Snapshot Sunday

How could it be spring in the South without azaleas?

Littlest Pet Shops get an ice bath

"Watch out, Mama! I am squirting water!"

Croton

My kingdom for a Lion Bar...mmm...

See Sarah to play!

Blech.....

I found this posted on a freecycle list today :

My oldest son lost his privileges for having a tv in his room. Forever, unless he earns the money to buy a new one. Don't ask.

It just made me really sad for the boy. His mom actually gave his TV to someone on Freecycle against his wishes. And then wrote about it! That seems like such a cruel, petty thing to do. Whenever I hear stories like this I always think about how I would feel if my hubby (or even a friend) did the same thing to me. I would be furious if he gave away our TV without asking me. I would lose trust in him and in our relationship. I would feel more possessive of my stuff, for fear that he might take something else away from me without notice. I certainly wouldn't feel inclined to share my possessions, time or emotions with him.

I am so glad that in our house this wouldn't really happen. It just struck me because it is so far removed from something that would happen here. Blech.....

Snapshot Sunday--Easter edition

Easter basket in the morning


Tulips


A friend in the garden



After the Hunt
Eating the spoils

See Sarah to play

Snapshot Sunday

Here is a glimpse of our day.

A little around the house and a visit to the Renaissance Faire to see my hubby.
flutterby
Stars Wars and super heroes
Ian's getting taller!
Ian got to do the Tin Man dance with the knights...
and was thrilled with himself afterward.

See Sarah to play!

Snapshot Sunday

Thanks to Sarah for the idea!

Five people contest thingy from Mama P!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. I will try to make these tailored to those five people. The restrictions and limitations:
*I will make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
*What I create will be just for you.
*You will have no clue what it will be
*The catch is that you have to post this as well, if you expect me to do something for you.
*I have to be able to afford the postage, if you live out of country. :)

Please link to your blog, if I don't know you, in case we are new friends.

Science Fair!

Okay, so first off I have to admit that I was really excited about coming up with a project and participating in the science fair.

Ian and I (well, mostly me really) got our idea from reading through a Usborne book about Ecology. I found this sidebar: The sidebar talked about the presence of lichen and how it indicated the air quality in a given area. I got to thinking about it and wondered how much lichen we had at our house in the Raleigh area compared to my in-laws' house in Murphy (in the NC mountains). It also happened to be an extremely convenient project since I spent the last 10 days at their house!

First, I took pictures of lichen in Murphy: I noted that I really didn't find much lichen on live trees. The really leafy colorful lichen that indicates good air quality was exclusively on dead tree material. In fact, most of the pictures that I took were from the fence posts in the horse corral. We breathed easy in Murphy knowing that we had clean air.

When we got back home we surveyed the trees in our backyard. The only tree that had any lichen on it was alive. It was a silver maple that is probably 50 years old. I checked some dead limbs from the yard but they had no lichen. This leads me think that we have fairly polluted air here in Raleigh. We had a bit of the leafy stuff but almost no lichen at all on the newer trees and bushes. Yikes!

It was fun to take a small blurb in a book and really run with it and think about how it applies to our everyday life. Thanks for the great idea, Iain and Evie!!

Happy Birthday Ian!

Tap, tap, is this thing on?

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I have just been really busy and crappy about writing.

In Februaury I scrambled to get all my doula reading done before my training at the end of the month. I also made it through my first Jensen D-Day fairly unscathed.

In March I spent a week with Ian and my father-in-law while my MIL was in NYC. I spent another week without internet service since we just ported our home phone number to one of our cell phones and so we had no line for DSL until AT&T could come out and fix it.

Today is a special day though because Ian is 4!

I can't believe my son is already four. He has so many wonderful ideas about life and the world. He likes "mushroom kisses" (a term he coined...I am still not 100% sure what it means) but he doesn't want me to kiss hurts anymore. He likes to be the leader but he still likes to hold my hand and stick by my side in new situations. He adores his dad but he still calls his room "Mama and my room."

I am so lucky to have him in my life. He keeps me on my toes and helps me want to be a better person. He melts my heart when he says, "Mom, we're best friends for-EVER!"

His Spiderman birthday party is on Saturday. This is the first year he has wanted to have a party with friends. We bought a bounce house. I think it will be fun.

I'm a DIT!

No, not a ditz, a dit! That's a doula-in-training. I just mailed off my registration today for my doula training which will take place in February. I just lined up the childbirth class that I need to audit before I take my training. I just checked out all the books on my reading list that I don't already own. I feel like things are falling into place.

I have been toying with the idea of becoming a doula (and maybe eventually a midwife) for a little while now. It has been in the back of my mind-something I didn't even want to consider seriously since I lacked the confidence to go ahead with it. Right around Christmas I started thinking about it again and it just seemed like the right time to go for it.

I have always been the type of person who let myself get bogged down by the what-ifs and doubts in my head. I really thought about this and tried to keep my head out of the decision to go ahead and get certified. I love babies and moms and this is a way for me to help new moms and babies get a good start together. It can be really part-time and it is something I can stop doing for a while if I need to, and then I can pick it up and easily get re-certified.

