{ a swoop and a dart }

Week in the Life: Thursday

I'm participating in Ali Edwards' annual Week in the Life documentary project, and here are a selection of photos from Thursday!

Maddie has breakfast at about 7:20 on the new schedule... a full 50 minutes past the last year's departure time of 6:30. We are not used to the new rhythm even though we all need those extra minutes of sleep in the morning. I can't keep up with the berry intake in this house.

I only got 1/4 of the paper read and 1/2 the coffee consumed before it was time to get the other two up.

Eeesh is still a powerful life force in our house, albeit a kind of pinkish-grey, ratty one.

Did I mention these two are overjoyed to to get to wear pretty much whatever the heck they want to school? OVERJOYED.

Oh, I was so excited to get this package in the mail. Not only do I somehow manage to trip on a sidewalk or flail underneath a low-hanging branch or get jumped by a pit bull on enough occasions that my headphones get yanked out with startling regularity, but I've worn at least three pairs down to the bare wires in the last few years. I read reviews, I carefully considered, and ordered these. With Friday's perspective: they are so uncomfortable and floppy in my deformed ears that I want to cry. I guess I need to start saving my change for a pair of Dr. Dre's ginormous (but I bet super-comfortable) headphones. SIGH.

We passed the prettiest stand of zinnias and daisies on our Thursday route. Zinnias are among my top three favorite flowers.

I am becoming quite attached to the (itty-bitty + extinct) volcanoes.

We hadn't bought the new Mumford & Sons yet—what?? I bought the regular version, not the deluxe, though, because I have a strange aversion to live recordings on albums. Also, dusting my monitor is on the list today. Sheesh.

Lunch. Which looks a lot like breakfast. If I could get away with eating breakfast food all day every day I would.

Post-lunch shoe collection. There's about to be a shoe reckoning around here.

I finally hung up these pictures again... I think it's the fourth time they've appeared somewhere on this blog.

Gracie got the funniest package from one of her Cheyenne Frontier Days buddies. Well-played, Pat Moffett, well-played.

Look who let me take her picture with the dog! Maddie gets home from school about 3:25-ish, so has a few more minutes of downtime then her sisters, who have negative downtime after school most days.

No photos of the whirlwind negative downtime/gym drop-off, but after they were safely stowed there I raced over to Hobby Lobby to get two things framed: my 1955 Children's Book Week reproduction poster (I got this for my mama from Pottery Barn Kids many years ago and then wanted to get one for us but couldn't find it again until last year) and a small bird print from one of my favorite artists, Geninne Zlatkis. I am awfully excited for both things to be hanging up. If I had a house with a million walls (and a million dollars to hang things up on it) I would be tempted to fill a bunch of them with everything from both of those shops.

And then, Costco. We've only had a Costco membership one other place (California) and decided to take a break from Sam's while living in Albuquerque. When I went to get my membership started up the lady convinced me to let her try and look me up—and she found me! That rarely happens. Except I was listed under our Wyoming address on base, which is bizarre as there was no Costco in Cheyenne and we lived there 3.5 years after we lived in California. Huh. But now we're official again.

Related: I'm breaking up with my Epiphanie bag, which also dates back to our Wyoming address on base. It just didn't hold up over years of heavy use—disappointing to say the least, considering it wasn't a small purchase. I still have my LowePro backpack (15+ years and still good as new), and will replace my Epiphanie one with a Jo Totes camera bag for occasions not appropriate for backpack wearing.

After Costco, I raced over to Maddie's school for a band meeting. Her director so clearly loves what he does—fun. This year they will go to Hummingbird Music Camp and also to Calvalcade of Music in Colorado Springs, which I may have been to before with Delphian Choir in Montana—will have to check on that. I was struck by an impending sense of "OH MY GOSH THE NEXT TEN SCHOOL YEARS ARE GOING TO BE SO BUSY" while sitting there listening. HA. As if the previous ten school years haven't been so busy...

Then I raced back to pick up Bridget, late, though she knew that was going to be the case. She told me she feels like she is getting a lot stronger since she started gym here. We raced home, got some dinner ready, and raced back to get the other two. It's either quite calm or quite scramble-y here, no real in-between.

Tonight's reading picture: oh, that dog. All thumbs and paws up for the new Drew Daywalt/Oliver Jeffers book. It is clever.

