Joseph, Gabriella, Julianna, James, and Elora

Joseph, Gabriella, Julianna, James, and Elora

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Memory Lane

Thinking about Rachel's upcoming visit has me wandering down memory lane today! (If Memory Lane was a real place, I think it would look like this:)


When I was in college, a group of my girlfriends and I shared our love of long-forgotten days and medieval garb by making costumes and taking yearly trips to the Renaissance Fair in Larkspur, Colorado. We would drive up in a big group, stay at my grandmother's house (who reveled in sharing the experience, let me assure you!), and go to the Fair wearing our creations. It was a fun chance to pretend we lived 400 years ago, sport beautiful fashions that we (sadly) cannot seem to convince the rest of society should be worn every day, and spend some quality "girl time!"

Daniella and her best friend Emily as fairies: 

 Sarah as a noblewoman and me as Maid Marian
:

Jessica isn't really into dresses, so she opted for a knight's costume:

Here is our whole group. Rachel (in black) is Juliet, and my grandmother was doing her own thing, as usual, celebrating the "Egyptian Renaissance" in a lovely gown she acquired in Egypt.



One of the Renaissance shops (it is truly a "fair" with everything you can possibly imagine for sale!)



 Below: The jousting arena. There are four knights who joust, each with their own squire and herald. The area surrounding the arena is divided into four sections and each section supports one of the knights, hurrahing their success and booing the others.

Daniella and Emily with Anthony, the marshal who oversees the joust.


Anothony explaining the rules for the joust. Great fun...the knights are greatly skilled with their lances, though not with their jokes... 

I don't seem to have any pictures of the actual joust (I guess the horses were moving too fast!) but here are Sarah and I after the tournament.

I believe the reason Rachel and Jessica are in so few of these pictures is that they were the ones with the cameras!

Note - there are two teams, the "good knights" and the "bad knights." We cheered Sir William, one of the good guys. If I remember correctly, he was killed. ;-(

The fairies with Sir Jeffrey, an evil knight (boo!)

Sarah with Sir Marcus, another evil knight. (For shame, Sarah! Don't tell Jason...)

Our whole group outside the castle:

Now I really want to go to the Renaissance Fair again, girls!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Voss Day Care

I just had to share this picture of my life:


There. I thought you'd appreciate it.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Best Friends!

I got some very exciting news today: my best friend is coming to visit!


Rachel and I have been friends for almost 20 years (I can't believe I am old enough to say I have been anything for 20 years!), in spite of living in two different states for most of that time. We always have a great time whenever we do manage to get together: going to the Renaissance Fair, going to Europe with my dad, playing horses (okay, not recently) and just trying to catch up on years of absence in a few days!

Rachel and I sitting on the steps of a cathedral in Venice

 Every year we try to squeeze in at least one visit, although we would prefer more, and this year, thanks to my unwillingness to spend 8 hours in the ca with 4 little kids, she is coming here!

Rachel looking very lovely - and pensive - as my maid of honor in our wedding (6 years ago!)

I am very excited for her to see our house, which we had just bought but not moved into last time she was here, and of course our new baby Elora! The kids all love "Aunt Rachel" and I know they are excited to see her again too.

Rachel and I doing our part to keep the leaning tower of Pisa from finally collapsing...

I know our visit will be filled with lots and lots of talking, coffee, and late night catching up (thus the coffee)! Now I just have to get ready for her visit...which involves transforming my guestroom from "random storage" into "lovely and actually useful" and lots of cleaning and cooking.

I can hardly wait! I will try to take pictures documenting our visit (something I am terrible at, as evidenced by my limited stash of pictures of the two of us!) and post them so you all can see what a delightful time we had.
Here is a REALLY old picture of us being silly

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The sequel

So after my post yesterday, I just have to give you the sequel to the story...it demonstrates how awesome God is and how He cares about even the little things in my life.

Shortly after I posted all my tired complaints, my sister Lydia called and said she was stuck in town after a doctor's appointment. So that sweet girl came over and watched my kids while I took a nap with the baby! I felt 110% better after I woke up, and was able to carry on with my day, enjoy spending time with Lydia and my cousin Tiana, who also came over, and then have a lovely date with my husband. We went out to dinner, then came home and watched half a movie (yes, it was an old-people date, but we ARE getting pretty old! ;-) before falling asleep. My mom had offered to keep the older 3 kids all night, so we got a full night's sleep, and then Robert was able to go in to work late. We made a nice breakfast, did Bible study, and spent some wonderful and rare time alone (okay, almost alone) together!

So today I am praising God, Who sees to my needs almost before I even ask, and so thankful to everyone who stepped in to help me! And thanks to all of you for your kind thoughts, prayers, and comments!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

I am so tired today that my fingers are almost too tired to type this post...and I'm not entirely sure what I'm typing...Elora has gone overnight from being the world's best baby to not sleeping well at all, and I am not handling the adjustment very well! I think I'm on my 3rd cup of coffee already and it doesn't seem to be helping. 

The worst part is that Robert and I are supposed to go out tonight for our first date in months and celebrate our anniversary. I have my pretty red dress and red shoes that I save for special occasions, and the gorgeous earrings he already gave me as an early anniversary present (because that man cannot keep a secret when he's excited about something!;-) all ready to go...but right now I am wondering if I'm going to make it through the evening. And unfortunately I have people coming over this afternoon so I probably won't get a nap either. Yikes! 

