LED xmas lights

Lily would love to get some LED xmas lights; strings of any length, white is her favorite color but any colors would be appreciated, I would prefer the battery powered ones for safety. I've seen some online, not in any brick & mortar stores I visit. 

Baby's favorite band, Finnish folksters, Värttinä. 

We have Oi Dai, and Ilmatar, she'd love any other albums, or DVDs. Stuff available through their own website, the North Side Records site, and Amazon. 

Or just check out their videos!

Thanks Grandpa!

We got some $$$ from Grandpa, and ordered some new toys and things for fall. The box came today, and Lily got to open the package with my utility knife, something she really loves to do.We got some really cool stuff from Nova Naturals. Wool PJs are the thing I'm most excited about, because apparently I have a pretty boring life. OK, I like to know that bebe is warm, even though my house is chilly in the winter. A wool hood will let us bike to gymnastics today, even though it's, as bebe says "biting cold" outside - it's cozy warm but thin enough to fit comfortably under her bike helmet. Also, it's great for playing "little Red Cap" which we tend to do pretty frequently. What else? Another silk, in harvest gold, because you can never have too many silks. We've got that on the seasonal table with the new Fire Stacker. We already had Air (a rainbow) and Earth (a cave). We took a few minutes to give it a nice coat of beeswax wooden toy polish, then built a few towers. Then we played "stacker store" a game where I pretend to sell bebe stackers. Pretty good so far for a rainy November day. Crows are crowing outside, and we're listening to bebe's favorite folk mix playlist - Kulgrinda, Varttina, Vasen, and her Uncle Pip's homemade recordings of his own inimitable heathen folk songs.

more WISH List

Child's pentatonic flute, 

songbooks, 

wooden stacker toys 

- especially the "water" one (we have the other elements.)

catapults - either this little indoor one

or a big outdoor one from Backyard Artillery 

a learner bike like one of these 1 2 3

gigantic blocks

a kid's bow & arrow set

a play kitchen

a good quality doll like - 

Noel, Sophie, Sea Dream, or Anita, 

wooden vehicles,

games, 

Spiral Scouts uniform:

top (color: "old ivy", size: 110)

pants (color: khaki, size: 110) 

socks (color: khaki, size: 7-9)

Cooling Weather

So, I just spent a large chuck of our household budget this month on winter clothes. 

We tend to be pretty frugal with the heat in the house - guests sometimes drop not so subtle hints about how you save money setting the thermostat at blah blah blah, higher temperature than mine is set, and how landlords are legally required to keep the heat at a minimum temperature that is higher than my apartment. Well, sorry. I don't mean to make anyone uncomfortable, and no, I'm really not trying to make a point about us being "vikings." I just don't like to run the heater; it's my personal preference to keep it chilly, and bundle up. We also like to spend a lot of time outside, and don't stop enjoying the outdoors just because the seasons change. We don't wish we lived somewhere else, we actually like it here, we live in Chicago by choice. 

So... we wear woolens all the time. All day everyday we have an under layer of wool. At night we air out the daytime woolens and snuggle under wool blankets in nighttime woolens. No, they are not hard to care for. No, they do not itch. But they are expensive in the sense that they cost more than cotton long-johns, which makes sense, they are better than cotton in every way, including longevity. (Bebe outgrows hers, I figure I need to replace her long-johns and wool union suit PJs every other year, on alternate years. I'm getting myself some new ones to replace the lovely silk ones my Grandma Madge gave me close to 15 years ago. I'm sure they would have lasted longer if I had taken better care of them too!) Over the long run I know woolens cost much less, even before you figure in the house-heating costs, and the value of being outside in the wonderful winter time. But in the short run, it's a large chunk of cash out of my pocket. 

I'm sure the Finns who raise the organic sheep and craft the garments deserve every penny, as do the little family-run eco-friendly shops that I get them from but all the same it's hard for me to enjoy spending money on myself when we are getting so close to toy buying season - boy do I love to buy my baby toys!!! I think I inherited this trait from my Dad, man did he love to go nuts on Christmas when we were kids, stacking the gifts up higher than the kids. :)

Wish Lists

The good news is, Bebe doesn't need much - she has loads of nice toys already, after the UPS guys get here with our packages we'll have all the clothes we need until after the weather gets warm next year. 

