Neva's first real crawling attempts

I think it is safe to say,

she really wanted a bath.

hit

As I clear the table in my dining room, listening to my husband, and navigate my way through my three children to the sink in my kitchen in my house, it hits me.

I'm living the dream.

Do we often realize in our daily drudgery that we're living exactly what we want?

I'll admit, cleaning up puke and diapers wasn't really the part of that dream that I imagined in such vivid detail as I live it each day, but I still wouldn't trade it.

I wait for my husband to come home, glad that he has a job, glad that he works so hard so I can stay home and... listen to my daughter learn to read, my son learn to talk, and my baby learn to sing. I watch my daughter dance, my son play trains, and my baby pick up a ball.

The more people I meet the more mothers I find working out of the home. For whatever reason they do, I find myself being grateful that I don't. I have my little business ventures but whatever I do is a side to my main job here at home with these precious people.

Today as Zurich puked on my lap, on my last clean pair of jeans, I just shrugged and changed into shorts, who cares right? It's warm in my house. Thank goodness. And I get to "carry you" and kiss his hot little head and brush his lil locks away from his forehead.

Electric Company Earrings

That's what Olea calls these earrings.

We had a bunch of these star sunglasses from some activity a few years ago.

I found the lenses popped out by Zurich on Olea's bedroom floor and they were

falling into the trash can when I had an idea. So I pulled them out and took them down

to the studio. These are the tools and supplies I thought I would use.

I didn't end up using the round nose pliers.

It's totally easy.

Pop out lenses.

The second pair of glasses had much thinner lenses than the first pair, they both came from the same place and were the same brand, as far as I know. Party Land.

The thicker lenses are better I think, so if you have a choice...

Use 1/8th inch hole puncher to punch hole in plastic lens.

Open ring. I think these are almost a quarter inch rings. If you don't know anything about jewelry making and opening rings... open them up and down not apart.

Thread both the lens and the ear wire on the ring and close it. Down and up (not together)

The lens has a curve to it. Make sure when you are adding them to the ear wire that the curve faces the right direction for each ear. I wanted the center out and the star points cupping the side of my head, if that makes sense. So I guess there is a right and left earring in this pair. It's worth reopening the ring and fixing if you don't get it right the first time.

It's cute just like that but I decided to add a little bling with Sawarovski crystals I had on hand for Tatties.

There you have it friends. Dress it up any way you like.

I'm a Creative Cat.

And found Fabulous for Less.

And I did it myself:

News funny

So.
I have a palm. This one (which palm doesn't support anymore).

One of those "old" handheld organizers. You know, no phone capabilities, pure notepad functions. :) I love it. It works and I don't have to worry about it ringing at me, unless I set an alarm that is.
I use it to record those funny moments in life (and then sit down the the computer and type them in later to the kids' journals), appointment reminders and the like. Well today I was looking through my notes in it and found this jem from back in November.

I was watching the news one morning trying to get the weather to see how cold* it was before bundling all the kids up to take Olea to kindergarten and was watching the little news roll on the bottom of the screen and read this, "A man shot a little boy walking on the street leaving him criminally wounded."
I'll say.
No, it's not funny that the little boy was hurt. But the typo was hilarious. Call me twisted but I shut off the TV laughing my head off.

* Now I don't have to mess with the TV and other city's temps to get the temperature out here: Gary got me a digital indoor outdoor thermometer for Christmas.
It's one the the super glitzy gifts I'd hoped for.
I'm like that.
And can I just say, it's AWESOME.

Neva sings

Delicious dirt

I wouldn't normally consider myself an obsessively clean person. But I was going through last summer's pictures and had some thoughts about how I might actually be a bit obsessive about keeping my kids clean. (I habitually clean my kids hands and face right after they are done eating. I don't think that I am going to let this habit go... Gary lets them go often enough.)

However, I had the thought that I need to let my kids get dirty more often. I realized that though I think I enjoy camping I really don't like the filth that comes with it. I realized that the dirt on my kids actually kinda stresses me. But when I look through the pictures and see my kids so thrilled with being in the elements, I remember what it was like playing in the ditch as a kid, making mud stews, playing in puddles and rolling in the grass, reading in the apple tree, trudging through the cow field in irrigation boots and gathering chicken eggs. What am I getting at? I had plenty of dirty opportunities as a kid. I got to play outside a lot. We had a lot of property to explore.