More coffee. Lots of prayer. And maybe Robert won't mind that my eyes are closed all evening...

P.S. Never ever tell anyone "my baby is a good sleeper!" She will find a way to prove you wrong...  

Thursday, June 9, 2011

A Fairy Tale

I live in a fairy tale. Every night a magical transformation occurs: I go to bed a human woman and wake up every morning as a grumpy Mama Bear! And to make matters even more amazing, this particular bear was awakened from hibernation far too early. Hence the adjective "grumpy."

Now Mama Bear, as you all know, is not a morning person. Particularly when she's had her much-needed hibernation interrupted. Under these circumstances, Mama Bear can be kind of dangerous. The cubs are usually safe, thanks to that maternal instinct Mama Bears possess, plus they are usually smart enough to stay out of her way until she's had her coffee. But Daddy Bear is not always that smart. Especially because Daddy Bear is one of those irritating morning people who actually like to get up early. And he shares his delight in the morning by being as noisy and cheerful and generally irritating as possible.

And rather than following the cubs' example and leaving Mama Bear alone until she was fully awake, yesterday Daddy Bear decided he'd try to work a little magic himself and turn Mama Bear into a morning person too. He put forth all his best efforts - singing (loudly), whistling, chatting, laughing - in short, being as obnoxiously bright and cheerful as possible. Unfortunately for him, Mama Bear's hide is far too thick for magic spells of that kind to work on her. He got nothing but growls for all his trouble, and he was so persistent that finally her claws came out and Swipe! Poor Daddy Bear got thrown out of the bathroom so Mama Bear could shower in grumpy peace.



Daddy Bear didn't realize that the only thing that works on Mama Bear is swallowing the magic potion: coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. Then, very slowly, the spell begins to reverse, and Mama Bear becomes a human woman again.


Until tomorrow morning...

Monday, June 6, 2011

Boys and Girls Rooms

My sister Daniella has been posting pictures of a different room in her new house on her blog each week. Inspired by her example (or perhaps driven to compete with her; after all, a lifetime of sibling rivalry is a hard habit to break), I decided it was high time I posted some pictures of my own house. I haven't actually posted any since the Great Mold Incident of 2010 and all the changes that resulted from it.

Since I can't seem to get any of the main rooms in our house to stay clean long enough to photograph, I'll start with the kids rooms. (yes, it IS ironic that their rooms are the cleanest rooms in the house...mainly because they don't want to play in there. It's much more fun to mess up Mama's part of the house! ;-) I took the pictures of Gabriella's room because Daniella gave me the curtains, and I wanted her to see how they looked!


These are not great pictures (I think it was a cloudy day) but enough to show that her room is pale yellow with white trim...

and her curtains have tiny blue and yellow flowers on them. I wish I could have gotten a better picture.
The curtains are also reversible, so if I get bored of one color scheme I can switch to the other side.

I originally wanted to make her room yellow with pink accents, but she seems to have an awful lot of purple stuff (like her quilt that Grammie made her). Of course, she also has some pink stuff. So I might do some purple and some pink. I think I'll get a little throw rug for her room too. And I haven't really decorated her room much yet. Eventually we will get twin bed or a trundle for this room and both girls will sleep in here - but for now Elora shares with us!

(Note: You can just barely see the wood floors in the corner of the 2nd picture...)

Here are a few pictures of the boys' room that Joseph took:
 The boys room is blue and white. The guest bathroom is painted the same color as their room.


















A view of their curtains (taken from the top bunk, where Joseph sleeps. I think he was supposed to be napping while he took these pictures!)


















As you can see, they have stickers from the movie Cars all over their walls. They have Cars sheets and blankets too.

I plan to do some red accents in the boys' room because Joseph requested more red in his room, and I had to tell him I was not going to go back and repaint his walls red! Red ties for his curtains, red toy baskets, and maybe paint his light switch covers red too. A friend of mine painted all the electrical outlet covers in her daughters room and they looked so pretty, so I want to try it...when I have time. Haha.

I am s-l-o-w-l-y putting all my pictures and decorations back up (hanging on the wall is slightly safer than knicknacks, so that's my main form of decorating for the time being) after moving back in 6 months ago...so I will try to post some more pictures soon.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Little Black Dress

They say every woman should own a "little black dress." Well, I'm not sure how "little" it is, but I have a black dress I absolutely love.

First of all, the price. I bought it so long ago I can't remember exactly how much I paid for it, but it was in the vicinity of $12. Definitely under $15. I got it at a store called Cato (which I also love...and it is 2 minutes from my house...which my husband does not love...;-)

Secondly, the fabric. It has an under-layer of satiny material, with an over-layer of crepe, which means it doesn't wrinkle, feels good next to my skin, and is cool enough that I can wear it in summer - but if I add boots and a jacket, it becomes a great fall/winter dress! I can dress it up with fancy jewelry and shoes and wear it to almost any occasion short of black tie, but also dress it down to wear to church every week. If I get bored with pure black I can change the ribbon at the waist to add some color. Due to the empire waistline, I can wear it when I'm pregnant OR not.

This is an old picture, from when Gabriella was a baby, but you can sort of see the dress

Oh yes, and the coup de grace: it buttons down the front so I can even nurse in it!

Yep. It's pretty much the greatest dress ever.

What about you? Do you have one particular dress that you love?