rustygrass

New virtual life

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:20:00 +0000

Hey gang-

Rustygrass has made the leap to Wordpress. Join me over there! Look, I've already posted!

http://rustygrass.wordpress.com/

Go grab the feed for your reader and enjoy.

Over there

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:55:00 +0000

Dear blog,

Your very under-utilized existence is making me feel guilty. So for now, some Lowe-inspired pointing at the ocean from last weekend's trek to the coast for Megan's wedding.

Love,

Catching up

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:14:00 +0000

1. June, July, and August are berry months here in Oregon. The strawberries start popping up in late May, early June. The past two years I've had strawberries before my birthday (June 4), but this year, the weather hasn't been kind to the strawberry patch - not a super harvest.

Raspberries usually start showing up in late June - and this year with the freaky weather, we started getting some in early June.

So far we've picked close to 4 gallons of raspberries off our raspberry patch. Here I am with my highly technical raspberry picking Belt-Buckle-Bucket invention.

And Skylar, vacuuming up the rejected berries, close on my heels.

2. We hit a big life milestone this month. We bought our first family tent! Weighing the options (REI Base Camp 6, REI Kindom 6, and the Big Agnes Big House 6), and making a false start with taking home and returning an REI Base Camp 4, we ended up with the Big Agnes. I went back to REI by myself, returned the Base Camp 4, wandered back over to the tents at REI, and there the Big Agnes was, right on the top of the pile of picked over tents. A Big Agnes we had been told was sold out completely from REI. It was a sign really, and I believe in signs.

Here's Lowe, enjoying her new digs (the Big Agnes) on July 4.

Checking out the specs. (Not shown: tasting the delishus specs with her mouth).

Mama and Lowe making sure the tent has adequate space for snuggles.

3. Lowe is crawling and standing up holding on furniture, and generally acting like an adorable little person. She went from crawling forward to standing/holding on furniture in the span of about 2 days. It boggles my mind, this kid thing.

Lowe is starting to show preference for certain books. Her current favorites our dear Amy gave her when she was born - "Pat the Bunny" and "In My Tree" - both experiential/touching books.

Reading really calms Lowe down, and we read to her every night. The usual rotation is "Goodnight Moon" and "The Going to Bed Book."

4. Garden! The garden is producing! Over the long July 4 weekend, I pickled about 6 pints of beets and froze about a pound or two of blanched beet greens to use in sauces/soups later on.

And garlic! I pulled our garlic this morning, inspired by friends A&J, who just picked their own garlic forest. I netted about 30 heads of garlic (I'll have to look up the variety I bought - can't remember). I picked the garlic when the leaves were starting to turn brown, but there was still a lot of green left. As luck would have it, this appears to be the right time to pick garlic - when the heads of garlic are still tight and aren't loosening up too much.

Once the leaves are dry, I'll braid the garlic and we'll have garlic for at least a few months!

10 months and then some

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:37:00 +0000

Dear Lowe, aka my amazing 10 month old sweet baby girl -

Some updates about you:

Your lower 2 teeth came in on June 7 with hardly a fuss.
Your upper left tooth is coming this week - you're such a drool monster!
You LOVE poking your fingers in your mouth and playing with your teeth
In the last 2 weeks you started eating finger foods - rice puffs and black beans for now
In the last 2 weeks you went from crawling around in circles and backwards, to yesterday you did your very first crawl forward! One leg and one arm at a time. You kind of hated it.
You sit, then crawl, then move yourself back to sitting. You're getting so mobile, and it's so cool to watch.
This week your favorite thing began to be standing. STANDING PLEASE! We stand you up at your Learning Frog playtable and let go (surrounded by a sea of pillows of course) and that's pretty much heaven. You also like hanging on to the couch, or the short green ottoman. You're usually on your toes, but sometimes you stand flat-footed.
You go down for the night at 7pm, then you wake up at 5am, play for an hour or two, then go back down for a 1 hour snoozer before really starting your day. That 5am is real EARLY, FYI.
Before bedtime, we read our stories - Goodnight Moon, The Going to Bed Book, some nursery rhymes... It always calms you down - and you're so good at helping turn the pages!

Your Daddy and I love you so much - seeing you when I come home from work is the absolute highlight of my every day, and I know your Dada feels the same. I can hardly believe you're almost a year old.

