blink and you'll miss it

Personalized Pillows for the Pack

2012-02-09T09:56:00.002-05:00

So I made the ~~mistake~~ decision to download the Pinterest app to my phone not too long ago.

Like I don't have enough to do in the evening hours with three Munchkins running around, eight loads of laundry begging to be done and rooms crying to be cleaned? Small wonder it all sits idle, eh?

Anywho, The Monkey was looking over my shoulder the other day when she spied a pin of a tot clutching a pillow that looked just like her brother. She squealed. They all ran over. And my next Pinterest-inspired project was predestined. Just like that.

I'm actually pretty stoked at the way these little cuties turned out.
I just traced the basic head shape from a kitchen cereal bowl, added ears, and sketched out some hair designs. I traced everything onto felt, appliqued the features together and then onto the pillow front first (I used some leftover bits of no-pill fleece for the front and cotton-flannel for the back, to make them soft and squishy. I'm pretty sure at one time or another it was all on clearance at JoAnn's. Because that's how I roll.)

Once the faces were pieced together, I hand embroidered the features on and then proceeded to construct just a basic, easy-peasy, envelope-style closure for the pillow back.

I originally intended to embroider The Munchkins' names on the pillow fronts as well, but once the faces were on there, I thought it would look to busy to add anything else.

Still, they're kind of a riot. The Munchkins love them. And I've got another good, go-to, last-minute birthday- party gift idea to tuck away.

~ Cheers! ~

LTTSA: Baby Doll Carrier

2012-02-08T08:45:00.001-05:00

This month's project for the LTTSA over at a little gray was the Bear Carrier.

I've got to say that, out of all the projects I've tackled from this book, this one received the loudest cheer when it was finished. The Monkey was simply over the moon at her new doll carrier. And I was rather over the moon at my successful attempt at Button Holes!!! I had some extra large and chunky bright pink buttons in my stash (truth be told, all the materials were bits and pieces I'd had squirreled away, so the overhead on this project was a big fat goose egg. Huzzah!)

This is fatbaby.

Actually, this is fatbaby 2.0

fatbaby's namesake is currently tucked away in a doll bed on the second floor with a black sharpie The Last Airbender Tattoo covering the top of her head, most of the stuffing in her body leaked out, head more-than-slightly off kilter. The Monkey is rough with her loved ones...

fatbaby 2.0 was a gift from Santa this year. And let me tell you what, Santa had to search eight store in three counties before he found an exact replica. That Santa deserves a round of applause, and a drink, she'd settle for a nice Irish Coffee about now though.

The Monkey is always pretty pleased when I whip out the camera.

yes, that's a pot of spaghetti on the front burner. No you may not have any. There's no such thing as leftovers in my house anymore. I have three living, breathing garbage disposals these days... God help me when they hit the teenage years... They'll eat me out of house and home for sure.

This is, obviously, her Blue Steel.

I think it's safe to say this project was a success!

Happy Sewing, gang!

Sometimes

2012-02-06T18:36:00.000-05:00

sometimes...when it has been oneofthosedays... i come home and launch myself onto my bed, scattering rumpled coverlets and sheets and all of the whydoesanyoneneedthismanypillows pillows. and i press my nose down deep into the impression your head made last night, when your arm was flung up carelessly above your bed, fingers just brushing the frosted panes of window glass, notsnoring softly. because you dont snore. mmmhmmm... and i can just barely still smell that mix of soap and deodarant and shampoo that is you. and i wish you were here. and for just a second? you are,,,

Naptown to Super City... Super Bowl XLVI

2012-02-06T15:42:00.000-05:00

I could not BE more proud of my city today.

photo credit: my mom. Thanks, Mom! I totally stole this...

um...and this...

Over the past week I have fallen even more in love with Indianapolis.

And I didn't even think that was possible.

Apparently, hosting a Super Bowl brings out the best in us all.

I volunteered Wednesday through Friday down in Super Bowl Village.
And not only did Volunteering come with its own set of swag, but it also came complete with a renewed sense of civic commitment and pride and dedication to my community at large. Every which way I turned people were smiling, laughing, thanking volunteers... Locals were running around like tourists... Visitors were complimenting locals... it was just this heady combination of a buoyancy of spirit petering off into complete and utter exhaustion (and sore smile muscles) every single day.

But I'm so glad I did it. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

*photo caveat*

Some of my favorite photos from the past week are currently STUCK on my phone's camera. Which is not cooperating in the technical sense of the word. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the good people of Sprint will be able to retrieve my things from the date black hole in which they've disappeared...pleaseohpleaseohpleaseihope...

In the mean time...enjoy this random photo of Dan & I...being ridiculous last Wednesday night after my first volunteer shift ended. It was a good time. We'll just leave it at that.

Naptown to Super City

2012-01-31T10:32:00.000-05:00

Very

Cool.

Naptown to Super City Documentary.

You can watch the entire thing online via the link there there.

It's very well done.

Really.

Give it a watch.

Or a listen...while you do your work today...not that I've been doing that today or anything...

source

Left Brain :: Right Brain

2012-01-31T10:15:00.001-05:00

How utterly gorgeous are these images?

They're a part of a Mercedes-Benz ad campaign that launched back in February, 2011. But a year later, I'm just now seeing them for the first time. And, while the Mercedes-Benz TV ads focus on the sleek, stylish vehicles themselves, certainly nothing to turn ones nose up at; This print campaign is simply a thing of beauty. Each one is articulate, creative, carefully crafted. They're works of art. And the text is damn near poetic. I'd hang it on my walls, even with the logo there in the bottom right.

Diversification in advertising is important. It allows you to reach multiple demographics on a variety of levels. These appeal to an entirely different group of people than those who drool over the cars themselves. And this campaign goes one further. It appeals to that segment of people that treat their cars not just as vehicles but as an extension of themselves, their image, their persona. There's just something to be said for a good print ad campaign, people.

source

Agency: Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Y&R Interactive Tel Aviv, Israel
Chief Creative Director: Gideon Amichay
Executive Creative Director: Tzur Golan
Creative Director: Yariv Twig
Art Directors: Gil Aviyam, Dror Nachumi
Illustrators: Gil Aviyam, Lena Guberman
Copywriters: Sharon Refael, Oren Meir

Impressionable Youth...

2012-01-27T08:55:00.001-05:00

This morning, The Monkey announced that she much prefers my radio stations (92.3 or 104.5) to Radio Disney. Internally I was cheering &pumping my fist triumphantly. Outwardly I smiled, a bit smugly, and asked why?

"Because" Monkey answered. "Sometimes when we ask you to turn it to our radio station you make a scrunchy face."

Oops.

I forget sometimes that The Munchkins are just giant sponges these days.

I forget how impressionable they are.

They pick up on every look, every eye roll, every small, snide remark I make under my breath. And they DO NOT FORGET. Also they repeat. At inappropriate times. Like in the line at the grocery and such.

I need to be more aware of how I react to their likes and dislikes.

They're all in that crucial and fascinating stage where they're in the process of forming their own personalities; their own identities. When they were babies they were such small, soft things. But even then, even when you'd press your finger into that soft, doughy skin and still not find bone, you'd see sudden and unpredictable sparks of "I am" in a look or a gesture. Just before they threw a toy across a room, before they rolled over or took a first step, before they (I swear) purposefully dumped an entire bowl of bananas and oatmeal over their brother.

They were all such stubborn things, as babies. I don't know why I thought this would ever change. And, over the years, those small sparks of "I am" have solidified. Forged like steel, the core of who they are has been strengthened from the inside, out. But they're still so impressionable. And there are days I wonder if the face I pulled when one of them suggested lima beans (Lima beans for goodnessake!) for dinner has eternally altered their perception of the legume family. (shudder. lima beans...).

They won't break. I know this. But they will bend. Under the sometimes innocuous pressure of my own opinions, likes, dislikes, preferences, and subconscious yearnings I'm helping to forget that steel of "I am" every day in them. What a terrifying though.

I've got to stop rolling my eyes at Radio Disney.

I'm not really thrilled about its mirror image on my daughters these days...

A Hometown Super Bowl

2012-01-25T13:12:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl XLVI

It's coming!

Downtown had been buzzing for weeks now with actual Super Bowl set-up going on.

Constructions is heavy in and around Georgia Street and they've started taking major arteries through Downtown down to just a single lane or two in some areas.

So DO NOT park in the Moon Garage at Circle Centre Mall. You know, the one that spits you out onto Georgia? Just don't. Trust me on this one.

And for each person I've heard say "I'm not going anywhere near Downtown on Super Bowl Weekend!" I've heard four more than that hatching plans to come Downtown not just over the weekend, but on weeknights and random afternoon lunch-hours to check out all that the Big Event has to offer. What? People in Indiana going out on a weeknight? In February?! Amazing.

There's so much to do that doesn't cost a dime, that I'm planning on schlepping The Munchkins out and about all weekend to see what kind of Super Bowl Mania we can get into.

I'll try and do a roundup next week of Not-To-Be-Missed spots and photo ops...in case anyone else wants to try and experience a bit of the Bowl without facing game-day crowds.

Super Bowl Countdown Clock:

11 Days and Counting...

So...Um...Who can guess what I did on MY lunch break today?

I might have just maybe frozen my tush off walking over to the Circle, just to be jostled by swarms and swarms of people desperately jockeying for positions to take "THE" photo of the day: Giant Roman Numerals have found a home nestled just to the south of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the Circle Downtown, and you can't go more than six inches in any directions without bumping into a news crew or a professionamateur photographer. Awesome.

Motherhood

2012-01-16T15:00:00.002-05:00

Yep. This pretty much sums it up...

source

Anonymous was obviously a woman...

2012-01-13T15:22:00.000-05:00

Lego Cufflinks

2012-01-12T14:42:00.000-05:00

Okay. How great are these?

Pretty Great, right?
Lego Cufflinks!

They may be, quite literally, the quickest, easiest, most satisfying craft/gift I've ever made.

I'd seen these handmade cufflinks floating around etsy and the like for a while but kept putting off purchasing any, because in the back of my head I kept thinking..."but I could make those!!!"

And, a week or so before Christmas I broke down and ordered a set of cufflink bases.

I just ordered basic silver cufflink bases from this site. They have such reasonable prices on all their findings and notions. I should have known better than to try and order in the week preceding a major holiday... but they finally arrived and with just a drop of craft glue and a handful of Lego bricks swiped from my son's collection... Viola! Lego Cufflinks!

I'm especially pleased with with this final set. I wish I'd thought to use the skinnier bricks on all the cufflinks. It allows for stacking...and greater coordination with whatever shirt/tie might be work with the cufflinks. Although really these were gifted more because I had fun making them and less because I think they'll actually be worn anywhere...but for less than the price of a tank of gas? You can have about 20 sets of these babies... They'd be perfect for groomsmen gifts, birthdays, Christmas, etc. Anytime you just need a little token gift that looks like you spent a lot of time on it!

And any time I can get away with something that looks like I worked really hard on it? I'm in.

LTTSA - December

2012-01-11T11:12:00.000-05:00

All right then, I'm ready to call this crafting slump officially over.

I'm back on the bandwagon, making up for lost time by finishing up a little gray's Little Things to Sew-Along project for December. With a bit of a twist.

Poor Mr. Man. Someday in the not-too-distant future he'll probably hate me for these photos.

But they're hilarious.

You see, Mr. Man has a one-man-show classroom production coming up. Each kiddo in the class was responsible for memorizing a beloved piece of children's literature/story and then reproducing the story in front of the class using one prop. Mr. Man (obviously) picked The Three Little Pigs.

He requested a full-on Big Bad Wolf Costume, but I told him that, being short on time, what if we just did the head? And, then we brainstormed a bit. Okay, I brainstormed, he played Legos, but the result was a slight alteration of the Cozy Winter Hood from Little Things to Sew.

The only alterations I made to the original pattern in the book were to make the hood fully reversible and adding a second set of ears on the "pig side" of the hat. I braided up some gray yarn from my stash, rather than using ribbon for the dangly ties. Mr. Man insisted ribbon was "girly". I hate to break it to you, kid? But you have a pig hat on. Ribbon isn't gonna make it worse...

