dawn beach

happy that we had a fun and sunny beach day yesterday.

tropical storm tomas is traveling just south of us.

we should be spending time indoors again for the next few days.

fall is finally here

it is finally fall here. i can finally feel the temperature drop because in the evenings i wear the socks i knit last fall and often go back to my closet to pull out my auc hoodie that michael got for me when we moved here. at night when we are sleeping we all have on long sleeved and long legged pajamas and i pull the covers over my head in the middle of the night because the air conditioning is so cold. of course when i go outside it is still hot beach weather, but the trade winds have been blowing and i needn't have my car's air conditioning on full blast - in fact i have to turn it down or i get cold.

what's more is that the sun sets at 6:00 and that makes for cooler afternoons in the house and earlier bedtimes for ezra and i. today we spent the whole day inside. i cleaned, rearranged the furniture, went through my stack of crafts, threw some away, put others aside, and then made some fall decorations with ezra.

we used some water color paintings that we had made weeks ago and i cut out some fall shapes. then i taped some of our fabulous transparent paper on the back along with some double sided tape for hanging and ezra placed them on our sliding glass doors.

the afternoon sun glows warmly through the shapes so nicely, i'm glad i did these on a whim. ezra asked me to make thomas and percy, hence the blue and green ones that i happened to have because i recently picked up some more for the holidays.

we baked fresh rolls from scratch this afternoon and had them with our carrot soup at dinner. our diets have shifted from being more raw to regular cooked vegan fare - mostly in the evenings and still having green smoothies at breakfast and salad for lunch. as i write this i can see my belly bulge from eating more bread, but i don't care... that much.

the letter E

we made this name banner last week with some pretty transparent paper we picked up at van dorp - our local dutch office supply store. they carry special products like transparent paper from holland that i've been wanting to make window stars out of. but, that is a project for me and not for ezra, so we started off making this sun together. i drew the sun with pencil and ezra glued down all the squares of paper.

the coolest thing about the transparent paper is it's transparency. when you overlap the colors you can see how yellow and red make orange which ezra himself pointed out to me.

i am so proud of his excellent fine motor skills -

being a former first grade teacher i can't help myself.

i've been working on getting more organized with teaching ezra his letters and numbers. we talk about them all the time and have letters scattered around the house, on the fridge, on his felt board, in his play-dough tool bucket, and on a great wooden alphabet puzzle made in germany. ezra will say, 'there's the letter s' or g, v, t etc.. he's learned what he knows thus far just from his environment and because he is showing such an interest in letter recognition, i am gearing up to teach him his letters montessori style. but, he surprised me yesterday by sitting at his table and writing the letter E with his crayon all by himself.

michael and i high-fived him, cheered and i grabbed the camera. he proceeded to write the rest of the letters of his name and trace the felt letters of his name that i made from our felt board. it was so exciting to see him do this without me having ever shown him how to do that. later he went in michael's office with him and started writing his E's all over michael's whiteboard. i came in to see and he said, "i like studying with daddy."

he's been showing us all kinds of things he knows lately and not only identifies letters around him but shapes too. when we were coming up from the pool today and waiting for the elevator he noticed the triangle on the digital screen above the elevator to symbolize the elevator going up. i said, "you know so many things ezra." and he proceeded to count up from thirty... "thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two ..., thirty-nine, thirty-ten, thirty-eleven, thirty-twelve." i love it when little kids do that.

this moment

itty bitty knits

so i've been a knitting maniac lately. every night when ezra goes to bed i sneak back out to the living room to work up some new creation for his ever growing collection of mama knit toys. i got this wonderful book, itty bitty toys, from susan b. anderson and it has fulfilled my needs as a knitter living on a tropical island with no need for knitwear. thankfully i have a three year old son who loves playing with his animals and this recent interest in his creative play has flourished.

first we have 'lola' whom ezra named after our real dog lola back home in california

(sunny our other dog is in the works)

this pattern is called 'wrap me up puppies' because you knit

a little blanket for them to be rolled up in

great practical life skills are taught

while trying to button the little bobble button

then... i absolutely love this and so does ezra. i made a little nest and egg....

that is reversible and turns into a little blue bird when you turn it inside out!

there are several reversible patterns in this book

and i think i am going to make every one of them i love this pattern so much

ezra of course asked for a mama bird

so i modified the original pattern slightly to make this bigger bird.

i can't keep up with his requests fast enough,

but have been able to make one item in a day or two.

this is sookie.

i found the pattern for her on ravelry.

it's an amigurumi crochet pattern and it was super fun to make.

i find all these toy patterns very satisfying to make with quality yarn.

they knit up very fast and give me

all the satisfaction knitting brings me.

here she stands next to 'pingu' the first toy i knit for ezra from the book.

after receiving pingu with much delight he asked for 'sookie.'

