I’ve been way too businessy- with not enough family on this blog here, so today I am sharing a video of our little man helping with the laundry. As you can tell by his non-stop chatter, he is terribly excited to be doing this. Let’s just cross our fingers and hope that when he is big enough to do chores consistently he will enjoy it just this much.
Nolan is doing the laundry from Kiona Wilson on Vimeo.
So last month, I did what I had been too chicken to do for a long time, which is send jewelry to my all time favorite blogger Heather Armstong, aka Dooce. I got hooked to her blog about two years ago, and have been a huge fan ever since- along with (at least) half of the rest of the United states. She’s published two books since, and seems to have become the go-to ‘mom blogger’ when any media outlet wants to talk to one. So in my mind she’s a blogging celebrity. One I would love to be my BFF.
So, one day I had the great idea to send her some of the jewelries I make, just because I think she’s pretty darn cool, and she deserves some free goodies! But as I mentioned, it took me a while to actually send her anything because I was too chicken to do it, feeling like some loser celebrity stalker and not wanting to do it for the wrong reasons. But then one day I got over it and sent the goods on their way, along with a note stating something along the lines of; Here, this is what these are, thanks for blogging, enjoy! Figuring I would never hear about it again, and just being content knowing Heather has some of my goodies and is hopefully enjoying them, and if nothing else, using them as gifts!
And then I get home two weeks later to find a sweet hand-penned note from The Dooce herself sitting on my dining room table! That’s is when I did allow myself to have a little (big) crazed fan moment and gushed allover it and showed it to Greg, and shared it will all my friends on facebook and twitter. Because that’s just cool.
I was thinking of how I would explain this to Nolan if he were to ask me what the hell was so exciting about a piece of paper with a dog in a blue wig on it, and maybe some writing on the back, and I would have to tell him that it would be as if Lightening McQueen hand wrote him a note, just to tell him “Thanks for watching my movie!” And then he would totally get it.
So now the card hangs on my inspiration board as a reminder that- yes! Dooce loves my peapods too!
This past weekend is one of the few ones left this fall season without a show scheduled on it, so my husband had the great idea to visit one of our states’ parks and take a hike at it with our little man and the pooch.
So we headed out to Raven Rock park which is right along the Cape Fear river at Lillington NC. I didn’t realize that there was this much mountain-like terrain only an hour outside of town!
Sasha (our dog) was totally in her element. She gets walked a good bit at home, along with the occasional trip to the dog park, but that all paled in comparison to this giant park with creeks to jump into! and rocks to climb like a mountain goat!
And our little trail-blazer monkey took the lead all 3.5 miles of the trail, running most of the way. When we got home we expected him to want to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon but instead he bounced around off the walls for a few more hours, making good use of all the fresh mountain air in his lungs.
Last month Nolan started first grade which ofcourse had to be documented thoroughly on camera. As I was digging though pictures of last year, I realized we had taken near identical pictures of his first day of kindergarten too. Something tells me there are probably also similar pictures for the first day of pre-school, but for those I will have to dig a little harder.
So here is our little beansprout on both his first days:
His backpack can still swallow him whole, and probably a second kid too, but he certainly seems to have grown in both confidence and height!
And both my birds still sit on their perch waiting for Nolan’s ride every morning:
I wonder at what year this picture will show a wiry Nolan towering high above his dad, sitting like this. That is ofcourse if Nolan doesn’t first decide he is WAY too cool to be sitting next to dad while waiting.
I still just can’t believe we have a first grader! What’s next, college?
Last weekend we had a small party at the park to celebrate Nolan’s 6th birthday. We made a point to keep the party nice and small as the poor kid got incredibly overwhelmed last year at his 5th birthday party. That party had also been planned to be outside in a park, so we had invited lots or our and his friends, thinking there would be lots of space. Then windy weather made us change plans and we moved the shindig indoors, making our house filled with friends like sardines in a can. I will never forget the look in Nolie’s eyes when we all crammed into one room to sing him happy birthday. All eyes were on him, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He spent the rest of the party in his bedroom playing quietly by himself, and to this day refuses to be anywhere near someone singing ‘Happy Birthday’. A week later we got his autism diagnosis, and as we learned a bit that meeting what it means for a kid to live life with autism, we thought back to his birthday and felt terrible about the large amount of over stimulation he got that day, enough to overwhelm any 5 year old kid, but especially one that has trouble processing all of it.
So having learned our lesson, we kept things nice and small this time around. We felt sad that this meant there were a lot of friends we wanted to invite and couldn’t, but as long as it meant the chances of the boy enjoying his birthday party would be better, it was worth it.
