What a full month! I kicked it off by attending the Behold Conference with Molly, which was great!
Cecilia is pretty wary of other people, but she loved Molly!
Cecilia has become noticeably more active in the past couple weeks and her little personality is really starting to develop. So fun!
You know it's been a long winter when you are so grateful to be outside that you turn a blind eye to your baby eating dead leaves and grass.
Speaking of eating, she got her first taste of carbohydrates and hasn't looked back.
The beloved banana has been tossed in favor of the pancake.
Not so fun is that Miss Miriam had a really bad two weeks or so there, where I thought "oh my gosh, this is what they mean when they say three can be a harder age than two!" She's much better now, though, so I'm hoping that was just a fluke. She's mostly back to being her delightful self!
She's also very into dressing herself right now. She changes clothes several times a day.
I used to think her life plan couldn't get any cuter - "I want to be a mommy like you" - but now when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she will say "A doctor and a saint." I don't know where she got that idea, but it sounds like we need to find some picture books with St. Gianna Molla! Any suggestions, or other saints that fit that bill for her to read about?
Sewing
I've been meaning to make a long sleeved pajama top since, you know, November, and finally finished it just in time to not need it. I didn't get around to photographing it, which is fine because it turned out a bit wonky. I am not at all a fan of sewing knits.I also finally got around to making cloth napkins, and I LOVE them. It took me forever because I wasn't sure about fabric and wanted to make nice mitered corners and everything, but when I found this cotton on sale I just went for it, and I'm so glad I did!
I think this completes my goal of switching out disposables for cloth as much as possible - we have cut-up t-shirts for paper towels, cut-up t-shirts for baby wipes and cleaning wipes, flannel family cloth for toilet paper, and now cloth napkins for paper. (Please note that we are far from perfect and still do have the disposable paper versions of all these things, but we're doing a pretty good job of transitioning away from them.)
Finally, after being startled by how easy and cute the headbands were that I made for the girls last month, I went a little overboard and made a bunch more. Two to match Miriam's school uniform, one to match a black and white skirt I had made her a while back, and a red one just because she requested it, despite the fact that I didn't think she had a single red shirt. And at her request, a matching red one for Cecilia (I made the reverse pink, so it would actually match some of her clothes). The best part? I used all fabric scraps to make them.
The mound of fabric scraps that has long since outgrown its basket.
And this picture is of them picked up.
Reading
Some of the picture books we read this month: Persephone, Tapestries: Stories of Women in the Bible, Anna May's Cloak, Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland, Rah Rah Radishes (one of our favorites), I Believe, One Grain of Rice (really good), A Pet for Miss Wright, A Book for Black-Eyed Susan (tearjerker), Prarie Day, The Bird's Gift.
And the books I read this month: started on the book of Isaiah, read through Marian Devotions in the Domestic Church, skimmed How the Church Built Western Civilization, enjoyed Feast, and am halfway through Raising Baby Green.
Goal-tackling
Overall I've really felt pulled to homemaking this month. I've been trying to do as much as possible in the house now so when it is actually nice enough to go outside we can pounce on it! That means that while my goals aren't super exciting to read about on here (not that the rest of this post is... ), they've been great for my peace of mind. I organized my big recipe binder, separating it into two binders. Then I also organized our bookshelves, which has needed to happen pretty much since we moved here some two and a half years ago. So glad to get that done!
The family room looked like this for less than two days!
(Okay, fine, there's still one last stack of magazines I have to go through. But close enough to call it finished!)
We kept up reading books on the appropriate saints feast days and celebrated the Feast of St. Joseph. I was very pleased to realize how easy it is to celebrate a feast day when you've done it even just once before - I just pulled out last year's recipes and had to do very little new planning.
Finally, I've been really into baking this month. Some of the things didn't turn out well, until I realized it was because I had bought rapid rise yeast instead of the regular, but it was mostly still edible. Marbled bread, English muffin bread, pretzels, and cinnamon rolls (yum!).
Now I've got a new sourdough starter going and am trying to do several new recipes with that. I've been pretty pleased with the tortillas and English muffins I made. But honestly I have yet to determine if it's worth the trouble of keeping a starter alive!
And that was our March 2014.