holly's mama-made wall art!

in lieu of trying to stamp a border (or worst yet using wallpaper border) in holly's room, i decided i'd try to paint a mural. the wall around the windows are no more than 2 to 3 feet each, which isn't enough room to put anything. so, i painted it instead. here was the progress... first, i had to paint the walls pink. this pink matches what will be her bedding. it seemed to be a light pink, but once it was on the walls, it looked more like i spilled pepto bismol all over the place! next, i had to pick out the colors i wanted to use... which i also decided to get different finishes. i ended with a glossy dark pink, a satin brown, and green, and a flat ivory. next, i drew my design idea by looking at the canvas prints that cocalo offers to match the bedding set. i also used this set too, as it is similar and i liked the pattern. (shhhh, don't tell them i ccopied their stuff... because i just noticed it is copyrighted! oops!) then i had to actually draw it on the wall - i used pencil, and the subsequently smeared the lead all over the wall (via the side of my hand as i was painting). those magic eraser things - you know what i'm talking about? well they work great for pencil. so i started with the green stem, then the brown... and then the beginning of the flowers and butterflies... in all, i'm pretty sastified with it. i can look closely at it and see all sorts of imperfections, but i suppose i'm my own worse critic, right?

...he learned how to scoot!

here you can see that kendal has finally figured out how to be a little bit mobile! he can only do this on the wood floor... also note the way the toys are spread out. he likes to throw. and if he throws a toy and can still reach it, he'll get and throw it again (and again) until it is too far away. also note the use of the left hand for throwing and grabbing. and the way he waves his arms when hes done throwing something... and at the end you can clearly hear the UH-OH! in this video, you can hear him say BALL (the orange - it is round anyway!) and all done (when he throws the book).

hoot owl mine - a bit about our spruce pine field trip

how cool is that name? hoot owl mine... well inside the mine was as cool as the namesake, except that over 200 people were in it - i had a problem going too far into the mine, got a bit panicky like that time we were in arroyo tapiado (SP?). i suppose i have issues when there is earth above my head. anyway, this was a mine for pegmatite... feldspar (NA), mica, and quartz. the mica books were SO large in the wall there that even though it was well over 150' high (the walls of the mine), you could easily pick out seams of mica from the ground. they were stuck in there pretty good, though, because as several undergraduates discovered (ones whom i would guess had never used their rock hammer before this trip) - no matter how many times you hit the rock wall around it, you won't be chiseling out those books in the 2 hours we had to spend there. anyway, here are some photos i lifted off the wncrocks page. seems that one of their members owns the mine now. wonder if they'd let me go back... sans crowd! we also went to emerald village, a cheesy touristy stop, but it was an actual mine area long time ago (bon ami mine). it was kinda interesting, i suppose. it was most fun to participate and watch nathaniel figure out how to clean a bucket of dirt!

bon ami mine

emerald village/bon ami gift shop and museam emerald village mining area

unlocking a car door the old fashioned way

funny thing happened to me this afternoon. i went shopping with mom and, as usual, i was driving (her car). well, katelyn has the big key set, the one with the clicker on it. and, as you know, its been raining all day today. i haven't a raincoat (well i do, but since i can't zip it up there isn't much use in wearing it). so, here we were - in the parking lot of the post office (getting back into the car). there is a man standing outside of his car beside us (in a raincoat), playing with his kid in the backseat (his wife was inside). i have the keys in my hand, looking for the clicker. mom is at the passenger door, looking at me wondering why i hadn't unlocked them yet. i said "i don't have the clicker! i don't know how to get into the car!" (she has one of those keypads on the door - and i didn't know the code.) anyway, i just stood there with the keys, waiting for her to signal to me what the code was... figuring she just didn't want to yell it because there was a man next to us (then he'd know her code). but no... that wasn't why at all. she was looking at me like i had lost my mind. then i remembered. "oh, i have the keys. i can use them!" the man standing at the car next to us was laughing as hard as we were. i blame this on pregnancy brain. clearly that is the cause.

For whom did you vote? Please don't tell me!

