snoozer, fer' sure

I just got done painting and it's almost 2am.





It's a 5 x 8 banner to hang in the auditorium for our new series.
I have to hem it in the morning, when it's dry, so that white edge you see in the pic will be gone.

Majorly boring. But it's a banner, and it's for 4 weeks so *hey.*

Steve Martin Day

Sometimes I have Steve Martin moments. These are times during my child-watching day where everything goes wrong.

i.e., Someone has a diaper on his/her head while someone else is throwing up on the cat, and then the UPS man shows up while the dogs are trying to bite him.

Today is a Steve Martin day. As I said, Baby R won't nap, and Kid C usually has some R-free time with me during the afternoon, but now that that's not happening they are at each others throats all afternoon, and then of course, all over me.

Lots of screaming, lots of spills to be soaked up, lots of high-security timeouts, and above all: complete nonsense.

Today's pinnacle baby-felony (this is what I call serious crimes by children of the household) is:
the demand for a solid hour for "mac n' cheeese" and I told her we were out, and i would have to make it from scratch.

The whole time I'm making it, she's still asking for it. And Baby R is yelling in his room because he's not sleeping during "nap", which is so stressful.

I slave over her lunch, and make a total mess of the kitchen and when I finally set it in front of her she says "I DON'T WANT IT!"

!!!!!!!!!

I scream at her "THEN WHY DID YOU ASK ME FOR IT OVER AND OVER?"

"I DON'T WANT IT! I'M NOT HUNGRY!"


That....makes....me....so....angry.

Is she the only one who does this? Good thing I don't spank because I would have spanked her into next week!

I'm waiting for my iPod to sync so we can go in the car and they can listen to their music and be quiet.


(!!!!!!!!!)

the first of many sleepless days

Neither of them napped today.

And Baby R has molars coming in, an serious nasal drippage.

I repeat, no one napped.

Lots of yelling, lots of crying.

I want a cinnabon and a blanket and a few hours of Office reruns to heal me.


Oh, and did I mention I am the official Chairman of Marketing for the 2009 Silicon Valley AIDS Walk? Yeah, it happened. No matter how little time I have, I can't let the ugly graphics happen again. I'm the rookie on the team, and the only "faith-based" member.

But I can't think about that right now, I need Jim Halpert and Michael Scott.

Baby Tuesday

UPDATED:

Yes, Kid C is had her first ballet class this week. She is over the moon! Which is good, because it was the crux of the motivation for potty training, and I can continue to bluff leverage with the class.

Below are photos I took right before we left the house. The new tutu (she now has four) is from Auntie Sandi, the unitard and tights are from Dianne, and the real-deal ballet shoes I picked up from Salvation Army months and months ago, just because they were like 99 cents or something crazy and I thought maybe they'd fit her later. Score!






She's starting to really look like a kid nowadays. And when we went to the zoo today, it was nice to have someone to talk to. She can really hold a conversation and makes "jokes." Sometimes they're intentional and sometimes they're not, but she cracks me up.

Baby R on the other hand, not so conversational, but he has a few more words. I use the term "words" loosely.

He can say:
"momo" = Mojito
"ma" = more
"yesh" = yes
"unh" = uh-huh (this is the more popular affirmative, and interestingly enough is the Japanese word for "yeah." He's bilingual! ;) )
"no" = no **very popular** (and often it also actually means yes)
"Dada" = Daddy
"Momma" = yours truly
"off" = down, out, get me off, put me down, turn it off
"goad" = goat
"moo" = cow
"ott" = hot OR cold
"up-pah" = pick me up **very popular**
"gtah-gtaah" = guitar, and he always says it doublely that way
"go" = I want to go, make the dogs go away
"eh-kah" = helicopter
"apple" = airplane
"dowg" = dog
"ooosh" = juice
"nana" = food (but not banana)
"Ovive" = Olive (the cat)

Speaking of "Ovive," she's really turned into an asset in the house. Before, as you know, I wanted to back over her with the car and make it appear like an accident.
But now, Baby R *ADORES* her.
If he's really upset or crying, finding the cat instantly snaps him out of it. He pets her nicely and gives her hugs and follows her around cooing at her. It's very cute.
So now I can't hate her.
Because I think she likes him back and maybe in her own cat way, this is apologizing for peeing in his room (multiple times!)

But yeah, Baby R can't say Kid C's name, no matter how hard to try to get him to say it.
He says her name in a variation of Dada, it's like "DehDeh" and same with Grandma is "DahDaw."

