point a to point b

well we have finally moved everything from point a to point b! our new home is so pretty, sunlit, and spacious. i cannot WAIT to share some home tour photos soon, once everything is in its place. for now, though, it is an unsettled hot mess. here is my view tonight, even with everything all around us in piles, i just love it here already...

nope, that's no mystery ghost in the reflection. it's just Rob doing his math-ing in the other room. the babies are asleep upstairs. my parents are in town this week and we have all kinds of fun planned for this weekend. mellow fun like watching tomorrow night's Oregon Ducks game on cable, going to the farmer's market, hiking to an easily hiked if you're baby-wearing waterfall, hoping to find an excellent used washer and dryer for pennies at St. Vinnie's, and Voodoo Donuts. that plus getting all unpacked and settled into this old house should keep us pretty busy for the next few days.

also Rob's birthday is on Monday. happy 34th to my sweetheart! we don't really give each other traditional presents, but i do think Otto and i will have to make a cake with lots of decorations and ice cream on the side.

moving is the best and the worst. it's so nice to audit every single thing you own and get rid of so much! down with clutter! and it's so nice to be somewhere new that suits your life better (or you'd hope so anyways). but it's also exhausting. i'm pooped. my poor, weak mama hips are barking from all the heavy-thing-lifting. also i'm sleepy. wishing you all well rested, enjoyable, waterfall and donut-filled Labor Day weekends as well. may your days not be filled with overflowing moving boxes and your nights be filled with Pyramid Apricot Ale. xo

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.

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

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

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 ♥

i LOVE having a family bed

Otto goes to bed in his room around 7:30 and then around 1am crawls in with us. i usually lay down with Loretta anywhere between 7:30 and 11:00 and pass out - probably in full makeup without brushing my teeth - while nursing her. throughout the night i change her diaper with supplies kept in her bassinet (<-- handy) so i don't have to get out of bed and we switch sides each time she wakes to nurse. absolutely sometimes i wake up sore because the situation can get cramped and Otto is a ruthless bed hog. and yet, and for reals, i really really really LOVE having a family bed.

see what i get to wake up to every morning? the three people i love more than anything in the world. yes, Rob's in there, see his hand? :)

i don't have deep seated beliefs about co-sleeping. i think everyone should do what's right for their family.our sleeping situation evolved over time. Loretta is *just* about ready to crawl and when she does we are going to have to rethink the co-sleeping for a while. i am a light sleeper but still, i wouldn't want to risk her quietly crawling to the foot of the bed and falling before i noticed.

as of today, we don't have room in our home for a crib, much less a nursery (we have a corner though and it's pretty cute), but we are moving into a much bigger (and prettier! and more light-filled! with a lovely fenced yard! and big kitchen!) space at the end of August and at that time we'll be setting Loretta up with her own room. i look towards this with excitement (decorating rooms IS FUN) and a little sadness because i know i'm going to miss our little family bed that we've settled into this past year.

when we moved Otto out of our bed and into a crib right around this same age (5 months) i slept on his floor for a month. major separation anxiety on my part. him? after a few days of gentle encouragement he rocked the crib like a boss. he didn't know it was weird for mommy to be laying on the floor with her fingers between the slats so she could be touching him. moms do all kinds of weird things. he didn't start crawling into our bed again until after we'd transitioned him to a big boy bed. now it's a 5-6 nights a week guarantee and i love it.

here are some drawings i made of our bed most nights...

it works for us :)

our new house has four bedrooms. we haven't toured but we've peeped in the windows and i believe the 3 main bedrooms are upstairs and then there is a tiny bedroom adjacent to the sitting room on the first floor. my plan is to turn the small downstairs bedroom into a toyroom and then to have the kids' rooms crisp, tidy, pretty, and functional with less fuss and mostly just a bed, bookcase, dresser. here are some rooms i like...

Julian's room from Miss James' Bleubird blog
Any of these Swedish kids rooms from Feather and Nest blog
The bed/chair/suitcase/bookcase area of Isobel's big girl room from Little Big blog

i like the clean, peaceful look of unused space and the delight of fun found objects but all with simplicity and thoughtfulness. each of these rooms has personality, you couldn't just buy them straight-up, they had to be put together over time. also, here is my dream crib from Pottery Barn for Loretta's room i am only hoping i can find it or one like it on Craigslist in the next month!

that was rambling but there is so much going on in my life right now. did or do you co-sleep? did you find it to be a great experience or frustrating? why? do you hate me for co-sleeping? haha! actually if you hate me don't bother telling me. what about these kids rooms? amazing right? i hope i can do something just as cool for my kiddos. i think the toy room will go a long ways towards that by minimizing the clutter in their sleeping rooms.

hope you all have great weekends!

preschool penpals ♥

friday will be Otto's last day at his pre-school. boooooo. we have had such an amazing experience since he first became a part of this school and Otto has grown as a socialite, intellectual, adventurer, artist, and friend.

