Alice

for christmas, chris got a fancy-shmancy ipad.  an on this ipad was a fancy-shmancy app call flipboard.  and on flipboard was this art website called my modern met.  have you heard about it?  i hadn't.  and on this website are blogs.  i am obsessed with one blogger in particular,  alice.

i love alice.  i want to be friends with alice.  i want alice's job.  she posts the most incredible finds from the art world daily. how does she find out about all this amazing stuff? warning, if you subscribe to her blog, your reader will be instantly full because she posts.  a lot.  not a day goes by that i don't look at what she has found and say "wow".  audibly.  this stuff is incredible.  here is a small taste of my recent favorites.  please, please, please check it out if you have a minute or two or two-hundred.

photograph by judy gelles.  she asked inner city fourth graders three questions to help her get to know them better.  to see the complete series and to read alice's post about the project, click here.   they made me cry, which might explain my choice of profession. 

aerial photograph of yellowstone, montana by cameron davidson.  to read alice's interview with him and to see more incredible photographs , click here.

photo of an exhausted father at a wedding by wedding photographers, twin lens.  to read the explanation of this photograph, click here.

hahahahaha!  i've seen these pop up all over the place.  thanks again alice for pointing them out first.  cards by sapling press.  click here to laugh your butt off.

again, too funny. this one is called teenage angst.  toy photographs by artist, aled lewis.  read, see, and laugh more here.

i think i am in love with this girl.  check out her father's photo series of her and her sister.

this piece was made by artist matthew cusick out of MAPS!  incredible.  to see more of his art and to read a little about him, click here.

i have to make myself stop here. (i could easily keep going).

i hope you enjoy the art.

greatest hits

here are the highlights of my week:

1) my (sister's) best friend's wedding.  beautiful bride, beautiful sunset ceremony, and a helluva party.  i managed to get not one single decent shot of the bride in her stunning gown, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

{pictured below is my pretty sister with mom and dad}

2) our first (of many) trips to the dallas flea.  hog heaven.  i desperately wanted to buy indian block stamps, unbelievable textiles, and vintage cowboy boots.  since i couldn't justify these purchases, i left instead with two cards from the card company, southern fried paper (click the link below to see more).  ideas for my future etsy shop are spinning around in my head.

via

{are we having fun yet?}

3) being dallas-y by spending the afternoon downtown eating lunch outside and playing at main street park.  we normally look at the skyline from a distance while playing at the park.  this time we were in the middle of it.

4) a pit-stop at tcby.  (ben is in his underwear because his clothes were soaked from playing in the fountains downtown, which worked out considering he decided to bathe himself in chocolate frozen yogurt during the car ride back home.)

5) flowers from my guys.

6) bulldozer ben during "nap-time".

7) being spoiled rotten at my diaper shower.  never in a million years did i think i would have a baby shower for my second child, especially since i am having another boy.  but my best friend and sister thought otherwise and organized a little get-together complete with homemade pancakes (aka the key to my heart). chels blogged about it here.  

{the loot}

8) a long overdue snuggle session with baby joe, the blue-eyed son of some dear brown/hazel-eyed friends.

{please ignore the size of my head/body and focus on the baby.  
k?  thanks.}

9) overhearing a conversation between my son and his papa in syracuse.  you have to understand, ben is not a cooperative phone-talker, so when i heard him jabbering non-stop while chris was on the phone with his dad, i had to go check it out.  turns out he IS a phone talker, just like his daddy.

