Baby Tuesday

Yeah, this is really late. My excuses are lame. I'll save 'em.


Kevin took this photo of her. The digital blanket wasn't ever intended to be part of her bedroom decor, but she likes it in there, so there it stays for now.
I wish I kept the email address of the chick that gave me that bed off of craigslist.
She was about my age and she said that her grandfather made that bed for her.
I think she would be happy to know that another little girl sleeps in it now.


You can't really tell from this photo, but Baby R is eating his corn dog with a fork.
If that boy can use a tool, he will indeed use it.
Those are their little Chili's take-out boxes. Corn dogs and apples to go!


Below is a video of one of Kevin's garden carrots, but this one was from this afternoon.
Baby C (or should I say Kid C?) gets SO excited when it's time to harvest stuff from the garden.
I can't blame her, it is pretty exciting.







Hmm what else...
Kid C has told me that she wants to go back to ballet class instead of preschool. And at first I was entertaining the idea, because it's much cheaper to just take ballet, but then I quickly realized that was a bad idea. So I convinced her that you don't get any snacks in dance class and there won't be any cutting and gluing paper. She has since changed her mind.

Baby R is really aggressive lately. I'd like to think it's because all 4 of his "I" teeth are coming in at the same time, but that doesn't really make sense at all, does it?
If only they had toddler wrestling or full contact football. He needs it. He was hitting like crazy all day and then he bit his best friend this afternoon (really hard! poor little guy).

We went to the beach on Saturday and for 6 dollars in state beach fees, I got to see a earth worship ceremony *and* a (freshly) dead seagull.
The kids were completely unphased by both.
The group of old bikers, a mexican family and I gawked at the ceremony while Baby R dumped as much sand as possible on his sister.
We went and had dinner at Taqueria Vallarta downtown. If it wasn't for the no-waiter system at that place, I would probably never eat there. It's not very good, but people just like me keep going there despite that.
Baby R dumped an entire cup of horchata onto the floor about 90 seconds after he got it in his dangerous little hands. And then he threw about 3/4 of his quesadilla onto the floor after that. Not all at once, but throw after throw, it adds up.
Okay, time to leave!

I just emailed Mrs. MST3K!

Mike Nelson's wife is a Christian women/marriage speaker.

I tried to play it cool like I didn't know she was, fame-wise, and asked her if she was still doing talks and if she'd consider talking at WG.

hehehe.

this is sleep defiance

When I'm tired I overthink things and then start feeling like I've been hit by a bus.

Do you do that?

Like, every cell in my body is saying "hey stupid! we're tired! go to bed!"

But here I am, because the house is peaceful and I can't fully enjoy the peace if I'm unconscious.

I'm starting to overthink

-should I go out with Trina and Sarah tomorrow night, instead of printing matchbook labels and printing T-shirts?

-should I have agreed to [co-]lead a new small group? Is that going to make life harder?

-should I not be a whimp and pick something easy for my 40 day fast for Beautiful Day?

But no, I'm sticking with the answer "no." To those questions, but since I'm tired I just sit and chew those thoughts over and over like cud in my head.


And this is an advanced photo of me tomorrow morning when my alarm clock goes off.

Not just tired-- hippo tired.

Baby Tuesday

At 1am last night Baby C barfed and had a high fever and I thought I was in for it today.
But she was only moderately sick this morning, no barfing but lethargic enough to miss preschool (kinda annoying).

But after a dose of baby tylenol, she's back to her old self. I think she coulda' gone to school after all.

But we have birthday party photos at last, and so we now whisk ourselves back to last week..




Smocks and berets and lawn art! Woo!


I wish you could see what Baby K looked like in her *pink* polka dot birthday girl smock. So cute.


You can see some of the painting masterpieces in the background there.
Oh and slouchy me in the foreground.


He's so cute, I would even let him kiss me with that ice cream mouth.
That's love.



We had two camps of gifts and simultaneous opening.
It was like Christmas, kinda.
Except her gifts were better than what she gets from us on Christmas. ;)


I make this face alot. I guess it's genetic.
I don't drool my cake though. That's his unique talent.


Presents in the front yard, and Baby R controlled himself for the most part.


Grandma holding a sneezing Ransom, Auntie Sandi and Baby C herself in her SF Chinatown dress.



.
I love that he let me put that beret and smock on him.
And he kept it on a long time!


Pretty little ingenue.


Waiting waiting waiting for candles to be lit.


And yes there are more people that didn't make it in the shot. Probably about double what you see here.


Anticip-----ation. We sang it twice, because Baby K's friends "helped" her blow out her candles the first time around.


This is Baby R in his walker. He didn't care about when he couldn't walk. But now that he can, he likes to climb in, play with the toys and then ask ( maa! maa!) to be plucked out.
This was at the end of the party, when he needed a little time to himself. Time to process, ha.

the multiple-meet frustration

Have you ever met someone only to have to reintroduce yourself to them over and over again?