he just loves it there. and loves his little friends there so much that he even insists on incorporating them into our bedtime routine. at night, every night, we sing the Batman song but instead of "dun nuh nuh nuh bat-maaaan" we sing different names of Otto's friends at school. it's so sweet and funny. and just shows how much Otto's playmates mean to him.

so... one idea i had to help Otto transition as we move several states away was to invite the kids in his class to become pen-pals with Otto. but i wanted to do it in a way that really encouraged them to do so (not just, hey write me a letter) especially as we aren't particularly close to any of the parents of the kiddos in Ot's class. but Otto is so very close to the kids themselves. so i put together these little envelopes, one for each child in Ot's class...

letter co-written by yours truly and the Ottster himself.

see, they're already pre-addressed and stamped! talk about guilt-factor (haha) if at least a few of the kids don't write to us i'll become a huge misanthrope forevermore. anyways, someone better!

so each envelope will have a little letter from Otto paperclipped to it, and will be put in the kids' mailboxes at school on friday. this way, Otto can share stories and pictures of Oregon with his Tucson friends and vice versa, he can keep in touch with his Tucson playmates and their goings-on. i'm really excited about this and hope it works out!

Ot even got in on the action by decorating some of the envelopes. stamp much? :)

he's surely going to miss his preschool here in Tucson a lot. and i know that's just one of a bazillion adjustments we're asking him to make with this move. my job (i feel) is just to make the transition as easy and fun as i can for him. to instill a spirit of adventure and excitement into the move. and this pen-pal idea seemed really fun to me. hopefully we can keep this smile on my kiddo's face throughout the transition to our new city/state. cuz it's such a freakin cute smile...

-lindsey

everything is all over the place...

including my brain right now. we're at t-minus 7 days til the big move and it's really cock-blocking my blogging! house is a mess and unphotographable times 10. i'm hardly doing anything amazing with Otto anyways, just trying to keep him distracted and fed while we sort, clean, and pack up five years worth of everything.

well this afternoon we did make it out of the house to go paint pottery with my friend/neighbor Kate (we are each the Ethel to the other's Lucy) and her little girl, Zora. Kate took some great pics of that which i WILL post on here, i WILL! sometime soon. Ot's piggy bank broke yesterday so he and i teamed up to co-paint a new one: TowMater. oh boy.

so i hope everyone is having awesome long weekends. happy Canada Day and 4th of July weekend! i hope everyone is eating as much gelato as this mama and wishing you all beer, corn chips, and naps!

-lindsey

two point five

Ot is just two days shy of 2 1/2 ♥ and everything about him that's always been there is suddenly magnified (humor, tenacity, sweetness, sourness, daring, just all of it). he's coming into his own so much, growing confident in his body and words. using words like "maybe" and "sometime" and "probably" in the right context and accusing us, "you're teasing me!" when we joke or say something that doesn't make sense to him.

"leave the door open just a little bit, mom"

for someone who changes his mind every three seconds he's also insanely demanding about what he wants. he loves his routines and i feel cruddy about how this move is already uprooting some of that. the boxes that are accumulating in the living room...and the general dissarray... he has Oregon on his mind constantly. and he's excited, like really excited, and wants to talk about the rain, grass, our new garden, the mountains, the beach, the university football team, and his big boy room.

Me: It NEVER rains in Oregon
Otto: You're teasing me. It rains a LOT!

but he's obviously also concerned. at bedtime now (a seventy-five step process these days) he's now added "let's talk about Oregon" to his delay tactics. and every night we talk for ten minutes or so about our new home and how while mommy and daddy drive our things up to Oregon,Otto will get to stay with his Nanas and Papas and then fly in an airplane to Oregon just a few days later.

in all the hub-bub of the move, i'm trying not to miss all the leaps and bounds of advances Otto is making as he continues on his journey through toddlerhood. a few things he's up to...

- on Monday he had a whole day at preschool in underpants with no accidents!
- he knows his ABCs (he loves the India Arie version so sings em kinda groovy) and can count to twenty
- he loves to do "pushups" and (to my horror) jumping off of pretty much everything
- he's memorized several of his favorite books and reads along with me
- he plays independently with his toys for long periods, playing store and circus and having the characters interact and talk
- he has a girlfriend at school who he "hugs her back" and he thinks she looks like a cowgirl (really? it starts this early?)
- and since he's two he's also a little batshit crazy most days, at least at some point.

rob and i try to lead by example and be strong, fun, sympathetic parents. sometimes though, we just have to run from the room so we can bust out laughing without Otto seeing. he's a trip. each and every day a trip. and honestly, just the most amazing, happy, wonderful little trip i could ever imagine.
-Lindsey

ps. i've really had it with my phone camera. i'm definitely getting a little point-and-click in the $200 range. a few of you suggested the Canon Powershot. anyone else out there have a suggestion? i'm going to start comparing what's out there later this week because i've had it with sub-par pictures! boo!

packing couture, let's move our bodies! and giveaway winners.

packing couture
instead of "steppin out" this saturday i pretty much "stepped in" as we are midway through pack, pack, packing our house. definitely not the cutest outfit that ever happened, but i'll call it packing couture. this is what i wore...

 i wore: tee (thrifted from Buffalo), tank (Target), maxi skirt (Target) and awesome Jesus sandals (thrifted).

another view of the runway...

we still have mucho mucho to do though. like a certain "shoe situation"...

oh boy.

