I have lots of new things that I’m kind of wigging out over, check it:

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Happy Holidays!

-Amy

Well here it is almost October, and we can see that that hasn’t happened! I am going to try to do better.

The thing is, we have been having a lot of issues with Ethan at his new school. It would be really helpful for me to pour my heart out and tell every detail and emotion that has been wrung out of me (it’s been quite a lot), and I’ve wanted to post about all the trials several times. However, something has always stopped me. I don’t hide our names on this blog (though I do our address) and we could be easily found by anyone involved.. Not that I am afraid of any retribution, but I don’t want to hurt anyone involved (including ourselves). I have been frustrated with those who still have Ethan’s best intentions at heart, and in venting those frustrations I may hurt feelings.. I’ve always had a rule on this blog: if you write *about* someone, always write as if they are reading it. I don’t think I can do that here.

Also, it is one thing to post cute photos of your toddlers on your blog, but Ethan is 9 now and I have to consider his privacy as well – he may not need/want it now, but in the years to come, he is going to be on the internet increasingly, as well as his peers and I need to consider how much information I put out there (and remember – the internet is FOREVER) that really is personal to him.

So… all that in mind.. It’s been a very hard month. I feel as if we’re out of the riptide however, and making our way in out of the deep. We’ll see how it goes. I am so grateful for the professionals we’ve found in Colorado that are helping see us through this.

Sorry for the silence.. and the lack of details on this situation.

I have started a new jewelry class which is fun and frustrating all in one! I’ll post more about that soon. Today I have to do laundry and cut rings – my jewelry has not been selling (i smell a sale coming) but my supplies shop is hoppin’!

-amy

(image from my etsy supplies shop – yes, I get bored shooting plain photos of jumprings, can you tell? Gotta spice it up somehow!)

First off, they took a cheese grater to my feet.

A CHEESE GRATER.

I know the place I used to go to in VA used some sort of tool with a blade, which is pretty similar — but I swear, I am mentally traumatized now. I may never be able to grate cheese again.

Next, she kind of buffed the sides of my toes, but the hard callouses are still there — mostly because…

They painted my toes before doing any moisturizing! So they couldn’t moisturize my toes, because they were drying from the polish on them!

Anyway, it’s good to get this off my chest. Never going to that place again!

1st world problems, I know!

-amy

These are a few pieces of my new Signal collection:

I have more of these coming!

I really wish I had blogged during this whole process, because it has been totally surreal. The weeks before leaving Virginia was filled with “last times” doing this, and “last time” doing that. I do want to write a little bit about it, and plus I have photos. Always good to post photos!

Jocelyn had her ballet/jazz dance recital the week before our departure.

Since James’ company was relocating us, it was very nice to have packers come in and totally pack us up. What would have taken us weeks was done in 2 days. Amazing! We were packed up Thursday June 23 and part of Friday, and then everything was loaded onto the moving truck. We left that evening and headed for Indiana, to visit with my brother’s family. The kids had a blast.

cousins: ages 2-16, all playing legos. only missing 1 cousin who was out of town

trampolines – always fun

Last fall we drove to Utah and tried going w/out any sort of portable DVD player(s). We had the kind with 2 screens that strapped onto the back of the front seats’ headrests and there was always some todo about who got to pick what and Jocelyn would always get bored 15 minutes into her choice and Ethan would be stuck with it and so we just did away with it. We played movies over the car speakers (just from our phones/ipods) and it worked out fine, though this trip we didn’t even do that. There was a lot of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Nintendo DS playing, and the trip really did go well with minimal arguments.

We spent Sunday with my brother’s family, and then hit the road Monday and had dinner with James’ sister in St. Louis. Tuesday we were on the road when our VA house closed (didn’t have to be there, the relocation company handled it all, yay!) and we squealed with delight somewhere in Kansas when our realtor called and told us all went smoothly. Wednesday we arrived in Colorado and Thursday we closed on our new house. Then we had a long 4th of July holiday weekend of spending the days in our empty house or at the hotel pool, while we waited for our household goods to arrive. The moving truck arrived Tuesday, July 5th and there was much rejoicing at having all our stuff, albeit hidden away in boxes!

I have been adjusting to staying home with the kids, and I think we’ve settled into a nice groove — just in time for school to start! Only a week left, and then school begins. I will soon know the feeling of bliss every other stay at home mom feels when the little whiners darlings go off to school!

My Etsy shop and my own website are back up and taking orders — and lots of new things are cooking just waiting to get photographed and posted. Now if I could only find my macro lens…

-Amy

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So we’ve spent a good bit of time in the car, out doing things, away from the house this weekend.

Cute the FIRST:

I was working in my studio, which is (now) in a smaller room off the big room in our basement. The big room has tall Ikea furniture holding many bins which hold toys. I could hear Jocelyn as she hummed and sang away as she pulled toys out – a Barbie head whose hair she could brush, some Strawberry Shortcake dolls and assorted furniture, a variety of very small stuffed animals. She hummed and played and then skipped off upstairs without cleaning up, so when I emerged from the studio and saw the toys on the floor, I called her down, saying, “Jocelyn, come clean up your toys!”

Her voice floated down the stairs to me, “Mom, I didn’t get out any toys.”

