warm and happy

snickerdoodles.

she is so used to working with just 3 fingers of her right hand. she puts the other 2 in her mouth, so she knows to keep them up like that when she's in public, trying to keep them germfree. 🙂

snickerdoodles. onions. breakfast. tea. even brussel sprouts. these are all examples of things I didn't like when i was younger, but as i got older (and wiser) i slowly started to like these things more. i love telling these little factoids to the kids, 'oh one day you'll like it. believe me….' for instance: snickerdoodles- i'm just not a big sugar cookie person. i need other things of sugar goodness in there to make me satisfied, ie chocolate or caramel. but then i tried a different recipe and i think they turned out awesome. note that there aren't cookie pics after they were baked. they were devoured too quick!

tea. okay geez, it's not like real australian tea, it's chocolate mint. hahaha. but i do love it and i am so glad that dots cupcakes introduced it to me. i'll even drink a green tea mint. 😉 onions. used to hate them. over time and with plenty of innout burgers, i began to have them grilled. now i love them raw even. 🙂 just depends on my mood. breakfast. i would go to school every morning against my mom's requests to eat breakfast. i just don't like breakfast food. but lately i'm so into eggs over easy with garlic fried rice. i could eat that every morning and i firmly believe my days will go by smoother 🙂 that being since jelly filled donuts are totally unreasonable on a daily basis. 😉 brussel sprouts. this one's a stretch but has to be doused in butter and herbs. and i won't make them. they have to come from someone else's kitchen and resemble nothing like the brussel sprout in it's normal state. 🙂 i still stand very firmly on my inabilities to eat spicy food though. 😉

there you go. my afternoon of baking with elsie transformed this whole post into a favorite parenting phrase of mine, 'one day you'll like it'. 🙂

December 15, 2009 11

love this time of year!

tree is up. house is somewhat decorated. fireplace lit every night. lots of snuggles in bed. scarves everyday. the rain stinks but hopefully there's a little snow at the mountains so we can drive up sometime soon. i love the age where the kids are at- they decorated this all on their own.

i don't have to stress at all about prepping or how anything turns out. they are happy with it just as it is! i just get to do the clean up! i love their fake smiles and how cam doesn't even bother 🙂 ha! these are funny because els is witnessing cam begin eating the house. she's in shock! (els decorated that light fixture all by herself, she was so proud and i love it!) we've started wrapping presents with lots of scraps we have around the house. trying to do a lot of handmade gifts this year. either by me or my addiction to etsy 🙂 we're gonna bake and eat by the fire all weekend. i have been drinking an insane amount of this tea and lattes. love my weekly visits to dots to have my favorite fleur de sel. so in love with that flavor. salt and caramel. mmmmmm. lots of phone call chats with sister in law who's coming to town soon. kira's on the high school soccer team and has been playing in freeeeezing weather, even tonight it's raining and they are still playing! love seeing the differences between me and her, you couldn't pay me to do something like that in high school 🙂 or even today really! skipping out on christmas cards agaaaain this year. just don't want to fill my plate up with too much. just trying to enjoy it all and be less grinchlike 🙂

have a good weekend!

December 11, 2009 5

before we eat

at chris' aunt's house, we stop by the nearby stables for a visit with the horses. els went thru a horse phase a few years back. first thanksgiving. second thanksgiving. and last year's didn't seem to get posted. this year, i only had my phone with me when we stopped, so here's horses and fam via iphone.

that's my crazy clan 🙂 especially the crazy little one wearing her italian sundress in late november. more pics to come later! (real camera ones) ha!

i participated in a cute DIY holiday class at 2peas, check it out here. i cannot believe it's december 1 tomorrow. i better get organized!

