camera shy

What a gorgeous week this has been - we've got big plans for a lot of garden and market and orchard trips this weekend... and somebody's walking!  Time for the video camera.  I promise to catch you up soon.  Hope your weekend (weekend on the brain already!) is going well.  It's the downhill slide now...

turning two

Turning two involves a lot of icing - some on the fingers, a lot on the face.  What a great way to spend an early fall morning.

rooftop

Last Friday night we celebrated our anniversary at a wine tasting dinner (with tickets we had purchased through a school fundraiser)  a few blocks from our house.  It was on the rooftop of a building, on the most perfect early Fall night, with a full moon in the background and the lights of the neighborhood below.  Lots of good food, good wine, and good conversation.  I think we'll make this an annual event.

outgrown

It's been a busy summer of growth around here.  I must say, I'm just as sad to see some of the baby things go this time around as I was the first...

finished

And now, with detail.  The birthday boy is two, and loves balls.  We're shooting for a ball theme, without looking too literal or too old.  So these are kind of basic, abstract versions of different sport balls.  I love how they turned out.

friday finds

This Friday finds me with new bookmarks from a friend who just happened to wander into a Chicago Paper Source and thought of me.  Imagine that?  And just in time, because I find myself with a growing stack of books on my desk, some on loan from friends.

This Friday also finds us with a heavenly scented kitchen where these anniversary flowers are residing.  (They match my wedding flowers, oh my!  I love a man who notices the details.)

And we also find ourselves with a nephew who is TWO today.  And a kitchen full of baking scents too, as a result.  Base coats on, ready for detail.  Thank goodness for long morning naps...

Hope this Friday finds you well.

ten

Last night E was having a little trouble settling into bed for the night.  She was putzing around her room, stalling, asking for things that were two flights of stairs down or for her thirteenth glass of water since our evening walk.  I had counted to ten a few times over when she bopped back out of bed once more and started flipping through her CD case.  "I'd like to listen to some music - I have the perfect CD, it's sooo soothing, and music really helps me fall asleep."  This coming from a girl who has not once fallen asleep to music.  NPR perhaps, but never to music.  She was holding the CD that was given to us by the hospital where she was born, a CD of soothing music for babies and parents, one that we rarely, if ever, listen to.  She started the CD, and as I rubbed her back for a moment in an effort to help wind her down a bit, the second song started up.  "Sheep May Safely Graze" by Bach.  I was walking out of the room but turned back at the top of the stairs.  She had popped up again in her bed, not the least bit sleepy.  "Hey, I last heard this song nine years and 364 days ago," I said.  She understood the math and countered with her own quick calculation.  "What did you and dad do for those first three years before us?"  I know a trap when I hear one, and I resisted the urge to climb back onto that bed and tell more stories, opting instead for the cliff notes version.  "Rock and roll," I said in that geeky-parent kind of way, as if to suggest that she couldn't even pretend to understand the depth of our pre-child coolness and fun.  "Hey!" she whined.  "I thought we were the best part of it", speaking up in defense of her own coolness, and her sister's, of their essential part in this marriage.  

If there is one thing she has never enjoyed hearing about, it is fun happening without her.  We've tried to tell her details about our wedding, or how amazing the honeymoon travels were, or really any other part of our life before her and she just ends up getting miffed that she wasn't invited.  I actually found her in the living room one morning, when she was supposed to be putting her shoes on, standing in front of the photograph of our wedding cake that hangs right at her eye level.  I asked her what the problem was and she huffed that at least we could have saved her a piece of that cake in the freezer.  So this was certainly not the first time she's been bent out of shape over the pre-E life, and I smiled and told her that, in fact, they are the best part of it.

So you see, my love(s), after ten years it becomes hard to separate those million love(s), they are so knotted and intertwined and woven into the fabric of our being.  That baby, who just this morning was sitting in her crib waving one of the books you placed in there last night, and yelling "Da! Da Da!" so that I knew that she knew just who had left her such a treat.  That happiness I feel each morning when I walk into that nursery is the same happiness that I felt each afternoon I found one of those long-distance letters in my mailbox telling me of your days and how you missed me, the same feeling I got when a new song started that diverted your attention from the gaggle of friends around you to that girl you wanted to dance with, the same moment that we shared this evening ten years ago, when I walked down that aisle to you and this life, and this home and this family.  The better and the worse and the richer and the poorer and the sickness and the health are just one big mish-mash of life that we take on each day, and they are all made that much sweeter by this thing that we started and grew and nurtured and turned into the best kind of life we could have.  Ten years ago today.  And I'm still never happier than when I'm walking home to you.
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Happy Anniversary.  I love you.

Photos scanned and tinkered with in Photoshop to make them look even older than we are!

playing in that sunbeam again

I love this time of year, when the light levels start to agree with the baby's schedule.  She goes to bed so early, there were times we would put her down with four more hours of blazing sunlight to go.  Right now the light comes into her room through the western window of the bay - the only western window we have!- and I watched her play, always coming back into that rectangle of light.  After a few minutes of thinking how beautiful that light was, I thought maybe I'd take a few pictures of it.  When I came back, she had discovered (again) this drawer and all its contents, particularly a tea set that used to belong to her sister.  I love this time before bed, playing quietly in a sunbeam.

it's official

I can't say that I'm surprised, but I am impressed.  Nine tests, all passed, all complete.  I know there were times when we both wished we had sat down right after school and plowed through them, before houses and careers and kids, especially the kids.  But you tackled them anyway, and you are good inspiration for me. 

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Congratulations on your license, your new letters.  AIA.  Nicely done.

sometimes this is just how monday feels

Slow start?  I hear you. 

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Have a great week.

reassembled

Last weekend, while M and E were out of town, I finished up the rest of the cabinet door painting and reinstalled them.  At one moment I found myself with one foot on a ladder and one foot on the countertop, holding a door with one hand, a screwdriver with the other, and a mouth full of screws, wondering if it was such a wise idea, being the only adult in the house.  But I survived, the doors are all back in place, and the insides cleaned and dusted and rearranged.

We have white sheets everywhere (except for a few with cars on them), and we were getting tired of hunting through the piles to figure out which go on queen beds and twin beds, and california king day beds, and double air mattresses.  So we now house our sheet sets in their own rooms, and find ourselves with more storage space available.  I think I'll make this the new gift storage area - my current one is way too accessible.  Just don't tell the girls...

We lost half of our folding counterspace when we switched from one unit to two, but we did opt for the pull out shelf on the mounting kit, which I use every single load to have more space to lay out items.

We still use these deep drawers as laundry bins, but I think I'm the only one with the top secret knowledge of how I like things sorted into them.  And I also have a (very minor) obsession with keeping them empty.  Funny how life can sort of get in the way of that, isn't it? 

Newly painted window trim, and my favorites - a few canisters of course.  Now the project truly is done...well, at least everything except the rehanging of the actual door to the room.  Maybe next week. 

double bonus

This Friday had the older one with a day off from school so we spent some time with friends and then she biked around the park for quite awhile.  There's nothing much better than looping around in lazy figure eights on sun dappled streets lined with tall, stately trees.  I might just need to get some handlebar streamers for my own bike.  Saturday's plan:  biking to the Farmer's Market.