Posts tagged ‘neighbors’

November 30th, 2011

’tis the season. for ugly sweaters and matching turtlenecks.

yesterday the first batch of holiday photo cards arrived. i just love getting them from all our friends and family. truly. and while i looked at the photo of our three neighbor children clad in red turtlenecks and matching red scarves alongside a forest of snow covered pine trees and reindeer, in the mall, it hit me. except for j’s first year when we used a photo from a portrait session, i’ve never put much thought into the holiday card photo.

h’s first christmas, in 2009 (holymotherhowisthatpossible), my mom snapped a wonderful photo of the kids snuggling. winner.

christmas 2009

and last year i picked three of my faves from the course of the year – this is one. note the totally precious toe-holding.

christmas 2010

so this year, although the thought of hauling the kids to the mall, parking 5.2 miles from the entrance and lugging two toddlers into jcpenny while wearing red scarves and not smiling for the camera did seem lovely, i opted for an impromptu photo session in our backyard.

i didn’t dress the kids in anything cute or matching. in fact, the skorts that h is wearing she put on herself, backwards.
no scrubbing of the faces. no jeans. we are in full on sweats mode. (i should be glad j is wearing any pants at all, really.)

we went outside to eat lunch and enjoy our finally finished deck (now i know why justin chuckled when i asked if it would be done in time for h’s birthday party. on september 4th) and the mid-60′s november weather. side note, i’m sure that the ants on my kitchen floor and random mosquitoes everywhere are in no way part of global warming. december, july they’re all the same.

after lunch the kids were crazy goofy. really? hard to imagine, i know. i snuck inside, grabbed my camera and followed their goofiness around the yard.

and because i’ve learned that one can spend the better part of five days choosing the perfect photo card design, layout and photo, i logged onto snapfish (or was that shutterfly? hard to tell.) entered the cyber monday discount code of 50% off and hit add to cart.

i can’t share the winning photo with you…yet. but i will share a few of the ah, out-takes.

oye. the faces. seriously?

better…

then back to the goofies.

this is really cute. in a merry christmas! we’re hoping our children will grow up and marry each-other kind of way.
in our defense, they were doing ‘noses’. which actually is really cute but hard to explain in the 24 characters worth of space you have to work with.

happy holiday card adventures to you and yours. we can’t wait to see them all.

{i’ll share our 2011 winner after they’ve all been mailed. sometime between now and december 24th, that is.}

Categorydaily nuances, family, photography, Uncategorized | Comment1 Comment »

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February 3rd, 2011

the kenmore duster?

ok, i have a serious, serious question.

is it just me…

…or does anyone else…

dust their furniture with their vacuum?

…come on. anyone?

i’ve been thinking about this the last few weeks as i make the rounds with my yellow kenmore.
and i have to tell myself that, no, i am not alone in this.

i mean, yes, i dust with pledge and a rag. but seriously, who can keep up? and better yet, who can resist a quick swipe across the bottom of a sofa table with the floor attachment? it’s just so easy.

but lately, the bottom shelf of the sofa table has been like a gateway drug; leading me to riskier, more serious stuff.
like the top of the dining room buffet.

i don’t think anyone saw me…neighbors?

but in case someone does see the vacuum waving high through the air, along the top of the dining room table, the corners of the fireplace, the nether regions of the refrigerator, i have a plan. a story. a white lie.

there was a bug.

yes, a big one. hairy and with weird legs and googly eyes. and it ran.
and i had to get out my vacuum and track it down and suck it up.
(insert apology to my bug-loving sister, here.)

would you buy it?

and come on, tell the truth…do you ever dust with your vacuum?

Categoryconfessions, daily nuances | Comment3 Comments »

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November 3rd, 2010

our halloween

ok, so bottom line – didn’t get a picture of the sparkly lion. i know. and given the fact that if you say the words, lion or costume harper’s legs go into a crazy running man frenzy – which means she was wearing it constantly this past week – i truly have no excuse for this lack of photo op.

but, even without the sparkly dorothy shoes she was pretty darn cute.

not too shabby for a lion with an ear infection and enough green schnuggers to put slimer and his ectoplasm to shame.

as for jackson and his dorothy desire, once he realized being dorothy meant pulling your sister’s too-small blue dress over your head and becoming a girl he opted to be a zebra. i’m pretty sure the small tantrum he threw over the blue dress and the piercing, “i’m not a girl!” made justin smile for the next  seventy-two hours straight.

woulda had to have swallowed some serious man’s man pride to let his two and a half year old son out of the house in a dress and sparkly red shoes. alas, he narrowly avoided it – this year.

dress up day at jojo’s -  yes, mr. zebra is size 12-18 mos (hey, it was free). not a lot of head turning going on here. whoops. but can’t get much cuter than this here clan.

and par-tay numero dos at the moms club shindig. contrary to the deer in headlights look coming from both my children, they had a blast.

