"Mouse Family"

She keeps wanting to draw a "mouse family" and then hang it on the fridge, just like in one of those "If You Give A Mouse..." books that I thought were so cute when I was a kid but now, a large number of titles later, do not find quite so charming. Of course, I hadn't realized that these books exactly describe life with a little kid until I read them to my child, so there you go.

"Look, Mommy, I drew you!"

Apparently I look like a Ninja Turtle.

Class Picnic

Yeah, this happened two months ago, but the photos were on a 2MB memory card and do you know how long it takes to fill one of those things up? A long time. And it takes even longer for me to get around to uploading the photos.

Her school has an end-of-year picnic for each class, and students' families are invited to pack a lunch and come eat with the kids on the next-to-last day of class.

Sushi for a picnic? This is how we roll. Get it? Ha!

I had packed her the usual in her lunch box that day (cream cheese & jam sandwich, carrots, water, grapes) but as a surprise I stopped at the grocery store on my way to the picnic and got some sushi, a crisp apple (out of season I KNOW!) and some strawberry-flavored sparkling water. She was pretty thrilled, and I was secretly gloating because all the other parents were so amazed that an almost-four-year-old ate sushi with such enthusiasm.

She was pretty pleased, too.

First Day of School/Last Day of School

One of my friends saw this and said "She went from having baby arms & legs to having big-kid arms & legs!" It's true. She's all limbs now.

5 April 2011: Self-Made Brunch

 Today I dropped the kid off at school, then realized I'd left my phone at home. I went back to get it and puttered around the house pretending to clean for a couple hours. When I got hungry, I decided to do more than just microwave some leftovers and made myself a solo brunch: extra-large hazelnut latte and a strawberry waffle. Tiny treats make a day brighter, right?

24 March 2011

We stayed late at the park because I didn't want to go home, and wound up assembling an impromptu dinner from the snacks in the car.

01 March 2011

A little peek into how our month is going:

I'm trying very hard not to snap and snarl at her, but I just hate our life here so much it spills out every time I open my mouth. So I find myself annoyed and near hysterics because she needs so much, and destroys so much, and talks so much, and demands so much. The warmer weather means I am in tears every time I hear the thump thump of a basketball on the sidewalk, and that's not her fault. The health insurance is costing us more than we have, and that's not her fault. I despair of ever getting this house in shape to sell, and that's not her fault. Nor is it her fault that the minivan mafia at her school managed to hurt my feelings AGAIN, even after I swore I was done. All of this and more has me wallowing in a pit of despair, and it's not her fault, but we are together so much that she gets to face my fury constantly. It's not making me feel like a very good parent lately.

Giant Cat Attack!

Huge Cats Terrorize Family of Small Woodland Creatures, Hello Kitty May Be Involved.

Amateur Photographer

Making a Break For It

She loves to arrange a herd of wind-up animals and let them roam.

Snowy

We got a white Christmas...barely. It started snowing at 10 pm December 25 and didn't stop until 1l am the next day.

Improvised Reindeer

Since we introduced her to Rudolph, reindeer have been a big topic of discussion around here. She did this all on her own, and was quite pleased with it.

Happy Holidays, wherever you may be. 

In The Trees

Walk of Trees, downtown Plymouth, Mi.

Strolling

Breakfast

Impromptu Picnic

On a chilly day, we decided eating lunch in the front yard would be more fun.

Ahh...October.

 

The twilight view out our back door. I'm so sad October is almost over. 

Bike Ride

I finally took my new bike out for a spin. It was a cool, cloudy day, and although I'd only intended to go around the block a couple of times, instead I found myself pedaling full speed out of our neighborhood. I rode for more than an hour, not going all that far from home, but certainly appreciating how much better everything looks from the seat of a bike. I stopped long enough to snap this photo before I headed home.

Purple Poncho in Action

I finally got a photo of it where she's not naked or blurry. I realize that the poncho itself is slightly blurry in this photo, but trust me, it's better this way. This is the only one where she wasn't making some really freaky face. Wait, I did find one where she was only making a face that was merely a little weird and not really freaky:

She is exactly like her father; every time I pull out the camera he starts making strange, freaky faces too. Trying to photograph the two of them together usually causes me to pull out my hair, kick things, or give up and buy myself a gigantic sugary latte instead of shooting pictures.

What I Learned About Making Headers.

You may (or may not) have noticed the new header.

This is what it looks like without the text in it, because...well, because Blogger is frustrating and all their NEW! AWESOME! CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS! don't really work with my old template edits.

My last header picture was one that I took when we went to an exhibit at MOCAD, two years ago. It's been up there that long. I just never found the time to change it, and since I couldn't exactly remember how I got it up there in the first place, I figured I'd probably better not monkey with it. But a few nights ago, armed with my new computer (an early and much-appreciated birthday gift from my mom), this nice tutorial, and some gumption, I decided to change it. I've fiddled a bit with the code for my page; I thought I knew what I was doing. Ten minutes, tops, I thought.

Three-plus hours later, I had learned the following things:

1. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

2. Blogger has lots of choices for tricking out your blog and I don't like any of them.

3. If you're going to pick a photo to crop for a blog header, it has to be one where you only like a tiny portion of the image. If you have a DSLR set on high resolution and large photo size, and you try to use a very close-up shot of something you just end up cutting off most of whatever is in the picture. It also can't be fuzzy or blurry at all because that is only emphasized when you crop.

4. I don't have any photos where I only like a small part of the image. At least not any non-fuzzy or non-blurry ones. I did go through the pain of trying to crop 6 different pictures that were too huge, though.

5. That photo I was certain I took of Piper's feet last summer, when she had her toenails painted cherry red and she was wearing those yellow-and-white retro-looking polka-dot sandals? I never took it. I have 45 other pictures of her feet, but not that exact one.

6. High-resolution pictures of feet look terrifying when cropped close and put up on a large computer monitor. It's like they're going to leap out and kick you in the chin. 

In the end, I had to go all the way back to years-old photos I took with my point-and-shoot, because those were small enough to crop and still give me something halfway nice to look at. It's still not quite right, but it'll have to do until I can get something better up there.