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

hi point, lo point

Hi point: I successfully silkscreened my first T-shirts! And they look great! (see photo of shirt below for reference)

Lo point: Bank numbers changed, etc, etc and now we're living on credit for 10 days because of it! I'm so mad at the bank. grrrrrr.

...grrrr.....

chef's special

We'll be talking about the Book of Corinthians for who knows how long, so here's the main images for it. And yes, I'll be printing those shirts tonight and tomorrow night here in my garage! Woo!


title image (also what that darn banner looks like, more or less)


Promotional T-shirt.


Teaching slide. Soon to have notes on it. Notes that I never write down, heh.

Adobe Illustrator should come with blood pressure medication

Oh man, I just barely won a 24hr battle with a banner. It was an incredible wrestling match between objects and layers and paths and tracing and vectors and rasterization and compressing and reformatting and uploading and network errors.

Really, if someone put a blood pressure cuff on my arm right now, they'd probably give me a paper bag to breathe into and ask about salt in my diet.

It was kind of horrifying.
3 days after I receive the my most intimidating design software, I get an assignment to make a 5ft x 8ft banner. It sounded like it wouldn't be a problem.
I mean, I'm a professional, right?

Well when a 24 yr old jr high pastor knows more about my software than I do, I start to doubt myself. I mean, what he advised didn't help at all, but he knew more about the program and I felt like a doof.

It truly took 24 hours to make the banner and upload and order it. It took even more ahead of time just to design it's appearance.

I'm so nervous that it's going to look bad when it comes. After all, I can't exactly print my own proof. And I'm worried it's not going to arrive in time to hang it before saturday services.

Aye aye aye.

I need a cherry bomb.

Baby Tuesday

Hello. I'm here eating my cereal getting ready to pick up Baby R from Grandma's and Baby C from preschool (!).


Baby C's bedroom apple tree, Phase 2.
It now has some leaves on it. There is still one more panel of leaves that needs to go on and the ones in the middle need to be secured. But I needed immediate results, so I stuck those on there for now.
Seuss-y, no?


Baby R is such a wild puppy baby that I've given him the new nickname of "BamBam." Whoever thought of that character on the Flintstones must have had a son like mine.


He was smiling even more before we got the camera. Momo loves love.
Franklin's just there for warmth.


Yes, here she is! Her first day of [pre]school!
I took her this morning and she never hesistated.
I made her a backpack last night out of: 1 pillowcase, 1 placemat, 1 plush teddy bear, and some velcro.
Voila! Backpack!

The teacher opened her classroom door and warned the parents not to stay too long because it would make the separation more difficult.
No problem with the bug, she scampered right in, way ahead of me and started looking around. I barely got her nametag on and her backpack in her cubby before she was over at the puzzle table.
I asked one of her teachers, " is that it? Is she good to go? because I'll just sneak out."
And she said "oh, tell her you'll be back."
Yeah, I don't think she cared that I said goodbye and she didn't really care that I told her I'd be back. She was in the zone.
Her only instruction from me "don't poop at school." ha.

p.s. I also forgot this video of our "mountain vacation"

I forgot these

I took some photos with my laptop while we were in Yosemite Valley, here they are...


Hey...big mountains. I like 'em.


Yes, I've been here. Check it off my list.


Happy family in the RAVioli.

Brilliant.

Someone thought of it first:

The Momergency Kit

I might regret this

Baby C has told me that she thinks she's getting a jump house for her birthday party. I never said we would, and after I found out they cost 100 bucks to rent, I thought "oh no."

Though she said that's what she wanted, we made her an apple tree for her room instead, which cost about the same in materials as a jump house.

However, I think I need to make her party something special to distract from the fact that there's no giant inflatable thing in our front yard.

What do I have to offer, and how could we keep it outside (since many of her friends are allergic to our pets)?....hmmm....

So I thought, "how about an 'art party'?"

I have plenty of supplies here around the house, and all I would need to do is sew smocks and berets for everyone.

Now it is true that I absolutely hate the stereotype of the artist in the beret and 15th century tunic.
But how cute would it be for them all to be wearing them? Especially if I make them in cute patterns like polka dots or something.

I might even set up a silkscreen for them to put an image on a shirt. Who knows.

But it's cheap and outdoors and she'll probably forget all about that jump house business, right?

p.s. this site is a crack up