He can't really say please or thank you, but he makes random syllables in the right tone and speed as if he were saying please and/or thank you. And he can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with random syllables, but he really knows the song, and sings it all the time to himself. Very cute.

Facinating

We might show this during services this week, or rather, I really hope we do.

slightly more fun?

They said they were changing the name. Kevin said the last design didn't look "fun."
So I changed the retreat graphics.

I'm not unhappy with them.
I call it scrapbook-meets-60's-girly-surf-movie.

I'm not putting it in the Church Marketing Pool because I'm afraid they'll rip it to shreds.

bear with me, I'm gettin fancy

Alright, since I have my new website and new business cards, and now I'm 28 and feeling like I need to...pull it together, if you will, I am redoing the look and function of my blog.

I was previously waiting until I could print out the old style one before I gave it a makeover, but that's apparently not going to happen for a long time.

So keep watch, it's changing...

it's been years

I put off drawing and painting unless it is absolutely necessary.
Tonight was the first time in many years that I actually just sat down with a pen and did drawings.
And only because I was asked to.
And because I got paid to do it.
I think that's why I can't respond without stuttering "I'm an artist" when people ask me what I do.
They're no masterpieces. They are supposed to look like the Twitter video illustrations, so I kinda went that direction, and they are also supposed to explain why churches should host Easter Egg hunts.
These are the scanned pages before I cut them out like little paper dolls to be filmed by somebody else.






Can you see the self portrait on there?
The others are (from left to right) live-at-home-with-parents-guy, disheveled engineer, husband of a friend of friend who's chihuahua's name was Seymour, 80's mall shopper, yours truly, and Lucille Ball.

today's makings

I made a blog for WestGate's Philippines trip.
(no, I'm not going, even though I totally would if I could!)

and

I made a web design for my friend.

Baby Tuesday

Happy Inauguration Tuesday, America!


Hey look at us at the beach in January.
Sorry eastern seaboard, these housing prices pay off right about now.


I think she's explaining something to Daddy while he's taking this pic.
She's always "explaining" something.


And here she's saying "cheese" to her bucket.


This cute little girl showed up right before we were leaving.
He was magnetized to her. Her mom took the group picture of us seen above.


Little beverage between sand castle rounds.


I'm not sure what's going on here.


Me in my new cut-offs and him in his french couture shirt.



Moms reading this will probably recognize this contraption.
It's a foot powered foam rocket launcher.
It belonged to this family near us that frankly made me a little tense.
But they let us, and 3 other kids play with it too.
That fun lasted a long long time. Long enough for me to chill on my blanket for a bit.


I usually go to Capitola Beach because it has decent bathrooms and they're nearby.
On Sunday, the bathrooms were closed and they had set out porta potties.
Yikes.
And there was a surfing competition going on, so the potties were well-used.
Yikes yikes.
Kid C wanted nothing to do with the porta potties.
So I convinced her to pee in the rocks to the side of the beach.
They're really big rocks, more like boulders.
She did fine peeing and then about 5 minutes afterwards she tripped over one that was peeking out of the sand and really scraped herself up.
Here in the photo she's showing me all 4 owies.
Thanks to the nice British owner of Cafe Violette who gave us bandaids, she got patched up right away and also got a little ice cream cone to calm her down.


I made this little video with iMovie of the beach trip too.

I can't believe I ordered something from "Got Print?"

But they were so cheap I couldn't help myself.

So, I have my website, that I'm currently working on, though you can't tell if you go to the site, but I am.

And since I bought a fancy new business card holder from Sam Moon while in Dallas, I figure I should probably fill it with cards that weren't printed from my home printer.

Seeing as the high gloss paper I use costs about 20 bucks a pack from Office Max and I would need to refill my cartridges for like 6 bucks each and also need to buy a new paper cutter for probably 10 bucks-- I thought I'd leave my cards to the professionals this time.

I didn't use the printer that I like and have used in the past, JakPrints. I'm taking a chance on GotPrint (omg).

For less than the price of making them myself, I got 100 thick, matte finish, rounded corners, full color bleed both sides, delivered for 26 bucks. Can't beat that with a stick.


(imagine the round corners, if you will)

I'll be honest, it was really hard to commit to one design for my own card. I mean, I make cards for other people, this card has to be perfectly appropriate and well done.
But I only ordered 100, so if I end up thinking they are lame in a year, I'm not guilt-bound to them forever.

