trip to connect-i-cut and all the other stuff in my head

here's all the things i have to say:

1. holy comments! i send a special thank you to each and every one of you fantastic people who took a second to pass on a kind word about my nursing shot. you never know how others will react- and each comment was like a little shot of tequila that i threw back and savored. wonderful, powerful, perfect. thank you for looking at my peeking little man and getting enjoyment out of it! you can even see my boob up at self portrait challenge.

2. i'm wicked behind on emails and phonecalls and dishes and keeping-life-together activities. i go through this sometimes. (esp. sara m's sweet email today-, and erina's invite- we wish we could come, but johnny is hosting his brother's bach party this weekend- oh lord- but thank you and have some fun for us!). please bear with me. vacations and showers and parties and get-togethers and mini-day-trips throw me off. i'm like a little kid that needs to stick to a schedule. except we really don't have a schedule here. being in the car throws me off i guess. i'm sorry. i'm tired. i love you all. i love your emails and your faces. i will get to you when i pull my head out of my fanny. and kristen, laura, and michelle, i put your swappie packages in the mail today. it's the one thing i promised myself i had to do. that and take a shower. which i just managed to do and it's 2:06pm. it's one of those days.

3. yesterday i had the best day, spent in the company of boo and mama al and her wee ones. i would love to write about it eloquently here, but alas- i'm going to resort to posting scans of my journal. if you would actually like to read some of the words, you may need to click on the images to enlarge them. all i have to say is i heart mama al, i heart m+t+baby makes three, and i heart little ones running around with no shoes, i heart communes, and i heart cake batter ice cream.


4. tonight i'm going out with some of my girl-lady-friends. i'm taking jess's lead (no make-up though, i'm not quite ready for that!) and dressing up just because. just because i just took a shower and need something to feel pretty about. we're going out for vietnamese food, which i'm very excited about mainly because the only thing i ate today was plain pasta off the floor. so it's pretty much uphill from there.

self portrait tuesday

self portrait tuesday: me as a milkin' machine

for all of you who know me, you know that i'm constantly nursing- joey is grabbing and pulling and yanking the old shirt down. this pic was snapped as joey was peeking out from a blanket at steph's shower over the weekend. i love the sweet innocence. just a little guy trying to get his milk on.

since there's no real way of knowing if joe will be my last, i try to savor every minute of breastfeeding- the quiet, the letting down, the calmness. just in case he's my last nursin' man.

slow joe

slow start today. a large part of this past weekend was spent driving around MA and RI. showering it up. showers of love for steph and brian and their twin little peas and then yesterday was jenny's wedding shower (wedding in two weeks). i was social butterflying it up all weekend. john managed to squeeze in some taking-care-of-nina-time amongst the craziness and took me out for coffee cookies and cream ice cream at hodgies on friday night, and then last night (after being the driver for his whole fam to RI) i came home to this wonderful and elaborate meal, perfectly cooked, with my favorite drinkies and all.

my body feels tired and run-down today. sleep doesn't feel like enough lately. grace is all thrown off from being away from mama all weekend and being spoiled (not in a bad way, but spoiled nonetheless). so today my goals are simple: to stay home, to reset my family, to get back into a routine that will help us get through the week, to get into the garden, to cut vases of flowers and put some next to grace's bed to help her stay happy, maybe to swim, to cook some banana bread, to craft some gifties for my lovelies, to plan for my trip to CT on wed., to look forward to thursday night dinner with my girls. to get through the week. to have another cup.

just as an fyi- i read the best book the other night- it's called the three incestuous sisters: an illustrated novel by audrey niffenegger, the same woman who wrote the time traveler's wife. i am blown away, completely in awe of these illustrations. and the words; so simple, yet devastatingly beautiful. i want to eat this book.

jess and nin photobooth friday

jess and nin photobooth, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

aaah, the beach. and my bad perm. and jess. good times.

i especially like how the curtain in the back gets progressively more messed up as the pictures are taken. the beach is where i got my nose pierced at some really scary place (dreadz) and my parents almost disowned me. in these pictures i think jess is wearing a necklace of safety pins. we were always a little off. and i guess we still are a little bit, too.

