Two Turtle Doves

So today was one of those days where you think to yourself, “I know I love him, but….” And at the last second when I thought that I could darn near use the country phrase “I will beat your butt” to my eldest child, he pulls out this one…

We were riding home from a very loud trip to Target and there was silence in the car for about three minutes. I thought maybe B had fallen asleep, but no. From the backseat comes the question, “How do you make bananas?” “Real bananas?” I ask. “Bananas you eat.” Well….here comes the whole bananas grow on trees just like apples, but not just any tree, a banana tree. This leads to more questions about how and why different trees grow different items and what stems versus trunks are. Bridger pauses and says, “I like trees that grow flowers the best. Do you know why?”

“No, Bridge, why?”

“Because then I can pick the flowers and give them to you because flowers are pretty like you.”

OK….so we won’t sell him on the black market today….

I was reading online and Tap was on his tummy near me (for those keeping count, he is 12 weeks and almost 3 months). Sooooo he began to fuss and I was going to move him only to find he had flipped himself to his back! In a mad attempt to recreate this success, I put him on his tummy again. This is making him quite mad at the current moment, but has produced enough flailing about to have propelled him forward about 3 feet from his starting position in an almost army-man style crawl (though truthfully it is more of a disdainful wiggle).

Justin gave me permission to post this today:

Justin’s Top 5 Albums of 2008 so far:

1.  My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
2. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
3. The Black Crowes – Warpaint
4. Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
5. Hot Chip – Made In The Dark

In case you were wondering, this is per calendar year not Grammy year. It also has the possibility of being tainted by live performance viewings and general band attitude. Case in point: Not that Kanye West was going to make the top twenty, let alone five, his general sassiness and Bonarroo shananigins have caused his albums to find other homes to live in all together. So, if your band is not on the top five, keep your attitude in check on your rise to greatness (and send free CDs our way, that helps) and maybe…just maybe…you’ll recieve a “Justin” in the future.

I am a lazy blogger. No doubt about it. I don’t even get around to posting links to pictures that have long-since been mentioned and forgot about. Good thing only my fam reads this for now Maybe one day I’ll be interesting enough (and involved enough) to post stuff others want to read! Ha!

So I’ve been thinking about the art club I want and I think my best plan this year, since being moved against my will, is going to be to write the plans, try them out, take pictures and refine, etc… all within the classroom. We are supposed to get something like 45 min a week for fine arts anyway so I can make it my “thank goodness it’s Friday / we don’t watch movies in my class / Friday tests always leave extra time” activity. I think it will be good and this way I can see how kids react and do while documenting steps and such for a future club. It will be really important for getting grants in the future for a club as well. (That’s not to say that I don’t still want a logo…. shan… wink…wink…)

Other than that, I’m psyched that our house is off the market and that I can have beds unmade if I want to. Plus, we are preparing for our first garage sale and we have SO much stuff! I hope it goes really well. If we made like, $150 or so, I’d be pumped and I think that is totally doable. It really depends on the day I guess, but smack in the middle of summer can’t be too bad. Too bad we missed the neighborhood-wide sale, but maybe next year…

Tuesday I’m going up to school to pack my things and the boys have their first ever paid babysitter. It hurts the pocket a little, but I think it will be worth it. Taking them would only drive me nuts and prolong the task and they will have tons of fun playing with cousin Jenny. I need/want to get some of those study boxes meant to hold files since I have the impression I’ll be in limbo in a portable for the first part of the year. Besides which, I can bring them home and properly organize and label before sticking them back into unmanageable drawers.

Well, not anything exciting to say, just talking to the computer screen while my children take a nap. Ah the sweet bliss of silence in the house!

My parents brought Bridger home on Friday and we are glad to have him back. Even a couple days without him makes him seem so much more mature when he gets back. He had a great time and yesterday, luckily enough, he got a rocket toy in his Subway kids meal to compliment his trip to the Space and Rocket Center with his grandma earlier in the week. He never tires of “1, 2, 3, blastoff”.

