My daughter got a **sewing machine** and 3 sewing lessons from someone far more proficient than I am. I'm hoping she'll get good enough for us to try some of your sewing projects ;-).

I noticed that star with the pink squares on it in the first photo and figured that was one that you had done while Maia was at school because I thought it looked so funky and cool – Go Daphne with the back of the stamp! I hope we'll have time to try this project this season. If we don't manage it for Christmas maybe we'll do hearts for Valentine's…

That is VERY exciting, about your book! Congratulations, and don't lose heart at the last of the slog.

Jean, I am stealing this idea! I am going to hang the drop cloths on our backyard fence and I'm curious how you got yours grommeted? Do you have a grommet-putter-inner or did you take them somewhere? This is going to be such a fun project – thanks for the inspiration!

How beautiful! I'm curious about how well the contact paper stuck to the box while the flowers were being applied. I imagine frustration happening if it came unstuck…?

That is how my house is too! Purple couch with bright patchwork quilt on it, light red rug, sari-patterned curtains. Although at this point the rug is tinged with dingy beige from the dog and the mud…

I'm fascinated by these stories of toddlers not wanting to manipulate playdough! My daughter love, love, looooooved it from the very beginning. Making it together was certainly part of the fun, but she loved it when it came in the little canisters too. I should make some soon, actually, it's been a long time.

The other day my daughter decoupaged one of the beams in our loft with school glue and white paper. Not my favorite thing she's ever done!

These are so cute! But I don't think I'm ready for Valentine's Day yet. I was planning to make felted heart boxes this year but I haven't even thought about starting yet. BTW, we made a frozen cranberry wreath the other day, thanks to your blog. It turned out beautiful, and we hung it on the front door (which turned out to be a bit shortsighted because it dripped red cranberry drips down the door). Next time we'll hang it on the fence, and I'd like to use some greenery too. Maybe I can get a heart cake pan and make a frozen Valentine!

We’d love to have her!

So lovely! Let Maia know that we have a cat named Rosabelle!

How exciting! Congratulations!

We didn't go through copying so much in K last year, maybe because she wasn't in a traditional K, but I did worry because I felt like she had somehow "lost" her creativity or her interest in making art. She had a lot of resistance to drawing or even painting, which kind of freaked me out! This year though, she seems to have grown back into it, and her artwork has a bunch of new dimensions to it. She now fills the page on her own almost every time, and is much more relaxed and confident. Even as a smaller child she would be very frustrated if she couldn't draw things "right," the way she saw them in her head. Now I am seeing more acceptance (though she did bring a self portrait home from school today and say "I know it's horrible"). Maybe there is a developmental anti-creativity stage that happens around Kindergarten? I'm being a little tongue in cheek because of course they are not anti-creative. But I am interested that so many people seem to have seen the same thing at around the same age.

I love it! You are such a good mom for celebrating the pages spread all over the floor… I hope I'd be so tolerant! I wanted to tell you that I gave P art supplies from Discount School Supply for her birthday last weekend: big watercolor paper, liquid watercolors, and glitter glue, all a direct result of reading your recommendations. She loved it, and spent a long time on her birthday making 4 or 5 big, beautiful, *glittery* paintings. If I remember someday when it's light out I'll take some photos and send them to you! Thanks so much.