the shrew's nest

quick catch-up.

2012-01-26T08:39:00.000-08:00

Hello there, blog readers...all 4 or so of you. :) Though the magic of Christmas cards, I rediscovered that DENISE is a reader...so I'm outing you and sending lots of love your way! For those not in the know, she's my oldest friend. And by that I mean I've known her the longest of any of my friends (we went to PRESCHOOL together!), not that she's old. Because we're the same age, and I'm *certainly* not old.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but when is it not? My mom was here for a visit, and among other things we ate a big brunch. Marcus was my official waffle tester. He tasted and saw that they were good. Waffles are the official food of the third trimester.

My mom brought this amazing gift along, which is serving as an excellent body pillow...and on the rare occasion when I make my bed, Marky loves to come into my room and just cackle.

So I might be nesting...I've done all kinds of weird cleaning tasks around the house. Strange, I know. I've superfreaked all three bathrooms, organized a couple of closets (with! labels!), tagged up a ton of baby boy clothes for the Lucky Duck, made up the baby's room, pre-registered at the hospital, and washed and hung up a lot of pink clothing...below is a shot of the baby's closet--so strange to me to see this in my house, but I suppose we'll get used to it before long. Pretty sure we've settled on a name and a nickname--we've been trying it out just between Jeremy and I, and it's growing on me--becoming more real. Funny how the naming process has been different with each baby...with Sam, we were set really early for both boy and girl names, with Marcus, we decided the night before and weren't offically decided on a girl name, and with this one it's just been different since we knew it was a girl and we both liked VERY different names from the start. You'll just have to wait and see, though. The suspense is killing you, right? Ha.

Other news? The boys tried out wrestling club. They may be a little young, but I think Sam may stick with it. It's only for a couple of months, and they are important months to have an ACTIVE outlet. I love these kids with all my heart, but they get CRAZY when the weather keeps us more in than out. Today our plans were cancelled due to ice--school are closed, roads are bad...so I made them help me clean and then they played "circus" which involved Sam trying to shoot his brother out of a cannon made of a couple of chairs and a bedsheet. There have been tears but no blood, so I call it a success.

laughing like a jackal. and it feels good.

2012-01-15T20:55:00.000-08:00

if i could keep one pregnancy "symptom" around after this baby arrives, it would be the way i get the giggles. like laugh till i cry and maybe until i'm running to the bathroom before i pee my pants giggles. i have been finding everything so ridiculously funny for the past 8 or so months. i kind of love it. but now i'm getting to the point where sometimes it HURTS to laugh, and i tell jeremy all the time to "save the funny" for later so i can laugh at it when it feels better. but tonight the baby was situated in such a way that i could guffaw and chortle and hoot to my heart's content. ahhhh feels good.

this happened to a lesser extent when i was pregnant with sam...i remember telling people to hold the funny. i really wish i had made a list, but i do remember one particular story about "stepping on a nut"...i really truly stepped on a nut. we were out walking, since i was overdue and dying to get the baby out and i stepped on an acorn. it was kind of rainy out and the acorn sort of rolled under the tread of my shoe and made a sound that can only be described as "suspicious". so i said "whoa, i stepped on a nut!" of course jeremy didn't believe me and said i was lying to cover up passing gas. oh how it struck me as so funny--but it hurt so much to laugh that i had to make myself stop. to this day, jeremy won't believe me but it still makes me giggle just thinking about it. "stepping on a nut" has since been our euphemism of choice for sneaky fart situations.

so a few from tonight...so hopefully i can keep laughing in a few weeks when i'm sleep-deprived and crazy:

1. talking like Gloria on Modern Family. all day long. almost. i do a really good job, if i do say so myself. it amuses me to no end and i usually can't finish what i am saying. my man might not find this as entertaining as i do.

2. we have (had) a small chocolate stash in the freezer. tonight jeremy got some out and shared with the boys. he dropped a piece, and marcus ate it off of the floor...marcus then ran across the kitchen and was DELIGHTED to find more--i can't properly type the joyful noise he made...then he discovered that what he thought was chocolate was really a black Lego and threw it out into the dining room with a sound of disgust that also is difficult to replicate. oh how i wish i had that moment on video. i just have to keep playing it in my head and hope it never goes away!

3. jeremy used my computer to sign into his library account tonight and left himself logged in. foolish move. so i filled up his holds queue with books on goat husbandry. (i can type this here because i think he reads my blog about once a year.) ohhhh can't wait until he figures that one out. i just kept spontaneously laughing about this throughout the evening as i thought about it. which of course jeremy kept asking me about, and i had to keep making stuff up, which was all very absurd, which got even funnier....hopefully he won't see anything until the emails start arriving that his books are in at the dupont branch...even better would be people seeing a stack of goat books and recognizing his name on the little ticket. heeeeeeeeeeeee!!

4. jeremy couldn't remember the word for "scarf"...so he tried some others. "shawl" was pretty close, "neck warmer" was ok, but "compress" put me over the edge and i had to pause the show we were watching because i was laughing so hard.

5. jeremy doesn't always (ok...really not ever) share my amusement in these cases, which actually makes me laugh harder. so not a funny in and of itself, but a funny magnifier? straight man? whatevs.

no one will find my short list nearly as amusing as i do...surely the baby won't either...poor thing has been bounced around all night with my crazy cackling!

on another note? pretty sure nesting has begun. i'll hit 35 weeks tomorrow, so that sounds about right....i think my dear husband was praying for this day. i've purged and re-organized my closet, cleaned and sanitized all the bottles and pump parts, made a quilt, washed a bunch of baby laundry and started freaking out about not having a dresser...good thing the baby won't care about onesies in a pile on the floor if that's where they stay. :)

things i have learned from pregnancy brain this time around....

2011-12-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

1. if you fill your dishwasher with carpet shampoo, your kitchen will smell super great but your dishes won't all quite get squeaky clean.

2. leaving the water running in the (plugged) basement utility sink while you go out to dinner and looking at Christmas lights will flood two rooms and ruin all of your wrapping paper. in these situations it is advisable to have a husband who works at a public school and can go retrieve four industrial size blowers to dry out the carpet and pad at 9:00 at night.

3. listening to the Dixie Chicks, specifically "Easy Silence" and "Lullaby" will reduce you to tears in the middle of the day. it is not recommended to answer the door for the FedEx guy at this point. (there may or may not be an unpublished post about this...we shall see if i can get up the nerve to publish it.)

4. don't leave a yogurt in your purse for four days. even though it's winter, "live and active cultures" will find things to do in there.

5. there's something else, but i can't remember...

so proud of my sammy!

2011-11-29T18:29:00.000-08:00

today sam was pretty tired. he powered through until about one o'clock, then was just struggling with ev.er.y.thing. twice i asked him to do something, and twice he just about threw himself to the floor in tears. the second time, i told him he'd go up for a nap if he did it again. he did it again. so i sent him up for a nap. he ran up and SLAMMED his door. which is a big no-no...he earned a spanking to go with his nap. then he apologized and CRASHED for two and a half hours.

fast forward to bathtime. sam was protesting, he and marky were having a good time burying each other under the couch cushions and then jumping on top to smother each other. they have rugburn on their faces to show for it. so i reminded him about this afternoon's misadventures and he informed us very clearly "i'll do it, but i don't want to!!"

after the bath, i was chatting with sammy and told him how proud i was that he had learned something today about obeying when he didn't want to obey. he informed me he was "just like Moses."

i love that kid. i was pretty impressed that he put his story together with Moses's story of being a reluctant leader. i can't wait to see what God has planned for my little guy!

(picture from a happier day!) we went out for a treat because he got an AMAZING report from preschool. sam picked Yo-Yo, so i was more than delighted to take him on a little date! that night it was marky's turn to be super tired and fall apart, so jeremy was taking care of that. why is it that when we are little, we never want to sleep and when we get older, we covet naps and solid nights of shut-eye??? sigh....

other news from today...SNOW! our first real snow, and it's not december yet! it's so pretty and i really need to get our tree out and decorated!! this is the view out the front door at about 3:00 today. i was happy to stay home in my pj pants all day while everyone else ran out to get milk, bread and eggs. i sent my nice husband out for apples and peppermint mocha creamer. essentials, you know. so we are cozy now and waiting on a delay, even though it would mean missing out hanging with fun friends...i'd love to have the boys (all of them!) home in the morning to play in the snow some more. jermy took them out tonight while he shoveled, and they LOOOOOVED it!!

A serious one. :)

2011-11-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any of this will make sense...it's all bits and pieces in my head and I never claimed to be a good writer. But I told her I'd blog more, so...

Thinking of my sweet friend Mandy today. She has to do today what no parent ever wants to do...bury a child. I went to the open house for baby Jude last night and she was the most gracious and lovely grieving mama probably ever in the history of the world. I, however, was kind of a moron. Somehow filling space talking about other things because I didn't know what to say, pretty much knowing I could say nothing that would actually help. I so wanted to be there and show a little love. Blogging is a funny thing. I haven't seen or actually talked to Mandy in a long long time, but somehow reading her words made me feel like that wasn't the case; having her on my mind and so much in my prayers made me feel like I was a lot closer than the whole country apart! That, and pregnancy hormones, thinking a whole lot about sweet little babies and just being on the verge of tears most days anyways. Also on the verge of rampage-worthy anger most days, but that's an entirely different post.

I was thinking on the drive home about our "good old days" and she's still perfectly Mandy (oh how happy I was to even just hear her sweet Mandy-voice!), but she's different in that she's lived a lot more life. Things were a lot different nearly 9 years ago--a lot of blank pages, significant blank pages we were pretty expectant to see written. So excited to be moving to super cool places (her, not me...!), having great jobs, meeting mister right, getting married, having babies. Of course I never would have dreamed of any of this. Wouldn't have ever considered the possibility. Some people might use a story like Jude's as an entrance to a life of bitterness, or to dwell on "why me?"...but that's not where this is going.

I listened to my friend tell the story of finding out she was pregnant and praying before Jude was ever born that God would use this little boy. He certainly has. Jude's story, recorded on Mandy's blog, has been a beautiful expression of trusting God, knowing our children are not ours, and that we don't get to write the story as much as we'd like to think. My beautiful friend has both feet firmly planted in heaven, while I struggle with one foot here and one foot there. I want to be more like her in that way. My prayers will be with her and her family as life gets back into a rhythm and they have to figure out what that even is now and as they miss their little guy.

I'm trying to play along with the twenty-whatever days of thankfulness on Facebook...posting something each day that you're thankful for until Thanksgiving Day. Mine have been fairly surface-y, and of course I still am thankful for all those little things. Last night I wanted to elaborate, but I was tired just wrote something very general...but for the record I meant: I'm thankful for Jude, and for his family for being so honest and sharing his story so openly, that others would be encouraged. Thankful for seeing God in action, being so very REAL.

I'm also thankful for having random old pictures on my hard drive...we were babies! We had been camping, so I'm fairly glad this picture is blurry. It's from the pre-digital-camera-days...yikes! Mandy is on the far right. I vaguely remember thinking she got locked in a gas station with a creepy man right before we took this picture. It didn't happen.

pinterest round up!

2011-10-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

i've said before how great pinterest is...but really, it's only great if you DO something about what you find there. ohhh i've been doing, finally! :) just took a little nudge from stacie...saying i'll do one thing a week made it sound much more do-able than looking at the vast array of ideas i've collected and just getting overwhelmed. now if i was a super good blogger, i'd have a lovely picture for each of these things, but you'll have to deal with just a few and some links for the rest. :)

1. I crocheted this hat in a newborn size in grayish lavender yarn for the little bitty. I liked how it came out, but I think it might look a little chunky on a teeny little person...we'll see. It didn't take very long at all, so I'm not out anything by trying!

2. I made a cheesy chicken and rice with black beans bake...pretty good, though I'd definitely recommend using cream of chicken soup and using the sour cream as a garnish...I replaced about 3/4 of the sour cream with fat free cream of chicken, and it was still way to sour-cream-y for us...Jeremy ate it as a chip dip. The kids just ate the chicken and beans out of it, but that works for me!

3. Q-tip skeletons...we did this yesterday...and I didn't have glue. Oops. Glue sticks kiiiiind of worked and the boys loved their spooky guys, although we didn't get quite as detailed as the directions advise. Here are the skeletons the boys came up with:

4. Saw the prettiest pumpkins ever and got out the drill last night when we were carving. The little holes don't let enough air in the keep the candle lit, so I had to cut out some "back doors", but I like how they look set out with the traditional ones the boys helped make.

5. We made this little booklet to help the boys memorize some verses...I would definitely recommend giving this a shot! Sam was VERY into this project. It didn't work out for us to do Awana this year, and although he hasn't exactly said it, I think Sam misses it! He already has the verse for "A" memorized...and the verse for "B" turned out to be quite useful this morning when the boys didn't want to "Be kind to one another and build each other up." -1 Thessalonians 5:11....here's ours:

5. No picture for this, as the "before" was embarrasingly grungy. I tried a tub scrub recipe that wasn't half bad. I have tried plenty of homemade cleaning methods with mixed results...mostly not that great and precisely ALL the men of my family complain about the vinegar smell that a lot of them have. But being pregnant and not wanting to huff a bunch of bleachy or chemicall-y fumes had me willing to try again. It actually worked pretty well...I could see a difference (like I said, the "before" was reallllly bad, it's an old shower and seems to be a soap scum magnet) but it's not beautiful or sparkly. I will say much improved, Jeremy noticed, and that is good enough for me! I used lavender Dr. Bronner's for the liquid soap and eucalyptus for the essential oil because those are things that I already had and it smelled really good! No vinegar in this one, so everyone wins.

I have plenty more...it's been a productice couple of weeks, but I will save more for other posts! I am really enjoying the challenge to DO things, not merely admire them!

so thankful. for many many random things.

2011-10-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

1. letting go of worry
2. rain and cool clean air
3. unexpected date night
4. baby wiggles in my belly
5. pumpkin coffee from dunkin donuts
6. pumpkin anything
7. cans of pumpkin for .99
8. making a huge dinner for no reason and then having neighbors over who didn't cook dinner!
9. Bible passages that convict and change me
10. a husband that forgives my craziness and (pregnancy-induced? I hope!) forgetfulness
11. clean sheets
12. a closet that is showing signs of PINK!
13. friends who "knew me when"...
14. little boys who DELIGHT in small things
15. good smelling soap
16. knitting
17. cozy blankets
18. apple cider tea (like WHOA!)
19. salt and vinegar chips
20. fresh haircuts on little boys

a week in instagram...

2011-10-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

I find myself wishing that Project Life came with square photo pockets, because most of my story-telling "day in the life" type photos are instagram-ed. i've printed a bunch out and included them here and there in my album, and while the quality isn't great, they surely tell the stories of our days...

