Last month Jenn from Pfaus Photography took some photos of our family out at our favorite pumpkin patch.
Aren’t my boys handsome?!
The kids got muddy, but that’s real life.
These are just a few of the images we chose…they rest will be used for Christmas cards, so you’ll just have to wait to see them.
Thanks, Jenn for another pfabulous mini session!
home is…family photos in the fall.
Every few years, since my early 20’s, I decide to cut my hair short.
I think I was 22 the first time I cut it.
I kept it short for a bunch of years after that.
{1999}
{2000}
{2000}
{2003}
I think I started growing it long a year or two before we moved to Portland.
I grew it for a few years until the little guy was about 9 months old.
He kept pulling my hair, so I cut it short.
{snuggling reece and oak during a thunderstorm}
{gorge games 2008}
{reece’s 1st birthday}
That lasted less than a year and I was ready to grow it long.
I’m five years into growing my hair long and other than some color, a few trims, and bangs a couple of years ago there hasn’t been much change.
I think I am ready for a change.
Ryan just laughs when I mention it to him because he knows that eventually I will want to grow it long again, but that’s the good thing about hair…it grows!
I’ve always loved Meg Ryan’s short hairstyles…
I’ve taken many of these photos into hairstylist when getting a new cut.
I also pinned this image twice within the last year or so…I really like this cut.
And, here are a few other hairstyles that are kind of what I am thinking of….
What do you think?
Should I do it?
Which cut do you like?
home is…thinking about changing it up.
home is…apples farms, leaves beginning to change, sunflowers.
we still have two weeks of summer break left around here.
although i am ready for the kids to head back to school, i am thankful {while i watch others send their kids off to school this week} that i still have two weeks to suck the marrow out of summer.
on monday i received an email from one of the moms from our friday playgroup. although we haven’t met for a playgroup in a year we still send group emails out to each other on a pretty regular basis to get together with whoever can make it whenever they can. she said that she was planning to go to the enchanted forest with her kids and wondered if anybody would be able to meet them.
my plan for tuesday was to go to oak’s park for the preschool rides, but when i saw her email i decided that the enchanted forest, where we had never been before, was just what we needed to kick start our last two weeks of summer!
my prince and princess…
poor miss muffet…
my sillies…
heading into the hansel and gretel house…uh-oh!
on to wonderland….
down the rabbit hole…
and, a little tea party…
have to admit, Alice in Wonerland is one of our favorite movies…it will be seen on an outdoor movie night someday.
looking in on the seven dwarfs house…
the squirrels were making the beds…
and, then there is this…
it’s supposed to be the witch from snow white and the seven dwarfs…
little red riding hood…
at the shootin’ gallery…
comedy theater in the woods – pinocchio…
miss jill and cade…
and, nola…who invited us to meet them!
the western town where reece had his “favorite part of the day”…
and, one of the “free” slides the kids get a chance to ride on with a genreral admission.
this was an awesome day for our 3-6 crowd…under 2 was not able to do much, and over 8 would probably be bored.
we will go again next year and change a few things:
admission averages $10 for anybody between 3-50 years old
you can bring your own food, so be sure to pack a lunch or snacks
you can re-enter the park with a stamp, so leave you lunch/snacks in a cooler and go back out to eat it (or bring it back in)
all said and done, it was a great day away from home and a spectacular kick off to our last two weeks of summer!
home is..waiting until the last minute.
So, I hear that Meg and Kimberlee are hosting Whatever Craft Weekend Seventeen this weekend!
Who’s going?!
Here are my pictures from Whatever Craft Weekend Sixteen…
When I arrived at the house it was like a dream come true.
It’s bright, fun, and full of personality!
I bought a print of the sunflower and bee photo…just waiting to find the perfect spot for it in our home.
A lot of what I have chosen to do in our home came as inspiration from the Craft House.
After exploring and snapping photos, we were called to dinner. Erin and I were chatting up in our room and Megan had to come up and get us!
Kimberlee is a fantastic cook and an incredible person.
After dinner, we moved into the workroom to make our ruffled aprons.
There is just so much happy everywhere!
I finished my apron and then stayed up until 2am with Erin while she worked on hers.
Mornings are gorgeous in the Craft House kitchen…
and out on the porch.
We ate a wonderful breakfast and headed out to shop! I started backwards with my posts, so you can read about shopping here.
After shopping, we had a little bit of downtime before getting back to crafting.
The rest of the evening was spent on our crafts, eating, and chatting the night away.
Up until 2 am again…I am not a night owl, but I will stay up late for good friends and crafting!