Starry with a mix of clouds. I love that it cools off by at least 30º here at night. I love that when the backyard neighbors finally turn off their excessive floodlights you can actually take a pretty good picture of the sky in our neighborhood.

Bonus: I wanted a record of what we're all reading this week, so here it is: sorry for the nightmarish covers. Eeek!

oldest to youngest 📚 | Hey, just learned how to insert emoji on the desktop computer: control/command/space bar 🎉

Week in the Life: Wednesday

I'm participating in Ali Edwards' annual Week in the Life documentary project, and here are a selection of photos from Wednesday!

The day started with me taking a creepy picture of my floating hand opening the blinds downstairs, because that's what I do every day—but... creepy floating hand picture concept needs some work. Ha. 

My friend Crystal posted something on Facebook last week that included a bit about crossroads in parenting: that parents should try to be present at them as much as possible. Leaving and returning from school, activities, etc. I like that idea very much. In related news: Maddie is sick of this project. And yet I persist. Heh.

Gracie used her extra time in the morning to practice her lesson a little... Bridget scrambled around not being ready. This is the perpetual theme of mornings in our house. Personalities are no joke.

There. I tried to get in the picture. Ellie is my steadfast companion in the mornings even if we do have to stop occasionally for her to catch her breath. She is such a good dog.

I am working on rebuilding all sorts of new routines in our new life here: writing, planning, pitching, project-ing. Trying to make sure I listen to more music while doing it. Yesterday was my favorite Béla Fleck, Perpetual Motion. I'm on a classical music kick. I wish Apple would bring back a dedicated ginormous iPod to its lineup, because I like having all 54 days worth of our music in one place, unconnected from the worries of streaming and downloading and clouding. Funny how this suddenly makes me old.

Gracie and Bridget will have a 60% day on Wednesdays this year—dismissed at 12:30—both weird and cool. She looked adorable in her lilac dress and lilac Keens but wore the wrong thing as Wednesday ended up being P.E. day. Ah well.

We're bringing Art Friday back on these Wednesday afternoons, I've decided. I suppose we could call it Art Wednesday, but I think we're all happier calling it Art Friday—establish a habit (even if it's one you fall out of) and it still sticks, I guess. We had a planning meeting about ideas for projects we all want to try, and Gracie took notes in the Paper app.

This week we watched The Art Assignment's weekly video and headed to the park to do surface tests. It was fun, but gosh New Mexico is hot and bright at 1:30 pm in August.

This was mine. I love the volcanic rock everywhere in our neighborhood.

Gracie is always first and holds the treat, and Bridget always finds the money and sparkly things. This rock is way sparklier than it looks in the picture. She would have five million rocks in her room if I would let her, but I only let her keep this one today.

After our surface testing we headed back for a piano lesson. Yes, we're going on three years of home piano-ing. Yes, it's the only way piano is probably going to happen in this house under the current schedule/budgetary constraints. Yes, it's still hard a lot of the time—we go a little more slowly than we'd like, but progress is still made and it's still fun most of the time. Gracie is looking ahead to learning trombone in the next year and that may mark the end of regular piano for her, because there are only so many hours in a gymnast's day.

Gymnastics hair kit.

Headed in for Wednesday gym. They love being optionals. They're both in such a sweet spot right now with gym—loving the challenge, their coaches, and have made some friends on their team. It continues to be a balancing act for them to compete in the same level; their 2.5 year age difference keeps them from competing head to head though, and that helps some. There is no way around this one, so we just work through the bumps when they happen. There are less bumps right now, though, and that's a wonderful thing.

But wasn't I just at Target yesterday? Yes, yes I was. And I had a signed copy of the sequel to The Day the Crayons Quit in my cart, too. But when I got home, it wasn't there. I have a small history of losing things I've bought somewhere between checkout and home, so I was exasperated—but then on the receipt it didn't show up that I even bought it (??) so I have no idea where the heck it went. Maybe the lady behind me ended up with a new book last night! Anyway, Bridget and I made a special trip back to get it, because, Oliver Jeffers. (Though to clarify, it's Drew Daywalt who signed these Target editions)

Next we went to visit the ugly paint section at Lowe's. I wanted to visit the pretty paint section, but no. If I am to kill off a couple of these horrid red walls in our house and keep the project under $60, I have to choose the lesser of two evils and paint them to match the rest. So, Churchill Hotel Maple it is.

Homemade Pad Thai for dinner. I love homemade Pad Thai, though no one else does. Whatever. Sometimes I get to pick.