10) the beautiful weather.

life is good, y'all.  how was your week?

until next time,

xoxoxoxo

the good, the bad, and the ugly

 {32 weeks on the left, 33 weeks on the right}

pregnancy has dirty little secrets.  things no one bothers to prepare you for, not the baby books, not your doctor, not even your mom.  maybe they forgot.  maybe they don't want to scare you or discourage you.  maybe mentioning these things brings back bad memories.  i mean, people must forget how painful childbirth is because women continue to have babies, right?  all of the hormones and endorphins racing through a new mommy's bloodstream must surely do a number on her brain.  no question about that.

my pregnancy with ben was pretty interesting.  i learned a lot.  so much so that i thought there would be no big surprises during this pregnancy.  ummmmm, wrong.  while i don't have high blood pressure with this baby, i most certainly have vericose veins.  what's up with that???  pregnancy definitely keeps me on my toes. (or more literally OFF my toes and ON the couch).

granted, it is all worth it.  no doubt that holding, sniffing, feeding, snuggling a tiny person that YOU MADE, makes all of that pregnancy weirdness much less important.  insignificant, really.  but since i want my blog to be honest and not just full of glossy photos about how much fun we have from week to week, i need to put it out there.  the good, the bad, and the ugly.  (if you ever want more info on the dirty little secrets of pregnancy, message me.)

here is what my current pregnancy experience is like at 33 weeks:

the BAD:

• crosby feels like he is trying to come out of my navel.  so much so that chris told me the other day that my belly was "pointy".
• when he is not trying to come out of my navel, he is instead climbing up my ribs trying to escape in the wrong direction.  don't babies know they should drop, not climb?  geez.
• my ankles hurt.
• i am grumpy.
• a co-worker approached me from behind and said, while laughing, that if she hadn't known it was me, she still would've been able to tell i was pregnant due to the size of my legs.  really, lady???  sometimes it's not necessary to say everything that pops into your head, especially to a pregnant lady who wants to bite your head off.

the UGLY:

• it looks as though someone had taken a handful of gravel and thrown it with force at my legs (o.k. that may be a little dramatic, but you get the idea).  i look bruised and feel bruised, but am not in fact bruised.  i have these spider/varicose veins all over my legs.  my legs look like old lady legs.  which has brought me to the conclusion that old lady legs don't look like that because they are old, but because they are mothers.
• my attitude.

the GOOD:

• to end on a positive note (i am trying here, people), i am still sleeping like a baby.  in fact, it's all i want to do.  poor ben.  he has an absentee mother.
• i will have a new baby to sniff and snuggle in a mere 6 weeks.
• there is a possibility he will look a little like this:

{ben, less than 1 week old}

greatest hits

this week was all about celebrating!  
happy birthday(s), 

chris and chelsey.  xoxoxo.

here are some of the highlights:

1) slow-cooker corned beef and cabbage.  thank you crockpot for a delicious st. patrick's day dinner.

2) my sweetheart's birthday, which included surprising the birthday boy at work with society bakery cupcakes,

hand-made birthday cards,

one-of-a-kind wrapping paper,

and a delicious dinner at eno's pizza in the bishop arts district.  delish.

3) a surprise birthday gift to go see the o's, old 97's, and our beloved robert earl keen, jr. 

chris discovered a new (to us) band from austin called deadman.

and crosby discovered that he loves to dance to the music of the o's. (this is funny because the guitar player is our favorite waiter at the all good cafe.  it's like crosby knew he was the one delivering piping hot pancakes to him all those times.  and the talented banjo player was my middle school crush.  good old east dallas boys making great music.  gotta love that!)

icing on the cake: REK covered 'i know you rider' by the grateful dead.  this made for one very happy birthday boy.

{i couldn't decide which video to post, so i chose this one because of our pretty skyline in the background. the official video for their latest single is here.}

 4) a joint family birthday dinner for chris and choo.  chelsey picked the entree this year and chris picked the dessert (which always includes something chocolate, topped with homemade ice cream).  the food was delicious and the gifts were out-of-this world.  for reals.

 ben ballin' with the big kids.

5) dinner at my favorite restaurant.

ben prefers to eat his shrimp with a cocktail fork and insists on sharing his dessert with his daddy.

 6) spending my itunes gift card on this goodness.  you either love g.love or hate him.  i happen to love him so.

my husband on the other hand has been hoarding his itunes giftcards and is sitting on approximately a million dollars he has yet to spend.

7) getting a long-overdue manicure.  i got this "shellac" manicure i keep hearing about.  i'll let you know how it holds up.

