James rented a bike in Moab one day and took the point and shoot camera with him.

This is my brother Joe, doing what I would call, “facing certain death”. Probably what he would call, “a total blast!”

All of the shots James took on the small camera are now on his flickr site.

Another shot, this one of my brother Larry and Joe, taken by Larry:

(look, there’s lonely mountain down there!)

Click any of the photos for a bigger version. It’s worth it.

They call it “Castle Valley” because the round, lone mountain in the middle has rock formations on top that makes it look like a castle on a hill. You’d think that mountain would be named Castle Mountain, but no, it’s named Round Mountain. However, before we knew it’s name, as we were driving and driving and wondering where in the world our campsite was (we still had 40 minutes to go with lots of STEEP windy roads up the mountains), we dubbed it Lonely Mountain, because it was all alone in the middle of the valley.

Lonely Mountain, as one drives through the valley.

Even closer:

The valley wall also held this nifty rock formation:

We finally left the valley floor and began climbing the mountains. We were driving my sisters old Nissan Sentra, and boy, it had to work VERY hard.

Just barely climbing, lonely/round mountain on the left:

And then up a bit more…

And then we were winding around through the mountains so much, there wasn’t really a vantage point for any more photos.

This is up the road even further from our campsite:

You can just barely see lonely mountain peeping up there behind a slope in the middle.

It took a long time to climb the La Sal mountains to get to our campsite. And we drove back down them again every day to go to Arches or go into Moab, so we saw this valley a lot.

And it took my breath away every time.

Click for bigger version.

… for june.

i love this photo of my strawberries, but now every time i load up my site, i get hungry and all salivate-y.

I wanted to wax a bit more eloquent on the wonder that is my son in my post yesterday, but it was late and my eyeballs were about to drop out of my head and turn to dust on the floor.

So I postponed the mush until today.

MUSH ON!

Where do I start? When I think back to the early toddler days of Ethan, I remember the cuteness (he used to walk around and “drill” everything with his outstretched finger) but I also remember the moments of screaming, kicking, hitting, gouging, violent temper tantrums. Oh my, they were bad. They weren’t TOO often, and it wasn’t anything that wasn’t typical of a strong willed, very stubborn boy, but they required a lot of patience and cool-headedness. Things that you can only dole out so much of before it’s all used up and you turn into the Mommy From Hell. We had problems in school where he would sit in the office because of hitting another child, or his teacher. He would let his emotions rule him and once they ruled, he would do anything violent. Part of the problem was his teacher, while a sweet sweet lady, was a bit too nice. He needed a firm knowledge of the rules and the consequences for breaking them. It also didn’t help that there were a couple of other boys in his class that were just as strong willed as he was – the sum of those three boys was greater than each one alone.

I think back to those days because they are SOOOOO gone. He has matured into such a delightful boy. Strong willed, absolutely. Stubborn, hell yes. Plays super hard? Oh my yes. The boy can motor around a room pretending like he’s Lightning McQueen like nobody’s business. He comes home covered in dirt and tales of the playground, “WE FOUND A CATERPILLAR!” “WE BUILT A ROAD!” “WE RACED AND RACED AND RACED!” He is no longer ruled by his emotions. He can control his disappointment over something and totally knows how to rock a negotiation to get a decision overturned in his favor.

What constantly amazes me is the concern and empathy he shows for others. He shows such sweet protectiveness for his sister, sharing his toys and looking out for her behalf. Even as a toddler, when Jocelyn was a baby, he never showed the usual jealousy toward the new baby.

Shortly after Jocelyn turned 3, she moved to a different classroom. The 2 year olds have their own playground, and this change meant that she would be playing on the same playground that Ethan played on, with the big kids. A few days ago when I arrived on the school playground to pick them up, instead of running at me like a freight train, Ethan first ran over to Jocelyn to let her know I was here. So sweet. (Then he ran at me like a freight train.)

On Wednesday, his actual birthday, we took some cupcakes in to his class for birthday consumption at snack time. There were 12 cupcakes, and only about 9 kids. When I arrived to pick them up, there was one left. One that he had insisted be saved for Jocelyn. Every teacher I passed on my way to the playground to get them told me about how he had saved a cupcake for her.

