some things we've been up to

A random assortment of things:

Mayumi (with a little help from Dad) made her first pumpkin moonshine of the season. Corrigan and Benjamin were enthralled.

Mayumi has started a new soccer season on an all-girls team of 6-7 year olds for Sports on the Hill. Mike is the coach and reports that Maya is an excellent player, both skills-wise and attitude-wise. So far their team has been undefeated, which of course we are proud of, but we're striving to find the right balance between expressing that pride but also affirming that the most important thing is good sportsmanship and trying your best.

Soccer practice is on Tuesday evenings, with games on Saturday mornings. On Wednesday evenings Mayumi has ballet class at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, which is a few doors down from our local meetinghouse site. After overcoming many obstacles we're finally starting to see some progress on construction and is is estimated we could have our beautiful new building in about a year. 

While Mayumi is in class for 45 minutes I play with the boys out on the small lawn in front of the building. It is challenging (to say the least) to chase after these two, who tend to go in separate directions and seem to relish doing dangerous things to keep me on my toes: playing on the concrete stairs into the building, trying to break into the trash bins, running out the gate onto the sidewalk (which is too close to the busy street), putting various things into their mouths...

Speaking of these little gremlin boys that are still the stars of my heart despite all their shenanigans, it has been so fun to watch them develop and grow these past few months. Their vocabulary is growing and they love to sing and participate in our (fairly regular) morning circle time, which consists of reading a scripture, saying a prayer, reciting the pledge of allegiance, and singing a few songs (all while circled around a lit candle which they get to blow out when we are finished). The entire ritual probably lasts ~7 minutes but they seem to love it. They also love singing time in Nursery at church. This is their only real structured time all week. We have yet to be able to leave them in there without one of us (me or Mike, usually Mike) present the entire time. Corrigan would probably be all right but dear little Benjamin is still quite clingy and doesn't like us to be out of sight. Ever. But they both love singing time and Corrigan usually joins in with all the hand gestures and occasionally joins in the singing too!

Since recovering from the exhaustion that accompanied my cold (and the pregnancy?) I've had a little burst of energy that I've been channeling into various cleaning/organizing/creative projects. Some of my recent work:

Silhouette cutouts of the children against a fabric background. I used three frames I already owned before realizing that very soon I will need a matching 4th one, but of course when I went to Target to get a matching one I discovered that they are discontinued, which means I will need new frames... so much for my project being thrifty (aka free).

I finally got around to sewing on these borders to these curtains I got at the thrift store. After careful measurement and several tries I finally got the seams straight and then after hanging them up I realized that one curtain was about 4 inches shorter than the other. When I measured where to sew on the border from the bottom it never occurred to me to check to make sure the curtains were the exact same length from each other... so at some point I'll have to back and rip out the seams from the shorter one and re-sew it a few inches lower so that they match better. 

I also finished knitting Maya's sweater. It is the Springtime in Hollis pattern (notes to my version of the project are found here on Ravelry). I will fully admit that I was inspired by Alicia Paulsen's version and pretty much copied it; she has such exquisite taste I find that I want to make everything that she does. Mine has a few modifications: I opted to omit the trellis pattern on the sleeves and I made the length of the sweater a little longer to suit Maya's size. She loves it - it is so gratifying to make things for her because she is so appreciative of them!

Yes, whenever I make something like this I feel like a knitting superhero. My current works in progress are sweaters for each of the boys as well as a crocheted quilt for each of them. I'm also getting into some embroidery which I'm pretty excited about. And if there's any chance to squeeze it in, I'd also like to make a sweater and little pants for the new baby. He'll need to be clothed as well, though I'm counting on him getting some good hand-me-down use from his big brothers. All this is coming at the perfect time as the weather gets cooler and I'm quite content to settle down on the chaise lounge and knit after the kids are in bed. 

And last but not least I wanted to document some musical moments in our home. On Monday evenings Mayumi has been having private piano lessons from Miss Amie. She comes to our home and sits by Maya at the piano for a 30-minute lesson, which Maya LOVES. In addition to piano, Mayumi and Mike have been playing their ukulele and guitar (respectively) and learning new music. The song that has captivated us all recently is the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and we've all been jamming to it almost every night. One of our favorite versions is this one by

Sarah Noëlle on YouTube:

But nothing makes me happier than to hear Mayumi play it on her uke:

sarah's birthday at Leesburg

For the past few years it has become a tradition for our friends Darrin and MaryJoy to host their daughter, Sarah's, birthday party at Leesburg Animal park. The first time Mayumi went on her own with MaryJoy (I was too pregnant with the twins) and then last year Mike took the day out of work to take her (I was too busy caring for the twins) but this year I finally got to go and I brought those twins with me because they love animals as much as their big sister! The Leesburg Animal Park was all decked out for their pumpkin festival, which made it an especially fun place to visit, and it was wonderful to be with our friends and celebrate sweet little Sarah's birthday and enjoy an incredibly beautiful fall day. What's not to love about petting and feeding all sorts of dear little animals, going on a hayride, jumping on a moonbounce, going on a pony ride and running around in fresh air and sunshine? One of the biggest perks of being a mama is getting to relive childhood...

We had such an extraordinarily fun time - none of the kids wanted to leave but we finally headed out around 1:30 so that the boys could take a nap on the ride home. It was a good day (and completely worth taking Mayumi out of school for!).

at home and then the postal museum

We miss Mayumi a lot while she's at school. I find that I'm less inclined to leave the house with just the boys, so we tend to hang out here a lot. The boys enjoy playing and helping and out and now that we have our lovely communal front yard set up where they can play outside, there is less incentive to go out and find outdoor play space.

Like their big sister, the boys love finding little treasures to bring home. Like dead bugs. Below is the bumblebee and cicada that were found on the very same afternoon and brought several minutes of great joy and wonder (and then maybe they got crushed and pulled apart...).

Maya had the day off for Rosh Hashanah and we took advantage by going to an event at the National Postal Museum by Union Station. We may have been driven by the free cupcakes they were handing out, but we also enjoyed some of the exhibits there. They had a ragtime/bluegrass band playing, which echoed quite loudly through the marble hallways. Our sensitive little Benjamin was quite frightened by all the noise and cried and insisted on being held at first, but after a little while he acclimated and soon all the kids were running around dancing. It was pretty cute.

No outing would be complete without being reprimanded by someone in authority about my poor mothering skills; at River Farm it was being scolded for letting Benji walk around barefooted (he screamed when I put on his shoes and then immediately would pull them right off and run away). Here it was negligent about letting my boys climb into the giant truck; despite clearly being outfitted to accommodate children apparently she was nervous that I wasn't right inside the two seater cab with them. I'm not sure if she was afraid they were going to start it and drive away in it but I had to bite my tongue from responding at all because I knew nothing kind would come out of my mouth. The helicopter parenting model is not m style and it frustrates me when other people demand it. I get liability issues, but I find the general attitude to be a bit oppressive and judgmental at times. Yes, if I let me boys climb stairs by themselves they could get hurt... they HAVE gotten hurt! But that is how they learn! I'd like to be the one that determines when my children are ready to do things for themselves, not some random stranger who does not know them at all.
{sigh}
Anyhow, as exhausting as it can be to be out and about these days (this big belly of mine does NOT make it any easier chasing after these rascals), it was mostly a fun excursion.