I have a friend who recently moved across the country with 3 kids. And I have another who recently moved to a different country with 4 kids. And I do not know how they managed; because moving to a nearby city with 3 kids was quite the experience!

We slept in the back yard in a tent while we were painting. The boys loved it. They wanted to do it every day until the end of time.

And now that we're all (mostly. kindof) settled in, they have adjusted to the new location and new schools (more on THAT later) and more space.

During the two weeks before the move, my good friend Robin and my neighbor and friend Maxine took turns taking my kids and feeding them and keeping them sane.

Connor was out in the sun too much one day and started peeling - if you look closely you can see his skin is peeling off in a heart shape between his shoulder blades. heh.

Once I convinced him he wasn't dying of some weird disease, he thought it was pretty funny.

They stayed up late and played with random things left behind from the last tennant. Hopefully we didn't keep anyone awake.

It was tough at times, and we all stressed out a little bit, but we're back to normal now and everyone is happy.

especially mommy.

Nobody kept a straight face while I was taking pictures during the move. Which means now they get to see their goofy mugs on my blog. Ha!

This is Ty. He really likes peeling tape.

He isn't as fond of putting ON the tape,

painting our house,

for two days in a row...

and helping assemble our bookshelves.

But he did it anyway.

Thanks!

(also, credit to Hannah for coming over with an air mattress (she's on bedrest) and hanging out while I taped, taped, cleaned, and taped the whole week before). You guys rock.

This is a few weeks late, I know. This move kinda kicked our butts for the first little while. But we're settling in!

We painted the house on the Friday/Saturday before we moved in. And we learned that there are a few key things to have on hand when painting an entire house in a day and a half:

1. junk food. mostly to keep the kids occupied. go ahead and judge! it saved us!

2. Friends who show up unexpectedly and then drop all their plans for the rest of the day to keep on painting until it's all finished.

3. Did you know that there are two Round Table Pizzas in Burbank? TWO! You don't want to know how much money we spent there in August. My parents would be horrified.

4. This little guy insisted on helping. And being nursed every hour or so, just in case I had thought about weaning him too hard.

5. Did I mention good friends?
Thanks Nick and Kamy!

The Paint:

Red: door; Olive green: Master bed; white and greys, living room, dining room, and craft room; Browns, boys room.

gettin' ready!

we have a lot of painting to do.

because,

no.

Notes on a Week.

because our current place has tons of closet storage, we have been hanging most of our clothes and using plastic bins for the stuff we can't hang. The house does not have much closet storage at all - so it was time to look for some real furniture.

found this on craigslist for a really nice price. am in love.

somebody is obsessed with wearing shoes.

all. the. time.

however, clothing is optional.
the apartment has towers growing in it now. against this wall and that, in nooks and crannies.

he knows what to do with 'em!

"There she is, set for stun!"

"wait, where'd my gun go?"

Yep, it's Comic Con time again! And again I had to send Craig without me. Alas. Next year for sure, right? Separation anxiety can't last for more than a year, right?

right?

daddy brought home tons of loot as usual. Van got a Man Called Jayne hat.

Fletch got a zipper mouth stuffed animal.

Comics, of course.
Pokemon, of course.
I also scored a Dr. Who shirt. Lucky girl that I am.

may have found a house near craig's new workplace. hope it works out. fingers crossed.

so, Craig got a new job.

Starts pretty soon, gotta move before the school year starts up in 5 weeks. It's all suddenly crazy around here.

But good. Good crazy.

Mostly.

1. I do not like tomatoes. I do not like them, Sam I Am! I never have.

2. I keep getting tomatoes with our CSA produce box. I cannot waste them!

3. My friend/neighbor is a peach and shows me awesome things to do with tomatoes. So I can eat them.

These were cherry tomatoes. I cut them all in half, and put them on a sprayed baking sheet with aluminum foil on it.

Then I added a tiny bit of olive oil (i put it on each one with a dropper. probably you don't have to be as anal as all that). And added a tiny bit of salt.

And roasted them for 3 hours on 250. And they taste divine. And I am making sausage and tomato and basil pasta for dinner tonight.

Yay!

ah, peace.

i'm ready to go back now.

The best thing about being on vacation up in the forest is that the kids just love it. Everything is exciting to them. Grandpa teaches them how to identify different trees, they see more animals in one day than in an entire year down here in the city, and they can pretend that Pokemon are behind every boulder and in every tree.

Also, the boys got to see Elle for the first time in several months. There was much joy and rejoicing. And water gun fights.

Van discovered the beauty of throwing rocks into the lake. He sat there at Grandpa's feet for EVER, and I had to keep replenishing his little rock pile. If it ran out, he would sit and grunt at me in increasing urgency until I did as I was told.

(dad doesn't always carry a gun, that was just in case of bears and stuff)

I bought the boys some authentic sheriff and marshall star badges at the Weaverville Motel, where my sister works, and they had a few days of fun with Aunt Jacquie pretending to capture each other and collect bounties and put people in jail. Ah, the good old days!

The sun has finally come out in L.A., so we might be taking some summer pictures here pretty soon - now that we can play outside without shivering!

