a special book

i found this cheesy spandex book cover at the thrift store, and used it as a pattern, cause i need patterns sometimes for rectangles...i am stunted in certain ares. no, well, it just really helps me to have something to look at.

i love my new book cover so much. the linen i used is slightly stretchy which seems to be essential for a really snug fit. also important is cutting your fabric about 3/4 of an inch smaller than the book on both ends.....the height dimension can be pretty close to the actual height of the book. i just wrapped the fabric around the book and pulled it tight, closing the book around the fabric, and then sneaking some pins in to mark the spot where the fold happens. then i took it in the 3/4 of an inch on the front and back, and turned it all around inside out to sew the very simple straight stitch at the exact dimension of the book's height. so much easier than i was expecting.

this is my copy of the artists way collection. i like to have it sitting on my desk all the time now. i usually just open it to a random page and see where i land, often only reading the quotes. but i just love knowing it's right nearby while i am dong my creative stuff. david got it for me for no occasion this spring, so nice.

o's been twice around the sun

and she knew exactly what to do when her candles came. she was trying to blow them out when they were 10 feet away. my tiny love, chunk punk is 2. and if you ask her how old she is now, she won't tell you, but she will tell you that she 'blew out candles.'

on the eve of her birthday, which might be becoming a tradition for me on birthday eves, i made her a ladybug jumper from that vintage pattern. i only had enough of the ladybugs for the front, so i had to improvise, and i love how the linen looks on the back. you can't really tell from these pictures how cute it looks on her. i'll have to take care of that next time she wears it.

i love you sweet chicken. you are totally awesome in every way. thank you for being my baby girl.

the dad in him

the dad in him is such a good one. he is so committed. devoted. loving. tender. challenged, but up for it. when cameras come out lately at parties or soccer games or gatherings at school, or family vacations, and people want a photo of smiling kids, he always gets the best smiles out of his kids, and usually everyone else's kids while he's at it. that is definitely one of his gifts to his children. he gets them, and they get him, and there is a lot of laughter that happens because of all this getting. i mean isn't that how it is with your closest people, the laughter comes so easily. first thing i saw this morning was david chuckling to himself at something max said. and then his smile as zhi came up to hug his leg while he was making her waffle. and the way he holds olive as they come into the trident to meet me. he is such a dad. he has embraced fatherhood. we are all lucky to know this side of him. it never crossed my mind when we got married that he might improve with time. but having children has most definitely had an awesome effect on him. and even though i never thought about it, looking back, i somehow knew he was gonna be a superdad.

colors

i can't sleep because i started having a panic attack in bed thinking about the horrible plane crash that happened a few weeks ago.  i guess since we just flew home from mexico a few days ago, and we were flying into tornado weather that was happening in denver, and the bumps were more than i could handle without my heart pounding to the point that i thought it could possibly hurt itself, while i was  rubbing my armpits so that i could be comforted by the human smell, while coaching my 4 year old on her deep breathing to curb the nausea, also while helping my 7 year old hold his barf bag while he salivated uncontrollably into it, while my almost 2 year old screamed in her dad's lap until i could nurse her, i guess it's all just so fresh an experience and so palpable that it is very easy for me to get lost in the horrific thoughts, and then obsess on them.  now i am out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, taking deep breaths, drinking water, and trying to refocus my mind.  this has been a good distractor, looking for color. 

here are some pictures i found on my search, my search that helped bring me away from the one color of only terror, and brought me to see and be comforted by many other sweet lovely colors that are just as real and abundant.  thanks erin for this little bit of help!

this one just makes me feel so good.  his relaxed eyes.  her sparkly ones.  

i can't understand everything, and i get scared and freaked pretty easily.  art helps.  art always always always helps.  this reminds me of how we almost named olive artie.   i was so in love with that name for a while.  it was going to be arten, and we would call her artie.  art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art.  the name olive then came into the picture and pretty much stole our hearts, so that was simple.  i found naming our children to be like that. when it clicked, it was undeniable.  we could just feel it.  i like that click feeling so much.  

well, i am still not sufficiently refocused, so i am going to have to go enjoy some netflix and watch some larry sanders, or maybe trueblood.  hmmm.   and eat something, like toast.

he is 7, she is now a kindergartener, and there was a party!

(look at proud baby sister's expression)
look at her.  there are no words for her beauty.   her wish for the world, at her graduation ceremony from preschool,  is her good heart. plain and simple.  her good heart.  as her mama, i can confirm that it is indeed  a majorly good one.  
okay, NOW, look at him. he is 7.  need i say more?  
i took him thrifting on his birthday to see what kind of magic he would find on that special day, cause thrifting is magical in the way that you find things and what things you find.  like his shirt?  he zeroed in on that all by himself.  he then found a backpack/sleeping bag set that he immediately put on his back and claimed.  he then found a 4 wheelin  kettcar.  this was so much fun. oh and i insisted on the two basketballs we walked away with too.  max has been pedaling his car all around town, every chance he gets.  he had some good thrifting mojo i'd say.  timing is everything, and that car showed up 10 minutes after we arrived, seeming to arrive just for him.  max insisted on wearing his shirt backwards the next day, so the seven was on the front, cause that made more sense to him.   mmmmmm, kids are so inspiring in their lack of inhibition on going against the grain and doing whatever just feels right, whether it means wearing their clothes backwards, or questioning the importance of being on time, or not eating a meal at the 'appropriate' time because HELLO, they are not hungry.  yes, kids are on the leading edge here in most ways, and we stuffy rigid adults have a lot to learn from them.  i am sure of this.  (take a look at his pants too, they are his birthday pants i made him after they were all asleep on the eve of his birthday.  they were going to be shorts, that's what i was intending to make, but after tracing a pair of his favorite shorts, and adding on A LOT of extra room, they revealed themselves as pants, and i LOVE them.  he looks so cute in them, huh?)

