Fly is Timing By

We're still here, though a little rounder due to some serious candy-making this past weekend. Henry let me sleep a whole 6 hours at a stretch last night (bless him), and Finn has decided he wants to eat not only lunch and snack at school, but breakfast too. He likes to play board games with his friend Xavier after finishing his Rice Krispies and strawberry milk. I'm listening to Pandora "Cambridge Singers" station non-stop and thinking of things to put in my advent calendar this year. Our neighbors are moving this week which makes us sad, but thank goodness it's only a few blocks away. Play dates live on forever! I hope this finds you all well and enjoying my favorite time of year- the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Working It

There's something very soothing to me about working with chocolate. It requires something of me. I can't temper it (pouring and handling it on a cold marble slab) without surrendering impatience and bitterness. It pulls out bits of laziness and replaces them with sweetness. I suppose it's the nature of the large-batch process: it would be a shame to eat them all myself. It requires, or at least politely asks for, generosity. The craft wasn't mine to begin with. I was taught. It came with the unspoken expectation that I would share it with others. And besides the chocolate-y cuticles, I get a little mini-tutorial in patience and giving every time I do.

Giving Thanks

From start...

....to.....

....finish.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Crafting Away the Day

Exhibit A: My dining room table right now.

Exhibit B: My attempts at making mismatched plastic cutlery look cool (using what I already have) for the upcoming ward Christmas party.

Exhibit C: the mammoth-like pile of clean clothes I just can't seem to stop crafting to fold.

Exhibit D: my not-so-little-anymore wee babe who is growing like a weed before my very eyes (he's over two months old folks!)

This and That

(This) boy went to bed last night wearing a ladybug/Fred Flinstone-looking accessory he borrowed from the neighbors. Plus, he insists on wearing it today too.

(That) baby is sweet enough to eat and he still smells like a pickled newborn. I am in love with him even though he has thrown my sleep patterns completely off which makes me do silly things like forget to wear a bra to the gym. (He's not cross-eyed...it just looks like it in every picture I've posted.)

Making Kits


Lately I've been making alot of advent calendar kits for my Etsy shop.

Go here to get yours!

Happy Halloween!

Miles: couldn't even stop eating candy for the picture

Tink and Batman: pre-Trick-or-treating on the stoop

Tired mom and cross-eyed pumpkin: "Let's hurry this up! It's cold outside and this pumpkin is hungry!"

Fooling Around with the iTouch in the Park Over the Weekend

What's Henry's opinion about it all?

Yawn.

Lest You Think They Were "Haters"


The sad faces didn't last long. Lucy took to Henry pretty quickly. Miles and Finn followed along too.

Forgotten Footage

I found this picture tonight while perusing my hospital photos with Henry. This was when the kids met Henry for the first time. Just look at their faces, all telling the different stories of three little siblings. I see uncertainty in Miles' face, confusion in Lucy's and sheer tiredness in Finn's. What do you see?

He's Two!

Miles Fox Schuller turned 2 yesterday, thus the "You Are Special" plate.

Here he is about ready to make a wish and blow out his candles.

He kept trying to put out the candles with his spoon. This is his imitation of blowing.

And then, in typical Miles fashion, he dug right into his cake, caring not for mess or his clothes. That's my boy. He had blue frosting all over his face when it was over. Sweet Miles. I love that kid.

Short Again

This is my new haircut and color. I'm pixie-length again and it feels good, plus a little more of a redhead too. My stylist charged me for a men's haircut because it is a typical men's length. Ha!

Pumpkins + Ghosts

{Pumpkins: melted orange wafers dipped in pretzels + tinted green wafer stems}

{Ghosts: melted white wafers dipped in Nutter Butters + mini chocolate chip eyes}

Happy Mail + Happy Boy

All it takes to make them smile and squeal are some boppy balloons, which we always get from Grandma Scrimsher (thanks!)

And this is just what I needed today on this rainy, cold, project-perfect day.

And one-month-old Henry is happy too because, though he doesn't get to play with boppy balloons, he does have a very healthy body. His blood test for kidney function came back perfectly normal yesterday. Yippee! (He still has one kidney that isn't functioning, but the other one is making up for it quite well, which we are so thankful!)

Life with Miles

This is what it looked like when instead of just blocking my way like he usually does, Miles hopped on the vacuum and tried to ride it. I don't blame him. I probably would too if I were almost 2 and my Mom had been cleaning for two hours. After the weekends, my house usually looks like a tornado has blown through it, so this morning, I got kind of excited to clean the house with only two other bodies in the house. (I love Monday mornings after everyone has left for school and the house is relatively quiet, except for PBS Kids playing in the background. The day is a blank canvas and I can work!) So in all the chaos of cleaning, I found 4 wet diapers in the fathoms of Lucy's room, a pile of wet (from pee) clothes on her floor, and several articles of clothing buried in the toy room and under her bed. Ahhh, the feeling of getting to the bottom of it all and feeling the smooth, Murphy's Oil-Soaped floor underneath my feet. Now if I can just make it to the grocery store and take care of that department...

3 Weeks, 2 Days

He's still got those chubby cheeks,

Wakes every 3-4 hours at night to eat,

Is the main attraction according to his brothers and sister,

And still grunts like no other (I laid in my bed laughing to myself last night as his grunting was keeping me awake).

Finding Myself

I am in a weird place right now, my nights sprinkled with feedings and burpings of a sweet little guy named Henry, and my days filled with thoughts of where we'll be this time next year. It's our last year in Cleveland. Come Spring, we will be loading a moving truck, headed (hopefully) back West to the land of our upbringing. I don't know where that truck will stop and unload and being a planner, I don't like the uncertainty. I do like the thought of dental school being done, but I just wish I had a crystal ball and knew where we were going to end up after this phase of our lives. But, what kind of life will we have? Does it matter if we live in Pendleton or Missoula? Will I be able to thrive in a town with the same population as my high school? Does happiness mean having a Target within a ten-minute drive? I would love to know your thoughts on this. I want to know how one decides where she wants to live indefinitely. This is big stuff, at least for me, right now. Let's hear what you have to say!

Sugar Cookie Saturday

recipe here

His + Her Bags

It was the Sunday after I'd had Henry and we were all bored. I got a hankering to make something, so I let the kids pick out some fabric from my stash to make bags for their toys.

Later that night, after I finally finished the bags, I wrapped them up and hid them for Finn and Lucy to find. It satisfied my need to make something and it gave them something fun to do too.