a settled place

I've said before that renovation projects are kind of a shared hobby for me and Grant. It's something we do together (although lately, that more means I come up with the ideas and then he makes them happen while I care for the kids) and we have a hard time, actually, NOT watching Zillow or coming up with projects. It's just what we do. So our conversations usually go like this: "This house looks amazing!! I bet there's wood floors under all that green carpet" "When was it built" "Um... 1890?" "No." And so on, and so-forth. My dreams of gorgeous old detail always collide with the reality that Grant doesn't want to deal with half-century-old wiring, and so it ends up that we just kind of keep looking. But Grant had been really pushing for a rental property purchase, and eventually this winter got so long and tiresome that I thought maybe that would be fun, and after all, we were already overdue for our "buy-a-house-

When winter lasts this long into April, something to brighten the dreary days is a must. And this winter, I found refuge in creating three little rain coats for my three littles. Without doubt, working with laminated cotton was something I never would have attempted even a year or two ago; I have grown as a seamstress and I am thankful for that. They did not turn out perfectly, but they did turn out and we are getting such good use from them and I am so glad, in the end, that I did the project. Here's a few photos, and then you can see my sources at the end. I & T both wear 4T clothing, and this pattern is free in size 4T , so that is what I used for both of their coats! I modified it for the boy version, and did not use the pockets on the girl version. For baby's coat, I used the baby-in-the-hood coat pattern in this book with a slight modification to add elastic into the bottom hem of the coat and also to make it longer. Fabric: Cloud 9 Organic Matte Laminate

Laura Ingalls Wilder made it seem pretty glamorous, but the truth is - I think every mom in central IL was beyond ready to see sunshine earlier this week. A friend recently commented to me that she has learned this winter to enjoy staying home, and I'm thankful for people like her in my life - who remind me to back up, take out all the junk, and realize what's actually important. And while this winter has taught me similar things, if I'm being honest, I'm definitely ready to say good-bye to the cold and snow. Elijah is less tolerant of change than Ivory and Titus are, and on top of that, his little lungs gave him a pretty hard time this winter. It was a little overwhelming to feel like if I took him out one day, I was risking being homebound for the next two weeks. Furthermore, my energy and our schedule has changed and things just look much different than they did when Titus was Elijah's age. And so I'm still trying to flex into that. I process externally, an