My brother Erik and his beautiful wife Cheriss are expecting their first child any day now. We are beyond excited for them and were so happy to host their baby shower. Cheriss did not want a ‘traditional’ baby shower. She wanted a crafty, DIY, activity-based morning of fun that was less about “guess the new Mom’s circumference” and more about creating. We did a DIY Onesie Painting station, a DIY mimosa station, and an advice station.
Summertime Soap Queen TV
Summertime brings all kinds of exciting things: warmer weather, lots of trips to the beach and in our case, new episodes of Soap Queen TV! We spent last Friday afternoon filming a whopping four episodes. That includes two new tutorials, a SQTV short on a fun scrub and a quick primer on the best way to get the most out of your Birchwood Mold dividers.
Lily and Jamisen stopped by for a quick visit. Lily loves glitter — just like her momma!
Happy Birthday Lily
Sharing is Caring
“My siblings are my best friends.” – America Ferrera
Don’t Forget to Play
“Life is more fun if you play games.” ― Roald Dahl
Happy Easter Weekend =) We did an Easter Egg hunt with Jamisen. He was beyond euphoric about the whole concept of sugar. Trying to explain to him why Easter happens was a little tricky. The internet was no help either. I stumbled over an explanation to him but had vastly underestimated the need for an actual explanation. Jamisen didn’t ask one single question about why he was made to get dressed up, carry a pink basket and go find plastic eggs filled with candy. Ah, so sweet: childhood innocence.
Happy Girls
“Happy girls are the prettiest.” — Audrey Hepburn
Ah, isn’t that the truth? I recently was reminded that beauty fades but smart is forever. I’m hoping that happiness is forever too! I just started reading a new book about parenting, “All Joy and No Fun.” I tried to convince my book club to read it but they’re all about fiction right now (we just finished Eleanor & Park; highly recommend). So, I’m reading the book on my own and marveling at how universal the struggle of parenthood is.
It’s no secret that moving from one child to two children is like moving from one to a herd, a passel, a gaggle and a mutiny. There is so so little sleep, so little productive work around the house (I’m pretty sure my car has a kiwi that molded under the front seat 2 months ago that I haven’t had the time to go find), and no time to sit and marvel at the miracle your toddlers are because you’re too busy chasing after them.
And then, something like this happens and it gives me just the slightest lift; enough to grin and bear it for one more day:
And yes, that is a screenshot from my Instagram account. Because we all know, if it didn’t make social media, it didn’t happen.
Three cheers for the weekend; maybe this will be the weekend I actually find that molded kiwi in the car. (pause) Meh, who am I kidding? This is the weekend that I will be a train conductor, engage in crawling races, build forts from pillows and use the vacuum 1466 times to clean up after “Look who just learned to eat solids” Lily. Here’s to a weekend full of joy …
Cupid’s Arrow
I couldn’t resist dressing up Lily as a mini cupid for Valentine’s Day. This little girl has a straight shot into my heart, and thank you for being in ours this Valentine’s Day. We are grateful to have such an amazing community of soapers to talk soap, life and business with.
New Creative Outlets and Rivalries
One of the joys I have in life is creating; it’s how I got into soapmaking. I love crafts of all types (don’t believe me? My crafty boards on Pinterest have a veritable lifetime of awesome craft ideas for me to try). I knit. I have a flower press. I have newly started gardening. I adore cooking. I rubber stamp. I like to color. And, I now consider myself an expert play dough sculptor.
When I was tasked with developing a 2.5 day retreat for my Entrepreneur’s Organization group (that’s us at the Inn at Langley enjoying an amazing meal cooked by Matt Costello), I jumped at the chance to make our team building exercise creative.
Happy 2014
Here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014!
“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.” ―Brad Paisley
Kiss Kiss
“Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.” — Vietnamese Proverb
This week has been such a whirlwind. Chris and the kids got hit pretty hard last week (so, like 13 days ago) with horrific colds. Just when I thought everyone was on the mend, Chris got taken out, hard, by some sort of what I like to affectionately refer to as the ‘Whatcom County Creeping Crud‘ or WCCC. It’s sort of all the pain of the flu without the actual real-deal flu-ness. He stayed home a few days from work but thankfully, he’s on the mend now but we are all looking forward to having a very low key weekend before Thanksgiving happens in just a couple weeks (yes, we’re hosting!).
Rocking Horses on Concrete
It is officially fall in the Pacific Northwest. And, while I’m extremely sad about this (summer is my favorite time of year), it does make some really gorgeous photos and fall activities, like hiking, apple orchards and park time. Ms. Lily is almost 5 months old and she is happier than ever (unless of course, you interrupt her afternoon nap in which case, she doesn’t forgive you for a few hours and shares her frustration by screaming loudly at you).
We went to Whatcom Falls Park this week and checked out the fish (happy, happy fish!) and had a breakthrough! Breakthrough! Jamisen has hated swings, of all types. He never liked being in the baby seat swings, big boy swings, sitting in our laps while trying to swing … nada. But this time, we got him to swing for at least 37 seconds and check out that grin. Whoah! Yeaah, little boy, lovin’ a traditional childhood past time. For all of 37 seconds. But hey, he has to start somewhere.
We also went to an apple orchard. Jamisen loved this terribly unsafe rocking horse thing. I say it’s terribly unsafe because the rocking horse is on concrete. I love that place but was somewhat terrified as Jamisen rocked his little body in an unstable manner over extremely unforgiving ground.
The reason Jamisen isn’t looking at me (and I have 15 photos just like this one) is because he’s staring at the donuts that are being made fresh, right in front of him. Apple Cider donuts, hold the sugar, because Chris is such a conscientious Daddy.