march: day twenty four

things i'm thankful for this day:

a house full of family.
mangos in march.
those little lips.
elijah figuring out his own word for grandma: "baba"
giggles from a fifteen month old boy.

goodness.
pure and simple.

march: day twenty three

you know you have a little boy running around when all the eggs in his easter basket look like cars, trucks and rockets.
love it.

more easter goodness to come.

march: day twenty two

more breakfast goodness.
blueberry pancakes for jackie's sixteenth birthday breakfast.
happy birthday jackie.

march: day twenty one

yum.
breakfast and daffys.
there's not much better in the world.
it's the simple things.

k.
i guess there is something better than breakfast and daffys.
this:

(more on this later!)

march: day twenty

my little bunny.
can't believe he actually wore this...for more than 30 seconds.
and yes...i know it's pink.
he'll forgive me. right?

march: day nineteen

this is a habit i am not looking forward to breaking.
any one got any tips on easing the pain of the process of becoming paci-free?

spring fever.

oh...i am so very behind.
i have had such good intentions of getting on here and posting march goodness...
but (there's always a but, isn't there?)...

my mom is here.
luke is here.
elijah is here.
john is here (sometimes).
my house is messy.
my tummy is hungry.
it is simply gorgeous outside.

there are knitty projects to be completed...
closets to go through...
pictures to take...
moments to be made...

and the last thing i want to do is miss any of that.
so forgive me.
i will be back.
soon.

i promise.

lil bit of this. lil bit of that.

so.
my mom is here.
that means that we're busy with...well...stuff.
trips to target and babies 'r' us are on the list for today...
but who knows if it'll actually happen.

got a full house lined up for easter weekend.
luke and his girlfriend heather are due here on thursday evening.
looking forward to the chaos.
love that elijah is going to get to spend some time with his uncle and un-official auntie this weekend.

hopefully i'll have some FANTASTIC easter shots up next week...
until then...

march: day eighteen

at the hair salon.
waiting.

march: day seventeen

socks.

march: day sixteen

the dudes.
playing bocce ball.
fun.

march: day fifteen

it's a big birthday in the anaya household.
john is 30.
happy birthday babe.

march: day fourteen

love it when he laughs this hard...
with cousin jackie at costco...shopping for john's birthday goodies.

march: day thirteen

happy boy in his highchair.

march: day twelve

in addition to a vegetable garden, we also planted some fruit trees. this blossom is from the nectarine tree. yum.

march: day eleven

the sweetest thing.
he slept for three hours straight that day...wonder if he would have slept longer if i hadn't been taking pictures of him...hmmm...

an ode to the park...and some creations.

elijah and gavin, just chilling

it may look like elijah's sharing with noah but really, he's making a not-so-happy sound as noah grabs the toy from e's death grip.

e helps gavin turn the wheel, while lyndi helps them both.

one of us has to monitor e and n's play time...it was shannon' s turn this time.
true story: once e got those two cars in his hands, he turned around, launched himself into shannon's arms with a look that said "save me!". we just busted up laughing...

e and i have been spending quite a bit of time at one of the local parks lately. we meet up with our friends shannon and noah on most tuesdays and thursdays. sometimes lyndi and gavin join us too. the park we go to has a great play-structure designed for the littler guys (the sign says ages 2-5 but our boys have figured it out quite well, thankyouverymuch) surrounded by astro- turf...which is FABULOUS. no more worrying about who's eating the bark, what has peed/pooped in the bark, what appendages will get splinters from the bark...etc. etc. etc. can you tell we don't appreciate bark very much? i suppose it's not technically bark...it's more like wood chips but still...it seems to be the filler of choice for most parks around here. so i suppose we like this park because of its lack of bark.

e loves climbing all over the play-structure, finding puddles in the picnic area (or other edible things...*sigh*...we're working on that), trying to figure out how to turn on the drinking fountain, playing/eating the dirt in the horseshoe pits and running hither and yon all over the place. it is such a great outlet for him...he nearly always falls asleep in the car on the way home (and considering the fact home is only a five minute drive away, that's saying something) and sleeps for hours once we get home and he gets put in his bed. he loves playing with the other boys and their moms...though he's still not the greatest fan of noah sometimes. noah is...ummm...well...let's just say...noah likes whatever toy elijah is playing with the best. so...occasionally that will cause some conflict. (ya think?) but typically, once e finally gets his hands on a toy he actually wants to play with, he just takes off in his own independent little way and usually ends up playing with the toy on the picnic tables. he's funny that way. and he's getting better at dealing with noah...which basically means ignoring him. :D hopefully soon, they'll both get the idea of sharing and playtime will go much smoother. maybe we should just stop bringing toys to the park? hmmm...there's an idea.

