I have this image of a new bird pattern in my head, but every time I put it on paper, cut it out, and sew it up--disaster! Oh and I do mean disaster--laughably disasterous! So I'm giving my mind a little break (I'm hoping I'll just envision my pattern perfectly during one of those middle of the night genius moments) and am back to working on my regular birds...with a new twist.

It rained (or drizzled) all weekend and amazingly it inspired me--birds and...umbrellas! Well, my thought started out as umbrellas, but visions of hot sunny days changed my thinking over to parasols.

Lovely flower parasols for lovely little birds.

This bird is only about 3" (from beak tip to the start of her tail) so she is about an inch smaller than my other birds. Tiny, but really quire the perfect size for using a flower to shade herself with...

Record highs--it's so nice after all this cold wet spring weather. We're due for rain again shortly, so we've been taking advantage of these nice warm sunny days. The girls have enjoyed their time going for long walks, blowing bubbles, chasing the cat around the yard, looking at the crocuses and the may flowers, and getting to play in their...

..little pool. Lot's of splashing and lots of playing in the warm sun. Oh it's so nice to have warmth and sun if only for a little while!

As soon as the rain appears I'll be back to unpacking the summer clothes and packing tup he winter clothes. I have been about halfway through my packing for several days now and I'm quite sure everyone would appreciate it if I would finish up and get the boxes out of the hallways. Oh yes, I will finish...just as soon as it rains. For now I'm just busy enjoying the sun!

Signs of Spring...

emerging from the decaying fall leaves.

At last, it's here!

Finished my violet bird and started in on this little fellow.
An orange and off-white bird...

...we'll call him Creamsicle!

He still needs a tail and some real eyes (those are pins you see there), but he's cute all the same, isn't he?

Oh what can I say, April is a strange month. Just a little over a week ago it looked like this after a huge snow storm...

The heavy, wet, snow snapped trees in half, ripped off branches, and left us without power for half a day (and left us with a whole lotta shoveling to do.)

And now here we are today with our nor'easter (this picture taken several hours after high tide just as things are starting to calm down a bit)...

We've had 50mph wind gust, lots of rain, extra high tides and consequently lots of flooding. We took a quick ride out to see the ocean, but had to be content with a far off view as every road by the ocean was underwater and therefore...closed. What we did see of the ocean was amazing though, huge walls of white churning water--incredible!

What a crazy, crazy month so far! One can only wonder...what's next? Warm weather and lots of sun? Now wouldn't that be nice!

It's raining, snowing, sleeting and windy--in other words we're experiencing a nor'easter and...I don't care. Let it do what it wants outside--we just learned my husband is going to be a JAG so we're busy celebrating!

And until Spring shows up--I'll just keep enjoying these lovely flowers.

It was a grey and gloomy morning and by noon we had a rain, snow, sleet, hail, slush mix falling from the sky. No beach, no kite flying for us today. It was, however, a perfect day for me to work on some brightly colored birds.

Pictures of my latest bird as promised.

Check out those curls!

She's missing her wings and her tail isn't sewn on yet, but she's pretty charming looking nevertheless.

And if the weather is as bad tomorrow as it has been today...well maybe I'll have time to make up a little friend for her!

Today was not quite warm, but not quite cold, so we packed the girls up and headed to the beach. After a nice walk, the girls and I settled in a pleasant sandy spot that was slightly sheltered from the breeze and my husband got to play with his Easter gift...a stunt kite!
My husband and I had bought a stunt kite shortly before we were married. My husband was quite skilled at flying it, but I was...well...I was quite skilled at creating spectacular kite crashes. Sadly after a few too many violent encounters with terra firma our kite broke and was never replaced. My husband has often lamented the loss of our stunt kite and so when I spotted this one--well I knew I had to buy it for him!
So we all had quite a bit of fun today. I watched my husband fly the kite (I'd like this kite to last a little longer than the first so I have decided not to fly it), Pookie chased sea gulls and played with shells, and Fig ate sand (I tried to stop her but she's sneaky and fast!) Oh what a glorious day and to think it's supposed to snow tomorrow! *sigh*
Oh, I also enjoyed reading this article today about the concert violinist in the D.C. metro. Something worth reading and thinking about perhaps...

After a rather long break, I'm back to making up some new birds--my "spring collection" as I call them. There will be lots of curls, bright colors, and pretty flowers--very spring like! I don't have any pictures of the spring birds yet (they are not really picture ready at the moment), but I have some other birds I can show you.
How about a picture of the very first bird I made? (and please don't laugh!) Yes, that was the very first bird. I wanted to be sure my pattern worked so I grabbed some cheap felt, sewed quickly, and tah dah! awkward-looking-homely-green-bird!
My second attempt, this time using "real" fabric, looks somewhat better.
Not perfect, but I really love this little fellow all the same. He proudly displays my first ever attempt at bird legs. They're big, crooked, gangly...I had no idea that legs were going to be so hard!
And now look...
...from ugly green bird to this pretty little flock! Amazing how much they've changed, isn't it?
And now back to my spring birds!

I ran out yesterday to grab a few little Easter gifts for the girls.

Some rubber duckie tub toys for Fig as bath time and bath toys are currently Fig's favorite things in life.

And a bright red water can and little pink trowel for Pookie. They'll go with this:

A little gardening apron I've embroidered for Pookie.

I figure Pookie is old enough to try out a little gardening...or at least definetly old enough to water plants. (She loves pouring water on everything!) I'm going to get a few seeds to tuck in the apron pocket. I'm thinking of grabbing some string beans, sunflowers, and sweet peas.

I'm still trying to think of something to make for Fig. It's harder to come up with something for an eight month old...and I'm running out of time.

Oh and then there was this little impulse buy yesterday as well.

I was looking for the meringue powder and saw these cookie cutters. They are so tiny and so cute--I just couldn't pass them by!

And today we...

watched all the snow falling down. (You can't see the snow in the picture, but trust me it's there!) I know it's only April...and it is New England...but still...snow?! We want Spring back!

Easter is only a week away, so it seemed like it was about time to start baking some cookies!

After making some sugar cookie dough, I pulled out the cookie cutters.

I knew Fig was too little to help cook, but I thought Pookie might be old enough to give it a try. I handed her a cookie cutter and showed her how it worked.

But cutting out cookies wasn't really Pookie's thing. The dough was far more fascinating than the cookie cutter could ever be. You see, Pookie thought the dough was "bugger" (Pookie speak for butter, her favorite food) and all she wanted to do was try and eat handfuls of it.

There was raw egg in the dough, not really something Pookie should eat, so I sent Pookie off to play and cut the cookies out myself.

Chicks, flowers, and eggs--the perfect Easter cookie shapes.

Then we whipped up icing. I colored the icing a bright yellow for the chicks, showed Pookie how to ice a cookie, and told her to try a bite. "Bleh!" Pookie said and immediatley downed a glass of water. "It's not bleh" I informed her as I took a large bite. But oh was I wrong about that! It was worse than bleh!
...so tomorrow we will ice cookies, but first we will go out and buy some meringue powder for a new batch of icing. Apparently cream of tartar is not the same thing as meringue powder. Yes, I think tomorrow's icing might taste just a tad bit better if we change that one little thing...