Love to you on your Daddy's first father's day,

Mama

Reading in bed

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:47:00 +0000

We used to keep Lowe's Black & White developmental fold-out book propped up in her crib to keep her visually entertained before bedtime. Until she started reading in bed, that is. Here she is, caught read-handed first thing in the morning. (read? red?get it? GET IT??).

You see the problem.

Also: WHY, someone please tell me, are there 3 pacifiers in her crib? Three. Pacis. I'm... embarrassed. Or something. Not really sure what's going on with that.

Miss me?

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:38:00 +0000

Hey guys! It's me, Lowe! I'm baaaaack! I've been real busy growing big over the last 4 months!

My Mama swears she's going to start blogging again so you can see what I've been up to. So drop by again soon, k?

xoxo
Lowe-bird

Lowe was a lettle lamb

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:06:00 +0000

I bundled Lowe up for an errand the other day and put a little lamb ears cap on her. I mean, for reals, couldn't you just DIE of the cute?

Hey guys

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:02:00 +0000

This morning Matty started packing up the car in the garage for our drive to Bend tomorrow for New Year's Eve with friends.

We left Skylar out in the garage for a few minutes, and when we came back, this is what we found. What do you think, is he ready to go or what?

Good old fashioned family Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Matt's mom and sister, Kristin, were here for a few days earlier in the month to visit us (Lowe). So GG watched Lowe while Kristin, Matt and I went to go a local U-Cut farm to pick out our Christmas tree.

We're kicking off our fun old fashioned family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.

Matt, Kristin is frozen from the waist down.

Unfortunately we didn't find much in the way of big trees to cut ourselves, but instead found some delightful trees pre-cut and ready to go.

It's not going in the yard, Michelle. It's going in the living room.

I give you the Lichtenfels family Christmas tree.

Looks great! Little full, lotta sap!

It's just a little knot.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Knit Night

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:27:00 +0000

My friend Sarah hosts a bi-monthly knit night every year during the fall and winter, and this year we decided to do a little volunteer knitting for a non-profit here in Portland (in addition to our usual catching up/ dishing/ eating/ wine drinking!). The organization is called Hats & Scarves and it benefits residents of Portland. They collect hats, scarves & mittens (both adult & children's sizes) and then distribute them on an as needed basis throughout the winter.

At Sarah's request, I was honored to take a few pictures of our knitting group to send to Hats and Scarves, and here are the best of the bunch. My first non-Lowe gig using my new Nikon and 50mm lens! Although I messed up the focus/depth of field on a few shots, I think they will look just fine on a website page. In particular, this one:

Clearly I need more practice! But I had only unwrapped the camera a few nights before, and I definitely would have had a hard time achieving this shot without a flash on our Canon G9, so there's that too.

Lowe trying on a to-be-donated-hat w/ Amy:

OK, I obviously need to knit my kid some hats. She is way too cute in hand knitted items!

Sarah and her super crafty mom, Cathy - both amazing knitters and sewers:

Becky, Morgan, and Rachael:

Some of our donated hats:

OK, who knit the square hat with tassles? LOVE! Plus all the stripeys? Swoon.

All of us ladies enjoyed the opportunity to do some quick and fun projects for Hats & Scarves - though it is predictably trite to say so, it doesn't change the fact that it just felt right that we give a little more to our community this year.

And, I know I speak for ALL of us knitters when I say: many thanks to Sarah for always being a gracious and patient host and knitting teacher; to Allie who suggested Hats & Scarves; and to all the ladies who spent a few evenings this fall knitting up cozy hats for this project!

Better watch out

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:01:00 +0000

I have a few crafty things up my sleeve this Christmas but I thought I could at least share these for now - fabric banners for the cousins Anja and Lowe.

I have quite a bit of leftover fabric from baby quilts I've made over the past year or two, and have seen this idea make it around the craft blog circles....

It's triangles (or rectangles) of fabric, cut out with pinking shears (or pinking rotary cutter, in my case), which gives it a finished-unfinished edge. I made them two sided, so there are two pretty sides if the banner gets hung in a corner. After some trial and error using ribbon to string up the shapes, I used some leftover quilt binding to sandwich the pieces together, and zigzagged everything together easy-peasy-like. Each banner is about 6 feet long.

