Shopping with Elinor

Elinor has a bit of a unicorn obsession. She has a unicorn castle with five plush unicorns that live within. She has a walking unicorn with a light-up horn that makes magical sparkly sounds. Her pillow proudly sports a gaudy (Mama-made) unicorn pillowcase. And yes, she even has a ceramic unicorn. I'm sure a collaboration with Vladimir and his collection would be a wondrous thing for her.

Today our local fabric store was having a sale, so I took her over there to choose a backing for her next quilt. She was half asleep so I was mostly able to choose it by myself -- until we got to the cutting counter, unrolled three yards, and literally had the rotary cutter poised above the fabric and ready to go. Then she told us she didn't really like it and wanted to choose a different one. I wish I had a picture of my fabric choice. It was pretty adorable. I might have to go back for it.

Anyhow, we headed back to the racks and she immediately chose this one:

I, however, was not digging the unicorn-camo vibe it had going on and used my mommy powers to veto it. We ended up compromising with this one:

Yep. We came home with three yards of this beauty, which, honestly, I don't mind too much. It's a Masha D'yans design and I have to say I'm a new fan! I sorta want her 2015 calendar! I like that it's a tastefully designed, watercolor-esque depiction of what every four-year-old girl would want on the back of her quilt - unicorns and princesses.

And now, really quick, a few other snippets from my time spent with Elinor over the last few days:

Elinor's end of a conversation with Joseph at the dinner table: "Ha ha! I tricked you! I am a chicken with the face of a monkey!"

After crying big fat tears for a full half hour caused by thinking deep thoughts about death (her own and me and Joseph's), she suddenly stopped and said, "You know what, Mom? Plants don't need sandwiches."

And just this morning she told me she'd had a nightmare about a sandwich that was alive and chasing her but she'd rather not think about it so the conversation was short.

Maybe we've been eating too many sandwiches lately? I'll have to be more careful.

Friday in the Sun

Fridays are really great days. The kids get out of school at 12:45 so we feel so luxuriously rich in time throughout the rest of the day. Today Emi had a violin lesson at 1 (the teacher was waiting on our doorstep as we pulled into the driveway from school! Oops!). After that we sat around for a while and ate some food and then headed outside to enjoy the weather. Caleb brought me this teeny flower for my little froggy vase:

It sorta looks like the frog is vomiting hot pink petals, but I still like it.

 He also wrote me probably the strangest note I've ever received:

Corrected as well as possible for spelling and grammar: "Dear Amanda, I hope you are having a good time. Are you playing a game? I love playing games with my kids. It was nice of me to give you this note, but it is over. Bye." He put it in the mailbox, so maybe he was pretending to be another adult? Or maybe he thinks of Emily, Elinor, and Jacob as his kids. One thing I think we can all agree on, though, is that it was nice of him to give me this note. Too bad it's over.

While we were playing outside we washed the car. It was tricky because it kept drying so quickly in our bright California sun. Don't worry, you Utahns and Iowans. I'm sure there are ways to enjoy -10 degree weather too! :) There was some shrieking and running and soaking with the hose involved. After we all changed our clothes we headed out to Home Depot where I thought Emily's head would explode from excitement. She's been reading this book about gardening pretty much nonstop for the last couple of days so she had definite ideas about what we needed to buy to get ready for our garden. We ended up with a few little trowels, a couple of shovels, some bricks to complete our border, some topsoil, and some sandpaper for an unrelated project. As soon as we got home she and Elinor headed out back to start prepping the soil. It didn't matter to them that it was 5:30 pm and getting dark.

 Here's hoping this gardening thing works out. I'd better do some research of my own!

Always laughing

The kids are at such funny ages. They do things daily that make me laugh or just wonder about what is going on inside their heads. Today Jacob threw his shoe out the window while I was filling the car with gas and we almost drove away without it. Elinor was so cute in her earnestness as she was insisting that she saw him throw something out the window.

The other day Jacob saw this picture scroll through our screen saver

and he said, "There me are. I'm have it mine roll in mine hand." His grammar is all sorts of messed up right now but it's pretty entertaining and we usually understand what he needs, so mission accomplished, right?


While we were in Utah, Elinor asked for some ham and a bowl of oatmeal. (Random, but totally normal for our kids.) I asked her if she wanted them separate or if she wanted me to mix the ham into her oatmeal. She thought about it for a minute and then said, "Umm, no. Separate." And I said, "Oh, good. That would be a little bit gross." To which she immediately responded, "Yeah. Only sheep eat that."  Exactly, Elinor. Only sheep.