Where we live my kids don't really have that same opportunity. But I do love where we live. I just need to take the opportunities to get out with them more often and let them experience life, leave the path a little and walk in the weeds, kick up the dust and splash in the puddles, play in the rain and such. Loosen the leash a little. Put aside my own comforts better and enjoy life with them. Let them get dirty.

Of course it's easy for me to reflect on what I did wrong this last summer as I sit in the midst of winter and enjoy feeling more capable of life. I was dealing with thyroid stuff all summer, well, since Genève was born. Everything just seemed too complicated, even something as simple as taking my kids out to the park out our front door. I couldn't wrap my head around it. It was SO hot, and what was I going to do with the baby who needed to be fed? No where to sit, other people's irritating children with no supervision, etc. It seems all simple and silly now, but that's the trick of thyroid levels. Get them right and life is life, get them wrong and it's just not cool.

Still, dirt. That's really what I am thinking about. There were two pictures in particular that reminded me of this and prompted my "dirty" thoughts. This one.

It reminds me of old pictures of my older brother and my Dad. Working together.
And this one. You really can't stop a little boy from picking up dirt and watching it fall from his little fists... and why would you want to really?

And since I am on the subject.
When Zurich had learned to sit up we were camping and I realized I wasn't letting him sit on his own because there wasn't any real nice clean place to do it, except the tent but it was too hot in there during the day. Gary asked me why I wouldn't let him just sit on the ground. "Come on, just let him get dirty," he coaxed. "He'll eat the dirt," was my only defense.
So...

And this picture reminds me how not long ago this was even though it was in 2008 end of summer. Genève is this age now. Time goes by so fast.

So maybe this is a type of resolve:
Take opportunities this summer to play outside, go on walks, play in the dirt. Let the kids get dirty. It's a childhood rite of passage.

kidlets in pictures

Genève. I tried so many times to get a picture of this little pose. It's so cute how she does it. But she only holds it for half a second.

Caught Olea reading to Neva

Oh this gal. Just love how pleasant she is. She puts up with so much.

Zurich wanted to wear the new ski gear that Gary picked up yesterday.

He's going to be mad when Olea and Daddy go without him

Just two of the reasons I am afraid to take a shower

both of them relate to Zurich

That's the bathroom counter, that he can't get down from. He was up rearranging the mirror stickers.

This is "cake" as Zurich calls it. He didn't like breakfast and so while I was showering he pulled this tupperware off the counter and opened it and fisted the edges of the pumpkin bread trailing crumbs into the livingroom, on the couch, up the stairs to the TV.

Tatting firsts and creations

Often while I tat Zurich will play with one of my shuttles or the small pieces I have tatted.
One day he kept picking up butterfly after butterfly and throwing it back down, "Ahcah!"
He was disgruntled that none of them were helicopters. So I set out to make him a tatted helicopter.
I used the little fishy pattern by Sharon Albers as a base, though since I have used it in various
ways since first looking it up I only refrenced what was in my head and not the actual pattern.
I used two really long picots on the top and on the bottom to little picots for the wheels. After completing
the design I tied the two top picots together which makes them spin out to the sides and look like
propellers. Zurich was thrilled and I didn't even have to tell him what it was. :)

Here's Zurich admiring his new tiny helicopter. He's very careful about it too, meaning, when he
is done playing with it he brings it to me and says, "ahcah cleam up." He wants me to put it
up high somewhere safe. Then he comes and asks for it later, "Ahcah?" and squints his eyes and
shoves his head down into his shoulders and pinches his fingers toghether. It cracks me up.

This was my first tatting done with beads... yup, I've been tatting for about 4 years and
just barely used beads. I just never saw the need for them before. I saw a lot of patterns with
them and liked them better without the beads. But this one made sense to me. I got this from
a pattern from a book my sister let me borrow. "Tatted Snowflakes" by Vida Sunderman.
However, I again, modified the pattern from the original. Since I didn't like the way they used the beads.
So it's a bit different than the pattern. I used it as an ornament and ended up making two and
giving them away.

And this was my first 3D tatting. A little umbrella ornament. I think it is SO adorable. I ended up
giving this one away too. I actually followed this pattern and stiffened it aroud a lightbulb. This two
came from a book my sister lent me Christmas Angels and Other Tatting Patterns by Monica Hahn.

I'm a Creative Cat on Poppies at Play.