Anja's banner will match the baby quilt I made for her back in 2008, which I thought was pretty cool!

Totally fun project. I can't wait to give cousins Lowe and Anja their presents!

It's been cold 'round these parts

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:25:00 +0000

You know your city is having a cold snap when you have to put your water bottle inside your jacket to keep it from freezing absolutely solid. Also when your facial hair ices up like a frozen pharaoh beard.

Kimono

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:03:00 +0000

OMG THE CUTE!!!!

My coworker K sewed up this absolutely adorable kimono shirt for Lowe, along with some coordinating pants (which Lowe isn't wearing here). The kimono fits Lowe PERFECTLY now, and she is rocking it hard.

Grandmother Goldsmith (Matt's mom) - also known as GG - along with Matt's sister Kristin, arrive in Portland today to stay for a week. GG knows I love orange and anything to do with orange (and green) so this outfit is especially for GG.

The stockings were hung

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:56:00 +0000

By the chimney with care... Along with a half burned log apparently.

I used the chain piecing method to make the patchwork, quilted them with a swirly pattern, and FINALLY figured out how to attach the letters. The backside of each stocking is in a contrasting fabric (as are the stocking liners). I'll have to look up the fancy double-sided sheet glue delio thing I used to attach the wool, from which I painstakingly cut out each letter. That stuff was awesome. The last thing I need to do is whipstitch around the letters just to "finish" them, although the letters certainly aren't going anywhere.

If I have time, I'm planning on sewing Skylar his own stocking too. Can't leave out my little man!

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving craftiness

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:19:00 +0000

The morning of Thanksgiving I whipped up some cute fabric coasters to give to MoDa for hosting for Thanksgiving. It was a super satisfying project since it went relatively quickly and used up scraps. I need more stash/scrap-busting projects like this!

It also allowed me to use my new awesome Amy Karol gift tags. Which I deeply love.

Morgan sewed up some beautiful placemats for Thanksgiving and also a special little something for Lowe! Check out the cool bibs she gave Lowe - so neat. Thanks, Morgan!

Thankful

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:36:00 +0000

On Thanksgiving we stayed super local and spent the afternoon at our friend Morgan & Dave's house in NE Portland, where we had a delicious meal and caught up with friends. Lowe wore her new holiday outfit that Mama bought especially for her at Hanna Andersson a few weeks ago. Here is Morgan holding the little squisheroo:

Snowflake tights with butt ruffle - couldn't you just DIE of cuteness??

Yes, Lowe's baby hair is almost all completely gone, except for what I call her "Jean-Luc Picard" 'do. Apparently we loved it all off.

Unfortunately, Lowe has been, how do you say, irregular lately? Um, yeah. Which, apparently is quite normal in breastfed babies - and, bonus! - also inconvenient. In any case, I had a gut feeling (if you will, ha ha ha hahaaa ha) that we might have ourselves a little holiday blowout special. Indeed, Lowe only got to wear her outfit for a short while before Matty and I changed her - tag-team triage style - into her pajamas for the rest of the afternoon.

Around the dinner table we each took a turn talking about what we're most thankful for - one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions. You might not know this about me, but I am a big sap, and usually cry when I talk about what I am most thankful for. This year was no different.

I am so thankful for my beautiful baby girl Lowe, and that her and I are both healthy and thriving. We are so lucky, and so blessed to have a partner and Daddy that is so thoughtful and caring and brimming full of love for the two of us and our big puppers, Skylar. We have a good life, our little family.

Ladygrass quilt

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:59:00 +0000

Here is (AT LAST) the quilt I made for Lowe! I mean really, what kind of Rustygrass would I be if I didn't sew a quilt for my own child?

1. Originally I made the patchwork into a duvet cover for Matty and I - about 2 years ago. I wanted to do something special for our bed - since I had never sewed a quilt for myself or Matt. I finished the duvet cover, and we put it on the bed with our down comforter...and roasted our pants off. It was so, so, so hot, not even I could stand it. Like, don't even try to wear pajamas to bed and turn the AC on hot. The patchwork helps create a lot of warmth, who knew?

2. I decided to turn the pieced patchwork into a lap quilt for Matt and I. I put the quilt top together with some batting and backing fabric, and being stumped as to how to quilt a square patchwork top, I started quilting in the ditch...aanndddd I hated it with a fiery, fiery passion. Stitching in the ditch wasn't working for me. And I hated the backing fabric I had chosen.

