i was going through my photos and came across these two. i snapped them when we were going through our winter gear and figuring out what to pack for mammoth. i honestly cannot fathom how she is this big already. i remember as if it were yesterday and i was holding her in my hands in the shower, her tiny head resting in the palm of my hand. where does the time go. . .
Okay, that cold I had? Yeah, not so much a cold. But rather it was an ear, sinus, and eye infection. Yeah, how many other infections can I get? But I am on some serious drugs and already feel half way normal. Well, halfway normal for me. Which means I was actually able to vacuum today. I have been resting quite a bit, though. I bought the first season of Mad Men before my trip so that I could download it to my iphone for the plane. Yeah, that didn’t work out so well. I watched one episode before my air sickness kicked in and I began running for the plane’s bathroom to vomit for several hours in a row. Next time I will risk taking the Dramamine despite flying alone. I will pass out on whoever the stranger is sitting next to me before I feel the way I did on the flight out to New York. Anyways, back to my point. I have been resting and am almost done with Season 1 of Mad Men. I totally get what the hype is over that show! Amazing. Love love love it. And the styling and furniture. Awesome.
Back to my original purpose. I’m alive. And here are finally some photos from our dog sledding adventure. If you ever are in Mammoth, you MUST do this. It seriously is one of the best and most exciting things we’ve ever done. I believe the kids will be talking about it for years to come. They only offer it in two places in California, Mammoth and Squaw.
We had our own sled and Hernandez Family had theirs. We each had a musher and 11 dogs on each team. So COOL!
I already have this one framed and hung in my hallway. An absolute favorite of mine.
I have another set of photos of us with the dogs after the ride. They were the most loving and kind dogs. So sweet and gentle, despite a few of them being half wolf. Those will come hopefully in a few days.
I am back. I have a cold. But I am back. I have been in New York, got home last night. I surprised my good friend Rachel and what a whirlwind 48 hours it was. We walked all over Manhattan, visited all our old haunts. Flew Virgin America for the first time of hopefully many times. Awesome airline. Lots to share but I am going to go bury my head in a pillow for now.
Wearing my rainboots for the 5th day in a row now. Love my Plueys. And check out their new styles, how cute are these two? Really all their styles are adorable. The Puppy Love? Total fave, but cannot justify purchasing a 5th pair of rainboots.
Just browsing and saw these lovelies.
this necklace. 3 owls to represent my three little people.
Skeleton key necklace. I die over.
These bookshelves are hopefully going in the boys’ room sometime in the next 6 months.
Greta is smitten with all things Harajuku.
This beautiful rug.
How insanely gorgeous??
And this bowtie necklace!
Alright, enough drooling and oogling. Those are my ‘i hearts’ for now.
Signing off for a few days. Will tell why later next week. . . . but trust me, it’s good!
I have to load up my photos from the dog sledding adventure into a post. But I will have to do that sometime next week. For now here are some iphone pics I took up there. I love that thing. My phone I mean. The video and picture quality is great. It saves me many times where I forget to bring my real camera. We are still getting drenched over here. Soggy. Soaking. Wet.
We are getting drenched over here. I have lived in L.A. almost my entire life and I don’t think I have seen this much rain in 3 days. Ever. It’s kind of tricky going to pick up the kids. Especially the boys. I have Greta and she’s pretty slow in her rain boots, then the boys come charging out not realizing it’s a torrential downpour and they are splashing and stomping in puddles. The wind is ripping my umbrella up. I am carrying all their backpacks. Trying to find my keys without dropping my iphone in the 3 foot gutter puddles of water, especially since last week Aaron dropped it in the toilet. It had to be laid to rest and we had to buy a new one. Needless to say, by the time we get home we are all soaked to the bone. The kids undress at the front door and there are jackets and pants and socks and boots and shirts strewn from the front door to their bedroom. Today I came home and curled up on the couch with a few of the kids, can’t really tell you which ones since I fell asleep. And at 4pm when he walked in that is where I was. Sleeping on the couch with my scarf still on. I haven’t taken a nap in, I don’t know how long, probably the last time I was really sick. And it felt so good. Not sure I am going to say the same thing about it tonight as I lay in bed for hours and hours. But maybe the rain will help lull me to sleep. And guess what? We get at least 2 more days of this!
My little owl obsession has manifested itself over in the sewing department. I was browsing blogs and came across a mom who sewed a little owl onto her hoodie, I thought what a great idea to put on something for Greta. Sawyer about died over the owl and insisted I make one for him. And then Alissa had to get one too. Can’t leave out any of my children! 
Gunnar wasn’t too thrilled with wearing owl embroidered clothes, so he had his heart set on a pouch made of some robot cloth I picked up. I’ll have to photograph that soon too. The owls are all different, and I forgot to take a photo of Alissa’s owl shirt before I mailed it off, but Greta insisted on one exactly like Alissa’s so I will be making a duplicate soon enough.
I picked up the yellow t-shirt at Target for $5 and then spent about an hour on the owl itself. I hand stitched the eyes and nose, and then used the sewing machine for the owl body layers and wings, and to put it on the shirt itself. I absolutely love it and am tempted to make one for myself. . .
Here is Greta sporting her new shirt and a new headband I made as well.
