sketchy santa

Then there's my own child's Santa picture from a couple years ago :)

all is well

what's she laughing at? see for yourself

other than viewing sneezing pandas and color changing chameleons and such, we've been:

• Christmassing it up. all the usual things.
• making sure our Elf on the Shelf (Buddy, of course) finds his way to a new spot each day
• couple weeks of the sickies. guess it was our turn.
• researching late 1950s music to put together my grandparents' home movie 8mm to dvd
• putting on snow gear, readjusting snow gear when it bugs someone and she melts into a whiny frustrated puddle, wearing snow gear for not that many minutes ice-booting or sledding or jumping into large snow piles and then removing snow gear
• planning family vacations involving old home: phoenix and a trip to california (specifically anaheim)....don't tell our children please. it's a glorious surprise.
• celebrating daddy's birthday (oops, it's over)
• Mad Men marathon. wasn't the season 3 finale the best yet?
• super fancy Christmas tea party for the 4-year-old girls in our lives
• Christmas parties in general. I think we're about done.
• instant Netflix roku.com box watching (Christmas is Here Again....fantastically weird)
• reading all your blogs

andy matthews is one cool kid

also so what if i'm related to everyone i do pictures for?

a couple years ago i went to a musical in utah (annie) with my then hs sister and her choir. this boy was in the choir...also happens to be my second cousin though i'd never really met him before (i have more than a few second cousins...one i actually was blog friends with before realizing she was another cousin...true story....hi chantri)

andy's parents are 2 of those 'nicest people you'll ever meet' people. andy is too but with a twist. on the bus ride he kept telling stories of how he'd sneak into his parents bedroom in the evening. hide and wait until they were settled. jump out and scare the pants off his dad. also similar situations involving jumping out at his mom in the minivan once she'd begun her drive.

i imagine andy is a fun little brother to have around. one day you'll see his name on the big screen.

real kleen janitorial

that's my secret.
that's where i take people for photos.
evanston's high class, people.

fonts for you

hey so a looong time ago i made a bunch of fonts for people i know and didn't know and then made then available to even more people i both knew and didn't know.

then i got too busy and stopped. then i switched blogs so i've still been sending people back there to download them.

now they've found a new home. also the font button at the top of my blog has been updated. come and get em.

there were several fonts made that never got shared. they have been added to the master list but i thought i'd point them out here for all you font-downloading-die-hards so you don't have to sort through your lists and figure out which ones you don't have that you want.

beeeeeeeeeeeeeep

this blog has been interrupted (well, not really...nothing was happening anyway) and changed into a temporary photo-blog. that's honestly what has been taking up my fall. there are so many pictures i love i couldn't not share.

also i love saying things in double negatives.

so the next several posts will hopefully be showing off all the beautiful people i've been looking at lately. first up:

my cute youngest sister+lucky me snagging this chair for free+14 minutes before sunset+the empty lot between taco bell and porter's fireworks (for real)=

costume bragging (friend, sisters, brother-in-law and such)

thank you for being a friend

more fun

setting the spooky stage

halloween cookies (still going strong on the oct 31 posts)

who ya gonna call?

no one. our friends called us to decorate cookies!

our completely normal friends. see?

these were for lily's preschool party. I cut the ring part off of these spiders because they wouldn't push into the cookies very easily otherwise and they needed to work easily because I'm committed to letting my 4-year-old help. didn't she do wonderfully?

witch finger cookies for our home halloween party. half of the kids wouldn't get near them. I honestly couldn't bring myself to eat the fingernail part.

max and lilyyyyyy....lily and max

friends, is it okay that I have no less than 4 posts about ready to go on the topic of Halloween? thank you. be back soon.

watch out! here comes Lily

don't worry, he's still happy

voluntarily overscheduled

pictures, halloweening, family time, preschool, parties, fun.

a week ago:



happy to report most of that has now been accomplished.

does anyone else suffer from the disorder where during a week like that one (and that didn't even account for teething, helping grandma, groceries, babysitting and such) they suddenly feel the need (like pushing a baby out need) to tackle projects that have been sitting there for 4 months?

well one afternoon I put up these wall stickers (from walmart.com but gone now....why not make your own?)

hey blog friends, I'm back :)

grandma cat

From her I got my middle name (not Cat, her first name is actually Marie).

From her I got long skinny feet with toes going all kinds of which ways. But you know I once visited Chatsworth house on a trip to England and there is a giant marble statue of a Greek foot. It's totally my foot. We must be royalty.

From her I think I got a bit of my humor. Kind of dry, a bit sarcastic. Like BBC comedy funny.

From her via my mom I got the shopping thing. As in drive to northern Utah (an hour away) for the day...out to eat...multiple stops....girl day.

She had a fantastic way of making me feel like I was at the top of her list, even though I'm sure many of her many kids and grandkids and greats felt the same way.

We share similar attitudes about womanhood. That women are amazing and powerful and smart and influential and that the most important thing we can do with all of that is to love our husbands and be around to raise and love our children and help each other and to live that way instead of just talking about it.

She showed me that children are always welcome. Into the fridge, into her things, running through the garden, chasing the cats, playing on her bed, changing the channel, exploring the plants, climbing on her lap. My mom is very much like this too and as a result Lily is herself around her. Good and bad :)

She's been gone just a few weeks and I miss her terribly.

My sister's since become an adoptive cat lady so Bill and Millie would have a good home. I've taken in some plants and some of grandma's very nice taste in comfy shoes (also got the same shoe size from her I guess). I can't help but think when I wear them about "having some big shoes to fill" and feel just so grateful that she and my mom have shown me what it takes to keep a strong happy family. From them I really and truly consider motherhood an amazing priviledge and serious responsibility. Their support and cheering on means the world to me.