Paper me!

We had a swell Carnival party on Saturday night, lots of fun, costumes and food! Yay! I wore a top hat, my sister was a fortune teller and Chris had tattoo sleeves, very strange to see, haha...
Thank you to everyone who could make it, it made for a very happy birthday! My sister is wonderful and I'm glad that Chris didn't have to work the next day!!

And then, there's this:


It's a wardrobe, full of these:


That, my friends, happens to be ME! My friend Angela is a great artist and she hand drew me into a custom paper doll with all the fixin's...


I've always wanted hair like that. I'm pretty exited that some one interpreted my hair as that hair, hehe...


See? It really is me!


And a snoozing Baby Johnny! (Freakin' AWW!!)


Can you believe the details? How cute is that? (Did you notice my leopard flame tattoo?! You can click on any of these photos to enlarge them and see all of the little buttons and stitches.)



I'm blown away, seriously. What a personal, thoughtful and unique gift! I hope she makes one for everyone she knows- I'd love to see what she can come up with! ;D

Woooo for art!!

Make Music, Not War.

I have a sadly unfinished sleeve tattoo on my left arm, as you can see in the previous post. It's got a music theme and I decided a few years ago that I wanted it to encompass all my favorite eras of music. The one unifying theme in all the music I love is that it all seems to be a sort of rebellion of its time, freeing new generations from previous uptight ones or protesting war and oppression. Not all generations are fortunate enough to witness change through music, but I have a lot of respect for those musicians in the past 100 years that were able to open hearts and change minds and stay true to their art. I was lucky to have parents who encouraged us to listen and learn and I'm hoping to pass that on to our son.
So here a few ideas I'd like to incorporate in my sleeve when I do finally get around to finishing it:

The instruments involved are super inportant.



Obviously in earlier music dancing was a huge part of it.






Then art became intertwined with music like never before...










And I think I need to throw some plaid in there for good measure! It's interesting to me how 'fashion' goes so well with music and always has.





It's not lost on me how these different generations of musicians sometimes down-right hate one another. Punks don't take kindly to hippies, that's no joke. My grandpa's generation thinks mine is noisy and crazy and quite useless musically, I'm sure. But each one has it's own something special for a time and then graciously (or not so graciously!) makes way for a new sound and message for a new crowd, and if we are fortunate enough to learn from previous artists we can probably hear what the new ones are saying and then maybe we can become more understanding of one another!



If it was good in the past, it'll still be good today! ;D

Winter and then some.

It never occurred to me that my birthday was in the middle of winter. But then, I grew up in Florida where we spent the first week of February sunning ourselves on the roof, not trudging through icy sludge and spinning our cars out on the slick roads. I know, surprising right? You'd never know I've ever gotten any sun with the lovely shade of pale I'm sporting these days...

Last week we got a healthy serving of snow, and then some more. Nothing like the twelve feet or so that my family in New Hampshire can get, more like twelve inches really, but still more than we've seen in our four years living here. It was beautiful and I managed to grab a photo before it all melted in the past two days.


Germany is strange in that all the fields and trees manage to stay green under all the snow, so when it melts it's like it just never happened...

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Here's the picture of Johnny in his Yoda hat that I promised:


I'm going to stop posting these on Facebook because then everyone gets a double dose and that gets annoying, not that you don't want to keep seeing my cute kid's face everywhere! If it's blog worthy, it stays on the blogsphere!

Like the sweater and sweater pants I managed to make in the past two weeks:


The sweater is crocheted for a friend's baby. The pants are made from the sleeves of a thrift store sweater that Katie sent me. It is wool and I just threw it in the washer and dryer to get it a little denser. I'll lanolize them so they are leak-proof. Warm pants that are waterproof? Handy for a cloth diaper baby in winter! Not to mention they are so adorably hippie!

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We are going to eventually teach ASL (American Sign Language) to Johnny. I think we can start soonish, I have to read about it a bit before we jump in.
Anyway, I found this great teething ring on Etsy:


It's from Little Sapling Toys and for every toy you buy they plant a tree :) It's one of his favorites so far, beside this, from Green Mountain Wee Woolies:


Nothing fancy, but they entertain him nonetheless.