i love photobooth friday. that's no secret (thanks hula seventy!). but i also love the process of photobooth friday- looking through all my old photos until i find yet another strip sandwiched in among the other embarrassing pics. last night i had jess (and boo) over for an impromptu dinner- i made some spinach and ricotta pies and jess brought a trillion delicious desserts from my favorite bakery and yummy wine that looked like perfume. until everyone else came, jess and i drank drinkies and caught up and debriefed like old times. and then had more drinks. we ate and laughed and got a little silly (the kittykats went to bed early). then we had to bust out some pictures- all my old polariods from the beach cottage, and i found a huge motherload of old photobooth strips in the bottom of one of my boxes. i laughed so hard my ribs were hurting me this morning (along with my head). jess is glowing. she's serious good peeps. i'm considering inviting her over for dinner every night.

also, a p.s.- four more pins left up for final swappies at swaparama mama

how my brain works

how my brain works, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

here's a little glimpse into my world, and how my brain works. it's very messy and cluttered in there, but somehow it all looks beautiful and perfect to me. move over the picture to see notes on each little doodad.

also, new stuff up for swappies at : www.swaparamama.blogspot.com

corny

taken at jen's house under one of seth's toys- joey was in heaven

i have a crush on seane corn and it has only been made worse thanks to acumamakiki. i was lucky enough to be sent seane's dvd's- 2 of them! last night johnny and i sat on our fannies and watched her interview. and stared at her. and laughed at ourselves to watching a yoga dvd while sitting on our fannies. but she's incredible. really, really incredible. i would like to be her someday when i grow up. or maybe just hang out with her forever and maybe take some of her classes. is it possible for someone to be that glowingly, naturally beautiful? and i love her even more because she's totally honest about how non-perfect she is- she's just a woman living her best life, being herself. thanks acumama for the videos and the inspiration! john and i also watched part of her "breath session" and it looked really strange when my dad came over only to see us staring at the tv.

lots of stuff to do today, like keep the kiddies happy. which should be a task in itself.

send love and energy into the universe to my girl boho. she's a special one. her "swirly angels" post is the best- and the picture is even better. i could look at it forever. keep her in your heart today and always.

swappie update later on today. maybe.

my trip in real words: journal excerpts

a peek into my journal because i'm still too tired to write it all down here again. don't mind the crazymanic handwriting please. and hopefully the charlton's don't dispute my facts! :)

my head's still stuck in my fanny

reason number 1 why my head is still stuck up there


in the meantime, until i can muster up a real post-, some of our vaca pics are up at flickr

with that being said, we're off for another day in the sun (or shade, preferably)- pools, berries, blankets, various meat products, tube tops (eeks!), and general debauchery.

hope you all are getting out there for the 4th! meow!

one freakin' tired mama

this was me today. this afternoon. after spending 13-14ish hours in the car over two days. with two kids. one of which is a breastfeeding on-demand ravenous 6 month old, and another who is a precocious, question-asking, make-believe playin' little three year old mama. our trip to watertown, NY (right up there near the canadian border) was wonderful, perfect, and all those other words i always use but don't quite describe exactly what i want to say. i'm going to write all about it tomorrow or the next day, along with pictures, as soon as i get some sleep tonight. truth be told i'm very sleep deprived. and have a serious case of the poop-shoot riots. i'm hoping that it's stress-induced because i'm hoping i didn't infect the charltons (sorry guys!). neighbor stuff reached a critical crazy point last week, which ended in me actually going outside and meeting her face to face, talking to her rationally, listening to her talk in tounges and tell me i should call the police on her, and me sticking to my hippie peace-love-togetherness lingo. she must think i'm a complete pot-smoking lovefest 2006. you should've seen the looks on her face when i threw around words like "community" and "respect" and "neighbor". so between that situation, some family drama thrown in, and the car-ride (along with hours and hours of banging)-my insides are paying the price. but the kiddies are great and for the most part were well behaved. seeing ro and jen and holding seth was like a strange dream that came true. being in watertown was like being back home.

just got in from long picnic day next to a castle, and then fireworks with the kiddies. my life is a dream. this is how happy it is-


it's almost sickening.

