Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Basking






I look forward to the few weeks out of the year Texas Red grapefruits are in season. I can have apples all year 'round...so an apple's an apple, but I savor every bite of every one of those grapefruits in every bag I buy. I look forward to the day they're available and I anticipate with sadness they day I eat the last one until next year. Josh's Aunt Julie says that families aren't meant to be so very far apart, but I know now that they're like those grapefruits...being apart makes every minute together thicker, more meaningful. Knowing your time is brief with long stretches in between makes it that much more lovely to bask in their presence and and that much sweeter to revel in their warmth.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day!

Just a quick post to say we had a very nice day celebrating Frazier's Dad, but wish we could've celebrated in person all of the other awesome Dad's we're related to.
My Mom did a good post on my dad (and rightfully so...he's certainly blogworthy as dad's go) two years in a row...so I defer to her.

And here's the post from Josh's first Father's Day.

Much love to Josh, Dad, Pop, Jim and Papa. You guys mean the world to us.

Happy Father's Day!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Berry Pickin'

A couple of weeks ago we went out to Martin's Berry Farm and picked blackberries. With Mae Mae and Pop plus the three of us, the picking went fast and we came home with a huge haul. 5 buckets- you may remember this picture.
My freezer's full and I've made two batches now of blackberry jam. Yum.

Freezer full or not, I still wanted to go back for blueberries, which Mr. Martin assured us he'd have in two weeks. As this week marked about two weeks since our previous visit, we returned. And this time we brought friends.

The whole berry-pickin' bunch:
Me and Fraz:I'm pretty sure we ate several handfuls. Berry picking makes you hungry.Aren't these beautiful? I loved all the different colors in one cluster.In the end, here's what we got among the three...er, seven...of us. Being that three of the seven were under two- I'd say that's a pretty good harvest. I was determined not to leave without my bucket filled. Mines the one on the right. :)Blueberries are better with friends. Like most things. This was about as close to a group picture of all the kids as we could get. At least they're all in the frame:Then Frazier ate blueberries out of our flat ALL the way home!
Mmmmm. Tastes like summer.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

And A Picture Of...

The cow jumping over the moon.

Frazier has exactly 402 books (in three different languages). I know because I counted them this week. Four hundred and two books, yet we read Goodnight Moon (one of our three copies, anyway) a minimum of five times daily.
I love it, but we do have other good books too. Fortunately we read alot so we get to read lots of those, too. Reading so much Goodnight Moon, though, inspired me. Every time I looked at the great green room, part of me wanted to redo Frazier's room to look just like it. Or plan a Goodnight Moon themed party or something. Ultimately, I decided just to paint Frazier his very own picture of the cow jumping over the moon.
Of course, there are no blank walls in my house, so then I had to find a place for it which lead to changing a whole small wall in Frazier's room. I took down the two shelves that were above the changing table and made that my new picture wall. One day- when we are done with diapers in Frazier's room and can move the changing table- this wall will probably have shelves in front of it so I may add some more frames below these three, but for now I think
this is a pleasant little grouping.
All the frames came from my thrifted frame collection which lives in my garage waiting for paintings and projects like this. I didn't paint any of them really, the yellow one was actually already yellow though obviously I painted over it a few times to get just the right Goodnight Moon Yellow and to add the scroll-y stuff. It was also almost the correct dimensions (I measured several throughout the book to estimate the right ratio). *Goodnight Moon Trivia: No two of the pictures of this cow jumping over the moon are exactly the same in the book and this picture is also in the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs.* I chose to replicate the one on the two page spread of the great green room and I just freehanded it, but was quite happy with my estimations.
The drawing and text in the green frame comes from the book A Hole Is To Dig- which I also love:I just photographed a page, blew it up, and printed it out on some cream colored linen cardstock. It says "A dream is to look at the night and see things". It was hard to choose just one illustration and sentence, but I thought this was an appropriate one for a bedroom.The "V is for vegetables" frame is also one I painted myself. I kind of wanted this frame to reflect another book, but decided to use it as an opportunity to incorporate the new veggie patch bedding I want for Frazier's bed when we transition the crib to a daybed.

Then I tried to get a picture of the new wall with the rest of the room so I could show how it tied in with the existing decor. Well, me thinks.
And now I'm going to go straighten up the blankets I have stored on the changing table because looking at these pictures made me realize that looks really messy.

