Been A Minute

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted anything... With good reason, I can assure you. I could write a book about the last few months, but I don't have time, so here is a big portion in photographs.

So basically, we found out at 35 weeks that we were having twins. By that time they were too squished up to tell the gender. Turns out they were both girls - Zenia Noelle and Helena Sparrow. They were born at 39.5 weeks. They're incredible.

And now that that's out there, maybe I can start up this baby... erm... blog again.

Alive and All's Well

Just posting this to say I'm here. A novel of a post is due full of love, life, babies (!!!), and change. Please be patient as I gather it all up to share.

Gratitude 7.27.11

Today I am grateful for:


*My husband's domination of the physics final and the "top of the class" status.
*Ancient Faith Radio - Seriously easing the afternoon and putting me in the right state of mind
*The true forgiveness of a two-year-old.
*Ice despensers
*The motivation to try something new
*Moments of giddy anticipation - even in the midst of stress.

That last one keeps getting me. We're moving, I'm having another baby, my husband is going back to school. These are all really really good things, but they can be stressful. Right now I'm living for the few moments in the day where I allow myself to daydream. And then everything is back in it's right place, my perspective changes and I get excited about the changes. Because Life keeps on moving. If we can't change with it then we'll continually live in anxiety and stress.

That Cake

Maybe that last post needs some explanation - or maybe it doesn't. 

Justin and I have talked about cake for almost a week. I wanted cake. He wanted cake. So, on Tuesday Ruby and I came up with a plan to bake a surprise cake for Daddy Rabbit while he was at work. The man deserves cake sometimes. Seriously.

I called up my friend, Amanda for moral support and our little ladies helped out. (As I mentioned before... no time for pictures. We needed cake.) Baking with toddlers is always an experience all its own, but we'll talk about that another time. Let's get to the good stuff!

Here's the part where I divulge all the secrets about the cake and its construction... 'cept there aren't any. It was way easy, and nothing I came up with on my own. I got the cake recipe HERE and the frosting HERE. (Have you met Joy the Baker by the way? She's one of my BFF's favorite bloggers out there.) The cake certainly lives up to its name, as it is very moist. It also has just the right amount of chocolatey goodness without being too rich.

A few words about the frosting: First, it tastes like chocolate milk. Buttery, delicious chocolate milk. Second, yes, it has Ovaltine in it. That was one of the reasons I picked it - truth. I figured it was worth doing just because I have that ingredient on hand. Who else in the world keeps Ovaltine in their house? Nobody? Just me? Ok. Third, if you read Ms. the Baker's post you'll see that the recipe is for an insane number of cupcakes. I just halved it, but you could make the whole thing and take the left-overs to your next slumber party. Or you could just eat them in the corner with a spoon. You could. Believe me you really could. Ahem. BUT, halving the recipe made just the right amount.

The only problem with baking a cake is the excuse to eat cake every day. Anyone hungry?

A Craving

Life is too short to stop and take pictures when there's a cake involved.

Thanks, to my friend Amanda and our little helpers.

A Stranger's Words

Things are a little frayed around the edges in our house these days. I'm feeling a lot of negativity creep into my thoughts as my little one experiences her first "rough patch" emotionally (i.e. my kid is throwing tantrums the likes of which I've only rolled my eyes about in Walmart). Sleep is nil. Meals are whatever she'll eat. And trips around town, to church, or even to the playground are a nightmare. My poor girl. My poor husband. Poor... me.

So today, my urchin kiddo and I went to Target, and in the Home Office aisle there stood one truly lovely lady - very well put together but not overdone, tall, thin, classy. I noticed her loveliness and shrunk nearer to my basket, supremely conscious of my figure (great with child), my clothes ("if it fits, wear it"), and my child, who had up until that moment been pretty well behaved, but was now on the verge of an episode.

Not trying to impress anyone, but rather trying to tame the beast, I pulled myself out of self-pity and I played the "cheerful parent game," engaging my daughter, talking to her about what we saw and heard all around us. She heard a baby cry several aisles over, so I asked her:
"What do we do when babies cry?"
"We HELP dem! Don't cry, baby. It'll be alwight..."
"That's right. Even babies need our kindness..."
"We love our babies, Mama." This is a common conversation at our house as we prepare for the arrival of a new baby in our own home. Our conversation went on for a few minutes and I forgot about the lady, my awkwardness, and my pride.