1. Jeremy ran the Chicago marathon last Sunday (he did AWESOME, so PROUD!) and that afforded us some time to hang out with lovely friends and go lovely places. One of those places was the comic book store. Jeremy stopped in on his way back to Tyler and Mer's and brought back a few comics for the boys. The boys are all super heroes, all the time, but didn't have any comic books yet...Sam is hooked now. If only comic books made better read-aloud books. Sigh.

2. Monday...while Sam was at school, Marcus and I ran several errands...one of them being checking at Aldi to see if they had pumpkin available. And YAY! they did! I use a lot of it through the year and Aldi gets it in during October for a great price. I bought a lot last year, and Jeremy wound up making pumpkin ale with it, so I was out out out and wanting to make pumpkin everything. Anyway...I didn't have a quarter for the cart, so I just loaded up my arms with two flats (pallets?) of pumpkin. being superwoman(!), it was no big deal...except for the part where I pinched my (pregnant!) nipple in between the two flats...oh PAIN. I yelled out loud...thankfully the store was rather empty and Marky was the only person who noticed, and he didn't really care. oh my, sore for DAYS...here's my hard-won pumpkin, ready for pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin bread, pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin anything...I have yet to work up the nerve to load my arms back up and take it all down to the basement. i don't think my nipple can take it.

3. What, you don't ever find a giant rubber rat dangling from your silverware drawer? Lies.

4. I've been pinning all kinds of fun baby girl things lately. And haven't DONE a thing about a single one of them. Until yesterday. Found some felt and a little bit of spare time (oh who am I kidding about the spare time? I neglected other things so I could play around!) and made up some pretties for the little GIRL that will join us in February. My sweet friend Stacie issued a challenge a while back to actually DO one thing you've pinned every week, and that's another post altogether, but I'm doing pretty well, since recipes count!

5. Ooooh this one is really out of order, but I'm not fixing it b/c blogger makes it difficult. Last week was PERFECT, weather-wise. We had two weeknight campfires with s'mores and our favorite neighborfriends. We're going camping with those neighbors, so the campfires (complete with 5 ridiculously loud and silly boys shouting and dancing like babboons) are certainly not over yet. Look out Brown County...we are set to be "those" people...

6. I am really digging the time I get with just Marcus these days, with Sam in preschool three days a week. He's the silliest, sweetest, most expressive little person. While we were waiting in the pickup line the other day, Marcus practiced his faces for me. This was "angry"...we may need some more practice, since I'm certainly not intimidated:

I'm stopping there, but I want to be a good blogger, so hopefully there will be more to come...

notes, ramblings.

2011-09-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

i forget that i'm pregnant. but i like remembering. i'm not big yet and i feel good. i mention i'm excpecting in february to someone who doesn't know, and they are surprised. maybe they are just being polite, because i can certainly see it! i've been feeling this little baby moving a LOT lately, which makes me suspect that it's another boy. i've felt all three of my babies pretty early (earlier than you're "supposed" to feel them...like at 15 weeks or so...call me crazy if you want, but i know what it is) and they have all been verrrry active. sam's been calling the baby "cupcake" which i like, so i may stick with it. both boys have been so sweet about kissing my belly. marcus has been so proud that he'll whip my shirt up and show anyone his baby. he's also telling everyone who will listen that it's a baby brother. if he's wrong, i hope he can handle his disappointment!

started our new bible study this past week. it is already challenging me. i'm also just so excited to be back with the lovely ladies of thursday mornings and to get to know some new people. marcus in particular was excited about thursday mornings because he was reunited with his beloved miss deanna. we found out that they share a birthday, maybe that explains his undying love for her. :)

sam has been enjoying preschool. he was talking excitedly about all the "equipment" he got to use. when i finally got him to elaborate a bit more about "equipment", it turns out he meant glue (real glue, not a glue stick--big stuff), scissors, markers, etc. it's the little things, i guess!

the Johnny Appleseed Festival was this weekend, and i was trying to figure out why i like it so much...I go every year. it's a must. but i don't really ever buy anything. the re-enactors are weird. the cannons and gunshots startle the crap out of my everytime. the food is good, better than good--but i could go and not eat anything and still feel satisfied. i hate the crowds of people that can't decide where they are going and they walk directly into my (admittedly large) stroller. good grief. i went back for a second day (sans stroller) with a dear friend who came into town from Indy, and she mentioned how it was a marker of time. and maybe that's it. it's part of pacing out the fall season. it's still the beginning of autumn, and there is lots to look forward to. the woodsmoke is still an exciting smell--of s'mores and camping trips yet to come. it's warm enough outside to enjoy the day without coats and boots, but there is enough of a chill to enjoy a warm meal and be excited that this is the start of many warm cozy meals yet to come. the leaves are just starting to change, at least 95 percent green yet there are still peeks of yellow, red, and orange. i think i like to savor the smells, tastes, sights WHILE knowing there are lots more to come. i like knowing it's just beginning. here we are, said friend and me, enjoying The Johnny.

and on another fallish note, i have had some apple butter bubbling away in the crockpot ALL DAY. really, all day. 12 hours! my house has smelled like heaven. and i seriously think this is the best thing (besides my kids) that i have ever created! i'm eating it, hot, with a spoon right now while i wait for the water in the canner to get up to a boil. i think the allspice is starting to make my tounge go numb. weird.

things.

2011-08-31T05:17:00.000-07:00

PRAYING...for my dear sweet friend Mandy. she and her family have had quite a journey with their little boy, and he's only two weeks old. they are on my mind and heart so very much lately. she's a friend from college, and has one of the most beautiful hearts i've ever known. reading her blog posts brings me to tears, not just because i want little Jude to get better, but because the way she writes about it is so beautiful. such an amazing combination of honesty and grace and trusting God when it must be so very hard. pray for adorable little Jude.

WANTING...to make soup. i bought this book and everything looks SO good. i love soup and bread for dinner when it's cold outside. easy and tasty and it just feels so cozy. but it's a little warm yet. see below.

ENJOYING...the weather. i always say "indian summer" is my favorite season. i like that it's sunny and warm, but not humid like real summer, and that the nights cool off--even enough to ENJOY a fire. i love fall, but i don't like bundling up in coats and real shoes, so this is the best of both worlds!

LAUGHING...at the stream of crazy that comes from my kids all day long. i especially love the things that Marcus gets wrong. like honey mustard--he calls it "funny mustard." indeed.

THINKING...about my upcoming ultrasound. i want to know who this little person is, but then again i don't. i loved the way i met my boys the days they were born. it sort of seems like peeking at your Christmas presents ahead of time, ruining the surprise. then again, it would be fun to do things differently this time. Christmas in September, perhaps? any thoughts?

KNOWING...i will miss my sammy three mornings a week once he starts preschool in a few days, but it will be so good for him. i can teach him all sorts of school things and do creative activities at home, but i can't give him a room of 4 year olds and a person-in-charge-who-is-not-his-mother. i'm looking forward to the time we have together to be better because of it! here he is feeding the fish at one of our neighborhood ponds, in need of a haircut before tuesday for sure.

REJOICING...that the last piece of my fall routine will be added when Bible study starts back up in a couple weeks. how i have missed my mornings with those fun ladies, sharing truth, sharing our lives, being taught and encouraged! also, we eat (very) well. woo and hoo!

LOVING...that i get to see my meredith for the second time this week (what the what??!) sometime later today! that girl (and her boys) make me super happy. everyone has those few friends where it's just easy, no catching up needed. and she's one of mine.

NEEDING...more hours in the day to make sure my tomatoes won't go to waste. i have given tons aways and canned tomtoes and salsa, but still have piles more to do something with. i'd like to make pizza and marianra sauces. we'll see.

a list of happy.

2011-06-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

1. my mascara is scented...unnecessary, yet kind of fun. but really, why?

2. pinterest is wayyyy too much fun. and will probably make me fat. all the food looks great. and if only i had enough time to do all the great kid things and crafty things i keep seeing. which leads to #3...

3. i've become somewhat obsessed with granny squares. not sure how that happened, though pinterest probably has contributed. i now have THREE afghans going, which is probably not the most productive way to go about it. AND i have one more that i am itching to start as well, but i will have to just look at pictures and make it up as i go, since i can't get ahold of the pattern. i waaaaant to make this:

photo comes from http://www.sewingdaisies.com.au/sewing_daisies/2010/07/vivid-dreams-blanket-completed.html

4. taking a walk to the park with my 3 men, on a super hot steamy day, but a storm was rolling in and made it so cool and nice. we got home just in time to sit on the back patio under the canopy and watch the rain fall. it was so cool and refreshing and relaxing. and they actually kind of "chilled" with us. my boys don't chill, so that was big.

5. jeremy was dictating a text to me so he didn't have to type it out, and "tomorrow works" got auto corrected to "topsy zoom". topsy zoom sounds WAY more fun than what he and his friend were planning. i got the giggles and jeremy called me a hyena. nice.

6. signing sam up for preschool three days a week was somewhat traumatic for me. i know how good it will be for him, and he didn't want to leave when we had our tour of the classrooms, but i just got really sad about not having him with me. then i realized that marcus and i get three mornings of "mommy and me" time--having a little time just the two of us will be good as that doesn't happen very much right now. so it will be good for everyone in ways that i will figure out as we get into it. though i suspect marcus will miss sam even more than i will.

7. jeremy bought a booster seat for sam the other day, and i got all crazy on him. it went something like: "YOU HAVE TO CHECK THE SAFETY RATINGS AND MAKE SURE IT'S A GOOD ONE! WE DON'T WANT TO DECAPITATE HIM WITH A SEATBELT!" or some such nonsense. he rolled his eyes and i got online. of course the one jeremy bought is on the "Best" list. that guy has a radar for Things That Are Good. and a lot of patience for his crazy wife.

8. this weekend jeremy and sam went tubing together--sam LOVED it! now, if you ask sam about ANYTHING, he'll always say "it's good." but tubing??? he went nuts. makes me happy. marcus wanted nothing to do with it. i really thought they'd be the other way around. i like it. crummy phone pic, but try and see him shouting at grandpa to DRIVE THE BOAT!!!

a fly on the wall...

2011-05-17T14:07:00.001-07:00

Me: (opening Sam's closet door and finding 3 pre-schoolers inside) what are guys doing?
Sam: playing tic-tac-fundernoose!
Me: obviously.

Sam: I can't sleep. I'm just sooooo sick. (he is not sick, for the record.)
Me: do you want milk and a snack?
Sam: yes. But I also like love.
I caved and cuddled with him. One day he won't want me anywhere near him.

Me: there's bean soup on the stove.
J: what's that?
Me: ...soup...with beans in it...

I'm glad my family can provide me with such amusement. Maybe we can make you giggle too.

Birthday list...

2011-03-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

In the past, I've made a list in regards to my birthday, making it last all year in the form of cool things or resolutions. "30 things before I'm 30" had a nice ring to it...but now that I'm getting even older, the list is getting longer. So instead of rising to the challenge and adding something every year, I'll go with 14 things every year, since my birthday is the 14th. I never checked all 30 off of that list anyways. Let's keep it do-able. And pretend that some of these things weren't on the list of 30 things...

so, about that list.

1. Find a new type of produce that I can go do "u-pick" style. New means something I've never picked before, not some new type of fruit. Duh. I'm thinking cherries or peaches in Michigan, since I meant to go last year and never got the timing right. This is probably the first item on my list due to the fact that I'm dying to garden/harvest/preserve stuff right now!

2. Knit a sweater. I've done this before, but I tend to stick to knitting smaller things to feel like I've accomplished something. But I'd also like to do a sweater this year.

3. Sew a summer-y skirt. I've actually had fabric and a pattern for this since before Sam was born. Yikes!

4. Make pillow covers for the family room. Don't have fabric for this that's been sitting around, but I've had a plan and a color scheme for a while and I've just never done anything about it. Though that MIGHT have something to do with the fact that the pillows are NEVER on the couches and I just forget about it.

5. Visit a winery. Yes, there are a few in the area, strangely enough. This sounds like a fun date, but in all reality, Jeremy will not be impressed. So I may have to round up some girlfriends...

6. Try out some new parks w/ the kiddos this summer. We always go to the same ones because they are close. But new is always fun for them (and me).

7. Open my craft room closet...take a deep breath...and PURGE PURGE PURGE! Have you seen it? It's scary.

8. Read at least 5 "pleasure" books.

9. Read at least 5 books that fall into the "nurture my brain" and/or "nurture my heart" category.

10. Get the side porch decorated or something, so that it's a cozy little spot that I actually use! I hate wasted space!

11. Make a quilt. Haven't made any for a long time.

12. Make a wreath. I've never made one, but there are ALWAYS cute ideas popping up, and I just need to go for it, since I LOVE wreaths and my oh my they are expensive for a bunch of stuff you could just glue together yourself!

13. Swim across Big Turkey. Make sure Jeremy is nearby in the paddle boat.

14. Develop the Perfect Waffle. What an awful task. Awful, I say!

Let me know if you have any suggestions for any of the things on my list!

in defense of valentine's day!

2011-02-14T05:02:00.000-08:00

i've had some conversations in the past couple of weeks about valentine's day...the question of whether or not we "celebrate" and i was surprised at the hostility (perhaps somewhat theatrical hostility, but hostility nonetheless) some folks have towards the old V-D. hahahha i slay me! so this morning, this day of love and flowers and chocolate, i feel like throwing my .02 into the blogosphere.

for the record. i totally get it when people say they don't like valentine's day. i myself am quite weary of consumer culture and all the accumulating. and of course we should most definitely tell people we love them EVERY day, not when hallmark tells us buy things that we don't need.

but i can't help but think that the spirit of it is pretty FUN! i have soooo much love in my heart (for a lot of people, but mostly for) my three favorite guys! so when the little boys see all the seasonal crap in the stores and ask what it's about, i tell them that valentine's day is a special day to show extra love to the people you care about. we made some cards (wooo, they are NO hallmark creations, to be sure!) and yes we picked out some (little) gifts for daddy. no hearts, no pink, no cupid, just a little sweet treat they decided they wanted to get for him, and to their credit, it was NOT found in the valentine aisle! this is actually something we do spontaneously as well. so i like to think of valentine's day as a little nudge to do it again. february's a good a time as any, with all the gray and gloom. and they can't stop talking about it. they are so excited to have a little gift to show jeremy how much they love him! well worth two dollars, in my opinion. especially since we're (mostly) keeping naughty treats out of the house these days.

and yes, jeremy and i DID buy the little boys something. but it was well thought out and they are PUMPED about their four-dollar presents. and yes, jeremy bought something for me. but it was well thought out and NOT a big purchase. and knowing my husband, he actually had fun tracking it down and getting something great for next-to-nothing. and for each new thing we bring into the house? TWO old things go out. win-win-win. plus, i got a letter telling me sweet and lovely things. also something that happens without a v-day prompt. i'll take it either way. :)

my kids REALLY tune into holidays. sam is sooo curious and asks lot of questions and wants to know everything! so it's been a great opportunity to talk about God's love for us as well. during one conversation that i did not expect to go very far, he amazed me by quoting bible verses about God's love, without me prompting him. he's been memorizing verses for awana, and remembered which ones pertained to love. pretty good for 3 and a half, if you ask me!

so valentine's day? could definitely be pretty gross and wasteful. but not for us. it's fun for our family and we do it in a way that works for us and everyone most definitely feels LOVED! enjoy february 14 however it works for you, my friends! xoxo

observations at the gym.

