keep calm gallery window shopping.

oh man i could get into some trouble over at the keep calm gallery.  the decorating wheels are always turning.

that's my matthew...

Matt's new business venture made the Post tuesday...  he quit teaching to help Coite.  pretty cool!

update

spent some time perusing 5 Orange Potatoes this morning, after being linked to her elderberry syrup recipe from heather.  my goodness there is a lot to do on there!  i can't wait to try a few of her other herbal recipes and science projects with the boys when we move.  

this is the house we put an offer on last thursday... we'll see... once again trying not to get our hopes up...

ps. it looks bigger in real life.

all of this waiting and hoping and wishing and praying has led to a WHOLE lot of knitting in our little corner.  i have definitely finished 3 infant sweaters, one ezra sweater, and one(almost... one sleeve left) isaac sweater(due for a certain 4th birthday coming up in october for which we are attempting to go veeery light on the toys) all within the last month.  next in line would be something for my mama(birthday in a week!) in cashmere to keep her neck warm and a rather adventurous sweater for adam(due by christmas thankfully).  THEN i will start on the sweaters for the nieces and nephews(i love that there are two of each now!) for christmas because i might just turn into THAT AUNT that always gives you sweaters for christmas and you're expected to pretend you're excited to get a sweater instead of that doll you wanted... i might do some book shopping so they don't feel like we gave them a completely pointless gift. 

so there you have it.  a blog post that SORT OF has news of us, although i really must say i feel like we have been in limbo for a month just WAITING.  i hate waiting.

pps. why does the cat in the hat sound like martin short?  ohhh because it IS martin short.  nice.

dara and josh

this is a gorgeous video.

belated congrats dara and josh!

ps. hot shoes dara :)

no way. no way!

sayen's buddy girl

sayen turned 1 last wednesday.  my how time flies.  this is definitely the shortest amount of time one of these has taken me(like 3 hours for the doll and her clothes and an hour for the sweater... yay for chunky yarn!).  they are based roughly on the black apple dolls, but my own non-scary looking version.  i love the creative play they spark in our home(isaac and ezra have buddy boys) and i am so happy holly wanted one for sayen :)  

happy birthday baby!

the entire month of august. and a little of july.

isaac made himself some glorious jewelry with the wikki stix andrea gave us(their waitor at pfchang's gave them to emmett to play with).  their eventual demise can only be described as me putting some VERY dirty and well-used wikki stix in the trash while trying not to throw up at how disgusting they had gotten in a week.

at the end of july we kissed our boys goodbye in nc(with adam's parents) and headed to mississippi for my cousin Marisa's wedding.  adam had never seen the georgia peach water tower, which i think looks like something else...

we drove down to new orleans for a day, just for old times sake(we honeymooned there).  i do so love that place.

my handsome man :)

ahh the murky waters of the mississippi...

you stay classy, new orleans.

my cousin's magnadoodle(really the best toy out there to buy the college student in your life) rendition of our trip to the sandbar.

precious.

tucker was all tuckered out... hah hah hah... funny joke...

and then we came home and decided to repaint the entire house, in hopes that it would attract a contract... which it did.  this is an amazing drip of paint that looks like an apple.

iced coffee and nutella sandwich.  breakfast of house-painting champions.

lentil soup and grilled cheese.  lunch of house-painting champions.  

and then one fine 90 degree morning, we decided to go raspberry/peach picking with holly at our traditional Larriland(such a fabulous name for a farm)...  we definitely ate 1/3 of what we picked while picking it...

it turns out that isaac is a peach-picking nazi and reminded holly and i every TWO SECONDS not to pick ones that were too green.

and what would my life be without some catastrophic event every now and then?  an old lady(who didn't know where she was) pulled out 20 feet in front of me(going 50mph) on 301.  she got a citation, so thankfully i don't have to worry about fighting an old lady with dementia in court.  i'm just so glad none of us were hurt.  the airbag dust burned my left hand and the boys had carpet burn on their necks from their seatbelts, but other than that, no injuries.  the lady was just confused, but unhurt. SO it will be a while before i have my car back, but thankfully cars can be fixed.

get excited and make things...

lovely little free download from the blah blah blahg that will HAVE to be framed above wherever my sewing machine gets settled when we move.

impossible

this is my cousin sasha and her friends genevieve and lydia having waaaay to much time on their hands.  my cousin hunter is the genius behind the camera.  you guys are adorable!

gone gone gone

forgive my absence... i've been in mississippi for a week.  my cousin got married(!!!!).

i cannot BELIEVE i never shared this video.  why can't my hair look like that?

i LOVE she&him.  thanks for addicting me to them matt :)

what tha...

sydney sent me this.  wow.  she be crazy cool.

urchin rocks

Margeret Oomenstack's AWESOME tutorial over at the purl bee has got me reeeeeally wanting to waste some time on pretty rocks instead of painting my livingroom... 