Because I cut both the pattern transfer and my materials all out a few nights ago, construction was simple and smooth and really enjoyable. In just about an hour I had completed the whole thing!

20 Things I Wish I'd Known Before my First Baby

2012-01-10T12:18:00.004-05:00

20 Things I Wish I'd Known Before my First Baby

A Memo to my prego sister-in-law

1. Take. Naps. Now. Seriously. You don’t get that luxury later.

2. All you really need before the baby arrives is a couple packs of diapers in varying sizes and a handful of onesies. Truly. There’s no need to freak out if you don’t have the vibrating bouncy seat that you put on your registry and it’s just four weeks before the baby’s due. You also don’t need to worry about putting up that Winnie The Pooh wallpaper border before the baby comes either. You’ll probably never put it up anyway. I didn’t. Don’t judge me.

3. Those handful of onesies? Wash them and de-tag them now. Because the first time you change your kid and realize they have a little red spot from where the tag was rubbing them? You’re going to feel awful. And you have the time to do it now anyway. You won’t later.

4. Nesting happens for a reason. It’s the last time you’re probably going to deep clean before The Baby comes. Just go with it. At a time in your life where your body is out of your control, I always found contentment in the fact that I could at least keep a room clean. Of course after The Baby? Pull that whole I’m-not-supposed-to-do-hard-housework card with my brother as long as you can. It’s awesome.

5. You will constantly misjudge the depth of your belly. I banged it on counters while putting glasses away out of the dishwasher. I bumped it on door jambs I had to squeeze through sideways. I knocked it on the steering wheel and my desk at work and random people in line at the bank. It’s okay. We all do that.

6. Not everyone’s water breaks. Mine never did on its own. That’s no big deal. Don’t worry about that. And honestly? It hardly ever happens at work when it does break. More than likely you’ll wake up at 3am and think you peed the bed. S’what I’ve heard anyway.

7. Labor is different for everyone, but I always knew I was ready when my back hurt for a full 24 hours, then I felt awesome for 24-36 hours, like I was invincible; and then when the contractions got so bad I couldn’t breathe the day after that. That point when you just wanted to punch someone in the face? That’s how you know you’re ready to go to the hospital.

8. Once you actually check in to the hospital? Relax. It’s alllll out of your hands at that point. For some reason the thought of actually checking into the hospital always stressed me out. The car ride, the bags, the making sure you had your insurance cards and camera batteries and phone chargers, etc. But once you’re there? It’s cake. Mostly.

9. Everybody poops. ‘nuff said. At this point everyone and their brother and their brother’s intern has come in to take a peek at your hoo-ha and probably stopped to point out something odd or explain to a class that that’s not normal. And all that IS normal. Your modesty is nil by now. And that’s all a good thing because you’ll probably poop on the table, so don’t even stress about that. Seriously. Don’t. It happens. You’ll never even notice.

10. You are going to cry. You aren’t even going to know you’re doing it, but you’re going to cry. My brother will cry. The baby will cry. The nurses might cry (that’s how you know you’ve got a good one, if they smile and tear up with you even after doing it so many times). Bring Kleenex. The ones in the hospital are rough and scratchy.

11. Be nice to the nurses. Make friends early on. These are the men & women who will be able to sneak you food if you end up having The Baby after the hospital cafeteria closes. And who will sometimes sneak you sprite or 7up even when you’re supposed to only be having ice chips.

12. That first meal? After The Baby is born? It’s the best meal you will EVER eat. Everything tastes amazing. Even hospital food. I had the best tomato soup I’ve ever eaten the evening after Mr. Man was born. And I’m pretty sure it was probably Campbell’s soup in a giant commercial-grade can. Didn’t matter. Giving birth is one of those events that puts all your senses on heightened alert. Everything is brighter, bolder, smells better, tastes better…

13. The pain afterward? It’s manageable. I never thought about how sore I’d be before Baby #1. But oh MAN are you gonna be sore. For about a day or two. Then you’ll be fine. Extra Strength Tylenol was all it took for me. But the fact that someone is going to cheer over your first post-baby poop? And that that someone might, in fact, be you? Well, that humiliation lasts longer than the pain. Take from that what you will.

14. Speaking of poop. Hemorrhoids. No one tells you about that shit but everyone I know that has kids? Has ‘em. Ew. Just suck it up and buy some Prep H. now. My brother will appreciate not having to run out and buy it from a CVS the week you get home, and if you have it on hand already? It makes a great under-eye cream for the nights when The Baby has woken up eight times just to scream in your face and twice just to poop on you.

15. A little more on poop. If you can work it, see that My Brother is just ‘accidentally’ present to do that first diaper change. It’s a priceless moment…one best appreciated from afar. Also, in the weeks following your hospital stay you will be amazed anew each and every day that something so small can poop so much. It’s the weirdest thing. Oh! And buy some really good trash bags. The name brand ones…with the tie handles…and the smell blocker… Maybe that’s enough on poop?

16. Sleep when the baby sleeps. I know that sounds trite, but please please please do. And if that kid, when it’s three or four days old, decides to take a random five-hour nap in the middle of the day and you start to freak out because you’re wondering if you should wake him up to feed him? DON’T. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do not call your mother freaking out that The Baby hasn’t eaten in five hours and doesn’t she think you ought to wake him up to make sure he’s okay? No. No you shouldn’t. You should take yourself right into the living room, put on the trashiest episode of Maury Povich you can find, crack open a fresh tub of ice cream, take three giant bites and then catch a nap. The world will be a better place for it. Promise.

17. Speaking of ice cream…Snacking is essential. I don’t think I ate an actual meal in that first week that Belle was born that wasn’t a cut up vegetable in some sort of dip, or a cartoon-character-themed fruit snack in a foil wrapper, or a giant serving spoon scoop of Jell-O or some sort of gifted casserole. And those things are all fine and good…just make sure you have some good 3am, you-can-eat-it-with-one-hand while-feeding-the-baby-back-to-sleep snacking options. Because the last thing you want to be doing is trying to make a sandwich when The Baby falls asleep mid-suck and you start spraying milk across the room.

18. Oh! Which reminds me! You’re gonna spray milk across the room. And it’s hilarious and slightly gross. And I didn’t know that stuff was pressurized until it happened the first time. Get the disposable bra pads. The Lansinoh ones are awesome. Purple box. Get it in bulk. Or don’t, and see how much of your name you can write in the snow. Either way. Hilarious. And after the first six weeks? It’s going to happen at…er…inopportune moments. You’ve been forewarned.

19. Invest in a couple of good, soft, absorbent wash cloths. It’s amazing the gross ickiness that tends to cling to the creases in the fold of your baby’s neck. And it all smells like sour milk and looks like toe jam. A damp washcloth does wonders for that.

20. In that same vein? Some days you’re going to think a shower is just a luxury you can’t afford right now. When that day comes; Call me. You’re not going to recognize that you, too, have started to smell like sour milk and baby poop from that last diaper change. You’re not going to remember that you wore those same blue sweatpants for the last three days. And my brother loves you too much, and frankly is probably a little too-afraid of the slightly feral, new-mother look in your eye at this stage to tell you that you really need a shower. So when this happens? When you can’t quite remember if you showered yet this week, and The Baby hasn’t stopped crying for the last hour, and my brother is at work, and you’re starving and have just realized that’s because you may or may not have eaten a roll of Necco wafers around 5am and called if breakfast? Call me. I’ll hold The Baby for the hour or so it will take for you to feel human again. I will practically beg you to do this. So you should just go ahead and reconcile yourself to the fact that it’s going to happen and plan on making the call.

I love you. And I cannot wait to hold Baby M and play with him and spoil him and secretly feed him ice cream and mashed potatoes before he technically has teeth to eat them with.

.xo.

Update:
This post was featured on Blogher.com over HERE

A Ballerina Princess Party

2012-01-09T15:11:00.000-05:00

The sound of 20+ squealing, screaming, chasing little four-year-old girls is deafening.

Especially when you're the ONLY. BOY. THERE.
Sometimes, big brothers just get stuck. Sorry, bud.

At the ripe old age of four, with two older siblings in the house, I often forget that The Monkey is still so young. It's only when I see her with a gaggle of her little friends that I remember she's not as old as she acts. And trust me, the girl acts like she's about 30. Truth.

It's good for her to be around kids her own age.

It's one of the blessings of raising Day Care Kids if you ask me. I remember my childhood years as spent outside with a gang of neighborhood kids, riding bikes, picking up games of football in someone's backyard, knocking on doors until you found someone to go play down by the creek with...

And, due to our rather urban existence, The Munchkins have never had much of a neighborhood 'gang' to run with. And I shudder to think of the little shut-ins I might have raised, given my propensity for curling up with a book or movie and shutting out the world for large swaths of time...

Plus, it's always sort of a treat to watch The Munchkins play when they forget you're looking, or forget you're there at all. They're freer with their expressions, freer with their play, when they converge in numbers like that. It's school yard gossip, preschool politics. It's a riot is what it is.

And given the Monkey's leanings toward drama and grandstanding, it was comforting to see that she's not the only one who tends toward those things. There were 19 other little ones making mountains out of molehills there. Thank god.

See also exhibit B for why I love Day Caring my kids. Ability for parental comparison. Mostly I'm just glad my kid isn't the total weirdest in the group. Well, not all the time anyway...

Man oh Man are they ever growing up fast.

Jet Packs!

2012-01-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

So my friend Aimee found these sweet little kidlet jet packs on Pinterest the week before New Year's Eve.

And Mr. Handsome and I decided we could do that and then some.

So Jet Packs it was.

Kind of awesome, no?

Want to make your own?

They were surprisingly simple and came together really quickly.
The hardest part? Emptying enough 1L and 2L soda bottles to make four jet packs!

JET PACKS

Step 1: Collect, drink the contents of, wash and dry 1L or 2L soda bottles.
We found that the new Coke Zero or Sprite bottles make the most badass looking jet packs by virtue of their streamlined design. Looking for something a little more retro or Rocketeer-ish? Grab yourself a couple of Big K bottles. Just sayin'

Step 2Spray paint all your bottles silver.

One coat of spray covered everything with a nice, even, totally opaque silver.

See those great little skinny 1L bottles in the middle there?
They ended up being my favorite. I got the smaller size for The Monkey so she wasn't dragging around 2L bottles on her back...and they had those great dots & indentations that came out so well when spray painted.

Step 3I didn't snap any photos of step 3. mainly because I was too busy wrestling with the duct tape.
But we simply fastened two bottles together with a few strips of silver duct tape, then attached several streamers of red, white and yellow into the open ends of the bottles.

Once the jet packs were assembled, I just took a length of thin elastic I had on hand and made a giant loop, threading it between the two bottles and under the first layer of duct tape, in much the same way you would on a pair of angel or fairy wings.

The duct tape held everything secure, and the thin elastic bands were loose enough to allow the kids wide range of motion without knocking the packs around too much.

These things ended up being seriously hilarious and probably my favorite part of the evening.

Jet Packs for Everyone!

NYE

2012-01-06T12:31:00.000-05:00

Chalk up another successful NooN Year's Celebration to the Indianapolis Children's Museum.
Man I love that place.

I dragged Mr. Handsome & his little Man out with us this year to ring in the New Year at Noon with a countdown and confetti drop and (horror of horrors) about a thousand noise makers. My god. Who in their right mind orders noisemakers for that many children? Someone evil. That's who. Those things "accidentally" got lost in my purse later that afternoon...

We let the collective progeny play to their hearts' content all afternoon, hoping to have some exhausted kids on our hands by dinner time.

Yeah. notsomuch. Those wild things ended up staying up well past midnight.

I was fighting back yawns before they were, what with the all-out Nerf Gun Wars, table full of snackage, and various piles of toys and Legos we went through over the course of the evening.

Not to mention the wicked little Jet Packs we cobbled together for them to race around the house in...

But I can think of no one better to ring in the New Year with.

Here's to 2012, gang.

Wishing you all a little corner of peace to call your own this year.

Anti-resolution

2012-01-06T12:02:00.000-05:00

This past year has been a blur.

I had thought to do some lovely little recap of my 2011 highlights and then make a few resolutions for 2012 but I don't think I can.

