For Father’s day the boys and I made Derek a handprint mobile. It turned out really cute.
At the beginning of the week I asked Der if I could trace his hand. Der happily obliged and never even asked me why. I guess he’s just used to me always creating something. At the time I wasn’t exactly sure what the finished idea was, all I knew was it had something to do with hands.
Der’s hand is on top, followed by mine, Jeremia’s, Conrad’s and finally Ami’s.
The boys and I each wrote our 5 favorite things about Der. One favorite thing on each finger.
That was harder for Conrad and Ami to do, since they still have chunky writing and small hands, so their favorite things spilled out onto their palms. It kind of made it look like a patched quilt, which I love.
After we each wrote our 5 favorite things, we colored the hands in. Then, I glued them each onto different colored card stock and cut them out so there would be a small colored border. I hole punched the top of the middle fingers and the bottom of the palms and connected them with ribbon.
I meant to take close-up photos of each hand, but Derek whisked it away to work, to hang in his office, before I got a chance.
On the back I simply wrote #1 DAD.
He absolutely loved it and the boys were proud of the finished product.
Ami’s birthday was last week. The morning of, he wondered aloud who all was going to come for his birthday. Confused, I asked him what he meant, and reminded him it was just going to be the 5 of us. He said he’d invited everyone in his class on the last day of school. Uh Oh! I told him that they didn’t know when it was and he assured me he told them all it was June, 14th. Oh my sweet, sweet little boy. We had a discussion about invitations, and how parents needed things written down so they would know when and where. He took it pretty well, but my heart was broken for him.
So we took a surprise trip to the pool. Swimming makes everything better.
When it came time to decide what he wanted for dinner, he was torn between Texas Roadhouse and Golden Corral Buffet. It’s a hard call which is cooler, the all you can eat dessert that Golden Corral offers, or the fact that you can throw peanut shells on the floor at Texas Roadhouse. Dessert won.
All you can eat cotton candy is a great incentive to eat all of your vegetables!
I can’t help but wonder when Ami and Conrad will stop using their shirts for napkins.
Sugar overload! And I’ll take a rain-check on that kiss thank-you-very-much!
After we were all sugared up, it was time for games, lots and lots of video games!
Those eyes! Those lashes! Those apple cheeks! That toothless grin!
We had a sendoff party for him. I didn’t take as many photos as I had planned. I somehow forgot to get a photo with Keegan and his granddad and twoshooze (grandma). I don’t know how that happened. I will have to make sure to get some when he comes home for a visit.
I don’t think I will be able to bare him in his uniform. I will be a blubbering mess, I am certain of it.
Here’s Keeg with me, Der, his great-grandma Chris, aunt Cami, uncle Craig, and cousin Cassie.
Keegan and his brothers. Taking photos of the 4 of them together is tough. They are all jokesters. When I would get 3 of them to make nice faces, inevitably one would have to be a goofball and make a funny face. I was literally begging them to cooperate. I think they secretly loved having me at their mercy.
As you can see, I did manage to get some sweet ones. They are all so handsome. I am so grateful for them. I have immeasurable love for them and appreciate how very different, yet similar they each are. For all of their bickering and fighting, it’s clear that they have mad love for each other and that warms my heart to the max.
After behaving for the camera, they let loose.
Our little boy, isn’t so little.
I love this one! His expression is perfect!
Never too old for mama’s love!
I don’t have words that adequately express my excitement and pride, with just a scoach of fear thrown in for our beautiful boy.
He is off to become a man. He is about to learn valuable skills that will serve him well throughout his life. He will travel and see the world and will make amazing memories. He will meet new people and forge bonds that will bear lifelong friendships. He will be pushed to grow mentally and physically and will tap into strengths he never knew he had.
I hope he comes back a stronger, wiser version of his already wonderful self. I hope he knows how much we love him and believe in him.
It will not be easy, but the best lessons in life never are.
We love you forever and always, Keegan, and can’t wait for your safe return!
I am really tempted to whine about all of the things that need to get done and the lack of time to do them in, but isn’t that most everyone’s reality?! We all keep chugging, tick one thing off the list at a time, and each item checked off is quickly replaced by 1 or 2 more things. Insert big sigh here.
So anyway here are some photos from Candlelighters camp-3days later than I had planned.
We were lucky enough to have my cousin Stacey and her daughter Piper come along. I am so glad they came. We like them a lot!
The sparkle in Ami’s eyes makes me happy.