Oh, and he gave up his pacifier! All on his own, just wouldn't take it one day and hasn't since. In fact, he screams louder if you try to give it to him, haha...

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Now, I leave you with a parting shot of the family, because I can:


Thank you Tricia for managing to crop out the out-of-season Christmas pants and Chris's BDUs! ;D

I lost my iron.

Several years ago I found a vintage GE iron in it's original box at an antiques yard sale in New Hampshire.

It looked just like this:


It worked like a dream.

When we moved here I was afraid to use it with a transformer and set it aside. Recently the box has turned up without the iron in it.

It's kind of bumming me out.

It's just an iron, but seriously? An empty box?

Boo.

Perfectly thrilling ;D

Oh my goodness. This came in the mail yesterday:


Hooooly maple syrup Batman!! My grandparents are great, they really know how to make a girl less homesick!!


And I just finished this for Johnny, can't wait to put it on him when he wakes up in the morning ;D


May the force be with you, hehehe....


Today two wonderful ladies let me tag along on their shopping trip and I found lovely and flattering dress pants and a skirt. I'm feeling better as the snow melts and the sun comes out and the prospect of spring is looming. I also almost feel like I might start getting some things done around the house! Maybe!

Maybe I'm just feeling wonderful because Johnny laughs and smiles a lot now. That makes everything perfect...

Have a great Sunday! xo!

Learning to cook again.

Three years ago while in L.A. visiting with wonderful Lisa, she took me to a cute 50's diner and I had a chicken salad sandwich. It was good, but the part that blew me away was the avocado they placed on top! Avocado on a sandwich?! For almost 25 years I thought avocados were meant for one thing and one thing only: guacamole. Which I love- but it never occurred to me to simply slice it up and eat it some other way.
Brenda, my lovely neighbor, eats it out of the shell with a spoon and some lime. Genius.
Nowadays I will try any recipe that involves avocado, no questions asked.
I've also been cooking more and more vegan foods, not just sweets. The lack of milk and cheese actually seems to help Johnny's little tummy work.
I saw a version of this on FatFree Vegan Kitchen and mixed it up a bit for a cold winter day.

Red beans and roasted corn on quinoa and avocado.


Cook one cup of quinoa according to directions on package.
While it's cooking, on a cookie sheet spread 1 1/2 c. frozen rinsed and drained corn and 1 chopped red bell pepper. Sprinkle with a generous amount of olive oil and roast in oven at 500˚ until edges start turning brown.
De-seed and chop one tomato, mix with one can of rinsed and drained kidney beans. Stir in 1/4 tsp. chili powder, and hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste. I threw all this into the microwave for about 1 minute just to get the chill out of the beans.
Once the corn and peppers are done, mix them with the beans and tomatoes.
Chop two avocados. Place a large scoop or two of quinoa in a bowl, top with 1/4 the avocado and 1/4 the bean/corn mixture. Add more hot sauce if you want it nice and spicy :)

The start recipe called for lime juice as well but I forgot it- try sprinkling it on top!

The super fantastic, wicked amazing, wonderful beyond words baby show!

Johnny is 3 months this week! Yay! Woo! We made it so far! haha..

He always looks surprised or angry because of the camera flash! I'm sure he'll be happy when summer comes along with the sun :)

He is a happy baby and loves to chew on your hands while staring at KatoBear. He smiles big when he sees Auntie and loves to find Dad across the room. Mum can sing him into calmness, no fail, every time (aww!) He loooooooves showers and walks and a teething ring Meagan got him before he was born, before she left. He'll rattle his rattle for ya and drool on your dog if you do so please. He's wearing up to 6 month size clothes and some 12 month t-shirts. Tonight he weighed 16 1/2 lbs!
His hair is actually brownish although I'm kind of hoping the red comes out more. ANd his eyes are dark blue. I also hope those stay, he looks so much like Chris he should at least have my blue eyes! Haha!


He's finally started noticing the dogs, Luckie even made him laugh this morning.


He's rolling over well, even if he doesn't mean to!



... And hoisting himself up ALL the time...


Dad was the first to make him really laugh.


But mum makes him super cool hats!


He sits here while we cook:


And here while we clean:


Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed!

Oh yea, what's a baby without drool, anyway?