I see 2011 in bits and pieces when I close my eyes. It's a small montage of Polar Plunge and Munchkin birthdays and everyone reproducing and babies everywhere. It's The Munchkins' very first road trip vacation and the annual canoe trip and zombiewalk and a significant amount of sewing on my part. It's a lot of exposure to the kidlets and far too little to the other various important people over the course of the year anywhere other than in my own living room. I feel like, after a few years of finally coming out of my bubble and being social I took two giant steps backward this past year. I lost my weekends off. And, while it meant additional time with The Munchkins, it also meant an increase in their attitude and a significant decrease in my patience levels. I have not been the parent I wanted to be this year. And I find myself being resentful more than I would like. And tired. And grouchy. And I don't know how to fix that without taking some time off to myself. Which isn't going to happen any time soon.

And now, as I gaze out into what will be 2012, I am terrified.

My touchstone is moving. Permanently. And I have put off thinking about it until I absolutely have to. Because, frankly, putting a deadline on things makes it all too real. And while I do well with deadlines on projects, I do not do well with deadlines on relationships. So I have stubbornly, benignly, and in all other ways ignored the fact that he's leaving as much as humanly possible. I am, plainly speaking, going to be a mess.

So I'm putting off making any resolutions until January passes on, and the rest of my heart with it.

Attitude

2011-12-30T15:32:00.000-05:00

at·ti·tude
noun \ˈa-tə-ˌtüd, -ˌtyüd\
7.b : a cool, cocky, defiant, or arrogant manner

Yeah. She's got it in spades.

The Christmas Eve Post.

2011-12-30T10:14:00.000-05:00

It's photo montage time!
Partly because I'm lazy, and also partly because there are only so many times in so many different ways that I can tell you I love my family before you become rather bore with me.
But I do. I love my family. Even the weird ones. ha.

Christmas Eve has always been our night to gather.
Once everyone started moving on and moving out, my parents were pretty staunch supporters of the You-Shouldn't-Have-To-Get-Out-Of-Your-Pajamas-If-You-Don't-Want-To-on-Chrismtas-Day School of thought. Which is nice. It means we still get to share my favorite part of the holiday. The anticipation.

We do Christmas Eve Mass together as a family, then it's back to mom& dad's for dinner.
I've always been grateful that we don't do the big Thanksgiving Two feast. It seems so stressful. Instead, we eat something warm and filling then linger over coffee...stretching out the time before presents until the Munchkins are at a near-fever pitch.

Miss Attitude up there opted to serenade us a bit on the piano with some Christmas Carols.

And then the unwrapping began!
It was, as always, a blur of wrapping paper piles and squeals of delight. Mostly from me. Hah. I can hear myself turning into my mother when I exclaim over gifts and things as the kids open them; Ooohing and Aaaahing just like I remember her doing for us on Christmas Mornings...

It's such a comforting thing, to be surrounded by your family all in one room.
I miss my sister at times like this. But she'll be back soon. Okay not soon, May. But still.

She was there in spirit...and she'll probably be there via Photoshop as well if I get bored enough this afternoon...

Post-Presents we switched gears so Tony could turn the big 3-0.
Ouch.
My younger brother is 30.

That hurts more than ME turning 30 for some reason.

And finally, with three increasingly sleepy Munchkins all bundled up against the cold, we made our grand exit. Two were nearly asleep in the eight or so blocks between mom & dad's & my place...so I schlepped them all up into bed...where visions of sugar plums [read: Lego Ninjago and Baby Dolls] danced in their heads...

What are you Doing New Years Eve?

2011-12-30T08:14:00.001-05:00

I love Everything about this.
Everything.

Zooey Deschanel +Joseph Gordon-Levitt
"What Are You Doing New Years Eve?"

The Pre-Christmas Post

2011-12-29T09:16:00.000-05:00

The last few weeks have just been a whirlwind.

Let's see if we can't get you back up to speed, shall we?

The Biz was in a play at school.

The kids were 100% responsible for costumes, props & rehearsals.

Blue construction paper pond weighted down with pint-size water bottles and such... Potted ferns for the marsh reeds...and a handful of kids dressed head to toe in yellow. Adorable.

She's "Old Duck" It was a riot. They took their parts awfully seriously.

Does her costume look like I cobbled it together the night before the play?
I did. oops.

Christmas gifting was HEAVILY supplemented with store bought this year.

I had such lovely intentions of mountains of handmade gifts...and was able to crank out a few sets of coasters, personalized mugs, bits of jewelry, scarves and the like...but that's about as far as it went this year.

I did several of these little fleece + minky reversibles because I had all the scraps just laying around, taunting me. And I can't just let $13/yd minky lay around!!!

Teachers gifts all sort of came together in a single, stressful evening, during which I'm pretty sure I snapped at Mr. Handsome over the phone while trying to modge podge the kids' drawings onto coasters and fill treat bags with handmade peppermint bark, and craft up some gift tags for each of the 10 gifts we managed to cobble together.

Luckily, he brushed it off and brought me ice cream anyway.

Because he's awesome.

As were these coasters when all was said and done! The kidlets did a grand job of personalizing each one for each of their teachers and then we wrapped them all up with clear cellophane, added the gift tag, tied it with some ribbon and called it done!

And then, of course, there was the usual flurry of candy making, cookie making, light hanging, and house decorating that never quite seems to come together until the last minute anywho...

^Mom's traditional gingerbread people. Every year. we have to. It's hilarious. and tradition. I can't even remember the first time we made them chippendale dancers...but it stuck. I think they might have all worn leiderhosen the year Jane lived in Germany...Makes me giggle a little through my nose just to think about them all lined up in scandalous lingerie...

Anyway, most of my evenings ended something along the lines of the above.

Exhausted, on the couch, glass of wine or two in hand, reveling in the quiet glow of the tree, trying desperately to resist the urge to rearrange the ornaments that the kids had moved. Again. For the umpteenth time that day.

Merry Merry, all.

coffee break

2011-12-21T15:43:00.000-05:00

We're making coffee at work just now.

It's 3:30 and I'm hitting the afternoon slump. And we've opened a new canister of coffee in the pod...

That's still one of the best smells in the world to me, Opening up a fresh bag of coffee

I can remember, as a kid, my mom reaching to put groceries away in our cupboards, and we’d all amble over to her as she’d open up the vacuum-sealed back of ground beans. The swoosh and sudden weight of the bag. The sharp, rich smell of the beans as she’d hold it out and let each of us stick our noses into the bag and smell before she refilled the giant canister she kept in the cupboard.

It’s better than the smell of brewed coffee. Better than the smell of the beans by themselves. Those grounds makes me think of digging my toes into the dark, loamy mud in the summer. They make me think of curling up around a mug in the kitchen of our old house in the winter, after dinner, watching the birds and squirrels peck at the feeders in the narrow strip of mossed-over back yard just before the edge dropped off down a small ravine ending in a winding little creek. Of swinging my feet against the short, berbered carpet under the heavy woodplank antique kitchen table, the sound of my soles shushing over the carpet, my calves cracking against the cane chairs softly, listening to the murmur of my parents talk over their coffee, listening to the soft clink of forks and spoons against ceramic, of glasses against the placemats, listening to the maker percolating on the countertop.

Funny how memories are so wrapped up in individual senses sometimes.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

2011-12-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

So despite the lack of posting around here lately, we've actually been incredibly busy on the home front.
This past weekend saw us taking a brief time out from the wackiness of Christmas prep to simply enjoy some of the anticipation build.

We headed out to Traders Point Creamery to do the annual Santa Visit.
And, to my complete and utter shock, I was able to get ALL THREE Munchkins up onto Santa's lap this year.

The Christmas on the Farm Weekends up at Traders Point are by far my favorite of the season. As a matter of fact, every seasonal celebration Traders Point hosts just goes above and beyond in regards to family interaction, ease of navigation, entertainment, etc. They're just the tops.

But I digress. Each year we pile into the big red barn, queue up to see the Big Man himself, then hop over to the craft stations to make whatever kid-friendly concoction they have set up. This year we did all three crafts and the Munchkins were in a good enough mood to let me browse around the Craft/Organics Market. What a treat!

We listened and sang along to a few Christmas Carols, then swung around behind the barn to say a quick hello to the animals before scooting out quickly past the hot chocolate station while I did my best to distract everyone from the overly-tempting $4 hot chocolate. Don't get me wrong, the stuff's to die for, I just didn't have $12 on me. So we scurried. And I pointed and gestured wildly to the reindeer across the way.

If it's one thing being a parent teaches you, it's that distraction is often the key to getting through your day.

And, because we were feeling abundantly Christmas-y, we also tackled Gingerbread Houses this weekend.

I've learned my lesson in years past though.
It may be less authentic to buy the gingerbread kit, but it is infinitely more enjoyable a process.

The kids had a ball.
And I had to force myself to be hands off with the process.
Other than helping hold pieces together for basic construction, I just made up icing cones for each of them, laid out the pieces, portioned out the toppings and let them go to town.

They were terribly proud of their work.

And, because The Monkey is my daughter, she mostly sat around and nibbled bites and pieces off of her creation.

What a little Monkey.

Seeing how each of The Munchkins tackles the same problem/construction in different ways just fascinates me. It makes me eager to see the kind of functioning adult they're growing into. Makes me eager to see how they're going to turn out... In movies you get that classic montage scene where you can so easily marry up the small moments in a persons life that led them along the path of becoming who they are. I constantly wonder which moments will run through on The Munchkins highlight reel. Which moments will they remember? I hope fervently and daily that it's more the Lazy Sundays lounging in our pajamas, bundled up together watching cartoons, building gingerbread houses; and less the moments where I lose my temper with them and send them to their rooms...

Mr. Man's level of concentration on projects just awes me. I wonder sometimes how his teacher can complain that he lacks focus in group settings. When that kid gets into a project he's lost to the world until he's perfected it. Then again, when he's not interested in something, mountains can't move that kid to participate. Sorry, Mrs. Bullock...Sorry.

And, since I couldn't just hover and take pictures and not participate at all. I made the least-desirable gingerbread house; the one The Munchkins all passed on. The Outhouse.

Pfft. Who doesn't want to make the outhouse?!
I'm pretty sure I rocked it out.

The Munchkins were so thrilled with our little village that we've all made a pact not to eat it until Christmas Eve. I'm wondering who will crack first. I'd lay cash money on The Monkey.

After sugaring everyone up, I turned them loose on my parents.

We headed over to Nani & Pops' for dinner and a trip to see the lights at the zoo.
It was a sort of Christmas Traditions weekend, I guess. We've done Christmas lights at the Indianapolis Zoo for years and years now. You wander around the exhibits, all the walkways lit with an obscene amount of holiday lights.

We stop in to visit the dolphins and the tigers and the seals.
We sit for a while at the campfire and sing along with the period-dress Carolers.
It's quiet and peaceful at the Zoo at night. Despite the overflowing walkways and filled-to-the-brim parking lot, there's a hushed quality to the place. People saunter a little slower around the exhibits. You catch more smiles than is strictly expected when getting your heels run over with double strollers.

And it was such a mild night, Sunday, that we lingered even longer than we usually do, snapping photos and wandering about. Soaking in all the holiday cheer.

I'm a sucker for the tradition of it all. It's what I love most about the holidays. Truly.
It's the same Bing Crosby White Christmas tape played every year.
It's the same Bass & Rankin claymation movies that I watched as a kid being passed on and on.
It's these small things that tie us all together across states and time zones.
It's these small things that make the distances shrink, if only for a few times each season.
It's these small things that are Christmas for me.

The Best of The Best

2011-12-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

These Girls save my life.

Daily.

Truly they do.

Oh, and we absolutely rock at throwing together last-minute holiday parties complete with gifts from everyone with less than four hours notice. HOW we all did that I'll NEVER know.

-xo-

The Littlest Angel

2011-12-12T11:41:00.000-05:00

There are few things worse than seeing your kid burst into tears of embarrassment and fear on stage and not being able to do a thing about it.

The Monkey is NOT one to suffer stage fright.

No way. No how. That kid is perfectly at home in front of a crowd of people.

She'll go up to perfect strangers in the store and strike up a conversation in the checkout lane.

Which is why I was so taken aback at her tears last Friday.