(ezra is obsessed with this show pingu

and he and daddy named pingu's little sister sookie)

here is sookie after i made her purple feet (cringe) per ezra's request...

i'm currently working on another bluebird in her egg and nest for a birthday present for a little one year old island baby friend. am also knitting up sunny and another blanket and have many toys in the queue for the holidays. happy knitting!

sparkling sea video

sparkling sea

today could've been a bad day. last night's sleep wasn't restful due to a shower michael took in the middle of the night before he went to sleep, a bed made wet by the little boy who sleeps beside me, and a low level headache pulsating on my skull all night long making its way into a migraine. but, this morning when michael woke up, ezra followed him and allowed me to sleep in until 8:00. when i got out to the living room ezra had already taken out the play-dough by himself and was happily keeping himself busy.

while he rolled out the play-dough and cut out suns, stars, and moons, i made pancakes. usually i don't indulge in these myself, but today i did. and because they aren't made with any sugar i thought it would be okay to spread some nutella on them and roll them up. this and two cups of my favorite tea definitely started to make the day feel manageable (along with the ibuprofen i downed with my water). ez and i retreated back to the bedroom afterward, per his request, onto the bed where he played with a knit bird that i made, did some bead lacing, and played with his stuffed dogs, sunny and lola, while i knit some more, checked out some of my favorite blogs, folded laundry and had a long stretched out morning. when i walked out to water the plants on the balcony the sun was sparkling on the sea like glitter.

these moments of sheer beauty on this island always have me stopping and thanking my lucky stars. yesterday morning i took a quick dip into our ocean (our beach is finally back) before michael went into his office for a full day and night of study. he literally goes into his office, shuts the door and we don't see him until he comes out to eat. i miss him so much and sometimes i get upset and vent my frustrations to him. afterward i always feel guilty because he has to study all day and i have to play all day (and clean and cook and clean and cook). but, most of the time i am so grateful that he has brought us here to this paradise to follow his dream, even if it means we can't always share it with him and that i sometimes feel like all i do is clean and cook and clean and cook. he is working so hard for our family and for that i am grateful. all i have to do is take a look or a swim at that sparkling sea and my mind is transformed.

some of the other things that have made me smile lately and feel grateful are:

ezra's new spiderman costume that has him spinning webs

and excited to celebrate halloween in costume,

a surprise package to ezra from pc and kevin,

the wonderful owners of our amazing temporary residence here.

ezra was so happy to open this up and discover many books just to his liking

i.e. penguins, curious george, dr. seuss, berenstain bears, and more!

a successful return trip to the carousel with ezra's new friend bianca.

seeing his excitement and watching him smile and laugh on his first carousel ride was exhilarating.

watching ezra play with bianca, who is also 3,

and getting to share these joyous moments

with her mother catrine has been fun.

what he does, she does.

they laugh together and enjoy the same games.

it's completely adorable.

beautiful sunsets always end our days here.

but when you happen to be at the beach for one, they are ever more magical.

carousel

we talked about it for days.

when we got there there were no children.

it just sat there with the music blaring in the background.

ezra stood and stared in awe.

he noticed all the details.

he pointed to a scene on the top and said,

"that's our island,"

they also had a scene of piazza san marco.

ezra watched it for a very long time

with very big eyes.

he stood very still.

back inside this dazzling chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling.

they had large clear dispensers of haribo candy

with ezra's favorite frogs.

we got a ticket to ride

but we ended up coming back inside.

ezra decided the carousel was for big kids.

here he is telling me,

"it's not for me."

"okay ezra," i said. and we got haribo gummy frogs instead.

maybe next time we'll come back and try some ice cream.