family

  • a clutter-free advent calendar, updated.

    When I first posted about our plans for a clutter-free advent calendar, Faye was a wee thing of 19-months. That original list of holiday activities has all the hallmarks of a family with one…

    November 29, 2018 18 Comments
  • baby proof: bedtime stories lately.

    Both of my kids are off at school these days and it’s meant that at the end of the day they don’t have quite the stamina for the multi-book bedtimes that we’ve been used…

    November 15, 2018 35 Comments
  • sharp knives, fresh bread, and (good) timing.

    The notes of the grinding truck bell rang through our open windows just as I’d taken my first bite of peanut-buttery toast. Clang, clang, clang. Clang, Clang. I left my breakfast behind, sloshed my…

    September 24, 2018 13 Comments
  • habit shift: morning people.

    I’m a morning person. A slow, leisurely kind of morning person. A morning person who doesn’t want to be rushed out of bed. I’ll pad to the bathroom bright and early, but my goodness,…

    September 5, 2018 19 Comments
  • habit shift: packing lunch.

    If you’re reading this on the day of publication then we’re likely either chugging along the Connecticut shoreline en route to my parents’ house—or else we’re running like maniacs through the corridors of Grand…

    July 26, 2018 71 Comments
  • things you can do today.

    It is easy to be decent to speechless things. To hang houses for the purple martins To nest in. To bed down the horses under The great white wing of the year’s first snow.…

    June 19, 2018 18 Comments
  • lead paint, a brief primer.

    On my first morning of the fifth grade, I got dressed for school from the comfort of a campground. My three sisters and I, along with our mom, had spent the summer living with…

    June 18, 2018 17 Comments
  • gift guide: father’s day.

    For anyone looking ahead to giving the fathers in their lives a little something special on Father’s Day this year, here are a few ideas for the sweet, silly, sensitive, caring, compassionate, and crafty fathers in…

    June 7, 2018 9 Comments
  • make/do: for earth day.

    Becoming a parent has made me realize just how much of young childhood is centered around the seasons and celebrating them. (Thank goodness.) Of course, celebrating seasonal change was already very much my bag,…

    April 18, 2018 22 Comments