photobooth lovins, friday style

nin john and pum photobooth, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

out with the old vibes, in with the new! these pics were from our last sunday day adventures- we're all not showered, we're stinky, we're at our best. we had a plan to do "deer, moose, beaver", but john bailed at the last minute because he was holding sleeping pum, so i was left to my own animal devices.

i waited for the pics to develop, which felt like it took forever, while john went back to the car to put sleepingpummie back in his carseat. when i handed the goods to john to look at them and said "i love these. you look so happy!" that right there made my day.

today is our five year wedding anniversary. five wonderful years, two kids, and lots of crow's feet later, we're still going strong, having fun every day. i love you johnpiglet, piashire cat, mayaandmiguelito. you are the best i could've ever wished for. meow!

and today is also vacation! lots of packing and tryingnottostressdespitemajorroadclosures. can't wait to see you my charlton peeps!

i am hysterically dying laughing because i just read boo's post about the parking adventure and it's so characteristically mean spirited (why i love him) and then his old video just killed me. for any of you that don't know me personally, this is really how i drive...it's a nervous habit that's carried over from when i was little. we call it "banging". it's gotten me pulled over by the police a bunch of times. but it seriously helps me focus. you would get used to it after a while of driving with me. john isn't even phased by it any more. it only bothers him when i'm pregnant (i tone it down a bit). i love in the video how grace is all unphased by our crazy normal-for-us behaviors.

better person

trying to be the better person, i'm putting a note in her mailbox-

it reads

"dear neighbor,
judging from last night it's pretty clear that parking is important to you. in the future, we will try to let our guests know this and respect your space, so using the garbage cans won't be necessary. we value you and your family as neighbors and would like to continue to have a healthy and happy relationship with you all. please feel free to talk with us about your concerns.
warmly, the gilberts"


and ps- i didn't sleep at all last night because of this (i hate conflict) and joey was totally up all night too, vibing on my vibes.

a serious case of the crazies

oh my god- i have to write about this before i go to bed so i can get it out and get to sleep. my neighbor is seriously crazy. we've been nothing but nice to these people; waving, saying hello, smiling, cleaning up trash, etc. and this crazy mo fo woman (she's my age and lives with her parents- no judgement here but she seems pretty unhappy about it) is OBSESSED with her parking, and fighting with people in the neighborhood. anyway, with the new "my garbage cans are going to block my spaces" thing- boo parked his car in one of "her" spots tonight (she had moved her garbage can because it was garbage day and she needed to put her trash out in it)- and at 9:45p she comes home and starts beeping in front of my house like a madwoman screaming "I WANT MY SPOT! I WANT MY F'ING SPOT!". we were all scared in the house and nobody went out to confront her. i don't want this mo fo doing any crazy shit to me or my kids. but i'm completely livid right now that she'd be so disrespectful to my kids sleeping in their rooms at the front of the house. and to make matters worse, as soon as boo opens the door to leave, she runs out of her house, jumps in her car, and moves her car up 3 feet into "her" imaginary parking spot. this may not sound dramatic or crazy to most peeps, but if you see my street, and see how there are NO OTHER CARS parked anywhere on it, and see how far she's parking from her actual house, then you'd see why she's so crazy. and my mail was missing from my mailbox today, including a package that was going out, and i don't want to point fingers....but- looks like crazy mo fo neighbor wanted insises on the pin swap. so jen, if you don't get your pin, look for my neighbor sportin' it, listening to loud 80's music while cleaning her car of imaginary dirt.

ooooooooooh, bad karma.

things i love thursday, really bad (TILTRB)

gray's angelic glow


oooh, it's a new day. i'm trying to channel all the positive energy that i can. today my goals are to:

-do everything on my mental to-do list as soon as things pop into my mind. for example "oh, i need to change the toilet paper roll," or "oh, i should empty the dishwasher and fold the 18 loads of laundry on the guest bed"....and instead of just thinking those thoughts, actually DO them as soon as them come into my mind. so far today this has worked well except that it's only 9:37am and i've got until 8pm to roll with this.

-pack for our trip. pack up all our snackies. i'm a big snacker. and i'm a big packer. so watch out charlton's...here we come

-take the kiddies to the animal shelter to snuggle up to some lonely kitty cats and get scared by all the barking doggies and smell all the funky smelling little rodent thingies.