3. Half-finished ugly quilt sits in closet for a year.

4. I decide to turn the quilt into Lowe's quilt. . But remember, I hated the backing fabric! And the ditch stitching bothered me. Sarah and her incredibly talented quilter of a mom advised me to Just! Keep! At it! Do some log-cabin style quilting! So I took their informed advice...and ignored it and proceeded to rip out ALL of the quilting stitches.

4. With a fresh slate, I added a sweet Amy Butler backing, some contrasting binding, and finally finished the quilt!

Skylar approves.

Now, after all that, I'm not saying the quilt is A Masterpiece, but it was a labor of annoyance, then of love, and Lowe inspired me to keep at it until it was just perfect for the little squishee that she is.

Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:33:00 +0000

First off, a picture of Lowe on Halloween, in her First Halloween onesie that Auntie Sara got for her! Lowe was totally hamming it up for the pictures.

Lowe started getting a little antsy and the photoshoot's final straw was when Mama insisted Lowe put on a stripey hat to match her pants. Too many stripes Mama!

Sarah has already posted on the Halloween zombie party we attended at our friend Becky and Will's. One of the best pictures is the normally beautiful Sarah dressed as a gross zombie and pretending to eat Lowe!

I went as "The Other Mother" from Coraline, and Matt went as Edward Cullen from "Twilight". Hott!

Note the sparkles (We're going sparkling!). I might have tried to hairspray them to Matt's face. I'm just saying.

Lowe went as a pumpkin. Awww...

Here she's all like, what the hell did you dress me in woman? I am not impressed. I told you I wanted to be a munchkin.

The best part of Matt dressing up as Edward Cullen is 1) Him wanting to be my DREAM-BOY-HOT-VAMPIRE (because, oh em gee! Funny.) and 2) Matt prepping for his role by reading these awesome but totally true recaps on Cracked.

Sea-town

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:44:00 +0000

I'm finally clearing my backlog of blogging from back in October! Forgive? Seriously, we have taken about a hojillion pictures of Lowe and mygod, do you KNOW what kind of motivation it takes to sift through them sometimes? You know how when you have a big project, you can get paralyzed with fear of the thing? And then proceed to do exactly nothing to tackle pieces of the project? Yeah. Well. Guilty.

So, back in October, Matty left for Cheyenne for an energy audit for 2 weeks (he came back over the weekend in between weeks! Relax! No dead beat Dads over here). I sent the Skylark off to go hike Mt. Tabor w/ his buddy D. for a couple days and Lowe and I trekked up to Silverdale and Seattle to visit Gramma and Granddad B. and Granduncles and some of our Seattle friends who hadn't had a chance to meet Lowe.

This was Granduncle Stevie's first time meeting Lowe! Needless to say, they hit it off.

Kisses and playtime w/ Granddad!

Snuggling w/ Gramma - and they didn't even plan to get all matchy-matchy! The two of them were so sweet together:

Lowe was a little fussy going to bed that night, but she is quickly soothed by singing and humming. Fortunately Gramma and Granddad are expert musicians with a repertoire far beyond Mama's, and Granddad sang Lowe to sleep so I could visit with Gramma in peace!

(It's true, when I run out of depressing Modest Mouse songs to sing to Lowe, or tire of making up words to "Hush Little Baby", I dig deep into the Christmas tunes. Because you know, Burl Ives and Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls are like the best. This will work until Lowe figures out I'm singing her seasonally inappropriate songs.)

Once we said our goodbyes to the fam, we then jetted off to Seattle to squeeze in a few visits with dear friends.

Amy & Lowe - night owls and fish faces.

Jen introducing Lowe to her first Rainier beer. I expect no less from my best firefighting girl! (Jen and I fought wildfires together for the Oregon Department of Forestry back in the late '90s. Oh gaw, am I dating myself?)

Then we had dinner w/ Tracy & Adam. Tracy of the knitted green baby sweater fame! How darling is Lowe in it? Here are some more pictures we took at home. Granted, *I* think she looks like a Wizard of Oz munchkin in these shots! Sorry, sometime I am maybe not the best photographer, but I also for the record, would like to blame it on the overcast Portland day.