After dinner, Bee's piano lesson. Year 3 for her, too.

Tonight's bedtime stories picture. We totally forgot to read the Oliver Jeffers book.

Don't worry, Ellie was listening, too. Thanks to Gracie for taking a picture!

: )

 

Week in the Life: Tuesday

I'm participating in Ali Edwards' annual Week in the Life documentary project, and here are a selection of photos from Tuesday!

When we arrived in Albuquerque, the newspaper fairy delivered a paper every day. We were only Wednesday/Sunday subscribers in Montgomery, trying out the slightly cheaper way of reading the paper... but we immediately got hooked on the daily news again—which around here, is 8 parts interesting/happy to 2 parts frightening. And then! And then the newspaper fairy stopped delivering last week. Six weeks of free newspaper and then cut off, which makes me think the newspaper fairy is really a savvy marketer with an evil plot to get us hooked, because after a week of no newspaper I broke down and ordered one on our own dime Monday night. As Maddie pointed out: it's better to know what's going on around here. True story.

I feel the same way, dog.

Unexpected benefit of this school year: everything runs an hour later than we're used to. This makes for some unpleasant time-crunched afternoons, but not getting up at 5:45 am is pretty awesome. And, it's actually light out when Maddie heads to the bus stop at 7:40.

Gracie doesn't know what to do with herself in all this extra time in the morning (she and Bridget need to be out the door by 8:24). She was doing handstands in the driveway while Bee was scrambling around not being ready.

My pace average is way down after a springtime of foot issues + moving + adjusting to altitude again, but our school year goal is to beat last year's miles (382.5). We did not get jumped by a pit bull today.

Our route took us past cacti in the wild, which is new and novel to me. Curtis tells me these are prickly pears, which apparently I have only heard of but have never seen. Cool!

Phone calls with my Mrs. Piggle Wiggle cup of coffee. I always think of my second cup of coffee as my Mrs. Piggle Wiggle cup, because all the moms in Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books always get their kids off to school and then have their coffee. Before anyone says anything, 1773 unread emails represents a victory for me, not a defeat. Heh.

After lunch, of which I took no photos of, some letters.

This is a terrible photo but hilarious in that it captures so perfectly what happens when a UPS truck is in the neighborhood or worse, a package is delivered: Ellie turns on full junkyard dog mode. To her, UPS is enemy aircraft (we're pretty certain she is somehow related to Gunner, a Kelpie war hero from WWII).

Here she is again, doing what we call "emergency sitting." She'll be perfectly fine and sleeping somewhere and then race like her tail is on fire to go outside—where she sits for a while.

Not a great photo (the boy doing giants photo-bombed) but it definitely shows the activity at the gym (Gracie is up in the air on beam, Maddie is waiting in the vault line, and Bridget is out of the frame on the TumblTrak. Because of the late school start, we are scrambling to make it to gym on time even though we live closer than we have for the last two years. Bridget is currently training four hours a week on pre-team, and Maddie and Gracie are down to 13 hours during the school year as Level 6 optionals.

I raced over to TinyTarget after gym drop-off (the one closest to us in ABQ is oddly small in size and offerings) to pick up some things. One of the things was milk, which ended up leaking all over the back of the van. Awesome. I didn't time my errands very well—not used to the amount of time I have (Bridget has to be picked up at 6:30). Another part of what we're not used to here: how eating fits into the after-school/gymnastics schedule. Rather, how dinner doesn't fit in. We're looking at mostly normal dinnertimes on Mondays (horn lesson day) and Wednesdays (gymnastics done at 6:30 vs. 8) and 8:30 dinner on Tuesdays/Thursdays/Fridays. There are some other complications in there, too. Hmm.

Bee is doing some odd jobs/extra chores to earn this, which we spotted at the BX before school started. (!!)

Back for gym pickup. It isn't the worst scenery in the evening.

Ellie takes her bedtime stories very seriously.

Week in the Life: Monday

I took about 100 pictures yesterday for my first day of Week in the Life—at the end of the day it was definitely apparent to me that I am out of practice and that is frustrating. One reason: the babies aren't babies anymore, and they are less enthused about having a camera pointed at them than they used to be. But after discussing the project and getting everyone on board at a comfortable level of participation, it will be fun to take more pictures than normal. I'll share a few of my favorites here this week, and keep the rest of my favorites for some sort of album at the end.

