As our little girl was growing older, she started grabbing things and it was the best time to make for her a mobile. I searched for ideas through Pinterest and Google, but absolutely nothing was found that could catch my eye. Then one day I noticed that Marge likes to observe a crocheted flower in her cardigan and the idea was born. It was decided to make a few crocheted rattles with flowers on top covering plastic egg containers.

It was the first time we were driving so far with Marge. However, our older kids are already pretty much experienced road trippers. We had a major one week long journey to Poland last summer. That’s why these four hours in the car, that awaited us, seemed to be a piece of cake for us. I had all of mine checklists left from the last time, which made our preparations indeed much easier and less time-consuming. But our thinking of ourselves as of nearly travel-experts made us let our guard down and forget some essential things.

Quite a few weeks ago we had our reason to visit a toy store and let older daughters choose something for themselves from there. We ended up with a toy guitar and 3 art sets. One of the items we bought was Djeco Scratch cards set. It turned out a really marvellous buy — the activity kept girls amused at least for 3 days. They followed instructions and scratched only suggested patterns at first. Then they started to think up their own patterns. But in the end they completely removed all of the upper layer just to see the patterns hidden inside.

Seeing my kids excitement about this set, I remembered an old good art class from my elementary school. What we did there was colouring a paper with watercolours, then covering it with candle wax and applying a layer of a black ink over it. Then we took something sharp (a nail, for instance) and scratched out our designs or illustrations.

This is a pretty easy pattern for a nice crocheted flower. I used it to decorate cardigan for my little Marge.

Finally, Marge can try her new short-sleeve cardigan in the colours of a red poppy and a blue knapweed field! As I wrote in a previous post, I’ve searched for a nice and not so common pattern for a baby-girl cardigan, but haven’t found any, and decided to design one by myself. It came out so nice and work on it was so enjoyable, that it would be just wrong to keep the pattern within myself rather than share it.

Also I would be really happy to hear that someone used this pattern and managed to make this cardigan. So, if you intend to try this, please, take a picture of a result and share it with me!

All these reflections just fascinate me!

Yes, our little baby girl is two month old already! She grew a lot, we spent past month under a sunshine of her smiles. She likes to talk and also learned to cry when she desperately needs something. It’s not like she hasn’t cried before, but this cry is somehow different from the one she did in her first month. So this is also a sign that she is getting older. Past few days of her life are also remarkable for Marge’s discovery of her fists. She stacks them into her mouth and intently munches her fingers with a unconcerned look. It seems that I have to hurry with a mobile I wanted to make for her, or I’ll miss the right time.

As Marge grows her sisters change as well. Their intention to help me with Marge is so huge that I can step aside and just watch their energy flowing in a right place. I haven’t seen so much initiative for months! They wash dishes (even though it has been my prerogative before), help me cook, hang clean clothes, through away used diapers. They even don’t mind entertaining Marge for a little bit if I need to leave the room for a moment. I am really proud of my girls!

I’ve started a new crochet cardigan for Marge lately. I’ve searched for a nice and not so common pattern for it, but haven’t found any. So it was decided to make one by myself. I actually have already started bringing to life my idea and crocheted four rows, but then realized, that I had made a mistake in the very first stitch of the first row! Can you imagine my disappointment when I had to rip it all out and start over my project!

Though May is almost over, it is still enough time for mayflowers to bloom and May thunderstorms to moisturize the air through nights. I saw a great thundercloud through kids room’s window yesterday. I hardly had time to take a picture, the cloud had covered all of the skies and it started pouring. However, it didn’t rain too long, not more than a few minutes. Now i’m looking at my daughters’ paintings of a rainy day from their art class and feeling really inspired to paint one by myself. I wish I had a time for this!

Oh, I love summer rain with it’s warm puddles!

All of a sudden a heat wave came across Riga.  But it won’t prevent me from sharing a pattern of Veronika’s new hat.

Перевод на русский следует ниже 🙂.

Being a mom means killing a child inside your head for it’s resurrection in your eternal memory later to give you an ability of making decisions not only in order to please yourself or meet your own wishes.

Being a mom is love.

Being a mom means giving your baby a chance to correct his mistake instead of blaming for his failure.

It means giving a hug, instead of a preach.

Being a mom takes a lot of patience to listen even when you think there’s nothing worthy to be said and be quite even when you are overflowing with words.

Also it is understanding, there is no doubt that what’s need to be done has to be done, but the most important need is trying to reach peace without war and do it without yelling.

And it is understanding, that your negative evaluation of a deed or event your kid is excited about won’t make him feel the same way as you do about it, but he will definitely feel a rejection from you. So save your esteems for someone you don’t like.

Being a mom means trying not to fall into habit of controlling every step of your precious child while taking care of his safety. It also means keeping noticing even the smallest initiative of your little one and treat it with care, trying not to suppress it.

Be still and stable as a rock, when your child is all like the ocean in a stormy day, to be able to help this ocean to calm down only by means of your tender and secure voice and look.

Letting him grow, watching aside and wondering, how your kid’s personality develops, but not trying to change it your way. Once given a life your child will live it by himself.

Yes, being a mom is a huge work. So I thank my mom she did it for me once.

I love You, mom!

And, mom, thanks for that delicious pie You made us on a Mother day.

Dear english readers: please scroll down.

Май пришёл в Ригу с холодной, ветренной погодой. Смотря на уже совсем уверенно зелёные деревья за окном, совсем не хочется верить цифре, которую показывает градусник. Температура снова опустилась до 7 градусов. Зато весенняя прохлада в доме — отличный повод согреться за выпечкой овсяных печений по новому рецепту.

С последнего занятия по рисованию дочки принесли мне по нарисованной вазе с подсолнухами и самый настоящий букет одуванчиков.

А в соседней ваза большой букет тюльпанов от мужа.

Я всерьёз задумалась о митенках, но пока подыскивала себе идеи на Pinterest, случайно вдохновилась вязанными сапожками для малышей. Марго не будет лишним погреть ножки, пока дома так холодно. Экспериментирую.

А вот таким был апрель за нашим окном: тёплым, в основном солнечным и очень живописным!

One article from a foreign blog caught my attention a few days ago . It was about different ways of stickers’ usage in children’s activities. There was one point that I liked most. It was about writing and illustrating your own tiny book. The original idea was taken from the Nurture Store blog. I decided to give it a try.

We’ve always liked stickers, so I had some in my drawer and we could try the idea in the same day.

The result was even better than I had expected. Children accepted new challenge with a great enthusiasm. And of course stickers made this activity more attractive in children eyes.

Anastasia made a book about flower fairies. She wrote a story and illustrated the book all by herself. Veronika did a pretty nice work too, but it was hard for me to keep her within few characters per one story. She doesn’t write yet, so I did it instead of her. She told me the story, that I helped her to turn into short clear sentences and then wrote it down.

We made two books with Veronika. I suggested to her a plan of how to write a story:

• Start with “once upon a time” and set a scene: tell, who is the main character in your story, where and what did he do
• what did happen
• how did it all end

The second book Veronika made backwards: in front was the last page and the book itself had to be read from the back to the front. Dealing with this issue, we decided to put page numbers. Veronika promised me to be more careful next time. We made our books using French folding as it was suggested in the original post. Book had six pages and every two of them could be devoted to one point of the plan.

Our written stories can be read by kids to each other or for toys. We liked this activity a lot and we’ll do it again for sure!

Наклейки, конечно, можно использовать любые, но мне очень нравятся из серии Deco, что продаются в книжном Jāņa Roze. В каждой упаковочке по три (одинаковых) листика с симпатичными наклейками. Например, такие.