This is what I got to look at out my front window recently for about a week straight:
I had to pull out my distance lens and I felt like the paparrazi but I just had to capture this bay area past time that I will never understand.
Once a year the entire city goes through their homes and yards and puts ALL of their crap on the curb and the city comes and picks it up. The reason why it's so strange to me is because there is NO limit on what you can put out and it doesn't have to have any form or fashion. Just throw your junk on the street and eventually the truck will pick it up.
or...
it will get picked up by people who literally spend their entire weekends walking street to street literally sifting through disguarded waste. It's like a garage sale/free cycle gone terribly wrong-and the junk is free. When Nathan was a kid he and his brother used to drive around picking up old broken t.v. sets and electronic crap and would take them home and try to fix them in their spare time-dorks-and totally something my father did as a kid.
When I moved here and saw this happening all around me I just couldn't believe it. Nathan asked,
"well what do you do with your junk in Tennessee?"
"we take it to the dumpster and chuck it our damn selves like normal people!"
I may never understand. But at least in the meantime I get to sip my coffee while studying good people sifting through rejected crap a week straight every year...
So I am a stay at home mom. I *only* have 2 kids and a small 3 bedroom home. But I am admittedly horribly disorganized as a human being in general and cannot for the life of me keep my entire house front to back clean and tidy at any given time. I tend to start at the front and work to the back and usually end about half way down the hallway having never even entered the bedrooms. It's very difficult to do when you can only work in 23 minute sessions off and on throughout the day.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the amount of laundry two short statured adults, a two year old and a two month old can produce on any given day. True it doesn't help that Lucy and I typically do wardrobe changes 3-6 times a day due to bodily fluid explosions or that Bella LOVES to play in the dirt and in her sandbox and needs a full coverage plastic raincoat at meals to keep from getting her food all over her clothes.
But above all, honestly, I will never understand how this happens:
It was around the time this picture was taken that I decided I needed to call in for backup. So of course my mother in law being the angel that she is dropped her afternoon errand list and walked over to the house after work (she works at an elementary school two blocks away) and took the kids outside so I could work for a full uninterupted 120 minutes on the house. It was astonishing how much I was able to get done.
Praise God for backup/mother in laws.
Cute Kiddo Shots:
Lucy rallying for peace.
I couldn't figure out why the tank was so dang long. I got it at Target in that front dollar area that is so dangerous. Score! Until I got home and realized they are for dogs. Yes, my baby is rockin' a dog shirt. And she looks damn cute in it to.
When Maribella was a baby we used disposables. With Lucy, we went the cloth route. Our latest shipment had Lucy's bigger diapers in them which I discovered fit Bella. So now Bella is in cloth until she potty trains (never). But they are adorable. Bell's are all HOT pink with various designs on the butt. I caught her checkin out her new diggs while singing and performing in the mirror with a bucket on her head and a batton swirling in her little hands. A true circus star...
We started celebrating Easter last week! Yes it's a tad early but any excuse to do fun stuff I take full advantage of. So we dyed our first round of eggs:
She was so into this. Once again awe struggled with the "mixing colors" issue. But in the end, as always, the colors were mixed and we went from red, yellow and blue to mostly purple. Oh well.
and then I taught her that you can break them open and eat them...she was tickled...
We also made a bunny cake. I made one with my mom when I was a kid and I figured this year she was old enough to help so we went for it...
and created one of the most bizarre looking, unhealthy bunny cakes in the history of bunny cakes.
This thing was just a sugar feast. I eventually chucked most of it because it was way too sweet to give to bell in amounts larger than a bite or two and Nathan and I certainly don't need those calories. But the point was in the creation and we had fun so it's all worth it...our dentist may never forgive us...
Something special that we did this week is watch the memorial service for the Oakland police officers. It was very moving. Then when we left for a walk after it was over we ran into a crash that happened right outside our house on the corner where 4 police officers and firefighters were pulling a woman out of a destroyed car. It made me even more furious at the loss of such great men. But that is another tangent...
On a lighter note, we got a new flash this week or a "strobe" as Nathan calls it. It's great!!! We've been messing with it all weekend. Here are some bad strobe shots as we were learning the settings but the composition cracks me up:
As many know we make our own cloth wipes. It super simple: take unused receiving blankets. Cut them in squares. Sew a border. DONE!
Anyhoo, we've started putting our solution in a spray bottle (2tbs olive oil, 2tbs non toxic baby wash, 2 cups water) and using it on the wipes or directly on the bum during changing. It works great and now is Bella's favorite thing to do in the world. She calls it "butt spray". Yes it gross but cute as well. I let her give Lucy a good solid spray and voila! She has "helped" me change Lucy.
We've been working on the yard a lot now that it is getting warmer. This is very exciting to us because we have always lived in apartments. This is our first home that we can "take care of". It feels good to be "needed by nature" lol!
messing around at Home Depot getting supplies...
why did he give that to her?
flower heaven
Lucy preparing to get to work
gettin' to it
gettin' to it
enjoying the 'backyardigan'
I also went to the dentist this past week and came on to Nathan and the kids and grandma planting the front yard flowers! What a treat!
and might I add that although typically I am terrified of the dentist, it was the most relaxing 45 minutes I've had all week! I just laid there listening to smooth early 90s rock and didn't have to move an inch. I was actually disappointed when they finished so quickly but secretly excited that I have to come back in a week for a filing. Is that messed up or what?
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