2011-01-25T13:11:00.001-08:00

i must be crabby today. i have little patience for things that Make No Sense. come ON, people.

maybe i need to try and read while i'm on the treadmill because i have wayyyy too much time to be a judgypants. let me preface this by mentioning that i definitely am no beauty or fashion queen while i work out. i usually go in yoga capris and a t-shirt. no makeup. nothing fancy. once in a while i get crazy w/ a headband. daring, i KNOW. but today it was like a Parade of Weird all up in my YMCA. yes, there's normally one person that tickles my funny that i can enjoy "observing" while i'm there. but today, all the strange fitness phenomena i've been noticing separately all showed up. educate me on why ANY of this makes sense, dear reader(s?)...

1. dudes in knit caps. don't get me wrong. i love knit stuff, i love knitting stuff. i love wearing knitted stuff. i love wearing stuff i've knitted. but NOT while working out. i get hot and sweaty in shorts and a tee. why on earth do you need an itchy beanie steaming your skull?? fools.

2. people in jeans. these folks are usually of the AARP persuasion, but regardless of age, that can't be comfortable on an exercise bike. all i can think of is CHAFING. i refuse to believe you have NOTHING else to wear. i see people come in wearing jammie pants, which seems like a MUCH better and more logical choice. jammie pants are not making it on my list of phenomena, since they allow freedom of movement and do not promote any sort of chafing. plus, you probably already have some. we all win.

3. Lady In Giraffe Tights. i saw her last week. her tights must have made it through the laundry rotation, because there she was again, running on the track upstairs...it was kind of like a train wreck--you want to look away, but you just can't. i sort of wanted to ask her where she bought them. not because i really want a pair, but just because i'm curious as to where you'd even find something like that.

4. this is somewhat related to #1, but ladies in visors. ummmm last i checked it wasn't sunny NOR we were outdoors. maybe they are lost. maybe someone should direct them to the nearest golf course. or maybe they know something i don't? this also seems to be the most social phenomenon, as they show up together and/or gather in groups of two or three on the stairmasters.

5. men who indulge in copious application of cologne before hopping on a treadmill (next to me, always next to me, it would seem). i think i would rather smell your funk. seriously. if i'm not close to being done, i will move. so unnecessary. i don't have asthma, but i feel like i do.

6. this is not a crabby one. this one redeemed the morning for me! there is a funny older gentleman that i like to talk football and gardening with, and he always hangs his wife's coat up for her and adjusts her incumbent bike for her before she gets on, then makes sure she's all settled before he goes off to run gets on a machine himself. adorable. they are my favorite, although he likes to heckle her from across the room..."COME ON MARGE, MOVE IT!! YOU CAN GO FASTER THAN THAT" yeah, definitely my favorite.

mama gets sick = boys get way too much tv time.

2011-01-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

so i really don't like my boys to watch a ton of tv. i'm by no means perfect at this, but i try and limit them to one 30 minute show before their naptime. i just can't stand to see them being zombies, and most days i can keep them busy enough that they don't even ask to watch anything. i love that.

but there are other days...i was so sick earlier this week. i am still getting over a rotten infection. i felt like someone had beat me in the neck with a baseball bat...my glands were that swollen and sore.

so it goes without saying that there were more shows watched in the past couple of days than would normally be allowed. i just didn't have it in me to play seventeen million rounds of candyland.

the point of this? i'm getting there. tuesday night i was getting dinner ready and the boys are racing around with dump trucks and fire trucks and wagons and anything else they could find. it was a little more than rambuctious, so i got them settled in the living room with their fine pal Diego (we don't have cable, but Netflix has some Diego eps on demand) so i could get things finished. i made some comment about how they would have to shut the tv off when daddy gets home, we don't want you to rot your brain. mama exits to kitchen.

jeremy gets home, sam shuts the tv off and runs into his arms bawling and yelling "I DON'T WANT TO ROT MY BRAIN!!!!!" oops. i wish i had a picture of jeremy's face.

tonight after a bedtime prayer, marcus and i were talking about who he loves. he said "i love daddy. i love grandpa. i love shows. i love diego. go diego go!"

you may see my tv on the curb tomorrow.

it's snowing today. i like it. so does sam.

resolution schmesolution.

2011-01-01T06:54:00.000-08:00

i'm not much for resolutions, but i do like a fresh start...since the busy of the holidays is over, i present a handful of *goals*, if you will.

1. keep up w/ project life, monthly if that's what it comes down to.
2. keep up with photos--dumping from camera, backing up, organizing, PRINTING.
3. keep my craft room clean so that it's ready when i have a little shred of time.
4. start Christmas planning in SEPTEMBER and crafting no later than OCTOBER.
5. stay up with the Scripture Memorization Challenge w/ the ladies at church.
6. if we're not using it, we're selling/donating/tossing it!
7. in the next 3 months, get all the upstairs closets organized!

i better stop now, so it's realistic and i can actually succedd. i could make a crazylong list of things i'd like to change, but let's not get crazy. ha! i'd love to have some healthy lifestyle stuff and things about my parenting here...but honestly, those are things i am always working to make better. these things? are new efforts for 2011. i always struggle with staying organized, and it's been showing up a lot lately so it's time to chip away at that problem. i'll never be quasi-OCD but i can do better. sigh.

maybe i should have asked for a label maker for Christmas.
maybe for valentine's day. jer-bear would love that. ha!

project life...

2010-12-30T18:11:00.000-08:00

i have several friends that have been talking up project life. the short explanation is that it's a scrapbook that's pretty much laid out for you, you just add the pictures and journaling and decide what little colored cards to stick in for any extra decoration you need. you can really do whatever you want with it, but the way becky higgins uses it is to take a picture a day, add little journaling bits and 365 days later, you have an album that gives you a peek into the everyday goings-on of your life. my family's life.

i initally decided it wasn't for me. i like to just take a picture that i'm drawn to and make a page pretty much celebrating it! journaling about the subject of the picture or the day or event. you get the idea. plus, i have TONS of scrapbooking supplies that are just sitting down in my basement...i don't NEED any more!

but you know what? i'm not USING those supplies. i'm not making ANY scrapbook pages...it was been MONTHS and MONTHS. so i decided to give this a go. the format is simple, i just have to keep up. even if i don't keep up weekly, it's four (double pages) layouts a month. i certainly can do that. so here's to project life 2011!

also: i'm not buying ANY supplies (glue and pens don't count!)...though i'm not sure how long i'll keep that promise. this is not a resolution. thogh jeremy laughed at me when i told him this. he sets me up for failure. let's just see how long i can go. let's say 3 months for starters, hmmmm?

one more about sam, then i'll try to find something else to write about.

2010-11-30T13:50:00.001-08:00

yep, he's mine.

today we were looking at the ornaments on the tree, and i asked sammy why he was so excited about Christmas. he said "because i like Jesus!"...melt my heart. then he told me he loved me and likes to make me happy. this mama = puddle.

i pray pretty often about how to encourage that sweet spirit and not just "exploit" (for a lack of a better word) it for cuteness' sake, you know? he wants to please, and of course i want to BE pleased, but oh to train him in the way he should go.

he's a keeper.

marcus, well he's a keeper too, but he's having a week already. today it was really quiet and i called out for him...he was in the basement painting himself with markers. the orange mustache was exceptionally well done. and yesterday he put a towel in the toaster and toasted it. i have a scorched towel, but an intact house. for this i am thankful. for that and washable markers. though those were not what marcus used for his artwork today...

too much.

2010-11-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

sam's first real prayer by himself last night:

"dear God, thank you for this day that is ending. amen."

oh my sweet sammy! here he is in july after a friend painted him. hilarious.

one post a week, according to the calendar, not like every SEVEN days, geez.

2010-11-18T20:20:00.001-08:00

since i got a comment (hi mandy!) i'll keep blogging.

jeremy and i spent the better part of an hour on grooveshark tonight looking up bands we listened to in high school and college. if you haven't played on that site, you need to.
i laughed like a hyena. we are COOL and you are missing out on a rockin thursday night if you're not with us singing into our imaginary microphones. my husband is FUN. i like him. and songs i haven't heard in ages.

i am bummed that i missed out on a band called hoi polloi. they make me want to dress like Angela Chase and sneak out of my house on a rainy night.

my husband looks a bit like Lenin. if he wore a tie. but he doesn't ever wear a tie. they make him crazy. and we all know i'm much better at crazy.

i wish my brain held onto useful information the way it holds onto song lyrics. why can't i harness that part of my mind for the good and not the useless. scripture would be a much better thing to stuff in that area of my head. i can sing entire newsboys albums but can't for the life of me remember what i need to buy when i wind up at the grocery story w/o my list.

to blog or not to blog...

2010-11-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

so there's been a bit of a blog renaissance among some buddies of mine. not even people who are connected, but it's just like people decided to blog again, and i like it. it makes me want to join in.
so i'm going try and do a post and picture a week for the rest of the year and see how it goes.

i really want to be a good blogger. i'd love to have a record of these fun days while my boys are little and home with me. there are so many funny stories and great pictures i could put together, even in short posts.

but i just don't ever do it.

i used to scrapbook, which would also be great for keeping memories fresh.

but i don't ever do that either.

i'm a quitter! booo!!!

no i'm not a quitter, i just have too many projects. and i always want to try something new. i saw this guy on "hoarders" once who hoarded projects (his thing was trains...) and his family kept telling him that in his lifetime he'd never finish the projects he HAD, not to mention the ones he kept accumulating. gross thought.

so, in order to not be a train-project-hoarding-man, i will blog. okay...maybe not what i was getting at.

i will sign off with a picture of the birthday boy. it's an old picture, but as far as the blog goes, pretty sure it's new. ha!

he'll be 2 on saturday! i'll save you the "where did the time go" stuff, since everyone knows it goes fast. i will say that he is funniest, brightest little light. jeremy and i look at each other DAILY and say "that kid is HILARIOUS." we're planning a little get-together full of bugs, creepy-crawlies, and big bad rats. all of marky's favorite things. should be a good time!

compare and contrast.

2010-05-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

today was day 2 of serious summer-like weather. i realize this all can change, but we're embracing the heat and playing in the baby pool. well, the boys play in the baby pool and mama sits in the chaise and attempts to read a book.

as if i didn't already know how different the boys' personalities are...today was a lovely illustration. as i sat in my chair, chatting with the little boys, sam was my faithful pool boy. he asked me lots of questions and poured water on my feet to "keep mama cool" and "get the dirt off" my feet. his words. i love that kid.

marcus, on the other hand, got out of the pool, walked up to me smiling and jibbering, woo-ing me with all of his cuteness. i thought he was going to "pamper" me as his brother did. instead he stole my drink and ran away. i love that kid. for different reasons than i love his brother.

not pictures from today. as you can tell by the clothing.

clearly sam needs a little help understanding what "smile!" means...

flavor of the day.

2010-05-19T05:55:00.001-07:00

is orange rhubarb! jam, that is! not sure if it's the thickest jam ever, but the little taste i had was soooo good that it doesn't matter--we can deal w/ runny jam that tastes like the brightest summer sunshine!! we have tons of rhubarb, but no strawberries yet, so when i saw blood orange (from italy! whoa!) i grabbed some and tried out a recipe from the jam for dummies book. it called for crystallized ginger, but it said you could leave it out. i don't keep that around, so i skipped it. you'd never miss it--this stuff is so tasty!

i am still learning, for sure. but i can see why people (cough*dad*cough) have closests and pantries and basements full of jam...since this didn't turn out perfect, i want to try again...and that will happen with strawberries and blackberries and blueberries and....how much jam can 4 people really eat??! sure, i can give it away, but how many people i know really want home-canned stuff?? (hey, if you really do, give me a shout and i'll definitely make something happen--this is way too fun to keep to myself, but i don't want to force it on anyone!!)

i was a little skitterish on cooking the stuff too long, since my two attempts at making marmalade have reulted in clementine concrete and grapefruit glue. you think i'm kidding? come over here. i'll show you something scary. so as soon as i saw evidence of sheeting, i pulled it from the heat, but my thermometer said i'd only made it to 215*. i was scared to cook it longer, since when i made the marmalade i cooked and cooked and never saw sheeting...oh well, it's a tasty concoction nonetheless and i can put it in a glaze for poundcake if it's really too runny.

so my 3rd jam attempt...most successful to date. :) and while i was getting things ready i saw a message that a friend had gotten engaged, so it's also my first commemorative jam...hahaa i'm so funny...but congrats, kristi--orange rhubarb is in honor of you! xoxo

tmi? eh.

2010-03-26T12:04:00.001-07:00

sam was in the bathroom w/ me.
checks in the toilet before i flush...
and says:

"you made a little poopy.
daddy makes a BIG BIG poopy."

his powers of observation continue to sharpen.

because i like lists. this is my list of the day.

2010-03-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

1. marcus is wandering around with an issue of "Outside" magazine. think he's trying to tell me something? we're on our way, just trying to get a few things done first!

2. i'm running out of high places to put all the things that marcus wants to mess with that he shouldn't have...my house looks RIDICULOUS. but i'm tired of saying "NO" 23434987345982357 times a day. ugh. hence, the going outside coming right up. though i'm sure that one can find SOMETHING he shouldn't have...

3. sam keeps asking to watch a show called "diary of a spider" but when he says it, it sounds like "diarrhea spider", which i'm sure is a COMPLETELY different show.

4. i just got 10 pairs of sunglasses in the mail. my very fine husband found some silly closeout deal and decided, for $10 or so, he'd indulge my affinity for ridiculous shades. VERY fun! i like that man.

5. haven't watched DWTS yet from last night...that's what today's naptime is all about! i'm ridiculously excited, but have to watch it by myself, due to the lack of clothing!

6. needing an iv of coffee today...got plenty of sleep, but i'm in a sinus/allergy fog today...BOO.

7. went and worked out this morning, boys went to kid's gym, then came home and fed them pop-tarts for a snack...feeling like something is wrong with that picture...sigh...

8. marky went to the doc yesterday, he's in the 95% for head and height, 75% for weight...how did this happen??? neither j or i are very tall, we "average" 5'7", so time will tell if he'll actually be a big guy or not...

9. sam can now "read" numbers...so proud of him! not so proud of when he gets tired of that game and just yells, but we'll keep trying!

10. reading "the help" and really enjoying it...there's a reason people are talking about this book! sometimes i don't enjoy books that switch from narrator to narrator, but this one doesn't bother me in the least! highly recommended.

feeling like superwoman today!