Poor little monkey... I think she was rather taken aback too.

For the past two months we've been practicing Silver Bells at my house.

For that same past two months we've also been practicing a second, "church song" for The Monkey's big solo...

So, out tromped the Monkey's class Friday, in front of the parents, grandparents and assorted, camera-wielding family members of the hundred + kids in her daycare. She saw me and waved.

Then she saw the rest of her cheering section and grinned a big, fat, cheesy grin.

Her class started singing and she squeaked in with the chorus.

Then, someone handed her the microphone.

She blurted out the first two words of her verse, got a little feedback, got startled, gave a short, whinny of a giggle and then burst into tears.

She seemed so shocked that she was crying that I got a little red around the edges too. What else can you do? She kept looking over at me, all puzzled. Taking those big, hulking, gulping breaths, trying to calm herself down. I could practically hear her thinking "What the HECK, Mom? What happened?".

But, to her great credit she did not budge from her spot.

She sang along with each chorus. Head up, eyes leaking great big crocodile tears.

Every other parent within a ten-foot radius turned to look at me in sympathy. So of course I teared up then.

When The Munchkins were tiny, and just learning to walk, we made a point not to rush to their aid and fret over every stumble. It was a conscious effort we made. And it was hard. It was hard for me not to scoop them up every time that they stumbled, but it was good for them.

And it was damn near impossible to hold myself back from rushing toward The Monkey Friday, to hand her a Kleenex or use my thumbs to wipe off the tears spilling out over her lashes and my sleeve to swipe her nose.

But I sat. Despite the semi-reproachful looks from some of the younger kids' parents.

I sat.

And she dealt.

She dealt beautifully. and bravely. and I was so proud.

And afterward...after all the songs and skits and the parade of the babies with jingle bells strapped to their wrists, I barreled back to the wings to tell her so.

I told her I was so proud of her for finishing her song.

I told her what a great job she did for not slinking off stage and for sticking it out, that that's what took guts.

Also? I made her put the wings back on. For a picture. Because that was one cute, snotty little angel.

And, when that snotty little angel has tough times in the years ahead, hopefully she'll remember how proud I was of her for sticking it out even when she'd rather avert her eyes from the crowd. It's those moments that build character. It's those moments that create humanity in each of us. And as hard as it was to sit through it, it's those moments I crave for each of my kids. Because if you can't practice bravery in small increments when you're young, how will you ever know how to do it when it really counts?

A Finished Advent Calendar. Finally

2011-12-12T10:47:00.000-05:00

It’s finished! Finally! Only 10 days into the 25 on the calendar.

The Munchkins are thrilled.

We have a huge, wall-sized Advent Calendar.

Each day is represented by a pocket and each pocket is filled with one sweet treat for each kidlet plus a slip of paper noting what day it is, how many days left until Christmas, and an small act of kindness that each needs to perform that day.

For example, Saturday they were instructed to each make someone else's bed.

And they all turned out so sweet: with stuffed animals arranged just-so on everyone's comforters. Sunday they were to do one secretly nice thing for someone else, and then we discussed what everyone did over bed-time prayers at the end of the day...

We’ve been working on being kind lately. Ever since The Monkey discovered that her favorite expletive was “butt-head” and Mr. Man’s has been “dummy”. Hearing these just makes me cringe. It makes my heart hurt a little to hear them be purposefully mean to each other. It’s been a rough few weeks on the homestead, and I’m running out of ideas to inspire spontaneous kindness. So, maybe kindness just needs a little nudge. And my hope is that with these daily suggestions, and correlating bribery or chocolates, The Munchkins will treat each other with just a little more kindness. Right now it's more of a game to them than anything, but if that works? I'm okay with it.

The calendar itself wasn't difficult to make, it was just time consuming.
And with so many other projects needing completion before the first week of December, it just didn't get finished in time for the first. But it's done now, and it's done right (perfectionist much? I may still re-do all the day numbers after the season and before I pack it away, but it'll do for now).

And, in case you get a wild hair and want to make your own, or are just curious how I made mine...

You’ll need:

-Two 30”x42” pieces of your basic fabric
(I just used up some off-white Muslin from my stash)

-One piece of 30”x42” batting.

-Bias Tape to go around the edges. I just made my own out of that candy-cane striped fabric. I’m estimating two packages of store bought tape would do the trick

-1/2 yard each of your four alternating pocket fabrics.

-Various bits of felt for the Christmas Tree appliqué for December 25^th

- Embroidery Floss for the Words & Numbers

- Thread, scissors, etc.

Construction

Calendar Front:

You need to divide your Calendar top into a grid for your 25 days. I used a simple 5-across, 5-down pattern.

Using a pencil, or disappearing fabric ink pen, sketch our your grid from the bottom up (because you’ll have to allow extra fabric at the top for your Advent Calendar Embroidery!) each square on the grid was 6”x6”.

Pockets:

Cut out all your fabric pieces for your pockets – I originally cut 6”x6” square of each fabric.

Iron under ½” on all four sides (I actually ended up folding and ironing down 1½” at the top because I liked the look of a longer, shallower pocket in the end).

Pin each pocket onto your top layer grid then stitch along each side and the bottom – don’t close up your top!

Embroidery

*Now would be an excellent time to add any embroidery you’d like along the top of your calendar.

It was also be an ideal time to hand embroider and/or attach any numbers to each day on the grid.

Or, you can be like me and completely forget this step until your Calendar is assembled and then grumble and groan through adding each piece because you skipped it earlier on. Oops.

Putting it all together

Make a fabric/quilt sandwich: Bottom (right side down), batting, top fabric (right side up)

Pin METICULOUSLY! Your fabric can and will shift here, so take the extra time to pin the heck out of that thing, or, if you have it, use some basting/adhesive spray to keep your layers together and immobilized.

Stitch in the ditch between each row of pockets. You could also complete your grid by stitching between each column as well, but I was happy with my rows and left it at that.

Pin your star-on-a-leash in place in the upper left hand corner

*My star is just a hand-sketched star cut out of yellow felt and stuffed with a little Polyfil. Attach a length of yarn, and it becomes a sweet little marker of which day you’re on.

I just cut a piece of yarn the length of the diagonal, so there'd be enough for the star to reach each pocket.

Attach your bias tape around the exterior of your calendar, making sure you capture that strand of yarn in your stitches.

With your remaining bias tape scraps, create three or four small loops and attach to the back of your calendar in even intervals.

Hang it Up!

Slide a dowel rod or, in an pinch, a small tension rod, through your loops. Hang.

Now step back and admire!

I initially thought I'd pre-fill every day with treats and notes, but quickly nixed that idea when I realized The Munchkins have even less will power than I do and would jump ahead.
So, each night when everyone's abed, I sneak down and fill the following day's pocket.

Handmade Advent Calendar - Almost There!

2011-12-05T15:00:00.000-05:00

I wrapped up so many projects this weekend I can't even believe it.

Also I can't believe I managed to gift them all away WITHOUT TAKING PICTURES!
ARGH!

What was I thinking? haha.
Regardless, everything went to good homes.

My sister finally got to take her birthday quilt home to Vermont.

My sister-in-law received six new bibs with fun fabric backed in white cotton-flannel with velcro closures for Mystery Baby M. and a car seat blanket with the softest brown minky on one side (thankyoulord for JoAnn's 60% off coupons!) and a pretty, gender-neutral turquoise paisley on the reverse.

I also finished attaching all the pockets to the Advent Calendar, as well as quilting the whole shebang together & embroidering a portion of the top (some curlicues & holly leaves to come on either side of that)

Isn't the tree nice in the background?

We had such a full, wonderful weekend, with Jane in town & Kelly's shower that it's fairly near a miracle that I got any sewing done at all, and yet, deadlines. Gotta love 'em!

And it was an odd kind of soothing to sit down Sunday evening after The Munchkins were in bed, with some Christmas music on the iPod, the end table light on, the Tree lit up, to sit curled up on the couch and embroider for a spell. I may just have to do more of that... Sooner rather than later...

I'm supposed to be finishing up The Munchkin's Puppet Theatre for the LTTSA over at a little gray but that project has taken the back burner with all the gifts that had to go out this week! It'll still be finished and under the tree on the 25th, along with some puppets, but it's tricky finding time to work on it when The Munchkins themselves aren't under foot! If you get a chance, go over & check out all the great finished link ups here

-xo-

Dinners and Visits and Shopping, Oh My!

2011-12-05T12:23:00.000-05:00

Oh what a weekend we had.

- Diaper Cakes -
They're not as difficult as you'd think... but I feel like time lapsed video tutorials are kiiiiind of cheating

I forget, from time to time, how much I laugh when my sister's in town.
I guess we try to squeeze it all in.
I also forget how much both of our mannerisms echo Mom's.
It's there, though, in the way we hold a cup of coffee, answer the phone, finish each others' sentences. Even after being apart by so many miles for so many years that doesn't ever go away.

And I can already see the Munchkins picking up those same mannerisms. In the way they stand, they way they gesture when they talk, the way they toss their heads in an overly-confident manner.

I see so much of my sister in Isabelle...just like I see so much of both of my brothers in Mr. Man. The Monkey is a mystery, but I see a lot of everyone in her...she's a good mashup I guess.

I never miss my family so much as the day they all head for home, and I start counting down the days until Mini Marathon Weekend Again...

Baby M.

2011-12-05T11:32:00.000-05:00

Oh Baby M., we are SO excited to meet you...

Your momma is absolutely glowing these days.

And we had the best party for you this weekend, even if you couldn't be there to enjoy it.

When you're old enough we'll explain to you what a diaper cake is, and how it's possible to laugh so hard during its creation that you're sure you've busted something...

That's your Soon-to-be-Aunt Jane wrapping up food for the party. She flew in for the weekend. You have no idea how much I miss her...but I'll tell you all about it soon I'm sure.

And that's your cousin Sophia and that's Mariah next to her... I promise I'll try to keep the Monkey out of your face until you're old enough to take a good swing at her.

You had so many people who wanted to come and shower you with gifts...and play some games...and taste some baby food.

Well, we might have forced them into the latter. That meat baby food is no joke. Sorry about that in advance.

There's your Crazy Aunt Jane again, and Mimi, who will be your great grandmother. She drove all the way from Ohio to be there. She's smart as a whip, that one. She always flew through the crossword puzzles faster than I ever could.

And there are your mom's best friends. I think it's about at this point that Isabelle took command of my camera...It's easier, sometimes, to let you little ones have your way with things for a short time. Five minutes sans whining is pretty much worth its weight in gold. Your mom will learn this early on, I think.

Your cousin Isabelle made a new friend that day. It's funny how kids are able to do that so quickly. Five minutes of awkwardness and you'd think you were trying to take away their puppy when you try and separate them a few hours later. You'll see...when you get here.

Baby M., your mom and dad are absolutely perfect together. Just so you know. They make each other laugh. That's so important. Also your dad's a titch weird...but you'll figure that out. It's okay though, I'm allowed to say that. He's my brother. I've known him longer than you have. He's going to make such a great dad.

There's that diaper cake again. We were so freaking proud of that thing.

There's your mom again. And your grandma Ruth

Oh, and just so you know, Baby M, this picture of the three of us? It took about four takes. I don't photograph well. Them's the breaks, kid. I'll be the one behind the camera after you make your big arrival this spring.

Now be nice to your momma, and we'll see you soon!

xo
Aunt Caralyn

Handmade Advent Calendar

2011-11-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

A few observations on creating your own pattern for a handmade Advent Calendar:

1. If you are NOT mathematically inclined you will give yourself a headache.

2. Stars are ridiculously hard to freehand. Why IS that?

3. You will get NOTHING ACCOMPLISHED if you try and cut out your pattern pieces while the Munchkins are downstairs because they will insist on looking over your shoulder, sitting in your lap, ask to help, etc.

5. Bias Tape is not difficult to make, but it is time consuming. Very. Very. Time Consuming.

6. Striped Material gives me a headache if I stare at it too long. Who knew?

7. Detailed diagrams can be done on legal-sized notepads. This doesn't mean they should be done on legal-sized notepads...graph paper is so much better.

