Beautiful August

I'm thankful for temperate weather so far in August -- it makes for a beautiful month. 

Flower therapy Monday: I loved the candy pink colors and the bright pink wheat stalks. 

I got two morning walks in and loved this view so much I had to paint it later in the week.

David met the sign that graduated in abstentia for him from eighth grade back in July.

White peaches are my favorite! They taste like a raspberry-flavored exotic fruit. Their color is just beautiful too!

I kept up the hard work on preparing for my fall online nature journaling classes. If you haven't checked them out yet, you can find all the information here! Did I mention that I'm also blogging exclusively about nature now on my new blog "The Nature Journaler"? 

Drew is about to end his Subway career so Michael and I went to visit him. 

Thursday brought more beautiful flowers:

Friday I snuck away to my secret point with blankets, books, paints, and food for a few hours of vacation.

It was glorious!

There was plenty of wildlife to enjoy as well!

Rachel heads back to college this week so we planned a mother-daughter outing to celebrate the end of summer. We headed to the Cake Bake shop in Carmel.

This was a FUN outing: chocolate cake, macarons, and loose-leaf tea!

This is a destination not to miss!

We're going to miss Rachel! She's got to go back and work hard on that engineering degree!

And that was our week......

July 4th!

My week began as usual with flowers! These were some of the "red, white, and blue" bouquets. 

I took the rest of the week "off" of my art business work and focused on house projects and more time for resting. I was so excited to finally finish of my back closet which has been a several-month long project. It's all rearranged, sorted, and reorganized! (In case you are wondering, that is fabric, not my clothing!)

I took one morning to paint my hollyhocks with oils -- oils are new to me and there's a big learning curve! Laura decided she wanted to join me with acrylics.

Michael's dad has been gone for more than two years now but we wanted to celebrate his life on his birthday. We had Michaels' mom over for a special dinner: the kind of meal one would get at a steak house, complete with iceberg wedges with bacon and blue cheese. Yum!

Michael's siblings all called in on zoom and we sang. One of Michael's brothers had even driven up to Dad's gravesite which was extra special for everyone to be able to see what it is looking like right now.

All this 90+ degree weather isn't putting us off the outside socializing! Where there's a will there's a way! Laura and her friend followed a painting tutorial all by themselves!

I made it back to the art museum gardens with a friend (in the heat! iced drinks in tow). I guess the cheery rudbeckia and the creeping jenny below them were my favorite finds of the day.

On July 4th we had cousin Olivia and my sister, Emily, over to enjoy some time in our local creek and then lunch under the front tree. It proceeded to rain and the kids loved it.

 In the evening our two moms came over for a back patio barbecue. I made some delicious salads and grilled hamburgers and hotdogs.

We all sat around and enjoyed chatting.

And we even made s'mores for dessert!

One special part of my week was sorting photos from my January England trip. It brought a lot joy and good memories for which I was thankful.

And now we are into another HOT week!

Life on the Home Front: Another Birthday

Our weekend was filled with birthday preparations and celebrations!

My first task of the weekend was rescuing Jenny Wren. She flew into a hole in Laura's screen in the morning and moved on out into the loft where David and Laura had her surrounded somewhere beneath bins of felted wool. They wisely closed all the doors to the bedrooms and came to get me. I managed to grab her between the shade and the window and carry her downstairs to the open front door. Such a darling bird, but always getting into trouble indoors.

I baked two cakes on Saturday: gluten-free carrot cakes. One for Laura and one for my sister which we left at her doorstep.

Saturday evening we sent Laura up to bed and everyone else helped to decorate the dining room with a "letter-themed" birthday celebration, including a stuffed owl hung from the ceiling like in Harry Potter. Special thanks to everyone who sent something in the mail. We banned Laura from the mailbox for a week and collected two dozen pieces!

 We used lots of candles to mimic a Hogwarts feel, albeit with pastel colorings.

 Laura requested waffles for her birthday breakfast. Yum yum!

No complaints on the food choice from anyone!

Surprise! Surprise! The cousins and some grandparents showed up in the afternoon for a drive-by party! Presents and candy delivered to the doorstep.

Happy Birthday Laura!

Everyone wanted a glimpse of baby Teddy, born just a few weeks before lockdown started.

Continuing with the letter theme, Laura was thrilled to receive a typewriter for her birthday!!!!

We eventually ended the day with cake and tea.

That pretty much sums up our weekend, except for "church" Sunday morning and church zoom Sunday evening. Heading into the rest of our seventh week at home.

Life on the Home Front: Last Full Week of April

One of the highlights of my week was using Queen Elizabeth's birthday as an excuse to convince a child to bake a cake and to sit down and enjoy it with the kids. The beauty of the scene made me so happy, and so did the sugar and tea. 

I've been working on figuring out how to paint this garden all week. Attempts 2 and 1 pictured. Expecting more attempts this coming week! The lockdown is helping me to find a little time most days to practice art!