2010-03-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

list of things i've accomlished today:

1. kids up, fed, dressed by 9:00
2. floors swept, mopped, kitchen wiped down
3. out the door (looking somewhat cute, even!) by 10:00
4. groceries, dollar tree, library dropoff, home by 11:15
5. both kids fed and down for naps by 12:15
6. i've made 2 pot pies, homemade dinner rolls, and brownies (well...rolls on final rise and jeremy will put the pies in oven while i'm out at appointments this afternoon--but the real work is done!)

holy cow! i'm soooooo not bragging--mostly just amazed that this HAPPENED and i'm not feeling stressed or all mushy in the head. maybe it was all the naps over the weekend.

it seems like i usually have a "best-case scenario" for the day, and my master plan gets derailed not too long after the day starts...usually not the end of the world, but when i have things that MUST happen, i feel all harried. not hairy, just harried. haaaaa.

woop! here's to rainy mondays and happy children in waiting rooms this afternoon...

if i was old and funny i'd say "it was the darndest thing". and then go have dinner at 4pm.

2010-02-17T19:27:00.000-08:00

sam occasionally has a tantrum.
i get that.
i walk away while turning my face so he doesn't see me laugh.

usually the screaming is accompanied by falling down (dramatically) onto the floor.
today, he went the opposite direction and shimmied UP and over the top of an armchair.
i was just as suprised as he was...i didn't know you could shimmy up an armchair.
it was really frustrating, but also realllllllly funny.
until all that flailing knocked a lamp off a table and broke the CF bulb into 897328473 little pieces.

that led to another tantrum when i wouldn't let him inspect the damage.
i'm so mean.

sam: 1
lamp: 0
big mama: 0 (but at least i got to giggle)
the lamp did not get to giggle.

today.

2010-02-11T15:04:00.000-08:00

me: you're being a turd.
sam: i'm not a turd.
me: what are you?
sam: i'm a sammy.

duh, mama.

thoughts.

2010-01-26T12:36:00.001-08:00

sometimes you're the toilet.
sometimes you're the duck.

something like that.
this is what i found after leaving m. alone in the bathroom for approx 0.2934723 seconds.

hello, blog. nice to see you.

2010-01-21T17:17:00.001-08:00

it's been a while.
there's been much fun while i've been "away."

holidays.
recovering.
lots of football.
entirely too much time indoors...sigh...
a visit from the fine and lovely meghan. xoxo.

sam told megs upon her departure: "you're pretty."
what a sweetie.
both my boys loved her.
how can they not.

besides meghan, things i like:
1. my heated mattress pad. simple, but amazing.
2. having a clean crafty room. i actually go down there now.
3. marcus on 2 legs. he's allllmost a walker!
4. mealtime mania. learning to give in to the crazy and just let the noise and mess get bigger before they get better. there's a very zen moment of letting go. i will say with certainty that i am better at this than my husband. no pride, just truth.

get your craft on!

2009-11-20T05:03:00.001-08:00

this weekend, i'll be peddling my goods at a fun event!

come out and support fun and funky crafters!

happy birthday marky man!!!

2009-11-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

hard to believe it's been a whole year since marcus showed up!!

and it's like he KNOWS it's his birthday.

he's being all extra cute and extra smileysmiles.

or maybe that's just me thinking that.

either way, it's definitely HIS day and god is good!

and it's sunny and gorgeous out, perfect!

11.13.0911.13.08

yes, i know, PEAS! on his BIRTHDAY!
but he LOVES them, so that was lunch.
i tried to give him avocado and bits of turkey, but he turned up his nose.
hey, it's his day, right?
we're doing homemade pizza tonight and a couple of presents,
then having a party later this weekend.
i will try and do a blog post about that...
oh my poor neglected blog.
facebook is killing the blog, i do believe.
what with all my wit and spare minutes online going to snazzy (i try, at least) status messages!

.............................

and since he doesn't lend himself to being overlooked very easily,
i must say something about my mr. sammy mcsammerson...
today he told me, out of the blue:
"i got that boom boom boom, mama!"
great.
pretty soon he'll be telling me that i'm so 2000 and late.

xoxoxox

and hi megs! (you get a shoutout now that i know you read this!!!)

dirty little chip eater!

2009-09-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

all the posts lately have been around sam, so i must share a story about little marky man this time! and this morning he gave me something to share.

so i went upstairs for about 3.2124 minutes this morning to get sam up and dressed, and i came down to a distinct...aroma...

i must not have shut the pantry door all the way, because marcus had helped himself to an open bag of bbq chips and got them EVERYWHERE...shellacked to the tile, ground into the carpet, smooshed in his hair, crammed in his mouth, dangling from his pjs...you name it, it was there. must have been a very busy 3 minutes...he made the MOST of it!

i had a good chuckle and went hunting for the camera, of course. i was not prepared for sammy's reaction, though--the kid came UNGLUED. he's so very meticulous, and messes just freak him all the way out. i find this amusing. he very clearly didn't inherit the trait from me, she who laughs and takes a picture!

so it was a crazy 30 mins or so as i tried to manage sam's hysterics and clean up the mess and then get the baby bathed--i can NOT STAND the smell of bbq chips...all this before breakfast...unless you count chips as breakfast. ick!

for those of you that remember our cat (who got into EVERYTHING food-related)...jeremy pointed out that we didn't need to miss mister popo anymore because who needs a cat when you have marcus?

2009-09-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

sam was sitting on the counter this morning, eating his oatmeal.
he noticed my to-do list and asked what it was.
so i explained, and read off all the tasks that i plan on doing today.
clean out my car, mop the floors, vacuum upstairs, etc.
and he pointed to the list and said: "make brownies for sammy"...!!!
what a little sneech!

his powers of observation...

2009-08-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

me: (rolling red play-doh into a log shape)
sam: it looks like a sidewalk chalk!

me: (rolling brown play-doh into a log shape)
sam: it looks like a poop!

that is all today.

sweetest prayer. ever.

2009-08-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

our bedtime routine goes something like this: bath, pjs, brush teeth, read books, then hop into the rocking chair to pray and sing some songs. tonight i told sam it was time to pray...usually, i just say a very general prayer--thankfulness for events of the day, etc...tonight, sammy folded his hands and said "oh God..." the rest of the prayer went like this:

me: i'm thankful for...
sam: dada!
me: i'm thankful for...
sam: mama!
me: i'm thankful for...
sam: cake!
me: i'm thankful for...
sam: milk!
me: i'm thankful for...
sam: food!
me: in jesus' name...
sam: amen.

oh my...so very sweet.
i'm thankful for...
THIS BOY!

funny boys...

2009-08-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

i realize i still need to post about sam's bday, but sickness has overtaken our house...in the form of hand, foot and mouth virus. poor little boys...they are on the mend, now, fevers are gone.

last night went like this:
j: sam, what would make you feel better?
s: feel better.
j: what would make you feel better?
s: cookies!
.
.
.
.
j: we don't have any cookies...here's a marshmallow.

FUNNY boys in my life!!!

my sweet swweeeeeet sammy!

2009-07-01T08:54:00.001-07:00

today i'm finding it a little funny that sam doesn't like to be bossed around.

i'm a little over halfway through 4 weeks of keeping my friend's 2yo daughter, and she likes to tell sam to "sit here" "play with this" "come here"...you get the idea. wellll sam is NOT into this at all. he doesn't know yet how to tell her no, so he just screams at her. nice. not really. we're working on "no thanks". but it's good for him to have a friend around, to learn how to work this stuff out!

he's also starting to tell me "no" a little bit...i'm suprised it took him this long, really.
today when i told him to sit in his chair and he didn't do it until i starting walking towards him. he didn't know it, but he was going to get a time out.
well, i guess he did know it...
sometimes it's so hard to discipline him...he's so stinking cute, and he's really very good and very obedient most of the time. hopefully that will last!my heart gets so full when i look at these little guys. i think more and more about how much MORE full god's heart must get when he looks at us. and it pretty much blows my mind. and how much does his heart laugh at/with/near us when we do stuff like sam and try to be sneaky and not sit in the chair until we realize we've been caught...metaphorically speaking, of course. :)

i like thinking about that. a lot.

hello, summer!

2009-06-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

long time, no blog, eh? i'll just say that i've been outside a LOT lately! summer has finally come to indiana, all hot and humid-like. i'm babysitting for a few weeks, so i take the two toddlers outside every day from 10-12 while m sleeps...it's so nice to let them run around and play in the sandbox, the baby pool, on the swings and slides...they eat lunch, and then they are POOPED so they take amazing naps in the afternoon.

that's pretty much the summary (hahah summary...get it?) of my past couple of weeks. it's a tough life. no, i'm so very blessed to be able to be home with my boys and to be able to help a friend out when she was in need of child care for a month or so. sam does SO WELL with having a friend around--learning to share and take turns and all of that. i have a sneaking suspicion that he's of the introverted persuasion, but a few hours of play does him a lot of good anyways.

summer is best enjoyed near water, no? sam finds this to be the case...and he looooves to drive the boat with gpa h.

our first lake weekend of the year was a mixed bag. sam LOVED everything--the water, the sand, hanging out in the cottage w/ all the little people toys circa 1982...and marcus seemed to be fairly interested in all things big turkey. as interested as you can be at 7mo. it was the sleeping that killed us...or shall i say the attempts at sleeping. the boys actually slept quite well, but sam coughs a lot at night, which resulted in him being moved into the living room at 5am...and marcus is an EARLY riser, so i woke sam and jeremy up shortly after they had settled back to sleep when marcus and i came out at 6:30 to start the day. i think we're going to try a different plan in the future...one that involves different sleeping arrangements...sigh.

other than the lake, we've been busy with home improvement projects...(ha! "we" = jeremy, but i like to feel involved since i live here) this week it's been a new front door and all kinds of crazy trellis stuff for the garden...also in progress is the manly lair in the basement and the purchase of a new sliding door for the back room. how long it will be in the garage is anyone's guess...i don't think jeremy is looking forward to that job...one of these days we'll have the bigger projects done, right? something tells me that busybee husband of mine will keep finding things to do!!

arrrrrhh!!

2009-05-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

soooo i wear bandannas a lot. probably almost every day in the summer. because i'm lazy and it keeps all the fuzzy hair off my face. today, sam pointed at it and said "mama hat" and then pointed to himself and said "sam hat."

could i do anything BUT oblige? he wants to be like mama!

he looked like a cute little pirate! i tried to get him to wear it outside for our walk, but it was ripped off shortly after i took the picture!

terrible twos, starting a few months early??

2009-05-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

this morning, at the grocery store:
marcus starts crying (he had a BAAAD morning!).
sam: "Shut up."
i didn't think i heard him right, so i said "what?"
sam: "Shut up."
clear as day.
oooook...this is very funny to me, but i suppose my toddler can't go around telling his brother or anyone else to shut up...had to turn my face so he wouldn't see me laugh.
i'm sure he's sooo very fooled.
and daddy: in big trouble.
since he likes to say "shut up, baby" when marcus is fussing...
oh, these little mirrors...

unrelated to the shut up, but related to the naughty:
sam had his first ever time out today.
he likes to get out washrags and help me in the kitchen.
but he had already pulled out two rags, dunked them in mop water and "cleaned" quite enough.
so he went to get another rag out of the drawer, and i said no.
he turned at me and screamed "NOOOOOOO!!!"
sooooo time out.
he looked so pitiful and forlorn...it was all i could do to NOT laugh.
i love him when he's good.
and i love him when he's bad.

you should see the other guy....or not...there wasn't actually any fighting back.

2009-04-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

a couple weeks ago, marcus was BITTEN by another child in the nursery at church! she nearly broke the skin!!! look--you can see the mark left by each JAW:

here he is, looking much cuter a couple of days ago, although the mark is STILL visible!
that's really all i've got today. it's friday and it's almost time to take off and hang w/ some girls, which is a welcome change from The Day Of Poop i have had at home. heeeeeeeee.

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2009-04-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

this is how sam set up his mr. bill and his big bossman...who would you put your money on??

haircut.

2009-03-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

sam got a few hairs cut a week or so ago.
jeremy's first haircut was from his gpa H, so sam got the same treatment from his gpa H.
he was very very good!!! MUCH better than i expected.
the mama was also very good. not a tear.
sam had become very interested in the bumbo in the hours preceding the haircut, so i put the bumbo on the counter and it became our barber's chair!

kajsdfoahvahffkahsfadshfusd

2009-02-06T12:25:00.001-08:00

somedays i'm able to come up with rather (i think!) clever status lines for facebook. sometimes i think about it when i'm out and about. sad, i know. but it's fun to start a silly little dialogue with one sentence. today, however, i feel like my facebook status should read "Kelly is able to please none of the people none of the time." but i just can't bring myself to be that negative. but it's just one of THOSE days.

i know it's not 100% awful. there are good things going on, and i'm really trying to see those...but when there is pink (from antibiotics) puke on your near-white carpet, you're covered in poop that is not your own (well, i guess it really doesn't matter who it belongs to...it's poop) and you can't convince either small boy to cease needless wailing...well, it starts to feel a little dramatic and dire and i did leave the room and go scream in another room. and while it didn't make me feel *better*, it made me feel a little ridiculous and i guess that helped in the "get over yourself and just take care of it" department. i'd like to think i'd play it like a champ if this day just randomly descended in the middle of a bunch of good days. but it's been nearly two weeks of someone being sick, if not all of us being sick. we're just passing it around and around.

some of the good things are that we HAVE insurance and a doctor that we trust and we can always get in that day, usually in the next couple of hours. we have pretty good immune systems most of the time. we have carpet to puke on. we have drugs to puke up. i have a friend that came over so i could go wander target today. and what did i do? i bought stuff for those wailing boys. and enjoyed the sun a little bit. i was able to pray in the car and clear my head instead of singing ridiculous songs about frogs and lavatories to mr-i-hate-the-car. and there are some other things that i'm not slapping on the internet, but they are good, i believe. prayer is being answered. God is at work in the silence. hard to swallow when i want things my way, now, but you know how that goes.

and those afore-mentioned wailers?
are.
both.
napping.
right.
now.

excuse me, i'm going to go collapse.

woohoo!

2009-01-26T19:52:00.001-08:00

did another digital "class" tonight. since the last page i did was about marcus, i made sure to find some cute pictures of sammy to use on this one. some of my favorites--luckily i had the camera out for the first time he ever gave me a flower! a dandelion, yes, but i'll take it!!!
i have the nicest husband...he knows when i need a break and really tries to make it happen for me most days, even when he's had a crazy day at work. sam's been sick and it was a bit of a rough day. there had been little to no napping. there was puking. the house was a wreck--i hadn't done my "monday list" of cleaning jobs and it was stressing me out...all i'd done was cuddle the little sick boy and run pukey laundry through the machine. i definitely take his general good health for granted. i had to check my attitude--i'm not entitled to a healthy kid, but it's sure easier when he is! it's also a good thing that the baby is so mellow, because since he appears to be feeling just fine, he had to take a back seat to his big bro today!

hopefully sam will be better tomorrow. it was muuuuuuch worse on sunday (THREE baths!), today was a bit better (ONE bath!), so it's got to be winding down! luckily, his 18 month checkup is tomorrow so i can run things past the doc and see what she thinks.

i was informed that i needed to update my blog...at least that means someone reads this thing!

