One Room

Juni's class got to go visit a one room school house in Stillwater today to experience pioneer school there. They were instructed to dress as a pioneer child, bring a lunch as a pioneer child, and in the tradition of back then, bring the teacher a homemade gift. I got so excited for her! This opportunity for her to play "real" dress up is something I'm wishing I could have done, or could do, I wish I could have gone. I got ambitious and geared up to make her a drab calico dress with apron and mismatched bonnet. I ran out of time, "hello time management!". Anywho, we went a thrifting, found THE perfect pioneer kid dress. We then tea stained a white muslin shift and manufactured it into an apron. My friend Kari had an extra bonnet Juni's size laying around, and we had her riding boots, voila! A pioneer child. For lunch I made her cornbread, bacon, a hardboiled egg, and gave her an apple. Sounds good to me, I even drizzled the bacon grease on top of the cornbread as it baked, yum! For a present we wove one of those loopy pot holder things kids (and adults) make. I think she will have an awesome time!

Our New Addition

She is an endless summer/blushing bride hybrid hydrangea. She should get 4 feet tall. So far she's the only one, soon we will add more to our "growing" family:)

Laid Up

I was having a good morning till I decided to do some yard work. Now my back is in a tiff and I'm in bed this beautiful day. Saw some things, thought I'd share.

I saw this gorgeous red door driving around, love it! While I am not an OU fan, this yard art was interesting...only in OKlahoma. I went to get a grumpy dog for a late breakfast, smoked polish dog with tomatoes, mustard, relish, and jalapeños!

Peek-a-Boo

Goodmorning

I just took the girls to the grocery store with me. We bought milk, eggs( I don't like baking with our "girls'" eggs.), butter and whatnots for baking. We made it out to the car, put kids up, groceries up, then I was pushing the cart up, singing to myself and I looked down. I was wearing my house slippers. Oh goodness:)

HAppy 8th Birthday TO My Juni-BUggy

8 years ago i gave birth to the most beautiful creature i'd ever seen. since then juniper has grown into such a funny, smart, caring human being. i am proud to be her mommi! happy birthday buggy!

To DO...

GEtting ready for my buggy's birthday party. she will be 8 tomorrow. i am a mom to an 8 year old. how old am i? sheesh.

so, i am most of the time not organized at all....but when it comes to my babies birthday's, i am. it is my mommily job to do them a birthday right. 2011 themes: bee's was "star wars", popi's was "rainbows", and juni wanted "clouds". we don't do large birthday's, just close friends and family, sometimes we grill out, sometimes we don't, but it is always in our living room. the themes started when i made a robot cake for my friend kristi.

the kids saw what crazy things mommi did with icing and what-nots they started asking for a birthday cake that looked like something. so started that trend. now we base the birthday around this idea, we do cupcakes too. anyways....i started getting organized for the bug's birthday party; cotton batting to make clouds out of, cookie pop sticks for cookie pop favors, blue cupcake papers, and a new pastry bag tip:) i love making my kid's birthdays unique to them. we have done cats, dinosaurs, horses, unicorns, strawberries, star wars, rainbows...so much! well, anywho...lunches are made, babes asleep, midsommer murders to be watched. night night.

Fall Rain Weather Wear

is it really fall? i am not sure, but who cares. i am wearing some fall comfy wear. i thought i could share some outfits with you once in awhile because, hey, "everyone is doing it". this is what i wore today. oh, and juniper was so mad she was forced to take these photos of me:)

warm undershirt: patagonia
plaid button up: vintage
woolrich puffy vest: vintage(it belonged to my mom)
merino/cashmere scarf: hector russell
jeans: salt works
aubergine rain boots: chooka
canvas tote: jack spade, used

P.S.

i am soooo glad i do not care for missoni.

MAking School Lunches

i have always had a love/hate relationship with making school lunches. our school doesn't have a cafeteria so making homemade lunches is not a choice, but necessity. some days i wish i could drop off the kids without having to make a nutritional, kid friendly lunch. we do have pizza day on wednesdays, but only i would give birth to the kids that don't like delivery pizza. now with our #1 diabetic kiddo, making lunches has gone from a 2-5 minute throw down, to about a 30-45 minute nightly thing. i have to make the lunches at night because there is no time in the morning running around with those 3 girls to do all the mathematical note taking bee's lunches require. these are my tools.....

my calorie king book, scale, notepad, and calculator.
i have to have these to make lunch, dinner, breakfast, well, anything.

this is an example of both the girls' lunch for tomorrow, and popi gets a smaller version of this. 2 oz of cucumber, 9 olives, 1 cup whole wheat pasta with basil and parmigiano, sugar free jello(juni got some sugar filled orange cream jello thing), and a stevia sweetened lemonade.
on that little yellow note all folded up and tucked in her lunch is the exact measurements of the food with the carb content. i take that number, divide it by 20, and voila! i get the number of units beila's teacher needs to inject her with before lunch.

i put the lids on, tuck them in the fridge, and go collapse into bed. i was snuggling in bed with my Greek boo an hour ago watching tosh.0 and laughing, i wanted to stay there, i did not want to make lunches, i did not want to get up, i wanted to stay there, but someone has to feed my chilluns!

