Thursday, July 31, 2008

Fun, fun, fun!

Okay, seriously. My children and I are having way too much fun creating our own stop motion animations! I made the mistake of couldn't resist showing Dylan the amazing movies that Sherri's delightfully imaginative children shared on her blog, and the seed of an idea was not only planted but firmly rooted in Dylan's mind! But really, this is so much fun. We just posted our first "production" over at Dylan's blog. Definitely a must see...too cute! Thanks, Sherri!


ETA: Okay, here's another one! Caitlyn calls this one "Ring Around the Rosie"! Fun!

Heehee! If you count the title, I said the word "fun" six times in this post. Because trust me, it just is. :)

Monday, July 28, 2008

Finished.

Darren and I are well pleased to (finally) have his book on it's way to the publisher, but still, I have to say—I rather miss this sight in the evenings:


And now that I have no good excuse to not be blogging, I seem to have lost all interest in doing so. Ironic, isn't it?

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Name that baby!



I was just downloading (or is it uploading?) some pictures from my camera and was struck by the familiarity of one in particular. There was just a certain something about a picture of Kristen that I took earlier this afternoon that made me instantly think of an older picture of Meghan. I brought out the photo album for comparison and found the resemblances to be almost uncanny! Startlingly similar, don't you think? That's Meghan on the left, at the same age Kristen is now. How fast they grow!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Mosaic Meme



Matilda was right! This meme was just too pretty to pass up. And fun, too! My children helped me with this one and we had such a good time looking through all the beautiful photos on Flickr that Dylan decided to post one on his blog, too.

Here's how to play:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into
Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into
fd’s mosaic maker.
4. Save image to hard drive and post to blogger.
5. Copy HTML code for flickr photo credits and paste into blogger at the bottom of the post.

1. What is your first name? Melissa
2. What is your favorite food? Eggplant Parmesan
3. What high school did you go to? Mayfield High School
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Dane Cook
6. Favorite drink? Cherry Limeade
7. Dream vacation? Italy
8. Favorite dessert? Cheesecake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Content
10. What do you love most in life? Faith and Family
11. One Word to describe you? Mommy
12. One hobby of yours? Crafting

1. Thirsty Bee!, 2. Eggplant Parmesan, 3. Nail in the Coffin!, 4. End of the day, 5. Dane Cook (6), 6. Cherry-Limeade, 7. Positano, 8. Raspberry - Swirl Cheesecake, 9. valentines day, 10. Romans 12:1, Painting with Light Art *, 11. militarization procession, 12. off to thistletown

Monday, July 21, 2008

Hotter than hot.

My three big kids are running around in nothing but panties and underwear right now because guess what? Our air conditioner is not working! I can't believe it. This same thing happened once last summer, but I so don't need this right now! Darren will be up late writing tonight (his book is due tomorrow! To his editor! Tomorrow!) but if things get any worse around here I just might have to pack up the children and myself and head to my mom's empty house for the night.

It's 87 degrees in the living room right now.

Nice.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

I don't usually enter contests...

...but here is one that I just can't pass up!

I really, really hope I win, but it's such a great giveaway that I wanted to share it here with my other cloth diapering Mommy friends!

Check it out: 18 bumGenius diapers, a diaper sprayer, a dozen cloth wipes, and bottle of odor remover!

Read more about it here.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Four months!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Almost a trendsetter

Late yesterday afternoon, I found in my inbox one of those cutesy, forward type e-mails from my sister-in-law. The subject line read "One Word", and within the body was a list of questions which the recipient was to answer with only one word. Upon completion, it was to be sent to seven other people, including the person from whom it had been received. I liked it, and gamely played along, passing it on to the usual suspects in my address book (including Darren and my brothers...helllooo!!! Brothers! Do you check your e-mail?!)

So anyway, imagine my surprise this morning when I wake up, check my blogroll, and find that half of the entire population of blogland (or at least my small neighborhood, anyway) has posted a "One Word Meme"!

D'oh! I knew I should have just posted it to my blog last night!