November 30, 2009 4

brothers

they used to be each other's best friend. from the time they 'knew' each other (you know, after that first 8 months of a baby when one's just a blob to the older brother) when one actually takes interest in the other. they were serious at this best friend thing. they were fiercely loyal. they would scheme and play and every now and then fight but quickly make up. one could not be without the other without a little bit of sorrow (apart from school) having chosen to be with other friends was rare and often the one left behind was rather sad. they wanted to start a business together when they grew up. and the thought of one leaving to go to college before the other, heartbreaking. i just tried not to think about it. (sappy, sap, sap) when chris and i would hear best man speeches at weddings that were
given by a brother, we'd immediately think of the boys and know they'd
be doing the same one day.

for the most part they liked the same things and disliked the same things. but this last year, changes began emerging. one started growing up, hanging out with friends more, having a different outlook than the other. they started snapping at each other with stinging fierceness. tonight, they were fighting like brothers fight. and i had had enough. my heart broke. i brought up this slow evolution i've been witnessing and with mild drama, i left their room with extreme displeasure with their behavior. minutes later, i heard them discussing their dissatisfaction with each other quietly. both hurt and both talking it through. i know deep down they still adore each other. it's interesting to see your babies grow into their own person, form their own opinions and discuss their feelings. as a mother who has seen many phases so far, i hope that this is a short lived phase. i miss my boys being the best of friends!!

November 12, 2009 17

costumes

a glimpse to inspire any moms who have to dress 4 children year after year, posting costumes that were heavily recycled this year 🙂 note- my 3 older children still like to dress up, just not the premade stuff at the store. so not only do i have to facilitate their desires, i have to be creative and thrifty. because i am thrifty and cheap and hate spending money on things that don't have value in the long run 🙂

els: "good witch that lives in a candy castle" (not to be mistaken at alllllll for a bad witch) witch costume from kira's a few years back. bought the 2 dollar hat and she put the jewels and KI stickers on herself, and whenever she wore the hat, she made sure the decorated part was in the front 🙂 she did get new black maryjanes for the costume, that i told her she will be wearing at thanksgiving and christmas as well. see! thinking ahead! 🙂

caleb: "boy who got stuck in a spiderweb" he's at the age where he passes the premade stuff but wants to have fun and i guess— be cool. so i handstitched the spiders on the shirt and put web all around him. easy. and after halloween i will cut all the spiders off and he will still have a wearable shirt 🙂 i'm totally thrifty like that. cam: "tonight's dinner" 🙂 chris didn't seem to get what cam was this year. lol. cam is in a funny stage where he comes up with the most ridiculous costume ideas… we were in the craft store and he wanted me to just stitch fake fruit all over his clothes. i'm like, what? lol. i love that this was totally free and that he thought i was brilliant 🙂 hehehehe. i will note that we all voted for more food to go inside the bag but he said it'd be too hard to walk around in.

and kira. sigh. i love that she still loves to dress up. she was "peter pan" or "peter ma'am" as caleb called her. NOT to be mistaken for an elf or robin hood. LOL. I didn't get her full costume shot but chris did with his film camera. i will say that it pained me to cut up this shirt that will not be used in any way in the future but i am comforted that i bought it on clearance for 4 dollars. you didn't know i was so cheap huh? only my closest friends really do 🙂

and cousin jaeden tagged along. so glad she did! 🙂
so there is our halloween. you know your kids are growing up when our gang of trick or treaters go from 4 to 2 😦 the 2 older kids decided to spend the nights with their friends. 😦 wah. and we only carved one pumpkin instead of the normal 4 we do. i didn't even bother to take a picture of it. geez. it seems ages ago when kira was 3 and she dressed up as barney 🙂 sigh. it's all going so fast, hmph. wah. 😦

November 3, 2009 6

we want fall!

temperatures in the 80's. a false hope of fall when we had a few days of rain. we bought our first pumpkin today- forcing the autumn-ness of the season to enter our home 🙂

