Hello to you too

Upon waking yesterday morning, Lila saw our cat, Edgar, in the kitchen, waved to him and said, "Hi!" She said "Hi!" again about half a dozen times yesterday to me, River, daddy, and my friend Jonathan. Aside from Ma-ma-ma (me) and ba-ba-ba (what she uses for her "boys," daddy and River), "Hi" is her first word. It's so indicative of her personality that a friendly greeting would be high on her list. Lila continues to be my angel baby - sweet and happy, curious and able to entertain herself. She has her determined moments; times when a freight train barreling toward her coudn't keep her from her goal.  But for the most part she's a bright light of love in this house.

I'll be excited to see what words come next - what inspires her, what she wants or likes.  Puppies and sunshine, I bet.  I was looking over this post about River's first words and was amused to remember that "Hi" came much later on his list, and long after "trash," "digger," "beer," and "boobies." 

It's all about priorities.

browner pastures

The Banks Street Doyles are officially packed up and moved out.  Crystal and Finn flew out a couple weeks ago and Kevin drove toward Vegas Friday night (he should be pulling in soon).  We came over that afternoon to help with the final packing up the POD and cleaning.

River hauled a ton of stuff.

 Lila relaxed.

 Shawna worked hard on finishing the kitchen.

And Kevin answered the question of where the spare keys and museum card ended up - attached to the corn chips, of course!

"Have a good day at Las Vegas" guys!! We'll miss you!!

shame is a great motivator

 I was inspired to take some "After" pics of all my various projects...

 New blue walls and T-Rex with "Sera" the triceratops.  And I'd like to say that "duff" cap with the bottle opener is River's, but it's actually his dad's.

 A massive apatosaurus and River's bunk bed.

 Pterodactyl? Pteranodon? Not sure.

 River's new bookcase (which holds half of his books and quarter of his toys).

 Bean bags

 Dinosaur habitat

Tada! There you have it folks!

on how I can't finish anything

Okay, that should be, "on how I finish a sh*tload of stuff, but can't get it together to blog about it."

I've been in an insane crafty mode for some time now.  Besides working on products for my business, I've had an overwhelming urge to make stuff for my kids.  Last night I couldn't fall asleep for the thought of the bean back toss game I want to build for them.  This will involve cutting, sanding, assembling, painting, and sewing, but I was so psyched about the idea I nearly leaped out of bed and started pulling out plywood at midnight.  So today, with the little free time I had, I pulled fabrics and sewed six bean bags.  I've been working on stuff like this for months.

Sometime during the summer I mentioned to River that when he was ready we could redecorate his room - swap out the decals and add some new shelving.  Little did I know my casual remark would turn into a full blown mission for him.  For weeks he talked about putting up huge dinosaurs on his walls and changing the paint color.  It got so bad he would climb out of bed at night complaining of being scared, "because I don't have any dinosaurs on my walls to protect me from monsters."  Geez, kid, you mean business.

So one weekend we got into do-it-yourself mode and took the old car decals down, patched and primed the walls, painted, went to the fabric store and made a batch of dinosaur decals.  I took photos of the entire process - EXCEPT FOR THE FINISHED LOOK!  All of that work - and it turned out great, I might add - and I keep from posting about it because I don't have the "After" shot.

And I'm too lazy to just take the damn photo.

So what follows are all of the many projects I've worked on - and finished - that don't have final photo representation.

Before the dinosaur redecoration, I got an idea that River and I should make a dinosaur habitat for him to play with.   He got really into it and insisted on including a volcano and meteorite to show the possible ways they met with extinction.  (The red and gold glitter were his idea - yes, my son is pretty fabulous.)

I was most excited to work on a paper mache cave with River.  He got really into it, and we had a blast making it.  But it took time to dry and in the mean time, I got some shots of him playing with the (mostly) finished diorama.

No cave, photos, of course.  But it's awesome, trust me.

Then came River's room redecoration.  Here are the patched walls, waiting for new paint.

And a half-painted wall.

Making the pattern for one of four dinosaur decals.

Half-finished stegosaurus.  And that's it!  I'm sure you'd love to see the walls, dinosaurs, and enormous new book/toy shelf, but sorry.  I can't be bothered.

Finally, here's the pattern for two bean bag chairs I made for the kids.   I was going to write a whole tutorial to put up on my design blog, but this is what you get.

A half-finished, inside out bag.  It rocks in real life!  I swear!

Just in the time since Lila was born, I'm sure I've finished a dozen blog-worthy projects, many lacking any photo documentation.  Think there's any chance an "in-process" design blog would take off?