my little red.

"it's little red riding hood, grandma. i brought you some goodies!" 

grandma, what big eyes you have! 

the better to see you with, my dear. 

grandma, what big ears you have! 

the better to hear you with, my dear. 

grandma, what big teeth you have! 

the better to eat you with, my dear!

eleanor's first halloween. she's the perfect little red riding hood.

we're on our way to our fowler fall festival. happy weekend and happy halloween! 

p.s. - i wore this pumpkin hat that i made.

we didn't get very good pictures of it on, but here's a blurry idea:

hair.

 last year i posted on my hair's progress since i got it cut about the same time we moved to georgia.
i couldn't resist posting another crappy, sepia-toned webcam picture to add to my the life-story of my hair.

post edit: i have been taking prenatal vitamins since june 2009, so that may be the reason my hair grows so fast. yes, i'm still taking them. they help me quite a bit.


where we started, october 2008:

last year, october 2009:

and this year, october 2010:

it's extra frizzy today, partly because ellie likes to pull on it all the time. hard. like, constant headache hard. i could put it up, but then she grabs hair right out from the top of my head and totally messes it up. even braids aren't safe, they just make for a more concentrated area to pull. 
it's also frizzy because i didn't blow dry it yesterday when i washed it. i can't let ellie take all the blame.
and one day, i'll spend money on my hair and quit cutting my own bangs.

also, in october 2010 i have a cute baby hanging out with me. she's smiling behind that paci.

until next year . . .

finalist!

remember when i designed some dresses, just for the heck of it? (click here if you don't.) well, one of them is a finalist in the contest! i know! i did a cartoon-style double-take when i saw it. i never imagined i'd be in such talented company.

so go vote for a dress! it doesn't have to be mine. 

 i'm liking number 7 and number 9, myself. well, i like them all, but i think that i'd actually wear those two. i wish number 9 was around when i needed a wedding dress (and i wish i had the figure to pull it off). you can vote once and the voting ends november 15.

 click here!

i'm not sure that the voting link works, but you can leave a comment. may the best dress win!

edit: here's a link to a poll that should work.
click, click.

three creatures by the window.

 i have mentioned this before: when the sun starts to move south in the autumn, judge suddenly spends a lot of his time sunbathing by the back door. around the same time, the lizards come back. they like sunbathing, too, but on the outside of the window. judge spends all day whining for someone to let him out so he can try to catch the lazy lizards - but when he gets out the door they aren't so lazy and they disappear immediately.

yesterday afternoon, i watched three creatures hanging out by the big glass window.

first was an elusive little lizard,

second was our vigilant judge

and third was this (big) little guy, just in time for halloween: 

we watched him make his web all morning and, luckily, he made the web just right so that it didn't fall apart when we opened the door to let judge out. so long as he isn't inside the house, surprising me by skittering out from underneath things, i don't mind him one bit. 

eventually there were four creatures by the window. 

well, five, if i'm included in the creature count.

we're always up for some good creature-watching around here. 

would you rather . . .

be without your phone
OR
your computer?


be surprised on your birthday
OR
have complete control of the day?


read a book that makes you think but leaves you slightly disturbed
OR
read a light book that you'll forget in a week?


live in a great house in a not-so-great neighborhood
OR
a not-so-great house in a great neighborhood?

know exactly when you're going to die
OR
not?

hair is coming, slowly but surely. 

you must pick one or the other, not both.

it has been a while since i've done anything like this and i saw it on wonder woman's blog, so i thought i'd make a post about it instead of an insanely long comment.

first, i'd go without my phone before my computer. my phone is pretty crappy, that's why. i was once told that homeless people have better phones than i do. there is always skype or something like that on the computer anyway. if i had a camera phone i might be convinced to change my mind (yes, i know, i'm totally living in the stone age).

i think i'd have to go with complete control of the day. surprises are nice . . . who am i kidding, surprises aren't usually nice for me. they make me anxious and stressed out and i don't want that on my birthday. little surprises are nice - unexpected flowers, etc. big surprises, i'm not sure if they're worth the stress attached to them (even if it is good stress, i'm really not able to handle it so well).

i'd pick the thinking girl's book. i like the occasional quick, painless read, but these days it's hard to find time to sit and read (without falling asleep) so i'd rather go with something i really want on my mind, even if there are some parts that are disturbing.

i think i'd take the neighborhood over the house. especially around these parts. what does it matter if your house is nice if you don't feel safe inside it?

and i would never want to know exactly when i'm going to die. i'm not sure why anyone would. i might want to know what the general time frame was, though, so maybe i could get things in order? eh. if it's anything like waiting for a baby to be born i think i'd just be paralyzed, waiting for my time to come.

so there you have it. what about you?

the trouble with baby-proofing

is that you can't really do it well while the baby is around. 

ellie learned how to open her first cupboard. i tried putting the heaviest thing in arm's reach in front of the cupboard door, but as you can see, it didn't exactly work out the way i had planned. (cut me a break! we all got up at 4:45 this morning and my brain isn't exactly running smoothly right now.)