Another fabulous meal, photos, and back to the airport.
It was an amazing weekend that I will never forget.
Beautiful home.
Even more beautiful people.
Meg and Kimberlee, if you are even in need of a helper, give me a call! I will come back in a second!!
home is…a once in a lifetime.
Do you remember when I said I would tell you the story about the time an Instagram friend whom I had never met in real life invited me to be her guest at Whatever Craft Weekend in the middle of nowhere Kansas?!
One evening in the middle of February I got a text from my Instagram friend Erin (some of you may know her as @tweetpotatopie).
It wasn’t completely out of the blue because we had traded a few texts prior to that, but this one said, “Call me as soon as you can!”
It was somewhere around Reece and Lorelai’s bedtime and my phone battery was about to die, so I asked if I could call her in the morning.
She said that she would text me the next day if she still needed me.
The next day rolls around and sometime in the afternoon I receive another text to call her. She also tells me that it will be well worth it!
I was intrigued and called her right away.
We chatted briefly. It was so fun to put a voice to a face that I had seen for months on my phone!
Then, she asked if I knew about Whatever Craft Weekend.
OF COURSE!
She said her “number” was picked and she wanted to know if I would like to go with her!
WHAT?!
I was in complete and total shock.
I was in tears. I couldn’t stop shaking, smiling, and crying.
I. WAS. GOING.
Of course, I had to run it by Ryan, but it was pretty much set in stone.
My name had been on the list for over a year and was resigned to the fact that if I ever got very, very lucky I MIGHT get to go.
Man, did I get lucky!
There we were…two Instagram friends who had never met in real life picking at the barn at Whatever Craft Weekend in the middle of nowhere Kansas!
I’m starting in the middle of the weekend because it was easiest to start with the photos from the barn.
I could have snapped photos there all day.
In fact, this is just a small sampling of the photos I took that day from my Nikon.
Rows and rows of rusty metal and worn wood.
Some of my very favorite photos were taken with my iPhone, but I will save all of those for a post of their own.
It would have been dangerous if I had been able to bring back more.
Erin and Megan drove down in Erin’s suburban and they filled it up!
Isn’t it beautiful?
I’ll be back soon with more about the rest of the weekend…until then, you can read Meg’s post about it.
Oh, and Erin, she is just awesome. I’m glad to now call her more than just my Instagram friend. She is a blessing.
home is…making new friends.
the kids, my parents, my sister, my niece and i spent a week at lake pend oreille in beautiful northern idaho.
the first night, reece was throwing his hook into the water…
by the next day, he was catching fish all by himself with one of topher’s mepps spinners!
uncle buzz and aunt michele have tons of water toys at their lake house…
reece and sasha got out on the jet skis with topher and uncle buzz…
while lorelai played on the beach with meme.
reece also go out on one of the hobie cats with uncle buzz…
and meme got some time on the water, too.
my 95 year old grandfather was up there with us, too. he couldn’t make it down the stairs to the water, but enjoyed the view from the patio…
my parents rented a house for all of us about 6 miles away and we ate dinner there every other night…it was a way for all of us to have some quiet time, but we still had a beautiful view of garfield bay and the lake.
i ran three times while on vacation…this was my halfway/turn around point on my first run.
and, here is where it ended (near the house where we were staying).
running errands by boat is awesome…
on sunday, topher took my sister and i into town by boat so we could do a little birthday shopping for sasha. the girls rode into town with us and back to my aunt and uncle’s house with topher.
reece and sasha made the trip back to town with topher to pick us up.
returning to the lake house, we were greeted by these two little dock dogs…lily and elmo belong to my cousin and his wife…
that’s my cousin, greg…
and, this is his beautiful wife, natalie. our first visit to the lake was for their wedding last august. they just celebrated their first wedding anniversary! (you can see the posts from their wedding here, here, here, and here)
we took the boat out to watch greg on the air chair…he makes it looks way easier than it is.
you can see topher on a jet ski in the background…marley, who is the original dock dog, was sad that she couldn’t come on the boat, so he took her for a ride on the jet ski.
i can’t wait to see the go pro video of all my cousins giving it a try next week (we missed their visit by a week…maybe we can all be there again together next year)!
we celebrated the kids birthdays…july 5th, august 1st, and september 8th.
and, watched the baby bald eagle…
watch us.
the days of playing on the lake melded together…slow, relaxing, fun…i have more photos and video on my phone that i think i will need to add in another post.
looking good for 95…
we took the boat into town for dinner and were joined by my cousin and his wife.