Maddie and I got a giggle over Ellie's constant awareness of the morning routine, because she knows that when everyone is off to school it's TIME TO GO. And she is impatient. I walked past the steps and caught her trying to be all nonchalant in her impatience.

We are weekday cereal eaters, mostly. I'll get back in the habit of crockpot oatmeal/Swiss oatmeal/baked oatmeal a few times a week once it cools down. As much as I love summer, as soon as school starts I'm kind of over it and ready for cooler fall weather and the food that comes with it.

I took this one right before Ellie and I left for our Monday walk. What happened after I put the camera in the house and crossed the street was awful: a pit bull on the corner escaped through an open fence and jumped on Ellie in a split second and I absolutely, positively panicked because it has always been my worst nightmare while walking babies or dogs that I'd be attacked. Much screaming and shrieking and flailing ensued while the dog had its jaws on her and a couple of neighbors ran over to help get us separated (thank you, kind neighbors!) and it turned out that the dog was apparently play-biting her—no actual bites. Ellie didn't know that, though, so was immediately in fighting back mode. She might be an old lady dog but she has a lot of fight in her; we were both very shaken up. The owner came to apologize and let me know they'd inspect their fence.

Ugh. 

While I took most of the day's pictures with my dSLR, my favorite phone photo of the day was at Maddie's horn lesson. It's going to make for a hectic Monday to get to where her lesson is, but she loves the teacher her school recommended and her teacher loves her.

Gracie got her Tinker Box (always a happy day) which involved launching a little bottle with the help of citric acid and baking soda in the backyard. Bridget was her assistant.

My favorite photo of the day was the one we set up before we started reading. We'll try again for a better one, but this so perfectly sums up the best part of our nightly routine. Maddie hasn't joined us for stories for a couple years now, but Gracie, Bridget, and Ellie love stories still. Ellie always runs in to listen. It's funny. We always read in Gracie's room on our stomachs. I'm not sure why, but it's been that way for years.

One of my other favorites from the day was totally random: I was playing around trying to catch the hummingbirds and snapped one of the doves on our neighbors' roof. I am most likely one of the only people in the world who can't stand mourning doves—I find them to be extremely obnoxious—but the light was so pretty on them at sunset, and I'm a sucker for things-in-threes.

: ) 

 

Man, Painting in Field

As per usual, May is steamrolling over us at breakneck speed... the stories of interest are stacking up in a seemingly endless holding pattern. I drove to Birmingham with the dog for an hour this week (sigh, yes, that would make for a four hour trip in total—long story) and while there, I spotted this man painting in a field on the outskirts of downtown. There was something so lovely and calming about it: I don't know what he was painting, or why he chose this spot, but it made me happy to see him for the one minute I was walking the dog. It was a good reminder to pay attention even as the month screams by all around us : )

Rainy Day Pickup

We had our first Rainy Day Pickup today at the elementary school, having somehow avoided rain on a gymnastics day for the entire school year. I failed spectacularly at Rainy Day Pickup. I got an F- in following the procedures (not because I wouldn't have, but because I failed to grasp them properly)(also—where I'm from rain doesn't do what it was doing today) and not only was everyone late for gym, at least four faculty members at the school went home extra-grouchy because of me.

Anyway, Bridget and I had a grand time forgetting Rainy Day Pickup Fail while Matt was retrieving the other gymnasts from Friday night practice : )

Color/Colour Lovers

Remember how I said that taking on some sort of creative project is a good idea during a big move? Well, I took on a creative project during the move this summer and I might have taken it to crazy levels of OCD because it was about the only thing I had any control over for a while there. The project: Color//Colour Lovers, an international photo scavenger hunt hosted by fellow Phone Photography Project instructor Andrea Jenkins and her friend Xanthe Berkeley. It was a fantastic project, and I looked forward to checking out the colorful pictures people all over the world posted to Instagram each day. Most people posted a few here, a handful there and moved on to the next color. Not me: I decided early on that I would post TWELVE pictures per color, and then not post anything else until the next week's color kicked off. I wouldn't post in between my blocks of twelve, because that would MESS EVERYTHING UP. 

If this sounds unnecessarily rigid, you would be right. Moving does weirdo things to people's brains.

I almost didn't post additional Disney pictures to Instagram after I found my twelve for #colorcolourpurple week but before #colorcolourorange week started because of this OCD nonsense, but thankfully my more rational self took over and looking back, I don't even know what my problem was. I accidentally mixed up the dates of the last two weeks (#colorcolourorange and #colorcolourblue) and sent myself into a tizzy, but that ended up just fine, too. All's well that ends well.

