Hey, cute costumes!

oh, but i didn't make those.

or that one

nope

nuh-uh, not those either.

"so what DID you do, then?"

well, I sewed 2 dresses, 3 doublets, 1 priest's robes, and 7 pairs of breeches (well no, 6. betsey came over and sewed some stuff for me on Thursday. THANKS betsey!)

"well where are the pictures?"

haha! funny you should ask! I didn't get any pictures of the costumes that I actually made! I know, silly right? yeah.

the ones above were all made by the girl in the top picture, in the gold, named Julie. (well, both of the girls in that picture are named Julie, but whatever) She did not go to sleep at all on Thursday night. And as you can see, she was also in the play. She's nuts! Also awesome.

So glad it's done! I have to go back tonight to retrieve my iron. maybe i'll get a chance to snap some more photos of the cast between scenes.

Have you ever had this expression?

A lot of "Why did I think this was a good idea?" mixed with some, "Are we done yet?" and a pinch of "Can I lay down and die now?"

Craig shot this one of me our first day in Yosemite, 4 miles into our 5 mile hike.

Now, I love hiking. It's fun. Really. But I hadn't been on a hike of this length/steepness (is steepness a word? It can't possibly be..) in just years and so I felt occasion to regret having been the one to encourage everyone to go further in the first place.

Anyway.

Lately I think I've been wearing this expression rather frequently. What with taking on way too many projects for "other people", and not getting a single one of my projects done/worked on AT ALL, trying to find new furniture for our now-furniture-less (besides the couch) living room, and dying of heat stroke in this rediculous wave going thru Los Angeles.

Craig is not-quite-smug about my situation. He TOLD me not to volunteer to do costuming for Kiss Me Kate. He TOLD me it would be a nightmare and that I would push everything to the last minute and be a giant ball of stress, and naturally he was right because he is always right.

A week from now, I should be wearing a much more calm/serene/happy/relieved expression. Good thing I bought this new Yoga video. It's been helping tons.

off to work...

Alrighty then...


"so, connor. are you sad that it's the end of school?"
"no."

"well, are you going to miss all of your friends over the summer?"


"not really."

hello, pretty fabric. won't you just look fabulous on my new couch? oh yes you will!

Happy Father's Day!

Dear Dad,

1. I obviously need to get more photos of you. While you are remarkably handsome in those pond-waders of yours, you do have better moments than this particular one.

2. Thank you for allowing me to have your name for 11 years. It was nice to be in the center of the alphabet for awhile. Also, I got to stand by Chris Haynes in the lunch line, and he was cute.

3. Thanks for taking me fishing, and hiking, and camping a lot. I really enjoy those activities. Also, a love for the outdoors kept me from going entirely diva-girly during those important, formative years.

4. Thanks for always having a road atlas in the house. I will retain a love of places and geography for the rest of my life. I will teach my children this love. It's because of you.

5. I will try not to be bitter about the fact that while I was a teenager, you could not for the life of you understand why I wanted to spend all of my time at football/basketball games; and now you attend them more than your teenage daughters. (perhaps my good influence finally wore off on you. or perhaps it is that now you don't have to worry about 3 small children running around at the game...) (i prefer to think it was my influence)

6. thank you for teaching me that it really IS important to stack the wood just so. It looks better. It stays up better. And even though I will probably never have to stack wood again for the rest of my life, I appreciate that I can do it better (at least aesthetically) than my husband. :)

I can feel myself getting sappy so I'm going to stop now. It does not do to get sappy in front of a computer who cannot appreciate it in the least. Thanks, Dad, for being such a great Dad.

I love you.

Dear Craig,

hahahahahahahahahahaha!
oh that was a fun day. you and your rediculously-fast-growing facial hair.

thanks, honey, for being such a good dad to our kids. They get so excited every day when I tell them that you are on your way home from work. Connor begins plotting out the evening - trying to think of what he can get you to do with them "maybe we should wrestle tonight. but i have been wanting to watch him play that new game..." (Fletcher just lies in wait, so he can jump on you. In case you haven't been noticing)

thanks for reigning me in when I get out of temper and patience. thanks for not getting annoyed when I do the same for you. thanks for showing the kids that you love and respect their mom.

I hope the boys inherit your sense of fun and adventure, and your eternal child-like enthusiasm. I hope they inherit your work ethic, and your maturity. I hope they learn to stand up for themselves, and not to be afraid or ashamed of who they are.

I love you.

Fixed!

my little connor.

i'm pretty sure this is the last time i'm ever going to be able to call him that. he's nearly up to my shoulders now. (and he's not even 8 yet! and i'm not short!)

he's a really cautious kid. i am glad of this. it keeps my blood pressure down. i have a feeling that his younger brother will have the opposite effect on my health.

he is frighteningly good with the ladies. he and elle have this "relationship" already. they play nintendo, make up stories, fall asleep in eachother's arms while watching t.v. (i am not kidding! what do we DO?! it's cute now...) he also tells her, without any trace of embarrasment or self-consciousness that he loves her.

i think these are good things. at his age, i was fully self-conscious. way to embarrased to ever talk about feelings to anyone but my mom. and i didn't have a comfortable, easy relationship with a male until i was about 10 years older than him.

maybe this means that he'll be an easy and respectful boyfriend/husband. right?

every time he has a birthday, i think "one more year gone. X more years to go, before he's out of the house. have i been teaching him enough? have i loved him enough? will he have good habits? will he follow his dreams?"

oh, my little connor.

i hope so.

in a fit of emotional stress, i hacked off my hair last night.

it's really choppy and uneven.

but that's what you'd expect when you use sewing scissors....

however, if i curl the snot out of it, and use super-mega-hold-never-comes-out-until-you-are-dead hairspray, it seems to be okay.

okay enough, at least, to keep until i can get into a salon and get some layers in it.

