Sunday Self Portraits

While Travis was helping the kids get breakfast, I was tinkering around with my camera in the craft room. I don't know if it was that I actually wore mascara for the first time in two weeks, or that I was dressed up, but I felt like taking self-portraits. Show us your self-portrait!

Frosting and Chips

This was our get-in-the-spirit-of-Halloween and satisfy-your-3-in-the-afternoon-sweet-tooth activity.

For Finn and Lucy, it's all about the frosting. They lick it off of cupcakes and cookies, and eat it by the spoonful.

Stools: his and hers.

Walking on Sunshine

This little man is about to turn one and I just couldn't pass up this little cart at Ikea this week.

Early birthday presents are so fun too.

And, though he is growing like a weed, he still likes his Mama best, her kisses especially, and he is now talking in baby-ese, babbling more and more all the time.

Ruffled

I loved this pillow instantly and wanted a version for my own living room.

So I cut the fabric that used to be my curtains into 2" strips, stitched, then ruffled them, and with some pinning and stitching, made them into my new ruffly pillow.

I used some scraps from my new curtains for the backing. It really was fun to see this thing come together. Go here for Susan's brilliant post about hers. She's always got something creative brewing.

Is It 5 o'clock Yet?

Ten minutes ago, after a brief, but intense meltdown, I got Lucy's response: "You're not a good person. You're a mad person. Cry." (She often says something she thinks is hurtful and then tells me to cry. It's lovely). It's Friday afternoon, 3:58, smack dab in the the middle of the witching hour (you know what I'm talking about) and I'm at the end of two weeks solid of single-parenting. Those darn midterms. Miles has been crying on and off for the past two hours, Lucy can't seem to quit hurting him (she pushed him over and gave him a bloody lip within the past hour) and Finn seems to be wired for annoying me today. I give up. I'm just going to breath deeply until 5 o'clock and hope that I can make it. I don't know if it's Lucy very emotionally-charged potty training (as in, every ten minutes, "I've gotta go potty. Carry my upstairs to the toilet," as she's whining and whimpering dramatically), or that I'm overworked and underpaid, but I'm in need of some serious away time from my job, the mothering one. I'll be back Monday, hopefully well rested, more inspired and with more spring in my step.

(I took these pictures in our front entryway on a chair from my friend Kellie. Lucy sure puts on a sweet face when she wants to, but sometimes she can be oh so naughty).

A Manly Lunch

Travis eats the same homemade lunch everyday, one that I made the night before and lovingly ;) left in the fridge for him to quickly grab before heading out the door and biking down to campus.

This is a typical lunch (plus an extra candy bar and a pudding: I thought he needed something sweet to get him through midterms):

2 peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches

1 small bag of baby carrots

1 container of yogurt (NOT fat-free)

1 spoon

1 container of apple sauce

1 (sometimes 2) granola bar

I've made him this lunch, (while sometimes substituting meat and cheese for the pb+j) ever since we've been married (5 1/2 years now). I keep telling myself when he gets out of school we can afford for him to eat out for lunch, but time will tell. I'm sure he'll talk me into making his lunch even when he does have an income.

Early Birds Get the Worm

I have been working like a busy bee getting things ready for the shop.

The advent calendars are on sale just for the next little while, so hurry and get the goods at recession prices.

And for those creative cats out there, this year we're selling .pdf files of the calendars and numeric alphabets so you can have fun creating them on your own.

Stop in for a look!

Words to Live By

Here's a peek of my living room corner, showcasing my first Etsy purchase!

I already had the vintage plate, I got the frame at the thrift store this week and the print came from here (she's having a sale this weekend too!)

(This picture is strategically placed to remind me to keep my cool when the going gets tough).

Parenting/Sewing 101

Sometimes when I'm working and stewing about a problem, I tend to link the project and the problem together. Let me illustrate. The other night, as I was working on this (see below) for her, I noticed the fabric that I had to pull and overexert myself to get in the right place tended to pucker and clump.

My thoughts naturally went to Lucy and how stubborn and unruly she's been lately. And I've been fighting it. Tooth and nail. It seems I'm always trying to coerce her into staying with me in public, or not scratch Miles, or keep her clothes on. And she is fully intent on doing exactly what I tell her not to do. At the end of the day, I'm exhausted, mentally and physically. I wonder if I'm doing all the wrong things with her, or if she's just going through this phase and nothing will work, or if I should just send her to a Swiss boarding school and let them work on her.

(I couldn't resist this outfit at the thrift store: $2 for a sweatsuit and a flood of memories from my Care-Bear-loving childhood)

Then, as I was taking out the stitches from the pieces I had to forcefully keep in place, I thought about Lucy and how coercing and forcing are not working. She's puckering. I'm feeling frazzled and at my wit's end. Sewing the pieces back in place, I was more gentle, acting merely as a guide for the cloth and the bobbing needle. It worked. The calendar turned out how I had hoped.

And I found my solution to raising this wiley Lucy. She has no idea how much she's strangling my pride.

Sleepy Schullers

Every night Travis and I have a ritual of checking on the kids together after they go to sleep. The other night we found these scenes (notice Finn's foot on Miles' face). Finn had crawled into Miles crib.

