mandalas pt.2....will it ever end?....

Ode to Mac and Emmett

The Thinker

The smile...

Hams!

MORE HAMS

I love these guys
Papa

scenes of early summer...

...and our newest temporary additions Patricia and Hoenheim, the zebra finches from kindergarten, who have already laid an egg!!!

hellos and goodbyes...

Goodbye old school building!
Goodbye kindergarten!
What a great group of kids and families!


HELLO FIRST GRADE!!


Goodbye Morgan! Best kindergarten teacher ever!
WE WILL MISS YOU!!
(but of course we will visit regularly.
Emmett is already choosing books to read
to the new kindergarteners!


And...Hello SUMMER! WAHOOOOOO!!!!

MANDALAS...

The kids and I painted this huge mandala. It was a really fun project because the kids could do a lot of it themselves. They came up with much of the outline design. We all painted for hours on Saturday.


Even papa got in on the act with a smaller version.


The mandala craze that is sweeping our house began with an assignment to make something to sew onto Finley's quilt. We started doodling designs to spark an idea and, thanks to Spirograph as a kid and my mom who has always loved to do pen design coloring books with Mac and Emmett, we decided on mandalas and a new project was born.


We discovered that it is really fun to take old flannel, rip it into squares, and then put it on an embroidery hoop to keep it taut. Then we use Sharpees to go nuts.


The whole thing is strangely satisfying and addictive.
Now I want mandalas everywhere!


Even the simple ones are cool.


Emmett made this one for me for my b-day and I love it!

Papa rules ('cause he really does)...

Papa
Papa rocks the cazba
A smart guy
Pretty funny
Adventurous

Really fun
Oh man he plays basketball
Crazy
Koolest kat in town
Surreally cool


best papa

(us making potato pancakes for papa)

Just gotta blog this baby!! ...

I know most of you just skip on over to Craig and Cami's blog if you want to check out my new baby neice...but I just had to steal this picture. Oh my God...the little nose, the eyes...the bit of "Pacifist" t-shirt peeking out. Gotta love her.
Is she not the cutest little E.T. baby...(I think I will Google Image E.T. to check it out...)



...uh, NO! she's obviously way cuter than E.T....and that's saying something!!

now we're talking mudflaps!...

This teenie, tiny picture cracks me up.
Too bad you don't have the Brat anymore Cam...!
(wouldn't this be hilarious silk screened on a diaper bag!
or maybe on a t-shirt for father's day! HA!)

breakfast with baby frankenstein...

preaching to the choir but with a different argument...

CALTROPS!

You may remember the caltrops. A steel device used to disable calvary. A horrible weapon, most likely banned by the Geneva Convention. It was layed down like a mine field to discourage calvary charges by wounding the horse's feet. You may think this diabolical weapon is no longer in use...but it has reared its horrible head in new, despicably camoflauged ways.



The small block caltrop: used to disable fathers of small children when they go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The Large Block Caltrop: General purpose caltrop used during daylight to annoy and harass parental units.

The sad face caltrop: not only a particulary vicious weapon, but designed to crush the morale of a hopping mad parent when dislodged from between the injured toes.

and finally...
the panda bear caltrop: used in early morning to destroy all hope of crossing a living room without injury.

BEWARE THE CALTROPS LURKING IN YOUR HOME
Matt "Wounded Foot" Dreyer

STRIKE!

Check out the kids and us playing on the patio!

Matt

the TALENT SHOW!...

OK, that's not the auditorium of our new school but it may as well have been! It felt palatial and it was incredible to see so much of the school community in one room...there was so much enthusiasm for the kids, the show, the new site...it was great. And all the kids were so good, that means you Emmett, Benj, Isabel, Aitana, Bidane, and Indie and everyone...we all really enjoyed it.
(Oh, and Silas sat through 2 1/2 hours with minimal breast exposure and not a bit of crying. So we are half way there for our NY flight!)

I feel your pain!...

(photo from the first week with newborn Emmett)
You may think that this is just not the best picture of me but it goes beyond dark circles around the eyes. Anyone who has been there or IS there, with a newborn, no sleep, cracked nipples...knows this expression. The semi-faked smile that says to your spouse, "you aren't really gonna take a picture of me now are you..." followed by a few displaced tears...and hopefully a shower...

Looking through these old pictures of Emmett's first days, I can really feel the whirlwind of emotions... It's rough, as well as being great and new etc...but HARD, too. That's why every mama has a story to tell, not just about their childs birth but about all of it, from diapers to the first day of school and on and on. It's a battle story mixed with a bit of fish-tail, shaggy dog and glory days!