Goodnight nobody.
Goodnight mush.

Family Near and Far

Josh's family, with the exception of his parents who live about two hours away, has always lived very far away. Like Pennsylvania, far away. And that was sad, I'm sure, when he was a kid, and I can attest that it was sad when we were just married, but it is especially sad since we've had Frazier. That, coupled with the fact that my parents and brother have been abroad most of Frazier's life and that we have a pair of grandparents each who never got to meet Frazier at all, means a lot of the people we love...are not close to us in physical proximity at all. It doesn't make me bitter so much as it just makes me extra-extra grateful for the time we do get to spend with those people (and for Skype) and so very thankful for the family we do have nearby. Mae Mae and Pop (my paternal grandparents in case you don't know) were here for the morning today just to visit and I made the mistake of telling Frazier last night that they were coming. He asked about them all evening...and then for two and a half hours this morning until they got here. He was so excited when they finally came to the door I thought he was going to run right out of his sandals. I just love that he's old enough to look forward to people. And to really enjoy them. And I love these pictures.
I've decided, therefore, not to tell him we're going to Pennsylvania in a couple of weeks and all the awesome people we're going to see there (Grammie and Grampa Jim and Nama and Papa are pretty magic words, too). It'll be a surprise for him.

He'll never know, personally, how great my Nana and Grandaddy or Josh's Grampa Rudy and Grandma Grace were, but thanks to the internet he does know lots of people who love him from afar. He even gets to travel to see them, and he gets loved on by folks close to home, too. What a lucky little boy.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Two-ish

Frazier had a mini meltdown in the checkout line at Brookshires yesterday. I can't even remember what it was about now, but when we got up to the register the cashier said to him, "You were acting a little bit two-ish just now. How old are you?"

I suppose there was no real hope of escaping it. The kid was going to be two. And evidently, even the most perfect babies become...well...toddlers. I shouldn't complain because he's still a pretty good kid ninety-something percent of the time (that number varies daily). He just got so opinionated. I don't believe I fully appreciated the time I got to think for him.

Even so, I continue to like each stage even better than the last. And I really enjoy having an almost-two-year-old. He's always played well alone, but now I feel like I can actually let him without having both eyes on him every second. Like now, for instance, he is riding his firetruck around the house so I am free to blog.
He's always on a little mission and I love his creativity. He's the kind of kid that takes one thing and sees how many different ways he can use it. He's so independent and resourceful. He will push a chair or his stool to the sink, stand on it, and wash dishes. (Like literally rinse dishes from the sink off and put them on the drying rack.) He also pulls a stool up to the side of his high chair, climbs in and puts on his bib (I always keep one hanging on the back of the highchair). He can also climb on his changing table. If I suggest we change his diaper and then don't go directly to his room- he goes ahead of me, climbs up on the changing table, and assumes the diaper changing position. He goes behind me in the bathroom and kitchen and closes cabinets and drawers I leave open. If I leave things out of place, like shoes or a drinking glass, he brings them to me. One morning, I set him up with a TV show and jumped in the shower. A minute or two later, he opens the shower door, hands me a glass of water I'd left on bedside table and shuts the door. Really made me laugh.
His vocab increases daily, but he has yet to string any words together to really form phrases or sentences. And sometimes communication is a real source of frustration since a lot of his words sound very similar and I'm not a mindreader. Yet.
I think, overall, I enjoy every day more than the last because being a mom seems to get easier. Or maybe I'm just getting better at it...or more used to it. Or maybe I just love him so much more every day that no matter how hard it was it'd still be a pleasure.
I took this picture the night Frazier fell face down on our patio and I thought he'd knocked out a tooth or two. Fortunately all teeth were accounted for, but the lip didn't fare so well. I suppose it would have been too much to ask that we make it to two without a busted lip. Really, the way this kid climbed all over the place it's a miracle we made it this long without any real injury to speak of or stitches. So there's that. But the busted lip was pretty sad...and traumatic. Mostly for me, but it wasn't great for Fraz either. It's all well now.

This was VBS week and I was a crew leader for the preschoolers (so I spent my week with 8 4-year olds) and Frazier got to go to his nursery class every day. It's been a long week, but we had a good time. Maybe now that we'll have our mornings back next week, I'll get some more blogging in!

Thursday, June 2, 2011