I love these pictures I took. Seeing them all together makes me happy.

All photos taken with my iPhone 5s except for the handful of "Throwback Thursday" ones that I scanned. I used VSCO Cam to process this collection.

All these little summer stories... I recommend photo projects to everyone. : )

No Murders to Report

Aside: this title could refer to so many scenarios this week. Heh.

A long, long time ago (back in 2009) I wrote here about the $11 Kodak Duaflex camera that the Ebay King bought me so I could experiment with TTV photography (through-the-viewfinder photography). The gist of the story was that inside the camera, we found an old roll of 620 film that the seller missed; Matt suggested that maybe the roll of film would end up being evidence in a cold case murder. You can read the whole story here.

I did send in that film thinking it would take 8 weeks to have it returned. Instead, it took over three years because right after I sent it in, the film lab I sent it to declared bankruptcy and my roll of mystery film got locked down by the courts, held hostage (along with my $40+) in bankruptcy limbo. I even received a notice from a lawyer in Denver that I was not to contact the lab about my property. Geez. So, I just chalked it up as a very unfortunate loss, a new cold case built on top of an old cold case. Hmph.

But then a few months ago, I was thinking about it again, and I got mad. I checked the film lab's website and they seemed to be operating in some semblance of normal—advertising services, accepting orders, etc. My Willis Consumer Gene kicked in and I wrote a very civil nastygram to request my roll of film back.

And guess what? THEY SENT IT BACK. I about fell over. They even reimbursed me for my original payment. If I didn't understand bankruptcy proceedings before, now I really don't understand them. But whatever. My murder film! In my hands once again! I immediately researched a new and more trustworthy lab to send my film off to and found a place with a very cool website that also seemed very reputable: Film Rescue International, located in northern North Dakota. I made the deadline of May 12 for my film to be developed in the next cycle, and waited with great anticipation for my online gallery of images to be ready (they digitize everything; you can order prints if you want on top of the very reasonable developing fee, which is only charged if they can recover images). 

Here are a few of the images:

No murders. Just some photos of sweet old ladies, daffodils, and hollyhocks. Best frivolous expenditure of $29 ever.

The First Day of School and the Monkeys That Broke My Camera

Well, it's here: the first day of school. In some form or another, everyone's been counting down to this day for a long, long time. If Bridget could have made a paper chain with 400 rings on it, she would have—that child was ready to go. If only she could spend a day or two a week at her beloved preschool AND go to kindergarten full-time, life would be perfect. All three of them were starting to show their Australian Border Collie tendencies these last ten days... time for school. And of course, there is The Great Big New Chapter of Life I stepped into this morning. Whew. Not to worry, I have an overly optimistic list of 9 billion things to do. I am never bored : ) A little out of sorts today, but not bored.

Maddie is so excited for fifth grade—especially for her teacher. Her class is very small this year—it's a 5/6 split, and there are only 13 kids. She intends to win the spelling bee again, and can't wait for French Horn. And math : ) She is less excited about science, but I'm hoping her very science-focused teacher will change that. Because who doesn't like science? Well, let me amend that: as long as it isn't molecular biology, who doesn't like science? She already misses her 3/4 grade teacher terribly, but is happy that we'll still get to hang out with her at book club every month. I sure do love Maddie's book club.

Gracie ran into my room at 6:10 am like it was Christmas morning, unable to contain her excitement for second grade. Second grade was my absolute favorite year of elementary school (thank you, Mrs. Starner!!) and I'm hoping she will have an equally wonderful year. Poor Maddie had a bum year in second grade : ( Gracie is excited for more reading, more writing, more art, and maintaining her status as Fastest Girl in P.E. She misses her kindergarten and first grade teachers terribly. Poor kid is just like me (minus the being Fastest Girl in P.E. part).

And this one. Oh, this one. She couldn't be more ready for kindergarten, and I can't wait to hear all about it. She is most excited for all of it, she said. She has the same teacher as Gracie had two years ago, and we couldn't be more thrilled. She is reading already, and can't wait to make the jump to chapter books. It was difficult for me to put her on the bus, but she didn't even look back (just like her big sister Maddie). Gracie has been charged with making sure the bus never leaves without Bridget on it, and doesn't take off from the bus stop after school with her on it. Dillow girls have a small but storied history of falling asleep on the bus on the way home : )

We were up nice and early and had plenty of time for our traditional before-school photos. They look ready, eh?