"let's move our bodies!"
moving on. so friday afternoon we took Otto to Whole Foods to pick up some dinner (we'd rented Follow That Bird and were planning a fun picnic dinner on the living room floor while we watched our movie). can i get a "holla" for golden sesame tofu?!

we had the freezer aisle to ourselves when the Beegees "night fever night fevahh-ah!" comes pumping on the loudspeaker. we're all kind of grooving through the aisle, when Ot busts out with, "let's move our bodies!" and starts doing the most awesome sittin-in-the-cart-disco dance i've ever seen. kid has moves! he was laughing and smiling and seriously grooving. it was awesome. so you know the whole Muth family rocked the frozen foods aisle for 4 minutes of Night Fevah-ah. yay disco.

my friend Rebecca hosts "Little Chatterbox" every Friday on her blog Musings of a Manic Mama. this week i'm linking up because Ot said something funny, yay!

giveaway winners!

i am always tardy when it comes to choosing giveaway winners. it's part of why i stopped doing so many giveaways. something in my brain is always super excited to host a giveaway and do the post. but when it comes time to random.org the winners, etc. etc. i just procrastinate forever. ugh. sorry! anyways, without any further ado, here are the winners of either Martha Stewart Living or Parents magazine subscriptions!

congrats Heather, MrsDivineBodies, and kathy! i'll be in touch this week to get your deets & will order your subscriptions right away!

ok. so! who's ready for the week? ::looks around, doesn't raise hand:: yeah, me too. ugh!
-Lindsey

lowwww keyyyyy

there is a lot of chaos going on around these parts lately. my house is a Mess (with a capital M) of semi-packing. i am a MESS (all caps, yo, mama's going nucking futs) of trying to get our act together in the next two weeks. and Bonus! i also already need my bangs trimmed (yay!). and if someone could l'oreal mousse my roots while i sleep, that'd be awesome. my eyebrows probably need plucked too. and if you could just shave my legs, pack up my house, and bake me a quiche while you're at it. thanks.

but tonight? tonight the hubs is off playing poker and i am doing a little tea therapy...

i recently discovered Yogi Vanilla Hazelnut flavor and oh. mah. gah! i'm also about to curl up with this...

and before long, do this: zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

i wish equally low key evenings to y'all. unless you're out partying and having fun. then more power to you, you crazy young unfogeys who i don't relate to at all. this shaggy, two-tone haired fogey salutes you with a head nod and a yawn.

ps. i totally need to draw the winners to the "my shame is i do coke rewards, let me get you a magazine subscription" giveaway. i'll do that this weekend and announce!

ok, off to do all of the above. night guys ♥
-Lindsey

sugar-crusted dried-fruit whole wheat muffin amazingness {a recipe}

the following is an experiment gone yummy. Ot helped me make these semi-sweet (think cornbread or scone-level sweetness) healthy fruit muffins the other day and i wanted to share...

this recipe is a modified version of Joy of Cooking's "basic reduced-fat muffins"...

What you need... vegan options in parentheses

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 egg (or 2Tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1Tbsp cold water)

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup milk (or 1 cup vanilla almond or hemp milk)

1 cup freeze dried fruit, crumbled (we used peaches)

What you do...
1. Oven at 400'F
2. Spray or line a muffin pan
3. Get everything measured and ready cuz you're gonna stir it all together at once
4. Stir everything together at once

5. Pour batter into muffin pan (original recipe says it makes a dozen. we made 9 larger muffins)
6. In a coffee cup (or whatever) mix another 1/8 cup sugar + 1 Tbsp cinnamon. Sprinkle on muffin tops.
7. Bake about 14 minutes (until a fork/toothpick comes out clean)

and voila! feed these to your friends and family. or hide in the closet and eat them all! bwahaha! for reals though, these muffins are so good, healthy-ish, and way easy to make. win to the win.

TGIF guys! this weekend we start hardcore packing (omg i'm so getting spammed by pornbots for saying that). anyways!

we move 2 weeks from sunday so we need to put our packing into high gear! my parents are coming down Saturday to entertain Ot for a few hours while Rob and i disassemble our house, get rid of stuff, pack, or do what i ended up doing tonight --> start packing up photo albums and end up spending hours just looking at photo albums. love photo albums.

oh, and we're going to a build-your-own-pizza party on sunday at a friend's house. i'm really excited about this. lots of kiddos and a fun activity, plus i get to see a few friends again before we skip town. plus pizza is no slouch.

what's everyone else up to this weekend? muffin baking? if you make these let me know what you think!

xo,
Lindsey