Verbally Challenged

I could list a million things that I’ve been doing…keeping me from blogging.

Things like sitting around eating too many pomegranate seeds and clementines (not helping the heartburn by the way)
Doing endless loads of laundry (but the baby WILL have clothing to wear now)
Crafting with my little dude who was home from school last week
Attempting to shoot a Christmas photo…unsuccessfully due to DARK weather
Making banana bread…and Thanksgiving pies…and brownies
Creating a couple of layouts for a deadline
Wrapping Christmas gifts (all kids…DONE)
Shopping online…more on this later
Going to doctors appointments…lots of appointments…in the city

You get the idea and I meant it when I said that I could list a million things.

So Thanksgiving came and went, amazingly fast. I’m still eating pie. And while I had my camera with me all day long I never got any photos of the feast, table or family (other than my kiddos). Part of me says shame on me, but the other part says good job for enjoying the moment. It’s something that I rarely do.

I did (before dinner) get photos of the kiddos – surprise, surprise.

The little Miss:

The little dude rockin’ out…again:

And the little Miss again…in a crazy but cute hat:

There is even a little creature on the top of it…makes me smile.

And then a layout with a photo you may recognize:

And one more layout with one of my most favorite sayings from AJ:

It’s a busy time. But I’ll be back soon, promise! More later!

I will admit that it’s a THIN photo Friday but at least there are photos. Two photos. Pathetic I know. But the whole idea is to give you an idea of my week and quite frankly, I’m spending a lot of time at the docs and that doesn’t make for fun photos. Nor do I tote my camera to the hospital. Maybe I should?

So this is what I have – both of the little miss. This whole early darkness thing REALLY interferes with my photography fun – especially with the L-man.

This is the latest of the wee miss with quite a pleasant face. That’s probably because she found her brother’s earphones and I hadn’t taken them away from her yet. She’s in the dazed, “wonder if mom will notice and care” moment:

She has been in testing mode lately, seeing just how far she can go. It’s fun to watch – especially since I know what’s going on!

And then I took this one today:

We stayed home. Actually the weather forced us indoors. It was 27 and snowing with a wicked windchill. It’s weather that only crazy people would enjoy (hi crazy people) and I’m just not one of them. So we dressed warm, Addy found a hat (big in our house these days) and I grabbed the camera.

And that’s all. I told you that it was pathetic. I should be ashamed. BUT I am resting and taking it easy so that has to count for something, right?

And a HUGE thanks for the well wishes and emails regarding my pregnancy. I’m now 31+ weeks and hopefully we’ll make it at least 5 more.

Well, photo Friday didn’t go over so well this week eh? I told you not to count on it every week as I’m a major slacker. But lately, this pregnancy has become a little more complicated so I have reasons and because of that, I hadn’t picked up the camera in a while.

What I have been doing is taking it easy (well sometimes). I’m nesting BIG TIME and striving for an order that I’m not sure exists…or can possibly exist in my house. But I’m trying. Turns out I need to try less as the doctors have warned me in not so many words. Anyway…

I’ve been sharing some projects that I’ve been doing for Danielle with her new site Kitschy Digitals. It’s all digital/hybrid work which has been a nice change of pace. I’m not waiting on products, reliant on the post office and can print off/customize what I need at my leisure. It’s a matter of convenience and flexibility that I need right now…and I get to remain creative.

So this week she designed a really cool woodland kit with all kinds of neat stuff going on (in amazing colors as usual). I did a few projects (sitting down) like puffy pins, a baby shirt, and a book tote. Fun stuff and great gifts ideas with the holidays coming up!

And then I’m on a board where we’re doing a gift exchange for our little ones. I had another little girl to buy for the same age as Addy (and we had a limit) so this is what I got her:

The little lunchbox has six felt cookies with sprinkles in there – LOVE the idea of giving felt food as a gift! And for the record, I purchased those. The little felt tree appliqued pouch I made (while sitting down) and holds those little flower hair clips that I also made. That was a really easy project and all that you really need to know is a simple blanket stitch. She has a little brother on the way so I sent off a couple of onesies that I made (totally etsy inspired) for him too:

And I had the most fun wrapping the items (like I always do) and couldn’t forget a photo there either:

Sigh. I love gift wrap.

And that’s all. I still need to tackle a set of curtains for the very small baby nursery. All in due time…and energy…and baby permitting.

More from me later!

That seems to be how I operate these days. I’ll have a few days where I’m totally motivated in one area (computer, designing, cleaning, purging) and then days where I’m fried and want to do nothing. I blame the pregnancy (and I’m GREAT at finding things to blame). Lately, my days seem to be populated with doctors appointments. I hit the 30 week point and LOOK-OUT! Thankfully Liam is in school and the little Miss is wonder baby who likes to charm everyone she meets (and she does) – she’s very portable and goes wherever quite easily. I won’t lie when I say I’m a bit afraid on this next one.

And the fall chaos continues on the weekends with the explosion of birthdays in my family and apparently in Liam’s class at school since we seem to have a “kid party” to attend at least every other weekend. It’s a good thing I’ll be adding to the chaos by having another child in December. What’s the harm in squeezing one MORE thing in, right?

And then just because I don’t want to be a total complainer in this post I’ll do what comes naturally – share photos.

