Thursday, January 27, 2011

Gus Gus Zoodie

i have been on a zoodie-cation...the holiday orders...the sickness that overtook my entire family since NOVEMBER...plus not sleeping...also add in our family business and working overtime to try to tie up all the accounting for 2010...who can blame me? but i have had some family/friend orders sitting here for a little over a month and decided my vacation should end...

my sister commissioned this little number...a Gus Zoodie for a friend of hers who calls their fat little baby Gus. i LOVED gus from cinderella when i was a wee one...he is just the cutest! i also LOVE the name Gus - it is a big family name in my very swedish family - Gustaf...my cousin happens to be a Gus...i totally would've named one of my boys Gus but Hubby vetoed it...1. it doesnt start with a "B" and 2. he didnt want our baby to be fat and bald forever, which i guess is what he thinks of when he hears the name Gus (which isn't true...my cousin is a cutie little surfer boy)

i debated on whether or not to put the shirt on him...i ended up deciding not to for three reasons (again with the numbering...sorry) 1. it was way easier to do a belly 2. if they really wanted a shirt they could just put it on over the sweatshirt...much easier and 3. it was way easier.


i think he turned out perty cute though!




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Monday, January 24, 2011

Peter is Back!

i know you missed him! i have seen him pop up here and there...but finally remembered to capture the genius that is Peter Fernandez!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Reading: How the Nook Changed my Life

okay...so maybe not so much, but oh the convenience is amazing! i have already read 3 books on it - and since having Bobby I haven't read a stitch...but now it is so convenient - i can do it one-handed, which makes it perfect for nursing...i can carry it in my purse, which makes it perfect for waiting rooms...and car rides where i am the passenger.

Also - i have about a zillion B&N gift cards that i am able to store on my account and whenever i purchase an e-book it uses my gift cards first...which is perfect since my shopping days are on hold for now...and those days of browsing a book store are a fond distant memory...but i can browse books now on my nook! it suits my habit of switching between a zillion books too!




My recent reads:







 





The Thirteenth Tale was super good...one of those books that when you finish you are still lost in the world of it for a while. And i am currently reading The Sherlockian after hearing an interview with the author on NPR. I have never read any of the Shakespeare books, but believe I will have to now!

Please send me your book recs!! i am devouring them right now!

Some Other Recommendations:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Amazing! I finished all 3 in like a week i couldnt put them down!

John Adams by David McCullough - I just started this, but already am loving how McCullough brings history to life!

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver - read this a while ago - Young Adult Fiction - its great for discussion and would make an awesome book club book!

For more Young Adult reads, check out my friend Andrea (aka Book-Scout)'s site!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

muscle memory

i am 32. i have had 3 kids. my body is factually much different than when i was in high school. not just the outward obvious appearance...but inwardly too - my organs have all shifted around with each child and are trying to learn how to fall back in place. i am not embittered in this, however...i was fortunate enough to watch this program when bryson (my first) was just a babe, in which a group of moms were being interviewed about body image after childbirth.
i do not recall much about the show, save for this Indian woman who said, "it amazes me that American women go through pregnancy and childbirth and expect their bodies to go back to their original state. our bodies are so amazing to actually create a human soul and grow that soul into a child and birth that child into the world and to not expect to have changed your body forever seems silly. i do not look at my body as worse for having a child, rather blessed." i mean, i paraphrased her from my very-altered memory...but that is the gist of what she said. and i was changed by it. these are not "stretch-marks" they are my body's memory of being pregnant - a tattoo if you will...i am not shamed by them. of course my body is changed forever...i gave life to 3 human beings. how amazing is our bodies?

i am writing this because i have recently started dancing again. on a weekly basis. also, more recently, on a competitive basis...meaning that our dance class comprised of my old high school dance team is learning a routine we intend to compete in may. so we took it up a notch, if you will.