2009-01-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

it's cold and snowy, but i'm holed away in my bedroom with my heated matress pad (toasty!) and laptop. my very nice and excellent husband's anniversary gift to me was an online digital scrapbooking class--not just the class, but the *child free time* to watch the videos and try out the ideas! i've played around with photoshop elements, but the extent of my expertise has only amounted to the ability to change a color photo into a b&w or sepia...which is pretty lame, because you can do that with any photo program or website. enter jessica sprague. my friend betsy mentioned the basic class, Up and Running, to me some months ago and i figured i'd eventually take it when i wasn't moving or preparing for the impending birth of a child!

so this afternoon i got to hang out in my bedroom and make this:

neat, huh?

today's top 10

2008-12-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

top 10 things i'm loving right now?

1. my little helper. sam is loving to mimic right now. so when i was attending to some spit up on the carpet, i gave him a rag and he "helped" me...such a good little boy!

2. having the tree up--sam LOVES it, and he's been VERY good about the ornaments, much to my surprise. i love to see his eyes light up and his mouth make a big "O" and he yells "ooooh!!" when he sees it in the morning! 3. bath time with this little one--no more sponge baths, so he's pretty happy about that.4. the rooting reflex. i think it's just sooooooo precious and cute. even when i'm smooching on him and he roots on my nose...let's not discuss what that might imply about my nose.

5. SNOW! well, when i'm inside, at least. it's so pretty and i'm not tired of it yet. give me a day.

6. not having my christmas shopping done. it just doesn't feel that important. it's not the point of the holiday, not for me. the starbucks girl asked me last night if i had all my shopping done. i just said "nope, and it's ok!"...she looked worried for me.

7. the point of christmas. i'm not spending great lengths of time reading my bible right now, but i do take the quiet (and not so quiet!) moments in the middle of the night (and middle of the day!) to reflect on it and make it fresh in my mind...

8. wakey-wake time with the smallest heineywipe!

9. new contacts. and a new eye doctor that i really like.

10. our christmas/baby announcement card, a la the amazing betsy. girl has skills, i must say. and i'm soooo very excited to get my hands on them and send them out!

today was supposed to be his birthday!

2008-11-24T15:47:00.000-08:00

marcus was due the 29th...and was scheduled to be born today. i would have liked to have had this time to get ready for him, but he's healthy, he's home, and he's SUCH a good sleeper. so i'm not complaining! it's just funny to see that according to the ticker on my blog, i still have days left! good thing he's CUUUUTE:here he is, all cleared to go home last thursday night:

this is what i see, several times a day, now that we are home. sam, whining, because i can't/won't pick him up. what a turkey. good think jeremy is home.

and good thing sam can amuse himself (occasionally)...today he picked up half of a curtain rod and started waving it around. jeremy called it his "pimp stick" and i laughed so hard it hurt. especially because sam nearly took jeremy's eye out. i made jeremy give the stick back to him so i could try and get a picture. that's all, reallyy. happy thanksgiving week! i don't have to tell you what i'll be giving thanks for, do i??

little by little...

2008-11-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

Today has been encouraging! I had a moment to think a little bit...talk myself through the disappointment of not being able to take a baby home today...and I realized I'm not freaking out about some of the things that I thought were super important to me that I don't get to do or don't get to do quite yet. So pat on the back for me! Must be all the people praying. Amazing. If that's you, thanks...you have no idea how grateful I am! I'm even using capital letters as I type this, so you know I mean it.

Marcus has slowed his breathing down a little bit, so finally there is a little bit of progress there. He had another chest x-ray and doc says the infection in his lungs looked like it was getting a little bit better. I can't explain how good it feels to hear even those little things, rather than hearing "he's pretty much the same." I finally quit crying in the NICU, too.

The best thing, though? He's had two bottle of mama's special dairy delight! The doctor was in the room this morning and originally said Marcus couldn't have food until tomorrow. Then little man starting smacking like crazy on his binky, and literally made the doctor turn back around, take another look and change his mind! Didn't even have to use a feeding tube, since he was acting like he could handle a bottle. I got to feed him some milk and he went right to sleep...so sweet.

After his second bottle, our sneaky amazing nurse closed the curtains and let me hold the little guy...until the doctor showed up and she had to dash in and do an about-face. pretty funny. there were two nurses in the hallway trying to stall him as well. yay for fun nurses! Here he is before he had to go back in his bed--feeding tube GONE! smoooooch!
and back in the bed:

and just for fun, a picture of Marcus, with only 2 hours left in my belly:

it feels like it's been a lot more than 4 days...

oh boy oh BOY!

2008-11-15T03:51:00.000-08:00

it's been a wild few days!

went to my regularly scheduled OB appointment on wednesday.

doc checks a few things, asks how i feel about having a baby in the morning...

i was having some preeeeettty good contractions and didn't even know it.

yep, i'm a ditz!

i thought it was something i ate.

i hemmed and hawed a little bit, because baby wasn't technically even due until the 29th and i had a c-section scheduled for the 24th, but she told me she was worried about my uterus cranking too hard with the weak spot around my old incision...and she thought baby was plenty big.

alright.

i got to sleep at home that night and went to the hospital at 6:30.

at 8:40, Marcus Daniel joined us!

7 pounds, 7 ounces.

20 inches long.

SCREAMING

HAIRY

i love him!

doc informed me that my uterus was stretched paper-thin around my incision, so we made the right choice...felt good about that....

everything seemed fine, but they wanted to check out marcus' little lungs...

he was (and still is) breathing wayyyy too fast.

and it turns out he has some fluid and a little infection in there.

so he'll be on IV antibiotics for a week.

which means he has to stay in the NICU for at least that long.

hopefully that's all!

we know God has it, but it's hard to just wait and feel so un-helpful.

we can't even hold him yet!

so we sit and talk to him and listen to him grunt.

we'd love to have your prayers, anyone who is reading this!

prayers for a short and healthy stay in the NICU.

prayers for mama who gets a little overwhelmed at seeing all the cords and monitors and stuff taped all over her new little babe.

PRAISE for an otherwise healthy little guy and family/friends being so helpful and excited with us!

PRAISE for really sweet nurses and helpful medicine and good insurance!

PRAISE for my recovery thus far--i feel really good for being eviscerated just under 48 hours ago!

more to come.

new post, complete with pictures!!! wow, like wow, man...

2008-10-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

ok, i'm going to try and make this a somewhat cohesive train of thought...here's what i see in my rearview mirror these days--isn't he FINEFINE in his coat???see the potato sitting there?? yes, that was a "comfort object"...sam does this thing where he gets a hold of some random non-toy object and clutches it for dear life, usually through the entire course of whatever errand we're on. last week, these objects included the potato, a USB cord for my mp3 player, toothbrushes (once it was mine, once it was his), and a tape measure. weirdo.

oh, and who am i kidding, my rearview usually looks more like this:you can see the oldest (therefore most visible!) tooth of his latest aquisitions...4 in a week...yikes...at least he can bite things now! here's a happier shot of the tooth:all of these were taken on our way home from a pumpkin patch outing a week or two ago. i had to get him this pumpkin, since it was called a "baby boo" pumpkin, and we've been calling sam "boo" since day 1...he also like the peanut shell gourd:but wasn't impressed by pumpkin story time. he liked the straw better. he was running (well, as much as he can run!) around in the barn and doing things like this--anyone ever seen Innerspace??? this reminds me of the scene when Martin Short turns into The Cowboy. it's quite possible that NO ONE i know besides my brother has ever seen that movie.
this picture is here just because i like it. he's really this cute all the time. oh, except for when he's screaming in the car...i guess i can't fool you anymore, you saw the picture above.
my boys! when we pull up to the new house each evening to take food and do some work, sam says "dada!?"...every time. yep, that's dada's house. sometimes it does feel like we live separately. i don't like it. but i like these two fine men:

and...a couple walking videos!!! ignore my dryer and my tv...both wayyyy too loud...enjoy!!!

phew...yes, still here...

2008-10-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

first, if you read this today...HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! yay for mom!!!

i'm not sitting down at the computer much these days, but i really need to--my camera is full of pictures, i have email i want to return, but all i do is check facebook anymore! actually, i got wayyy caught up on people just by reading status messages last night...sort of sad that i didn't actually TALK to those people, but it will do for now! busybusy...

the house is coming along, we're set to move halloween weekend. just waiting on carpet and counters to come in, and working on some painting. jeremy and his band of merry men got the bathrooms and kitchen all tiled and they look great! sam is on a napping strike, so he wails in his pack and play while i paint. funny story about the tiling...so mortar and grout totally dry out your hands. jeremy slept over at the new house the other night and we were on the phone before going to sleep and he told me his hands were so dry he went digging through a box of my stuff in the basement to find some lotion. i didn't think much about it until i saw the bottle the other day. it was SELF TANNER...SOOOOO funny...and it would have been funnier if it had actually tanned his hands, but it's the gradual tanning kind, so i guess you can't really tell. but i haven't told him yet...teehee...let's see what happens.

sam is a certified walker these days...i'll have to get a little video up on here. it's pretty fun to see him walk around all proud of himself! BUT it also means he's a LOT sneakier! i used to be able to hear him move around...the "scoot" sounded a lot like "thump, drag, thump, drag"....and he can walk around and stay under the mama-radar...tricky little troll.

pictures to come.

and they say romance is dead...

2008-09-24T09:14:00.001-07:00

look at the email i just got from jeremy...i just had to chuckle...who else gets stuff like this???
just me.
i'm a lucky girl!

1 Gal Gray Dutchboy
B Lamp Blac -- 8L Rawumber 3 32D PhthaloG -- 4Eggshell
DB785-07(16
F 14-3
5 Gal White
Pushbroom (rebate)
Antennas on sale (20%)
Love you,
Hubs

yep, still here, somewhere...

2008-09-23T07:26:00.001-07:00

it's been a little busy around here! i think even if we didn't have a whole construction zone going on at our new house i wouldn't have updated until now. it's that whole fall/change of season and routine thing, i guess. at least that's how i explain it. but right now both sam and leena are sleeping, so i can get to this.

top news at this point in time...

1. sam FINALLY has another tooth, tooth #3 finally showed up yesterday...about 4 months after tooth #2. i love his gummy grin, so i wasn't super worried, but the more teeth he has, the better eater he'll be, i hope.

2. the new house is coming along, though "new" is only a relative term. as in, new to us. although at this point it has all new ceilings (even in the garage!) and some new paint has been rolled. this week we hope to get the rest of the painting done, so we can tile and then get the carpet installed...i say we, but it's really my husband, his dad, and any nicenicenice friends he can round up. thanks go out to chad and logan. me? i just put new pulls on the cabinets and put liner in the drawers...sam's job was to take the liners out of the drawer and replace them with half-eaten soggy pretzels. excellent work, my boy. his other job was to grab my big water mug (anyone else still use those from the hospital???) annd drink about 16-20 oz of crystal light (ohhh i'm not kidding) and then pee through his diaper and clothes...twice. so i took him home in a diaper, and i think i MAY just have found the trick to a happy car ride. nudie time. hmmmm....not sure how i feel about that.

3. baby #2 is coming along nicely, i believe. it certainly seems to be living it up in there...it's SO very busy. i love when i can see my belly move like a little alien is setting up shop in there. up until last wednesday, i had been measuring small and not gaining much weight, but now i'm measuring right on time and i made up for lost time in the weight department, to put it nicely...i still think it's going to be a little bit smaller baby than sam was, since i measured large with him, AND he was a week late...OH and had the largest noggin ever. i need to get a decent picture of this belly before this baby shows up!!! i have no officially guess as to what this one is. i keep changing my mind. but it's fun that way.

okay, pictures of the past few weeks!

jeremy and his mini-me enjoying some end-of-summer grilling:

spending time with jeremy of course leads one to start using a calculator. gotta work on the diaper budget!!
alright...we have a lot of "before" pictures...this shot of the eating area and family room shows a good idea of what we're dealing with and hopefully will show a LOT of in improvement in a month or so! the light fixture is goinggoinggoingaway , the vinyl will be ripped out and kitchen/eating area tiled, the (awful) carpet will be replaced with something much lighter and cleaner, and there will be paint...lots and lot of paint! even those beams and the built-ins on the sides of the fireplace...hopefully it'll lighten things up. that railing thing will be ripped out, much to sam's dismay. he likes to peep at you through the spaces. and you can't tell, but the popcorn that's there in the picture is all gone and spanish lace has been put in its place and it looks soooo good, thanks hubby!!!
this is the part of the backyard i like to refer to as The Site Of The Meteor Strike. there was a koi pond back there that was rather...unkempt, shall we say? the previous ownders wanted to take it with them, and we had noooo problem with that...however, we were left with a hole the size of...something very monstrous. so if you have anything you need to bury (like a wooly mammoth? a dinosaur carcass?), let me know. we have to figure out how to fill it in so we don't wind up w/ standing water...becuase you KNOW it would wind up in the basement. that's just how things go. we call that the H-factor, my friends.this is the master bedroom, mid-ceiling-repair. the whole house looked like this (like we were trying to quarantine some infectious disease, perhaps?) over the weekend, but it's getting remarkably better.and a couple of pics from our morning. what is it about dandelions??? you don't have to teach little kids to pick them and give them to their mamas, they just DO. and it made me all melty. :) first flowers from my boy!

how i wish that shadow wasn't there...

pardon the pjs...we don't do regular clothes until after the AM nap unless we're going somewhere. if i knew anything about photoshop, i'd love to play w/ this picture. too cute. since betsy is getting all digital-like, maybe she can assist??? hmmm...

woooo that's enough for now! good thing i type fast...xoxoox

got a dirty mouth?

2008-09-10T13:26:00.001-07:00

someone needs some orbit gum:

i was on the phone...and thought sam was fine. and i guess he was, really...but i turned around after i hung up the phone and saw him eating dirt out of the plumeria. he was rather pleased with himself.

he also discovered the beauty of headphones today. he looks a bit puzzled, but i think he liked them.

knitting news??? YES! i FINISHED a sweater last friday...we'll see about some pictures...i'll have to get creative...since it's not a maternity sweater and i am decidedly maternal....

have you done this yet??? TOOO FUNNNNNN

2008-08-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

have you played with http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ yet??? you really should. i saw this a couple of places and i had to join in...

looking swell in 1952:
i guess in 1960, i needed some serious vision correction:
in 1962 it was cool to wear poo on your head:
in 1964 i was the teacher??
in 1966 i had a LOT of hair:
fast forward ten years to 1976...the dazed and confused year...awesome:

1978...who knew i could rock a fro this hard:

the hair...the pose...1982...i was 3:

1984 found me a bit young for hairspray but i do recall a babysitter who looked a lot like this:

1990...oh dear:1994--i didn't quite have the hair for this, but i have a picture from middle school where my bangs attempted this:

hahahahah 1996...i was a junior in high school...glad to say my picture didn't look like this, though i doubt it was much better!!! i might have been guilty of a similar denim shirt, however:

punkins!