-try to eat at some point, preferably something healthy but probably not

so on with the things that i love, really bad:

-pesto

-pizza

-vacation planning

-finally getting out from underneath the 400+ emails in my inbox. i'm all caught up and erased (i had to get up at 5am this morning to accomplish this task)

-my neighbor. just kidding actually. i'm trying to stay positive about this hideous horribly mean human being who puts out trash cans on our street to save "her" parking spots, even though they are right in front of MY house- and even though we live on the smallest most untrafficy openspacey road in the whole of suburbia. it's ridiculous and her actions make her feel bad every time i look out the window. but then i just laugh because she's so unhappy and she cleans out her car blasting the most horrible music and i just take videos and laugh, laugh, laugh. i hope i'm never that unhappy. ps- i was very VERY tempted to go put my garbage in those garbage cans today but resisted the temptation as karma is serious and i didn't want to mess with it.

-grace has been a serious POW lately. all this week. a PIECE OF WORK. very defiant, very NO-ish, very rude and mean. but why do i love this? because when she wakes up in the morning she is the sweetest little angelic piece of loveliness i've ever seen. and today i'm killing her with kindness...melting her with my care bear stares.

off i go party peeps! have a fabulous thursday!

two little videos to brighten your day

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grace falls asleep on sunday night while eating her dilly bar (please excuse my grate-a-licious sounding voice!)

and-


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joey attacking the clifford ride-on. we don't condone violence here, but i have to say it was pretty funny watching him because john and boo have been watching the ultimate fighting championship lately, and it was perfect seeing joe do all these moves on poor clifford. what was really happening though was joey was trying desperately to get clifford into his mouth.

just can't

i can't get my head out of my fanny today. i just can't. despite the coffee and the phonecalls and the playing tea party, i can't become productive. i find the computer a big time sucking machine sometimes. i'm punished. i have a to-do list miles and miles long, which includes washing all the pee-sheets in the house and tidying up before vacation, but i just can't motivate myself. joey is nursing non-stop and we're all sweaty and sticky and hot. he can't get enough food and milk- it's a constant battle to keep him full. he's teething, cutting his two top teeth, number three and four. gray is really, really into playing games like tag and school non-stop. life is wonderful and full but i'm a tired mama today.

enough of that!

also, blogger is piAssing me off because it won't republish my profile when i make changes- i want to not use my last name and city, but it won't take it off, which is really ticking me off right now. -oooh, just fixed it- had to republish whole blog. yeah!

but on a lighter note, we received the best gifts in the mail yesterday from jen- two t-shirts from the kiddies that read "H2O-town or bust- gilbert/charlton reunion 2006- bring on the fun!" um, hello? how freakin' nice is this? john and i are so excited to be part of this whole "couples who vacation to see each other" lovefest. more on vacation to come-

off to go be productive! must.be.productive.!

did i mention i love the mail?

gray sportin' the scarf

the marble magnets are there- you just have to look closely

flapper grace

another scarf shot

me sportin' the scarf love this mornin', pre-coffee




heather from four sweet peas is a complete mail rockstar. i received this package on saturday and seriously surfed on my mail happiness throughout the rest of the weekend. thank you heather for such amazing and heartfelt treats! the magnets are now on the fridge, grace was been sportin' the flapper headpiece all morning, the bracelet rocks, and my scarf.........helllllllo! i love it. i'm a huge fan of skinny scarves! and this morning it was actually chilly enough to wear it! thank you for your wonderfulness and maillovekindness. you really do rock!

speaking of mail, click on over to my new bloggie, swaparama mama, for all the new swap lovins up for the taking!

can i get a 'what what'?

this weekend was crazyfastamazing. i haven't uploaded my pictures yet so you'll have to wait on the visual update. let it be said that chrisanderina's wedding was completely gorgeous despite the downpourish rain. erina looked like a princess, and both of them were glowingly happy. john and i left our house at 3:15p to get there for 6:15p and we were almost late. there was some crazy traffic situation. but like i imagined, we had fun dancing and singing in the car, with john practicing his "moves". we ended up being one of the first couples there anyway. so like i was saying, the night was filled with love (and alcohol). john had a couple of glasses of top shelf scotch and then proceeded to give one of the nicest and drunkest professions of love to his table of friends. everyone was teared up, including john. i felt lucky to be part of a bunch of in-love happy people. even shaun and i danced together. we were all about the love. and john and i were all about the kissing. lots of kissing pics.