been working on some things lately. and have a lot of half-finished projects lying around...but a few things have actually gotten done! fabulous. below is a picture of my st. patrick's day "mobile". i say "mobile" because it's not technically a mobile at all...it's just shamrocks hanging from our light fixture. but i can pretend it's a mobile. it's not creative in the least...i just glued two shamrock doilies together...but it's colorful and fun. i realized after i'd glued them all together and hung them up that i should have folded four of them and made a three dimensional shamrock...but what's done is done...i'll save that idea for next year.
it's funny...i don't really even like st. patrick's day that much. i'm definitely not irish...and i'm not a fan of going out and getting drunk on green beer...i was just looking for something bright and cheery to hang over my kitchen table. and when i discovered this little shimmering doilies in all their cheap glory, i figured they'd be perfect. and they are. cheap as they were.

this picture is horrible, but you get the idea

i also just hung my easter banner that i've been working on for the past couple weeks. in all actuality, the banner probably only took me a couple hours total to put together...however...i get sidetracked easily...so it has been sitting half done for much too long until just yesterday when i put it all together. i hung it up today and it's quite festive. it slightly clashes with my shamrocks...but i guess that's what happens when you have easter in march.


i cannot claim the idea as my own however. i found it in the march issue of creating keepsakes magazine. when i saw it though, i fell in love and knew i had to make one of my own. i thought about making a bunch and selling them in my etsy shop (which is coming, i promise!) but the whole "easter in march" thing really dented my plans. however, there's always next year...right?



one last little tidbit from the anaya household...elijah has learned how to make the "indian noise". you know...the one where you quickly cover and uncover your mouth while making noises? yeah...totally hilarious. especially when he's all alone in his playroom doing it. i can't help but smile. love that crazy little monkey.

march: day ten

this bird feeder has been sitting in our backyard for most of the winter. just sitting there, on the ground because i really didn't have any where to hang it.
john's dad found an abandoned "for sale" sign holder and saw a future for it as a bird feeder holder. so it now holds our little feeder. the birds were a little wary of the change for a while but this morning, they came back in droves. this is just one of the little beauties.
working on some bird houses, baths and other such habitat goodies for them. i like having them fluttering around...as long as they leave my garden alone.

march: day nine

two neighbor kids playing together.

elijah has a built in girlfriend. it's true. kendall lives next door. she's about four months younger than e. and she's a cutie.
they are complete opposites.
e is a boy. kendall is a girl. obvious...but worth pointing out.
kendall is a watcher. elijah is a doer.
etc. etc. etc.
up until this weekend...they were never very interested in interacting with each other (typical for the age)...
but yesterday, they had each other laughing and giggling, playing peek-a-boo and "touch hands together between the mesh that separates us" and just any little kid game they could think up.
hilarious to watch.
super cute.
can't wait to see them walking down the sidewalk together...making their own little adventures.

march: day eight

ripon has water towers. two of them. this is the older one.
not quite sure what they're for (other than holding water) or why ripon has them and no where else in the area does...
but if you're ever driving down 99 or even I5 and you see two water towers pop out of the countryside...you'll know you've arrived in the "blink and you'll miss it" town of ripon.

march: day seven

a tired momma and her boy stop at starbucks for a little pick-me-up beverage

march: day six

taking cousin jackie to school...with a snack on the way.

march: day five

munch. munch. munch.
an apple for snack.
normally, i cut his apples up into nice, one hand sized pieces.
however...apparently...his grandmother didn't see the need...so...there you have it.

march: day four

me and my boy.

just ten days late...

so...you're probably wondering where my march calendar page is, right? right. considering the fact that here it is, march 10th, and i haven't posted it yet. well, there is a good reason...and it's not because i've been enjoying february's page so much that i couldn't bear to put march up (though there is some truth to that). no...it is something different entirely. a little history first: the calendar i'm using this year is a making memories 10x10 blank calendar...i've told you that before. well...the thing is, the workable surface isn't exactly 10x10 due to the rings holding the calendar together...the canvas actually ends up being about 10x9.5...give or take a millimeter or two. or three. because of this, i've pre-cut 12 sheets of white cardstock down to 10x9.5 to use as my starting point. well, when i was beginning march, the paper somehow got turned around...so now it's 9.5x10...which means it doesn't really fit the calendar page. *sigh* when i first discovered this (on march 1st), it really annoyed me. so i did what i usually do when something annoys me...i left it alone. it sat on the floor of my scrap room for about a week. then i realized i really actually used my calendar and i was tired of guessing at the date. so...i put my annoyance aside and tried to figure out a remedy to my problem. there was no way i was going to redo the page...and i couldn't trim it (you'll see why in a minute)...and it looked really weird on it's side...so...what could i do? i just stuck it up there with a 1/2 inch hanging off the top. and yeah...it bugs me...but it's really not that noticeable. i'm the only one who ever looks at it and march doesn't last forever.


