For nighttime, it’s so wonderful to have a waterproof mat for the bed.  With Ella, we had some but they were too small, plus they were plastic on one side, so they made awful crinkly noises all night long.  Not so great for, you know, sleeping.

I remember someone saying a year or two ago that they had felted down a wool blanket from the thrift store to make a water-resistant sleeping mat, and I thought, Aha!  I’ve never found a wool blanket (who are these lucky thrifters?), but I did have a pile of sweaters that were worn out/shrunken, and a few I got from the thrift store just for this.  I cut them apart, felted them (on hot in the washing machine – it took two cycles for some of them), then squared up the biggest body pieces, and sewed them together.  Viola – a water-resistant, absorbent, not-crinkly sleeping mat for baby.  Nice and big, too.  (A quick aside here – when we started ECing with Ella at five months, we really focused on the nighttime, and it was amazing.  Within a week or two she stopped waking to pee in the night, and would only pee while sleeping when she was coming down with an illness.  We used, and I highly recommend, the book Diaper Free.)  I’ll use the sleeves from those sweaters to sew some wool pants.

Lastly, these booties have nothing to do with being diaper free, but that’s alright.  This is the fourth pair of these I’ve made, but the first for my own baby.  I’m in love with this colorway, it makes me think of raspberries.  Yummy.

On Sunday, we had a big tri-birthday celebration, aka a pie extravaganza.  I proposed to my dear friend Seth, and our farm apprentice Jeanine (the other two birthdays) that we try birthday pies instead of birthday cake, and they gamely agreed.  And oh my, it was fabulous.  Cauliflower-Potato Pie, Chicken Pot Pie, Buttercup Squash Pie (the best “pumpkin” pie you’ll ever have), Apple Sour Cream Pie, and Rhubarb Pie.  Ben had planned to make Chocolate Mousse Pie, but spent all day down at the fields getting ready for winter wheat planting – so I suppose we can forgive him! So why a photo of an empty crust?  Because I was too busy eating the pies to photograph them, sorry!  I have to tell you, it is all about the birthday pies.  Yup.

(Ben and Jeanine discing the bean field at home with Cole last weekend)

It’s probably going to be quiet here this week – we’re super busy getting the fields planted in next year’s wheat, getting ready to meet our brand new nephews (born this morning!), and then this weekend, we’re off to Animal Powered Field Days.  Plus the usual animal care, harvesting, baking, fencing, etc etc . . . you know how it goes!  Wishing you all a wonderful week.

Here’s the booties for the new wee ones (so close to finished!), and a hat for their big sis, which Ella is now claiming is hers.  Hmmm.