You Capture - Green

This week's theme over at You Capture hosted by Beth is green. I had such high ambitions for this capture, but alas, life intervened. I've been incredibly busy with my new job, my old job, being a wife, being a mom, and just generally being. So I snapped very few photos of green, but here's what I've got:

Love the intense stare of my oldest boy while he practices soccer

Drake always has fun at soccer, here he's practicing with Daddy

Night glow sticks for bedtime as an incentive for going to bed

Spider web in the grass with morning dew

There's a bit of green still about, look closely in the fog

Linking up to http://www.ishouldbefoldinglaundry.com/. Check out all the other greenness on Thursday!

Party Time!

I love doing graphic design, especially for fun theme parties. Awhile back a friend of a friend contacted me with a custom request for a kitschy party she was having in honor of her birthday party. Each table would have a kitschy theme, like garden gnomes, Care Bears, and unicorns to name a few. I was totally on board with this! I love designing and getting to cover such a wide range of designs is right up my alley. Recently she was nice enough to send along the photos of her party. Check out all the kitschy cuteness!

LOVE it. Thanks to Stephanie Proffitt (no relation :)) for providing me those photos, which were taken by the very talented Lanna Hoffman (check her out HERE).

Lazy Weekend

Around here, we had a lazy weekend. We did absolutely nothing, which is what I think the family needed. We spent loads of time playing (cars, blocks, and more cars) but we kept it low-key. Everyone in the house seemed like they needed time to unwind (I'm decompressing from a nasty cold and my first week at my new job, the husband had to work weekend duty, and the kids are getting over the sniffles).

My littlest guy fought and fought against a nap. Around 4 pm I noticed it had gotten incredibly quiet upstairs, so I went to check. This is what I found:

Yeah, he'd fallen asleep on TOP of his dresser. Even though his bed's right there, and much more comfortable. I guess the dresser looked like a great place to nap. Once I recovered from my shock and worry (he could have really hurt himself if he had rolled!!!) I grabbed the camera, because it was just too cute and too funny. Silly guy!

You Capture - Industrial

This week's You Capture was Industrial. I really thought that this challenge was going to be hard. I live in a typical German village, we don't have any industrial plants or anything like that. I certainly didn't feel like driving to the big city just to snap a few photos, so I decided to take a walk after work one morning and see what I could find. It turns out that tokens of our industrialized life are everywhere.

Take for example telephone and cable poles (above shot taken in foggy morning conditions, same pole below during bright sunny conditions).

 

I also found this adorable car. I don't know if it counts as industrial, but I'm sooo using it. It was too cute not to snap. Linking up to Beth's blog over at I Should Be Folding Laundry

Roasted Pears with Goat Cheese

As I may or may not have mentioned a million times, I'm addicted to Pinterest. There's so many fabulous finds out there, but I really love pinning recipes. I'm not too adventurous in the kitchen (I tend to stick to the same old recipes) so I really love getting out there and trying something new. Yes, I own a cookbook. No, it's not nearly as much fun as seeing a pin on pinterest. Here's my attempt at Roasted Pears with Goat Cheese (as adapted from HERE).

What You Need:
2 ripe but firm pears
3.5 oz goat cheese, crumbled
3/4 oz almond slivers
1 sprig rosemary
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp butter

What You Do:
1. Wash the pears and slice them lengthwise into halves. With a small sharp paring knife and a spoon remove the core and seeds from each pear, leaving a round well for the filling.

2. Heat the butter in a skillet and brown the pears, skin side down, on low heat for about 10 minutes. Preheat your oven at 350ºF (180ºC).

3. Place the pears in a ovenproof dish and pour the cooking butter on top. Add half a cup of water in the ovenproof dish. Bake 10 to 15 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, gently toss the goat cheese with the almond slivers and the rosemary in a small bowl. Season to taste. I added some chives.

5. Remove the pears from the oven. Divide the mixture among the pears, mounding it on top of the indentation. Spoon a bit of honey and bake them again for another 10-15 minutes. Serve immediately.

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 9

This week's 20 Week Photography Challenge is "A Mess." Wow. That's so incredibly easy to capture around here. I have two children, aged 3 and 2. My house is always a mess. I guess maybe the hard part is finding a bit of the mess to photograph that's visually captivating.