And then, she spoke to me. She, the pretty lady stepped out of her well put together, organized, picture of loveliness and tapped me on the shoulder and said "You are the sweetest, most precious mama I've ever seen. She's a lucky little girl."

Y'all. Seriously. I burst into tears. I didn't know what to say, except "Thanks. I needed that." And she smiled and walked away.

Somehow, sometimes, it means more when it comes from a stranger. Makes me want to be kind to others. Makes me want to try harder to help my child. Makes me wonder how I can make someone else feel as blessed by my words as I was by hers. I hope I can remember that tomorrow.

Photo Project: Part 1 - Printed Photos

This part of my list has been on my mind since Ruby was born. I've always enjoyed taking pictures. When I was young, I took a camera everywhere and I developed every roll of film I took. In fact, if I knew you between 1994 and 2001 it's likely we had our picture taken together at least once. And I got duplicates just in case you wanted a copy too. But I never gave them to you. Trust me... I know.

The issue with printed photos has always been the storage of the photos and the meshing into albums. Albums seem so permanent. Scrapbooks are even worse. What if I want to frame this some day.......... Digital cameras made this much simpler in some ways - the storage and sorting is in hard-drive land and I don't have to worry about it. But since I haven't had a picture printed since around 2004 that will be a different post. These printed photos have lived in a box for too long, so tonight, with fear and trepidation, and with the help of Blue's Clues (I couldn't wait until AFTER she was in bed?) I began sorting, scrapping, categorizing, and albuming the printed photos of the last 20 years of my life (yes, really).

(This doesn't even TOUCH it...)

Because it is the most distant but still fresh period of my life, and because there are more pictures from this period than any other, I decided to start with high school and work my way into college and post-college/pre-Justin. High school was high school, with random candids, events, and self-portraits. College was mostly my best friend, Jenny, and Opera Workshop (we did The Mikado my freshman year... I loved the makeup). Post-college/pre-Justin was a short period of time where I lived A LOT and took a lot of pictures, mostly of friends, mostly not to be featured in the album. Those are the breaks. I do have some pictures of bands I played with, some weddings, and my two solo overseas trips.

(please pay no attention to the bedroom/unmade bed in background)

I tried to stay loosely chronological, but there were a couple of situations (like the bi-annual Confederate Heritage Ball... ahem.) where I allowed all photos in that category to stay together. Made more sense that way.

Did anyone else ever have a Panoramic feature of their camera? I can think of two shots ever where I was glad that that option was available to me. But in my pile-o-pictures there were an unimaginable number of unnecessary panoramic size pictures. Apparently, the switch just stayed on "panoramic" from 1998 to the Fall of 2000. These shots were not of beach sunsets, waterfalls, or whatever else one would use the panoramic vision for, but just regular shots, with the subject matter in the center and a sea of what-the-heck surrounding. So I cut them. I did it. And I'm glad I did, because otherwise they wouldn't have fit in my album.

Also, please don't tell my mom, but in the process there were pictures, nay, whole Wal-mart Photo Envelopes full of pictures that didn't mean squat to anybody anywhere ever. I mean pictures of my mom sitting by a La Quinta Inn pool in a t-shirt and shorts, obviously not having a good time. Or the one of my oldest sister with no make-up yelling at her kid in the mall. Someone (probably me) took those pictures to be funny, but I can promise you, friend... they're not. So guess what. They're getting thrown away. And there may be some that aren't even wretched that get thrown away, and it's alright if that happens. I'm telling myself that.

So that's the first installment. There are some pictures from childhood/Jr high that I'm really not sure what to do with. There are also a lot of pictures of people's kids, or friends' school pictures that I really don't know where they should go either. Wallet sized photos of my nieces and nephews in pre-K? Next time we'll go into the dirty dark secrets of two Macs, an external hard-drive, and all those Facebook photos that my friends have posted that I want to steal, print what's printable, and start the process again.

Do any of you keep up with your pictures? What's your system? How many wallets does it take to hold all the wallet sized pictures you have? Do you (gasp) throw photos away after a certain period of time?

No really. I wanna know.