School pictures

School pictures just get more and more expensive, ya know? This year's price increase was the breaking point - I decided to take them myself (actually, I let Jenny talk me into taking them myself - she's the best). I even ordered prints and wallets and the whole thing. I guess we won't get a class picture, but I can live with that.

And hey, what do you NOT get with the chicken man's school pictures?

An 8 month Smit

Smit 8.0 is so wildly different from all previous versions - by the end of this post you'll be running out to get your own!

Your 8 Month Smitty comes with a variety of New & Improved features!

-Crawls, scoots and pulls up.
-Loves to hip-ride. He clings to me, baby-koala-like, one hand wrapped in my shirt collar and the foot behind me kicking away contentedly.
-Is compatible with all fruits, vegetables, meats, grains - all foods and treats in general.
-Comes with a fascination with the electrical outlet covers.
-Has a love-hate relationship with Joe's hat. He grabs the brim in both chubby fists, talks to it animatedly then loses his temper and tries to take a big slobbery chomp out of it. Joe says his viewpoint of the experience is quite unique.
-Eats cheerios, puffed cereal and bits of cracker by rolling his drooly fist in the pile, sucking the bits and crumbs off and starting over.
-Has a lot to say, (translation book sold separately)
-Loves Baby Einstein and Sesame Street videos (manamana... doo dooooo do do do).

Bugs in Smit 8.0

-Nursing is a little more high-energy with increased levels of arm-waving, hair-pulling, foot-kicking, pulling, nipping and general distractedness.
-If your Smitty is not fed promptly and fast enough, it will develop (between bites) a high-pitched yowl that will grow into a piercing shriek unless the problem is remedied.
-A mean old tooth is trying to work its way in, causing night-waking and general crankiness (a temporary patch is available in the form of frozen mangoes and bananas.)

It had to happen someday

Yesterday I told someone that baby Smittins did not, at all, for any reason, crawl.



Thanks for making a liar out of me dude.

Fortunately, we've started construction on his prison.

Why I don't accomplish things

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.