Sunday, July 21, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Turning Three
Ellie's third birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year so we decided to celebrate on Saturday with family. Ever since I showed her bits of the Nutcracker and Swan Lake ballets, she has been calling herself a dancing bird or dancing flower so I chose a pink ballerina theme. She was pretty excited to get up and see these hanging in the dining room in the morning:
Sitting with cousin Amy waiting for everyone else to arrive:
The rest of the decorations:
The dancers (including the ones over the window that are hard to see in this picture) were turned into a mobile to go over Ellie's big girl bed in the room shared with Peter. The dried roses are the ones that Jonathan has given me over the last couple of years. I'm not the only one who doesn't want to just toss them, am I?
Pink flowers for me!
Peter with Auntie Dodo:
You're so pretty, Auntie!
Playing with the cousins (minus Judah):
Yummy birthday cupcake:
This was my first experiment with Japanese cheesecake, chosen because it was light, lower in sugar than some of the other options, and gluten free (for the cousin who would doubtless be horribly disappointed to miss out on dessert). It was quite a hit--there were no leftovers.
Sitting with cousin Amy waiting for everyone else to arrive:
The dancers (including the ones over the window that are hard to see in this picture) were turned into a mobile to go over Ellie's big girl bed in the room shared with Peter. The dried roses are the ones that Jonathan has given me over the last couple of years. I'm not the only one who doesn't want to just toss them, am I?
Pink flowers for me!
Peter with Auntie Dodo:
Yummy birthday cupcake:
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
The MOB walk of shame
I do know that there is another, less savory meaning for the phrase but it also seemed appropriate here. I mean that walk into a hair salon with your little boy whose home haircut has gone terribly, horribly wrong.
It was a perfectly legitimate idea in the beginning. I've cut Peter's hair a couple of times with scissors and had no trouble making it look just fine. For this latest round, I decided that it was time for it to be a little shorter, a little more toddler-like so it was time to bring out the trimmer for the back and around the ears. I had been asking Jonathan for a couple of weeks to show me how to use it but we hadn't gotten around to looking at it together. After a couple of online tutorials, one day I hit the point of fix-this-now-before-I-go-crazy and thought, "how hard can this be to figure out, really?"
It started out well. The trimmer was fully charged, the adjustable length guard was easy to find and install and Peter was intrigued by the sound but was reasonably cooperative with sitting on the table looking at books. The first part went just fine. But just as I pulled the trimmer away to check my work, the guard slipped a little and, woops, there was a patch that was a little shorter than the rest. No big deal, I thought, I'll just camouflage it when I do the rest and be more careful with the guard position on the trimmer. Turns out, like that first wobble of an unstable ladder that sensible people pay attention to so that they don't break their necks by continuing on, that was just the first warning from the trimmer that all might not proceed as planned. As I continued with the shearing, the guard slipped again and then again, this time leaving a bare patch that no amount of tweaking was going to minimize. In desperation, I switched to the scissors, cutting the top and sides in the previously acceptable fashion. That part wasn't too bad but I found it nearly impossible to blend with the uneven back. Finally, in tears, I had to lay down the tools and admit defeat. It wasn't just the funky-looking, yep, mom did it look, that I was willing to have as the price for the learning curve with the new technique. I didn't think that I could stand to take him out in public.
So we loaded up for the nearest salon (such a ridiculously fancy word for a simple place) and trooped off for the trim that hopefully would deal with the mess, bracing myself for the mockery of the stylists. They were nice enough about it, giving him as good a cut as they could with what I had left and waiting until after I left to laugh at me, per my request. I couldn't show the enthusiasm that I think they were hoping for but at least it did look better than before.
It really is awfully short but I have confidence that at least it will grow out evenly from this point. And we are going to be investing in a proper, fully functional, trimmer set for the future.
