Project 365, Day 1: April 4, 2008

I want to do a version of the Project 365 Blog Anne has organized on the shine list. Basically, you post ONE picture, everyday, for 365 days. I like the idea of one image capturing our day, then the culmination of those images capturing our year. So I'm starting today.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Holy Shit! We got a Wii!

Ten Things I've Done You Probably Haven't - Meme

I saw this on Sandra Dodd's blog. She got it from here. He got it from here. I thought it would be fun.

My 10 Things:
1. I gave birth to all 4 of my children at home.
2. I directed my own professional belly dance troupe.
3. I got married at 19.
4. I started water skiing when I was 4.
5. I submitted my times to the US Olympic Women's Rowing Team.
6. I played on a dart team.
7. I named my last child the same name as my first dog: Ella
8. I became DEBT FREE at age 27.
9. I won the Regional Cross Country Championship my senior year of High School.
10. I got stuck in a canoe, in a swamp, with all 4 of my kids.

Anniversary

Sixteen years ago today I married the love of my life. I was really young, just 3 months shy of my 20th birthday. I am so different from that 19 year old. I have changed and grown so much. Thankfully, John and I changed and grew together. We have been through a lot of changes, and have had a lot of fun these past 16 years. The fun part is really important. We still have a lot of fun together, and we still make each other laugh. I am extremely thankful on this beautiful Spring day that I chose to spend my life with John.

Living Room

Our living room truly lives up to the name. We LIVE in this room. It's part of a great room that includes the kitchen, dining area, wood burning stove, and ginormous picture windows that stretch from the floor to the cathedral ceiling. We craft here, eat here, cook here, watch tv here, game here, fold laundry here,wrestle here, snuggle here, read here...you get the picture. We love this space and truly spend the majority of our home life right here. Our new sofa was just delivered and I have to say we could not have picked a better piece of furniture for this much loved space. It's HUGE and soft and beautiful and we can all fit on it together! Yeah Us!!!!

Adding to the Menegerie

On Sunday, we drove to Atlanta to pick up the newest members of the Haworth Menagerie. After months of research, planning, emailing breeders, and finally ending up with fosters from a rescue, Ella got her rats. We decided on two, both females, because rats are very social and really need to live with more ratties. So Ella saved her money and we've been waiting for the breeder to let us know of a litter. The planned litters have not taken, so she told us of some rescue babies they just got in. We visited and played with many different rats before Ella decided on two babies: one white with ruby eyes and one brown. Then Alex decided he would really love to have one of the rats as well. The foster mommy let us know our cage would be more than adequate to house at least four rats, so lo and behold, we ended up with four. I have to admit, they are really cute! And let me tell you, this is coming from an adamant rodent dis- liker. I have always said, "NO RODENTS!" I let down my guard with the bunnies, and finally, the last frontier. I mean, you don't get any more rodenty than rats! I'm thinking this is all part of my stretching and growing and not saying "NO" unless it's really life or death.

Bringing Our Ratties Home

Our Rat's New Home- The Rat Skyscraper

Custard Peeking Out

Sassy Saying "Hi"

Pictures of My Pretties

The kids have been having so much fun together lately, I decided to put up a couple of pictures of them. Snippets rather than stories.

Max kept asking us to play Family Fun Game with him. For some reason, we were all a bit like, "maybe later". He coaxed us into it and as usual, we had a blast

Beautiful Sophie in her soft clothes

Our Valentine's Door

We spent a great deal of time hanging out in the parking lot before heading over to the Children's Discover Museum

Tailgating with Gillan and Jesse
Dinosaur dress up at the Discovery Museum
Alex with his big snowball
Ella as a bag lady

Soaking wet after a day of playing in the rain
Giving the bunnies a ride in the wagon
Max in our new trapeze-swing. I know it's a bit creepy...his body is completely rolled up in that little ball!
The kids giving Mom a massage...they each earned $1.

Robot Kids

A Day of Face Painting

Ella and I spent the entire day painting each other's faces. This was another one of those times I could have said 'no'. In fact, I almost did. I mean, come on, how reasonable is is to spend the better part of an hour painting a face only to wash it off 5 minutes later and start over? My grown up self was saying this was absolutely not reasonable! Reason to a 6 year old is an entirely different matter. I put that grumpy old grown up voice aside and happily, joyfully said 'sure'. So we painted a face, took some pictures, washed the paint off, and started again. Sure enough, against all grown up reason, it was loads of fun. I enjoyed it and let go of the idea that the paint needed to stay on the face as long as possible. Apparently, the paint only needs to stay on long enough to take a few pictures and show everyone how fabulous it looks. And guess what? All was okay, the world did not end, and my fear of "wasting the paint" was totally unfounded. There is an endless amount of face paint in the world, but only one chance to spend that day as we did.

Ella's Version of Mommy as a snake...I know, pretty scary!


I promised I would put her work as a makeup artist on the blog too...ahh, humility!
Mommy as a dalmation


She fixed my hair too. Did I mention this was my soft clothes day? What we won't do for our offspring! Mommy as the Ice Queen


A much more photogenic Ella as a dalmation


Ella as the Ice Queen