2008-08-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

ever since we found out we were going to have a baby, jeremy was very interested in growing the kid a giant pumpkin. good thing this kid likes being outside and LOVES the garden. good thing our house backs up to a field and we can grow crazy stuff like this...and according to jeremy, it's only going to get bigger. i drew the line at him building a little shelter for it, though. apparently the sun can crack the surface of the pumpkin. i say...it needs a little suntan.
you can't see in this picture, but pants were apparently optional this evening...that's what happens when you go to knitting night and leave the boys alone. they drop their pants.
this picture just makes me laugh. i love this kid!

socks!

2008-08-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

i finished a pair of socks last night. yay for sticking to a project long enough to get it DONE! i started the first sock in MAY...finished it 9 days ago...and got the second sock done in a week. it helps that the Great Declutter project is done, so there's less to do and less junk around to distract me!

Yarn: Araucania Ranco Multi, color 306

Pattern: The Yarn Harlot's sock recipe

Needles: US 2 bamboo dpns

Notes: Super easy sock method--I like top-down socks and I really wanted to keep them simple, since the yarn had such fun colors and I didn't think it would pool too badly. They almost look sort of camo-ish with the muted colors...not the plan, but I'll take it, they're cozy!

i had so much yarn left, i started a pair for the little one. if they fit him/her, maybe we'll wear our matching socks home from the hospital together! or at least for thanksgiving. i love how quick it is to make baby socks! but i just made the pattern up, based on what i did for my socks, so we'll see if the second one comes out anywhere close to the first. good thing i have extra yarn--i can just make three socks and see if two of them match! this picture (in natural light!) shows the colors in the yarn much better.

change is in the air...

2008-08-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

yesterday and today have really made me sense fall creeping in. ever so slightly. i know it will get hot hot hot again, but the past couple days of weather in the 70s and the sunlight becoming just a little bit more sideways-and-golden-like makes me aware that this is late summer now. i do love the start of a new season, especially this time of year when we have a TON of things fresh from the garden. it's all salsa, all the time, around here right now! that and potatoes. YUM.

so i guess it'd be a good time to mention that we're making a big change pretty soon here...yep, we bought a different house!! YIKES! it happened quick, which is odd for us. well, i should say it's more odd for jeremy, who likes to research and deliberate even small decisions. but i guess it seems quicker than it really was. we'd been stalking this place just a little bit. we'd gone to take a look w/ a realtor friend some months back, looked at similar homes in the same area, and came home and had some talks about what we would like in a new place and what ugly/nonfunctional things we would be willing to redo or live with.

so when the price on this place dropped, we went and looked a couple more times...and took the plunge! it's going to be nice to have more space with our family becoming four people in a few months. i have a little bit of guilt, since i know we would be just fine in this house even if we had a pile of kids, and the process of cleaning and decluttering to get it up for sale has been great for getting rid of STUFF that we DON'T USE or LOVE...people all over the world put a LOT more bodies in a LOT less space...i like to think i don't buy into the "bigger is better" deal that seems to be pervading everything around us" but maybe i do, a bit. i DON'T want to take *more space!!!!* as a license to amass *more crap!!!!*

that said, it WILL be very nice to have a basement (i get to have the whole 5th "bedroom" down there for my craftystuffs) and to have the space in the house split up into more useful rooms. i feel sometimes like the current open floor plan doesn't always work quite right for us. i know it works for a lot of people (it's about all that is being built around here!)...but we function better with "designated" spaces, i think. and i may be in the minority, but i have grown to loathe my cathedral ceilings. it is so LOUD and un-cozy to have all that space for air to rattle around.

so w/0 further ado, here's our new residence--pardon the craptastic photo--i took it out of the car window, and the people were already working on ditching the for sale sign moving their stuff out, so i didn't want to be too creepy and lecherous...so i took a quick picture and sped away. noooo that's not creepy and lecherous at all...

it's pretty traditional, and i like that. good basic bones for me to dress up and make into my new nest! it backs up to a creek, so we get to start a new garden next year. it'll be sad to leave our first house, especially with all the work we've done (hello hauling and wheelbarrow-ing tons and tons of dirt to make our garden grow!) but i guess that's a good thing, that we're not DYING to get out of here!

and here's sam, NOT helping me with the packing and decluttering...and taking great JOY in it! YAY EMPTY THE PENCIL BUCKET!!!

SO if you know anyone that would want to buy my current house, SEND THEM MY WAY!!! i have a little blog set up for that...such a nerd, i am. we're attempting to sell by owner. if you have any pointers on that, send those my way, too!!

today is sooooo pretty. i need to get off the computer and go outside!

2008-08-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

sam's dedication today. so nice...they really shouldn't let pregnant ladies go through this, though...i teared up a little during the prayer and thinking about him growing up and not being a baby anymore and what he's going be like...oy...thank you samuel, for chitter-chattering and trying to do a sommersault out of your dad's arms when we were up front--giggling make it easier to not actually cry!!!

walk like a man...

2008-08-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

he was a little bit tired of doing this by the time i got the camera out, but here's a few steps w/ the little walker toy. i love the waddle!!!

that's all for today, really. not much else is crackin. i am happy to report that i made a successful target trip this morning. no babies locked in cars, no tears, no pregnant ladies lying on the asphalt. i even managed to not buy the numerous uneccessary things that tried so hard to make it into my cart!!!

so glad this post is better than the last one! there's gardening and mer and knitting--some of my favorite things!

2008-08-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

phew...things around here are looking up!! jeremy's back from WV, so it's been great to spend time with him today. (yesss...he was OUT OF TOWN during the great ordeal of thursday...yeeesh.) we all went out and enjoyed the garden this morning. sam LOVES plants and flowers and just being outside in general...can that sort of thing be genetic? don't know.

this picture just may be one of my favorites i've ever snapped of him...what one year old kid just chomps into red peppers and LIKES them??? i just know one...

yesterday also MUST be mentioned...it was suuuuuper fun to see meredith and do shipshewana (had to check to make sure i spelled that right--since jeremy's pet name for SHIPshewana may or not be family-friendly...and there is much GOOD stuff to be found there!) mer found stuff for mer jr's quilt/room and i found stuff for random quilts i will try really hard to make and not shove the fabric in a drawer...

mer and sam bonded over fabulous amish pretzels...mmmmm....

oh and since i mentioned it to her yesterday and i know she reads my blog (hi friend!)--mer, here's sam's modeling pic from that catalog i was telling you about:

while jeremy was gone, i couldn't sleep very well. so i got some knitting done! yay! i finished up a koolhaas hat (Interweave Knits, Holiday 07) in some pink wool i found on clearance last fall. i love it, though it will be a while before i can wear it. it had been sitting around unfinished for wayyyy too long and i needed the needles to make project #2--a toasty topper for sam for the fall/winter. if you ask me, the pattern is genius--hat AND scarf sized for a toddler--he'll be able to have both, without losing the scarf! on the ground it kind of looks like a helmet...

i wish i had a decent picture of him wearing it, because he looked SO cute in it for all of 0.48539453 seconds. he clearly fails to see the beauty of the design:

feeling like a jerk...

2008-07-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

i suppose it had to happen at some point...and i had managed to avoid it for over a year. but that doesn't make me feel any better.

i nearly fried my kid today. my car said it was 94, which sounds high, but it felt about right, and
i locked him in the car at target...ughhhh...

i don't know how other people juggle these things, but when i leave a store, i roll the cart to my car, unload child first, then dump everything else in the car, roll the cart into the cart stall and usually go about my merry way.

enter STUPID automatic door lock feature. satan lives in my door locks. apparently if you don't open the DRIVER's door within a certain time frame after using the keychain clicker, the doors lock back up. whether or not your baby/purse/keys/phone/money is in the car or not. in my case, all i had in my hand was my sunglasses...which were NOT helpful in case of an emergency! i looked around and tried to figure out if it would be worth it to try and break the glass and which window would be the best one to sacrifice???

i promise i had a hide a key at some point...but it's not there anymore, and FOUR kind strangers stopped to ask the bawling pregnant lady lying on the asphalt under her car if they could help...and none of them could find it either. so one lady called the police and the policeman didn't really understand the problem and asked me how long i had left my kid in the car while i was shopping...WHAT??? yes, that's what he asked. i burst forth tears again and tried to explain, but was no match for the woman who had become my new best friend and told the cop in no uncertain terms that the baby had been in the car for no longer than 10 minutes, she had seem everything and no good mother would do that and couldn't he see i was a wreck? he was ready to call the ambulance in for sam and haul me off to jail. oh i kid you not.

long story slightly less long? he finally jimmied the door open with something that looked like a doorstop and a stretched out hanger...and sam was free. my new best friend pretty much ordered me to go into starbucks with her and bought me a drink and got water for sam. we chatted, i actually liked her a lot. she was SUPER nice and i felt slightly LESS bad about myself.

and a little better about the world at large.

lots of times i dislike "people"...as in people in stores that aren't nice or seem inconsiderate of those around them or bad drivers or people who talk on cell phones when they are being waited on. you know, everyone that isn't me or someone i love. they're all jerks, right? i'm bad.

but today i was proven very wrong.
and i'm glad for that.
thanks, God, for the reminder.
i needed it.

and bigger thanks that my little man will be just fine.

Birthday update!

2008-07-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

in just a short bit (at 11:17), samuel will officially be a one-year-old! we had an amazing weekend celebrating the past 365 days that we've had with him! on friday, we had a big cookout with family and friends--it was so great to see everyone, even if sam was pretty clueless as to why his house was invaded and he had to eat dinner in the garage. everyone was so sweet to share the love of our little man!

and he was sweet enough to share his raspberry cupcake with me!!!
there's so much pressure to make a mess out of yourself with your birthday cake!! sam ate most of his cupcake, but didn't really mess himself up too badly...

i finally got a picture of what he does with his feet every time he eats. i thnk it's so funny! and if he can reach the table, he'll curl his toes over the tabletop. good thing he's still little and his feet are still cute!

today, his real birthday, was a perrrrfect day to be cute. and to eat leftover cupcakes in our pajamas!

who's super excited to be ONE today????!!! this guy:

aaaaand one more from the end of the day--bday pic in the bday suit! doesn't he look thrilled?? ENOUGH w/ the camera, big mama!
i don't really lean towards the mushy...especially not on this blog...but this past year has been so great! sometimes it's sooooo hard, but i love being a mama, and i'm so blessed to have the priviledge of raising this particular little guy. it blows me away to think about how much he's grown and everything he's learned and done over the past year. and everything jeremy and i have learned and done! we love you sammy!!!!! you're the best boy for us!

pre-birthday birthday stuff!

2008-07-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

shhhh...don't tell him that's his present...it's a surprise for tomorrow! i'm sooooo very proud of my husband's amazing skills! he built adirondack chairs for us a couple of summers ago, and for sam's birthday, he scaled the pattern down and made a matching chair for sam. he seems to enjoy sitting there with his chilly beverage. the wood has to dry out, so next summer we'll paint it white to match ours. i think jeremy is making one more, so #2 doesn't feel left out, even though s/he won't be making much use out of it next summer....

and now, for your enjoyment, we proudly present..."the scoot"...i don't think i've put any video up of sam's method of movement, so here's proof that he's not like the other babies...

true story.

2008-07-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

so i'm pretty tired of my hormones.

my husband just made me cry. we don't know what this baby is, and i don't think we will. but we're having a hard time coming up w/ a boy name other than Samuel. it would probably be bad form to use that again. but i came up with a few i liked and shared my #1 boy name pick w/ him...and to jeremy's credit, i didn't tell him it was my #1 pick. i just ran it past him to get an honest opinion. and i guess that's what i got.

he told me that name was ridiculous and he would have to DIE, no, someone would have to MURDER him before i could name a baby that name. and hadn't he ever told me about so-and-so that he knows and can't stand, who is also named that name???

so i guess i forgot about that guy.
because i don't know him.

jeremy then suggested Enos. which to me, sounds like ANUS. we are not naming any child of ours anything that sounds like that. jeremy's defense? there was some guy on the Dukes of Hazzard named Enos...thank goodness he was joking about a name. too bad i wasn't. :(

but now jeremy is in the laundry room, with a plastic hanger.

because he heard an animal in there.

i almost cried again...because that's where all the hamburger/hot dog buns are that i bought for our cookout...

at least he can be my hero when he eradicates whatever is in there....he did protectively close the door to the room i'm in. to save me from the beast. what a great guy.

i love him, i really do.
i don't love crazy raging pregnancy hormones.
i don't remember this from last time.
but i'm sure i was just as bad, i just choose to forget.

i suppose i can try to find some new baby names...it's funny how many of these names i liked on paper or in my head sound so ridiculous when i actually think about a REAL LIVE person wearing one of them around for their entire life...

dog days...

2008-07-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

it's hot and muuuuuuggggggyyyy...so i baked a cake. the crazy runs deep today. i blame the fetus. it was a tasty cake, you should try it, though it miiiiight be half a cake right now, since we're both home and the baby seemed to like it, too! i was accused of trying to make jeremy fat. i told him he could eat one piece instead of four. and FURTHERMORE i made the afore-mentioned confection in part because jeremy likes to buy things in bulk and i didn't think that sam could chow through the THREE 32 ounces containers of yogurt before they got too sour...

in other poorly-chosen-non-nutritive-food news, we went to 3 rivers last week, and sam had his first taste of an elephant ear--and was a fan, of course. he also checked out the fountains at headwaters park for the first time...didn't like those quite as well as the fried dough.

we were able to spend friday at the lake cottage before the weather turned, and it really seems like sam is enjoying the water more and more each time we take him up there. we'd hold him up so he could "swim" on his belly, and he loooooved it. he kept trying to stick his face in the lake...took in quite a bit of turkey water, so we'll just hope that's a boost to his little immune system and leave it at that! look how much fun he's having in his little-man trunks! you'd smile like that if you were that cute, too!

swimming was apparently good for his appetite, because after these pictures were taken, the child ate and ENTIRE HOT DOG. this, from the kid that won't eat any meat. ever.

to me, it looks like he's saying the pledge of allegiance:

last night we were able to get out for a much needed date night--it was soooo nice. we had dinner and cork and cleaver, then horsed around at borders, then went to the 3 river fireworks. the baby was wonderful, and we're really happy with the new sitter. unfortunately, besides from baking a cake, i've been a crappy wife today. poor jeremy. i tried to warn him that the pregnancy hormones were on level 10 today and i knew i was being a jerk, but it didn't make it any easier for me to stop...i cried at sam's club while we were buying burgers and such for the big bday party this weekend.

that's all i have for now...looking forward to the big ultrasound this wednesday! woooooo!!!

happy little list for today, july 11.