Baby Tuesday

If you were wondering what I did for my birthday, on the actual day/night of it...
We ate a weird cake I made (I think I screwed it up) and for reasons I can't recall my kids weren't wearing clothes. I think Baby R had a diaper on, but the bug was certainly full monty.


Why get cake on your clothes, when you can skip the clothes altogether?

On to the zoo visit (numero dos)..

These boys holding hands is the equivalent of two guys going to the movie together.
They're happy to be together, but they don't look like it.
Baby CB is Baby R's best friend and we all went to the zoo last thursday.


Yes, we got to the petting part of the zoo before it shut down this time!
And look, there are tractors to pet too.


Plaid and John Deere green, like peas and carrots.


I'm not sure if we was trying to be funny, but he kept sitting on the tractor backwards and cracking himself up.


Lately Baby R throws a full-out-tantrum when I change his diaper or clothes.
It's insane.
He just wants to be naked.
But that cowboys jersey, he likes enough that he won't try to tear it off himself.
Normally on a trip to San Francisco, I wouldn't put a Dallas football shirt on him, but I wanted a peaceful morning so we went with it.


Baby CB knew just what to do on that tractor!


It's like a catalog shot, right? Magazine ad? No?


Goat brushing standoff.


"Why are taking a picture of me brushing a goat?"


BFF goat brushers.


These goats were so stout and cute. Definitely the cutest goats I've ever seen.


Chitlins.


He doesn't look away and say "noooo" when he sees the camera.
Cooperative little CB.


I've begun to realize what a sweet little girl Kid C is.
I have taken her to several kid parties and playdates or whatever, and that's where I see how gentle and amicable she is. Her cousin Kid S is even more gregarious, for sure, but I'm proud of how Kid C behaves with other kids (and I really don't think I have anything to do with it, other than genes).


The quarter-fed goat feeder is probably the cause of the chubby cuddly appearance of the goats.
Those goat-kibbles flow like milk and honey.


He looks a little bored here.


And Kid C looks a little Japanese here.

Back at the homestead...

She insisted on wearing her wings to paint. I couldn't fault her for it.


Today we had Baby R(2) and Kid E over to play. I love that they pair up sister with sister and brother with brother.

This is them in action.

it looks like it works

UPDATE!: IT WORKS!
www.pullittogether.com
I don't have any "meat" on it yet, but hey, it looks nice for now.




I designed my new web page for pullittogether.com .

I think it looks pretty good.

Now I need Kevin to make it function.

If you guys can think of any other things I do that I have forgotten, let me know, although I'm kind of running out of room at the bottom there.

At the moment I'm trying to use Google Apps and Google Page Creator, but they seem to not be communicating with each other. It's confusing. :/

if they made more like this, they wouldn't have problems

I have plenty of opinions to go around about cars and carmakers.

But I have been remiss in the past to mention the two American cars that I have crushes on. I will never buy these cars, because they don't make any sense for a mother of two to drive, and I don't have tens of thousands of $ to waste, but here they are...


The Dodge Challenger
It's the muscle car that I secretly want. It's all the 70's machismo of a pair of aviator sunglasses and a mustache, but with today's safety features...and power windows (?)
I saw one in a parking lot the other day, and it totally made me stop and take a second look. It was even white, which usually I think is a pretty bad choice for a car color, but it looked really cool.


The Ford Thunderbird
No, not this one. {{{shudder}}}
Ford stopped producing this model 4 years ago. I never felt they marketed it properly. Like it was treated like a specialty boutique car. Kinda like the Chevy SSR.
Hey, but here's a novel idea, car manufacturing geniuses: make the cool cars for everyone to buy, and then you might sell them!

It's like American car makers make some good cars. But then they sell them for too much money. If VW Beetles and MINI's were 40 grand, they wouldn't sell any either. But duh, they sell them for the same price as an Impala, and wow- um, easy choice there.

From the news, I can't tell if we're "bailing" them out or not,
but I'd like to be a consultant to help them with their sales model.

While I'm on the topic of domestic disappointment, have I mentioned the Volt?
If so, I'm bringing it concept car>production car horror back up:


Good. Great. Totally want it.


Crap. Absolute failure.

Who did that?!
Who made that call?!

Forget a bailout, fire that guy.
Jerk.

another year, another retreat

here's what I have in the rough stage.