October 22, 2009 12

reunited

last weekend. he's been traveling quite a bit lately and it's good to have my other half back home with me! he walks and drives the kids to school for me in the morning so that i can stay indoors with elsie in our jammies. and while he was gone, racing to get everyone out the door- not an easy task. i always pack lunches in the morning, even though the night before would be more practical. i am not a morning person. i will tell you that i drive in my pajamas 🙂 just getting out the door on time is good enough for me. and of course we happened to run out of coffee and instead of just ordering some online, i did the thing that we haven't done since july- go to starbucks! we got this machine and it has been so wonderful for us to just make our own coffee at home and not spend a fortune at starbucks every week. my week was just off. besides being exhausted in general- i tend to stay up till the wee hours and then have to wake up for school in the morning- vicious cycle…i found myself missing conversations. it's just not the same to converse over email and texting. i miss my daily need to unload every detail of my life and our kids lives to my husband. it was emotionally exhausting as well. thank goodness for my inlaws, who live nearby, i frequently visit them to keep my loneliness to a minimum. and to let elsie unload some of her energy and chattiness onto other family members 🙂

but ahhh all is well back in our household. we are complete.

October 13, 2009 8

just wanna share

that our new jac website and jac blog are live now. many days and nights were spent pouring over this project. happy to share now. the new blog will start to fill up as we post some shoots we've been saving up. and this one will too, as thoughts of the future of this blog are starting to emerge. 🙂

i wasn't going to put any pics up but blog posts always look lonely without them. she really was on the phone here. it's blurry because she moves alot when she talks. kinda like in a little dance way. she's genuinely happy here and that makes me happy.

October 8, 2009 12

howdy

the boots have returned.

the current hype with the new toy story movie coming out has our girl digging through the boy's toy story toys for jessi the cowgirl. much to her sadness, her pink cowgirl boots no longer fit, but she tells me these pink ones do. they are from the end of 2007! it's the end of 2009 now! they were big before so i am guessing they must still fit? whatever, they were the best $11.00 i've ever spent.
toy story brings back all kinds of memories for me! we own about 3 or 4 of those big buzz lightyears that talk. and nuuumerous other toy story memorabilia. the boys were born during the 1st and 2nd movie releases. i have vivid memories of sitting in our east coast apartment, watching them over and over as the weather was horrible and we only owned one car. i could still pretty much recite the movies by heart. 🙂 i miss my boys being so little! sometimes 🙂 they are turning into these little social and sporty boys these days, but neither of them never outgrowing giving mom and dad a hug and kiss. love that. 🙂

October 5, 2009 8

bye bunny!

i'm sorta embarrassed to say elsie found this easter bunny in the freezer today. 🙂

and she ate it 🙂

not the whole thing, though she really wanted to! i had to portion him out for the next few days! 🙂

i also wanted to update y'all and say that i am temporarily saying goodbye to twitter and facebook. i think twitter will be completely gone but facebook will make it's way back in my life in a week or so?? i just found them to suck so much time out of my day and i was feeling horribly guilty. i'm hoping to not have my phone attached to my hip– just be free of it and use it for what it's really for! i knew even BEFORE i got the iphone it'd be addicting and i was right! it's been allllmost a week and it's felt wonderful 🙂 i realize that facebook can be a great tool- if i can keep a realistic balance. twitter, i find a hard time envisioning a balance as i am the kind of person to have all my emails read and unchecked within minutes of receiving them. with twitter, i can't stand to have more than a few 'tweets' that i haven't read. see the addiction? i'll have to break it to cam's teacher (who is trying twitter for the first time with his class' parents) that one of his 2 followers will no longer be following him, LOL…. chris and i felt so hip when we raised our hands in class that we knew what twitter was. 🙂

so there should be lots of updates via blog and scrapbooking from me, with all that free time and all 🙂 and perhaps it's time to start sending letters in the mail, like real mail through the postal system- everyone loves happy mail for no reason, right?

ps: isn't it sad that it's october and we are still sporting sundresses and tank tops?! wah!

October 1, 2009 11