8.26.2012

seasons change

good Sunday morning. Otto has been up since 5:15 tapdancing and jazz making around the house like nobody's business. squirrels got into our outside garbage last night and left a collection of chewed up k-cups on the sidewalk and i feel like there's some kind of joke there, a parallel between Otto and a squirrel out of its mind on caffeine, playing a xylophone, while screaming, and skydiving... but i can't quite put it together because i am TIRED, yo. but i do keep laughing thinking of a band of tweaker squirrels running around my neighborhood this morning; i bet they are up to stuff...
sometime around 6:30 i gave up trying to not get out of bed and asked my little squirrel if he might want to go berry picking with me.
we are in the middle of moving this weekend. our new house is about a mile away and we have a week to make the move so this weekend we are just moving the non-essentials. our new house is huge (as little Elvis would say): 4 bedrooms (huge to us), with hardwood floors and magical little 4' high closets in all the bedrooms and a huge kitchen and light pouring into every room and with a fenced back yard and porches front and back. thank goodness for student housing. it was worth the long wait, this house will be an amazing home for us for the next few years while Rob finishes his degree at UO.

one thing i will miss about our current situation is the berries. we will have to plant some blueberry bushes in the new yard.
i hope to be back here soon with some pics of our new place. i am really looking forward to getting it all set up and setting up Otto and Loretta's rooms especially. we are considering allocating the downstairs bedroom as a toy room for the kids, and the three upstairs bedrooms as: our bedroom; a single bedroom for Ot and Et to share; and the third as an office for Rob and blogging/sewing room for me. Rob needs a quiet space to do his math-ery and we think with all the toys and clutter downstairs that the kids will do well sharing a sleeping room. well it is an experiment. fingers crossed!

ps. these pictures look like fall. womp! how is summer in Oregon so wildly short? although i am ready to start wearing tall boots again. fall clothes are my favorite.

8.23.2012

love note to a sweet thing

i love how soft downy hair is oh so slowly starting to cover that bald head of yours. i love slow dancing with you, swaying and holding you and burying my face in the cottony fuzz and kissing it, feeling that sweet, silly hair of yours between my lips while i inhale your smell, like honey and earth. i love you.

8.21.2012

eating elephant ears

sure, i talk a good game about eating some fair eats at the fair, then Otto comes along and puts the smack down...
kid ate the bejeezus outta that "elephant ear" which i'd always known as fry bread and who cares what you call it, you eat it, you eat it all, fool! then you eat the corn!
then you corn dog photo bomb!
then you make a terrible mistake and decide against chasing this all down with some frozen NY cheesecake on a stick. which you shall regret for days and days and days.

food. happy food.

we also met up with Ot's sweet friend Hazel and hit the kiddie rides. Otto's fair face makes my heart go pitter patter.
so much fun. i could watch Otto at the fair all day. and can't wait til next year when we can maybe take Loretta on a tame ride or two. also hopefully next year she won't demand to eat just so she can be all distracted by fair things and expose the mom's boob to the fair air over and over as she looks all around but still insists she must eat and also, wait, distracted, boob exposure, and tearing away of the coverup blankie many many times, but no really, hungry, except wait, this person hasn't glimpsed your boob yet, must eat, cannot focus, eat, just kidding, eat eat, but no, but yes, hello here's my mom's boob guy dressed like a mattress, i am hungry, no i am not... and so on. because that part was less fun. also while she was doing that Otto totally bogarted ALL THE FOOD.

for reals though, i just love that we're making this an annual family tradition, and Eugene's county fair is just the right size. A+

8.17.2012

something corndog this way comes...

it's our last few days in this little half-house. here is a stop-action sequence of Otto in our living/dining/kitchen room. you can cut it out and make a flip book. Ot got a cool guy haircut this week. i am really loving it, but dudes, he is getting so big and how it makes me catch my breath. i will never stop saying those words. so big! will i still feel this reeling feeling of wonder/love when i look at him when he's thirty? i bet the answer is yes. but let's not talk of such things (it kinda hurts). here, flip.
he has the haircut of every skater boy i ever had a crush on in junior high. and the character Keanu Reeves played in Parenthood. and George Mcfly! all of whom went on to become presidents of the united states of america. amen.

while doing this little routine he told me, "i'm on the loose!". <-- ha!

errrrm... and you can see that we've made incredible progress boxing up all of the things.

on the agenda for this weekend we have the county fair (yesyesyesyesfunnelcakesandcorndogsyes!), a trip to Portland for a much-loved friend's baby shower (♡), and boxing up all of the things. 

i'm really excited about all of it. this is a much-looked-forward-to weekend. last year when the fair was in town i was 3ish months pregnant and pre-gall-bladder-surgery and i couldn't eat a thing, not fried Pepsi, not pizza cup, not butter wads, nothing yummy. this year i will EAT the fair! 

when i was a kid we never really went to the fair. i remember hearing about it but not really knowing what it was all about. i went once with a church group when i was about 14 and my parents sent me with $5 (no joke) which meant i had to choose between getting a hotdog or going on one ride. just kidding, i got a fountain soda. sooooo... now that i've hit the fair scene a few times as an adult, i am just all for the fair. i love seeing all the animals, the quilts and crafts, the rides, the games, the food, just all of it. it feels timeless and charming and fun and i'm so excited to make going to the fair an annual tradition in our house. also tomorrow i will EAT the fair! just to be clear.

what's everyone up to this weekend? is it fair season in your neck of the woods? xo

8.16.2012

every now and then...