then sat. was filled with rain again. my dad's show got rained out, but he's a persistent antiquing kind of guy so he still went and set up. needless to say, he didn't do so well. but we all trucked over to show him some support, and met up with femiknit and little man. we got some seriously good microcreamery ice cream afterwards and watched the kids run around like wild beasts while we got attacked by killermosquitoes. sold only three stinkin' pins, one of which was sold to the woman who owns the antique store, so that doesn't count. although i sold more items than my dad, so that's ok by me.

sat. afternoon was party preppin', and then sat. night was tingball's party here. ooooh the fun. family drama. drunky grandma rollin' around on the floor (i'm not kidding). gotta love family stories! tingy stole my camera and took half naked pictures of himself. i'll make sure to post them tomorrow as the second part of his graduation present. i also made him a quilt with his name and '2006' appliqued onto it. the '2006' was an afterthought after i cut a big hole in the finished top piece when i was stupidly cutting another piece of fabric on it. hello! so now it really is a graduation quilt.

today rocked. we got up and dropped missgracemissymaya at puppa's and then headed to the ocean. we ate hot french toast bagels made fresh on site, and ate them outside in the misty cool sea air. we threw babyjoe in the backpack and walked along the pier watching fishing boats and lobster boats and richpeople boats. we smelled the air and each other. we went to a sculpture garden. we walked around and got a treat for a baby friend. we talked like adults. then we went to the other beachy beach and took photobooth pictures. which we entitled "deer, moose, beaver". i will post them on friday for photobooth friday goodness. then we napped and walked and topped the day off with dilly bars. grace was so tired at the end of the day that she passed out while eating hers. we caught it on video. i may or may not post it depending on how much i hate my voice on the commentary.

so tomorrow i'm going to post all my swappies up on my alterna-blog, swaparama-mama. i'll put pics and goodness up tomorrow, but right now i'm so tired, and i can hear my neighbor downstairs talking to john. john's more tired than me and the conversation sounds scarily boring, so i'm going to rescue my sweet sweet man.

on the agenda for the week: getting ready for our watertown trip this sat at 3am! mental readiness is the key.

nina and steph photobooth friday

nina and steph photobooth, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

oooh, here's another one of my favorites. not sure where the other ones in this strip are, but this one is by far my favorite of the strip, so that's ok. the back reads "salisbury beach april 17, 1994- psycho aliens". i was making fake glasses and i'm pretty sure steph was trying to take my lead but couldn't figure out how to do it. that's why i love this picture so much- steph's innocence and figuring-it-outedness right there caught on film. i love it.

happy friday, happy weekend, happy chrisanderina's wedding!

things i lust after thursday (TILAT)

i love this pic taken by my little shortie- it features me, chewing gum, and my sewing machine hovering over my head. which pretty much sums things up. this week has been filled with non-stop sewing and worrying about other people and chewing lots and lots of sugarless bazooka bubblegum, which has brought about joey's new nickname, bazooka joe.

ok, on with the list of things i freakin love and lust after!

- fresh basil and mint (yes, bub, i threw some mint in there, and you didn't even notice) pesto...our first batch this year. served with a nice soft stick of french bread.

- did i mention the tea and the lemons and the mint consumption around here?

- chirs and erina's wedding tomorrow night- john and i love weddings. we love sitting at the reception and taking it all in. we love being in the car together dressed up and driving to the wedding. we love debriefing afterwards. we love seeing our friends happy. we are dorks. we love weddings.

- homemade baby gift for john's boss

- new beer last night for cocKtail wednesday- stella artois- hello! john and i may be in love (with the beer)

- my FIVE year wedding anniversary coming up next friday. john and i feel old. five years. two kids. the bags under my eyes sure do show it.

- john's leg hair. it's the softest, puffiest, longest, lightest colored leg hair you've ever seen. it's the sweetest. it makes me love him more and more every time i look at it.

- surprise visitors in from texas this morning...up in MA for the wedding tomorrow. i miss sara and shaun. i wish they would play in my sandbox every day.

