turning 30

last saturday the twinster and i turned 30. i have to admit i was a little freaked out by that number, but mostly happy to be spending our first birthday together in four years. 

we went out to dinner with our husbands, hung out with family, drove the alpine loop around timpanogos to enjoy the absolutely amazing autumnal glory, and had a family dinner.

nene put together a slide show of pictures of us from baby to recent and set it to beautiful music--it had me bawling. it was the best birthday present ever. here are some images from our weekend together:

nene took these pictures of my kids and i turned them into polaroid-style images using rollip.com

let the wild rumpus begin!

i don't know if any of you are as ecstatically crazy to see where the wild things are as i am, but just in case you are, here's some stuff for you:

you can watch the awesome official trailer here (complete with one of my favorite songs by the arcade fire.)

you can listen to the entire (fabulous) soundtrack here. 

paste magazine did a great article about the movie version, the book version, and maurice sendak that you can read here.

there's a blog devoted to all things "wild" called "we love you so" here.

* p.s. the movie opens october 16th, in case you were wondering.

blind pilot

i haven't done a music post in a long while, but i just re-discovered this band blind pilot and i'm really taken with them. falling in love, actually. their sound is folksy and mellow and perfect for fall. (maybe i'll include them on my fall playlist --coming soon!)

you can download a few of their songs for free from their daytrotter session at daytrotter.com

image from daytrotter.com

bananas

whenever my kids are feeling grumpy and i want everyone to perk up a little, i put on this clip of the aggrolites on yo gabba gabba. works every time.
The Aggrolites - Banana (Yo Gabba Gabba!)

do you have a song that always makes you/your kids happy dance fools, no matter what?

milk teeth

sweet m.'s tooth was really, disgustingly, loose last week.

then it came out. this is her fourth baby tooth gone, but her first on the top row. i think missing one from the top makes a lot bigger difference.

i'll follow the sun

i love taking photos into the setting sun. it gives the kids a kind of halo effect around their hair and i think it looks so pretty.

flip flop, part 2

so you'll remember that last week the flip house (sometimes we call it the bungalow in fond remembrance of our first tiny basement apartment together) looked like this:

one week later and a lot of hard work on the hubs' part, it looks like this: (that's him up on the roof, don't worry, he's a pro.)

it may be the gorgeous people standing in front, but i think the place is starting to look TONS better! (also, it may be hard to tell in this picture but they are each holding a toy tool from little c.'s tool box. he brought it to help daddy work.)

just doing his part!

i know where the summer goes

today might have been the last swimsuit-wearing, playing in the water day of the season. 

sometimes don't you wish you had a camera on your kids twenty-four hours a day so none of the precious moments would be missed? that's how i felt today. so i apologize for the abundance of pictures.

p.s. i'm having trouble getting my images to look right in blogger, sorry.

i'll see you at home

this is one determined young man. and yes, that corn dog is roughly the size of his head. this was taken at the state fair on monday.

i was thinking about what to write about our experience at the fair, and what pictures to put along with the post. (the only pictures i got were of the kids eating their corn dogs.) i thought about all the fun little day trips we've taken with the kids this summer, sometimes impromptu and sometimes an outline of a plan in place.  each trip has had its own unexpected turn, its own small adventure, with some good music and snacks thrown in.

but other than that all of them have had something else in common. no matter how much fun we had i was always excited to get home.

when we reached the point in each trip where someone said, "let's go home," or "it's time to head home," i felt a little thrill of happiness.

i have a home.

and it's with these people.

how lucky can one girl be?

dorothy was so right. i'm going to print out that line and cross-stitch it or something. and then frame it. there really is no place like home.

flip flop flim flam

the hubs and his family have purchased a house to flip. boy, is it in need of some t.l.c. but we can  see the potential:

the porch that was closed in will be turned back into a real porch. the fake ugly stone will be gone. hooray.

a whole new kitchen please. thank you.

look at this beauty of a front door! imagine it all sanded down and re-finished! (or if i can persuade everyone, maybe we could paint it some delightful hue.)

please don't gag when you see the only part of the bathroom i could safely show you:

whaddya think? imagine with me restored hard wood floors, repainted moldings and original doors, maybe some nice historically accurate subway tiles in the bathroom? it's going to be nice, right? right?

ch-ch-changes

sweet m. started first grade on monday. when the bus dropped her back home that afternoon she said, "i don't like being at school all day. i had a headache, and a stomachache." she told me everything that happened and it sounded like there was some good in there too, but she was NOT looking forward to school day #2. for a brief moment visions of homeschooling flashed in my brain. and then i told her that she would get used to it, and tomorrow would be better, and all those things that i thought moms should say to make situations like this better.

flash forward to day 2:

sweet m. gets home and sits down to take off her jacket and shoes and socks. she starts telling me about her day.

she makes funny faces at me (and models some of the hello kitty swag i got her from the dollar bin at target.)

she gets fake-mad at me for taking so many pictures.

she tells me long, complicated stories about who she played with at recess and how her teacher gave her the "big poster" for being good.

sweet m. is so happy. and all is right with my world again.

squishy little sweetheart

this squishy little sweetie came to visit (along with her mom, a.k.a. "traveltwin," dad, and brother this weekend. it was the most fun i've had in a long time.
now that they've made the move from down under to the states, i only have to convince them to move into my neighborhood! (i wish...)

sweet m. is 6!

m. has a little collection of matryoshka dolls (and kokeshi dolls, too) so we thought, "matryoshka doll party!" (you know from this blog's banner that i'm a fan!)
we read about stephmodo's party for her daughter and used her ideas for games: pin the bow on the matryoshka and hide and seek with matryoshka dolls. each little girl got her own little wooden doll to paint, and we read this book. here are some images:

popsicles

(taken through the screen door...i snuck up on them.)

i'm enjoying the summer so far, are you? when m. first got out of school i was worried and stressed, i thought, "how am i going to keep both of them entertained all day long?" but things have worked out quite well. we've had a few craft days, we've been to the zoo, we've gone to park day, the library, and we went to the river to feed the ducks a couple of times. but mostly things have been really laid back. kiddie pools in the backyard, swimsuits all day long, and popsicles. lots and lots of popsicles.

guest post on the exponent

my good friend D'Arcy asked me to do a guest post for her on a blog for mormon women that she contributes to called the exponent. she asked me to write about mormon women and depression and i wrote about my personal experiences with it. i tried to be as honest as possible. if you want to read it, go here.

new (really old) piano

ever since i had a home of my own to put one in, i've wanted a piano. i remember hours upon hours of forced practicing from my own childhood, but also hearing my mom play hymns on sunday morning, learning to play a "famous" piece and feeling so proud of myself, and eventually teaching beginning students myself.
so when we found this oldie at a campus sale, and the price was right, we got our piano. the piano tuner came this week and told us our piano was made in 1907 in new york city. just imagining the different places this piano has been, all the different people who played it and stood around it singing... it made it through the roaring twenties, the great depression, both world wars, and traveled across the united states. that in and of itself makes it worth the money to me.
but the fact that now i have a piano to teach my kids to play on, to play primary songs with them, to re-teach myself some of my old favorites, to have music, our own plunked-out music in my house, now that's just priceless.

yes, those are my son's fingers inside that goat's mouth

the boy has no fear