Hard to believe such an AWFUL picture of Ethan…

Could be SO DARN CUTE.

Jocelyn’s didn’t turn out quite so well… I need to retake her picture and make sure her body is turned also. Still cute though:

… my brother Larry, has started a blog:

He and my brother Joe participated in The 24 hours of LeMons race a month or so ago.

The 24 Hours Of LeMons is a 2 day, 14 hour car race, held at a race track, and restricted to cars that are worth roughly $500 or less. […] It was the most thrilling experience of my life. It was incredibly intense and outrageously entertaining. It was like being in a Mad Max movie.

How Joe convinced Larry to join the fun:

Some months previously Joe, my youngest brother, had sent me a link to a video article on the first 24 Hours Of Lemons. It looked like great fun. Yes I wanted to do it. Yes really. Yes enough to help fund a car. I knew better than to think this was one of the half-ass schemes Joe would lose interest in. His history demonstrates the crazier the scheme, the more likely Joe will follow through to the end.

Truer words have never been said of my brother Joseph. They drove an old Toyota MR2. Here it is, with Larry as the cake topper:

It was like playing Tetris with your body parts (not in a sexy way). At some point your ass juts awkwardly out the door as you unfold the rest of yourself into the seat.

I’m not all that much in to cars and racing, and figured I would skim through the few posts about the race that he put up… but I read every word until I was done. Exciting stuff!

Welcome to the blogosphere, Larr!

I don’t know why I freak out about this every year (and it always seems to be right around this time of year, too) but Jocelyn is freaking tall. SHE’S TAAAALLL. 4T pants still fits her, but it seems like her tummy (still big baby tummy) is showing from all her shirts being just a bit too snug, so I got her a bunch of new 5T shirts when I was at Target the other day. FIVE-TEE. SHE IS ONLY THREE YEARS OLD! The kids had a “thanksgiving brunch” at their school last week, Ethan’s was on Monday and Jocelyn’s was on Tuesday. The parents came, everyone eats some fruit and cheese, and then each age group got up to sing some Thanksgiving songs. Jocelyn was a good FIVE inches taller than anyone in her class. My sweet little amazon! 🙂

I also got her hair trimmed by a professional this weekend. I seem to weeble wobble between wanting to get her hair cut into a short bob and leaving it alone, and I don’t make anything better by constantly asking her (constantly = once every couple weeks) if we should cut her hair. She really goes with however I phrase it (Should we cut your hair?-YES! Should we leave it long?-YES!), but I think she likes her hair long, so I am trying to restrain myself. The trim did her a lot of good though, the ends were getting a bit ratty, and Mommy doesn’t do the best job at trimming the bangs. It looks much cleaner and the slightly too-short bangs (which will be fine in about 2 seconds, her hair grows so fast) is very sweet.

More on Thanksgiving later!

both for thanksgiving (omg tomorrow!) and christmas crafting:

1. finish the thanksgiving grocery shopping (i have most of it, just a few bits left)
2. finish recovering my chairs – I just realized that we are going to NEED them to sit on around the table! They won’t actually be *finished* because they’ll need piping, but I can still make them serviceable by tomorrow.
3. do prep cooking for tomorrow.

Now the fun list! Christmas crafting:

1. Gumdrop wreath

image and tutorial by alicia from posy gets cozy
– Have the wreath form, need to get wire and gumdrops

2. elf clogs

picture and tutorial by Jenny B from All Sorts
– have felt, have floss, need pom-poms – maybe make my own? not sure i have proper colored yarn

3. hot pads
no pattern, no author, i figure i can manage these with little trouble. If I like how they turn out, I may make them as presents for family

4. silhouettes of my family
– need to get pictures of everyone in profile

5. cork board/inspiration board for over my table
– need to get cork, need to decide what i actually want to do.. simple cover cork board with fabric? or maybe something fancier?

6. amy butler’s gumdrop pillows

– we need ottoman’s in front of the sofa in the basement and I was thinking these woudl be a fun alternative.
– need everything to do these, including pattern, fabric, stuffing. it’s kind of low priority.

7. my martha stewart christmas crafts from michaels:

And gosh darn it if the one i REALLY want is never in stock:

so cute!