8. Polka dots on material still makes me smile. So I feel a little giddy after cutting out all those squares.

9. Accounting for margins & folded-under pocket edges is important! Measure twice, Cut once. Trust me.

10. The satisfaction of seeing piles of neatly stacked, pre-cut material ready for assembly & stitching-up is immense. It will, I imagine, pale in comparison to the satisfaction of having created an advent calendar we can use year after year. It's one of the traditions I remember vividly from my childhood...opening the little doors each day... Ours was a scratch & sniff one if I recall correctly? I've searched endlessly for one just like it but couldn't find one anywhere. This one may be short on smelly, scratchy goodness, but I won't mind hanging it up early or leaving it up a little longer than is strictly necessary.

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter

2011-11-30T10:07:00.000-05:00

I love everything about this.

I love her voice and her nervous excitement and her enthusiasm and the timbre of her voice.

I don't know if I want to kiss her or be her best friend.
I do know she makes me want to write...even if I don't love the timbre of my voice...

The Awkward Hop

2011-11-29T11:20:00.000-05:00

Monkey: "Mom? Will my feet ever touch the ground?"

Me, puzzled: "Soph, um, your feet are touching the ground right now..."

Monkey: "No, no, no, I mean when I sit on the toilet!"

Me: "Ohhhhh, well, yes, sure, eventually they will."

Monkey: "Oh, good." (sounding very relieved) "Because that's a very awkward hop"

Hospital Corners

2011-11-24T21:19:00.000-05:00

dear son:

I love that you snuck into my room at some point this afternoon and made my bed.

i know it was you because buzz lightyear is propped up on my pillows.

but who in the world taught you to do hospital corners????? i cannot find the edges of my sheets..

So many WIPs, So little time...

2011-11-22T09:14:00.000-05:00

Works-In-Progress.

I has 'em.

You know...I actually thought ahead this year.

I did. Not that it shows...

I've been marching along on gifts for a few weeks now.

source

I've got Pajamas in the works for all three Munchkins (and myself if I can get them done in time. because how awesomely ridiculous would that be? Matching Stripey Christmas jammies for everyone? yes. please.)

I've got two quilts and one baby blanket in the works.

I've got a slew of baby gifts in the works (three right now...more to come) That need to be finished by December 3rd.

I have three dolls (one for each Munchkin) prepped & ready to stitch together.

I also have the Oliver+S LTTS Puppet Theatre ... well.. the fabric is cut but it isn't stitched just yet.

If you're just picturing piles and piles of fabric scattered about the house, on top of bookshelves and side tables and couch arms and kitchen tables? You'd pretty much be spot on. We're a hot mess at my house. And Wednesday has been designated as No-one-is-leaving-the-house-until-it's-spotless day...so that should make the children love me I'm sure...

You know what would be awesome?

Three straight days, uninterrupted, to sew.

Can you imagine how much I'd get done with all that time...and an endless supply of coffee?

It would be stellar. Truly.

*sigh*

A Culture of Gratitude. Days 12 through 18. Oops.

2011-11-18T12:29:00.000-05:00

Today is November 18th

There are 6 days until Thanksgiving.

I obviously suck at this.

I'm grateful for so many things...I just wish time to blog was one of them. (Them's the jokes people, take 'em or leave 'em.)

Here's a quick round up of the days I've skipped/missed/forgotten to type up this week.

Bon Appetite!

Day 11
Today is Friday, November 11th
There are 13 days until Thanksgiving
Today I am grateful for Clorox Bleach products.
I am grateful for plastic trash bags.
I am grateful for stain-resistant carpets.
I am grateful for small, sleeping, feverish Munchkins curled in my lap.
I am grateful for the stuffy nose I've just developed...mostly so I can't smell the puke.

Day 12

Today is Saturday, November 12th.

There are 12 days until ThanksgivingToday I am grateful for do-overs.
I am grateful for old friends who have reappeared on the horizon.
I'm grateful for porches and delivery pizza and the fact that it's finally eggnog season.

Day 13

Today is Sunday, November 13th.

There are 11 days until Thanksgiving
Today I am grateful for my mother...who knowingly entered the 'Sick Zone' to bring us milk...and other assorted essentials when we were all too housebound to go get them.
Because, let's face it. The absolute LAST thing you want to do with pukey kids is pile them all into the car so they can whine and moan and complain of not feeling well at the grocery store (where other people will overhear them and glare at you as if you're a bad parent for infecting the Greater Indianapolis Area)

Day 14

Today is Monday, November 14th.

There are 10 days until Thanksgiving
Today I am grateful for ice cream.
And everything that went with it.

Day 15
Today is Tuesday, November 15th.

There are 9 days until Thanksgiving
Today I am grateful that my place of employment has dedicated a corner of space to a workout facility, because my pants are feeling a bit...snug these days. Which means a return to the daily Lunch Hour Workout. Huzzah.

Day 16

Today is Wednesday, November 16th.

There are 8 days until Thanksgiving.

Today I am grateful for The Girls.
Stephanie, your strength and your smile and your sense of acceptance inspires me.
Karrie, your loyalty and dedication to others humbles me.
Jill, your ability to love openly and without reserve encourages me.
I do not know what I would do without you guys.
I would not be the person I am today without your presence in my lives these past 28 years (Yes, for those of you playing along that would be preschool). I love you guys.

Day 17

Today is Thursday, November 17th.

There are 7 days until Thanksgiving.
Today I am grateful for the amazing support network of educators and caregivers in the lives of The Munchkins. I am able to go about my day, confident and secure that the people my children spend the bulk of their day with are loving, caring, intelligent people. They are, in effect, a second (or third? or fourth? I've lost count) family. I trust these people not just with my life, but with the lives of my children. I trust them with their fragile egos, their giant sponge-like brains, their open hearts, their compassionate souls. And each year I am more and more grateful that they not only maintain them, but feed them. They not only teach numbers and letters, but compassion and dignity.

Day 18Today is Friday, November 18th
There are 6 days until Thanksgiving

T.G.I.F kids. Seriously.

It's been a long week.
Today I am grateful for the frozen pizza we're going to have for dinner and the movies we're going to plop on the floor and watch tonight. Fridays have always been pizza and a movie nights...for as long as I can remember. I let The Munchins eat in the living room and we put on our jammies and bring down blankets and pillows and just veg all evening. This is considerably more fun (in my opinion, anyway) when it's sub-freezing temperatures outside. The thought that I get to put on my ugly sweats as soon as I hit the door tonight is preeeettttty much the only thing getting me through my day today.

How do you like them apples...er...cookies?

2011-11-16T10:35:00.000-05:00

Prior to the sewing machine being back and fully operational, I got a little bit stir crazy.

And, without the machine, I had to resort to *gasp!* hand-sewing!

To say that The Monkey has been obsessed with play food lately would be a gross understatement.
Santa had brought a ton of felt food from Ikea last Christmas, and it gets used daily. This is not an exaggeration. I cannot recall a day in the last month that I've not had to sit down at some form of tea party or restaurant booth so she could take my order.
Daily.

So Saturday we were all hunkered down and healing up and watching movies sprawled out on the living room floor when The Monkey pulled out some felt out of my stash (because they like to go through it occasionally and steal bits and pieces for play). I think originally they were going to be placemats for her game, but I immediately had other ideas.

I traced around one of the kids' plastic tumblers for a good size, and made a cookie 'sandwich' with two pieces of felt and some fleece I had on hand. I used some thick brown embroidery floss to do a quick blanket stitch around the exterior of the cookies, and smaller threads of the same to do the fork-cross-hatching on the peanut butter cookie and the french knots/chocolate chips on the Chocolate Chip Cookie. The sprinkles on the sugar cookie were dictated by The Biz & The Monkey. I knocked the first three out in half an hour or so...and The Munchkins are now anxiously awaiting the next installment.
Mr. Man wants a turkey (hah! Tutorial....found!)
The Biz wants breakfast food (Thank you, Erin! I'm all over that bacon & these cinnamon rolls and these blueberry muffins)

And The Monkey, of course, wants more cookies.

MORE felt food links!

Squee!Sugar Cookies w/ Icing
Donuts

Brown Bag Lunch

Goldfish Crackers

Bananas

Pop Tarts! (hee! hee!)

Sushi

Cherry Pie

Peas in a Pod

Farmers Market Veggies

LTTSA - November

2011-11-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

Chugging right along on this month's LTTSA.

Determined to finish on time and with this month's actual project...

I've decided on some minor alterations to the designated Puppet Theater Project this month.

Because I have THREE Munchkins, I'm completely certain that ONE opening for the puppet theater simply will not do, so I've altered the design from house to castle (because knights and princesses and Rapunzel have all been big favorites at my house so far this year) with three towers...and three openings for puppets to peek through.

And, because my fabric stash is currently threatening to overflow the small, under-the-stairs cupboard to which I have resigned it (and I've promised myself no new fabric purchases of more than $10 until after the holidays) I'm determined to use only fabric and scraps that I have on hand for this project.

I even have (random, random, random) a spare tension rod to use when putting the puppet theatre between the doorways of bedrooms!

I've started compiling the fabrics and colors in my head and need only get some to-scale measurements done and start cutting and appliqueing everything...

So here's a quick sketch to let you all know I'm at least thinking about the construction, even if I haven't started sewing on it just yet.

Mug Rug.

2011-11-14T10:19:00.000-05:00

So I finally made one of those darn Mug Rugs all of blogland has been in a dither about lately.

And I've got to admit, it's pretty darn cute.

Apparently blogland knows what it's talking about. Little Bitties are always cuter somehow; and the smaller size allowed me to play around with a bit of handstitching/quilting.

Of course, that was an abysmal failure. Luckily the sewing machine is fully operational once more, so I breezed through construction of this little...well...basically it's just a small placemat honestly. It's batted & backed like a traditional quilt, so it's built to withstand the hotter-than-the-surface-of-the-sun temperature of my coffee, and leaves just enough room for a few cookies or a donut...or three... Just sayin'. Sometimes a girl needs a donut or three.

I had the first one of these cranked out in under an hour, and that includes time taken out to full a glass of juice, pour three bowls of cereal, locate Ben Ten's Plumber Helmet and dress FatBaby in her pink pajama onesie.

I'm thinking a couple more of these babies will be great practice for, and perhaps more accurately distraction from, unfortunately, Baby M's quilt.

This quilting thing can be addictive.

Who knew?

Where I Write.

2011-11-13T04:09:00.000-05:00

Where I Write...

It is not romantic, where I write.

It is sad and small and pathetic and cramped.

I am squeezed into the spaces between commercial breaks or couch cushions or stop lights. I am shifted into the calms before the temper-tantrum storms. I am a single mother. I sew while they play and I write while they sleep and I'll sleep when I'm dead. If I can.

My first novel is still in a box in my mother's basement. It was line after incomprehensible line of scribbles and squiggles in neat rows on notebook paper. There were at least six pages, front and back, last time she pulled the worn pages out of storage to show me. She'd smooth the wrinkled sheets and pick at the frayed edges torn from their spirals and smile softly, confiding that she'd always saved them so that she'd be able to pull them out when I was a famous writer some day, so that she'd be able to say she owned my first manuscript.

And the weight of that is enough to pull me under most days, even now, as my ball point pen scritches on the back of a napkin from the Subway around the corner. I'm 32 minutes into my lunch break, curled up and huddled against the cold stone of the War Memorial that overlooks University Park. I watch people scurry around on their errands abstractly... scritch..scritch... scritch.

I was a student of writing for so long that I'm not sure I know how to be anything else most days; calmly parroting out the ideas of others, constantly looking over my shoulder, patiently waiting to be called out as a fraud. But there is the pulse inside me that says "write". It drums inside my skull, like holiday music in an Old Navy. It beats screaming tattoos on the backs of my eyeballs when I am hungover of a Sunday from staring too long at the out-of-focus mirrored bottom of the bottle of so much cheap wine. I can feel it thrum through my veins. It leaks out of the cracked and magled cuticles of the fingernails I nibble when I should not...when the words won't come.

There is no worse feeling than your entire body telling you to write and yet holding you back from it all at once. At cross purposes. Again.

