7 months is made of...

1 part chunk-style thighs

3 parts toothless, milky grins

2 parts longing to be bigger

15 parts popsicle-snatching stickyness

1 part splashy bathtime clean

2 parts sad and frowny

5 parts super-sidekick

3 parts bouncy sleepyhead

7 parts pinchy pinchy bums

1 part future technological genius

4 parts mischief-making kitten

Fold together gently with plenty of hugs, a splash of kisses and enjoy.

A little bitty change

I've been scouring Pintrest (ahhhhh, Pintrest) for a while, looking for a way to freshen up the entryway on the house. As I typically do, I taped dozens of paint chips to the doorframe and when I went to buy the paint color, got something else entirely. What I chose, almost at random, ended up being the perfectly perfect, not-too-green, not-too-purple shade of blue. I'm trying to figure out if Joe likes the color. When he saw it, his only comment was "that was unexpected."

I've heard it's called Jenny Blue.

These two darling little birdies and several yards of ribbon became a fun wreath. I think this might be a kid-friendly project. All you have to do is tie knots.

The siren song of Hobby Lobby made me buy more sets of little birdies than I originally planned. So the second pair lives in a fun yarn wreath. I should name them. Suggestions?

I'm thinking of saving it for springtime or Valentines.

The paint color for the door is Benjamin Moore Spirit in the Sky

Angst of an infant

In case you were wondering (and I know you were) it is not a good idea to accidentally give your sleepy baby the empty side when he's looking for his snack-n-nap. If you do, you can expect the following sequence of events.

1. Angry furrowing of brows and frustrated kicking of feet (if you're lucky, the kicking feet will pinch your soft elbow skin against the hard chair arm for the 5,387th time today).

2. Baby will pull off and yell angry baby yells at his uncooperative lunch.

3. After yelling all the baby curse words he knows, baby will resume sucking furiously.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 until mom realizes what the heck is going on and switches over to the side filled with delicious lunch.

5. Drift off into blissful dreams of full tummies, succulent fingers and splashy baths.

In which I lost a rubber duck... and my mind

Who knows why this memory is sitting here, in the front of my brain, right now this very second. But it is. And I think it will not go away until I type it into my blog, Pensieve-like, and store it forever. So here goes.

One day I was playing with a very little Violet and a very helpful husband scooped up a then-baby Dash (about the same baby-size and baby-cuteness as JackJack) and took him for a diaper change. From the other room I hear:

"What. The....?"

It's the tone of voice that lets you know, from two rooms away, that there is Something Wrong. So I helpfully call out "what the what?"

"There's a rubber duck in Dash's diaper!"

"Like, IN his diaper?"

"In it."

My first crazy thought : The baby ate a rubber ducky? Is that even p o s s i b l e?

"Are you sure?"

".... pretty sure..."

So. What ACTUALLY ALL CAPS happened, as near as I can tell, was that Dash was playing with a rubber ducky as I was changing his diaper. Obviously, something distracted me (squirrel!!) and he somehow stuck the duck between his legs and I totally didn't see it as I strapped him in. I also didn't notice it as I buttoned up his onsie or as I carried him around before his nap. And if you don't believe it, you obviously haven't witnessed my amazing powers of obliviousness.

The husband did not appreciate that the rubber ducky left a dent in Dash's naughty bits.

No rubber duckies were harmed in the making of this post.

Kids' room

Remember, forever ago when I decided to decorate and paint the kids room and promised update pictures?

I know, right?

Well I actually worked on and completed the project and HERE just for YOU are pictures of the finished room. Because I love you.

The challenge of this room was to pick a color-scheme that both a boy and a girl would like. And then I had to incorporate the bright colors that both kids love, with an overall look that is not blindingly bright. The husband would have let them paint each wall pink, blue, purple and red in a crazy-go-nuts festival of color, but that sort of thing makes me itch.

What I decided on was a neutral base with really bright accents. I really wanted to try a grey wall, since I had never done that before. Grey feels very fresh and modern - you can add crazy, high-intensity colors or make it very sophisticated with other neutrals. Violet has a really pretty plum bedspread that I love and it became our first accent color. I added a cool blue for Dash and then yellow because... I love yellow and grey! The paint colors are:

Valspar Spa Pool
Valspar Soft Duckling
Valspar Plumberry
Olympic Goose Grey

You can buy a 7 oz. paint sample for just a few dollars and this was more than enough for the accent pieces. I have more than half of the Valspar colors left.

This is also a design on a dime type of project because almost everything is re-purposed or re-finished. This dresser lived in my sister's room and was very 80's-fabulous. Instead of getting something new (it is a nice solid-wood dresser after all) we decided to give it a new life with a fresh coat of lacquer and some fancy, mis-matched drawer pulls. There are lots of Anthropologie-style pulls at Hobby Lobby - for about 1/4 the price!

The pennant banner is one of the few brand-new things. It took about $10 of fun fabrics, fusible fleece and bias tape to make. The valance was very simple to sew - two panels with two ruffles. The raw-edged ruffles are as easy as they are adorable.


This art wall is an idea I particularly love. I gathered up random, unused picture frames from around the house and found others in clearance aisles. I mixed in a mirror and clock for variety. Then everything got a coat of paint. The empty frames are great bursts of color, but they serve an even better purpose. Each frame is easy to take down and fill with anything the kids like - artwork, dried flowers, Lego sculptures, photographs, patterned papers...

So, fun yes?

Things of wonder

I did wake from a nap in my chair. And behold, I discovered a multitude of toys dangling before me.

I will reach out unto them and I will eat them for my own.


I will continue to reach out...

Golly these are hard to get!

And lo I did give up on the stupid dangly toys and did discover that there are also feet in this chair.