actually pretty regularly if i think about it... i get into a little blog slump. that is me for the past few days. i think we all probably do this from time to time and for various reasons. and who knows why? there's no point obsessing over it i know it'll pass. always does!

i think i'm just a little overwhelmed. like we need to pack. and move. and take Ot to swim lessons. and... omg i'm just going to *gong* myself. our life is a little busy right now but totally manageable. i've been having some anxiety some of it really weird anxiety, but it'll pass. we've also been having all kinds of fun but i've just been a shitty blogger in that i haven't been documenting everything with pictures like i usually do. but counterpoint... so, here's a badass pic of Otto at his first swim lesson last night:
he is a shining star! imaginary bad guys who think you're gonna break into my house beware. i am pretty sure i would stab the shit out of you with a kitchen knife before i'd ever let you near my kids. so keep staying away.

that last bit made more sense in the context of this post as it was originally written, but as editor i deemed it all too long-winded and deleted most of it. and now it's super late and i'm tired and just gonna leave it like this. i figure you get the idea.

8.13.2012

Currently | v.1

today i am joining in with This Amazing Day for her weekly "currently" post... currently i am...

Wishing for a few more hours in the day, days in the week, etc. because it's pretty overwhelming --> life. there are so many things i'd like to do every day that i never get around to. from crafts and adventures with the kids to doing the stupid laundry. it's hard to explain how time just seems to be slipping through my fingers lately, the kids growing like weeds, and me feeling a little outside of it all. hopefully settling into our new place will make a difference. oh, and i am also wishing that i stumble upon a great full-length mirror, bookcases, a dresser, and other wonderful things for the new house in a free pile. i would pay you back, universe! and of course wishing the move goes well.  

Reading chapter books every night with Otto. so far in the past few weeks we have read seven chapter books and for his age (3 1/2) we have found the Flat Stanley series to be the most age appropriate and just totally charming and silly and full of adventures. for my personal reading i am trudging through book 3 of the Fifty Shades series and am ready to bludgeon myself to death with a leather riding crop. somehow this summer i found myself reading first the Hunger Games series and now this. as much as i like being "in the know" with what everyone's talking about book-wise, i have to say i'm ready to smash my face into cement at this point and will be returning to my George Washington biographies and other dork lit as soon as i'm done with Fifty Shades Freed.

Cooking home made ice cream, blackberry and blueberry sauces, and planning on making this tortellini soup this week.

Anticipating decorating our new home, which will really be a "home" as we'll be there most likely for the duration of our time here in Eugene. probably 4 or 5 years. i am loving so much of what i see style-wise on Pinterest lately (modern, minimal, pretty) and just hope i am able to put together a home that suits us in style as well as utility. i am looking forward to a lot of thrift trips to get us there!

Missing my friends and family. always. raising my kids this far away from them pretty much breaks my heart every day. if it weren't for Skype i'd be downright depressed about it.

images via: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

8.12.2012

weekend odds and ends

this weekend has been all about simple times with the kids. we are just starting to box things up for the move in 2 weeks. we are resting up for a weekend in Portland next weekend, moving the following, and my parents will be visiting the weekend after. so this weekend was intentionally boring (but in a really good way). some odds and ends...
i made blackberry cobbler and boy did it turn out amazing! instead of making the cobble (<-- o_O) i placed trader joes buttermilk biscuit halves on top of the blackberry filling (which was just blackberries, sugar, cornstarch per Joy of Cooking's directions). the glaze was agave & sugar. baking happened Saturday morning and by bedtime every last crumb was gone.

hubs does not like fruit-based desserts so he got the leftover biscuits. have at!

Otto woke up at 5:30 am both days because he is a lunatic. Saturday was my day to sleep in. this morning i got up with him and we played potato heads, legos, blocks, and pirates all morning.

and upset in the barn.

and paper animal crafts.

not to be left out of the yummy food eating, Et dined on sweet potato puree. she loves to eat!

now we are waiting for our homemade almond/cinnamon ice cream to set and are heading out to pick more blackberries for a topping. eat eat eat eat eat! and pack pack pack pack pack. hope your weekend is treating you to as much good food and sweet faces as we've got going over here

8.10.2012

berry manilow

last night, somewhere sometime a little after Ot and Et both went nicely to sleep around 7:30, i excused myself from the house for the most peaceful 20 minutes i've had in a while. blackberries grow unchecked up and down our street and we have two blueberry bushes in our front yard. so i went scavenging.
a bushel and a peck.

blackberry vines are mean things. they grab your clothes and have large and teeny thorns that really sting.

i would say that probably only 10% of the blackberries are ripe which means we'll be swimming in these guys for the rest of summer! now i just need to find some recipes to cook them into. i am thinking a cobbler for the weekend would be pretty ideal and i want to look into this making-your-own-icecream thing that everyone seems capable of doing these days.

cobbler and homemade icecream, heck yeah.

TGIF peoples!

8.08.2012

wordless... pint sized pool party

little ladies in purdy swim suits, best buddies having splash parties, siblings starting to play side-by-side, and one happy mama who really should have thrown on a better shirt and dealt with her hair...
these are the days that make all the other days, all the other things, worth it ♥ this is what it's all about.

8.07.2012

shop love: coral and tusk

i've been snooping around online for ideas and inspiration for the kids' new rooms (countdown to move: 2.5 weeks) and found this shop last night and i just love it. LOVE. all of these images are via coral and tusk and it's not a sponsored post or anything, they've never heard of me :) although if they did want to shower me in their products for my kids' rooms i would not object!

everything about these pillows, dolls, badges, and prints is pitch-perfect. i just love the style and whimsy. they all make me smile. coral and tusk! magic!