I'm pretty excited (and also a tiny bit anxious) about this new venture. Everyone I have told has been super-supportive. My mom told me that I seemed born for this kind of work! Having a lot of folks backing me up feels really good.

These guys will always be my first priority. I feel so lucky every day to have them in my life.

According to Ian

You don't really think these sweet little animals would hop in a Transformers spaceship and try to take over the world, do you? Nah, me neither.

Holiday stress and photo play

There's not too much going on at Chez I Candy besides the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas! I have all my out of town packages shipped, the presents are wrapped, Christmas cards are sent, and most of the laundry (but none of the packing) is done. I always manage to get pretty stressed before Christmas but I am relived when it is almost here and most of the work is done for better or for worse.

So I didn't make handmade cards this year, that's okay. The extra time was another moment that I could spend connecting with my family. I didn't make those cookies that I wanted to try this year, oh well, that's something to look forward to next year.

Buck turned 38 on Monday. He requested a yellow cake with vanilla frosting. I didn't realize until right before we sang and did candles that we are missing an "8" candle so I had to do 35 and add 3 single candles. It looked pretty sad....

One thing I have been doing lately is playing with my camera. Jensen had a DSLR and since we talked photography a lot I knew he would want me to have it. I don't have the manual or the software that goes with it but I am slowly learning how to use it. Ian has been a patient model for me while I play around.

Merry Christmas!

Holy crap! I saw Rachael Ray!

Last night we went to a book signing for Rachael Ray's new book (Just in Time). Buck's cousin (CC) is crazy about her and so she and her mom drove seven hours to see her.

The signing started at 7:30ish and the line-up started at 6, so by the time we got our stuff signed and we were on the way home it was 8:20. We were put into 3 groups to wait for a signature, and we were lucky enough to be in the first group. I felt sorry for everyone waiting when I saw how the line snaked all over the store!

Rachael was really chatty and nice and she told CC that she was beautiful which made her day. Rachael is really cute and looked just the same in person as on TV. I only managed to get crappy pictures because I had to stand about 20' away and behind a stanchion to take pictures. The fluorescent lights didn't help matters.

Rachael shook CC's hand as we left the signing. On the way to the car CC said, "I have Rachael Ray on my hand. I am never going to stop sniffing it!" She always makes me laugh my ass off....

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas!

We bought our tree last night and spent the evening decorating the tree and the house. The Advent calendar is filled with treats, the stockings are hung (by the chimney with care), the lights are up inside.

I can't for the life of me seem to get a decent picture of my Christmas tree. I did get a picture of my most favorite part of the tree though-my garland.

When I was a little girl we lived in the same town as my grandparents and so we spent Christmas morning at our house and then went to "Fort Evergreen" as my Grandpa called their place, in the afternoon. I loved to dance around their living room, admiring the decorations and especially the candy garland on the Christmas tree. It looked like lifesavers and of course I had to taste it just to make sure it wasn't real. It is plastic, glittery, kinda tacky and was probably made in the 60s but nothing says Christmas to me like that garland on my tree! When my grandma died 3 years ago it was one of the only things I asked for from the house.

This weekend Buck will have his annual "Rednecks on the roof" party. This is when he dons a "Buckzilla" shirt and a bunch of his friends come over to drink beer, eat NC barbecue, and listen to redneck Christmas music while putting our lights up on the roof and around the house.

We enjoyed a marvelous day with Evie and her boys today. I was treated to Iain the Human Pretzel:


and Luigi:










Ian and I had such a good time with our friends. Iain and Ryan always play so well with Ian even though he is younger than they are. They hunted zombie aliens and played with castles and legos and all kinds of fun stuff. Ryan and Ian invaded Evie's jewelry box for magic rings and artifacts and she was so patient and generous with them to let them use her pretty things.

Evie and I got to chat for a long time which was so fun for me. It is wonderful to have a friend who is an unschooler like me since I don't seem to know many at home. I just wish we lived closer to each other so we could meet up more than once every month! Thanks for inviting us, Evie.

Happy Birthday Jensen

Today would have been my sweet brother's 33rd birthday. I still can't believe that he's not here to celebrate it. I bought him a card. I felt weird not getting one this year-like it would mean denying that he ever existed if I didn't. I don't know what I will do with it though.

I am really sad today and missing Jensen like crazy. I got one of those birthday reminder e-mails today for Johnson O. He must have filled it out that way a long time ago and so I got a chuckle out of it. He was always doing stuff like that.

My sister sent me the CD of his funeral (did you know they record funerals now? I didn't). I haven't listened to it yet but it reminded me of some funny stories people have told about him. One friend talked about a day they were going to the mall as teenagers. They drove to our house to get Jensen and he came out wearing shorts and he had shaved vertical stripes on his legs just to make his friends laugh. Another guy told about a time in college when they were sitting around in the cafeteria. Jensen walked pretending he had a racket on his shoulder and said, "Anyone for squash?" in an overdone British accent. The guy who told the story was looking for a name for his band at the time so he chose Anyone for Squash.