I think Jeremia had the ropes course gear on more often than not. We didn’t see much of him except at meal times and bedtime, because he was off with the other kids his age having adventures.
All the boys got a chance to climb the rock wall, but we were only lucky enough to catch Conrad doing it. We were off doing circle time with the other grown ups when Ami and Jeremia gave it a go.
He wasn’t nervous at all.
He struggled at first, but once he got the hang of it, there was no stopping him.
He climbed all the way to the top and rang the bell!
The most extraordinary Amy Tidwell was in attendance and shared her gift of face painting. She has mad skill and puts her all into it.
Amy had a very long line of kids patiently waiting their turns.
Coolest dragon ever!
I got to hold Piper while she had Dora painted on. She was so good and held super still.
Conrad’s army guy was supremely cool.
Then we were off to the archery range.
Later I snuck off to see if Amy had finished painting all of the kids faces so I could have a turn.
We had a nice little chat while she painted these adorable owls. Then it was time to pack up and go home.
Der took these pics after we got home.
We had a great time and can’t wait until next year!
Cancer ripped an irreparable hole in our family, but it also bore immeasurable gifts in the form of opportunities to have fantastic experiences and chances to meet amazing people. It is an inexplicable thing to hate something so thoroughly, yet be full of gratitude for the gifts it brings.
Over the past week, I helped them make mobiles, as thank you gifts for their teachers.
I love the expression on Conrad’s face.
Before I could help them make mobiles, I had to learn how to make one myself.
A google search turned up this video from OliARt over at Bigredhat.com. Oli and her brothers do some really cool stuff. You should definitely check these kids out. They are having amazing adventures.
Thanks to adorable Oli I could now show the boys how to make a mobile.
Here’s what we did.
First we soaked wooden dowels over night and slid them in chair slats to make them curve.
After they were dry, the boys got to have their first lesson with a dremel, and they drilled holes.
They got 5 dowels each and drilled a hole 1/4″ away from the edge on 4 dowels and another hole about 4″ in on all 5 of the dowels.
I know they look ticked off, but they’re really very focussed. I assure you they’re having fun. I mean who doesn’t love power tools?!
We used an extra Scrabble game lid to protect the table from the dremel. It was perfect because the drill would go through it, but wasn’t long enough to come in contact with the table.
After the holes were all drilled, I painted the dowels with white spray paint.
Because we were in a bit of a time crunch (can you say procrastination?), I assembled the mobiles. The boys want to make mobiles for their rooms now. When they make those, they’ll do the assembling.
Here’s what I used to assemble them.
I snipped of 2″ bits of wire and created 9 total loops, per mobile, like this:
For each mobile I made 4 loops without a swivel and 5 loops with a swivel, making sure to have the latch end dangle down.
Then I poked them through the drilled holes, careful that they were facing the right direction-meaning I wanted the loops without swivels to be pointing up, on the top of the curve, toward the middle of the dowel, and the loops with swivels to be facing down, on the underside of the cure, at the end of the dowel.
I wrapped the wire around the dowel like so.
They should look like this except this one I forgot to add the swivel on the left loop and had to take it apart to add it.
The top dowel needs something to hang it from so I used a key ring attached to a swivel.
Then I lined them up and connected them.
I hope my instructions aren’t too confusing. If you have question, email me and I will do my best to help.
After I had them all assembled I brought them in the house and hung them from some open shelves we have. I used temporary 3M hooks, which were a brilliant invention by the way.
We did this part inside because the clay needs to dry slowly (so it won’t crack) and with the 100+ temperature outside they would have dried too quickly.
Starting from the bottom, working their way up, they each put clay on the ends until they balanced. This was a fun physics lesson for them. They had to add and subtract clay depending on how the dowel balanced.
After they had them balanced, they took one piece of clay off at a time, rolled them into nice ball shapes and put them back on.
Then, with two largish leaves, they pressed the balls flat, creating leaf impressions.
We let them hang overnight to dry.
After they dried, I checked each piece of clay to make sure they were still secure to the dowels. For the ones that weren’t, I glued them in place.
Then it was time to paint.
I mixed up a rainbows worth of colors and taped the dowels around the clay, with painters tape.
I pulled them out of the pool to paint, hence the lack of shirts and willy-nilly hair.
Each color of paint had it’s own paintbrush, so the colors wouldn’t get mixed.
It was so hot outside, the paint dried almost instantly.
I think they turned out great. They were definitely a big hit with their teachers.