When Jocelyn was sick with strep the weekend before last, he was so helpful and offered her everything he could think of to make her feel better. He ran to his bed and fetched his “warm blankey” and even gave her his pookie bear (most prized possession ever) to cuddle.

He loves to run at me like a freight train and knock me over with a big bear hug. However, once I was sitting on his bed, and bonked my head on his headboard in the process. So now, every time he does it, he slows down at the end and instead of putting his arms around me in a hug, he lifts one hand to hold the back of my head to make sure it doesn’t get hurt.

Last summer, we had a fun finger/toenail painting party that both kids enjoyed. I think he must have heard something about his pink fingernails at school, because every time I paint nails and offer to paint his, he refuses and says, “That’s for GIRLS!” I didn’t really make any comment, but I worried about his self image and any damage it might suffer from other kids’ comments. He is such a stubborn, strong willed guy that I want him to be able to do what he wants and who cares what anyone else thinks, and over the last year I’ve seen more and more signs that that is the case. He lets me paint his nails again now this year.

As we were leaving school once, someone called him a baby for carrying a stuffed animal (pookie bear) and he didn’t hardly blink. “I’m not a baby. I love pookie bear.”

Since my hair’s been pink, pretty much every day I pick up or drop off, I get other kids saying, “Your hair is pink!” or more commonly, “Why did you make your hair pink?!” One day Ethan turned to the questioner and stated, “Because she WANTED TOO!” in an exasperated tone.

Ethan has decided he loves pink, even though it is, as he says, “a girl color.” He doesn’t wear it or anything, but when cups and/or plates are handed out, he loves it when his cup/ bowl/ plate is pink, and we have to alternate who gets to have the “all pink” sippy cups between him and Jocelyn.

It is so wonderful to see him growing up into such a sweet, secure, caring individual, just like his daddy. I hope the next five years don’t come too quickly.

– amy turns the mush off now.

Yesterday, my baby turned 5 years old.

I still can’t beleive it.

In the morning, Ethan often gets up, wanders into our room and pokes us with his pookie bear. If it’s the weekend, we grunt, murmur something about it being too early, and roll over.

Ethan then will go downstairs for some quiet play time by himself. We will often come down to see all of the brilliant things he has built/ drawn/ concocted/ orchestrated:

Shall we look closer?

Block castle

Drawing…

WITH popsicle stick glued/taped to the bottom for a handy handle! For easy turning over to see the opposite side!
(He gets that ‘i must make a face when the camera is pointed at me’ from me)

And of course, the planes waiting by the runway. And don’t forget the gasoline truck, so they can tank up. And the toys r us truck, for… you know. Toys.

I’m looking back on the year of blogging and quite frankly, I suck. I used to at least post some photos several times a week which maybe kind of sort of made up for the not writing regularly. So, I’m going to try to remedy that. First up is some of the craftiness that’s been going on in our house.

Freezer stenciling on t-shirts. I have photos of the process for Jocelyn’s but only the finished product of Ethan’s. I used angry chicken’s freezer stencil tutorial to make these.

Here’s the stencil for Jocelyn’s shirt.

Next, I put the freezer paper over it, shiny side down, and traced it. Then I had to cut it out. This is probably the most time consuming part. Then, I ironed it onto Jocelyn’s blank t-shirt.

Then Jocelyn and I got to painting. (This was taken several weeks ago. You can see how I caved to kid pressure and put a little pink streak in her hair. OK, I’m lying. I caved because I totally wanted to do it! However, you’ll see later, in the photo I took this morning, how it’s pretty much disappeared now. It gave her several weeks of pure bliss. You can also see in this picture how pink haired ladies should never wear orange shirts!)

After painting, I set the shirt aside to dry. By the next morning, it was dry and I tossed it in the dryer to heat set it, and she wore it that day.

I did Jocelyn’s shirt first, because I pretty much knew what we wanted. After hers was drying, I asked Ethan what we should put on a shirt for him. He gave me a blank look. Jocelyn has a shirt that says, “My daddy loves me,” so drawing for something, ANYTHING, I suggested, “How about ‘I love my daddy?'”

He shook his head, thought a minute, and then said, “I love TRUCKS!”

“Should we put that on your shirt?”

“YEAH!”

I thought that sounded a little boring, but then I got the idea to take one of his drawings of a truck, and use that as well.

I took the purple truck, got rid of the line/road at the bottom, and made it part of the stencil.

