October?
Where has the month gone?
A week in Missouri to see my baby brother and his sweetheart wed . . . aren’t they just beautiful? Her dress circa 1950’s, hat-circa 1930’s.
Friends abound carving pumpkins the afternoon of the reception. The end result–lovely!
A weekend in beautiful Yosemite. On our way, we happen upon a real Native American Powwow. The children were simply enchanted (photos via Sophie for a photography competition).
Hike to the falls, big Alph had Ollie on his shoulders the whole way. The next morning as the children stir I hear “Oh, my bum . . . it hurts!” It was a pretty steep hike:)
Family and friends visiting. A quick weekend with Tasha and Dave in Monterey (ask her how we ambushed a Michael’s and set up camp in a craft room) and one with the ever-welcome B. Wises. My favorite days are these “cousinfest” days. Serious play from sunup to sundown. (We are crossing our fingers they will get their dream house right down the road.)
Indian summer days full of soccer practice, piano lessons and homework. Feeling a bit too busy, and trying to find ways to slow down and enjoy them while they are young.
Found Sam hiding behind his pillow this morning in tears, “you are mad at me mom.” We were late this morning and I was rushed and impatient. Not their fault, but mine. Slow down, Amy, get organized, don’t forget to hug them and tell them how much you love them.
Happy Autumn!
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (9)Happy Days!
Well Happy Days! Kiddo #3 is off to preschool today. While other children were shedding tears and clasping desperately to their mothers’ skirts, Mr. Oliver skipped off to circle time with a quick wave and hardly a look back. His day had finally arrived!
I celebrated with a cup of Mayan Hot Chocolate from the ever delicious Moonstruck Cafe. A big cheers to me!
Been trying to get organized and have hit my house and closets with a vengence–it feels so good! I’ve also been feeling a little crafty.
I’ve been wanting to wallpaper the inside of my vintage built-ins, but haven’t wanted to cough up the money. So I was thrilled when I walked down an aisle of Target and found the cutest contact paper/shelf liner! Two hours and five buck later–Viola!
My other little project serves a purpose. I’ve been struggling with finding time to read scriptures with the kids. The morning is too hectic and at bedtime I’m too exhausted to deal with it. So I came up with this cute idea (if I may say so myself). I covered an empty can with pieced favorite fabrics of mine. I then wrote the scripture mastery verses on popsicle sticks and placed them inside. I’ve placed it on my buffet in the dining room so each night one of the children chooses a stick and we read that scripture. It is simple, stylish and effective . . . just how I like things!
Now I am off to tackle my closet!
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (14)But Before I get to San Francisco
I need to take a little more time to get my San Fran post ready (I have a few links for you), so thought I might post another girl’s weekend that took place just a couple months ago.
My favorite city, right behind San Francisco, would have to be New York. A few local gals and I headed to the Big Apple celebrate Miss Gwen’s 40th birthday.
Yes, I know, she looks AMAZING!
We were lucky to see two fabulous shows that exceeded my expectations–Wicked and Mary Poppins. Wicked’s music and storyline brought me to tears, while Mary Poppins played out like an old school, grandiose musical. The stage sets knocked my socks off. Each play was la-lovely in it’s own right!
We shopped SoHo,
strolled through Central Park,
navigated our way through the subway maze,
met up with my baby brother Josh and his cute girlfriend Jessica for a late night dinner,
basked in the glory of the Museum of Modern Art,
and relished each other’s company.
Not a bad way to spend your 40th, eh Gwen?
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (7)It may be narcissistic but . . .
Just completed a wonderful weekend with dear gals . . . thank you for visiting.
How fortunate for me to have friends that encourage intelligent and caring conversation, a love for arts in all forms of expression and just plain wicked fun. In one of the endearing little shops we visited in my lovely San Francisco, Miss Becky found a book which Miss Tasha then informed me we all must buy. I followed orders (I’m no dummy), hardly glancing at the book.
This morning while unpacking my weekend goodies and reflecting on my sweet memories, I came upon this unknown book and it fell open to this page with this amazing quote.
“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I loved just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” Diane Ackerman
I stopped breathing for a few seconds and savored those few moments when time is suspended. YES, we all think this, but few say it as well.
I have my varying views on blogging. My lack of it lately confirms it. What are the motivations? Narcissism, reflection, journaling, keeping touch with distant family and friends or portrayal of an image or life that is inaccurate? I have not figured out the answer . . . but perhaps it doesn’t matter. It can be whatever it needs to be for the author.
For myself, I’m choosing it to keep a record of my life, the life where I want to fully live it’s width–to share my passions, my dreams, my memories, my movie of life.
It won’t be too personal, nor too frequent–I’m more comfortable with that. But it will be me.
So . . . hello! And if your curious what amazing shops and restaurants we discovered in San Francisco this weekend–stay tuned!
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (11)I tried to be mad . . .
after they helped themselves to a bottle of shampoo in the tub.
But I couldn’t–they were having too much fun!
That is, until their delightful plan took a turn for the worse.
Well, @#!*
Losing this blog thing has been a total pain. It has left me bitter and not wanting to blog. I absolutely have a love/hate relationship with technology.
I DO, however, just need to buck it up and get over it. There are lovely events and fun resources I want to share–but time, as well, has not permitted. Visitors, playdates and warm weather have distracted me 
Some of you lovelies have e-mailed me requesting some of those links I posted in the past couple January blogs that have not yet been reposted. Hopefully that will happen soon (Brig is being a dear and reposting them so I can eventually have them ready to print out for a blog book). So keep checking!
Happy note–Our trees our in blossom and the daffodil bulbs which my kiddos planted in the fall are blooming!!!
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (8)Update
You might have noticed our blog was down for a few days. What I thought would be a minor problem has proven to be complicated and almost heartbreaking. The server which holds this site has completely deleted my blog. For some unknown reason they lost ALL of it. Needless to say I was miserable when I thought I had lost 2 1/2 years of family journaling.
Brigham has found some of the blog that has been cached by Google and I have spent MANY hours on a search and recovering mission throughout the web. I probably have now found about two-thirds of my entries and hope to find more.
We are now taking steps to save all of our blog entries to our hard drive. In addition we have now backed up our hardrive to an off-site holder. This covers us in case we were to have a fire in our home or were our hard drive to crash and lose everything on the computer–including our precious photos where they are stored.
Having almost lost everything, I realize how very priceless and irreplaceable both this blog and my pictures are. I would encourage you all to look into doing a similar thing. My blog won’t be running at full capacity for a little while (I’m not sure if you can even leave comments-try so I can see if it works).
On a bright note, I just had a glorious week with friends and family. I feel so lucky to have my wonderful mom and sister and then my beloved Swindles visit us. This made for two very hard goodbyes at the airport:) Thank you, thank you for coming!
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (11)