2008-07-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

1. jeremy is home from colorado!!! we had fun, the babe and i. but it's good to have my mountain man back again!

2. watching jeremy play with sam. he's a great dad and they are such buddies, i love it! sam also eats MUCH better for jeremy...not sure what that's all about. could it have anything to do with the fact that jeremy lets him have animal crackers with breakfast...??

3. girly dinner tonight w/ janice. red meat was consumed. that's how i like it!!!

4. heading to the lake tomorrow, weather permitting...

5. garden fresh red potatoes...we made food from dirt! neat, huh?

6. little one #2 is kicking and happy at 20 weeks. i'm up 6 pounds so far, and that's about how things were last time, so no fear--i'll pack it on. just you wait. i've gone from feeling a little uneasy about being pregnant again so soon to being just ok with it to being genuinely excited. the excited part really just took hold this week. i feel a little bit bad, since it was so easy to get pregnant and not everyone has that luxury...but my feelings were real and i had gave it some time...because i knew i'd come around. so now i can say i'm really and truly looking forward to late november and meeting this little bittie.

7. sitting outside w/ my boys tonight, seeing fireflies.

8. watching the mail for my ridiculous ebay purchases to show up...it's like christmas in july!

9. iced tea.

10. watermelon.

aaaaaaand we're back!

2008-07-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

happy 4th! i'm on a computer and not blowing anything up tonight, since the baby is already in bed and i like having 10 fingers. it comes in handy, especially when i want to knit.

anyway.

we had a great trip up to Saugatuck, MI. we didn't DO much, really...relaxed on the beach, relaxed by the pool, relaxed out to dinner, relaxed getting ice cream...you get the idea. it was nice to just connect with each other and be "us", and leave the "mom and dad" part out of it for a bit.

oval beach is ranked in the top 25 in the world by some travel magazine, due in part to beautiful sunsets, apparently:
before we left, our super nice neighbors gave us a fun little car for sam, since their son is too big for it now. it looks so foreign in our garage--it seems like we don't have a kid old enough to use THAT. but he likes being pushed around in it! how did we go from baby to boy so fast??? i think the polo shirt helps him look even more grown up. clothes make the man and all.since we're going backwards in time, here's last weekend--sam has been in the lake a few more times now--he's starting to like it more and more. this is good. please pretend you don't see the disaster that is my hair. yeeesh.

and if you recall a few posts back, there's a plant that i described--a plumeria from our honeymoon that jeremy is always trying to kill. well, not really, but he always threatens to kill it, because he hates it. because he thinks it looks like a cigar. well, NOT ANYMORE!!!! after five and a half years, it has sent out one little amazing smelling flower!!!! which, shortly after this picture was taken, jeremy knocked off of the plant. BOOOOOOO...he claimed it was an accident...me, i'm not so sure...but at least i have a picture to prove that our "plant of love" actually DID bloom:

gonna make like a tree...

2008-06-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

i should be finishing packing right now, especially since it's summer and it's easy to pack. swimsuit, couple of tanks, couple of shorts. dress to go out for dinner. done. well, almost.

and packing is made even easier this time because we're not taking the baby! i'm pretty excited to get away with just the hubs and relax on the beach for a few days! yay! we need a few days to just be us and have a "babymoon" of sorts. i can't believe i just typed "babymoon"...bleah! i think of a butt. a little wrinkly one.

but i'll miss him--how could you not?

top 10 list...warning: super long post!

2008-06-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

been a while, yes? it's been something around here with summer weather finally here (meaning no computer, since i'm outside so much more!) and travel (went to wisconsin for a cousin's wedding this past weekend) and just general running-amok-ing.

the weekend trip was approached with caution...we were somewhat worried (jeremy more that me, but pretend you didn't read that) that the baby wouldn't travel well so we attempted to plan everything, pack everything, control everything. hahaha. funny us. friday (the day we were set to LEAVE) started out w/ a doctor's appt for sam...BUT he was cleared for takeoff, no ear infection, just some lingering fluid. therefore there was NO REASON for him to continue waking up SCREAMING in the middle of the night.

let's just say our trip was thwarted in many ways. and the following post may sound complain-y, but please read it and understand that i'm laughing about it already...

1. we lost our I-pass somewhere and had to call jeremy's brother from the road to look up online where to buy another one. we got the name/address/exit of some creepy random gas station in the gary-ish area...and when we got there...they informed us that you can't buy an I-pass in indiana, since, oh, MARCH 1...nice. thanks, I-pass website for your up-to-date information. we are told we can purchase one at any oasis along the tollway.

2. we get to the first oasis and since it's friday, we can't buy an I-pass. apparently you can only buy them on monday at that particular location. neat. also very stupid. also not posted on the I-pass website. fortunately the next oasis has them every day of the week. how courteous of them. good news is we only had to go through the cash lanes twice.

3. friday night...filled with screaming from 2-5. i try and keep my cool and look forward to all the family i'll get to see the next day and maybe i can catch some sleep in the car during the 3 hour trip to the wedding. stayyyyy positive!!

4. no one told us ALL OF WISCONSIN was FLOODED and EVERY road we would attempt to take would be CLOSED. even the whole entire section of interstate from milwaukee to madison. WHAT???? there is much arguing in the car about the right way to go and we stopped and got advice from 3 different places...jeremy even got the number to call the highway patrol...but the lady that answered the phones just wanted to know who the h*** gave him that number???? at these different gas stations, we get a break from screaming baby and we hear several times "i don't know if you can go that way, i hear a dam broke" though no one could really say what dam had broken and which roads were closed and for how far. so it took us 5.5 hours to get to steven's point. we miss the wedding. awesome. here's a stop we made on the side of the road--the cross street is TOTALLY covered in at least 2 feet of water, then who knows...
5. we did make it to the reception, after i had to explain to the hotel clerk that i had indeed already been charged for the hotel room on priceline and no he may not have my credit card to charge me again. here's sam, meeting his great grandma:
6. the reception was great, it was wonderful to see all my aunts/uncles/cousins/grandma...i rarely get to see them, since it's so far and we have a rather uncooperative traveller! sam was actually VERY good at the wedding and made everyone love him and made me look like an idiot for saying what a challenge he can be! here he is enjoying some diet root beer. yes, we're GREAT parents--hey no sugar, no caffeine! however that seems to have a limited effect on the amount of screaming we endure at night.
7. saturday night...another night of screaming. let's just say we spent a fair amount of the night in the parking lot so we wouldn't get kicked out of the hotel. that's sort of funny, right? leaving the hotel so we don't get TOLD to leave? it wasn't then.

8. sunday...everyone is tired but we leave bright and early and find a very quick way back to my mom's. it may or may not have been the route i had originally suggested we take TO the wedding the day before. but what do i know?

9. BUT on that way home someone (not me, not jeremy, not my mom) decides that it would be a good time to scream. this is, well, FRUSTRATING. we may or may not have pulled over on the highway, gotten out of the car, exchanged angry words, and i may or may not have sat down on the ground and refused to go anywhere with anyone until i drove and my husband rode in the backseat. that might be a story for a another time. or not.

10. instead of prolonging the torture, we got to my mom's, had dinner, then drove ALL the way back home on sunday night. thankfully the baby decided to just sleep with minimal protest. i'd be tired after all that screaming too.

and THAT, my friends, is a top ten list that i might be laughing about for quite a while. in only the most ironic way, however.

long time, no blog.

2008-06-03T10:08:00.001-07:00

could it be because i'm having a baby???

and all that interests me at this present moment is baked potatoes???

dirty mouth!

2008-04-21T11:37:00.001-07:00

sam was able to scoot over to one of the plants today and eat a good amount of potting soil...poor little guy, he was spitting it out and crying and generally notpleased.

but, a little yogurt can fix anything, it appears.

i also let him sit in the grass while i hauled groceries into the house today. he was really enjoying watching the mowing crew take care of one of the common areas. probably because they were loud...and had trucks...
he looks so tiny there in the yard!!!

wait, i have a blog??

2008-04-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

well, i found it again, so it must be true! it's been a little busy around these parts, to say the least. i'm not getting into all of it, but it's all in good ways. it's just a new rhythm, and i'm not so good at change, although i profess to love and need it...sooooo here goes, my attempt at updating!

mr sam is getting so strong! when i turned away, he was sitting on the floor next to his walker thing (we call it his scooter, since he scoots all over) and when i turned back, this is what i saw: he proceeded to fall on his face while i was messing w/ the camera. bad mama. but one of the (many!) things i love about this kid is HE DOESN'T CARE when he gets hurt! if it's a real doozie, he'll whimper or let out a few cries, but then he's over it. onto the next thing to chew or rip or otherwise destroy.

this is his favorite way to play right now--give him the basket of toys and he pulls everything out. it keeps him occupied and content to play by himself for quite a while, so the mess is noooo problem! i love that he's getting a bit more independent.

he's been able to roll for some time now, but only has realized in the past few weeks that he can GO somewhere if he KEEPS doing it! hey, i never claimed he was a genius...

i've started watching my friend's little girl once a week. so far, so good...although if sam is around, i have to keep a close eye. he LOOOOOVES other babies, and would have no qualms about dumping her out of the bouncy seat and making a toy out of her!

sam is nearly nine months old...and i only JUST NOW got his abc's up on the wall...mostly because it required use of a laser level and every time i thought of it, the baby was napping. his room finally has something on the wall, and it looks pretty nice if i do say so meself.

i didn't teach him this trick on purpose...

2008-03-24T17:35:00.000-07:00

sam is now dancing whenever he hears music--so cute! i guess it's because whenever i have music on, i bounce him around in my arms and sing along. or i just make up music and bounce him around. over the past few days, he's started bopping on his own to lots of things: me singing some ridiculous made-up song, the radio, stuff on tv.

i've been trying soooo hard to get a good bit of video...i'll keep trying, but for now you can get the idea. here he is, enjoying a little salt-n-pepa (don't judge me):

no good title ideas...eh.

2008-03-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

not much to report at my ripe old age of 29. age appears to be directly proportional to how boring i am. and the fact that i just used the word "proportional" proves this statement to be true.

good thing Jamie came to see me over her spring break. it was nothing short of fabulous to see my dear friend. she lifts my spirits, even when we don't "do" anything! and she has a nice rear view: this is us, trying to get a little self-portrait...makes me giggle. poor baby. little does he know this will probably happen every time auntie heimer comes to visit!
last night it was "warm", so our little fannnn-damily went for a walk. it was really misty, so we got pretty wet over the course of 2 miles or so. do you see that he's holding a binky? yesterday afternoon, Sam became rather attached to that pacifier...not in the traditional way where the baby sucks on a pacifier...but in the way where the baby clenches the pacifier in his fat little fist until his knuckles turn white. yep, he even carried it the whole way in the bjorn...cold wet air and all...silly baby. he doesn't even USE a pacifier. he was screaming when i was changing his diaper, and i pulled pacifier out of a basket to give him something to mess with. i guess it worked.

knitting post to come, eventually. i've been doing a little bit of crafty type things, but mostly other things. tomorrow we're off to wisconsin for Easter...wish us luck, traveling with the wee one!

30 things...

2008-03-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

i have exactly one year until i'm 30, soooooooo i thought i'd make a list. i've been mulling it over for about a month and a half. some things are challenging, some are just things that i've been putting off too long.

30 Things To Do Before I Turn 30...

1. try 30 new recipes, whether or not Jeremy will eat them. :)
2. go sledding or skiing or enjoy snow in some way
3. get away overnight with the husband and not the baby
4. set up an organized recycling area in the garage
5. go letterboxing
6. visit a winery
7. knit a sweater i love
8. make a new quilt for our bed
9. knit a lace project
10. read a photography book and try to take better pictures
11. donate all clothes that i don't wear
12. figure out something to improve my hair situation...maybe a really good cut/color
13. get a little time away all by myself, preferably a night and a day away somewhere sweet and relaxing
14. sew myself a fun summer skirt
15. can something--tomatoes, this summer?
16. create 30 pages for my art journal.
17. purge sewing supplies and organize what i will actually USE
18. put sam photos (of year 1) that will not be scrapped into album
19. purge kitchen supplies/tools/appliances/crap--get it down to what i actually USE (seeing a theme here?)
20. run in a race or fun run
21. swim across Big Turkey
22. attend a local farmer's market at least 5 times
23. organize and back up my computer files
24. go on a media fast for at least a week at least 3 times
25. read at least 5 "helpful" books
26. read at least 5 "pleasure" books
27. write a knitting pattern
28. learn how to spin
29. make pillows for the back room
30. floss!

BYOW

2008-03-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

BYOW = Bring Your Own Whine...and no, I didn't misspell "Whine"...today and yesterday have been some of the whiniest, clingy-est days of young hineywipe's life. Seriously, I can't leave the room. Or an area within 10 feet of the child. Um, teeth? Hurry up, if you are causing this! The only solution I have found that works reliably is to put on the Beastie Boys and dance around with him. He's particularly fond of "Root Down"... However, the husband brings gifts of candy, which is always appreciated...yes that is a NEW 5-pounder of the good & plenty...I need an intervention.
The cuteness of chubby bare feet sticking out of little jeans also makes up for the whineyness.Maybe, just maybe, he has inherited my "flip-flop groove"...a good sign, since it makes the wearing of said footwear rather instinctive.
It's been a ridiculous couple of days. I managed to break the bathroom sink with a broken humidifier...yeah...and today I ran a used diaper through the washing machine. I think I need to have my head checked.

how i know he's mine...

2008-02-28T18:08:00.000-08:00

it was a trying day, but i know the child is mine.
because even after crabbing all morning,
he took the time to laugh at fart noises...

let's hope a tooth, any tooth, shows up verrry soon...

it's a good news/bad news kind of a day...

2008-02-26T12:33:00.000-08:00

good news: we woke up to BEAUTIFUL snow! i love it!
bad news: even though school was cancelled, jeremy went in to work on things...
good news: hopped on the scale today and i'm down 8 pounds from pre-pregnancy weight.
bad news: although all my skinny pants fit...they don't fit the same...some of my rumpus appears to have migrated to my midsection...sigh.

good news: i've been productive! laundry is clean and cookies are made. every house needs clean laundry and cookies!
bad news: laundry must be folded and the kitchen is a mess.

good news: i got a looooong toasty shower and smell quite nice.
bad news: it was AFTER i showered that i decided working out would be a good idea. now i need another shower and i am running out of babynaptime.

good news: found a hip carrier at a garage sale for just a few dollars.
bad news: doesn't work for us...hehehehhe good news: the baby likes carrots.
bad news: carrots STAIN.
good news: got a ball winder and jeremy built me a swift, so yarn organization and ease of use is within my grasp.

bad news: i got a little caught up winding yarn, and thus have not been knitting. but look at the pretty little yarn cakes!

one of these things is not like the other...