So here is the finished results, of both shirts, taken this morning in front of their school (notice how the pink is now gone):

you know, we all have our little vices to get us through the day. i’m sure others out there share one of mine – reading blogs.

here is another. it started out simple enough. just a quick purchase at the register at the checkout. I love me some altoids, and these looked pretty tasty. so i bought some.

Altoids Tangerine Sours. They are goooooood. I pop one in my mouth 2 or 3 times a day, and they last a week or two. Yum.

So, the next time I stood in line at the register and saw these, I grabbed a tin. I mean, who can resist altoids? They’re curiously strong!

Mmmmmm, Mango! Yummy yummy mango! How did they know? Mango is my very favorite fruit!

Of course, when those were gone, more were purchased.

I was hooked. And so of course, came these:

Now, I must say, that these aren’t actually my favorite. (Mango holds that title.) But they do seem to be more readily available at the checkout line. So my raspberry tin collection grew.

Now, I must confess, that these have been bought and consumed over several months, some probably were eaten back in 2006 and I just never threw away the tin. (Surely something crafty and cool can be done with these empty tins, right? RIGHT!)

But a few days ago.. I found something new.

Something truly irresistable.

Something chocolatey and altoidy all at the same time.

Oh, beautiful tasty dark chocolate dipped mints. You are the first brown altoid tin to take up residence on my desk, and I know you won’t be the last. OMGWTFBBQ this is the best altoid idea EVER! And they make them in 3 different flavors. Peppermint (shown blurrily above), ginger and cinnamon!

I know I will have to resist buying more of these right away.. I bought this tin just a few days ago.. and already..

… ALL GONE. Oh altoids, I CAN’T QUIT YOU! Since I obviously cannot practice restraint with these about, I’ll have to practice restraint in their purchase.

Oh, but they’re so very good.

So, this leaves me to confess another way I pass the time during the day.

Occasionally, I take camera phone pictures of the random shit on my desk during lunch and post them on the internet.

-amy is the originally celebrated curiously strong AMY.

Oh boy, where to begin? What a fantastic weekend it was.

EVERYONE’S FINE

The weekend actually started for the kids, on Thursday. Jocelyn was up all night coughing and fiddling around Wednesday night, so much that I thought she must be really sick. So James took the kids in to school and let both teachers know that I would be picking them up around noon to take Jocelyn to the doctor. Well, it turned out our pediatrician was only open until 11am, which meant I needed to get Jocelyn there by 10.30, which meant I needed to pick them up by 10. The only reason we sent them in anyway was because Jocelyn had her Easter party and we didn’t want her to miss it. So I took them to the doctor, Jocelyn got examined and she’s fine, just a cold. Their school was closed on Good Friday (James stayed home with them then), so they had a very long weekend!

SINGING

Friday night performance was fantastic. Oh, can I tell you how much I love the music we sang? So beautiful! It’s sooooo good. I’m so sad that it’s over and now we won’t be working on it in rehearsal anymore. We had a pretty good turnout, and it went really well.

SATURDAY CRAFTINESS

Saturday Jocelyn and I went and did some errands in the morning, and James took Ethan to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum (it’s near Dulles airport in VA instead of downtown DC). All accounts given pointed to them having a fabulous time, with a stop at an ice cream shop before getting back home to top it off. Jocelyn and I did some boring things. Bank. Pick up pictures. Stop at grocery store. I made the mistake of commenting to her earlier that morning, that her dress-up dress was getting too small, and we’d have to get a bigger one. One should never say this until one is ready to go out THAT MOMENT to get a new dress, because everywhere half hour, she said, “Will they have a bigger dress here?” “Are we going to get me a bigger dress now?” etc. I decided that if I waited until after Easter, then all those fancy easter dresses would be on sale, I could get her one that is too big (perfect for dressup) and I should wait until then. Plus, I bought a little girl dress pattern with a gift certificate that Anna gave me for my birthday (ain’t she sweet??) and I thought I should get busy on that as well.

So we got back home (sans new bigger dress) and put up some Jocelyn photographs in her room. I had some up long ago, took them down when we painted it, and then the pictures got carried off, taken out of the frames, and otherwise mangled, so it was time to get those back up. Jocelyn loves to look up at the photos and say, “That’s me, JOCELYN!”