I was helping Jacob put his Wikki Stik man back together last week when one of the feet dropped to the floor. I reached down and grabbed it and he got really mad at me so I put it back on the floor. (We might be a little overindulgent with this fourth child of ours.) So then he sat down and proceeded to carefully take off one shoe, then the sock, stand back up, grab the little wax foot with his toes (after several tries), take it in his little hand, then pass it along to me, announcing "I'm have it in mine foot!" He was just oh-so-proud of the trouble he was able to save himself by grabbing the wikki stix with his toes instead of having to bend all the way over to pick it up with his hands. Atta kid.

Here's Jacob making himself comfortable across a bucket and into the pantry. Poor Elmo there was a casualty of the effort. The blue blanket is all he really needs for a good nap anyway.

Caleb and Elinor working on Explode the Code (best books ever!). Emi was super helpful today and worked with Caleb so I could do other things.

Lest you think that Jacob was left with nothing to do, here he is hard at work on Emily's piano theory.

Joseph and Jake spent a good hour playing with the dominoes on Sunday morning. Jacob loves to feel that he is a contributing member of the team.

Here is a shot of Emi's desk and shelves. I mostly wanted you to ignore the desktop - I swear we clean it off probably weekly! And that lamp is Joseph's  but we are working on getting one for her. But, I wanted to point out the awesome little piggy bank we found at Saver's the other day (left hand side of lower shelf) and the "I can do hard things" print on the top shelf. My aunt Sharon regularly has free printables on her website so I printed this for the girls' room and the boy version for Jacob and Caleb's room. It is perfect for our family because Joseph and I often tell the kids, "Coopers do hard things!" when they complain. We do it frequently enough that we have heard them reciting it to each other from time to time. It always makes us smile.

While we're on the subject of pictures, those Japanese postcards we hung a while back? We kept having issues with them UNTIL switching to those Command velcro strips for hanging pictures. So, just in case any of you are having a hard time hanging stuff, there ya go. Those Ribba frames (Ikea) are so hard to hang securely, but they are no match for 3m.

Ogden, here I come

I've been thinking about it for a while, and I finally did something about it:

Last night I signed up for the Ogden Marathon!

Immediately after I clicked 'submit' I freaked out a little bit and wondered what I had done (registration is non-transferable and non-refundable... what?!). But it's happening and I am sort of terrified. 26.2 miles is a really long way.

Thrifting

Thrifting/garage saling/Craigslisting are habits that I picked up while we were poor students with four kids. Now we're an average family but living in Silicon Valley, so that puts us back at being poor again. :( Even without that, though, my eyes have been opened to the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction of a good deal and I will never go back. Sometimes I splurge on stuff I love (okay, I maybe do this more than I should), but a lot of our stuff is high quality used stuff that we found at a great price. Here are a few of my favorite finds.

I LOVE this bed. I don't know what kind of wood it is or what brand it is, but I love how solid it is, I love the color (doesn't come through too well in this picture), and I love the shape of it. We got it for $200 and I know most beds of this quality would be around $2000 or more. Really. You just have to see it in person. It is perfection in a bunk bed.

This is the girls' bunk, which we found on Craigslist for $90. It is solid maple and has been perfect for the girls. El was sleeping on her old crib-converted to a toddler bed in the boys' room (by choice!) until we got this.

And this desk. It was free. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it is huge! Much bigger than we were originally looking for, but did I mention that it was free? It is solid wood and easily seats two side-by-side. Plus it has tons of storage. The aesthetic isn't exactly what we were going for, but it has been great to have around.

This desk. It is my dream desk. I love the legs, I love the detailing and the solid wood, I love the shape and that it curves in a bit in the middle, and I love the size. It just needs a little bit of work and I'm so excited to get started! This little beauty was just $15.

And another shot, just because.
I literally pet this desk every time I get out of the car and walk past it. And I might also talk to it.

These are Jake's shoes. All of them are from Goodwill or Savers and none of them cost more than $5. They are good looking shoes to begin with, but also great brands. The left ones are Sperry Top-Siders, the middle are Vans, and the right ones are Stride Rite. He vastly prefers the Vans even though they're a size too big. We've got a little skater on our hands!