I write in notebooks and moleskins and napkin-backs and paper placemats from Italian restaurants embossed with the boot of Italy on it... I treasure the All-Weather Field Book Mr. Handsome once gifted me. I rub the smooth, treated pages absently and dogear them back and forth, back and forth, nervously worrying over The Munchkins or my bank account or my lack of a five year plan. I think back to the summer I graduated college, all of the friends packing up, moving to big cities, small towns, new zip codes, new jobs writing, editing, doing journalistic things, following photographic pursuits and I burned with jealousy and a small red rage and a balloon of hope all at once on the day I held the pregnancy test from numb fingers, watching my now ex-husband slide down the expanse of the wall outside the bathroom in my tiny-big apartment looking lost. And then I blinked and we were married. Then Parents. Then Parents again. Then Not-parents while I gulped and dry-heaved on the couch, not wanting to be touched, not wanting to wake from the numbness for days. And then, miraculously, Parents again...even though that year's joys will forever be eclipsed by the blur that was Not Enough and Moving Out and I Lied on the Altar and struggling, each day, each morning just to remember to breathe, open your eyes, pick up the baby, feed the baby, feed the children, dress the children, function if not eat; survive if not quite live.

And this sad little piece echoes so perfectly me right now. Stumbling along, in fits and starts, not sure where it's headed other than forward. The destination not seeming so important right now as the forward motion it takes to get pointed in the right direction.

I write in the in-between spaces. In the empty spaces. Trying desperately to fill them.

inspiration

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 10.

2011-11-11T10:12:00.000-05:00

Today is November 10th.
Today marks 15 days until Thanksgiving.

Today I am Thankful for the growing independence of The Munchkins.

There is a special sort of joy that occurs when you realize that your youngest child is finally old enough to sit and color quietly by herself for long stretches at a time.

It's euphoric, really.

Considering that I can still remember the days when The Monkey wouldn't let a soul but Yours Truly even touch her, makes this moment an even greater success. There were days when I was sure I held that child 22 of the 24 hours of the day. And now, the edges of my memory have blurred just enough that I think on those days fondly...

Because as much as I celebrate the fact that I had an entire 30 minutes to myself this morning to enjoy my coffee and the current trashy novel I was curled up with under the couch-afghan, I'm also realizing that this is the beginning of the end. Soon they'll be rushing out the door...on the way to friends' houses and sports practices and to meet *gasp* boys. I shudder to even think...

So maybe, just maybe, I'm not in such a hurry for them to climb down off my lap and into the world.

...maybe...

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 9.

2011-11-10T09:50:00.000-05:00

Today is November 9th.
Today marks 16 days until Thanksgiving.

Today I am thankful for this guy right here:

...because he's kind and generous...and funny...and wicked, wicked smart...and a bit of a fish geek...

...because he'll claim to be the least romantic person in the world, but is light years from it when you pay attention to the little things...

...because he indulges me when I tell him he has to dress up in costume...
(Which is actually fairly often. Can you hear me smirking? I'm smirking. Maniacally)

...because he makes a mean breakfast sandwich...

...because he's so often my rock, my point of sanity and my sounding board these days...
...and because two people couldn't possibly be more opposite, and yet rub along so well...

...and because, frankly, it's getting harder and harder to imagine what my life is going to be like when he leaves...

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 8.

2011-11-08T15:01:00.000-05:00

Today is November 8th.
Today marks 17 days until Thanksgiving.

Today I am Thankful I've got an hour (Actually 45 minutes. eep!) to race over to the polls and exercise my right to vote.

Go! Now! Hurry!

It's more important than Jersey Shore. Promise.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 7.

2011-11-07T09:53:00.000-05:00

Today is November 7th.
Today marks 18 days until Thanksgiving.

I know. I skipped a few days in there...

They're actually at home, scribbled on napkins and the backs of watercolor pages (don't tell The Monkey) They'll get worked back in here in a day or so. I just don't have interwebs at home. My bad.

But today? Today I am Thankful for growing up in Faith.

Notice I said Faith. Not necessarily the Catholic Church.

Which, let's be honest here, I AM Thankful I was able to grow up in the Catholic Church. It's so much a part of who I am. But Faith is both a part of that...and something greater than the sum of it all at the same time.

Every Sunday morning, for as far back as I can remember, we woke up and poured our sleepy selves into dress clothes (no jeans!) and went to early mass. It was just a part of the schedule. It was what we did. I attended both a Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school and I owe much of my sense of self to those two institutions. I feel most at home, honest, when I am perched on a wooden pew, surrounded by the buzz of pre-mass greetings and catching up; the trail of incense wending its way through the crowd. I feel alive in my own skin when I reach across the empty space between people to clasp someone else's hand in mine for the Our Father. I feel a sense of warmth and comfort when I stop mid-hymn to listen to the scattered voices echoing across vaulted ceilings and hard tiled floors to become, if only for just a short time, one voice each Sunday.

But Faith is more than all those things as well.

Faith involves practicing what is preached.

Growing up, It involved celebrating our beliefs at home and at school, not just on Sundays between the hours of 8:30 and 10:00. It seeped into every aspect of our lives. And it's this continual reinforcement of the understanding that there is something greater than ourselves stringing us all together that I am Thankful for. It's the lesson that was reinforced by my parents and my teachers and everyone my young, awkward self came into contact with that helped me to understand that my religion is not something I visit on Sundays and major holidays, it's something I live. It's not church. It's Faith.

And I've let that slip a bit with The Munchkins. And I was ashamed of that and a bit adrift over how to fix it for a long time now. And, so, as hard as it was last week to suck it up and contact Holy Cross (which, granted, we've been attending for a few months now, anonymously.) I did it. I joined the Parish. I signed The Biz up for First Holy Communion Classes. I paid my dues and signed The Monkey up for her baptismal classes. Faith is about family. It's about that bigger connection. It's about celebrating your beliefs in every aspect of your life. And, while we'd been doing that at home, we had yet to find a new parish family for ourselves after being a bit adrift the past few years. And I think we've finally come home.

And I've found it's self-renewing...that faith. It builds and builds when you feed it.

After church each Sunday The Munchkins have questions. And I find myself racking my Catechism to answer some of them. I lament the fact that they are not attending a Catholic grade school almost daily. But, as it's not an option right now, I try and compensate in as many ways as I know how.

I'm excited to work on an Advent calendar with them...

I'm excited to find a new Advent wreath and light it nightly and weekly...

I'm excited about my Faith again.

And that's the funny thing about Faith...and one of the reasons I'm so grateful for it.

It was always there for me, even when I lost sight of it for great swaths of time. And it's that sense of Faith that I so desperately want to pass on to The Munchkins, no, that I will pass on to them.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 6.

2011-11-06T13:53:00.000-05:00

Today is November 6th.
Today marks 19 days until Thanksgiving.

Today, I am thankful for these ladies right here:

It's awfully easy to get wrapped up in your own day-to-day and forget that there are other people out there doing the exact same thing.

I do not exaggerate when I say that more of my friends than I can shake a stick at have had new babies in the past year. And I'm not even really sure what that means other than there are a LOT of babies going around.

And sometimes, the best cure for feeling overwhelmed in your own skin, is to get out and connect with the other ladies going through exactly what you're living. Every day.

Life can, simply put, be more than we can handle sometimes.

And it's easier when we can commiserate with each other. When we can confirm that, yes, our kid was up four times last night too. When we can lie, smilingly to each other and say that no one's sleep-deprived, under-eye bags are noticeable. When we can one-up each other with poopsplosion stories until we're all laughing maniacally.

Thank you ladies.

Thank you for letting me hold all your babies.

Thank you for reminding me that no one gets a good night's rest any more.

Thank you for letting your kids help my kids get so worn out they passed right out on the car ride home.

Thank you for being there.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 4

2011-11-04T21:18:00.000-04:00

Today is November 4th.
Today marks 21 days until Thanksgiving.

Today I am grateful for the strength to make the big decisions...
The little decisions, those are the killers.

I get menu anxiety.

I'm pretty sure my sister coined the phrase, back when we were little kids and she would freeze up every time we went to a restaurant. I still have issues choosing what to eat given too many options. See also Fabric, and Thread, and Yarn, and Clothing.

And you'd think that my complete inability to make the little decisions in every day life (Cottonelle vs. Angel Soft? Pasta vs. Breakfast Dinner? Leftover Pizza for lunch or a Sandwhich?) would render me completely at a loss for the big decisions (what school should the kids attend? At which parish should we make our new home?)

But for some reason, I've been graced with a support network that needles me to make the big decisions in an...er...timely fashion and to stick to my guns.

Which helps me sleep at night...even when I'm second guessing the clothes I laid out for everyone for the next day...and whether I should have bought the dryer sheets that smelled like lemon instead of spring fresh...and whether I should have defrosted those pork chops instead of that hamburger for Tuesday's dinner...

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 3.

2011-11-04T02:00:00.000-04:00

Today is November 3nd.
Today marks 22 days until Thanksgiving.

Today I am grateful for the 5 minutes of quiet I managed to carve out for myself this evening.

It doesn't happen too terribly often.

The Munchkins were cranky when I scooped them up from school today.

They generally are on Thursdays. It's like a second Monday around my house...they're just a little out of synch. And so I try to low-key it on days when they return to my house. I'd planned mac & cheese with smoked sausages cut up in them (and on the side for The Biz...never mixed in...not for her) and a movie night complete with floorbeds in the living room.

...

But, of course, nothing went according to plan.

Which is the norm here. So we rolled with it.

Somewhere along the way from School to daycare to the grocery for a gallon of milk and a couple rolls of toilet paper and home, The Munchkins went from grouchy and out-of-sorts to Full.On.Meltdown.

It was not pretty.

I was hanging on by a thread.

So when we hit the front door and there were literally kidlets littering the front floor...lying on their backs and crying from exhaustion, I nearly lost it.

I cow-pusher shoveled everyone up the stairs en masse. I gave everyone three pieces of Halloween Candy and a book from the upper bookcase, lined them up in the upstairs hallway and we had "The Talk".

Look, gang, Mommy's TIRED.
You're TIRED.

We're all CRANKY.

I get it.
Would bubble baths help? (three nods. Bubble Baths are a big favorite in our house)

Okay. So, if you can all be quiet for 5 minutes while I put the noodles on and go to the bathroom? We'll start the whole evening over, okay? (three more solemn nods.)

And so we did.
And it was the quietest, most peaceful 5 minutes of my entire evening.

Owing, probably to the candy, but I'm hoping everyone just happily overlooks that parenting gaffe. We had bubble baths times three, and noodles for dinner, and then I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30 while The Munchkins very very quietly watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

So I'm thankful for the five minutes...

When you take into consideration that your kids' emotions ride the train to crazy every five minutes or so...and that they can start out having a meltdown, fight amongst themselves, and still end up laughing and playing together all within the space of half an hour or so...you either hop on board with crazy or let it drive you nuts.

Sometimes that five minutes is all you need.
Just five minutes

To hit reset.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 2.

2011-11-03T02:58:00.000-04:00

Today is November 2nd.
Today marks 23 days until Thanksgiving.

Today I am grateful for the impulsive nature of friends.

I have found, over the years, that people are more the sum of their friendships than anything else. I have a tendency, believe it or not, to hunker down with a good book or movie when I find five minutes to myself. My first thought is not, in fact, to pick up the phone and see who will help me escape myself, even when perhaps it should be.

There are nights that, once The Munchkins are tucked safely away under covers, nightlights on, soft snores wafting down the hallways; I so crave adult contact that I very nearly ache with it. And you'd think I'd get some of that at the 8-5 I pull five days a week, but that, honestly, is more computer interaction than anything and significantly less...fulfilling than one might think.

So six nights a week I curl up on the couch, tuck my toes under a blanket and pull up a good book, or my sewing machine; wishing I could be out of the house. But on that seventh night? The one when I could be out? I get anxious. I get nervous. I rent Redbox movies and buy TV dinners. FreedomFAIL, no?

And so it is, with great delight, that I find myself surrounded with enough people who pull me out against my better judgement on these days. I blink and find myself in smoky bars or art galleries or Tapas restaurants or local breweries without knowing quite how it happened. I find myself laughing until my cheekbones sting with it. I find myself surrounded.