Our visit up north was short, but a nice lil' adventure while Daddy was out of town.

What's next on the blogging horizon? Halloween maybe? Fortunately I get out of writing a long post on that one! Stay tuned.

Let's go!

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:05:00 +0000

Lowe thought she would try to stow away in Daddy's luggage before his business trip to Cheyenne. Nice try little birdie!

Auntie & Lowe

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:05:00 +0000

Taken the weekend the whole fam was here in October, this is one of my absolutely favorite photos of Auntie Sara and Lowe.

Day Trippin'

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:03:00 +0000

While Dad & Bev were in town, not ONLY did we go to the pumpkin patch, Lowe had her first trip to the mountains!

Lowe visited Mt. Hood's Timberline Lodge with Mama, Grammy, and Grampy:

(Note her Made in Portland t-shirt! A gift from our friend Lyza)

She learned about the history of the lodge but didn't quite get to see the top of Mt. Hood because of the fog. Though it didn't rain!

On the same trip, we went to Multnomah Falls, driving through the rain to get back to the Columbia Gorge. Just as we got to the falls, the rain stopped and we were able to enjoy the scenery! We climbed to the top of Multnomah Falls, which was 1 mile and 13 switchbacks up to the top!:

And Lowe played peekaboo with Mama at the falls!

A few days later we spent an afternoon visiting the Japanese and Rose Gardens here near downtown Portland - again, we just missed getting drenched by the rain! The Japanese Garden is considered the most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan. And the fall colors were in full glory - gorgeous orange, yellow, and red foliage everywhere.

At the Rose Garden, Mama kept taking pictures of Lowe with roses and petals on her head! Like she was a wee prop or something! But really, who could resist? Babies + Roses = Cute Overload.

Our final day trip with Dad and Bev was up to Mt. St. Helens, and Matty was able to play hooky from work for the day and come with us! It was crazy raining on our drive to the Johnson Observatory (about an hour drive from the St. Helens visitors center), but the clouds parted in time for us to get a spectacular view of the mountain.

When we arrived at the observatory:

After about a half hour!

It also happened to be the time of year of the western toad migration, so all over the sidewalks there were little bitty toads hopping about!

Our trips were a true Oregon experience - trying to be crafty enough to dodge the rain, while seeing as much of the local scenery as possible! More pictures are up on Flickr, so head there if you want to see some more!

Happy 3 Month Bday

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:27:00 +0000

Dearest Lowe Syd-

Hey little boo. You are 3 months old! And you make the ruffle pants I made for you look ridiculously cute! I'd write more about how awesome you are but you are currently crying up a storm because your pacifier OMG PEOPLE is not in your mouth, where you currently prefer it to be at almost all times.

Though I should mention that last night you had a hard time going to sleep and so your daddy brought you into his arms to take a nap with him on the couch. I came to check on you two - turned towards each other, daddy's big hand on your belly keeping you calm and warm, both snuggling contentedly and peaceful - and I just started crying big warm, wet tears on the spot.

Because my family, it is so, so beautiful.

All my love,
Mama

Bridgetown Velo Girl

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:45:00 +0000

*Updated picture of Lowe in her onesie*

*Way cuter, I might add. Even though it doesn't show her belly to its mightiest level of awesomeness.*

In which we consume many donuts and good beer

noreply@blogger.com (ml) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:21:00 +0000

Last week we had my sister Sara's family and my Dad M. and (almost!) stepmom, Bev in town. We had an awesome visit - hitting a pumpkin patch, then Timberline Lodge, Multnomah Falls, Portland's Japanese Gardens, and Mt. St. Helen's.

Here's a tasting from our pumpkin patch trip to Kruger's Farm out on Sauvie's Island, a farming community about 15 minutes from downtown Portland.

Hayride!

Pumpkins!

Local organic beer! Fresh donuts and caramel apples! Mmmmm donutzzzzzzzzzzzz nom nom......

Apparently Lowe came from the Great Pumpkin, who dressed her in a fleecey one size too big:

The proud grandparents, Grammy & Grampy:

Matt, Michelle, and Lowe:

Jeff, Anthony, Sara, and Anja:

Anja made a game out of petting baby Lowe's head and then clapping - yay!! Anthony (Jeff's son) flexed his muscle holding L3:

We had a good time, didn't we Anja? (Suugggaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)