Here's some of this week's messes:

Linking up to A Step in the Journey. Go check out some other lovely messes on Thursday!

Number Skills

Around here we had a very busy weekend of doing absolutely nothing. Well, a load of laundry and the dishes may have gotten done, but that's all. I've been battling this massive cold for over a week now so I haven't had much energy. One thing I did manage to do was creating a number recognition game for my oldest son. I got the idea from Pinterest. (side note, if you're on pinterest leave your link to your profile below so that I can follow you!)

As you can see, it's really very simple but tons of fun for the little ones (plus educational, and you can't beat that!). All it takes is a paper plate, a marker or two, and a sharpie. I divided the plate into ten different spaces and put dots ranging from one to ten into each space. I used different colors to make it more interesting. Then I wrote the numbers on each clothespin that corresponded to each dot. It was Drake's job to correctly match up each numeral with the correct number of dots. He had lots of fun counting the dots and using the clothespins.

Who knew mastering our numbers could be so much fun! You can check out the original post (and my inspiration for this game) here: Naturally Chic Mama

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 8

This week's challenge is black and white. I love shooting in color and then adjusting my files to be black and white (always saving the color versions of course in case I want to go back). I find that the best subjects in black and white are usually people. I'm not a big fan of landscapes in black and white (think Ansel Adams) though of course there are exceptions. Unfortunately since I've been really sick this week with a bug I haven't had much energy to take some photos. I took one which I'm submitting here:

This is my littlest guy. We were on the floor finger painting. The smudges on him are bright pops of paint. It was a messy but fun experience. Here's the color version, just so you can compare:

I think I actually prefer the color version. It gives a better narration I think. But since I'm sick and slacking on my photography challenge, that's all you get. But I will leave you with my all-time favorite photo that I took in black and white. I just absolutely love this photo of my father (Papa) with his oldest grandson (who is now almost four years old).

I love the tenderness of the pose, and the casualness of it. The juxtaposition of old life and new life. The way my dad looks to be breathing in this new baby smell of his first grandson. I think it's actually a better photo because they aren't looking at the camera. What do you think?

Linking up over at A Step in the Journey.

You Capture - Apple

This week's challenge over at I Should be Folding Laundry is apple. It'll be interesting to see everyone's take on this. Past challenges have been more open-ended (like a color or vague subject) but this one leaves little to the imagination. I can't wait to see everyone's take on the apple. Beth encouraged us all to be creative..hmm. Here's my creative and humble submissions for this week:

Check out all the great apple submissions tomorrow at Beth's blog.

Fall Wreath

You know all those cute photos that are blowing up blogs and pinterest of adorable yarn wreaths? Yeah, I just had to get in on the action. I actually created my yarn wreath about 4 months ago but just now got around to creating the flower embellishments. It's a really simple thing to create so I definitely recommend doing it if you're in a crafty mood and want a cute wreath. Here's my final creation:

I used a couple of different types of felt flowers. The four petal ones are from the Martha Stewart tutorial which can be found here: Martha Stewart. The large rosette in the middle I did following a friend's tutorial, which you can find here: A Bird and a Bean. Both were super easy.

Here's my quick tutorial for creating your own wreath:

1. Buy a skein or two of yarn (depending on how big your wreath is going to be). Purchase a wreath form while you're at it. And if you can find some fabric or felt to create the flower embellishments while you're at it, you're good to go.

2. Start wrapping your wreath form with your yarn. This will take loads of time and is the hardest part of this project because it requires loads of patience. I wrapped mine twice so that the white form didn't show through. I secured the end by a dot of hot glue.

3. Create your flowers. As many or as few as you want. Follow the tutorials on the websites linked above as those two wonderful women will explain things much much better than I ever will.

4. That's it. Enjoy!

Here's my wreath as part of my motley wall composition:

If you create a fall wreath (or any wreath for that matter) I'd love to see it! Send me a link in the comments. I'm always looking for new crafty ideas to steal inspiration.