My sheared lamb:
.jpg)
It was a perfectly legitimate idea in the beginning. I've cut Peter's hair a couple of times with scissors and had no trouble making it look just fine. For this latest round, I decided that it was time for it to be a little shorter, a little more toddler-like so it was time to bring out the trimmer for the back and around the ears. I had been asking Jonathan for a couple of weeks to show me how to use it but we hadn't gotten around to looking at it together. After a couple of online tutorials, one day I hit the point of fix-this-now-before-I-go-crazy and thought, "how hard can this be to figure out, really?"
It started out well. The trimmer was fully charged, the adjustable length guard was easy to find and install and Peter was intrigued by the sound but was reasonably cooperative with sitting on the table looking at books. The first part went just fine. But just as I pulled the trimmer away to check my work, the guard slipped a little and, woops, there was a patch that was a little shorter than the rest. No big deal, I thought, I'll just camouflage it when I do the rest and be more careful with the guard position on the trimmer. Turns out, like that first wobble of an unstable ladder that sensible people pay attention to so that they don't break their necks by continuing on, that was just the first warning from the trimmer that all might not proceed as planned. As I continued with the shearing, the guard slipped again and then again, this time leaving a bare patch that no amount of tweaking was going to minimize. In desperation, I switched to the scissors, cutting the top and sides in the previously acceptable fashion. That part wasn't too bad but I found it nearly impossible to blend with the uneven back. Finally, in tears, I had to lay down the tools and admit defeat. It wasn't just the funky-looking, yep, mom did it look, that I was willing to have as the price for the learning curve with the new technique. I didn't think that I could stand to take him out in public.
So we loaded up for the nearest salon (such a ridiculously fancy word for a simple place) and trooped off for the trim that hopefully would deal with the mess, bracing myself for the mockery of the stylists. They were nice enough about it, giving him as good a cut as they could with what I had left and waiting until after I left to laugh at me, per my request. I couldn't show the enthusiasm that I think they were hoping for but at least it did look better than before.
It really is awfully short but I have confidence that at least it will grow out evenly from this point. And we are going to be investing in a proper, fully functional, trimmer set for the future.
My sheared lamb:
.jpg)
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Cherry Blossom Spring
We seized the opportunity to see the cherry blossoms on the UW campus on Palm Sunday. They weren't quite at their peak but we knew that Easter weekend was going to be so full that this was our chance.
Peter is still practicing walking but prefers the reassuring (?) handholding position:
When you're not sure if you want your treat dinner or ball throwing more:
Evening sunshine through the trees:
33 weeks, oh dear:
Take one:
Take two, because you can't get everyone looking at the camera at the same time--ever:
Pink dancing flower:
Climbing the tree with daddy:
Up! Up! I want to climb too!
Peter is still practicing walking but prefers the reassuring (?) handholding position:
Climbing the tree with daddy:
I'm not tired, really I'm not...
Peter lying on the floor next to the music book, pushing buttons to play more songs but cuddling with the blanket in his ready for bed pose.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Goodreads 100
Borrowed from Darwin Catholic:
In the spirit of the 100 book meme, Goodreads has posted a fairly diverse group of novels for its members to rank, drawn from both the most popular and the most highly rated books from its readers' libraries. Goodreads reports that its average user has read 27 out of the 100. I've read an even 50, adding in another few that I started but either didn't have time or interest enough to finish.
I still read quite a bit, especially when I'm pregnant and don't have a lot of energy after the kids go to bed. The mix of classic and current novels on this list means that there are certainly a few on here that I wouldn't be remotely interested in but it does give me some ideas when I'm looking to pick up something that was written more recently than 1950. No doubt there are a few in the latter part of the list that I wouldn't be interested in but I don't know enough about them to decline with thanks either.
In the spirit of the 100 book meme, Goodreads has posted a fairly diverse group of novels for its members to rank, drawn from both the most popular and the most highly rated books from its readers' libraries. Goodreads reports that its average user has read 27 out of the 100. I've read an even 50, adding in another few that I started but either didn't have time or interest enough to finish.