- grace's obsession with crafting has reached an all-new high. what to do with all the piles and piles of artwork? i tear it up into little pieces when she's not looking and glue it into this crazy new "scrap"book. i try to get a little piece from the besties.

- pins ready to go for sat.

- hearing crytsal's nasally sickass today on the phone. i love stuffynosesounding people. it's a sickness i have.

-i love wists.com. does anyone else know of this cool site? i'm sure i'm not the only one. you see something cool on the internet you want? click "add to wists" and you can keep a running tab of everything. my wist-list is here.

happy thursday happy thunderstorms happy lintballs between your toes.

the deets

antique flyer, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

hey party people, here are the deets on my dad's gig this weekend in haverhill, MA. a couple of you have asked for info, so here it is! his booth is a little 10'x10' number, filled with goodies.

mindy, if you are going to go, let me know and i'll totally meet you there. if not, then we must plan some girl time soon!

n.

crafty and giftie roundup

close-up for the mail lovins- card by danielle

this bag makes me happy. i fill it with granola bars and burts bee's lip stuff and lots of markers. and gum. and junk. thank you angela for the wonderousness of it. i want to live inside of it.

lots of crafting going on- lots of painting and sewing and memory making. using seashells as water dishes.

more love
lots of pin making in effect. for the antique fair my dad is working this weekend. anything that doesn't sell is going up for swappies. so let's hope they don't sell! they all have their own little special summery names. aaaw.

holy mail! there's lots of lovin' going on. lots of gifties for neens. i'm a happy girl. i want to go through and catalogue each and every piece of love but the kiddies need me and i'm i'd be here all day. so here are all the packages together making sweet sweet package love. thank you to danielle, mindy, ani at pancakemama, alison, jen, angela (did i forget anyone? i've already had my coffee so there's no excuse). to get back to my last post- the other wonderful ladies that i got to meet, jillian and heidi, can be found here. thanks for the great time, ladies!

this yarn makes me wish i was a better knitter. i almost wrote "yarner". which goes to show you how bad i am. but i'm inspired to learn to make something soft and wonderful just so i can use this yarn. thank you ani at pancakemama!

jen's bracelet. hello! even gracie wants a piece of the action!

i have a serious crush on this piece of soft cuddly horsie fabric from angela at love green dog. i want to make something super out of it, but haven't decided on what yet- hum.

a close-up of the braceletty goodness.

i am really lucky. have i mentioned this lately? i am especially thankful and feeling grateful with some recent horrible events that i've been made aware of- not in my life, but in someone very near and dear to my heart. for many reasons, i have to be elusive and can't get into any details, but these particular events have made me appreciate even more all the love and warmth that i am surrounded by on a daily basis.

with that being said, i'd like to thank boo for my gorgorgorgeous pin that he gave me yesterday. i think he may have gifted it to me while i had my hand stuck inside my broken garbage disposal, so i may not have thanked him properly. so thank you boo. it's lovely. if i weren't sweating in my bathing suit right now waiting for my beegine parmigana to arrive, then i would be wearing it proudly.
and thanks for buying me milk.

and going grocery shopping and making the most delicious dinner ever. the best quote of the night was something like "if i'm ever rich, i'm going to make you guys the best dinner..." and then we proceeded to describe the exact dinner that was sitting on the table before us. quite a spread. we're a family that likes to eat.

the main discussions around here lately are about how i should've been born on a commune, and still live on a commune. it's just the way that i work. where are all the communes?

also, i've been seriously diggin' fresh mint on anything, along with sun tea and lemons. ooooh.

have a great freaky day!

weekend recap

me and the man, father's day 2006

i am a lucky mama. i was fortunate enough to be able to meet one of my online sisters, under a pink sky
(mindy) on saturday- i also got to meet two other fabulous bloggie women (and if i was together enough i'd have their links, too, but it's 100 degrees out and i'm hotthotthott)-
i loved mindy because she automatically walked up to me and my fam with open arms, reaching out for a hug. she's my kind of people. warm, happy, open-hearted. i wish we had more time together, and that my babyjoe was a better warm-weather child, so we could've stayed longer. but just meeting once was enough to know that we'll meet again.