I am grateful for the last minute phone calls. I am grateful for the mid-week emails. I am grateful for the plotters and planners and movers and shakers that let me tagalong for sanity's sake.

I am grateful for the impulsive nature of my friends.

I'm not sure where I'd be without them.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 1.

2011-11-01T21:53:00.001-04:00

Today is November 1st.
Today marks 24 days until Thanksgiving.
Today I'll share one thing I'm grateful for...
You should too, it's rather empowering. Watch.

Today I am grateful for MomGuilt.
No, really, I am.

On nights like tonight, where The Monkey whined for three hours straight through, stopping only twice to breathe...

On nights like tonight where Mr. Man quite literally laid down on the kitchen floor and mulishly refused to do his homework...

On nights like tonight when The Biz was trying desperately to fill the 'good child' void and overcompensating to a frustrating degree...

On nights when I lose my temper so badly I have to lock mySELF in the bathroom for a timeout left I end up on the 11 o'clock news in my bathrobe and monkey slippers... On nights when I have tucked everyone in, snapped my goodnights too quickly, stormed down the steps too harshly, plopped myself on the couch too happily, and felt the ooze of MomGuilt seept in around the cracks and settle around my bones...

I am still grateful.

I am grateful for each whiny, needy, annoyingly wonderful amazing Munchkin in my life. Even when I am wracked with guilt over the duties, trials and tribulation that the moniker bestows, being a Mom is still the best thing I have ever done. They are the best thing I've ever done.

I am grateful for MomGuilt.
It reminds me, simply, that I am a Mom.

Halloween Recap

2011-11-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

Halloween 2011 ~ It was the year of the all-handmade costumes.

Rock.

We had a Dracula, a fox, and a Little Red Riding Hood.

They were insanely short on patience...ready to get out and knocking on doors.

And we don't even get home from the work-school-school round of pickups until 6pm!
Thankfully, Nani & Pops swung by to see the kids costumes, take a few pictures, and drop off a Papa Murphy's pizza! So, after their dutiful four bites of pizza and a glass of milk, I cleared them all for Trick-or-Treating.

Now for some reason, my kids love the idea of passing out candy.
They enjoy the door-to-door aspect of begging for treats too, don't get me wrong, but they have taken great delight in past years in hanging out on the front porch, wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate or warm cider, taking turns handing out treats to later trick-or-treaters.

So upon exiting the townhouse this year, we lit the pumpkins and the porch light, but pointedly did not put out a full bowl of candy, hoping to come home to some stragglers in need of end of the night handfuls.

Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for both the kids and our family dentist I suppose) we did not return to the house this year until a full TWO HOURS later. That's two full hours of trudging around the neighborhood, scolding Mr. Man for dashing across streets, holding The Monkey's hand as we neared the overly-decorated porches, re-adjusting The Biz's basket and hood...

Their haul was unbelievable. And I let them keep going mostly because I didn't hear a single. darn. complaint. Not one little whine! until about 10 minutes before I called it quits. Were they giddy? Yes. Were they...overly...enthusiastic? Yes. Were they perfect angels? No. But they so far exceeded my behavioral expectations for the evening I couldn't have been prouder. I heard crisp, clear "Twick or Tweet!"s. I heard immediate choruses of "Thaaaaaank Yoooouuuu" after each stop. I was so proud.

And, of course, as soon as we got home, it was a flurry of upended bags and marking off boundaries of piles with lines of tootsie rolls; and a masterfully OCD-ish display of candy sorting.

They come by it honestly, though. I did it as a kid too. There's something so satisfying about seeing it all arranged neatly. The Reeses with the Reeses. The Twizzlers with the Twizzlers. The Whoppers with the Whoppers with the Whoppers with the Whoopers (there were a LOT of Whoppers this year. Someone must have had them on sale.)

Aren't the bags fantastic? They were all handmade for the kids by my sister-in-law's mom. They were the perfect size for this year's bounty. Those little 99 cent pumpkins just wouldn't have cut it this year!

Every time I came close enough to snap a picture of the piles, the kids hovered relentlessly over their loot, like I was going to steal some. Silly Munchkins, they haven't figured out that I steal from them nightly after I tuck them in?

worst. candy. ever. *shudder*

All in all, it was a highly highly successful holiday.

~xo~

Halloween Prep Round Up

2011-10-31T14:09:00.000-04:00

More Halloween? you gasp

Yep.

More Halloween.

Go Big or Go Home, folks.

Here's some more Halloween Prep we got taken care of over the weekend!

Okay, so, explanation time:
We have the above giant barren wall in our entryway.
Granted, it's not barren now. In fact, it rarely is. I had these grand visions of getting a cozy little padded bench with storage for shoes and such, and maybe a snazzy little portrait or picture gallery...but usually it's just this great blank canvas of a space that gets altered every couple of months (admittedly, usually with construction paper) to coordinate with the season.

So the entry way wall now sports this spiffy little yarn wreath, which I already had wrapped and languishing in a corner somewhere. I just added some Dollar Tree Ribbon and Voila! Hallowreath!

The construction paper bats just sort of took over.
Oops.
Isabelle was down for the count Saturday and the other two natives were getting restless, so I put them to work tracing and cutting out bats. It kept everyone relatively happy for a good couple of hours. Score.

My favorite bit about the wall right now? The One-Legged Red Mummy riding a bad (see above). It's Mr.Man's little addition to the decor. Sophie's was a black blob of construction paper she cut out and stuck onto the closet door. When asked (in the nicest way I could possibly find) just what the heck it was, I got a patronizing look and an eye roll. "Mooo-ooom, it's a Walrus. Get it? WALL-rus?" That kid is creepy smart. And funny. I got pwned by a four-year-old.

The Monkey is also responsible for the Punkin Patch lining the baseboards all around the entry way and adjoining hallway. I told you they were quiet and busy for a couple of hours!

And then...we carved pumpkins!
And by we...I mean me.
Because The Munchkins always seem to love the idea of carving pumpkins, just notsomuch the execution of it all. I think The Monkey forgot how icky scooping out pumpkin innards can be.

Mr. Man was, appropriately, making monster faces in nearly every picture.

Except for this one!

Check out those gourds, baby!
It was a LOT of seeds. Seriously. A LOT.

I have no idea what's going on in this picture...

Bell, obviously, still flu-y and not happy about missing out, decided to sit and watch. Then she promptly went to throw up again. Ew. Poor little Munchkin.

And, after all the decorating and pumpkin carving that went on this weekend, we still had more to do! Since Halloween itself falls on a Monday, there were class parties to prepare for.
*caveat* did you know that in public schools you actually aren't allowed to call them Halloween Parties? Everyone is having "Harvest Celebrations" AND, down to brass tacks, the classrooms themselves aren't even allowed to recognize any Holidays on the calendar at all with the exception of a "Friendship recognition" in February and an "End of the Year" celebration in May. Poor things.

But, YMCA to the rescue!
The Munchkin's Before & After-School care programs were having a monumentally gargantuan Halloween celebration this afternoon. So, the excuse was born to try our hand at Caramel Apples.

My God, what a pain in the ass these were. Seriously. 30 Caramel Apples later I've vowed to spring the $2 a pop for them next time. It's so worth it. Don't believe all the blogland divas out there who say whipping up your own batch is a piece of cake! I did. I desperately wanted to believe I could turn out gorgeous, evenly coated apples with a minimum of fuss and muss. But I couldn't.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the disaster that was Cake Pops.
Those little boogers just weren't happening. Maybe I'm just a perfectionist? But if it looks more like poop on stick with googly icing eyes? It's. Staying. Home. I'm not sending poop on a stick in for 20 four-year-olds to giggle at. I have my pride.

So the PreSchoolers got individual treat bags full of tootsie rolls and suckers and candy sticks...and I ran out this afternoon on my lunch hour to replenish the Trick-or-Treating stash. Thank goodness I keep random crap like ziplock trick-or-treat bags on hand! See? Being a pack rat pays off. BooM.

And Biz & Mr. Man, ultimately, after some unique swearing and after-hours drinking by yours truly, skipped off to school with 30 Caramel Apples.

Plus a few extras, because I was already swearing, and drinking, and covered from fingertips to elbows in semi-dried caramel.

Happy Halloween, gang. Happy Halloween.

Little Red... and a continuation of the sew-along

2011-10-31T11:06:00.000-04:00

I. Have. Been. Slacking.

Seriously.

But I'm making up for lost time.

I've completed my second (of the three months I'm supposed to be participating in! Typical.) project from the Oliver+S Little Things to Sew sew-along over at a little gray!

Huzzah!

Also typical? SO not the project everyone else was doing this month.

Don't get me wrong, I had the material all picked out and the pattern pieces all transferred over to freezer paper for the Bias-Trim Apron, it just got set aside at the last moment in favor of a Halloween-Emergency Little Red Riding Hood Cape.

Here's me furiously stitching the lining in last night.
I used a deep crimson, thin-wale corduroy for the exterior and the cherries quilters weight cotton for the interior. I used a snippet of bright blue grosgrain ribbon for the button closure and just an old antique-y looking button from my stash to finish things off.

Also? I apologize in advance, dearest daughter, if the bottom hem falls out at some point during Trick-or-Treating. You see, I snapped my last machine needle clean off when I stitched right through a pin. Argh! So that bottom hem there? The bit that should have taken me another 30 seconds to stitch up and turn and be done with? That bit took me nearly an hour in hand-stitching. I would never complete anything if I hand stitched everything!

Still. It looks pretty awesome.
(Tooting my own horn)
And I'll have completed pictures tonight once the eldest Munchkin gets her grubby little paws on it.
(It was completed sometime around the 2:30am mark last night. *yawn*)

Huzzah for procrastination and last-minute projects!

*****************update!****************

The Biz loves her new capelet.
She wore it to school Monday, Trick-or-Treating, and I caught her wearing it randomly around the house the next day as well. I'd call this one a successful project!

Zombie Walk

2011-10-27T16:14:00.000-04:00

So Saturday was my second favorite annual even of the year!

My first is the Polar Plunge, which benefits the Special Olympics, but the Broad Ripple Zombie Walk is a close second...in fact, with its rapid-fire growth? It may just eclipse into "Favorite".

Each year IndyMojo.com partners with local business to host the Broad Ripple Zombie Walk to benefit Gleaners Food Bank. It's a massive 1000+ throng of the undead who shuffle through the main and side streets of Broad Ripple Avenue. with a donation of 10lbs of food you can snag yourself a sweet, limited edition Tshirt, and the satisfaction of doing a little good for your fellow man.

You would be amazed how into this event people get. Makeup has gone from slapdash white and green and red to movie-grade cosmetics and prosthetics. There are people that go NUTS over this. And this year? This year the event not only included the walk, a feast, a prom, and a night of insane music at Tru afterwards but also? A real, live, legally binding wedding. That's right. People got married. In Zombie Regalia.

And guess who got tapped to help decorate the "wedding gazebo"?

Yours truly.

Oh. Yeah.

So, a few yards of white material, green and black gauze, hanging paper lanterns, bloody cobwebs, and a bucket or so of fake blood later, and our little pop up tent was transformed (with the help of one brilliant Jen- It's a Pop Up, People!-Smith. xo)

This is also the first year that I've allowed The Munchkins to come along.
Previous years I've held this night in reserve as a grown-up outing. Mostly, let's be honest, so I could run around and be ridiculous. But they'd been begging for two consecutive years now to attend, so I relented. They had a blast. Not one tear, not one worried face at all the gruesome displays, and just a teeeeny bit of whining once we reached the witching hour and they realized they'd been going full-steam ahead and on their feet for hours on end.

Oh and this year? We raised 5,349 pounds of canned food according to the reps from Gleaners.

For those of you playing along at home? That's over TWO TONS of food for our local homeless.

And our shuffling horde grew to a whopping 1000+ zombies this year.

For an event near and dear to my dark little heart I feel like bragging to EVERYONE.
Look what we can do when we really try, people

Seriously. Don't you want to be a part of this next year?

It's NEVER too early to start planning next year's costume
Zombie Walk 2012

The Shins

2011-10-27T09:50:00.000-04:00

This is my bliss today

If I can't have time away listening to the soft roar of the surf on a beach...