Friday night we enjoyed dinner with the ‘rents at the Oyster House and then Saturday we struggled to find something to do in the threat of major thunderstorms (which never really materialized at our house). We finally drove around to a couple stores looking for a new CD case for Justin and then invited our friends Will and Kendall over. They hadn’t seen Taplin yet and we’ve missed hanging out with them quite a bit.

Sunday was a busy day. We went to church and then out to Justin’s grandparents home in Wilmer to pick fresh blueberries and have lunch. I think we ended up with some of the biggest zucchini that I’ve ever seen from their garden and probably over a gallon of blueberries. I hate to freeze them because they are huge and sweet, but there is no way we can go through them fast enough. I think today I’m going to attempt zucchini lasagna and chocolate zucchini bread (a weight watcher’s recipe).

Sunday evening found us back at church for the vacation bible school registration and kick off dinner with Bridger. I’m taking him everyday this week, while Taplin is along for the ride. Technically he is too young to go, but I wanted to help out the preschool class and he is far more mature than a couple of the four year olds we had yesterday. Thank goodness I did go to help – the tragically unorganized event put 15 little ones in our classroom with no real idea of where we were supposed to go or when. It is clear that if Bridger is going to participate in the future, I will have to be apart of the planning committee. It is sad that we only had about 35 kids when I think their numbers used to be into the 100s. I don’t know why the drop off has happened, but I plan to correct it in the future.

We are taking it easy this morning. Yesterday we took 12lb 3oz Tap to his 2 month checkup (all is well), then to the vet, then to lunch, then to the store and then to church. It was a little too much to take on in one day. Laying low before 3 hours of bible school is probably the best idea for us. Wish us luck!

I recently saw this post on The Matchbook about flour paste batik and I’m pretty sure it is about my level of difficulty. My mom loves batik and I have in my head a kind of white/orange/black with skulls and swirls that would look fabulous on my HALLOWEEN QUILT that my wonderful mom is planning on making me (ahem….right mom?) She actually is a really great quilter and you can view some cool stuff she’s done on her blog or quilt-tagged flicker pages. We own three (one for each boy and one for me) plus some other decorative stuff. Normally quilts aren’t my thing, but it really depends on the design. I like a more modern take and there is one she designed herself that is very Kandinsky to me. Whatever…point being that I’m excited about the new batik project being a Halloween-adaptable thing. I’ll attempt to post pictures here when I’m done, but you know how my disappearing pictures seem to be…

This weekend I took the boys to Huntsville to visit my family and some old friends. Without too many boring details, here is a trip rundown….

Wednesday: Took way too long to actually get to Huntsville, stopping for 2 bottles, cookies, and lunch. Bridger stayed dry the whole time! Yeh! Got there and just relaxed with the boys and family.

Thursday: Mom’s morning haircut took longer than expected so we ventured out in the afternoon to find clothes for the boy’s photo session. It was a success finding coordinating white polo’s and blue linen pants at Gap (on sale, no less). Thursday evening I met with my sister and her friends for a Fashionably Late meeting at Bridgestreet and then to the Scene at Monaco. It was food and fun and fabulous – so much so that I’d love to start one in Mobile. Afterwards I took Nathan his computer we regifted to him for his birthday. I couldn’t tell if he really liked it or was just suprised at the largeness of the gift, but hopefully it will be useful to him.

Friday: Mom and I took Bridger back to Bridgestreet while grandpa watched Tap - namely because the Lucky store was having a sale and I really wanted red heels from DSW. Got the jeans, but no luck on the shoes. Oh well. I also picked up an anniversary necklace present for Shan, Bridger took a ride on the merry go round, and we all drooled in Anthropologie. Friday evening I took the boys to meet Shannon and Nathan at Chuck E. Cheese and back to their place, which Bridger proceeded to talk about for the next two days. He is spending the night there this evening. Good luck, guys!