I also like to take a "good luck with that, teachers" photo. Except this year, the monkeys broke the camera. As I took this I heard a very strange popping sound from inside my camera. Matt was standing next to me, and while my reaction wasn't as bad as the panic I involuntarily exhibited upon our return from Miller Farms last year, it was still a little on the panicky side. Because the next picture I took looked like this:

No really, those monkeys broke the camera.

Instead of a large-scale freak out, I calmly set my camera inside and calmly walked them to the bus stop, then calmly walked to the parade ground for what was supposed to be my first daytime-in-the-sunshine run in a very, very long time. [Aside: OH MY GOSH, WHEN DID THE SUN GET SO HOT at 8:10 am? I would way rather run at night, but I am working on my new schedule and it involves getting used to running under the flaming, overly bright sun. I walked 2.5 miles instead of running this morning, daydreaming of colder weather.] I calmly walked home, then I picked up my camera from where I calmly set it down and took the lens off to take a peek inside.

And instead of responding to my very calm reaction by fixing itself while I was gone, the mirror proceeded to fall out into my hand.

BIG. GIANT. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.

I spent about 35 minutes on the phone with Canon after spending about five minutes whining about it to Marie and Jill; Canon assured me they would have my camera back to me in a little under two weeks and it's probably caused by a newly discovered glue defect in 5D models from 2005 and 2006 and not because of silly monkey faces : ) (Heads up, 5D users) I had to send it in before long anyway because rodeo is very hard on cameras and it needs a good cleaning. But still. Instagram pictures for the foreseeable future! I am @edillow or just click on Instagrid up there on the navigation bar if you're so inclined to keep track of us. I certainly have plenty of Cheyenne Frontier Days photos to work on in the absence of anything new, anyway.

Happy School Year : )

Ten on Wednesday

1. May is less than a week away! We're going with the standard approach to the month, a.k.a. hold on for dear life and trust that we always end up in June somehow.

2. Gracie was invited to a birthday party last Saturday that Bridget tagged along to. Lucky thing, too, because she got to take home one of the coolest birthday party favors ever:

Balloon Ariel! Gracie didn't go home empty-handed, either:

It's hard to convey how cool this magician/balloon guy was, but he was. He made about 20 different balloon things and each was more amazing than the next. 

3. In the previous almost 17 years of Air Force life, I have never been stopped for a full car search at the gate. In the last week, I have been stopped twice. [Note: apologies to Matt for the smell of German Shepherd drool in the Subaru this morning. He was already asleep by the time I got back from gymnastics pickup/full car search, and I forgot to tell him this morning.] Last week it was after the three hour spectacle of four dentist appointments/getting everyone back to their respective schools; last night it was after a three hour gym for Gracie and Maddie. Gracie was not enthused. I think I need to buy a lottery ticket this week.

4. Speaking of Gracie, doesn't she look like a big girl all of a sudden?

5. And speaking of other big girls, this one aced her kindergarten screening yesterday and cannot WAIT to get the show on the road:

6. As it turned out, I didn't get to run in the Bring the Spring Bunny Dash 5K this weekend because of some schedule issues, but we still helped out. Maddie worked hard taking registrations and assigning bibs, Gracie managed the receipt and arrangement of donated bunnies (they received 272 just that morning!) and Bridget mostly just ran around with her bunny ears on. 

7. I would like to point out that today, Wednesday April 25, the Cleveland Indians are in first place in the Central Division. I am northeastern Ohio enough to not extrapolate on this.

8. I delivered pictures last night from the newborn photo shoot I did two weeks ago. The standard baby photos turned out really well but some of my favorites are the less traditional ones like these:

There's something about the memory of all the baby care that really speaks to me from the other side of this phase; it's so all-consuming, defining, and new. 

Baby G is awfully chill and cute...

...and look at that beautiful new mama.

9.
 
Our actual copy of Any Day a Beautiful Change arrived on Monday; while I've had an early proof copy for months on the computer, Matt decided to wait until the real thing was ready to read it. He promptly stayed up until 2 am on Monday night to finish it. It's that good. 

10. 

Design Challenges starts tomorrow! It's not too late to register. I had so much fun creating the content for this class... there is just something about a challenge brings out the best in everyone. Join me!