I've kept my sewing machine set up in the front room behind the little couch kids sit on to watch movies. This way I can get in a little sewing each evening while we watch an episode. One evening this week I sewed a few custom masks for family. The masks are improving -- these had adjustable wiring for over the nose, and an extra pocket to slip filter material in, which I now hear that stockings (hose, whatever you call them) are some of the best filter materials out there!

 I did our grocery shopping on Friday, including some for Michael's mom. Bedding plants were on sale! I got to pick out ones for my mother-in-law's front baskets.

We had a wonderful family hike mid-week in a local park (Eagle Creek, the free part). The wildflowers were amazing. I especially enjoyed the Virginia Bluebells.

I'm surprised how I've gotten into recording my little "Nature Nibbles" episodes several times a week. It's been fun to share spring as it blooms with everyone. (If you aren't on Instagram and Facebook, you can find them on Youtube -- just search for Heather LeFebvre.)

Laura and I are starting a new tradition on Friday afternoons -- baking, gardening, and watching our own movie. This week we watched the 2016 version of Pollyanna, which I thoroughly enjoyed, probably because of the lovely English village it was set in.

Laura and I got a bunch of flower seeds planted in our garden. The colors of spring are so lovely right now: blue, gray-blue, chartreuse green, baby pink, purple....

And now for the weekend! We have a birthday to celebrate. See you next week!

Life on the Home Front: First Full Day of Lockdown

In which I discuss Prince Charles, cake, and alien movies....

The first thing that I heard Wednesday morning was that Prince Charles had tested positive for the virus. That's just a little too close to the Queen for me! I am a very avid follower of the Royal Family. We grew up with an old book about the princesses (the Queen as a child) and a dollhouse they played with, then we lived in Uganda, a former colony of Britain, then two of my children were born in the UK, and of course two of my great-grandparents were also born there. It's inevitable that I be a royalist. I'm glad the Prince is not hospitalized and that he and Camilla are isolating way up in Scotland in a "cottage."

Sunshine today! I took a walk early afternoon to grab more footage for my nature videos. A neighbor was out moving flowers around in his flowerbed and promised to send me a bucket of daffodils he'd divided along with yellow lilies. I don't think I've ever seen so many people out walking in our neighborhood! Must be the new national past-time. People are more willing to say hello too. I found plenty of progress in the woods to report on -- lots of flowers making their way to the surface and a few actually blooming. Especially exciting was finding the ramps (wild garlic) poking up through the leaves.

Today was the first day when we actually knew someone who tested positive for the virus -- relatives in Connecticut. And friends in Rhode Island most likely have the virus too. And my friend in NYC continues to give me firsthand reports. Life there is very stressful, far more stressful than here. When someone you know gets the virus, that's when it all becomes real.

A friend shared a picture of her Glazed Donut Cake on Facebook and I thought it would be perfect to try for tea-time. James attempted a gluten-free version of it for us and it was SO delicious! How have we not known about this cake before??? The recipe we used is here. We used GF flour and xanthan gum and made buttermilk with milk and vinegar.

I started to putter in the garden -- mostly because I needed to deal with the plants I was given. After my long walk, and with a bike ride ahead (with Laura) I didn't want to do too much and over-do. I did find rhubarb coming up! YAY! Last year I planted some again to see if I could get it going. My attempts over the years have eventually failed.

I managed to get our linen closet re-organized. What a relief. So many more things to do like that. One at a time. The kids get the easy job: I ask them to pull everything out of the space I'm going to organize. I get the hard job of sorting and putting it back.

It was David's night to pick a movie, I think? Anyway, the movie was about humans fighting aliens and seemed to follow a similar line to the Groundhog Day movie. I spent the time knitting while we watched (and I secretly catch up on texts too).

Food Eaten: toast and tea for breakfast; leftover rice salad and eggs for lunch; glazed donut cake for tea, round two of taco salad for dinner with cut apples.

Andrew Turns 13!

A week ago Andrew turned 13! Instead of a typical party, he opted to go paddle boarding with a few friends and have them over for lunch. 

Oh they sure had fun! Two hours of craziness in the water and eventually we made them head for the dock.

Here are the chaperones:

 After lunch they set up in my room for a Minecraft blitz.

Meanwhile we got the cupcakes iced so they could enjoy some cake together. What these pictures don't show are all the other miscellaneous siblings and random neighbor kids who somehow managed to join in at various points.

Middle school boys!

Sunday afternoon we had a cake while Grandma was over.

Yum, yum!!

Monday, Andrew's actual birthday, began with his requested cinnamon rolls. Andrew also requested only monetary gifts, hoping to combine with his savings to purchase an iPod.

 We grabbed Andrew off of online school and took him with us to the Eiteljorg for a school field trip.

The kids just love the stage coach.

And then, that afternoon he went to the Apple store with enough cash for his very own iPod! Yay!

And now I can't imagine my life without Andrew's iPod. It's so easy to find him, ask him to do chores, or invite him to family events on the calendar. Wow. I should have funded this purchase years ago (but of course I'm glad we didn't). Happy Birthday Andrew!