First off some things that I did for Kitschy Digitals using a new vintage frame kit that Danielle created.

This is a family tree that I’ve had in my head for some time. I’d love to do it in fabric/felt with lots of hand stitching when I have the time (insert heavy laughter here). I think that it turned out cute with the paper though and I LOVE the dimension on Danielle’s frame!

And then I created these cute little notebooks that I swear are one of my favorite things right now. I used her frames AND kits to design the front and back covers, added plain paper inside and did a Japanese book binding technique to hold them together. They’re darling if you ask me!

And then some other photos.

The shirt and the action…not quite mixing here.

And then I thought maybe I’d get a photo of the two together. It started out promising…

And they seemed happy and cooperative:

And then they turned silly and it was all over:

Looks like I’ll keep trying.

And then just because I got one the other day…a photo of my little nephew.

More later!

A new one for me. Perhaps it’ll be one that sticks around…I don’t know. I like the sound of it but with the holidays and baby fast approaching, I’m not sure that I’m ready to commit. We shall see.

So lately…ok who am I kidding he’s ALWAYS liked hats…Liam has been wearing hats of all types. His favorite being dads – and there is always one lying around somewhere. So before school yesterday he plops one on his head and asks me to take a picture…well who am I to resist! Especially since he usually runs the other way and then complains when I’m dumping my camera that he’s nowhere to be found. So I get this one…a new favorite of mine.

And then the crazy gal decides she wants to be in on the photo session as well. I will say, while Nate and I both have a good sense of humor, neither one of us are flat out goofy. But our kids – crazy, goofy, silly – and I’m always shaking my head. I have to think that they take after my sister (who was always WAY strange growing up), my cousin Tony and my aunt mae. None of them are or were ever shy – or felt the need to hold back – that’s our kiddos. So Addy finds Liam’s “woggle googles” as he calls them and viola:

A crazy person.

And then today the little miss and I met my sister at the zoo. The weather lately has been amazing and I refuse to let it go to waste! So we’ve been spending our times outdoors.

We checked in on the baby elephants to see how they were doing:

And spent some time at the playground enjoying the slide and the leaves.

Peek-a-boo on the slide:

Another peek-a-boo shot that I just love…mommy goggles on for this one I’m sure:

And then one area of the playground had a blanket of the most gorgeous golden colored leaves – and the sun was streaming in beautifully.

The little lady wanted to share with mummy:

And that’s all for now! Happy Friday!

My delightful husband made this video…come trick-or-treating with us!


Aspinwall Halloween 2008 from nathan kress on Vimeo.

The weather lately has been wonderful – completely my style and something that makes me MORE than happy! I really DO like fall…just not a cool crisp fall. I’d rather have a comfortable 60-70 degree fall – that has been the weather lately.

This weekend we took advantage of the weather (and the extra hour due to the time change) and spent sometime outdoors. Well, Nate took advantage since I never picked up a working tool…unless the camera counts. He grabbed a rake…Liam grabbed a rake…Addy grabbed a basket to collect rocks and walk around looking cute…I grabbed the camera as any good photography obsessed mama would do.

And this is a little bit of what happened:

Addy abandoned her rock collecting at times to play on the slide (and wave hello to all of the readers):

Liam and Nate raked the leaves into piles…and Liam used his wheelbarrow to dump his piles into Daddy’s for the compost pile (which our son is completely OBSESSED with):

And then Addy felt like she was missing out with the leaves so decided to grab some of her own to contribute…and she was REALLY proud of that:

And then the whole idea of “work” went out the window and they decided to make me completely nervous and play in the leaves. Care to guess what’s going to happen here:

And guess who thought that was completely hilarious:

I should probably explain the nervous part of the leaf playing experience. We have a lot of deer on our property. And it’s actually rare to look out a window and not see at least five deer. I should also mention that our poor dog is getting at least one tick on her daily. And that’s just gross. She’s on a preventive that kills the tick…but only after it bites and feeds off of her blood. That just seems wrong but it’s how it works. Our only other option is a tick collar that is full of more chemicals that I care to have running around our house. Especially while I’m growing a child and have two small children who are bound to touch it…or pet her. SO we’ve been dealing with these most awful critters. Honestly, it’s the only reason I’m looking forward to a deep freeze. I digress.

Based on the ticks that we know are in our yard, I don’t like the idea of our children playing in deer territory (which is really our territory). But we let them have some fun for a bit before heading inside for me to obsess. I had them strip down so we could examine them. I even ran combs through their hair just to be sure. Paranoid? Perhaps. But completely necessary to me. I don’t remember worrying about this as a child and I jumped in a lot of leave piles. Ah well.

And just because…a photo of me…kind of. The white paper in the center of the photo is hanging inside of the room…it’s a love note from Liam. And obviously it’s a reflection but you can see how I’m growing…that’s quite a belly eh?

I’d love to have some maternity shots done but alas, can’t seem to locate a fun photographer in my area. Anyone out there?

More later.

***ETA – Check out the American Crafts blog. Part of the design team was asked to create place cards for Thanksgiving so you can see LOTS of ideas (and I can tell you that I did NOT go traditional). If you leave a comment tonight you’ll be entered into a drawing for some goodies – so give it a go!