Fashion's Night Out

i love fashion. we all know that, right? happy happy fashion's night out all around the world last thursday night. i love a runway show, even a bad one, the girls loved it too, look at the pictures they took. we had live music, snacks, shopping, a little champagne(only me), fun, and fashion!

my sweet sweet little birds.

9-11-01

tuesday morning parks(my then fiance) and i went to tuesday morning to get in line for a $19 digital camera that was in the mail circular. we got there early, about 7am to get in line, i wanted to make sure that camera was going home with me. also in line was an old friend of mine that was visiting from NYC, he was an actor. it was odd seeing him, he tried to court me in high school, it didn't work out. after we got our camera we went across the street to a little diner for breakfast that we frequented, phil's diner. we sat in the nonsmoking section, this is when there was smoking in restaurants, ewwww. as we sat down i noticed a ton of people surrounding the small television in the smoking area, so of course, i was intrigued. i guess it was around 8am, oklahoma time. all i remember was seeing the smoking tower, the newscasters all looking bewildered and afraid, then as we were watching the smoke, another airplane collided with the building. i was dumbfounded. i don't know if we stayed and ate breakfast or not. we went home and i think i bawled and freaked myself out about war, water, gasoline, food, my almost brother-in-law in the military, him living in boston, so much unknown. i don't know how i drove to work that day at 9am, but i did, i couldn't bake that day. i remember telling my boss i had to leave, i had to go get gasoline, i was incoherent, a total mess. i went home and sat with parks, i remember him telling me that the building was going to fall, that there wasn't a chance it was going to stay upright. watching it come down was surreal. all of television was a bad horror movie, how could any of it be real? i guess we might have watched the television all day and night. i don't remember the rest all that much. i remember being mad this had to happen before my wedding in october, i was worried my brother-in-law wasn't going to make it to be parks' best man, worried he would go to war somewhere, worried i wouldn't get my wedding dress. it was so selfish to think about me at that time. but that is exactly what i was doing. i cannot even watch video about 9-11 now. i get tears in my eyes and start to get choked up. i can't even imagine how those people with family there feel. i want them to know, i remember.

New Toys

i went to the restaurant supply store with the Greek's mommy today to get some doo-dads for her fine italian eatery. let it be known, i am like a tiny kid in a candy store in one of those places. even after not working in a commercial kitchen for years i drool at all the shiny things surrounding me. wide eyed i walk around slowly touching and feeling everything my fingers come in contact with. a microplane with a pink handle! a salad bowl i could fit all three kids in! a tiny mortar and pestle! i am nuts. now i want to run back to a commercial kitchen and cook till the cows come home. i did get a "treat" while we were there. i guess D thought i was being a good girl and bought me two new 9" cake rounds with, here's the kicker, two 9" silicone baking mats!!!!!! one- my cake rounds are old, battered, rusted, and dented, i needed new ones. and two- i will never have to trace my cake round onto parchment, and cut it out for the bottom of my cake pan, never ever again. i didn't know that that was a possibility. the angels were singing all around me when i saw those. i cannot wait to bake a cake now. anyone have a birthday coming up? anyone? bueller?

Feel Good

my carrie posted this a couple days ago and i have watched it once a day since. it makes me feel happy and full of life for some reason....so if you are feeling down and out, watch this.....

don't hate me:)

for the past few weeks i have either been super busy, visiting family, doing school stuff, had mastitis, or now getting over being sick again. i do apologize, i have been down for a week now and today getting out and feeling better. it's odd, just as i got over a small bought of mastitis over a week ago, my bestie, carrie in silicon valley, was getting her own. she had a little girl the day after popi's first birthday. i would have laid money down that zinny and popi would have the same birthday, but then i would have lost it all.

cousins from baltimore came to visit and we went to blue hole and had a fun summer day. we thought it was hilarious that popi figured out the olive trick out all by herself. it's in the blood.

photo by anna at lanford life is just so daily

things are getting back on track again. girls have been at school for about a month. piano starts this week, swim lessons started up last week, popi begins mother's day out tomorrow...hopefully i will find time for the gym, my sewing machine, my blog, and my kitchen. life is fast:)