Some people I don't expect to remember me. Basically if you're over the age of say, 45, I don't expect I'm very important or relevant to your life. In fact, when "older" people remember my name, I'm flattered.

But people who are my peers who don't remember me over and over and over again, I want to kick them in the shins. And then once I have re-met them, they continue to look right past me.

This means I have an ego problem. Yes, I guess I do.

And I know I have done the multiple meet to other people, but as soon as I realize it, I nearly grovel at their feet and try to instantly tell them how memorable they are and how stupid I am.
This I believe makes up for it.
The people that I continue to be annoyed with don't apologize, they are like "oh, uh huh yeah, um anyway what was I talking about? Oh hey Muffy!..."

Heidi tagged me

Heidi, I couldn't very well say I couldn't do the meme because my kitchen is too messy, but oh man, here it is, at your request:

My sink.

Oh yeah, enough dishes for you? Yeah...yeah. Remember what I said about the dishwasher?
Yeah.
Note my cucumber Method soap. I love Method products so very much.

My messy corner.

You think I have enough bananas?!
Actually those little green ones are mini-plaintains. But for some reason they have stickers that say "manzanitas" which I thought meant "little apples" in Spanish. So, um, that doesn't make any sense.

My fridge.

(can you tell I had to use my laptop to take these shots?)
I really try not to keep anything on the front of my fridge.
It's more zen that way.
But I tried to motivate myself to action by putting a handful of "action items" on it last month.
Of course I can't motivate myself, or anyone else, so they're still there.
But now that I have them documented, and I'm annoyed by them, they'll be gone tmrw probably.
Hey! Public shame motivates me!

My wall chalkboard is more the way other people use the front of their fridge for reminders and lists etc.

It's gotten away from me.

Inside of my fridge.

"Hi, My name is Charlie. And I am a Dairy-aholic"
"Hi Charlie"
"The terrible thing is that I have passed it onto my children. All they want is milk, chocolate milk, pink milk, sliced cheddar, string cheese, yogurt yogurt yogurt!..."

If you can't see I have 3 gallons of milk in there, three bags of string cheese and two blocks (baby loaves) of Tillamook, and there's also a crisper-drawer full of yogurt not pictured. It's like I'm trying to give myself a kidney stone.
A friend picked up a Jamba Juice for me last week and they said they got me a calcium boost because the lady behind the counter suggested it, because "girls don't get enough calcium."
And I said "well she's never met this girl."

Also pictured, free range peaches, tiny takeout containers from Boston Market and Rubio's, a big tupperware of rice pudding, and a bag of fresh dill.

You ask "why dill?" and I reply "why not?"

And I'm tagging Aurora to do it now.

keep dry brush away from my head, I'm slightly explosive

This is what I do to myself:

today I need to:

design two shirts and call/send to get quotes
buy a wedding gift (I was gonna make it, and then found that it would have been more expensive to do so)
design and order a rubber stamp
place an order (not an easy task) for a roll of custom stickers
send over all my Beautiful Day website design files (yes! it has been resurrected!!)
screenprint about 15 Corinthians shirts
have a small party tonight

this is what got cut:

design Kevin's work team's soccer shirts
design my chiro's brochure
paint Kyle's painting

Sorry y'all, I hope to get those other 3 things done this weekend...

hey VW Rotund, you got company

Let me show you the photos, and you guess why I'm annoyed at Chevrolet:


Chevy Volt Concept.


Chevy Volt actual production vehicle.

Which looks like...

This


Plus

This.


Travesty.

Shame on all those responsible for it!

another reality

Gwynn, Phil and me circa 1987.

I don't know where you got all that hair, Mom.

And Dad, wow, mustache.

Baby Tuesday

Hey! Photo Booth program! Here we are.




I managed to get these photos off the camera. I took these before it spit in my eye.


Camera sputtering.


Here are the girls' cakes.
Baby C insisted on a green turtle, and I offered up a pink turtle for Baby K.
Yeah, those took a really really long time.

(the rest is another camera-phone edition)


Yes. There was a party.
It was huge and it was messy and we had a tons of kids in our house and outside our house. Many parents had cameras. But not us.
Our camera is broken.
So is our dishwasher.
These are indeed hard times for the suburban mom, it must be a recession.
Because neither is getting fixed anytime soon.

And no one has sent me any photos.
So this is the only photo I got.
(tragic, right?)
These are Baby C and Baby K's smocks and berets. All the other kids had brown smocks (and the same berets).
It was really fun, and slightly stressful, especially because Kevin left 30 minutes into it.
Thankfully Grandma and Aunt Sandi rescued me and helped keep the peace.


GiGi sent Baby C a snail (and other things as well) for her birthday.
She absolutely loves the snail.
He hangs out in her backpack at school and also sleeps in her bed at night.
What's funny is that Grandma and Daddy have taught her to kill snails, stomp them, and throw them into the street (because they ransack our strawberry patch and eat our lettuce). But she doesn't associate the victims in the garden with the snail in the Franklin books and the new snail from GiGi.