The boys had way too much fun.

here are connor and fletcher with cousins Nate and Stevie. Fletcher locked on to Stevie on day one and held fast through day 2, when they went home. Fletcher called him "buddy", and Stevie called fletch "sir" (his dad's military, he can't help it) :)
the boys had their very first experience with a fishing pole. there was not a single fish in the creek.
saw some big trees.
hiked. a lot.
"there's another squirrel! that's 10 now!" the final count was 23.
saw more, bigger trees.

i'll be posting more bits about Yosemite the next few days. I came home with a couple hundred photos...

Fletcher cried huge heartbreaking tears of grief when we left. "can we come back tomorrow? when will i see taryn again? what about stevie? do they live far far away? why can't we stay?"

so, naturally, we'll have to do it again. and soon. :)

Ahhhhhhhhhh...

doesn't this look like fun? Oh yes it does. I love giving cool stuff to people - especially little bits and pieces of myself.

And, following Maxine's example, i have a hankering to post some of my favorite things, since i've been thinking about what i can send to my "little friend". :)

1. Notebooks. Especially one with maps on them. I loooooove notebooks, and i looooove maps. I have tons of unused notebooks lying around the apartment, because I can't stop buying them.



2. Fabric. one more thing i can't stop buying. if only my mom's shop would go online....

3. Chocolate.

that one's self explanatory.

I'll post more if awesomeness occurs to me. Otherwise, we'll be back from Yosemite on Sunday!

have a good weekend -

no, you are not seeing things.

these are the exact same pictures from my last post.

almost.

they're just better. (go ahead, compare for yourself)
these are the ones i wanted to post, but couldn't because my computer ate them. and caused much anger and high blood pressure.
but then my amazing husband who i love so much spent hours (okay not, but it felt like it) searching through my computer, even though i had tried to get him to give up 4 or 5 times because i just knew it was hopeless, and found them!

and this was right after i had told him that i was kindof being a witchy-witch mom and that maybe i should go out to the bookstore with some girlfriends. **

and he says - can you guess what he says?

"why don't you all go out to dinner first, at that Brazilian place across the street? make a night of it."

is there anyone more wonderful? i ask you.

and THEN as i'm walking out the door to do just that, he slips some extra cash into my pocket and whispers in my ear "there's a Coldstone across the street from the bookstore, why don't you stop there, too, before you come home."

Does this man love me, or what?

**what's this? wondering what we were doing at the bookstore? well, we were sneaking around with this book in our hands, trying to find a place to sit and read the first chapter of this book.

oh yes. it WAS good.

Sporadic.

Apologies.

i have not been blogging very consistently and i apologize - especially since this trend is bound to continue at least until next Monday and possibly until the Monday After That. These beautiful blossoms were a Thank You gift for those wedding napkins i made. Lovely, no? and they will look stunning against my sunny yellow walls.
speaking of sunny yellow walls - the rest of the apartment (this is the view from the red/orange wall you saw before) is still in a state of complete chaos. This is because we are going to be replacing a few key pieces of furniture (bookshelf, entertanment center) which all of the "stuff" on the floor usually sits on. we found a couple of fantastic pieces at a used furniture store on Centinela, both in mahogany and both stained a rich dark red. cheap as IKEA and way more durable.

happiness.

but instead of going and picking up the furniture, and instead of going to the fashion district to pick up some upholstery fabric so i can finally cover the couch:

well, okay. a trip to the observatory is fully worth it, right? as far as avoidance goes, this is some pretty valid stuff. Fletcher was too young to go to the planetarium (under 5 can only go to the first showing, which we missed) but he really enjoyed looking at the planets ("take a picture of Pluto, mom! Where is Saturn? Oh, there it is, come look Mom!") and seeing meteorites and moon rocks.

they had a live feed there, from the east coast, where there was going to be a shuttle launch (those pesky toilets) and so they had some audio and we happened to be right on the lower floor when they announced, "T minus 35 minutes and counting.." blah blah blah. I hadn't even noticed the feed until then, so I got all interested and so did Craig and we started talking about it.

That was when Fletcher got nervous. He started looking around frantically, and then dragged me over to a bench, "Hurry Mom! we have to sit down!" and then "I'm scared!"

"why? honey, what's wrong?"

"We're going to blast off! I don't want to blast off, Mommy!"

oh joy. it was awesome. we quickly reassured him, but he did not trust that big projected image and we ended up on the upper floor shortly after that.

unfortunately for me, i had some really really great photos to show - better ones of my messy place, better ones of the orchid, and some truly touching ones with my sweet love and our youngest sweet kid. Ones I took with my brand new camera!!

and then i uploaded them onto a new program and then lost them all because i obviously did not know what i was doing. luckily i had a few left (the ones i didn't care for, naturally) so I can still share, but i've spent a very high-blood-pressure morning.

i think i've finally been able to let it go. I no longer wish to toss my beloved new toy out the window with a banshee shriek.