feet in the car, road-trippin' style- lots and lots of miles to be driven in the next couple of weeks-

me and mindy- after meeting, i got in the car and looked in the mirror and realized that i had a huge gob of toothpaste on my ear and all in my hair (that's what i get for helping a three year old brush her teeth before we rushed out the door-). i almost died of embarrassment. mindy didn't seem to care though.

seriously. this is how my husband sleeps. if i didn't know better i would think he was a little sensitive. grace graciously snapped this picture of her daddy on father's day.



here's hoping that everyone had a good weekend. joey calls, must go!

father's day

there's no mistaking it: i have the best dad there is to be had in the whole wide world. ok, well maybe your dad is the best, too, and that's ok. because there's plenty of room in the world for the best dads ever.

these are two of my most favorite pictures of us- the top one i'm taking a bite out of my bad mcdonald's clown (yes, i look like a little dude- like grace, i didn't grow hair until i was like 5), and the second one shows one my most best times i ever had with my dad, picking apples and pears in my nanu's tree in the bucket of our tractor. i can still vividly remember the excitement of going up in the bucket, getting swarmed by bees, the exhiliration of being allowed to do something so "dangerous" with my dad. taking big bites of the crisp tart apples.

for anyone who's ever been lucky enough to meet my dad, you know that he's selfless, open-hearted, simple, and kind. what you see is what you get. he will literally give you the shirt off his back if you say that you like it. it's best to stay on his good side, and if you do, you will be taken care of (taken caramel) forever. he holds his family close to him and cherishes every moment. he likes to taste life and is known to say over and over when surrounded by the ones that he loves "i'm a lucky guy. who's luckier than me?" this is why i love my dad. this and so so many more reasons.

in addition to having the best dad, i also happen to be lucky enough to have the best husband. my children, therefore, also have the best dad. i love the happiness on john's face in this picture. glowing with fatherly love and dedication for his little bean. i've never met anyone with such a drive to be successful and happy- someone who loves the feel of being outside, of being surrounded by his peeps, of going on little adventures. someone who dreams of a comfortable and snugglefilled future. my children can depend on his constant love and dependability. there is no question of him: he just is. he, too, is the best daddy in the world.

happy father's day to my two best dads. how lucky am i? look at me. who's luckier than me?

dilly bar humor: comfort

dilly bar humor, originally uploaded by Nina Marie Gilbert.

the other day we decided to pack up the kiddies and truck into the forest for some letterboxing loving, some friendly forest comfort. but nature had other plans for us. pretty quickly we all started getting attacked by steroid-shooting mosquitoes. covered. i got very freaked out when i looked down into the stroller and joey was being swarmed. so i bolted, leaving john to venture deeper with grace because she was FREAKING OUT. she wanted to go letterboxing so badly. it was heartbreaking seeing her clutch her little stamp. when she watched me leave so fast she got overwhelmed and they trucked back to the car right behind me. she was sobbed hysterically. this is a girl who rarely freaks out from sadness...and there was no comforting her. so i pulled out the big guns and said "does anyone think we should go to daaaaaaaaaaaaairy queen for some dilly bars?!?" and it totally worked. we drove a couple of blocks to the DQ we had previously spotted and got her her favorite cherry dilly bar. i grew up on these things. cheap, delicious, immediate gratification snack. as john came back from ordering and handed grace her dilly bar, she says "look! look! my dilly bar has a nipple!" now if that's not comfort food i don't know what is.


happy weekend!


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photobooth fridayertins

oh photoboothie! how i adore you! there's no writing on the back of these babies. they feature yours truly, my little brother uncle tingtingtingballs, and jared woodsum, who i liked to call "jared wood-scum". my first real kiss (summer before high school...late bloomer i guess). a sort of best friend turned boyfriend but should've always been a friend. love didn't last long for me but our friendship stretched on for years and years. there's lots of crazy jared stories. i remember driving around is his parents little car listening to rap music. we thought we were the coolest. we were invincible. here's another example of "i have no idea what happened to..."- jared in this case. i'm sure he turned out just fine...despite his craziness he was a good kid. here's hoping that jared is healthy and happy!

can't wait to see everyone else's friday lovelies.