This was also the first year that he had specific requests for is birthday cake. The requests were: A purple cake (his favorite color) with gumballs (he’s been eying a gumball machine at our favorite Mexican restaurant for months). So that’s what he got, and he loved it. But when it came time to blow out the candles he reminded us plenty of times that we were not allowed to sing the birthday cake, though after some careful thought we were allowed to say ‘yay!’ after blowing out the candles. He isn’t anything if not specific.
For the rest of the party we just had a really great time at the playground. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, it was a freaky 70+ degrees sunny, and breezy. Kids blew bubbles and colored the ground with chalk, ate chips and cake, and played on the playground. Adults socialized and saved the occasional child stuck at the top of a climbing contraption. And most important of all, Nolan was genuinely happy, relaxed and enjoying every single second of it.
I have a whole folder full of additional pictures right here should you feel the need to check the rest out too.
As we all are probably well aware, Valentines day was last weekend, and inspired by that sweet day I made a cheese cake that fully lived up to it’s expectations. The recipe is Strawberry-strawberry cheesecake from Epicurious. I have made this recipe before a few times, but I have typically not bothered with the strawberry and glaze topping because the cheesecake on it’s own is plenty lovely without it. But this time I went all the way because I wanted something heart shaped on top, which I used the strawberries for. I have to say I was incredibly shocked that the strawberries were willing to play with me and in fact made the result even better than I had envisioned it in my head. I mean, can you believe the shape of that heart? Are you kidding me? That’s freakin’ perfect.
Many people at this cake and it received high marks. So if you are ever looking for a cheesecake to impress the Joneses, give this on a shot!
I am listening to an This American Life podcast, and the most recent one features one of my favorite TAL clips ever. It’s a little story the actor Tate Donovan shares about somthing that happened when he was not a very recognisable actor yet. It’s one of the funniest things I have ever heard. It’s the very first story in this podcast, enjoy.
A few weekends ago I had a handmaidens trunkshow at a store called Imaginese in Cary, and we spent almost the entire time snooping around the store finding one great thing after another. One of my favorite things I found there were these cable magnet display thingies. It’s great because it’s simply a cable with a look at the top and a weight at the bottom, and 8 tiny little super powerful magnets that you use to display things like art or pictures or Nolan’s latest art project. They come in a few colors, but my favorite was just the basic steel color one. I got a few packs, and I may just run back to get a few as stocking stuffers too. I have found them online at Amazon and here, but at Imaginese they are only $8! As I looked for them on the web I noticed they also make them with the magnets as airplaines, bugs, flowers, cars, and more. Find a whole bunch of them here
Two weeks ago I saw Kanye perform this at the end of the VMA’s and my heart just about fell out of my chest and pulsated on the floor at maximum speed out of total love for this song. I also don’t think I breathed very much. Sometimes songs do this to me, I am not sure why. To put it into words it basically feels as if the rythim and the melody of a certain song locks into, and totally rocks my soul for the duration of the song. I know, it’s weird, but that’s how it feels. And I absolutely love it.
I haven’t heard a whole helluvalot of Kanye songs, but from what I have heard I think I can pretty much conclude he is a bit of a music genious. I hear he has a bit of an ‘God’s gift to the music industry’ attitude. But maybe he is, so can we blame him?
I am still kind of taken aback by the turn the weather has made in the last few weeks. I don’t remember the weather here in HOT North Carolina to be so conscious of the calendar and therefor making the temperatures drop overnight to welcome the season we all know as fall. Though I complain much of the summer heat, which keeps me from enjoying the outdoors as much as I’d like, I guess I must be skeptical of these suddenly cooler days, as they have not made me venture outdoors much more. Note to self: change that ASAP.
One of the things I have started doing this summer in an effort to beat the heat and get me outdoors more often is visiting the dog park with Sasha as much as possible. I absolutely love going there for many reasons. First off because it gets Sasha off my back, she bugs me all day until I either take her for a decent walk or to the dog park. When she does get to go here she burns off any leftover energy and is grateful and (relatively) calm for the rest of the day. Secondly, the park is so wooded that it can be 100 degrees, yet under the trees there is a cool, fresh, mulch fragrance breeze that blows non stop and slows life down for a minute. And thirdly, there is just something about being there that never fails to recharge me. Not to sound hippy-free-love, but there is a great energy about the place, and I always return home ready to take on the world.
When me and Sasha visited yesterday I decided to bring along my camera, because since I have discovered my silly selfconciousness about taking pictures in public places, I have decided to hang that camera around my neck no matter where I go and get snap happy. Nothing like full emergence to get one over a fear, right. And you know what, I had a good time with it. It didn’t hurt that there were only 2 other people on the other far side of the park, but I am taking baby steps. Below you will find a few of the results, a bit of a celebration of fall, with the anticipation that things will look a whole lot less green in a little while.