Saturday: I took the boys to meet up with a high school friend, Kathryn, who I’d not seen in something like 8 years! She had her 4 year old Sophie with her and we had a good time, except that Bridger kept harassing Sophie. When I say harassing, I mean he literally stuck her with a fork between the eyes! I think he is in a phase of trying things to see what reaction they bring. It was great and Kathryn planted the idea of selling my oboe in exchange for a marimba (and possibly a piano if I do some swift accounting). Hummm….. Then Saturday evening my friend Sarah came over and we did late dinner at Macaroni Grill. I highly recommend the lobster ravioli (though mine could have used another scoop on the plate to fill me up).

Sunday: We had photos in the morning with Kerry Brooks, whom my sister made the website for. He and his assistant were amazing with the kids. I can’t wait to see the pictures! (THANKS Shannon!!) Then mom and I took Bridger to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. It was fabulous despite the heat. We hit the kids garden with many water features, the butterfly gardens (amazing), and saw some of the million dollar dino display. Bridger was in love, but also so tired he rode in a stroller for the first time in over a year! Sunday evening we hung out with Shan and Nathan at the ‘rents and had great peanut chicken mom made. I actually spent most of the evening making wedding invitations for a friend, which I have to say, turned out beautifully!

So that’s it! A long and restful weekend with family and friends. I’d post pictures, but something weird keeps happening to my picture posts and they go missing in cyberspace. I’ll have to figure that one out…

I walked into Lucky Jeans.

I picked up a dark wash pair in my size.

I tried them on.

I bought them.

I walked out.

Who’s bootay looks fabulous now? Oh, it’s mine.

I decided to change the blog title to Two Turtle Doves. Bridger was born in the Christmas season and I always found myself referring to him as turtle dove. Now I have two It is rather Christmas-ey, but who doesn’t love the holidays?

Yesterday we went to Abbie’s house to swim and play. It was a little rough, as Bridger is still learning his sharing manners. It was also nap time and for some reason, it was an all-around fussy day for Bridge. I still think he enjoyed his time. We rushed home to clean before a house showing, only to have it canceled. At this point, neither one of us really even care. It will sell when it sells and we love the house in the meantime.

Today we FINALLY went to the Bengal Tigers show at the Exploreum. It was a little short I thought, but given the extreme heat it was probably good. It actually rained on our show and one of the tigers is spooked by umbrellas. All in all it was fascinating. There are only 30 all white Bengals in the world, none known in the wild. Three of them were in this show! They are raised in south Florida at a preserve and the aim of the show is to highlight an endangered species in hopes of rejuvinating the population. They were absolutley beautiful. I think Bridger was a bit frightened or overwhelmed at the show, but once in the car he couldn’t stop talking about them. A zoo trip is definatley in our near future.

Now it is raining and the house is dark. Rain makes it seem cooler inside, even if it isn’t. Bridger is resting and Taplin is content in his vibra-chair next to me. I started the laundry for our week in Huntsville that we depart for tomorrow morning. Packing three of us is cerainly more time consuming than ever before, but we are looking forward to the destination.

Bridger, Taplin, and I visited the Mobile Museum of Art today, taking advantage of their “Free Fridays” through September. There are several current exhibitions, the best being GenX: Post Boomers and the New South and Material Imaginings (my favorite). The other exhibit, Poetic Spirit: Henry Wo Yue-Kee at 80, just isn’t my thing….Asian feeling. Eh. I’m sure it isn’t anything I could paint, yet I’m still not a fan.

I saw two artists that I really enjoyed and wrote down to investigate further. One was Michael Lucero, an American sculptor. His pieces are really vibrant and the one at our museum is called “midnight man” or something like that. I couldn’t find an image of it online, but Bridger liked it despite what I would deem a “scary” face on the backside. I’d post another image here, but it is really the favorite of his that I’ve looked at.

The other artist really captured Bridger’s attention in an image he kept returning too. His name is Carlos Betancourt (who thankfully, has his own website: http://www.carlosbetancourt.com/) The image we saw was from the Worshipping of My Ancestors Series, 2001.

Sometimes, though, I wonder what separates art from what any of us create at home. There were pieces there I could certainly not create or duplicate, though those aren’t even the ones I was most interested in. Certain things I wonder, now if I did that, would anyone buy it?