today i wanted to mention a newfound peeve of mine... besides all the voting ads that are on TV plus the annoying phone calls (mentioned by nathaniel on his blog). you know what i hate? people who advertise who they vote for. why does one feel the need to share their vote? as if someone is so unable to think for themselves that they are going to "do what you did" just because you did it... (my mom always said "if everyone jumps off a bridge are you going to do it too?") even 2 months ago when i had a political survey over the phone (yes, they actually called me), when i was asked whom i planned to vote for [for president], i told her i didn't know. which i did know, but i wasn't going to tell her. i'm happy to share some of my views (like the ones i blog about such as abortion, animal cruelty, the addition of BHA/T to foods, or even wastewater or what's for dinner). but who i (or you) voted for is just one of those things that, in my opinion, you just shouldn't share. EVEN IF you are working for the, for example, democratic party - and you are persuading/encouraging people to vote for john kerry (we'll just use him since that was 4 years ago plus i could find an image to go along with it...), it really doesn't have to mean that YOU will vote for him too. do you hear obama or mccain telling everyone who THEY voted for? no. you would assume they voted for themselves, but... maybe they didn't! we'll never know! and i will even go as far as to put A VOTE in the area of "things you shouldn't tell someone" along with whether you had sex last night, or whether you have atheletes foot, or whether you have a sore on the inside of your mouth. PRIVATE things. PRIVATE things you don't tell the general public or even some of your best friends and family. (i.e., even though my mom and i have discussed the presidency, i don't think either one of us has come out and said exactly who we voted for... i think we both know, but we haven't said it.) so maybe i've offended someone who reads my blog, someone who is wearing that "i voted for john kerry" pin as shown above. please explain why you like to advertise who you voted for! i'd like to understand it!

the humor in passing gas...

for many of the male half of our species (and some of the females too), passing gas/pooting/farting tends to be funny for generally the span of an entire lifetime. especially before and immediately following puberty. i've always wondered at what age this comedy develops... do babies think gas is funny? well, actually they usually do. maybe not "funny" in the haha sense, but they definitely find it relieving. ever seen a newborn smile? usually it is because of gas - maybe not coming out their butt, but moving around in their tummies. so at what age then does the "haha" funny happen to coincide with passing gas? well, i've got an answer for you. somewhere at about 13 to 14 months - the noise associated with farting is really really funny. don't worry, i'm not "telling on" anyone - or even insinuating that folks in my house are having fart parties like terrance and phillips on southpark. when kendal poots, he thinks it is funny. even if we make fake poot noises, kendal thinks that is funny - and even imitates it with his own mouth. want to know what makes the typical poot noise even funnier? when it is done into a paper towel tube (the part left after all the paper towels are gone). this process amplifies the sound even louder, which in turn makes kendal laugh louder and harder. so - pay attention to your babies (whether they are your own or whether they are your friends' kids). see when they start to think poots are funny. i'll bet it is just over 1 year old!!!

10 points for the hubby!

let me start here by first mentioning that the blogger help group is awesome. i've been having some trouble posting (can't do pictures, videos, and no text changing either...) but after visiting their website, i got an answer from someone else's question within 3 clicks! yay.. now i can add photos! so the real reason i'm blogging is to mention how smart my husband is. and i mean it sincerely. background story first: last year (or was it the year before?) for christmas, jon asked for bedroom slippers that he could wear to the mailbox (not cloth bottom). well nathaniel had his name, and since i was looking online for a slipper that met jon's requirements, i went ahead and ordered 2 pairs of them (so nathaniel got a pair too). i also ordered myself a pair, however since my feet have ballooned so much with these pregnancies (gone from a 7 or 7-1/2M to a 8-1/2 or 9W!), the size 8 i ordered didn't really fit. my mom got them instead. anyway, nathaniel loves his slippers (we hope you do too, jon) and wears them every day (in the right season) from the time he gets home to the time he goes to bed. during the day, i wear them. (they are way too big, but they keep my toes warm!) they do have the hardish sole, a super-soft pad on the bottom, and they are VERY soft and light. they are the brand "acorn" - and incidentally i want a pair of my own for christmas this year. ;) why my husband is smart: as i mentioned last week, we went camping this weekend. being 33 weeks pregnant and sleeping on the ground... more than 10 steps from a toilet can be a challenge. already expecting this problem to surface, he thought ahead and brought his bedroom slippers for me to scurry to and from the bathroom (no time was wasted on me trying to get on my sneakers, nor did i have to freeze my toes by wearing my flops). they worked PERFECTLY walking to and from the bathroom (which was only about 200 feet away). so each night when i woke up (about 4 times), i could easily (and warmly) get to the toilet before my bladder exploded! yay! see! i told you he was smart! (of coarse, not only is he smart, but he is also kind - since for an entire day, he sat through some of the most boring field stops to listen to the "academia" discuss the P-T phases of the ashe metamorphic suite. uuuuuuuuh..... even i thought that part was boring. of coarse, a 2 hour visit to a amphobolite quarry - used to make concrete - wasn't really very interesting either, nor was the gross cheese and slimy meat roll-up we had for lunch. fortunately, we did have 2 cool stops: one was to emerald village, where we got to blow through 2 buckets of "enriched" dirt to find all sorts of cool, non-regionally occuring minerals, plus a lovely near 1 mile uphill hike to the abandoned hoot owl pegmatite mine, where we stayed at the back of the pack of 200+ folks hiking up the mtn so that i didn't overwork myself.)