the birthday party.......it really was fun for all.  but most importantly, max loved it.  i asked him what his favorite part was afterwards and guess what he said.   the presents, of course.  oh, and the way he blew his birthday candles out was so sweet.   one at a time.  with a big breath in between each one.  seven.  baby max is seven.  and when asked how he feels, if he feels any different, he says he feels stronger.  my boy..

clear

i'm drawn to the clear today.  maybe cause it's been raining fro 3 days straight?  maybe cause i've been crying so easily lately, mostly when i think about the end of the school year for m and z.  no more kindergarten.  tomorrow my boy turns 7, and has his last day of his kindergarten year.  it has gone by so insanely fast.  tomorrow my big girl has her preschool graduation ceremony.  there are a lot of tears, and they are sweet sentimental happy tears, but a lot of tears coming my way over the next few days.  okay, get the hankies ready.  i should have a picture of hankies.  oh, it is just so hard to let go sometimes.  to let go of such beauty, but i do need to remind myself of what's ahead.  what we are looking forward to that is potentially equally as beautiful, and possibly more??  i have to stay open and mindful of the possibility of the future here, for sure, or i will find myself living in the past real fast.  i do know this about myself.   we are simply opening doors, and going through them.  with our eyes open, and thus we know exactly what we are doing, exactly what we are saying goodbye to, and we only have an idea of where we are going.  but we know we must go forward.  this is everyday, right?  in a small way, we do this everyday.  in a large way, we do this every lifetime.  it's sometimes a little scary for me to pull back and get the larger perspective like this, but it seems important to do occasionally in order for me to keep my priorities in check, you know?

okay.  i am ready to pull back in now, and look at something with the zoom lens instead.  not that i got a zoom lens yet, but you get what i mean.  (i love that word zoom right now.)

so, speaking of zoom.....check out this amazing person in the wheelchair.  the big kids and i got up super early to get to town in time for the very beginning of the bolder boulder race and we saw these guys zoom by 'so fast' as max kept saying.  'are they going so fast mom?'  'are the wheel chairs so fast?'  we stayed and hung out on the sidewalk and had so much fun with the aunt claire,  (who is not the little kind of ant, but a different kind, max likes to tell people)and the baby cousin juniper looking at all the funny runners running by in an endless ocean of bouncy moving legs.  it was a fun, ending at the CU campus stadium to watch parachuters jump out of a plane and land in the middle of the stadium, the professional runners from all over the world coming in to the finish line, and hearing the MOST beautiful version of the national anthem EVER(which totally made david cry), and then getting drenched on the mile long walk back to the car.  it was so exciting.  i hope i can get the kids to run in the race one of these years.  or walk, lots of people just walk it.  but i have to say, i might love watching it more than participating.  is that lame?  who cares, right?  

okay.  i'm off to an estate sale that starts at 10.  and i've learned from the last one that people start lining up before hand, so it's good to get there a little early.  kind-of weird to me, to line up to go through someone's house and all their things.  it always stirs me up a bit to go to estate sales.  i guess cause all the things are so not removed from the life they were a part of and it's so easy to picture what the people were all about, and knowing that they've just left everything behind now.  damn, here i am in this über sentimental place again.  i guess it's just what's up for me today.  acceptance.  

she paints so naturally.

just like her sister and brother did at this age, and still do thankfully.  (and i do too, when i am not being overly mental.)  it is so fun to witness children doing their art, in whatever form.  they are COMPLETELY in the moment.  TOTALLY free.  (and now i feel bad for laying into max this morning for scribbling on his birthday invite that i asked him to just write his name on...)   it is the most inspiring thing there is, to me personally, watching the way they are pretty much one with the paint, the brush, and the marks they make.  there are no thoughts about what to do.  it just comes through.  ahhhh, i have to get my mind out of the way of myself every few seconds sometimes when i sit down to paint.  and that's okay, it's very good for me to practice this, but it's damn annoying too.  i am often trying to just get back to where i was as the wild and free child i used to be....the fact that these children are going to develop their own egos that will probably torture them daily like we all (meaning us adults) experience now, just wrecks me.  but my hope is that as david and i, and their teachers, and other grown-ups around them do the work of identifying and dispelling ego motivation, and then in its place, mindfully choose loving thoughts, words, and actions, that they will just pick up on all the little choices they saw us make, and note how much better the love feels.  and my hope is that their roots grow deep into the love realm, so that it is much easier for them to find their way back to it, when the darkness of what feels like absence of love arises, when the ego has shown up and taken center stage.  my hopes are what keep me afloat.  my hopes.  my loves.  (not my ego-based thoughts!  ha!)  and it is becoming easier, yet i would not say it is easy, but thankfully easiER, to identify thoughts that were born from ego, and thoughts that were born from the heart.  thankfully.  easiER, but still not easy.   and that gives me hope too!