If I can't lift a hand to shield my eyes from the glare slanting down into the shadow of a mountain...

If I can't measure my heart beats by the drum of running shoes slapping the pavement...

I'll be here, at my desk, listening to this and breathing.

Halloween Costumes: Raccon Suit

2011-10-24T10:23:00.000-04:00

Because I have, quite possibly, the worst short term memory On. The. Planet. (Sorry, Elise!!!) I am still in possession of one little-man-sized Raccoon Suit

I used (and altered for a size 6mo. infant) Jessica of Running With Scissors' Woodland Animal Pattern. It's such a well-constructed pattern, that the adjustments to the size and the accessories were easy to make.

I constructed the bulk of the body just like the Fox costume, but I swapped out the zipper in the front for a Velcro closure (mostly because it was what I had on hand, to be honest about it) and I dipped into my faux fur stash to add some rings to the Raccoon Tail and interiors of the ears, forgetting what an enormous, ridiculous MESS that stuff is. There are still stray 'raccoon' hairs embedded in the carpet I'm sure.

All in all, the costume came together quickly and I'm getting better at the fine-tuning of the pattern the more I construct it. It's a comforting place to be in, knowing that my sewing chops have improved to the point where I can take & alter an existing pattern in small ways and not completely screw the entire thing up...

I fit some other, assorted sewing in over the weekend (a few headbands for the girls, a fully reversible Vampire Cape for Mr. Man and some more leggings for The Monkey, as the temperature is finally dropping here) More on all that later!

Happy Monday, gang.

Afternoon Crafting: Halloween Edition

2011-10-21T12:29:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday afternoon, the kids were getting squirmy.

I decided there was a dearth of Halloween decor at the house, and they needed something constructive to do before I sent them all to their rooms for pummeling each other. So we made playdough Ghosts and spooky Halloween trees.

Making your own playdough at home is ridiculously easy.
We just combined a cup of flour, a cup of salt and a half cup of water in a large mixing bowl. Stir until you get a nice uniform consistency and divide evenly between each kid.

They pinched and pulled their way into a horde of ghosts and gravestones

Then we just microwaved the ghosts on a plate one or two at a time for 20- to 30-second intervals until the dough was fairly firm (maybe one& a half or two minutes in total). Be sure to let them sit for a minute before prying them off the plate - those suckers are HOT!

Then, just decorate your ghosts and gravestones with permanent markers! Voila!~

We also tried twisting small, leftover paper bag lunch sacks into spooky trees, but The Munchkins got frustrated with this one, and decided it was best to let momma twist up the trees while they arranged everything to their liking on the kitchen windowsill.

The little pressed paper houses they decorated with a combination of markers and watercolors to make their Haunted Houses. I found the lot of them at Hobby Lobby for about a dollar each. I initially thought they'd make great houses for the Peg People we've been churning out, but the kids decided they needed haunted houses instead.

The Monkey's Haunted House still ended up playing home to a slew of princess peg people...

I'm a pretty big fan of The Biz's (above) The Little Red Riding Hood peg people found a home here.

So there you go, an entire afternoon of crafting and painting and sculpting and twisting and gluing and laughing and not pummeling each other. It's a miracle I tell you. Worth every minute of the hour and a half cleanup later that night.

Zombie Accessories

2011-10-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again!

We're prepping for the annual Broad Ripple Zombie Walk at my house this week.

That means corn syrup blood and Zombie Manicures

There are a couple of great options for DIY Fake Blood.

The most popular I've found is just a half cup dark Karo corn syrup + red food coloring + a couple teaspoonsful of cocoa powder to get a nice, thick, gritty consistancy.

I also mixed a batch of blood using just a cup of dish soap & a couple drops of red food coloring. It was a brighter red blood than the corn syrup, but dried much more quickly (a good spray bottle to have for day-of application!)

And...finally, the girls and I all gave ourselves Zombie Apocalypse Manicures.
For that, I've-just-eaten look ...

Two coats of white nail polish.
Then, holding the nail brush an inch or so from the nail, let one or two drops fall on each nail. Swirl and scratch colors around the nail using a toothpick for a splattered look.
Ta Da! Nails fit for the Undead.

~ Until next time, guys & ghouls! ~

Altered

2011-10-14T09:41:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when you see a steady stream of people all headed to the same place, you can just tell. I can't really pin it down, but it's there. When you go to a show or a lecture or a gallery, you can just see it in the people who are unfolding themselves from cars and ambling along, the ones who are going there too and the one's who aren't. Maybe it's something you recognize in their faces or that vague light in the back of their eyes, the way you can find friends in a bar by the way they straighten in anticipation when you walk in, the way their spine lengthens to meet you. A matching of intentions only maybe. But you can tell It's there.

source

And I could tell. Last night.
By the shuffle step of the masses wreathed in smoke making their way into the bar last night.

I got Altered Thursday.

I woke up with the echo of bass beats tattooed on the backs of my eyes.

I saw the tracers from the lasers bouncing off the raindrops hitting my windshield on the early morning drive home.

I bear the trademark rasp of a night and a morning spend in a smoky bar, doubled over in laughter from a night spent with people I see far too infrequently.

I fell reluctantly in love with the easy sway of the regulars and robotic tics of the dancers and with the way the remote-control fog rolled down off the apse where they had nestled the turntables. With the easy give and take of the crowd. With the erractic bursts of songs I recognized melded in with the lovely thumping, pounding, squaking scritch of hands on turntable knobs and dials. It's hypnotic, you know, watching someone work and be so wrapped up in what they're doing that they only register the crowd in their periphery. They don't really play for you, the good ones...They seem to spin just to see if it can be done. And as ill-versed as I am in the world of an electronic-based genre (preferring smoky blues or rollicking bluegrass banjo or the occasional 80s rock ballad to anything else) I can hear the roots of it all in the jam. I can understand the appeal...the seduction of the music and the way it could envelop you.

I need more nights like this. The cold wash of something, anything new is refreshing. It's addictive. It's altering.

Urge to Sew

2011-10-07T15:19:00.000-04:00

I've got the itch to sew this weekend.

I've got a millions WIPs and nothing much to show you just yet.

But it's coming...I promise...

here's a taste of what's piled on the dining room table right now:

Running with Scissor's Woodland Animals pattern...but as a Raccoon...for a certain little 3month old

Noodlehead's Pretty Little Gathered Clutch

which I've had the pieces cut out for for..oh...weeks. *sigh*

Some terrycloth-backed Bibs for the upcoming Mystery Martin Baby...

I've got the terrycloth all cut & trimmed and a neat little ziploc baggie full of snaps and pre-cut velcro...but can't decide on the front material...seeing as I have to make them fairly unisex...for now...

I'm a big fan of these from Sir Bubbadoo

THIS awesome little Chewbacca Softie... Yes...I've started thinking ahead to Christmas... oy. I've got an old, small-wale corduroy skirt just this color that doesn't *ahem* fit anymore...exactly...

And this V & Co. Shag Jersey pillow.

Which I've actually already made one of...but each child now steals mine and carries it off. Daily. So I'm in the process of making three smaller ones...because they truly truly are ridiculously easy and super-duper comfy for curling up on the couch with.

And of course all of these are in addition to Aimee's quilt which is done but not mailed...Jane's quilt which has a completed top/sandwich but has not been fully quilted or bound...and Mystery Baby Martin's quilt whose fabric I drooled over since it came out...but am now internally arguing over... I'll just throw some pictures out there of the fabric for fun...

(It's Children at Play from Sarah Jane Studios...and I. Want. All. Of. It.)

2011-10-06T10:06:00.000-04:00

Some mornings

concentration escapes me

but for the best of reasons...

source

Autumn on the Orchard

2011-10-05T09:12:00.000-04:00

It's fall in the Midwest.

That means crisp evenings of football

And Homecoming Games surrounded by friends...and bowls of chili...and steaming paper cups of hot chocolate...and getting jostled in line at the concession stand under the bleachers by high-schoolers wrapped up in their drama, nudging each other and asking, in furtive whispers, if we were ever that young...

Fall is Sunday afternoons spent at the Orchard...

...amid rows of canned preserves and jellies and salsas

and crates and crates of candied orange slices and red hots and dried fruits housed in a building that smells of dried leaves and apples and kettle corn and honey.

It's tumbling through the pumpkin patch searching for the perfect one. The tall one for Mr. Man's ghost pumpkin. The big fat one for Isabelle's jack-o-lantern. The perfectly round one that The Monkey can carry "all by myself this year"...

Getting salty over the umpteenth picture mom has attempted to take...just hoping one turns out well...

Oh, and honey sticks...

...Lots and Lots of Honey Sticks.

And craft fairs

And five pound bags of apples for pies and sauce at home later that week...and maybe a cobbler...

It's unrushed afternoons strolling through the orchard, letting The Munchkins run just because they can. Letting them climb hay bales and jump to reach the low-hanging branches on the trees and be silly and pick $20 worth of pumpkins that they just want to color on and I just want to carve up for the seeds.
It's fall. In Indiana. There can be no better time of year...

A glass of wine makes brushstrokes bold...

2011-09-29T14:46:00.000-04:00

Have you been to Wine and Canvas yet?

You have to go.

Have to.

My cheeks still hurt from laughing and smiling so much last night.

There's just something about being in a room packed-to-the-gills with people all trying something for the first time. Something that seems intimidating, like painting.

Fortified with a nice cabernet and a plate of snackies, the madre and I tackled a landscape of all things...not the thing for a perfectionist to tackle; even the host artist said so!

Everyone's self-deprecating laughter was contagious, and the collective muttered comments and wine-buoyed jokes and exclamations made the night unforgettable. In much the same way that movies are better in packed theaters, so you can hear the gasps and laughter of other people? So too, I've decided, is painting best done as a communal effort.

Also, it scratches that voyueristic itch I have to be able to wander up and down the long trestle-table rows of table-top easels, seeing how wonderfully and differently everyone interprets the evening's painting. No two were alike, and no one was better than the other. They were all amazing. And that, in and of itself, is quite a testatment to both the instructor and the event space. We were...shepherded...coached...entertained. It was the perfect night out.

I can't wait to go back.

p.s.

blink and you'll miss it

Personalized Pillows for the Pack

LTTSA: Baby Doll Carrier

Sometimes

Naptown to Super City... Super Bowl XLVI

Naptown to Super City

Left Brain :: Right Brain

Impressionable Youth...

A Hometown Super Bowl

Motherhood

Anonymous was obviously a woman...

Lego Cufflinks

LTTSA - December

20 Things I Wish I'd Known Before my First Baby

A Ballerina Princess Party

Jet Packs!

NYE

Anti-resolution

Attitude

at·ti·tudenoun \ˈa-tə-ˌtüd, -ˌtyüd\7.b : a cool, cocky, defiant, or arrogant manner Yeah. She's got it in spades.

The Christmas Eve Post.

What are you Doing New Years Eve?

Zooey Deschanel +Joseph Gordon-Levitt"What Are You Doing New Years Eve?"

The Pre-Christmas Post

coffee break

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

The Best of The Best

The Littlest Angel

A Finished Advent Calendar. Finally

Handmade Advent Calendar - Almost There!

Dinners and Visits and Shopping, Oh My!

Baby M.

Handmade Advent Calendar

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter

The Awkward Hop

Hospital Corners

So many WIPs, So little time...

A Culture of Gratitude. Days 12 through 18. Oops.

How do you like them apples...er...cookies?

LTTSA - November

Mug Rug.

Where I Write.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 10.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 9.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 8.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 7.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 6.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 4

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 3.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 2.

A Culture of Gratitude. Day 1.

Halloween Recap

Halloween Prep Round Up

Little Red... and a continuation of the sew-along

Zombie Walk

The Shins

Halloween Costumes: Raccon Suit

Afternoon Crafting: Halloween Edition

Zombie Accessories

Altered

Urge to Sew

Autumn on the Orchard

A glass of wine makes brushstrokes bold...

at·ti·tude
noun \ˈa-tə-ˌtüd, -ˌtyüd\
7.b : a cool, cocky, defiant, or arrogant manner

Yeah. She's got it in spades.

Zooey Deschanel +Joseph Gordon-Levitt
"What Are You Doing New Years Eve?"