I guess the worst part of today is that I am gaining on Jensen. For as long as I've been alive he has been around and he was always my older brother. I am still 2 years behind but pretty soon I won't be. I think my 33rd birthday will be really hard because then I will be older than he ever was. My life will move on and I will get older and he will always be young. It seems wrong to me.

From the first time I saw him (I don't have a picture of that) to the last time I saw him (I do, unfortunately, have a pic of that-I didn't know it would be the last time I saw him. It is the one of us with Jensen in the green coat) I have always loved him, looked up to him, and known he was special. Today is no different.

Wonderful Moments

Stephanie came up with a great idea. She challenged bloggers to write down 10 or so wonderful moments from this week in their life as parents. I thought it was such a great idea that I borrowed it.

I am really loving this challenge because it helps me look back over my days with Ian in a sweet, loving context. Also, I am waking up each morning with joy and anticipation in my heart wondering, "What lovely things will happen today?"

Here are just a few wonderful moments from this week:

Sunday Oct 28: As I was getting Ian out of his car seat at McDonald's I mis-judged the top of the door frame and totally hit my head as I bent over to undo his belt. As I was trying not to cuss out loud (I failed) and trying not to cry because it hurt so much Ian said, "Oh, Mama, you hurt yourself. Where does it hurt?" I pointed to the spot on the top of my head and he kissed it better. And it WORKED!

Monday Oct 29: On the way home from playing at the airport observation deck Ian started talking about Buck. "I miss Daddy. I want to see him at work. I want him to come home with us." When I explained that Buck had to finish his work day and couldn't just kick off at 2 he said, "Well, then I want to stay with him 'til he leaves." We stopped by work and visited Buck. He couldn't leave just then but he did take some time to play trains with us so Ian was happy.

Tuesday Oct 30: After a long, full day with a party (where he told us,"This is a good party!") and a bit of trick-or-treating (some towns here are celebrating Halloween on Tuesday this year) we snuggled at home under a blanket on the couch to watch some TV. Ian was in Buck's lap and he started nodding off. He smiled as he fell asleep and he looked so peaceful and happy to be where he was. I absolutely love moments like this!

Wednesday Oct 31: Halloween was fun because this was Ian's first year to go trick-or-treating. It was a joy to watch him walk around in his costume in the dark collecting candy. It reminded me so much of the fun I used to have as a kid. We went with his "girlfriend" who kept asking him, "Ian, are we married yet?", to which he would reply, "No! Not YET! We aren't big enough!"

Thursday November 1st: Today we saw some friends we haven't been able to see in several months. We spent the whole day at their house and Ian and I had a blast. For me it was great to catch up with my friend. The best part of the day though was probably when Ian and his friend ran across the lawn with their arms outstretched to give each other a big hug.

Friday November 2: Today's wonderful moment didn't start off well and it really applies more to me than to Ian. We went to a local forest with another Ian and his mom and brother. The 2 Ians kept running ahead of us on the trail and at first I tried to yell for mine to come back. After a bit though I realized that Ian was smart and he kept choosing good places to stop and wait for me to catch up, I trust him and so yelling at him wasn't extending that trust to him or in his ability to make his own choices, and yelling sounded horrible and was just silly! So I stopped. My Ian and I had a lot more fun after that. This was a wonderful moment for me because it is another time that I silenced my fears and doubts and got my parenting self back where I want to be.

Another wonderful moment was around dinner time when Ian was playing with fridge letter magnets. He told me he was writing 'My little pony' and then told me he wants "too much My Little Ponies." Too much to Ian means a lot; more that he can hold in his hands. He has one MLP doll now that is plush and about the size of a Care Bear. He takes good care of Rainbow Dash and loves to cuddle him or rock him to sleep. Rainbow Dash is just one of a lot of Ian's interests. He loves Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, knights, cars, mama and baby animal sets, cowboys, books, movies, etc...I just like that he sees MLP as one of many fun choices.

Saturday November 3: We met Buck's mom and cousin at the mall in Winston-Salem. Ian found an old photo booth and wanted to get his picture taken. At the last minute he asked me to be in the picture with him (as well as Baby Dinosaur). It was really fun and reminded me of being a kid. The top picture is missing because we gave it to Grammy.

Sunday November 4: This morning while we were waking up Ian got really close to my face, put his hands on my cheeks and said, "Stay here with me. I like you!" Then he kissed me on the forehead. :) I am sick today and as Buck left for a sword fight this morning Ian ran in the room and said, "I will take care of you, Mama!"

So, there is just a sampling of moments from this week. It was such a busy week! We normally like to have a day or two where we lay low and hang out at the house but it was fun to see lots of friends and we had lots of adventures. It was hard for me to narrow my list of moments down for this entry. I consider this to be a great week. I wonder what wonderful moments will happen next week?