-amy

… since I’m feeling a little bit guilty for spending recently (nothing major*, but amy ruppel christmas stuff at target, martha stewart stuff at kmart, more martha stewart at michaels, some stuff off of ebay (christmas is coming, get off my back!) and let’s just say that’s not the end of the story and leave it at that, ok? i do have a marriage to sustain here, and you know the key to that is SECRECY AND LIES AND HIDING THE EVIDENCE SO MUM’S THE WORD), I would like to show you some things that I managed to NOT BUY, even though the item(s) BEGGED me, LEAPT into my cart (online or physical) and yet I DID NOT PURCHASE.

First off, this was actually in my target cart, and I DID NOT BUY IT. I got to the checkout, and put it aside. NOW THAT’S WILLPOWER PEOPLE.

FLOR at Target is just so mean. I mean, they KNEW it would be SO HARD TO RESIST. Poopyheads. *pout*

The aforementioned Amy Ruppel print over at ReForm School.

the white 5×5 expedit bookcase from Ikea. I’ve been watching for this sucker on craigslist for the last 4 months and there’s been birch, there’s been black-brown, there’s been 4×4 but NO 5X5 IN WHITE. I admit, I would own this now if James hadn’t have talked me down off the ledge. I can wait. It will show up on craigslist. I CAN WAIT– she says testily.

Now if you have a 5×5 white expedit bookcase and are ready to move it along.. please contact me!

Oh and then there’s the fabric…

I add it to my cart, but then never check out.

even though i want them..

nay.. I NEED THEM..

I MUST HAVE THEM!!

ARGH!

And finally,

LOOK AT THE SWEETNESS!!

I am kind of sort of hamming it up with all the other stuff, but I seriously had to bite my tongue down.. HARD.. to not order these. And I may give in. Alicia from Posie Gets Cozy is selling these sweet “Santa Lucia and Attendants
Clothespin Dollmaking” kits for only $20, and they would a) be awesome fun to make with the kids and b) look great on my mantelpiece (along with my martha stewart snowy village from michaels *cough*) I am aching for it a little bit. I only have a little while longer to waffle about it though, before they’re gone for good – so you go get some now, won’t you?

The sad thing is there is more that I have managed to not buy that I’m not telling you. Some things which sound kind of crazy, like polyfill in bulk. It’s hard, but I managed to not buy it.

I just want credit for my amazing will power for these things! Is that so much to ask??

that is all.

-amy is a huge talent. she’s kind of a big deal**

*a SKRUVSTA chair off of craigslist for $50 isn’t major, right? RIGHT? RIGHT?!!? I need it to put my yvestown cover pattern to use! Which I’ll of course need to buy fabric for! At least the pattern was purchased some time ago.

**isn’t that guy on Project Runway just WEIRD?! I can’t tell whether I love him or hate him!

… posting .. not every day, but quite often. I guess I haven’t really blown that yet.. (have I? I’m not even sure. You have no idea how often I look at my *own* archives, how sad is that?) I had kind of an eye on nablopomo .. like a “if it happens it happens, i’ll try to post a lot” sort of an eye. I knew it wouldn’t really happen on the weekends, but I’d see how I could do. Seriously though, don’t you think there’s a better month than November? There’s SO MUCH SHIT going on in november! They should pick .. you know… february for this. when we’re all winter blah and need more blog posts than normal just to get us through the month! Ahh well.

So Jocelyn’s blankey is a big big hit. I finished it and then laid it on her before I went to bed, and she came into our room the next morning dragging it behind her with a big grin on her face. WHICH NEVER HAPPENS. the grin part. Not the coming to our room part. She does that often. She is OFTEN a sour grumpy puss in the morning, so it was a pleasant change. She likes it a lot. I must say, I do too!

So next week is Thanksgiving. Holy Cow. I mean really, how did this happen? My brother James and his family just moved to Virginia (as in, they arrived 3 days ago) and this is the first time I’ve had family on this side of the mississippi since I first moved out here (here=east side of the US, not specifically VA) (which has been…. oh.. 11 years now! Leapin’ Lizards!) So this is very cool, and they will of course be coming over for Thanksgiving. Not just arrive on the day and eat politely and leave by 5pm.. I’m expecting them and their 4 boys (all between the ages of 4 and 13) to descend with sleeping bags and voracious appetites and running and playing and possibly some bones breaking in there and OOHHH I JUST CAN’T WAIT!