Feet I tell you!

And lo I did taste them and lick them and eat them for mine own.


And they were good.

And yea, after much squirming and murmuring and arching of backs, I did finally get what I wanted all along.


Also it was totally time for a blog redesign - do not you think?

Pop and lock

Is anyone else tired of the word 'pop'? Colors pop. Accents pop. Every time I turn around, someone is talking about something that pops. And sometimes the poppable items are things that should never be popped, for any reason.

Like your eyeballs.

I instinctively mistrust anything that claims to make my eyes pop. When you say your product will pop my eyes, I feel like I have two very clear options:

Option A: Back away very, very slowly. Check for obvious exits.

Option B: Ram my elbow into your solar plexus.

I bet that would make your eyes pop.

For absolutely no reason, I will list other words that I've come to hate:

Green
Wow-factor
A-ha moment
Organic
Epic
Chillax
OMG

Let's just finish this post up with some unrelated cute pictures, okee dokey?


This baby goat tried to steal my keys.

Yes or no?

I'm trying to be more creative with my hair. You know, something other than a plain ponytail every day. Ponytails are so fabulously easy and simple... but maybe a little boring.

I don't know why I have the need to spice up the ol' hairstyle. You can tell how fashion-conscious I am just by observing how much makeup I've put on. (The answer is none. Wait, I might have chapstick on. It's from last night.) I can't leave my hair down because baby pulls on it. Plus I hate having it fall in my face all the time.

So I'm experimenting with scarves. I got two really cute ones while I was in St. George, this yellow silk and a wide white one with shiny silver stripes. Cool! The problem is, I don't know if scarves look good on me. Unless I slide it really far forward on my head (like Axel Rose) the stupid things always want to slip backwards.

Any thoughts? Advice? Cute hair-scarf styles you want to share with a not-so-trendy mama?

Blue eyes and deep thoughts

Sometimes, as I watch these sparkly blue eyes taking in the world around you, I wonder what you are thinking. I wonder if you understand how much you are loved. I wish you could tell me.

Sometimes your thoughts are more obvious. There are, really, only a few things that babies usually need.

I want to eat
I want you to make me feel better
I want that thing over there
I want someone to hold me and love me
I want to sleep.

As we get older, our needs only get more sophisticated;

I want to eat something full of chocolate and calories

or more worldly

I want that iPad2 over there.

It will be a few years before you can articulate your thoughts into words. And even more before those words actually make any sense.



Then sometimes I wonder if I knew what you were thinking, would you seem so miraculous? Certainly it would seem less amazing than inexplicably, intangibly knowing what you need and want and feel. If we could use words right away, would I feel like I recognized and connected with your little spirit? And if I recognize you here, did I know you before, in another existence? Did we hug each other goodbye and promise we would meet again?

These are the things I think when I look into these blue eyes.

4 months

He is an angel, if I say it myself.

Sweet baby Smittins is 4 months old! Well, he was 4 months old when I took these pictures - now he's even older! This is his blessing outfit and a gorgeous blanket for his special day that Jenny's lovely mom gave to him.

At 4-something months, he:
- snacks on his fingers all the livelong day
- also snacks on his sleeves, shirt-fronts and blankets. He has a little lovey blanket that's now named Chewy.
- drools and slobbers and slimes everything he's wearing, holding or has near him
- will roll from front-to-back if he's bored with being on his tummy but it usually takes a good deal of yelling to do so
- can roll from back-to-side in an effort to chase down those ever-elusive toes
- spends a lot of time staring at his fingers. So fascinating!
- thinks that being wiggled from side-to-side is hilarious. This makes us sing songs about 'side-to-side', trying to make him laugh. Babies turn adults into babbling idiots. You try to resist him! Let me know how it goes.
- will arch his back and hold himself up, as if he's making himself easier to pick up. "Look at me! Wouldn't it be easy to get me out of this crib! Effortless, really. Look, I'm helping!"
- will protest (loudly!) if his sister leaves his side
- loves his family and is excited to see any of us, at any time

Gray and I are in a fight

Who knew gray was such a touchy, tempramental color? Gray is the Robert Downey Jr. of colors. When it is right, it is smooth, suave, slightly edgy and possibly possessed of super-human, crime-fighting qualities. But when it is bad, it is oh-so-very bad.

Also complicating the issue; you have to choose from 13 million paint chips with names like Rain Soaked Pebble, or Bullet Hole or Cape Cod Ghostly Fantasy or Gum From Underside Of Denny's Table. None of these names are particularly helpful in choosing a color. Neither, strictly speaking, are the actual paint chips because what looks like the perfect, trendy, European Children's Bedroom color when taped to the doorframe, looks like Really Old Lady Hair when slathered on the wall.

Such was the case in my project room (the room that Violet and Dash share). I painted sample swatches of Goose Grey on two walls. I hated it. I let it dry. Still hated it. Painted another coat. Loathed it. Took a drive to find a change of perspective. Hate hate hate. Then the husband came home.

"Why did you paint their room purple?"

"It's not purple. It's Goose Grey."

"It's totally purple."

"It's grey. Maybe it's the light reflecting from the bedspread."

"Dash is going to hate it."

And he was right. He was also willing to go back to the store and have the paint re-tinted a not-purple color, which was super nice AND helpful.

So the project moves on. And because I never think to take a 'before' picture, you get the standard 'somewhere around the middle' picture. My camera-phone has totally betrayed me because it's not capturing the purpleness of the two paint swatches the same way cameras never captured the Salmon Mealoaf Grunge color of our old carpet. Oh, and the reason this room is such a disaster is the dresser is in the garage. Also being painted. Not grey.

As a side note, I should totally be in charge of naming paint colors.