Oh, and sometimes I sew stuff, but I don't think it saves us much money. These were the kids' Christmas jammies this year. I chose to not sew them for Joseph or myself because our pajama piles are getting a little out-of-control and because I was running short on time. But I love how they turned out! It was a simple McCall's or Simplicity pattern I already had from JoAnn and it was shockingly bug free. I had to sketch a pattern two sizes bigger for Em, but that worked out surprisingly well (she's getting big!). The girls are thrilled because they were requesting nightgowns this year, and I love how it coordinates loosely with the boys'. They are all made of super soft knit fabrics, which I was nervous about, but I just used a stretch stitch and they've held up well so far. If I was channeling Boden last year it was Hanna this year and I love it!

 Anyhoo, back to the thrifting, I mostly started this post because I'm loving some of our recent finds, but I just had to look around the room and scroll through a few pictures to realize that we have thrifted a LOT of stuff. El's bike, most of our Duplos and Thomas stuff, two of our dressers, oh, and this caned barrel chair that I love but have to reupholster:

And that clock up there on the wall behind it ($12!)

This chair is Elinor and Jacob's standard Caillou/Curious George/Daniel Tiger viewing spot every morning.

Also, my very favorite plates in the kitchen, Em's violin stand, Em's desk and shelves (one shelf in her room was rescued from the dumpster in Austin), the double stroller (which you can sort of see in the picture of my favorite desk), all of our lamps... the list just goes on and on... and on and on. It's pretty great.

This table and four chairs is one of our most frequently used finds. $40 on Craigslist!

In closing, here is a picture of Jacob that I just found and adore:

He is a monkey and the ultimate punk but we still love him.

Sticky Wiki

We got some wax craft sticks for Christmas.  I was a bit dubious about them, but we've had a lot of fun building things with them.

Rainbows were really popular.

The kids make some cool stuff.  Of course, we also end up with wax goop all over the place--no more surprises on the light switch down the hall!

But Jacob showed everyone how it's really done.

Family craft time is awesome time.

New Skirts

Elinor is growing and the girl loves her skirts. Luckily, I have a skirt pattern that we've loved and a big stack of fabric for her to peruse and choose from.
A couple of hours of work later...

Okay, so only the pink one on the right is new. BUT, I made the other two while we lived in Colorado and she has worn them like crazy! They're so easy to pull on with a t-shirt and a pair of tights that she reaches for them whenever they're clean. (Joseph and I call the yellow and turquoise one her cabbage skirt.) Here's another picture of the grey one that I've had in my "toblognow" file for literally over a year:

This one is made from a super soft jersey knit that I bought as a remnant from The Common Thread in Austin and saved for the right project. I sort of love it.

And this, reposted from May of 2014, is Emily sporting her skirt from this same pattern. She actually told me today (with no prompting) that this is currently her favorite skirt to wear.

I don't want to bore you with the details, but this pattern - a Favorite Little Things pattern called "Little Hip Skirts" - has been fabulous and is so versatile. There are four different skirts (I've only tried two - the pleated skirt and the circle skirt) and the size range is huge. It has from size 1 all the way up to size 13/14 so I plan to keep and use this for a few years yet.

I told Joseph tonight that I've had the pattern for a while and already made it three times, and the fabric has been in my stash forever, so it's like Elinor is getting a free skirt!! He didn't quite buy it, but I kind of love being able to whip something like this up when the kids need it.

Drunk Dialing

I've noticed that my late-night emails are always a bit less inhibited and a lot more regrettable than my normal daytime ones. Case in point:

Sent the night of Friday, Nov 21st
Subject: like three hours shading her upper lip

Hey [friend],

here's a sneak peak of what Aubrey has coming to her this Sunday!

xo 

amanda

PS - there's a lot more where this came from.  ... Too much? Okay, I'll stop.

And I attached a photo of a cute picture Elinor had drawn for her daughter.

Sadly, this is not the only email I have like this that I looked at the next morning and wondered WHY. Why do I do these things? I always know in the back of my mind I shouldn't email while in that state. It totally makes me think of drunk dialing and is yet another reason I am grateful I don't drink.

Snow Day

We were able to spend Christmas in Utah this year, and it was wonderful. The weather was great for the drive, and then we woke up to a beautiful, soft snow on Christmas morning. The following week was bitterly cold and windy, but the day itself was nice. The kids were delighted.

I thought this sequence of pictures was funny:

Loading up the sled.

Taking off.

Man overboard!

Wait, Dad, wait!

 Joseph's traditional sugar cookie house.

He and Emily spent a lot of time decorating this thing. The other kids lasted about 10 minutes. Jake only wanted to eat it.

All the kids enjoyed taking it apart and devouring it.

Jake loves this picture (and the previous) because he's on the table. And "candy reedee yummy!"