Except that yes, I can, because there’s a zillion things to do before now and next week! OMG 1 week exactly! Scary! We still need to get the basement situated with the final details, the guest room needs some help, and then there’s the general cleaning and tidying and decluttering and do you think they’ll mind if we have candycorn decorations up still? Actually, I know they won’t, but *I* will and hey, that’s what matters so there’s another thing on the list. And that’s not even counting the food planning that needs to happen!

Well I’m off to freak out some more and maybe get some stuff done.

AND WATCH PROJECT RUNWAY YIPPEEEE OMFGWTFBBQ!! so excited over here.

carry on,
-amy

ps – yeah, i’m silly in the head. i havent’ blown it. i just posted 3 days in a row! go me!

flower stitch detail:

Also made a pillow:

and 2 christmas pillowcases

it’s the 9th, so it’s ’bout time, eh?

Ahem. Hi.

While I am still swimming in a blue sea, my head is firmly above water now, and only dips back down occasionally, which makes the previous post very embarassing to me. Not that it’s not real, or not true, but just in that morning after, “Did I really put underwear on my head and dance around on the table last night? Did anyone see??” sort of way . . . So now I have this “must post something so it’s not right there” blogging urgency, and so here goes.

I have to admit, I am getting all Christmas itchy. And it’s no use to just refuse to acknowledge Christmas until after Thanksgiving, because by then all the good stuff (hello Amy Ruppel window clings at target!!!) is gone and you mourn not getting them the day after halloween because hello! it’s a day after halloween and i refuse to acknowledge Christmas yet! and then you finally acknowledge it already and the amy ruppel stuff is gone and you are bummed.

So yes, that’s a long way to tell you, I got the Amy Ruppel window clings yesterday at target when picking up new shoes for Ethan. They are BEAUTIFUL. I feel a deep need to run back and buy 5 more to never ever open and just look at longingly and then maybe sell on ebay in 50 years. I mean seriously. AMY RUPPEL! I saw them and I had kind of heard an amy ruppel + target murmur on one of the crafty/design blogs i read, but I feel like this was not given the appropriate trumpeting it should have. AMY RUPPEL is doing the illustrations for the Target 2007 season — those little decorations on the website – Amy Ruppel. The in store decorations – Amy Ruppel. The window clings, and I beleive there are some gift bags (which my target didn’t have, and I am going to go HUNT SOME DOWN) – yes yes, that’s right, Amy Ruppel.

Apart from the sweet little holly leaves and ornamentation that is on the target.com website itself (all amy ruppel) i can’t find any actual PRODUCTS, which then i can snag and post here to show you, so let me just show you this mural she did on the wall at the newly opened Rare Device store in San Francisco:

Amy Ruppel wall mural at Rare Device, via design*sponge – she posted more rare device photos here.

Amy Ruppel’s paintings go on sale on her website about once a month, in the range of $90-120, so as far as art goes, this is very reasonable and we should definitely have some in our home. My excuse – I never get to any of it in time to buy some, and even though as far as original art is concerned, it’s very afforadable, it’s more money then I really want to spend.. There are some even more affordable methods though, for example, she is Student of the Month along with Sally Shim over at ReForm School, where you can get this print for $35:

They have got some other really cool stuff over there too, so check it out.

So I digress – Amy Ruppel at Target! I’m going to get a gift bag, and then i’m going to freaking FRAME IT!

OK, so yes, I’m a little excited. Just like I was last year over all the Tord Boontje stuff at Target. If I was delicate, I would SWOON!

Tomorrow we have our last soccer game and then the awarding of the kids there soccer medals. Jocelyn is VERY EXCITED. Last spring when Ethan got his, she wanted one SO BADLY that we went home and I covered a circle of cardboard with tin foil and ran some ribbon through it for her. This year, she can’t wait to get her hands on her own REAL medal.

Monday is a day off for me, but not for James or the kids, so I am going to have to decide how to spend my beautiful day all to myself. Sewing pillowcases? Sewing a quilt for jocelyn (haven’t even started yet)? Seeing a movie? Going and checking out the newly opened Marcel Breuer: Design and Architecture exhibition at the National Building Museum? Sleep in until noon and wear jammies all day?

OH DECISIONS DECISIONS!!

-amy swoons anyway.