Friday, June 27, 2008

Sakes Alive!


It's hard to believe...my baby boy is 5. How has the time passed so quickly? He's been in Nevada longer than he was in California. Right about now, Rob and I were giving Irene kisses and heading down to the OR - Irene and Mom were upstairs at the hospital. Pat and Bob had arrived just before I was wheeled down. at 8:44, Rhys was born. Apparently, when Dr Spivak made the first incision, Rhys popped his hand right out and waved (of course, at that point, the only person who knew it was Rhys and not Grace was Le Ann)! Another interesting thing was that his head was firmly underneath one of my ribs, so at one point, I heard my midwife, Le Ann, saying we might need a vacuum! That's not something one expects when having a c-section. Soon after she said that, they were able to get him out from under the rib. His eye was red from that. It was a rough several weeks - jaundice, not latching correctly, biliblanket, learning how to divide time between two kids. And, of course, it was all worth it!

What a joy he is. I really can't believe he's five already. The time really goes quickly with the first child - but once thing 2 is in the mix, the time ZOOOOOOOOOMS! He's so excited to be 5. He's starting kindergarten in August and is THRILLED! There are so many things he's sure he'll be able to do now that he's five. Including breathing underwater - heh heh.

Okay - i'll come back and add the friday fill ins b/c they will work pretty well with this.

I need to get Irene to Girl Scout Day Camp (her last day) and then Rhys and I are going to figure out what time WALL-E is playing at the theater. And for tonight, Straw Hat pizza (they have an arcade - which makes it better than Black Rock if you're a kid).

and we're back with the Friday Fill-In!

1. Birthdays are so exciting when they are yours, your friends, and most of your families, but when it's your children's birthday, while they are fun and happy, they are also a bit sentimental and poignant (i can't think of the word i want...if i figure it out, i'll come back and edit bittersweet is the word I think I wanted).

2. Autumn is my favorite season because it's when I got married, it has a special kind of smell and feel that just makes me happy. Spring is a close second

3. I feel my best when (so many thoughts...when i'm 30 pounds lighter? when my house is clean?) I'm with my family and everything is going right - when we're being good to each other.

4. Chocolate - mmm - I mean Cheesecake from the Olema Inn - er - no, Ken Renzie's Spaghetti is my favorite food!

5. First impressions are important, but you shouldn't JUST use first impressions when forming judgments/ideas of another person. Everyone has an off day.

6. The best piece of advice I ever received was mamas and daddies parent differently. It's not a bad thing, it's a good thing.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to enjoying the day with my birthday boy, tomorrow my plans include creating a Star Wars party for the boychild and Sunday, I want to have woken up to the fairies magically having packed up our car so that we're ready for our road trip to Texas!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Usually you can see the hills...

It's so lovely to blow your nose and have that smokey smell. With all the SMOKE (not snore - thanks to rob for pointing out the iPhone's funky word recognition...) we have here, I can only imagine what it must be like for the people who are actually *close* to the fires!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

full frontal



Today found Rhys and me at Borders. Whenever I go there, I check on Joshilyn's books (and the books of other friends...well, okay, maybe it would be considered more friends of friends - but i KNOW her, i'm on a LIST with her and her best friend is one of mine - so that makes us just one degree of separation!). I made sure that I made them all facing front. I almost titled this post Joshilyn Jackson's Full Frontals, but felt she might not really appreciate THAT kind of a title...I also had Borders Bucks that can't be used if I use my teacher discount for children's books, so i bought Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City (Karen is TWO degrees of separation b/c SHE is friends with Joshilyn who is friends with Lydia - see???) I loved that the book is newly out in paperback and was for the same amount my bordersbucks were. YEA!! You can go to Joshilyn's blog (the H is silent, so it's pronounced josilyn) and see where she did 3 questions (plus several) with Karen.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Happy Father's Day

to my wonderful, patient, adored, handsome, and loving husband.

blogger has decided at&t is persona non grata with my phone, so no easy peasy lemon squeezy picture posts. need to figure that out.

sorry for the short post.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

not a good day to dye

hair that is...
first we tried irene's hair.  wild oats is in the process of changing to whole paycheck - er i mean - whole foods and they are moving to a new location, so they aren't restocking anything like hennas or indigo...irene wanted blue streaks - but then was okay with magenta.  so we bought beets and we had frozen blueberries.  it was very time consuming to do the beets...finally i coated irene's hair in beet & blueberry juice and pulp - 3 sets of strands.  meanwhile, i started my henna.  i was doing copper.  i added some tea to it to get goldenness.  irene's didn't work and mine is actually a darker brown rather than anything even slightly red.  bummer.  i'd say we had fun trying, but i don't know that we did.  it really was a lot of work and a lot of mess.  ah well.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Monday, June 09, 2008

Rhys' photo enhanced constellation


Sorry for the poor lighting on the previous picture, sometimes my phone doesn't take the very best pictures.

I've put brown dots where Rhys' freckles are:

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Rhys' very own constellation

LOVELY LYDIA!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LYDIA!!!!!

I just want to wish my very special and beautiful friend, Lydia, a marvelous birthday. Today marks 2 years since we last got to see each other and see each others darling children. TOO LONG i tell you. Benny and Sadie are growing so so big and I love getting to see and hear about the different things that Lydia does with them. She's who I want to be when I grow up. She makes amazing clothing for Benny and Sadie and makes music with them and for them. She makes sure that they are learning and enjoying and creating.

here are 3 of the four kiddos having fun making music and dancing with Lydia.

Lydia, my dear dear and wonderful friend, Happy Birthday!! We love you muchly and lotsly and we miss you even more than that!

Sunday, June 01, 2008

fabric sale fun

Deirdre asked what we're going to do with our fun stuff -- well, the green fabric with dinosaurs are destined, apparently, to become a stuffed dinosaur. some of the batiks are going to be part of my dress for my baby brother's wedding and part of them will be for Beanie's flower girl dress. Some of it might go into Rhys' patchwork pants. Some of it will go into Matt and Michelle's quilt.

i LOVE LOVE LOVE the sunflowers - the green ones were on sale. the yellow/orange ones were not.