Then I started on another project I’ve had in the back of my mind for a long time. I’ve wanted to try freezer stenciling, and even had bought blank tshirts for the kids in preparation for it. So today was the day. I traced the stencil onto freezer paper, cut it out with a kitchen knife (oh exacto! where art thou?) ironed it on to her shirt, and then we both sat down and painted it in. I reread all the directions later, and found that I actually did the painting wrong – you’re supposed to DAB, not STROKE, and Jocelyn and I stroked. You’re also supposed to use very thin layers, and well, we just globbed it on. It turned out fantasticly though, and I set it in the dryer the next morning, and then Jocelyn wore it all morning until she spilled water all down the front. It is just the cutest little shirt ever, in my opinion. I may make one for me. I don’t have a picture of her wearing it yet, but here is the stencil:

When Ethan was home, I asked him what he wanted on a shirt for him, and he kind of gave me a blank look.

“boys rock?” I asked.
more blank looks.
Jocelyn has a shirt that says, ‘My daddy loves me,’ so then I suggested, “How about ‘I love my Daddy?”
Finally, an opinion, “NO, I love TRUCKS!”

So an “I love trucks” shirt is in the works next. I have the stencil all cut out ready to be ironed on, but I need to get a blank shirt for him. The one I had was deemed unacceptable, because it is yellow. “BLANK MEANS WHITE MOMMY!”

Sunday was more crazy project fun. On a much bigger scale. Earlier that week, Ethan verbalized some thought processes to me, while we were in Jocelyn’s room.

ROOM SWAPPEROO

Ethan: “I slept in this room with Jocelyn before.”
Mommy: “You mean when Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Larry visited?”
E: “Yeah. In a SLEEPING BAG!” (they didn’t visit in a sleeping bag. he slept in a sleeping bag. because uncle larry was in his bed)
M: “Ahhh, yup.”
E: “And this room used to be mine.”
M: “Yes, it was, when you were a little little boy.”
E: “I could sleep in here with Jocelyn again. We could share it.”
M: “You mean move your bed in here?”
E: “YEAH! Like CHARLIE AND LOLA!”
m: “Then what would we do in your room?”
e thought about this a minute.
e: “We could make it a toy room!”
m: “You know, I could really go for this idea.”

I mentioned it a few more times to both Jocelyn and Ethan, told them maybe we could try it out for a while and see how it goes, brought up other “problems” as I thought of them, just to see what solution Ethan would think of (“What about naptime?” “I can be very quiet mommy, I can sleep during naptime”). Sunday morning, I thought, “Why not?” and so me and the kids got to work re-arrancing Jocelyn’s room to accomodate Ethan’s bed. We left his dresser in his room, cleared out 2 drawers in Jocelyn’s dresser, moved in his bed and his clothes. They were SO excited and pleased to have both their beds in the same room, and they had a blast in the new “toy room.” Jocelyn brought her dress up clothes, and we put them in the closet, and said, “Now it’s your dress up closet!” Ethan hauled his geotrax train stuff up the stairs all by himself (and let me tell you, it’s a lot, and it’s heavy) and got straight to work making a train layout. James and I got a bunch of laundry folded in relative peace while they played to their hearts content.

It reminded me of when I was younger and my sister and I rearranged our rooms on a weekly basis, sometimes even switching rooms with each other for a few weeks and then switching back. Of course, I was 14 and my sister Susan was 10, not the toddlers my kids are, but it was fun, and why not? 🙂

CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN

Sunday night we had some frantic house cleaning on the main level and I’m happy to say my sanity is saved for yet another week becuase it’s all relatively clean. If we get it clean Sunday night, then it usually stays pretty clean all week. On the other hand, if we DON’T get it clean, it’s a disaster, and it stays a disaster all week, and it really makes me pretty depressed.

Today Jocelyn starts in a new classroom. She moves up from the 2 year old class to the 3 year old class, which means not only a new teacher, new friends, etc. but she gets to go play on the BIG playground! She is very excited about this, and Ethan is too. He has already told her how he will show her all around the playground and play with her. It’s very sweet. Sunday evening, she came over to me and said, “I want to go to school,” and was somewhat distraught that she would have to wait all the way until MORNING to go to her new class.

Ahhhh.. it was a lovely weekend. The lovliest I’ve had in a long time.

-amy: established 1873, natural spring amy.