I still read quite a bit, especially when I'm pregnant and don't have a lot of energy after the kids go to bed. The mix of classic and current novels on this list means that there are certainly a few on here that I wouldn't be remotely interested in but it does give me some ideas when I'm looking to pick up something that was written more recently than 1950. No doubt there are a few in the latter part of the list that I wouldn't be interested in but I don't know enough about them to decline with thanks either.
| Books I've read | ||||||
| Books I started but didn't find interesting enough to continue | ||||||
| Could be interested to read | ||||||
| If I were handed this, I'd look for the nearest chemistry textbook as an alternative | ||||||
| Haven't read | ||||||
| To Kill a Mockingbird | ||||||
| The Catcher in the Rye | ||||||
| Fellowship of the Ring | ||||||
| Pride and Prejudice | ||||||
| Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | ||||||
| Romeo and Juliet | ||||||
| Jane Eyre | ||||||
| 1984 | ||||||
| Hamlet | ||||||
| The Hobbit | ||||||
| Brave New World | ||||||
| The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe | ||||||
| The Great Gatsby | ||||||
| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | ||||||
| Fahrenheit 451 | ||||||
| Wuthering Heights | ||||||
| Alice in Wonderland | ||||||
| The Secret Garden | ||||||
| Green Eggs and Ham | ||||||
| Little Women | ||||||
| Of Mice and Men | ||||||
| The Handmaid's Tale | ||||||
| Lord of the Flies | ||||||
| The DaVinci Code | ||||||
| Frankenstein | ||||||
| Dune | ||||||
| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | ||||||
| Gone With The Wind | ||||||
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | ||||||
| A Wrinkle in Time | ||||||
| The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | ||||||
| Slaughterhouse Five | ||||||
| Anne of Green Gables | ||||||
| Twilight | ||||||
| Where the Sidewalk Ends | ||||||
| The Little Prince | ||||||
| Memoirs of a Geisha | ||||||
| The Princess Bride | ||||||
| The Picture of Dorian Grey | ||||||
| The Hunger Games | ||||||
| Sense and Sensibility | ||||||
| The Golden Compass | ||||||
| Dracula | ||||||
| The Color Purple | ||||||
| The Kite Runner | ||||||
| The Odyssey | ||||||
| Anna Karenina | ||||||
| And Then There Were None | ||||||
| Interview with the Vampire | ||||||
| The Book Thief | ||||||
| One Hundred Years of Solitude | ||||||
| The Count of Monte Cristo | ||||||
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | ||||||
| The Joy Luck Club | ||||||
| Little House on the Prairie | ||||||
| The Giver | ||||||
| Life of Pi | ||||||
| Rebecca | ||||||
| The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | ||||||
| Ender's Game | ||||||
| A Tale of Two Cities | ||||||
| The Stranger | ||||||
| East of Eden | ||||||
| Les Miserables | ||||||
| The Bell Jar | ||||||
| Lolita | ||||||
| The Road | ||||||
| The Time Traveler's Wife | ||||||
| A Prayer for Owen Meany | ||||||
| The Stand | ||||||
| Catch-22 | ||||||
| The Sun Also Rises | ||||||
| The Pillars of the Earth | ||||||
| Crime and Punishment | ||||||
| The Good Earth | ||||||
| The Unbearable Lightness of Being | ||||||
| The Help | ||||||
| Watchmen | ||||||
| Lonesome Dove | ||||||
| Water for Elephants | ||||||
| Outlander | ||||||
| American Gods | ||||||
| The Poisonwood Bible | ||||||
| My Sister's Keeper | ||||||
| The Master and Margarita | ||||||
| The Notebook | ||||||
| Like Water for Chocolate | ||||||
| Beloved | ||||||
| Their Eyes Were Watching God | ||||||
| Invisible Man | ||||||
| A Game of Thrones | ||||||
| The Fountainhead | ||||||
| The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | ||||||
| Ulysses | ||||||
| The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle | ||||||
| The Brothers Karamazov | ||||||
| The House of the Spirits | ||||||
| Fight Club | ||||||
| Middlesex | ||||||
| Interpreter of Maladies | ||||||
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