While we were on vacation Craig spent a few harrowing days helping a company clean out his mom's house. While he was there, they ended up finding many, many photos. Photos that we had never seen. I had never seen a photo of Craig before the age of 5; and only one fuzzy photo of his father, ever (he died when Craig was 9).

So it was a big deal. I spent hours taking pictures of the pictures with my digital camera. And guess what?

My baby:

My husband:

RIGHT?

1. Sorry about June. I was in a bit of a coma for June. Thank goodness it's over. School it out and Craig is done working on the Project from Hell. I'm alive again!

2. We got back from a vacation-back-home a couple of days ago. I just uploaded 705 photos. So I should be posting regularly for awhile just with this ammo.

3. Karalenn, this is the only decent shot I can find of my new haircut. Alas, I am blinking.

4. Husband! I have one! Here he is! (also, children. cute ones, if I do say so myself). He's been off work for 15 days. Two more left. I hope they draaag!

5. I bought this for Fletcher. I'm not sure he got it for more than 5 minutes. It was absconded by the baby who turned into a violent mass of screaming and teeth when Fletch tried to take it back. We made it up to him, he was a good sport about it. :)

Delicious

Delightful
Delectable
recipe found HERE.

Project!

Remember all those batik fabrics I posted....forever ago? Well I'm finally in the beginning stages of actually getting the project done!

I ordered an enlarged world map (see, there I am, for scale) :) and I've started outlining the continents onto wax paper - so I can make templates for applique.

The finished quilt will be about the same size as this map. I have all kinds of fun plans for it! And I figure it will probably take me until next summer to complete.

1. I was wrong. #2 started barfing in the middle of the night last night. guess he was sick after all.

2. he finally can get his hair into a ponytail. with the help of some gel. he was so thrilled - wore it to church like this on Sunday. he now feels that his awesomeness is complete.

this one is just eye candy.

and driving me crazy lately. trying to nurse every couple of hours when I would really love to just wean him, and dragging me around by my finger whenever he wants me to take him somewhere. which is often.

he will finally sit on my lap through a whole book though, so that's fun. and he's saying mama and cat. because what else would one ever need to say?

Do you think I'll get in trouble for this photo?

no not this one - (although, scary, right? i really need to get a nice one up. quick.)

this one.
it was HIS idea! I swear. and I didn't realize that fletch had taken them as separate photos until later, but it kind of works. you know in a why-does-that-lady-have-a-crazed-look-in-her-eyes? oh-that's-why kind of way.

the past few weeks have been foggy. Not the-weather-is-foggy foggy but my-brain-is-foggy foggy. How many sentences can I make in this post, do you think, with dashes between the words?

we have had two cars most of the month thanks to the Generosity of Friends, and craig's hours at work have been Worse than Ever Before (i think capitalizing Important Words is more fun than dashes. it's very AA Milne. Who was awesome.) However those hours are supposed to go back to normal very very soon (yes, i HAVE been saying this for several weeks now. this time it's the truth) and there will be much joy and rejoicing in the land.

the boy being gleefully strangled in the photo above is home sick today, with a yucky stomach. naturally his younger brother cannot abide going to school without him and as soon as he heard that his brother was sick he Declared a Sore Throat and Began Coughing Uncontrollably. i would have sent him to school anyway but i know that kid and he would have convinced them that he was dying and would have been sent right back.

It seems like everyone is sick right now.

Dear Everyone, Get Better Please. Love, Me

Hey guess what! I've been All Productive today:

2 dishloads of dishes

4 loads of laundry

vacuuming

cleaned off the balcony

and guess what? it hasn't seemed to do anything for the state of disarray in this apartment. GAH!

so I suppose I ought to go and trudge through some more. here I go! (can you FEEL the Enthusiasm?)

i know. I. KNOW. it's just that I'm so boring right now and I haven't taken any new pictures in weeks, and excuse excuse excuse.

I really need to post this one though: all of the Van Dyke cousins who were at grandpa DeLay's funeral in April:

minus one sibling's kids, and Stevie who couldn't come. Fletch was bummed about that. He adores Stevie. "He must really like me, Mom. Because he calls me 'sir'." Someday - maybe - we'll manage to get ALL of them together at once!

in other news, there is no other news because I am boring and have done my best to turn into a hermit. Craig's crazy hours, which were supposed to be done in March or April, are going through May. The only consolation being that the movie comes out in June so it has to stop sometime, right? RIGHT?!

The boys are terribly excited right now because the Father/Son campout is tonight and they are headed up to the canyons to explore and get dirty. All 3 of the boys were going to go this year but it looks like that won't happen after all (illness has infested the ranks) so it'll be me and the babe for the night and tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'm entertaining enough! I have borrowed some animal movies which will hopefully enthrall him. His first real word was "cat" after all. (although one day it sounded remarkably like he said "chocolate". That's my boy!)

I will try to be interesting v. soon. Wish me luck.

How proud am I?

My little sister painted this for an art class she's taking. It's very large - taller than my one year old - and it's an image from one of my Dad's favorite photos - of her when she was about 10. She gave it to him for his birthday in March.

He was terribly impressed, as were we all. All I've seen from her so far was anime! :) Way to go Nancy!