Artillchoke

Tillie can never remember the word for artichoke, so she often comes up to me randomly and says, "Mama, can I have this" and then pantomimes scraping the meat off an artichoke leaf.

Djanguage Boom

Django's language is really starting to take off, which is just a joy for me. I'm now getting to find out what he thinks about things, what his interests are. When children get language, it is kind of like finally getting to meet them for real. For those who are keeping track, Django's first full sentence was, "My milk is done." (He said it while shaking his empty glass at grandpa's house on Easter.) His second full sentence was, "Dada, you do poopoo." (He was accusing *someone* of farting.) And, by the way, he thinks that fart humor is the height of funny. If you make a fart noise, he will yell "Ewww!" with a big grin on his face. Then he will start making a bunch of fart noises. He's a real classy guy, that Django!

Bluebonnets 2012

this year's annual bluebonnet photo (doubles as our annual sittin-in-a-ditch photo)

Insecta Fiesta

On Saturday, I did a very brave thing and took Tillie to the UT entomology department's Insecta Fiesta, which was basically an all day bug petting zoo at their field lab. Tillie just loves bugs--and I think it is safe to say that she loves them more than other kids do. I have posted before how she likes to catch flies with her bare hands and then begs to keep them as pets. Daily, she has affectionate (one-sided) encounters with ants, butterflies, bees, doodlebugs (isopods), and caterpillars, too. I'm constantly trying to get her to leave them alone because she often injures them in her clumsy attempts to interact with them lovingly. Anyway, I felt like it would be dishonest to avoid this event where she could meet like-minded insect-loving friends who would let her hold and "pet" bugs to her heart's content. And of course, she loved it! We spent two hours at this thing and I had to drag her away kicking and screaming. It was a clear illustration that one person's dream-come-true can be another person's living nightmare. I had to mentally escape to my happy place many times, but it was worth it to see Tillie so excited.

IMPORTANT WARNING to people who get icked out by bugs: Lest you think that this is all about pretty butterflies, proceed carefully! What follows after some scrolling are some f'ed up pictures of giant insects crawling on people, including Tillie. I'm sorry.

This is where it starts to get horrible...

(Not shown are the pictures of her cradling a maggot, catching large water bugs with her bare hands, playing with an ox beetle, sniffing edible bug snacks, and clamoring to hold a hissing cockroach.)

 WARNING! WARNING! WARNING: I personally cannot stomach watching this video, even though I manned the camera. The squeamish should hit play AT THEIR OWN RISK. (Also, I don't condone treating animals this way, even gross animals.)
 

Okay, to get that image out of your head, here's a cute one with just a butterfly in it. Plus, she looks like some sort of goofy forest brownie with a plant growing out of her head:

New Bikes!

We got bikes! Tillie wants to bike all the time now. Poor Django is still about an inch too short for his, but he still likes to wear his helmet and be pushed around on it. Grow, grow, grow!

Who's Having the Most Fun?

Toddlebot

I tried to come up with a new working-mother-of-two design for the robot quilt (i.e. faster to make so that I can catch up on the quilt backlog). It's based on the square I did for my friend Camile's quilt, so it has that extra bit of love and tender sadness blended into it. It probably took as long to make as the original robot baby quilt design, but it translates better into a toddler quilt. I have gifted it to my sweet and darling 1.5-year-old niece Anais. Behold:

See how the photo makes it feel like you are unwrapping a gift from me to you?

Is that a familiar shape that I detect? Yes, an outline of a robot!

A small robot recharges in the corner of the quilt, which is mostly tie quilted beyond a couple of hand quilted details.

See how I messed up the embroidery with a jaunty backwards s? Totally intentional. You see, the native americans believed that every hand crafted item should have a mistake woven into it to act as an escape portal to let out the evil spirits...um...okay yeah, so I had an attack of needlepoint dyslexia. Anais doesn't mind, so shut up.

Anais, proving me right:

Easter 2012, part 4

Easter crafts:

Tillie made a bird feeder at Home Depot.

Our neighbor Tavi had us over for a special easter craft. We transferred the dye from old silk ties to easter eggs--a very neat process in which you wrap the eggs in the ties and then boil them in a vinegar solution for only 20 minutes (while chatting with other dads). Et, voila!

And finally, we enjoyed the family egg hunt and easter spoils.

Okay, that is enough for easter 2012!

Easter 2012, part 3

An easter party!

A visit from a real easter bunny:

More egg hunting:

Cascarones fight:

Whack the bunny:

Post-party sugar-fueled madness:


Relaxing bath to wash off cheeto dust, koolaide stains, chocolate smears, and confetti dye:

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz:

Easter 2012, part 2

Cousins Anais, Writer, and Nicholas came to visit!