i had an "a-ha" moment last week in dance class as we were learning the routine. the week before i had become a little frustrated because it seemed like everyone else picked up the choreo faster/easier than me, but this week i was surprised to learn that it was all there - it just took a while to sink its way into my muscle memory. this week as we were learning the same thing started happening, but by the end of class i had worked out the kink in my brain and muscles from this 8-count and i finally got that step and i realized i did the SAME exact thing in High School.

what just a week before i had become depressed upon, had now donned on me that the memory embedded in muscles were trying to enliven in their new state. i could not expect me to be the dancer i was 17 years ago, just like my body could not be the body i had then as well.

to some, this may depress them...to me i am encouraged! because of birthing two children naturally, at home, i have this amazing respect for my body. i have this knowledge that my body can do things beyond my mental capacity, beyond my tolerance...i may not be able to do a triple pirouette like i used to...i may not knock out fouettes like before, but oh my goodness my muscles do things on their own - designed by God to do amazing things. i trust my body more. i do not limit my body like before. i know, that with time, i can waken those long lost muscles to dance. maybe not like in high school, but oh goodness..they can dance!

the amazing thing is that awakening those muscles have led to involuntary dances everywhere. its like i allowed my body to dance again. in the kitchen making dinner, pushing the stroller, playing with the boys outside...if there is music my body responds. my muscle memory is awakened and in doing so it awakened a part of my soul longing to express joy in physical movement....much to the delight of my husband and children! i find myself dancing through my day and that dancing lifts my soul because God designed me to dance and i had forgotten how.

luckily, through this blog and writing again i have found a portable way to express myself, but it has been here all along, in my muscle memory, finally released through dance and i kick myself that i haven't continued dancing in this way.

i look forward to allowing these old muscles of mine to express themselves. i look forward to more kitchen dancing...both alone and with my also talented dancing husband...to show my boys that dancing is God's gift to us to express things beyond words...and that dance should accompany celebratory moments as well as things we can not express but need to. i look forward to showing them that if, along the way they forget, they can trust that their muscles remember. that our muscles always can remember if we let them.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Natural Bruise Remedy - Homemade Medicine!

i wanted to share my new bruise remedy i learned and now swear by...

the sad part is that the only way i can post this with any confidence is that he JUST did the same thing to his head a couple months ago...the first time it happened he fell flat on the corner wood beam on his bed. he came up and his head was literally dented in...it was so so so gnarly. i immediately called my sister (who is a licensed P.A.) to ask her about concussion symptoms. She also told me to wake him every hour the night he did it so to make sure he was okay (which was semi-convenient since i am up these days every hour with bobby). so this last time he did it (he fell face first on concrete) - on monday actually - i was kinda just like "here we go again" meanwhile people were FUH-REAKIN out. i tried to explain he had a super hard head...anyway - it is super scary - bryan said he looks like an orc.

anyway - onto the remedy - this picture was taken on day 2 - and compared to the first time...this is MUCH prettier. he happened to fall at bryson's pre-school and one of the teachers said that there is a nanny from Guatemala who swears by a paste made from sugar and vinegar (i used apple cider because that is our cure-all around here) - just make the paste and put it on the sore and i covered it with a band-aid so he couldn't mess with it. i wish i would have known about this earlier...especially with this destructo-boy!!!

oh...and you are welcome...in advance!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Tummy Tub Revisited

remember this? this was when bodie was around bobby's age now. i remember that he filled up the whole tub...but i still loved the idea of it, so we kept it around for little bobby. i have been using the tummy tub mainly for his baths - i like that he can sit up comfortably and he seems to love it too! you can tell in the last pic that bodie is quite sad...he kept saying "Bodie turn...Bodie turn!" so we let him crawl in after bobby was done...holy crow - he is obsessed now! he will stay in there for at least a half hour.


he is such a ham - he is always trying to do whatever we are doing for the baby...tries to go in the swing - tries to swaddle himself - gets into the walker and the infant car seat.

This one was given to me as a gift, and at the time i think they were kind of hard to find, but i found this one on Amazon.

so apparently they work for your big and littles :)