so...there it is. big, fat, glaring mistake and all. at least now i know i'll triple check that i have the page facing the right way before i start working on my subsequent pages.

now that you've seen the page...you're probably wondering what all that writing says. right? right. it's actually the lyrics to one of my favorite songs. and because i'm such a nice blogger...here they are:

Your wind is mighty...it bends the backs of trees
it moves among the fields along these california streets
we've come to know as highways...they can take us anywhere
but all we know is where we're going and how fast we're getting there
the world outside my window is shaming me again
with the things i haven't seen cuz i've been writing about them
the sky's a waiting witness to the truth i would possess
but i've forgotten all its mystery in my quest for second best

i want to live with wider eyes...there's far too much to see
to think of nothing else but where i've been and where i'll be
i've been longing for the freedom that is waiting silently
in the life that's just beyond the small perimeter of me

Your rain is mighty...it weathers mountainsides
it raises these rivers til they look a mile wide
and i think that i have crossed them on a bridge a thousand times
and haven't even seen the rivers from the corner of my eye
i'm frightened by how easy it can be to live so long
going from one thing to the next thing to the next til months have gone
and you realize you have really not done anything at all
at night you fall asleep believing you've just climbed so you could fall

and i don't believe that who i am is something i can find
it's whatever i create with what i do with all my time
it's who i choose to love with all my heart and strength and mind
and whether i believe that what i have is really mine

i want to live with wider eyes...there's far too much to see
to think of nothing else but where i've been and where i'll be
i've been longing for the freedom that is waiting silently
in the life that's just beyond the small perimeter of me.

sight. sound. smell.

we had a taste of summer last sunday as we held the first bar-be-que of the season. last summer, it was all about the bar-be-ques on lyman place. someone would pick up some meat at the carnecedia (mexican meat market...it's grub!) and some beers and we would all hang out in front of our neighbor's house (mainly because they have the bar-be-que) eating, laughing, watching the kids play...you know...hanging out. it was a weekend ritual and this past sunday, we shook the dust off the bar-be-que cover and inaugurated this season of outdoor fun. some sights/sounds/smells from the afternoon that i don't want to forget...or that i want to remember when it's 105* outside...whichever.

sight:
bubbles glinting.
buds blooming.
e laughing at his cousin.
different shades of green in so many combinations.
a full plate of goodness in front of me.
watermelon juice dripping down e's chin.

sound:
meat sizzling on the grill.
bob marley.
the "ding ding" of e's little bike.
the wind whispering.

smell:
almond blossoms.
yummy tacos.
cilatro and lime mingling on my fingers.
the clean scent of spring.

it is here. spring. there's no denying it...as much as i wish i could. the blossoms are at their peak. the sky is the magnificent sun-washed blue that only appears in spring, after a winter's rest. even the birds have an excited air to their tiny hops as they search the grass for leftovers. it is here. spring.
and it is lovely.

march: day three

me: "hey dude! where ya goin'?"
e: "abos"
(translation: abolita's. translation again: grandma's)

march: day two

snips and snails and puppy dog tails...
and dump trucks.
yesh.

march: day one

and so begins another month of pictures.

elijah enjoying the festivities with his grandparents. we were at a quinceanera which is (according to wikipedia):

The Quinceañera or Quince Años (sometimes represented XV Años, meaning "fifteen years") is, in some Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas, a young woman's celebration of her fifteenth birthday, which is commemorated in a unique and different way from her other birthdays.

Besides referring to the actual festivities, the word is also used to refer to the young woman whose 15th birthday is being celebrated (analogous to the word cumpleañera for "birthday girl"). The closest equivalents to the Quinceañera in the English-speaking world are the sweet sixteen, catilian, or, in more affluent communities, the debutante ball for those who turn eighteen.

interesting, no?

february: day twenty-nine

a note about my photo-a-day project: february has obviously come to an end but i think i'm going to continue with this project. i have march 1-4 pictures on my camera, i just need to get them on the computer. will probably be able to do that this afternoon. hope you've been enjoying the little glimpses into our daily lives...here's to another month of photos!

doctor's office. not e's favorite place to be. obviously. just getting his excema (sp?) checked out...nothing serious.

february: day twenty-eight

and he's off!
beautiful spring-like day. note the shorts and t-shirt.

february: day twenty-seven

sweet lips. worn out from storytime at the library. can't get much sweeter.

february: day twenty-six

playing at the park. cars lined up and ready to zoom down the slide.