(don't worry, we recreated the event for the photographs and i held her hand most of the time.)

anyway, she's a climber. she must have gotten that from her daddy - his nana told me about the time he climbed on top of the fridge and couldn't even be conned into coming down.

ugh! why did the company make these safety latches practically impossible to install? ellie's five minute nap didn't exactly give me time to nail tiny starter holes to help me screw in the tiny screws.

and what do i do in the meantime with my kamikaze baby who isn't really interested in anything that isn't highly dangerous/destructive? 

300!!!

no, not the film. 

my posts. they have reached (gahhhhhhsp!) the 300 mark. 

seriously?! seriously. 

i feel like something crazy should happen here, like balloons falling or sirens wailing. 

you are reading my 300th post.

it also happens to fall right around the two-year anniversary of our move to georgia,
and therefore my blog is about two years old as well.
on top of that, ellie is eight months old today.

just for the occasion, ellie has perfected clapping and dancing. wednesday night we had a dance party and ellie just bopped and bopped until she (literally) dropped in the middle of the floor.

i wouldn't mind being able to post three hundred more memories just like that one.
i think i'll keep it up, this old blog of mine.

(here are a few pretty amateurish and pointless videos showcasing some of our elliebean's tricks. i'll apologize for the poor cinematography in advance. she loves bopping and clapping these days and she gets a little crazy-go-nuts sometimes. i'll have to get some better video of her dancing and clapping. it's, like, the best ever.)

his office.

ah, the office.
these days i think they're more commonly referred to as "man caves."
well, now my man has a cave. it started off subtly while we were moving some furniture.

"i guess we'll put my computer in that bedroom. it'll be easier for me to concentrate if it isn't in such a high traffic area."

"you know, if i put the guitar and the amp in that other room they won't mess up the look in the front room. they really just don't fit in there."

"i think i'll just move my jackets and motorcycle stuff into the closet in the bedroom. then you can have the hall closet all to yourself!"

"i guess now you can do whatever you want with all the other rooms in the house, since all my stuff will be in here."

don't think i didn't see what he was doing from the beginning. his concern for the cohesiveness of the decor, trying to get me excited about what i was going to do with all this new space - i knew what he wanted. he wanted an office and he was going to do anything to get it.
the same thing happened with the shotgun. oh? i didn't mention the new addition to the family? well, we needed it for home defense and to provide food. it'll be really useful when society shuts down and we're out on our own. it's also really fun to go play with at the shooting range - ahem. i can't wait to hear the reasons why we need crossbows, a pickup truck, a boat, an assault rifle, etc, etc.
the shotgun lives in the office, along with the fishing pole and tackle box, guitars, motorcycle gear, the weights, and all other such man things. too bad the walls in the room are pink.

his office is his to enjoy while it lasts.

oh, and here are a couple of pictures of the other rearranged rooms. good measure and all that.

double chocolate pumpkin muffins.

you heard me.

through some serious experimentation, i have found some seriously delicious muffins.

here's the recipe:

1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup butter
1 package devil's food cake mix
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 bags semi-sweet chocolate chips
(do i really need to tell you what to do with the other 1/2 bag of chocolate chips? okay. straight up eat them.)

preheat oven to 375 degrees. grease your muffin tin (or line with papers). 
cream the pumpkin and butter until smooth.
add the rest of the ingredients, except for the chocolate chips. mix into a nice, fluffy batter.
fold in 3/4 of a bag of chocolate chips. spoon into muffin tin, filling each cup 2/3 the way full. sprinkle some of the remaining chocolate chips on top, eating a handful or so each batch.
bake for about 15 minutes, until toothpick is clean. makes about 4 dozen regular sized muffins.

i haven't exhausted my options with these, but i'm thinking of figuring out how to make them with applesauce instead of butter. somewhat healthy double chocolate treats? uh, yes. please.

a real classic.

pictures of the baby cleaning out the cupboards = classic. 

here's the busy little girl at work. i don't know if other kids are like this, but when she gets into things she does it very seriously. she isn't throwing stuff around and having fun, she has a furrowed brow most of the time. she looks as if she is concentrating and going through all the containers with some sort of purpose. the other day she sat in a pile of hangers and methodically moved them out from in front of her and made piles on each side. when some would slide back in front of her again, she'd scowl and move them away again. she's very certain about what she's doing.

notice the growling in the video: 

why i can't get anything done:

she has really perfected the hang-on-mommy's-legs-for-dear-life move.

and this is how she wants to take naps. she fell asleep about the same time my feet did. luckily she let me move them. also, i'm sitting next to the computer so i can blog (at least).