family, woodworking, photography, K-pop
The other day a Guitar Center catalog came in the mail and quickly captured the attention of the men of the house. N was flipping through it while E was eating dinner but E quickly became distracted and insisted on looking through it with N. E would point to every guitar on the page one by one and exclaim, “guitar!” and then add some fervent but unintelligible commentary. It cracked us up.
I love my boys.
Last night I went and joined Weight Watchers. (Again.) The scale has crept up a bit over the last year and I’ve decided to finally do something about it. I’ve been exercising off and on again but I’ve been pretty lousy at eating well. I think if I get my eating habits under control I’ll make some real progress.
I’m planning on actually making a family menu every week so I won’t end up looking in our empty fridge, sighing, and then driving to a fast food place or asking N if I can order a pizza when it’s my turn to cook and I don’t know what to make. Aside from eating better I’m hoping that planning a menu will also help save some money on food.
I’ll probably post periodically about my progress to keep myself honest. I need to go grocery shopping today to stock up on fruits and vegetables and whole grains and such. Here goes nothing!
It’s coming down to the wire; only two classes left! *Gulp.* I made some decent progress last week but not quite as much as I had hoped. My teacher said that he’s going to be at class a bit early tomorrow and so I’m going to show up early too to take advantage of the precious shop time left.
Here’s what I did last week:
I filled in a few gaps in the dovetail joints with wood putty and plugged the holes I drilled for the now-defunct lids. After the glue dries I will cut off the dowel and sand it so it’s flush with the side. You shouldn’t be able to see it too much.
I took the tape off the lids I glued together last week and drew out the dimensions of the lids.
And then I used a miter gauge on the table saw to cut rectangles out of the blanks.
Tomorrow I’m going to glue banding around the edges of the lids and cut them to size, sand the outsides of the boxes, and hopefully get the giveaway cutting board glued up. (Yeah, it’s become evident that I shouldn’t have spilled the beans about the giveaway until after it was finished. I’ll definitely get it finished at some point, if not before the holidays then in January. I feel bad that there might be a bit of a delay, but I’m trying my very best!)
Dear E,
Last week you turned two years old. In the past few weeks you’ve started talking a lot more. One of your favorite things to say is “thank you.” Manners are pretty important to me (growing up with a father from the south and a mother from Korea will do that to you) and so I’ve been reminding you to say thank-you when you’re given something for several months now.
But last week the light finally clicked on. You started saying “thank-you” after everything: when I hand you a drink, when I help you with your jacket or shoes, when the sample lady at Costco gives you some chips, etc… Last night you were eating dinner and got some ketchup on your fork. I took from you and wiped it clean and handed it back and you said, “Thank you, Mama.” It melted my heart. And last week when I took you to the hospital to get some blood drawn for your food allergy tests you charmed the techs by busting out several unprompted thank-yous when they handed you a lollipop.
It’s a good thing you’ve started being so adorably polite because it (usually) balances out the bad habits you’ve picked up lately. When you get excited or frustrated you like to slap us in the face or pull our classes off and wrench them around. Needless to say, both actions are pretty frustrating. You also throw things on the ground when you’re mad which is also pretty annoying. But we’re working on it together: you’re working on controlling your actions and I’m working on improving my patience. But most of the time you try really hard to be good and I appreciate it.
You’ve picked up on the rhythms of a working week. I usually go run errands on Saturday mornings and if you and your dad don’t come along you flip out. You’re very adamant that on Saturday we all somewhere together. You love going to Costco and after we returned home from it last Saturday it was all you wanted to talk about,” blah, blah, blah, COS-co, COS-co!”
It’s very sweet how much you like going places together with us. I like it when we’re together as a family too.
Love,
Mama
E had a great birthday yesterday. My sister-in-law Miranda and I took the kids up to Discovery Gateway, a children’s museum in Salt Lake. They loved it. There was lots for them to do and explore.
L and E in a fire engine conveniently built with two steering wheels.
E and L at a construction play site.
Clambering around in a defunct Life Flight helicopter than was donated to the museum.
A, Miranda’s daughter, was a trooper while we were there.After we got home I baked E some dairy-free, egg-free cupcakes from a mix by Cherrybrook Kitchen and then E and I went to the store to buy him some balloons (still one of his very favorite things). When N got home from work we had dinner and then cupcakes and presents.
The cupcake (and frosting) was well-received.
We gave E a Yo Gabba Gabba themed toy guitar. (He keeps unwinding the strings on his ukulele so we thought he’d do better with a string-less toy.)
And this toy car. Both were big hits.E had a great day. He learned the word “birthday” and kept shouting it in excitement. It was a lot of fun.
I don’t know if it’s nostalgia for my high school marching band days (I was drum major one year–nerd!) but I am loving this band jacket by Stella McCartney for Gap kids. Apparently everyone is too. I saw it online yesterday but now it isn’t listed. It’s image is still plastered all over the website but I think it sold out.
Oh well. Even if it was still available I wouldn’t be buying it because it’s crazy expensive (over $120) AND dry clean only.
But it sure is cute.
N showed me this free online game, “Small Worlds” by David Shute last night. The graphics are rudimentary to say the least but the game play is pleasantly engrossing. In just a few seconds I became surprisingly attached to the plucky little red jumping bean as I guided him around the maze. If you have some time to kill it takes about 15-20 minutes to solve.
E loved the Halloween festivities this weekend. On Friday afternoon I took him to N’s office for their party. E was a little apprehensive at first but very quickly got the gist of the holiday (i.e. candy) and would scoot up to people and mumble “icko-reet!”
E as a dog and me in my cop-out black cat costume.
N and his team at work rockin’ it out as an 80s hair band.Before this weekend E had only had candy on a few occasions. But he very quickly learned how to say “candy” and has been running around the house trying to wheedle pieces from us all weekend. On Saturday evening I had planned on just taking him to a few houses but he insisted on going all the way around the block but then lost steam and I had to tow him back home.
All things considered, it was the best Halloween I’ve had in a long time.
One of my favorite artists, Amy Ruppel, is having an online art sale. I’ve been coveting an original piece of hers for a loooong time and N graciously agreed to getting one of the smaller ones as an early Christmas present. *Squeeee!*
There are a wide range of sizes and the smallest (3″x3″) is only $40. If you’re interested, move quickly. These tend to go quickly.