8) and last but not least, the winner of the best birthday card goes to.......

{given to chris by none other than this girl.}

have a great week, sweet readers.

for my sister

{photo found via little bee, on the sweetest post about sisterhood. 

thanks, marli for introducing me to that blog.}

our five year age gap felt huge when i was 10 and you were 5, and again when i was in high school and you were still in elementary school.  the gap seemed to narrow once i was in college and realized that we have a lot more in common than just the parents we share.  thank you for always being able to embrace the crazy with me!  you are my favorite person to laugh with, little sister.  i'll love you forever, chelsey-choo.

  

happy birthday!

8 years ago

let me set the scene:

bachelor pad.  1 a.m. after a night out of beers with friends.  hanging out with my then best friend, chris.  

the conversation went a little something like this.

chris: i have to tell you something.

me: what?

chris: *nervous pause* i love you and i want to spend the rest of my life with you.

me: *head spinning, stuttering, FLIPPING OUT* 

ummmmmm, what did you say?

or

huh?

or

excuse me, could you repeat that?

or

WHAT???????

(i can't remember my exact words)

chris: i was going to send you flowers, but i couldn't wait any longer.

after six years of friendship, many ups and downs, we finally got it right.  happy dating anniversary, my love.  and thanks for remembering before i did.

happy birthday, c-bo.

to the little boy who would sing beatles songs and dance in front of the mirror,

to the little boy who, when in trouble, would watch himself cry in front of the same mirror,

to the little boy who would eat peanut butter, chocolate chip, and chocolate syrup sandwiches when his mom wasn't home,

to the little boy who always dreamed of owning a chysler le baron convertible,

to the little boy who always secretly wanted to be the bad boy (like his favorite new kid on the block, donnie),

happy thirty-second birthday, my love.

thanks for growing up to be an equally charming husband, father, and friend.

we love you so much.

greatest hits- spring break edition

hallelujah for spring break. i am heavy and round and a smidge uncomfortable, so this spring break has been like a little gift from heaven.  spending quality time with my boys and the couch is just what the dr. ordered.

1) saturday morning at the first white rock market of the season.  we bought pasta, fresh sourdough, local honey.  ben danced while a man sang beatles songs.  makes us proud of our little neighborhood.

 2) a trip to the farmers market (although we battled this bad attitude while there).  tasted fruit, smelled brisket smoking and corn roasting, saw flowers every color of the rainbow, and fantasized about landscaping our yard.  

 3) spending quality time with the west texas equivalent of my own family (marcy's mom, granny, and sister were in town).  i spent too much money from our barely-hanging-on-for-dear-life money tree, but tell me this bone tray from the wisteria outlet isn't beautiful.  AND due to a tiny bit of damage that my talented husband has already fixed, it was marked down to $29.99 from $200!!!  yep, you heard that right.  

 4) a zoo date with my girl jenn and her girl, ellie grace.  

isn't she beautiful?

 here she is showing off her supermodel good looks, while my wild man is busy acting like a gorilla.

 5) dinner with uncle matt and ava.  our neice was in town to visit her daddy for just a couple of nights, so it was the perfect opportunity for ben to play with his cousin. 

 6) museum of nature and science with mimi (and the 5 million other children and their mommas who are also on spring break).  whew!  but check out my kid.  think he's excited to get to hang out with some dinosaurs?

 he wasn't too sure about that t-rex just around the corner.

7) our buds have bloomed!

8) and the discovery that my pregnancy-induced aversion to cooking can be remedied by using the crock-pot.  little-to-no-prep+low-maintenance+cost-effectiveness=a house that smells good and a well-fed family.

9) curtains and crib bedding made by my momma for crosby.  they are gorgeous, but i am saving pictures of them for my big nursery reveal!  move over hgtv.

happy st. patricks day, everyone!  feel free to drink a green beer for me.  i sure wish you could smell the corned beef i have in the crock-pot right now.

until next time,

xoxoxo.