We also like to keep things simple: this is our philosophy - encouraging creativity and character by having fewer but better toys. There is also a space factor - most Americans really can't quite understand just how very, very tiny our apartment is. We have no garage, no extra room for anything, everything we have needs to be high quality because we simply do not have room for loads of mediocre stuff. We like to have room to play, and have only so much space for stuff. So please excuse the awkwardness of this, but I need to give a list of Please No's: 

PLEASE, NO Stuffed Animals, 

No Plastic, 

No Electronics,* 

No Media tie-ins - that is nothing with licensed characters

So what kinds of things would we like to get? We like old-fashioned toys - Lincoln Logs, a slinky, wooden blocks, that kind of stuff. If you have an old fashioned, Amish, or "classic" toy store you like, cool! If not, or if you are looking for specific things we want, look at the links at the to right hand side of this page. Those are "Waldorf-y" kinds of stores that we like, they all have very good customer service too. They will have wish lists for us, and if you can't decide you can always call them, they are very nice people. If you want to get bebe clothes, we prefer organics please, and you can get them at Hanna Andersson, as well as a few other places. Gift Certificates from HA are always welcome too, we get our undies and PJs, and Spiral Scouts uniforms and stuff from there. 

Since I gave that list of NOs, here is a list of ALWAYS's

WE ALWAYS WANT:

Paint** (especially from the stores above) 

Paper (same) 

Other craft materials from same stores:

Wool felt, Beeswax, Yarn

Wooden figures 

Wooden Vehicles (trucks, boats)

Blocks

Play Silks***

Baskets

Beeswax Candles

Tops, Spinner Toys

*Everything in moderation, including rules. We're not totally against all electronics, we just want to limit them in favor of other things. We have a great little DVD player f and a few great DVDs. We have other DVDs on our Amazon wishlist. Grandpa Baker had some cool remote control things in mind, and we're happy to make an exception there, Grandpa has a special knack for electronics stuff that are great choices for kids. (and weapons! hehehe) One other exception is a kid's camera, I think Lily could handle that, and would like one. Noise toys though, things that talk or light up or play musical electronic beeps when you push a button will got straight to the thrift.

**We do the Waldorf style painting, the paints for that are expensive, but they really are great and worth it. We also use the German / Waldorf style beeswax crayons and pencils. We don't need other kinds of paint and stuff, or markers. 

***Play Silks are so cool. Another thing that seems extravagant or expensive until you actually try them, then you realize they are frugal and awesome. Silk is surprisingly stain resistant, durable, and so versatile. They are great for "pretend play" being used as costume pieces, landscapes for toys, bandages and blankets for stuffed animals, AND we like to throw them around the house - they are great for dancing and playing catch with indoors. They don't hurt anything if they get a little out of control. Bebe pretends they are dragon's breath and Mothra's silk, and attacks me with them, etc. They are the one toy that gets played with pretty much every day. 

New Dog

So... I'm supposed to be saving up $$$. We need to do repairs, and basically remodel our condo: the floors are a wreck, the windows need to be replaced, the bathroom is something of a joke. We don't have a stove or a full-sized fridge. I also have student loans to pay off, we should be saving for baby's college, etc. 

But instead of being sensible with money 

I got us another dog: 

a Standard Poodle that needed to be re-homed. 

We found her on Craig's List Indianapolis and picked her up after visiting friends in Indiana. They named her Cinderella and called her Cindy. We weren't crazy about that, and I don't approve of giving animals human names anyway, so Lily named her after another Standard Poodle she liked, Briska. 

She's supposedly pure-bred, but we're still waiting to get the papers; I have my doubts about it. She definitely has a good poodle form in the body and coat, her muzzle is a little robust for a poodle though. She's mostly cream colored - her owners wanted an apricot dog, but she lightened from her apricot color to cream with pink-ish apricot markings on the head, belly and butt, which is a little weird. We're talking about maybe dying her pink all over in the summer time. Her markings are odd, which would make her less desirable but are ultimately irrelevant - to us anyway. (Her owners were a load of "gingers" and were disappointed that she didn't come out all red-haired like them.) 

More iffy is the fact that she's not yet 2 years old and has already had a litter of pups. I didn't get the whole story there - the story that was offered seemed somewhat false, so I didn't bother to dig on it, not having time or energy to decode a knot of lies. In addition to the undesirable markings and robust muzzle she has a funny shape to one eyelid; basically only an irresponsible person would breed her, and really, only an irresponsible breeder would sell her without a spay agreement. So, she may well be pure-bred, she's not particularly well-bred, if you get my meaning. Hopefully her health and temperament are sound. We'll see eh?

The important thing is that after half a week she seems to be showing better poodle character - playful, gentle, and focused on the baby. 

We definitely have training issues to deal with: basically she was not trained at all but left to wander aimlessly around the house and yard, exhibiting unchecked dominance behaviors which undermine her confidence. She seems to have no pre-existing clue what "sit", "down", "come here" or even "No" mean. Yikes.  Her owners thought she was timid, but I think she was just insecure as untrained dogs will tend to be. She doesn't seem skittish at all, which is good. For a while I thought maybe she was a bit stupid (poodles are typically intelligent) but now I think that was just training neglect showing. Today she went down for her morning frisk-about the without difficulty, walked and ran in "heel" position with Lily off-leash, was focused on her, and very responsive to verbal correction. 

So far so good!  :)