No malice, no indignation, just pure matter of fact. I looked again. Just to check. Yup, toys are indeed, on the floor.

“Well, come on down here, there are toys on the floor.”
Humming and skipping down, “OK, but I did not get out any toys!”
Arriving at the bottom of the stairs. Staring at the toys. Reiterating once more, in a calm, steady voice. “I don’t know how these got here. I did not get out any toys.”

I said nothing. I just watched her.

A beat went by.

“…….. but I’ll clean them up mommy.”

Oh yes, indeed, missy, you will!

CUTE/HILARIOUS THE SECOND:

On Saturday, Jocelyn took her hard earned $5 allowance and bought a $5 skantily bikini clad Barbie doll. She proceeded to carry it with her everywhere she went.

Ethan can entertain himself for hours with his DS, with a book, with legos.

Jocelyn entertains herself for hours with anything that she can then animate. She will very softly whisper to her dolls, or stuffed animals and have them interact with her, or others. She can play this way a long time. She’s very self conscious though and often won’t let us hear what is going on in these intricate enactments.

James was driving, and I was sitting beside him, when we heard Jocelyn tell us,

“Oops! I accidently popped Barbie’s head off!” She wasn’t upset, and in a moment reported, “I’ll just pop it back on.”

Then about 5 seconds went by when we heard her whispering to Barbie, “Stop screaming, and let me explain!”

Can you believe that???

“Stop screaming, and let me explain!”

Anthromoporphizing taken to the extreme. In her mind, Barbie was obviously screaming at the loss of her head, and Jocelyn was trying to placate her with explanations on head-popping off-ness.

Tears come to my eyes as I try not to stop laughing at that one.

AWESOME THE THIRD, AND LAST:

We got a call late Sunday night to view the house, so we piled into the car and went to Uno’s for dinner. On the kids menu they had several optical illusions, one of them something like this:

From http://www.coolopticalillusions.com/

When you move toward/away from the image, it will appear as if it is turning. Jocelyn held it on the table and moved her head closer and further away over and over, mimicking a possessed bird with a severe twitch, watching as the illusion caused the wheel to “spin”.

“I want to know how they did that!” she stated to me.

Later, I caught her busily coloring on her menu, but when I tried to show interest, she made her frowny face at me and covered up her work. I feigned disinterest until she forgot about me again, intent on her coloring. I looked and realized what she was trying to draw, and used my super special secret Parent Eyeball Telepathy to indicate to James that he should pay attention to his daughter.

He smiled, unknowing what exactly what she was working on, taking my Telepathy message as just, “Look at your cute coloring daughter,” and not seeing the depth there in. I made more urgent Parent Eyeball motions used STRONGER Telepathy to let him know he need to KEEP WATCHING HER — WAIT FOR IT!

She patiently finished her drawing, and then straightened it out on the table, and suddenly made the same bird-like motion, moving her face closer to the paper and further apart, trying to get her illustration to “move” in the same way the optical illusion had done.

James just about fell apart trying not to be AUDIBLE in his laughter and glee, and even though I knew what she was doing, seeing her actions was too much! We both giggled and laughed, much to Jocelyn’s disgust. She was VERY upset at us being a witness to her experiment and subsequent failure and let us know in no uncertain terms.

I had to try VERY HARD to not reply to her, “Stop screaming! I can explain!”

-amy

It all started when someone left out a few baby carrots. I’m not going to point any finger (ETHAN!!!), but what’s done is done.

It started out benignly enough.


Do you see that? DO YOU SEE IT? A rapid, blood sucking bunny rabbit. SURE, it looks all cute now, but have you seen Monty Python’s the Holy Grail? I don’t want to RISK seeing how fast that bunny can move.

It only got worse. BEHOLD!

THEY WERE MULTIPLYING! I tried to ignore them, but that proved to be the wrong choice.

Oh. My. God. Well, there was only one thing I could do. You may want to skip the rest of this. It gets a little gory.

First…. I killed them. These rapid, carnivorous bunnies had to go. I had children in the house to think of!

Notice how Friday, our cat, on the couch doesn’t even pay attention to what I’m doing. she’s too busy checking out the book she ordered from Amazon. I knew I should have torn up that credit card offer that came for her.

I FEEL NO GUILT SO DON’T EVEN TRY IT!

But what to do next? I was a little desperate. What to do?! What to do!! I grabbed the handiest thing to staunch all the bunny blood.. plastic grass. that’s right… I stuffed them.

It’s surprisingly effective. Of course, even though the blood was staunched, I still had all these bunny corpses to dispose of. Trash? No, first place anyone would look. Paper shredder? My god, man, even I’m not that cruel! I will stuff them with plastic grass, but I won’t shred their empty husks of bodies! The humanity! THE BUNNIMITY!

I did the only thing I could do. How to get rid of eight bunny corpses??

Luckily, I had just the thing.

Put cookies in them and send them to school for my son’s class. Toddlers can handle anything. They won’t even blink. Plus, due to their inherent destructive nature, those feeble bunny corpses probably won’t last the day through. I was as good as HOME FREE.

What was that? Did you hear that?

I gotta go. I think the bunny police are after me.

- amy points out that when everyone’s after you, paranoia is just good thinking.

Make your own paper bunny baskets, and many other paper toys, courtesy of The Toymaker.