Sawyer sat by my side the entire time I sewed his. He helped pick everything out and was my little cheerleader along the way. He would say things like, “good job mama”, “you’re almost done”, “wow mama, that’s going fast”, and “i love it mama”. He put it on immediately after I finished but insisted he take it off for dinner for fear of spilling something on it. This one has no aversion to anything I make, he is proud to sport mama’s dippy sewing projects any day!
These clips are all pretty short, but they’re just a little taste of our Mammoth adventure.
This one is from the first day. Elliott and I rode the gondola to the very top of the mountain. Unfortunately there were only 2 ways down. One that read EXPERTS ONLY and this very narrow trail. Very narrow. Kinda freaky. But it was fun.
This one is about the cutest 9 second video you will ever see. It’s of Greta in ski school and walking with her skis to the magic carpet.
If you wait about 10 seconds in on this next one you will see Greta and I zoom by with her in between my legs.
And last, Gunnar, my little snowboarder.
(I will post some fun(ny) video clips from our trip to Mammoth tomorrow.)
I’m pretty sure Greta had an American Girl doll before she was born, but I’m not positive on that timing. It’s pretty close. My mom had been chomping at the bit to take her to the American Girl Store and last year we went and Greta picked out, ummm, Rebecca? I’m not sure what her name is, but I remember Greta insisting on buying her purple eyeglasses. I had plans to take Greta to lunch with a big group of girlfriends last month, but things got crazy, kids got sick, and then I had to throw Sawyer’s Kindergarten winter party that day, so we had to cancel. I did manage to get reservations right before we left for Mammoth. Greta had 3 weeks off school like her brothers, so the timing was perfect.
She debated for days over which doll and outfit she was going to bring. You see, it’s very insane, she has 3. I know. But my mom likes sets. It’s kind of the way I am. If I like something I like to have the whole set, not just one. Well, let’s just be happy she only has 3 of these dolls, and not the ENTIRE collection of dolls. This particular doll she picked to bring had the ballet ensemble on, and when we were at the store we couldn’t find this doll anywhere. Very strange, but glad we got her when we did because there is no other doll with this hair and eye color combination.
The lunch is very exciting for little people, but beware the food is not so exciting. They also have loaner dolls in case you don’t have a doll. So naturally, Greta grabbed an extra doll so she was flanked on both sides. They serve sparkling apple cider in champagne glasses and the little dolls have a tea set just their size as well. It’s all very grown up and adorable.
The most exciting part for me is that there were girls in there that were 11, 12, 13, even 14 years old. And I absolutely love that they are still into dolls. None of that Hannah Montana and slutty dressed tweens, just wholesome sweet dolls. I hope Greta still loves her dolls at that age. We’ll try our best to encourage this for the next decade.
This face pretty much says it all.
The kids are home from school today and it’s POURING rain outside. I am not complaining however. I love me a good rainy day to stay inside. We stayed in our pajamas until at least 10:30 and we have kept quite busy watching the Tivo’d Vikings game from yesterday. Alright, I kinda have a crush on Brett Favre now. I mean seriously, how do you know where Rice is going to be 10 seconds before he gets there? I know that’s why they are paid the big dollars, but come on, that was insane!
The boys are obsessed with Perler Beads, and especially when it rains, they just work on their projects for hours and hours. We bought a large tub at Michael’s for around $10, and it has provided dozens and dozens of hours of craft fun for them. Sawyer especially is a little fuse bead genius. Check out what they have created:
Greta has been kept quite busy with her Harajuku dolls.
We finished reading James and the Giant Peach right after we got back from Mammoth, and are now onto Blood on the River. It’s a historical fiction book set in James Town. Gunnar is loving it, and I have a feeling it’s going to become a book he reads on his own and not our bedtime read aloud book.
I was supposed to have a photo shoot today down at Santa Monica Pier, but once again we were rained out! So disappointing. It’s been rescheduled for 2 weeks from now.
For now we are staying inside and keeping dry. And looking forward to family dinner night at my sister’s house tonight, and not mine!
Hope your weekend was fantastic. Ours was wonderful. We kicked off Friday night with family movie night, Kung Fu Panda as the feature presentation. Saturday was full of service, park and cleaning. Saturday night we had our date with Peter and Heather and went to an amazing French bistro in Silverlake, Cafe Stella. Absolutely fabulous food. I’m not such a fan of French food, but everything I had was incredible. I ordered the Burrata and Heirloom Tomato salad to start and then had the Sole as my entree. I ordered their cheesecake for dessert which was also fantastic. Aaron couldn’t decide, I believe he would’ve liked to have ordered everything on the menu but settled for French Onion Soup and Mussels. But I know he was still craving the Escargot and Steak Tartare. Heather and Peter got salads and then the Sole and Shortribs, ending with Profiteroles. Delicious. Really worth the drive and the ambience was perfect. Great company, great food, great wine. Pair that with the babysitter who managed to put all 3 kids to sleep before we got home, a good night.
LuAnn and I went to the Long Beach flea market early this morning and fortunately the rained held off until the afternoonr. Here are my treasures, everyone got something.
And now that the rain has begun, which is supposed to last most of this week, we are going to start a fire and curl up in our pajamas.