The Spider in the Doorway

I am deathly afraid of spiders. Cold hands, goosebumps, heart palpitations. The works. Lest you judge me, I will tell you I wasn't always this way. I used to be okay with spiders. I even used to "rescue" them from our house and set them free in the wild. My brother and I once had a wild tarantula (found on our front door one night) that we kept as a pet. I used to handle it all the time.

Now, I recognize that spiders have their purposes (like killing other pests/insects and being a creepy factor in a haunted house). But they have absolutely no purpose in my life. After I got bitten by a brown recluse (TWICE) and my skin puffed up and then died I've had a bit of  a totally insane fear of spiders.

So fast forward to last Tuesday. I had the house to myself and I'm cleaning and getting things done. I've taken out the recycling out to the garage and cleaned the back yard up. I'm on my way into the garage with a box full of paper recycling and I stop dead in my tracks. There's a MASSIVE spider on the doorway. So I did what any sane person would do: I dropped my box, screamed like a little girl and promptly backed up ten feet or so, because we all know that spiders can easily jump nine feet. Especially when you're the grand-frickin-daddy of all spiders. This thing was easily the largest spider I've ever been witness to outside of the zoo (and keep in mind I'm an expert since I've once had a comparatively SMALLER tarantula as a pet). And this wasn't a cutish spider with fuzzy legs. This monstrosity was evil incarnate, complete with eight skinny hairless legs. It was the size of my open palm, and I. AM. NOT. EXAGERRATING. Oh how I wish that I were.

I quickly wracked my brain for ways to dispose of the spider. I can't get close to a spider, that's absolutely out of the question. And a showdown between a normal sized shoe and this monster of a spider could have gone either way, plus I wouldn't wear the shoes after that so I had to find another way to murder him. I thought about hosing him down off the door jamb and then smashing him in with a rock, but that also brought about the possiblity of getting too close. Plus, I stood a great chance of just hosing him into the garage, near where I keep my craft supplies. That would not do. I've had great success just putting a jar or tupperware over eight-legged offenders before and waiting til my hubby gets home to do the deed but this sucker was on the side of the doorway and I'm pretty sure he could have carried off my entire stash of tupperware, all at once. There was nothing for it, I'd have to phone the husband and ask for advice.

So I called him at work, in his office. He was busy, I could tell from his tone of voice and the many voices in the background, but I didn't care. He had to be witness to my death from spider if it all didn't go to plan. He'd have to know how it all had gone down. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: "THERE'S A HUGE FRICKING SPIDER IN THE GARAGE."
Him: "Okay. Just leave it there. I'll take care of it later."
Me: "No. I don't think you understand. It's seen me. It knows I'm here now. It has to die."
Him: (laughing) "Okay. So get a shoe."
Me: "I don't think that'll work. It's too big. I don't know what to do. Should I just throw a rock at it and hope to hit it and smash it in?"
Him: "No. Your aim is terrible."
Me: (whining) "but then what?"
Him: "What about a flyswatter?"
Me: "That might work, but I'll have to get close. And I'll have to throw the flyswatter away later. I won't be able to use it again. I don't know that I can do this."
Him: "Really? Throw it away? Just wipe it off."
Me: "HELL no. It could come back from the dead or something. I can't do this. It would be easier to just concede defeat and buy a different house."
Him: "just do it. I'm waiting."
Me: "You're going to have to clean it up when I'm done. I won't be able to dispose of the body or the flyswatter. I can't touch them again."
Him: "Really?"
Me: "K. I'm doing it. 1....2....EEEEEEK."

The eek part was really just me screaming, loudly. Like a little girl. I did manage to kill the spider, one swat. After swinging, I dropped the flyswatter and ran. Just in case, you know, I had missed or angered the beast. The evidence is still in the doorway. I couldn't bring myself to get any nearer again. The husband urged me to "check to see if it's really dead." Are. You. Kidding. Me? Absolutely not. It's down, curled into a ball. I refuse to get any closer a second time. The first time took an incredible amount of strength. I'm not made of the kind of stuff that allows me to get near to death twice in one go.

PLEASE ONLY SCROLL DOWN IF YOU ARE NOT DEATHLY AFRAID OF SPIDERS...
I'm going to post photos of the beast. Mainly because he was pretty impressive, but you also need to understand how close to death I came. And survived. These photos are not for the weak of heart. You've been warned. You still have time to look away. Go, run now.

