdhouses for her grandmamas. She works with such focus and purpose. Her creations are always made with a recipient in mind (I think this one went to Nana).

Dot Therapy

Today is a stressful day. But I am happy to report that we have discovered therapy in the form of dot painting. And we feel a little bit better (at least I do).

We're Getting Ready for the Bunny!

Setting the scene for Sunday's Easter Egg Hunt.

More Felted Eggs

Our Nest

I saw a great nest and eggs here a few days ago. I thought we could probably figure out how to do something like that. And although I haven't done our taxes yet and freelance deadlines loom, I spent the whole day yesterday working on this project with my assistant Ellie.

We made the nest by weaving together vines from our backyard. To make the felted eggs, I generally followed the directions here. The craft store didn't have any wool roving in robin's egg blue, so we used this very pretty blue instead. We loved the wet felting process and now have big plans for felted eggs for Easter.

A sweet little project, don't you think?