uncle buzz, topher, meme, and aunt michele…a good looking bunch that make this family fun possible.
seriously, life is good at the lake.
saying goodbye is hard, so instead i say, “see you next time.”
home is…one of my happy places.
you know what i have learned in the last month?
heat, humidity (low or high), mosquitos, and i don’t get along.
but, cousins, cousins get along…always.
we’ve had a lot of cousin visits this summer.
we are currently visiting ryan’s family in new york.
and, just two weeks ago we were in colorado visiting my family.
cousins on my side of the family…
cousins on ryan’s side of the family…
and, all of our kiddos cousins.
cousin’s are like long lost best friends.
you know the ones where you haven’t talked in years and you pick up right where you left off?!
yeah, that is exactly the kind of friend a cousin is.
older cousins.
younger cousins.
first cousins.
second cousins.
first cousins once removed.
cousins are just awesome.
home is…cousins.
you’d think i was new to this blogging thing with how long it took me to write this post!
well, i’m back and have lots of things to share with you, but first…
we had our first backyard movie of the summer saturday night.
it didn’t all go as smoothly as planned…
lorelai had complained about her stomach hurting before we ate dinner.
i dismissed it.
she didn’t want to eat much dinner, but i asked her to eat 3 pieces of her hot dog.
she chewed…
and, chewed…
and, chewed…
and spewed.
she got so sick.
all over the dining room, kitchen, and bathroom.
this was a first for us.
almost 6 years of parenting, and this is the first time we had to deal with a vomiting child.
she fell asleep while i was holding her on the floor of the hallway after her bath.
she cried and cried about our friends coming over for the movie.
we texted them and let them know what happened.
we were still planning to watch a movie, but wanted to inform them of lorelai’s sickness in case it was a virus.
luckily, they decided to still come over…they said, “it’s gonna take a lot more than a little vomit to keep us away!’
don’t you just love good friends like that?!
in addition to lorelai’s sickness, we also had a few technical difficulties:
1. peter pan was an HD movie and would not play through our projector, so we had to choose another movie (luckily we have plenty to choose from)
2. this time of year it stays light until after 10pm in the pacific northwest, so once we tried another movie we found it was still too light to watch it.
the kids thought it was fun to watch it on the laptop and that is when we changed our game plan…
we went for a quick walk around the neighborhood, regrouped, let it get a little darker, and chose a different movie.
jackpot!
the girls settled right in…it was the newest tinker bell movie, secret of the wings.
once we moved the cozy coupe and the “trailer” up from under the playhouse, the littlest of the bunch was happy.
eventually, we could all sit down and watch the movie…
or, sit back and relax in the chairs around the fire pit.
the movie ended, and shortly after that lorelai got sick again.
i took her upstairs to another bath and i snuggled her in bed with towels at the ready.
she was so sad.
luckily, that was the end of it for her sickness.
she ate fine all day sunday, and other than getting worn out from the heat, was back to her normal self.
so, i had a few questions from instagram followers and thought i would post a few tips for outdoor movies, so here it goes!
1. projector
2. laptop, iPad, or iPod
3. speakers
4. movie screen (i made ours from a painters drop cloth)
5. extension cords
you’ll want to get a feel for how everything needs to be set up…do you need a table for the projector? how far should the projector be from the screen? what connects to what (i.e speakers connect to the laptop, laptop connects to the projector)?
we always do a test run by ourselves or with neighbors for our first movie of the year…there are bound to be some minor glitches and you want those worked out before you invite the entire neighborhood!
1. snacks: last night we just did popcorn and popsicles. last fall we had a theme and centered the snacks around that. or, you can just have everybody bring their own snacks.
2. drinks: just like the snacks…keep it simple, BYOB, or provide something that goes along with the theme of the movie
3. blankets: thrifted quilts are awesome for backyard movie nights…i have a stash of them and put them on the air mattress and on the grass. in the cooler months i stick a few thrifted afghans on the chairs around the fire pit and in a basket on the deck in case people need one.
4. chairs: use what you have or ask everybody to bring their own
5. twinkle lights: twinkle lights just make the whole scene magical. we have ours up year round in our backyard and it just sets the scene for a festive evening.
backyard movies have become one of my favorite things about summer in our backyard. we hope to have a lot more movie nights well into the fall…as long as the rain stays away!
home is…back at it with backyard movie night (and blogging).
about the time a friend from instagram invited me to whatever craft weekend?
not yet?
i will.
it’s a good story.
home is…still recovering my iphoto library.
stephany taddeo 