Okay so he looks smaller in this photo, because it's out of context. The width of that door jamb is a standard CMU (concrete masonry unit) and that's approximately 7 5/8" thick, so he's about 1/3 of that in diameter, which puts him at about 2.5" diameter. SCARY. Even the husband conceded that it was the biggest spider he'd seen outside of the zoo.

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 7

This week's photography challenge hosted over at A Step in the Journey is What I Wore Today. As I may or may not have mentioned previously, I'm not a fan of self-portraits. I'm usually the one behind the camera. So I may have gotten a little crafty and shown you only one piece of what I wore today.

These are my favoritest heels that I currently own right now. Though there are a pair of ADORABLE shoes at the base exchange that I covet. Secretly and without hope. They're $158. I would never ever spend that much on shoes. There's so many ways to spend $158 and getting a single pair of shoes for that much seems like such an exorbitant waste to me.

I also have to admit that I was tempted to pull a Joey on you all. You know, "Could I BE wearing any more clothes?"

Alas, that was way too much work. Linking up to http://www.astepinthejourney.blogspot.com/

You Capture - Summer Sunsets

This week's theme over at I Should Be Folding Laundry is summer sunsets, or back to school. Since I don't have children old enough to go to school and I'd feel like a real creeper taking photos of other people's children, I did the summer sunset challenge. I just have one shot for you. Sunsets in Germany (atleast in my part of it) aren't that impressive. This was a real rare treat. You can check out more beautiful photos tomorrow (Thursday) over at Beth's blog

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Guilt

Today both boys started preschool. I have very mixed and conflicting feelings about this. I'm so so excited that they're somewhere they love, getting some great attention, and socializing with other children. They're also learning how to follow directions, listen to another adult figure, and be polite. All of these things are wonderful and I'm excited because it's such great practice for when Drake starts school next year.

But it's awfully quiet here. All by myself. No little running feet. No thrown toys. No hugs or kisses. Gah. I miss them so much.

I felt like I was doing a disservice by staying home with them and not being able to devote every minute of every day while I was home paying attention to them (bills needed paid, house needed cleaning, etsy orders needed completing...). Guilt. Since I'm starting a new job they have to start daycare anyway and since the slot was available now we have to take it now (even though I haven't started my job just yet). So they're in daycare. And I feel guilt. Again.

Maybe that's the mark of a good mother (please, please let it be). That I always constantly worry about them and wish and hope and pray that I'm making the right choices for them. To give them every advantage they need. To raise conscientious and compassionate and well-rounded individuals.

Weekend Travels - Rothenburg ob der Tauber

This past weekend we travelled to Rothenburg ob der Tauber for their Imperial City Festival. They had concerts, re-enactors, medieval camps and shopping. Some of my favorite things! The city itself was worth the two hour plus drive just for the architecture. It's one of the best preserved Medieval cities in Europe. It's absolutely gorgeous. The main part of the city is surrounded by a city wall which is free (I hope) to roam about on top. Drake and I climbed it to see the view while James and Link stayed below.

We had a great weekend! Hope you enjoy your Labor Day weekend as well.

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 6

This week's photography challenge hosted by A Step in the Journey is "from a low angle."
I took a ton of photos for this week's challenge as it proved to be an easy one (grab camera, lie on stomach, take shots) but am only showing three. I've been a bit of a digital hoarder (okay, a big time digital hoarder). I have so many photos that I'm reluctant to throw away, even if they're grainy, out of focus, or hopelessly overexposed. I'm trying to be better about this and so I've tossed most of my shots from this week into my trash bin on my pc. Here's what remains:

Linking up at:

You Capture - Peace

This week's theme is Peace over at I Should be Folding Laundry. After spending many wishful moments trying to find a graffitied peace sign or a white dove, I looked around and found my peace. Peace is two brothers getting along, even if only momentarily.

Peace is also found whenever little ones take a nap (which is becoming fewer and further between). I love the sweet expressions on their little faces as they sleep. I could spend all night just watching them breathe.

Linking up to Beth's blog for this week's You Capture.