It has a jungle and cars and rock houses. The only problem is the bugs keep escaping.
My favorite thing about it wasn’t the island itself, but sitting around and talking about it, and watching Jeremia and Der joke around about it.
I am so grateful the boys have a father they can be proud of-one that spends quality time with them, provides for them and loves them unconditionally! They have no idea how lucky they are. They think all kids have doting dads. Cheers to all of the amazing fathers out there!
He went to the store before I woke up and picked up enough breakfast food to feed an army. He made me eggs, turkey bacon, a bagel with cream cheese and a half cantaloupe full of berries, grapes and melons. Luckily the boys helped me eat it, because that was a TON of food!
The boys picked out these gorgeous flowers for me. I love, love, love orange!
They also got me a cool iPhone case and basket to go on the bicycle I got for my birthday! Pictures of that to come…eventually.
I am spoiled rotten and couldn’t ask for a better family!
Last weekend Der and I were lucky enough to attend our dear friends Amber and Andy‘s wedding. Everything about this wedding was gorgeous! The bride, the groom, the food, the flowers, the people, the dancing were all amazing. We had the most grown up fun we’ve had in a long time.
I snapped some shots on my iPhone to share with you all.
Here’s Der and I all dressed up with someplace to go. Thanks Keegan for watching your brothers and for taking this photo.
This picture does not even come close to doing justice to Burr or her divine dress.
Photos were taken of Burr, Andy, Derek and I together, but not with my phone so I don’t have any to share….yet.
Amber said what these flowers are called, but I cannot remember. They were so pretty and perfect.
I would like to draw your attention to the number of glasses. There was more alcohol served with dinner than I usually drink in a decade. Not included in this picture are the margaritas served at cocktail hour after the ceremony or the shot of tequila (yikes) I took with Andy. Needless to say I was pretty snockered by the end of the night. I may or may not have still been a touch drunk the next morning.
The food! Andy and Burr both have exquisite taste, also Andy is a chef so we knew the food would be “smack your mama” good. We weren’t disappointed.
That right there is caviar served in the top of an eggshell. The bottom of the shell is full of butter and hollandaise. It was almost too beautiful to eat…almost. I have had caviar before, but it was nothing like this. This was a party in my mouth. Adding to the party was that giant shot of vodka. I think it was pretty clear that Burr and Andy had every intention of spoiling us AND getting us drunk.
The second course was a divine salad that I inhaled before I remembered to take a picture. What I can tell you is that is was beautiful and delicious.
We chose beef for our main course. It was oxtail, cauliflower mousseline, crispy cauliflower crowned with asparagus tips and reduction sauce-as read off of the menu. All I can say is that I died, went to heaven and came back for more, after the first bite, and it only got better.
And then came dessert, as if I had any room in my belly.
I don’t know what any of the four desserts was called, but they were fantastic.
On top of all that there was a gorgeous wedding cake that I was too stuffed to taste. I think if I had attempted to eat another crumb, I would have burst right then and there, no lie.
It was a spectacular evening full of beauty, grace, poignancy, and love. I am grateful for having such wonderful souls in our lives. Thank you Burr and Andy for allowing us to share in such a special day. We love you to the max!
One of my favorite blogs is Geninne’s Art Blog. It’s pretty popular, and with good reason. It’s gorgeous over there. Geninne does these amazing watercolors, mostly birds. All of her birds have smiling eyes and tend to make me smile too.
I found her blog through Pinterest many months ago and have been back every day since. She shares her art, her home, her family and they are all wonderful.
She often posts photos of a Vermilion Fly-catcher that lives nearby. While searching old books for clippings to put in my slides, I came across some illustrations of a Vermilion Fly-catcher. I instantly thought of Geninne and wanted to make a slide for her as a thank you for all of the inspiration her blog provides. So I made this.
I emailed her asking for her address so I could send her a small gift of appreciation. I felt like a total creeper, but she was so kind. Not only does she have light-hearted and beautiful art, but a soul to match.
Her response was that she would send me her address, but only if I sent her mine so she could send me a little gift too. What a lovely surprise that was.
I received her gift yesterday. All I can say is me-oh-my and sigh.
She sent me these lovely gift tags that are made from her “oops” prints.
One of them is from a favorite piece that is coincidentally my desktop background. That was a fun bonus.
When I opened the envelope the tags were safely contained in a plastic envelope. What I thought was just cardboard backing to keep them safe ended up being another surprise when I turned it over.
I found this little guy staring up at me, matted, addressed and signed!
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