 

 PS. her blog is undescribably cute, i think anthropologie should hire her just to sit in a corner and be cute.  i want my (future)porch to look like hers... think she would give it to me?  also, this is the second time i have seen someone crochet a rug for the floor and hers looks like i could do it today with the stack of tshirts i was going to donate... the first one is still the love of my life, but my confidence in my crocheting skills is waning...

no more cast!!!

a little blog i wanted to share(mostly for the benefit of steve, holly, matt, and adam... none of whom probably read this) with you(along the lines of the broadturn video a few posts back) quickly is the wayfaring milkmaid.  one of this season's broadturn apprentices who helps me fill my need to see that place on a regular basis.

 playing with mrs. streett on the fellowship hall floor on sunday :)

this is love... holding a screaming baby down and cutting away his bonds despite the fact that he hates you for being his nurse.

that saw was so loud

lots of scissors and clamps an tugging...

i didn't want to post any crotch shots, but this gives you an idea of what his skin looks like...

now we get to bathe in oatmeal(with a little burt's baby bee), which is almost as fun as playing in a pile of dirt!

OH! i just ordered a baby book for baby #3! Eric Carle's Very Special Baby Journal!

gotta go... galloping gourmet is going to burn a chicken for half an hour... no time for frolicking...
...oh dear he's making the chicken dance on the butcher's block.

our good buddy scott's brother Jason Secrest's artwork.  love it!

it's a boy!

we're getting pretty good at makin boys!  we had our sonogram this morning and met our new little brother/son.  the sono-tech said he's measuring a december 5th due date(a day earlier than we were originally told... not a big change.  for those of you doing the math, i'm 20 weeks and 5 days).  he already likes yoga... he had his legs extended the whole time as if he were sitting on the floor touching his toes(most obvious in the middle right and bottom right photos).  i think isaac and ezra were a little confused as to why it looked like a skeleton instead of a baby, but we tried to explain sonograms at a 3 year old level.  adam says this will all pay off when we enter our hay-baling/stall shoveling days, and dad says now i can successfully take over the world(i'll consider it...).

meet your farmer

Meet Your Farmer - Broadturn Farm from Pull-Start Pictures on Vimeo.

last year(july?) we drove our 88 vanagon up to maine and then new brunswick for vacation with 3 close friends.  when we arrived in portland, we stayed two days and a night at a lovely farm called broadturn.  all i can really say is that it was magical for us.  i just wanted to soak every piece of it up.  it planted(no pun intended), for adam and i, a very strong desire to emulate the self-sustainable lifestyle john and stacy were fueling every day.  we spent two days in what for us was heaven. a lot of work(i'm sure we have no idea how much), but heaven and totally worth every drop of sweat.  they were one of eight maine farms filmed by the maine farmland trust recently.  just wanted to show you a small piece of my heaven...

how is it already july??

lovin some edith lately

 trying not to get too excited about an awesome house that we probably will not get.

enjoying all the swag everyone so thoughtfully sends ezra!  we try to save them to open on grumpy days.

especially moo moo...

...and dee dee...

thank you tessa! (jessi you are a crazy woman... sending us these nine months pregnant with a ginormous paco and in the midst of moving)

using any excuse to make a purple cake(happy birthday reeanna!)

funfetti, strawberry, funfetti... i couldn't resist.

joining the take-pregnancy-pictures-in-the-bathroom-mirror bandwagon...  19 weeks along

ordered myself a little(peacock colored... my picture doesn't do the color justice) treat... in my longstanding tradition of copying soulemama.
this will be the third sweater i've knit for myself.  when it's finished i'll have to take pictures of the other two and post all of them.

ezra got a little heavier this week with the addition of some cast reinforcing. 

he chose red, as if he wasn't noticeable already, and she wrapped a broom handle between his thighs because he was starting to crack the left(unbroken side) leg off.

he's not allowed to put weight on the broken leg, but that doesn't seem to slow him down... he can stand by himself... the kid's going to have a six-pack before this is all over...

knitting a ton of boy hats since like everyone and their mother is about to have a boy right now.  diane and robert just had twin boys this week and these hats are destined for their little heads as soon as i weave in the ends and get my butt to the post office!

found this little beauty at the thrift store over the weekend and debating whether to paint the frame white and put it in place of the giant dark foreboding one currently in our foyer.

found some sweet little bongos too

about 16 tomato plants that are starting to get used to their new spots(all but four came up on their own from us turning over all our compost last fall... thinking we would have moved before gardening season); four basil plants(the purple one is hanging on for dear life), one rosemary, and two cilantro plants i picked up cheap at whole foods; three bell peppers, 8 eggplants, 4 cucumbers(3 surviving), and 4 canteloupe(2 surviving) plants that andrea brought me from the heirloom section of a garden center near her that was giving plants away!  i purposefully killed off about 10 squash plants that were starting to come up on their own because i didn't want to deal with their taking over my already-limited space and they ended up being some sort of hybrid butternut/spaghetti squash mix that was not very tasty last year.  i will wait until i have a field to try squash again(maybe that house will pan out... 4 acres!!)