 

tina – esque.

and because the zebra was really less than thrilling for jackson, he was pretty fired up when i asked him if he’d rather be a soccer player.

little sport enthusiast that he is was, ah, very excited – mainly to wear real cleats (which he has been pretending to wear for weeks now).

so on halloween night visiting nana and grampa in new hampshire, we had a little mid-fielder on our hands.

did i mention he was really, really fired up? quite a difference in body language from the zebra, no?

and apparently daddy didn’t get the memo that shin guards go under  the socks – oh well.

and once we got over the cardinal rule of you don’t actually go inside the house, trick-or-treating was a success.

until next year, the bloods

*special thanks to the melquist and burney families for their lending of costumes!

Categoryconnecticut, daily nuances, life, new hampshire | Comment2 Comments »

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August 25th, 2010

a little thanks

last week we almost moved to virginia. 

but, we didn’t. and somehow in the midst of the excitement, the newness, the change from everyday norm; in a moment when i was sitting in the quaintest of restaurants eating the most fabulous risotto crab-cake and sipping a warm, smooth glass of malbec – at the foothills of the blue ridge mountains no less- i wanted to cry. 

and i knew, deep down, that there was no way i could pull my children away from the people who love them, who they unconditionally love, right back. 

the people who make up their dotting family; grandparents, great grandparents, aunties and great aunts and uncles who they ask for by name, speak of and see often and really know. 

people like our  good friends and neighbors who creep through the flowerbeds to give kisses through a screen window, who babysit on the fly,  give the most incredible  hugs and whisper i love you in their tiny ears. 

there is nothing in the world more important and more right than surrounding your children with people who love them. 

and sometimes on nights like these, when i’m standing in my back yard amongst neighbors and friends admiring our newly leveled, poison ivy-free grounds,  the decision we made to stay in connecticut feels all the more right. 

when jackson runs to lisa with arms wide open, wraps his tiny arms around her neck, relaxes into her warm embrace and listens as she tells him how cute he is and just how much she loves him my heart fills with happy. she is our friend, our neighbor and our kids “auntie” and she loves them as if they were her blood. 

and that my friends is just one example of about as good as it gets. 

if your children know they are loved – and feel that love – what an amazing, powerful gift. 

we may not always live next door or within driving distance to those we love and who love our kids. 

but in the here and now this is what we need, what we want and what we are so incredibly grateful for. 

to all of you who make up this incredible circle of nurturing love, i thank you. there is not enough breath to tell you how much you are appreciated, how often just thinking of you makes me smile and how unbelievably humbled i am to know you. 

my children are growing into happy, confident people with your help. for this, i will be forever grateful.

Categoryconnecticut, daily nuances, family, friendship, life, moving, Uncategorized | CommentNo Comments »

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June 2nd, 2010

the first hundred

and i had been doing so well.

chugging along at warp speed, yet still feeling most days like i’m just sitting in it. total chaos and complete stillness. a crazy juxtaposition. this is my life these days. and i’m trying;  really, really trying to be here. to be here now. to stop and smell and listen and smile.

there have to be about four dozen times a day i say to myself, remember this. willing my mind to snatch this  instant, roll it up in it’s entirety and store it away for later.

my daughter’s fine, golden hair gently blowing in the sweet summer air as she nuzzles in, closes her eyes and drifts to sleep against my warm chest.

the smell of my son’s intoxicating summer scent; the perfect blend of sunscreen, shampoo, sweat and lovliness, when he tightly wraps his smooth arms around my neck and rests his head against my face. a moment in which it seems i could breath him in until my lungs burst.

and i say it every time. please, remember this. and by the time i go to bed i feel like it’s gone forever. 

but back to the beginning… i had been doing so well.

all my shit in it’s neat little package, as i like to say. but not tonight.

maybe it was the last week sans justin. and the always hard transition back to partnership and  dual-parenting. and then back again to a short, but nonetheless solo, night. admittedly, i totally suck at transitioning in and out of life in this sense… 

maybe it was the beagle that almost attacked the kids and i and bayla on our run. when in the midst of trying to hold the dog and the stroller and kick the beagle with my free foot the stroller and my children tipped over to the ground. (everyone is fine; thank god for 5 point harnesses.)

or maybe it was the worst-ever-tantrum jackson threw upon returning home from our run. if you’re a neighbor and you’re reading this, i truly apologize and i promise i am not beating my children. yet.

but i think the stick that finally broke this momma’s back was the elation of finding the perfect, two kids later, bikini. damn you macy’s and your dimly lit rooms and your skinny mirrors. making me look all slim and tan and tight. tonight the reality of my bathroom, it’s five bright spot lights and forgive nothing mirror has me feeling bloated, butt white and jiggly.

sometimes i truly think i’m loosing it; these days a mind boggling culmination of sheer bliss and total insanity.

as my grandma would have said, the first hundred years are the hardest.

i think she got it half right. the first hundred years are the hardest. but they’re also the greatest.

Categorydaily nuances, life, loosing it, parenting | Comment4 Comments »

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