2008-02-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

hehehe...i grabbed a handful of good & plenty from my FIVE POUND BAG of good & plenty...and this is what i saw...made me giggle...i guess when your husband buys it in bulk for you, they don't weed out the weird ones...
in craftiness...i knitted a Shedir this week. not to toot my own horn...but i looove it! the Rowan Calmer is so soft and stretchy--makes a super comfy hat. it just fits, because apparently i have a head like sputnik (ha!)...

and the decreases do this beautimous thing...looks like a snowflake, which is fitting for today, since we're getting some fat snowflakes.

in miscellaneous household news, the baby is clean. and aside from chapped lips and a lingering cough, he's feeling finefinefine!

evidence of finefinefine:

not sure if this is what the manufacturer intended...

2008-02-14T10:13:00.001-08:00

Sam got a verrrry fun toy from Grandma for Christmas--but until he could sit up, there wasn't much point in putting the thing together. So today was the day...and I really should have set it all up sooner, because it has provided ME with LARGE amounts of amusement.

When the toy attacks, by all means, attack back:

This makes me think of bowling:

Happy Val-o-ween!!!

table manners only a grandmother could love....

2008-02-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

wooo how is it the middle of february already???

2008-02-12T07:21:00.001-08:00

so it's been a while. where did half of february go??

welllllll where should i start? how about i just post my favorite pictures of the week and just let them do most of the talking.

in most amazing news, sam is getting hair, much to his father's jealousy. this picture kind of makes it look like there is more than there actually is, but i'm sure sam wouldn't mind...this is also his more favorite, most LOUD toy of the week. :) thanks, nate and sarah!he's still getting over a cold...which has rendered him somewhat "subdued", shall we say? and no one would believe me if i didn't have the picture to prove it, but he FELL ASLEEP mid-bounce...or something like it. this is not a kid that falls asleep easily, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME--and look at this:
today it is really cold and pretty snowy, so it's perfect that i finished up some socks! i've seen jaywalkers all over the internet, and it's for good reason! the pattern shows off loud yarn very well, and is easy to memorize without being too boring! they are made out of yummy koigu, and are on my feet right now.
someone else likes yarn as much as i do...
i'm assuming he learned how to do this from jeremy, who also likes to pull on my yarn/needles/arm while i'm knitting...booo...

update. but no videos this time. sam has been on strike from learning new tricks. or at least letting me get them recorded.

2008-01-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

BUT there are lots of pictures to share. this is what we've been up to...last week, i was hoping for snow, so i put sam in his "let it snow" pajamas. and each night, it worked! we woke up to snow, beautiful snow! and he loved peeping out the window at the backyard. i want to try it again tonight, but i don't want to be disappointed if it doesn't work a third time...

and because it's always a joy to get a picture of the screeching ape that lives on my floor:

it appears that this winter weather has not hurt my plumeria. there is a bit of story behind this (somewhat ugly) cigar-shaped plant that i like to call a tree. jeremy hates it and tries to kill it and throw it away all the time...but the tree will not be killed or thrown away. we got it on our honeymoon in hawaii, just a dead-looking piece of a plant--believe it or not, at a wal-mart...gross...wal-mart on hawaii, i know...but for four dollars or something, it was worth a shot. so it grew and i like to wax poetic and tell jeremy that the tree represents our love and why are you trying to KILL it??? i took a look at it today and if i'm not mistaken, it's going to have FLOWERS! flowers, people, after five years of being an ever-elongating cigar looking monstrosity requiring larger and larger pots. ahhhh taking a science-geek moment to enjoy the beauty of botany...

and my current project of dooooom...a jaywalker sock out of yummy koigu...it was actually much longer than the photo when (gasp) i had to rip out the entire heel flap and entire gusset...BOO...because i screwed something up and couldn't figure it out. and the yarn is just too pretty to have an imperfect sock. and i'm irritated, because it's an EASY pattern and i've made socks before! but it is in time out right now. sigh.

maybe i'll get some time tonight to take a picture of the socks i actually finished today, and to let the jaywalker out of time out. we'll see. for now it's off to attempt to make some ribs...i've never done it before, but i found this idea and i'm off to pop them in the oven...xooxoxox

because mom likes the videos and i'm happy to oblige...

2008-01-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

so i just gave sam a bath, and he stuck one of his 987492348923 rubber duckies in his mouth and chomped down, which gave a good squeek...then he just sat there for a while w/ the duck in his mouth and i got the giggles--it was so cute! so here are some pics and a video where i got him to do it again. not the same as getting it taped the first time, but oh well.

and here's my finished product from yesterday--i love it! more to come in better colors--this was the test bag, and i think it turned out pretty well. ahhhh i start to get all itchy if i haven't made something in a while, so this helped.

crying it out...and out...and out...

2008-01-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

ohhhhhh i hope this is a good thing. letting sam "cry it out" to get to sleep. we're hoping that he'll learn to go to sleep, and we won't have to rock him every time--it has taken an hour or more to get him to conk out. i'm learning to be patient, but i think that rocking him for every nap and each time he wakes up at night is totally draining. emotionally and physically.

most of the time, i can put faith in what we are attempting...i read some journal articles that explain how there is no emotional damage that you do to your child by letting him/her cry it out...but what about me? i'm pretty sure that I am going to have emotional damage from the whole experience.

but the doc said it was ok...and she's good...and that with sam's temperament (strong-willed aka "spirited" aka STUBBORN depending on how you want the frame it), it would probably be effective...and it would take a week or so. it's day 5...and at times, it would seem he's getting the idea, and then other times, not so much. this is one of thos "other times" i'm hiding in my room w/ the laptop, my mp3 player (dorky knitting podcasts!), and chocolate. i didn't plan on the chocolate, i found it here...doesn't everyone have chocolate in the bedroom?

******

that was yesterday, and things are much better today. he doesn't hate us. see? pardon the messy-ness in the background. some things are more important than housework.

one bad naptime and i get all doomsday...he had an AWESOME night of sleep (8 until 8 with no wakeups--well, none that he made us aware of) and consequentally, so did we. phew.

and my mother in law has kidnapped the baby for the afternoon, so i had things all set up at 9am so i could get crafty--here you see the space heater (back room is chilly!), supplies for a new bag i'm going to TRY and make, chocolate, and mug for coffee.

not pictured is the ginormous tub of guacamole that i made up for the occasion...when it's cooold and dreary out, you need to have food that tastes like summer. mmm! hopefully i'll post with a finished bag a la this tutorial...and more HAPPY BABY pics!

Question. Which bear is best?

2008-01-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

sammy bear, of course.

happy new year!

my only resolution is to be nicer to Jack, mt in'laws' smelly over-friendly dog who rolls in dead things and then rubs himself on my legs.

getting so big...

2007-12-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

day 3 of Attempting Solid Food...well, cereal at least. right now it's all about the experience rather than the amount of rice that gets in his little belly...however, the small bit he had today was WELL received--he started really going after the spoon! yep, he's an eater. oh my...it's a little bittersweet, knowing that i won't supply all his food anymore. but he still needs me to shovel the rice in, so it's ok.

here's the latest--if you listen intently, you can hear a little TOOT in the beginning! hahaha...maybe that's not as amusing to anyone else, but i might as well share. and then you can enjoy the squealing, his latest trick, and see him get up on his side. yes...this is what i do all day. :) happy last week until Christmas!

Christmas card outtakes...

2007-12-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my brother-in-law snapped a few pictures of us by our tree...I really need to get cards printed up (unoriginal, yes...but also FAST thanks to the beauty of Sam's Club 1-hour photo and Mail Merge).

Some of the shots that didn't pass muster...no we weren't drinking:

but the baby was:

jeremy was getting bored and got caught post-yawn, pre-smile:this is my favorite:

happy monday!!!

finally!

2007-12-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

my forecast is done!!

my first (wearable) sweater. there may or may not be another sweater under a bed somewhere. i made a few changes--smaller bobbles, longer ribbing--and i like how it turned out!

oh baby...we've hit a bit of a rough patch--i called the nurse, she says he's teething, i don't quite buy it. cough/runny nose/generally cranky/but no fever. we'll see, i guess. for now, i'll just rip all my hair out. neat.

at least he's cute:

happy little day

2007-11-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

how about a happy list? it's always the little things that bring me joy...and today i'm feeling it!

1. the heated matress pad is back on the bed. last year at this time, i was newly pregnant, so i was very sparing w/ the heat...not so this time around. i think i cooked myself last night...hopefully i can have more babies...

2. there is now a four-month-old in the house! he was reallllly good for his shots yesterday. last time he screamed all the way out of the office and all the way home and all afternoon and...this time, he was over it by the time we left the exam room! he's now 15 pounds, 13 ounces. his current tricks are: sticking out his tounge, grabbing his feet, and peeing on his head. look out, ladies.

3. gingerbread lattes...even better when your husband brings them home for you.

4. great friends who will babysit! it's now my official duty to find the sitter whenever we need one...i don't like asking people to take my kid, so it's great that it was so easy this time!

5. i'm almost done with Forecast for National Knit a Sweater Month...technically, i started it LAST November and quit when i found out i was pregnant...it wouldn't fit by the time i would finish it, so into the cedar chest it went. now it's out, and has been ripped out quite a bit, but i just have a little bit of the body and button bands left!

6. i am almost done with the nasty job of going through the boxes we pulled down from the attic...i haaaaaate going through old stuff--it takes forever and every piece of crap seems to take on emotional significance...so it becomes hard to throw anything out, and we're right back where we started...the end is in sight, and i've thrown a LOT of stuff away this time! yay me!

7. i am roughly 1/2 done with Christmas shopping!!! lots of secrets!!
xoxoxoxo

the many faces of sammy!

2007-11-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

Sam gives a shout to his people near and far...

2007-11-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

you'll hear my washer start spinning at the end...geez i never realized it was THAT loud!!

pretty dang grateful...

2007-10-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

to get to hang out with THIS GUY all day long! it's hard, sometimes, to not be "at work", feeling like i'm being productive and contributing to society and my household...but i know that i really am doing those very things by staying home. it just feels a little different, and i'm still adjusting...

yes, he knows they lost...what a mess last night...honestly...but i had to get a picture of him with his team gear on.

we're having a pretty decent monday. it's going to be 90 degrees, so i had to get an early start to make good on my promise to myself to get back in shape...went running for the first time since he was born. actually the first time since probably november?? not sure. i took pregancy and the winter months as an excuse to just do the elliptical machine and some prenatal yoga...and it is very clear that i took it easy! but the jogging stroller make it soooo very nice. highly recommended!! it is also highly recommended to leave it out in a very prominent place in the garage to remind you to get out and use it...even when it's so very hot and sticky out...

speaking of hot and sticky...camping this weekend was really pretty good, considering we had an infant along who isn't very flexible about his schedule or surroundings! he slept pretty well, although i did not. i was convinced that the nasty raccoons that were casing our tent late at night were going to carry him off if i fell asleep...i yelled at them. it did nothing. nasty creatures. but a good annual fall camping trip, even though the weather didn't line up with the whole idea of FALL. hello, october? where are you? pumpking spice everything tastes better when it's at least down to 75. so does knitting. it seems a little silly to play with wool when you're sweating all over it, but i got 75% of a sock finished!!

am i hearing what i think i'm hearing?

2007-10-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

last night, sam was fussing a little bit. the kind where he's fighting going to sleep and just needs to suck it up and conk out for the night. he's like his mom that way.

the fussing sort of went like this: wah. wah. wah. wah. no screaming, just a half-hearted little deal. i laughed at him because i'm that kind of mother. at least so far. and his little sound, still going w/ the same rhythm, changed into a little laugh! i thought i was making it up, but he smiled and kept doing it, and i kept laughing at him. praise God, our kid has a sense of humor already! this is good, very good. and yes he wound up falling asleep, but only after more grub. kid is a pigggglet.

here he is in overalls--who doesn't love a baby in overalls??? well, the baby didn't care what we thought, because he peed all over said overalls. oh well, at least i got a picture.

SOOOO very much looking forward to camping this weekend! we're actually leaving tomorrow night, so we'll have all of Friday too. ahhhh...i did the shopping yesterday. it's fun to let go a little bit and buy mostly junky food. hot dogs, smores stuff, little debbies, hot cocoa...i realize some people do some seriously gourmet stuff on camping trips (or at least the backpacking magazines would have you believe this...) but we just do junk food. it's half the fun. top it off with some caramel sundaes (yes i'm mentioning them again--they are that good) and we'll be all set.

taking a new knitting project...i told myself i would finish something before starting a new something, but this is camping!! i have to comemmorate the event with socks!! i'm making monkey socks with Cherry Tree Hill Supersock...the color is Indian Summer. it's all fallish and yummy. perfect!

stick a needle in your leg...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2007-09-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

today is sam's 2-month birthday. and we celebrate big around here. i took all his clothes off and had him stabbed three times with a needle. i don't know what all he's vaccinated against, but i do know that he has a band-aid on each leg and is realllly tired.

i thought i'd make it through, no sweat. tough love, kid. buuuut...the tears welled up when i heard his SCREAM, saw the nurse shake him to get him to breathe again...and watched him cry and cry and cry...i needed a drink. being that it was only 11:30 and i didn't think a cocktail was appropriate, i drove us to starbucks and partook of a tasty pumpkin spice latte...mmmm fall!!!

i love fall...not as much as i love summer, because it means dreary winter will be coming next...but i do love the START of fall, with cool-ish days and the leaves and the way the light is a little different. and because there is a montrosity of a tent in my backyard:

crappy picture. but i just took it through the window from my little office chair. it's our new tent that will comfortably sleep two adults on a queen size air matress and a baby in a pack-and-play. it's huge. you're actually really only seeing HALF of it in the picture. i think our days of seriously roughing it are gone for a little while. i'll miss being able to pack and leave in a matter of minutes. but for a few years, will change gears a little bit. and it's ok. woohoo for brown county in a little over a week!! i'm really glad we decided not to call off our trip (fourth year in a row!) just because there's a little one...i want to have fun family traditions! hiking and seeing all the leaves, walking through nashville, getting pumpkin sundaes....MMMMM....i think i'm most excited about those pumpkin sundaes!

he's not mad about it either:

took that picture at kevin and amanda's during the colts game last weekend. kevin got a huge grin out of sammy! love it!

ohhhh and fall means johnny appleseed, so i bought a ton of apples at the farmer's market and made a PIE! and it is GOOD! it tastes like someone else made it!!! as hava says, i'm domesticated...here's proof:

itscrazypeopleinhere

2007-09-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

i'm going nuts.
i'm get stupider.
i kid you not.

i just found myself in the bathroom,
all geared up to take a shower (ahhh...sleeping baby = clean kelly)
with a LOAF OF BREAD in my hand.
no i didn't wash it.

i would say i need sleep, but i don't!
last night was awesome!
baby slept 10-4, and i went to bed before that, thanks to a great mother in law who likes to kidnap my baby and a husband who didn't mind feeding and putting the little muppet to bed.

phew.
off to make a sandwich.
hahahahha....