After the many, many responses from a couple of posts back (the grocery store incident with Silas) I see that every one has been there...and it helps to know that. My sister-in-law Cami, is in the thick of it...day 13...hang in there mama! And check out her ridiculously cute baby girl Finley!!

so funny!....

all over the place...Silas the LOUD!

OK, this boy is all over the place! Scooching, a bit of actual knee crawling, lots of grabbing and reaching out, LOOKING at everything, swinging his head around, doing 360's ...this little bit of video doesn't even come close to the level of TROUBLE we are in for! (in a good way!)

down to earth moment...

well, today in the grocery store I had one of those sobering moments when you realize you are not all that...and you wonder if you actually are just a fake after all...



so...Silas was in my arms on the way into (I admit) VONS, in the sling, and I thought, "he's old enough to try out the cart." So, I put him in and he proceeded to scream his brains out in the lot and then through the front door and all through produce. At first I felt unphased because, well, that happens and has happened to me time and again. So, I finally picked him up, now hysterical, bright red with snot pouring down his face. I put him in the sling, dropped his hat, bent over to pick the hat up and he grabbed onto some edge of something that literally tipped over the apple cart. OMFG. (I am not sure if that means what I think it means but I hope it's a swear word and takes the lords name in vain.)
Now Silas is obviously a mess and I am starting to sweat and get stressed and agitated and frustrated and unable to calmly deal...in otherwords, all my cocky mommy confidence just left the building...
...so now I have nice grandmotherly types coming out of the bakery to help ...not to pick up the zillion apples that fell but to help poor pitiful me who obviously knows nothing about anything, by telling me that Silas should be in the cart and he's too old for this and that...how they never brought babies to the store (basically how all my decisions were WRONG!) And then the final blow, by me of course..."Go AWAY !! I am FINE!!!" (Yes, I really said that...and in a very snotty and uncalled for immature voice, too...)
...at that moment, or rather looking back on that moment, I see how many times I have waltzed in to give advice or help like some know it all savior and all I should have done was picked up the frickin' apples.
...so for all of you out there who have been victim to my sage wisdom (and you know who you are!) I am SORRY!
...because I don't know squat.

kindergarten camping...

We all just had so much fun on this trip...and I took a ton of pictures. I guess I'll have to get a flicker account because I got some great shots of all you wonderful families out there. Our school is full of truly interesting, and cool people. Thanks Morgan for the jump start into group camping! Dirty feet and all, I'd do it again!

Morgan and Silas being cute...both of them!!

The group, minus a few who left a bit early!

THE famous KATIE!!

Snuggly Forest Sleepers.

Morgan and Isaiah pondering...

The girls doing their thing.

Emmett was excited to find a "native american kitchen"!

mt. laguna in years past...

Tomorrow we are off with Emmett's kindergarten class
to go camping at Mt. Laguna. This is such a beautiful campground.
This will be our first year there with very little rain so
unfortunately we are not expecting as much water...no lake/bog
or creek. Still, I love this place.
The site of many happy memories!

2005, so green that year

2006 on the same weekend a year later with the gang...
pregnant with Silas...a lot can happen in a year!!

2006, the boys

ten years tomorrow!!...

(the kiss)
On Saturday Matt and I went out to dinnner to celebrate or 10th anniversary which is technically tomorrow, the 31rst . We had always said on our 10th we would go to Paris or something but...well...life happens and the timing was off (as well as the money thing! ha!).


(we still like to pretend we are cool!)
...anyway, we usually don't do that much for anniversaries but really wanted to mark this one somehow. So, I decided to get a ring I've always wanted and Matt at first was going to get a tatoo. After a couple of weeks of uninspired browsing for tatoos Matt decided what he really wanted was a banjo. That's a perfect 10th anniversary present I think, especially since music is one of his best gifts to our family!

(the ring, a bit blurry!)
The ring is special to me because is choc-full of symbolism...I am a sucker for secret meaning and traditionas you may have noticed...
anyway, the ring is from the 1800's. It is rose gold to match my wedding band. Its called a gypsy ring . The stone in the middle represents the moon, the rays coming off it, the sun. The stones around the outside were originally all garnets but a few were missing so we decided to leave two garnets for Macs birthstone and replace the rest with two amethysts for Emmett and two tourmalines for Silas. The entire ring was generously and lovingly reinforced and strenghthened by Megans dad, Ron, who is an awesome wax mold maker for fine jewelry.
It surprises me that I could be so happy about a ring as I am usually not that type of girl but this was the perfect gift...Thanks Matt for this and Everything!!!!!!!!
I love you and you know it!!!!!!!!!