Oh, and for what it's worth, here were my responses (but now I feel totally self conscious and unoriginal):

1. Where is your cell phone? kitchen
2. Where is your significant other? outside
3. Your hair? unruly
4. Your mother? unconditional
5. Your father? changed
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? home
8. Your dream/goal? Heaven
9. The room you're in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? blogging
11. Your fear? tragedy
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? RV'ing
13. Where were you last night? work
14. What you're not? spontaneous
15. One of your wish list items? wealth
16. Where you grew up? here
17. The last thing you did? e-mail
18. What are you wearing? clothes
19. Your TV? off
20. Your Pet? Mikey
21. Your computer? newish
22. Your mood? irrational
23. Missing someone? yes
24. Your car? Odyssey
25. Something you're not wearing? make-up
26. Favorite store? Lowe's
27. Your summer? uneventful
28. Love someone? absolutely
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
31. Last time you cried? today
32. Who will resend this? nobody
33. How many sisters? none

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Rain

We've been welcoming big, beautiful, and much needed rain storms every day for the past few days, receiving on Thursday three times the amount of this year's rainfall to date. Exhilarating to me are the gray skies, the steady rumble of distant thunder, the tantalizing scent of fresh, cool precipitation, and the damp chill, all vividly reminiscent of the summer storms I so fondly recall from my youth. They were, particularly during my adolescence, one of my favorite aspects of the season. Disrupting the seemingly endless span of oppressively hot, dry days, they provided the perfect interlude in which to cozy up indoors with a good book or rousing board game competitions between my brother and me. My children and I have been enjoying plenty of our own idle pastimes over the course of the week, but I just couldn't resist dashing out into the rain to capture a few photographs last Thursday. These are my favorites (some of which were taken after the storm had subsided).








Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Fourth of July Weekend 2008

I think I'm still in recovery mode following the wonderful holiday weekend enjoyed with my family. Where to even begin describing what we kept calling "The best fourth of July ever!"? (Okay, so I have to admit that the day did get off to a rather rocky start, but that was only due to my own petty selfishness and perfectionist tendencies. Once I got over myself, so to speak, the day was incredible!) We had purchased a big inflatable pool with an attachable sprinkler to set up along side our existing small kiddie pool, transforming our backyard into a water park of sorts, with water balloon games completing the theme! We let our children splash and play while waiting for my brother's family to arrive from Albuquerque, and they had a blast!








We ate lunch at our picnic table to give the children a chance to dry off and warm up, then went inside to work on some fun crafts. I didn't think to take a picture of our work, but you can see some of our finished products on the cabinet behind Dylan in this next picture. He's busy assembling some appetizers for which he had asked us to purchase ingredients. He had sampled some ham and cheese cubes on sticks at one of our favorite stores the day before, and really wanted to make some of his own for our party. Yum! :)


It began storming soon after my brother arrived, so we postponed any further water play in favor of smoke bombs and snappers. My dad joined us a little while later, and surprised all of his grandchildren by letting each of them have a turn churning the home made ice cream!



We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, served with beans and pasta salad and chips and dips, and then, since the skies had cleared considerably, let the kids play some more in the pools. The water was much cooler by that point, so they didn't stay in long, but they didn't mind when we called them out to dry off...because we were distributing the ice cream they had made earlier with the beautiful cake my sister-in-law had made!






Kristen was wearing red, white, and blue, but I forgot to take any pictures of her until she was already dressed for bed! She actually stayed indoors for most of the day, but did very much enjoy being outside with us as daylight gave way to dusk. She is always such a happy baby!

Once darkness fell, we moved out to the street to light the small arsenal of fireworks my brother and Darren had purchased earlier. These were just little ground displays that we all really enjoyed watching. It was late, though, and to my surprise, Meghan actually fell asleep on my dad's lap! She didn't even stir when he carefully transferred her to her bed! As I was rocking Kristen that night, I was thinking to myself that it had been such an excellent day. I was so happy, and so looking forward to the next two days, which I knew would also be packed full of fun and joy. I was not disappointed!


Saturday was just another low key, no stress day of family fun. The cousins came over in the afternoon to join my children in the continuing backyard games, and that evening Darren prepared a home cooked meal for us. I stayed up pretty late that night in anticipation of the breakfast we were hosting the next morning in honor of Kristen's presentation at Mass, assembling in advance as much as I could. My brother's family and my dad came over early Sunday morning and we enjoyed a feast of Crustless Bacon and Cheese Quiche, French Toast Casserole, Champagne Salad, and Dessert Pizza. Oh, my goodness. We ate. And ate. And ate. It was all sooo good!


Mass was lovely. We had reserved seating up front with the other infants being anointed that day. (At our parish, infants are first anointed with chrism oil and then baptized at a later date, generally after another three weeks or so. Kristen, however, has already been baptized.) I was a little worried about how my children might behave with their cousins in attendance, but they all did great! We said our good-bye's in the parking lot after Mass, then came home to laze away the rest of our day. It was perfect, the perfect conclusion to a perfect weekend. I want to do it all again next year!