happy halloween!

We went to my nephew's first birthday party yesterday morning.  Check out what we were served...



green eggs, pumpkin pancakes, yum...

ghost toast



mummies
(These were sausages wrapped in phyllo.  Who knew the hit of the party could be the undead?)


and hashed brains.  (you should have seen our drink!  wowza.  disgusting AND delicious.)



It was so much fun!  Happy birthday, little guy.  We love you!



Later, the Halloween Fairy stopped by to say hello.  I think some little girl must have attacked her face with face paint, but she seems fine with it.



Watch out, little fairy!  Here's a scary mean guy!  He's ready to attack!



Here we have two little garden gnomes who were watched over by a beautiful ocean.  (that doesn't make any sense, I know, but that's how it all went down.)



I was going to put a coral reef and all kinds of ocean-life on this dress, but a woman can only do so much.  She's a hard client to work for.  She had a dress (which was much more complicated) all designed and sketched for me.  It included the ocean on the bottom and trees and birds and sky on the top along with a really cool sun brooch made from toile that would rest on her shoulder and instructions to make it in a similar fasion that I made my curtains.  Alas, this is what I gave her.



Oh, no!  Here comes that mean scary guy again!



Okay, I think the gnomes took care of things.

Happy Trick or Treating!!

this is my tree over the past couple weeks...

getting ready for halloween, what aboutchooo?

happy friday

I wonder if she learned this environmentally or if it's something that is passed down through her genetic code?

Notice how her big sister is immune.



The light has changed and there is absolutely no way that I can catch its magic with my camera.  It is glowing.  Even with the sky being dark grey, there is still a golden glow. 

Okay, the babies are asleep, so I'm going to go lay down and rest and make a hat for someone...whomever it ends up fitting;)

on being human

Curled up in the fetal position with my head and knees on the floor, snots and tears cover my face and my world seems dirty and desperate. Two little terrors in tutus come over and pull my shirt up enough to see my ink: goodness and virtue was tattooed on my skin in urgency during my 19th year of life to remind myself who I am just in case I forget someday. The little people start to whack away and to then rub my skin, saying, “Back! Back!”


I think of the hamster food, spread over the entire carpet. Stupid hamsters. What fool leaves hamsters at a church just so they will be rescued? If I decide I don’t have enough goodness and virtue left, I may dash the children’s hearts and desert the little rodents at the proper place: the SPCA.

I feel a mouth on my back. She drools on my skin and then rubs it around with her chubby hand. I’m too tired to care. I think about the highchairs. How could I have forgotten to collapse them? I know what happens—they get used as ladders to the mother load of chalk. What could be more fun to two toddlers than to cover every surface with pretty colors when mommy’s not looking? She bends and blows wet raspberries on my back and giggles. I peek out of my tears and see the reflection of the other one who is twirling in her tutu.



Is this the moment I inked my skin for? You are good. Your life has worth. You are loved. You love. The dirty floors and windows will be clean someday. (Even if it is when they are all grown and gone and I am so sad and lonely because the house is so quiet and clean all the time.) Everyone is always telling me to cherish these times because they are the easy times of motherhood, and the real challenges are yet to come. The bitter thoughts creep in. No. I will not think of that right now. I will pull myself together and take a deep breath. The sun is shining and the leaves have turned into something splendid. I will not think of all the millions of things that need doing that are not getting done. I will focus on the task at hand: remember who you are. You are a girl. You love the fall. You will show affection to your tutu clad babies and feed them lunch. You will open the dirty window and pray for peace as the fresh air comes in and cleanses your lungs.

snapshots

I can't believe it's already Friday.  This week went fast!  Here are some of the things that were part of my life this week...
















Josh and Jamie are here (my brother-and sister-in-law) and they brought our new cousin Zoe.  They brought her home to Utah from Rwanda in the spring and none of us can get enough of her.  This is a little 30 second ditty of her first time seeing the ocean:)

spooky

My Grandmama is joining us for Halloween this year.  She's wearing a mask.  Her late husband is joining us as well, just across the way.  My grandparents in black masks has been strangely satisfying. 

I scanned another color-your-own project for you.  I left the bottom blank so you could make your own scary scene.  (My finished version is on the mantle next to Grandmama.)  I had a million things I wanted to do, but in between searching for lost binkies and forcing children to eat, I just couldn't get it done. 


Just click on it and it should take you to flickr where you should be able to download it and print it.  If you have problems, let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix it:)  Have fun!



The little pumpkin painting on my mantle is an original mixed media on stretched canvas (6x6) and is for sale on etsy here.

XO

half full.

My boy is nine.




Nine years of happy.

Nine years of energy.

Nine years of blondie blue eyed bliss.

Nine years of someone teaching me how to be an optimist.

Nine years of someone looking, searching and praying for fun.
Fun rubs off on you.




Nine years is a lot of ups and downs.

A lot of lessons for a mom to learn.

A lot of hugs and kisses to give and receive.



I am one lucky person: you are mine.



Happy birthday, beautiful son.

(I would pick you every time.)

oreo flavored milk?

That piggy cracks me up. I took the kids to a fair last weekend and in between the huge doughnut and the cotton candy we checked out the livestock. If only I could lie in bed sleeping while taking care of the fam. Being a piggy can’t be that bad, right?


Jake has pneumonia and 3 of 5 children have pneumonia.5 (AKA: walking pneumonia). The tiniest of them all scared me the other night when I checked on her and found that she had coughed up some blood. Bright red blood on white sheets can be scary.

But everyone is on the mend. So no worrying, ‘kay?

I have too many ideas and most of them don’t even get started. At night after everyone is in bed I’m too tired. My oomph isn’t so oomph-y anymore and I think in a Scarlett O’Hara kind of way (“tomorrow IS another day…”). But tomorrow never has any extra alone time hours. So my list gets longer. I mostly have stopped writing things down to do because it’s a little depressing when I have high hopes and end up with cold cereal for dinner.

If I were a piggy I bet I could paint while I fed the fam.