And Lucy is obviously doing some acrobatic move while sleeping. I don't understand how they aren't awakened by these awkward poses.

Buzzed

Miles' maiden hair before.

During.

And after. I miss my little baby who's turned into a boy.

Being Me

I don't know why I'm writing this post, but I figure I might as well expose myself and let you see a few skeletons in my closet. One of those is this picture (above) of my friend Nellie and I in Boston, when she came to visit me while I lived there for a year after graduating from BYU. I saw this on my Facebook page last week when I logged on for the first time in years and I about gagged. I hate pictures of me, but I really am disgusted by this one. Not only am I wearing my dad's old ski jacket that at the time was still two sizes too big, but my hair is bleached out and I'm the heaviest of any time in my life. At the time, I knew I was overweight, but was pretty depressed (which is a catch 22) and I drowned my sorrows in my own homemade baked goods. I ran some, but not enough to counterbalance the poor eating choices. [I ran a few times with the Cambridge Runners Club and I asked one of the coaches, who owned a successful running shoe store downtown, if my shoes were the right kind for me. He took one look at them, my favorite pair of Adidas btw, and said, "You're running on marshmallows. For a girl your size, you need stabilizer shoes." Point taken.]
I felt I had to redeem myself by posting this picture, taken this summer. I just couldn't let those Boston people, even if they don't even keep tabs on me anymore, think I was still looking like a beached whale! Don't get me wrong: I am no stick-thin person and never will be, but I have managed to shed about 35 pounds since that time in Boston. My history goes like this: after yo-yoing with my weight in college, it hit an all-time high in Boston and then after losing only 5 pounds on some Chinese watermelon/walnut diet, I decided it was time to get serious about eating healthy and working out. I moved back home to Washington, started working out on a daily basis, met Travis and his ultra-healthy mom and have tried to continue reading about nutrition and exercise since then. I have always been physically active, even ran cross-country in high school, but I think now with three kids I have to put my workouts and somewhat-healthy diet first or they won't happen. I have to be a little more selfish in that regard to make sure I get my needs met first so I can help my family's. I think that is the change. I don't really know. I have heard of many women who can't lose a pound and then they have a baby and somehow their bodies are transformed into lithe little things. I know everyone is different. And, I know that no one is immune from weight gain who doesn't take excellent care of her body and it doesn't mean anything except you just have stored extra calories. I just know I never want to see pictures of myself again like the one taken in Boston 8 years ago! Is that too much to ask?

New Curtains

Right after we moved here, I made some really lame curtains for our living room windows out of several different pieces of fabric and those clip-on curtain rings.

Well, I got so sick of drawing those ugly curtains day after day, so it was time for some new ones. I found some queen-sized duvet covers at Marshall's that were made from just the kind of fabric I was looking for.

So I sewed a thin strip of fabric on the top from the extra pillowcases that came with the duvet covers (to make them the right length), cut some small slits for the rod to go through, and voila! New curtains. My morning routine of drawing the curtains just got a little more interesting.

And I got this pillow for $3.50 at Steinmart the other night. I like it's texture.

Festive Baby Shower

Last night my friend Brittany and I hosted a baby shower and it was alot of fun to put together.

We did an ice cream sundae bar, complete with colored sprinkles and both homemade caramel and hot fudge sauces.

I had been saving Miles' baby food jars for a couple months and it turned out to be my favorite thing about the night: little votives popping up everywhere, casting a warm glow on the whole scene.

It reminded me of several things: the brightness of birth and new life, the warmth of good friends, and the comfort of home.

Life with Lucy

About two weeks ago, it was a Monday morning, Lucy woke up and turned my world upside down. It has been the Terrible Twos Intensified everyday since and I'm starting to think it's not going to get over anytime soon. She must do everything by herself and if you help her at all, say picking up a toy for her, she will put the toy back on the ground and then pick it up unassisted. Buckling the seatbelt: no help allowed. Putting on shoes: again, no help. Climbing into her crib: get away Mom. Everything is done solo by Lucy, even if it means it's performed super-slow, with interruptions (things like gum on the ground are extremely captivating to her and her hands must touch it), and may be hazardous (taking off her seatbelt while I'm driving). I must be getting used to it because it doesn't bother me as much anymore, and I haven't seen her behavior change one bit. I've gotten good at pulling the car over and spanking her when she takes her seatbelt off while I'm driving (she HATES it and I hate it almost as much, but it's the only thing that works). I think raising kids is more for me than for my kids. This whole Lucy Independent Phase is teaching me to not sweat the small stuff and to pick my battles. It's also teaching me that I should have appreciated the sweet phase of Lucy (was there ever one?) while it lasted. And, in her defense, she does unload the clean silverware, which I appreciate. Baby steps to letting go.... Baby steps to her in preschool.... Baby steps to her pottytraining.... Baby steps to getting through this phase.

(Self) Published

After 9 months of putting off this project, I finally got my rear in gear and published last year's blog posts using Blurb.

I doubt I'll make the Amazon bestseller list, but hey, at least I've got it printed for my own sake.

And the advent calendars are back! If you would like to make your own this year, go here for easy downloadable instructions.