I think this is a cupcake. I can't remember.
But look how old she looks here.
And look at all those toys everywhere.
This was post-party, this scene here.



He just won't stay still.
Auntie RoRo sent Baby R a Cowboys jersey and he loves it.
Really, he does. I think because it's silky and shiny.
But maybe he knows it's sporty? Dunno.

speaking of marketing

Today we were trying to come up with a way to market our next series coming up in October that covers sex, Porn Sunday, dating, divorce, etc.

And we decided to call it "Let's Talk About It," with "It" being both sex and the elephant in the room.

(here's what I have so far for the graphic)

And so how to market it, how to market it...

And I said "what if we did cocktail napkins with our information on it, like something you'd get from someone at a bar-- or matchbooks!"

So I found these bikini-bar-garish-colored matchbooks that we're gonna print the series image on. And then on the inside stamp it with a custom stamp that looks like a handwritten note with our website and dates, etc.


hooray! I hope the CMS people will be pleased.

cute! especially when placed on your welcome mat.

So this year's Beautiful Day festivites include an eco-friendly component.

Joanne, bless her, asked me to help with the marketing.

Because who else am I but a tree-hugging Christian who loves marketing?

Even though I volunteered to do a cloth diaper workshop, our green community effort is instead a neighborhood clean up complete with recycling, etc. And giving away garden hose rubber rings, that are supposed to save water.

So how to market this to the neighborhood around WestGate?

Tiny recycling bins!


These are my favorites, the wheelie carts.


But I'll settle for these.

Plus, they're imprintable. So we can put our little logo on it.

And of course the rubber rings and clean-up info inside.

I hope we have enough budget for them. I'm worried, we don't, but I'm waiting to hear back about it.

infamous

I got mentioned in church service today.

That was after I screwed up the lights big time,
and right before I screwed them up once more.

Squidgey.

I also made this slide to replace the, uh, other less desirable one.


Lots of people were wearing my shirts I made today.



And even more people wanted more from me. But I'm not sure how I'm gonna pull that off.

let's get ready to walk around Guadalupe Park!

AIDS Walk time again!
This year our entire church is canceling Sunday services so we can all walk in the AIDS Walk, pretty cool, eh?
And since I'm on the "board" I'm happy that they're doing it for us. Because it's like pulling teeth to get anybody to get up and do anything. Let alone raise money.

Speaking of raising money, here's my donation page.

I aim low for my goal, because I don't like hassling people.

But you can be sure that the money you donate goes directly to the care of those that are struggling to live with the disease.
If you want a face on it I can tell you that when I helped the Living Center put on their BBQ this summer for their clients, there was a [everyday normal looking] woman there with her 10 year old daughter.
And even if her daughter wasn't infected, I can't imagine being a single parent with HIV, or having a mother that was infected. I was really glad to meet them (so so so nice, way nicer than me, and I'm supposed to be the caring one in that situation) and help them get the support they need to try to live normal lives.
So even if it's 5 bucks, that buys a meal for someone at the Food Basket, or something like that. Every dollar helps.



And apparently I'm/we're gonna meet with this guy next month. Hopefully he'll be able to give us some ideas on what to do with ourselves this next year. I hope he doesn't directly ask me what I do on the team, ha.

raspberry berets until 1am

This is a photo of the 16 pint-size berets I just sewed for Baby C's party on Saturday.
It's late.
I'm crazy.

...but they'll be so cute....

Baby Tuesday

Okay, these could be alot better. But hey, I'm workin' with a free camera phone here.


She was looking at the meat chat murals in our kitchen and I said "do you want to eat a cow?" and she said "we don't eat cows," and I said "I'm pretty sure we do."
And she said "cow cookies?!"
And I said "sure, why not, let's make some cow cookies."

Thanks to Sam we have every possible animal shaped cookie cutter, for any animal you can think of, living or extinct.
I suggested we do pig shaped cookies too, the other white meat needs some representation.
Unfortunately the recipe said we'd have to refrigerate the dough for 2 hours before we can cut them out and bake them. Ugh!
...tick tick tick...


Look how much he loves my cell phone. It's like a coyote/road runner relationship. Every once in a while he'll get his hands on it, only to have it whisked away, and he goes back to the drawing board.
He's bundled in his crack blanket, this was taken moments before nap time.

aloha gywnnie

Since my mom doesn't have a blog, I'm blogging it for her.
She and Rich are in Kaua'i right now, woo!
A GIGANTIC thanks to Kevin's uncle who helped me out big time hooking them up with a place to stay.She just sent me a text message that said he sent flowers to their place. What a pumpkin he is!

This is her little "prize envelope" I crafted and gave it to her right before I left her with the babies while I was in Haiti.


Front cover.


Page 2/3.


Page 3/4.

They are planning on getting baptized while they are there in the Pacific Ocean.
How cool is that?
Again, big thanks to Kauai Christian Fellowship's pastor who was more than happy to facilitate it.

Aloha Mom!

XXOO