This Moment

A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savour and remember.

The County Fair!

 

I had fun editing some pictures tonight if you couldn't tell. It's all part of my new crafting obsession. Need photos. Lots of photos. It's good because it's really motivating me to take more pictures. (I promise...I'll make a post real soon and share my new love.)

I love love love the last picture. Doesn't it look like she's looking at a fairy?

The cow and goat pictures were taken at the county fair. I wanted to go just to check out the quilts and crafts and photos and animals. (Not much, right? Hehe.) I love county fairs, except it was hot today. 100+ degrees. We were worn out when all was said and done just from the heat alone. Hopefully, when Luna's older and we're back in the midwest, I would like it if she would be interested in 4H. I think the whole concept and activities of 4H are so neat. I also wish we could have stayed longer until tonight because....Weird Al Yankovich was performing tonight! Haha. Does anybody remember him?

Moving on...like I say every year after I go to the fair: "I'm totally going to enter something next year!" I really want to. I think it's really neat to do. Maybe I'll enter an afghan, or a photo or two. Maybe I'm an asshole, but I like to look around at the entries and say to myself, "I could do better than that!"

Before I add "enter something into the county fair" to my mile long list of hopes and dreams, I've got to finish this wedding stuff. Goal for tomorrow: finish writing ceremony. Wish me luck.

Please feel free to leave any links to any of your recent pictures! I love looking at what everyone else is up to.

Goodnight!
-Ms. 246

San Diego Trip and a Quick Recap on Life

Okay, so I'm a little late on the update but it's been a crazy week. We got back late Sunday night. (Side note: It took five hours longer to get home because of traffic. And, just to brag -- I drove through LA traffic myself and we all survived!)

We had a great trip (we went to San Diego if you didn't see my last post). We went down for a family reunion. It was crazy to meet so many people you're related to but you don't really know any of them. Haha.

In order to save time, here's some lists!

Highlights of the Trip:

• Meeting so many welcoming family members
• Ryan took Luna to hang out near the pool so I could get all prettied up for something and he came back to the hotel room with Luna wearing his t-shirt as a diaper. Hahaha. I was cracking up. His response: "Yea...she really wanted to go swimming so then she needed a new diaper." I love it.
• Going to the San Diego Zoo! It was such a short trip we didn't have time for much but we succeeded in our one goal: making it to the zoo. You could easily spend two days just at the zoo. We walked around all day and we probably only saw a third. 
• Watching Luna enjoy herself at the zoo. She loved all the animals and liked to yell and wave at them (as well as yelling at other people). She got very upset once she realized we weren't going to watch flamingos all day. She really enjoyed watching them. I think her other favorite animals were the bear and the zebra.
• Taking Luna to walk in the ocean for the first time. (Well...kind of. It was a port/bay area...but it's ocean water, right? Maybe we ought to go the beach again sometime soon.)

Highlights of this Past Week:

• Monday we got settled back in from the trip. Ryan had to go back to work already though.
• Tuesday we got our marriage license!!! We dropped Luna off at daycare and went to the county courthouse and got us a license. Yippee!
• Wednesday I bought a wedding dress. Yes, you heard me right. My wedding is in two weeks and I just bought a dress. I ordered the dress of my dreams online from Etsy and it's not looking promising. They keep saying they're sending it (it's about a month late at this point) and it keeps not arriving at my doorstep. So yea...I bought a new dress. It fits well, just needs hemmed!
• Thursday I went to the town we're getting married in and got my hair trial done. That wasn't the best part...the best part was wandering about downtown by myself when I was done. I had lunch and went antiquing. I got some old books, a needlepoint to hang in our kitchen (just needs a new frame), and some really old copies of crafty/crochet magazines. 
• Today (Friday!) was a lovely day. I worked a ton on my latest crafting endeavor, Luna took some killer naps, and we wandered about Joann Fabrics and Costco, enjoying their air conditioning from the hot weather.

Whew! So there you have it. I've got so much going on lately, it's hard to keep up. I do, however, have two new crafting obsessions I will be making a post about soon. Squeee! I'm excited to share.
What's everyone else been crafting up lately?

Thanks for stopping by!
-Ms. 246

Our Morning View

Isn't it gorgeous? We're driving south to San Diego for a family reunion this weekend.  We left at 4 am so we could beat traffic and so little one could spend half the trip sleeping. The sun is now up and we're over half way there.  Not too shabby of views to greet the day with. 

Tomorrow we are hopefully going to the San Diego zoo. I can't wait! I'll be sure to share some pictures. I hope you all have a good fourth!

-Ms. 246

Blog Lovin?

I was a very happy GoogleReader person until yesterday. Luckily I researched and researched and found a new reader before the first: Feedly. I love it for the most part and I will probably continue to use it but I'm noticing a lot more people using Bloglovin so I starting looking into it. They want me to claim my blog so here goes:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Claimed!

-Ms. 246

Luna Turned ONE!

How neat is that cat? Her great grandma got it for her birthday. She loves it! It's so cute to watch her chase it around. Haha.

That's right. My little baby turned ONE WHOLE YEAR yesterday. I sad, but not terribly sad...then I made that collage above. I cannot believe it's been a whole year already. It seems like she was just starting to roll over yesterday. Now this little Bean is walking!

How cute is that cat? She loves chasing it around all ready. It's too cute. Luna's cute-ness meter may have been off the charts for her birthday:

 

We had a lovely day yesterday and even went swimming. We did her cake and presents this past Saturday with her grandparents then we all went swimming. She was pooped by the time bedtime rolled around.

Oh, but you must check out the cake! It's a swimming pool since Luna loves swimming so much. And her little smash cake to match. There was much debate of whether it was a hot tub or a kiddie pool. Either way, it's adorable.

(No Martha Stewart here...100% store bought. Haha. It's been over 100 degrees for about a week. I'm not turning the oven on.) Luna got to have the whole little cake to herself. She was unsure at first, but then got the hang of it. Maybe it's TMI, but the "green" from the frosting came back to visit us the next day in her diaper. Quite a site.

 

And of course we opened presents. I was sad that she wasn't too interested in the book we got her. (Grandpa was playing with fancy electronic toys in the background.) We're going to write in it every year and re-read it every year on her birthday. :)

She had a grand time opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa:

Goodness. I can't believe it. She's one. I've been loving every minute with her. I cannot believe how lucky we are to have our little Bean. She can cheer anyone up. She's intelligent and cute and I love her. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us. Happy Birthday Little Bean!

- Ms. 246
 

Wedding Craft Pictures and My Desire to Cancel the Wedding

Remember me? It's been two weeks without writing a blog post. Well, that isn't entirely accurate. I've written many, many blog posts over the past two weeks, probably at least one a day. The issue is I never actually sat down to my computer to write them down. They all have just been kind of floating around in my head.

I've been in a funk, mostly about the wedding and summer going by much too quickly. I'm slowly coming out of it. It's not a wedding unless planning and executing it makes you crazy, right? Severe PMS mixed with all the wedding nonsense got the best of me.

If I were brave enough and not so attached to the money I've already spent, I would have called the wedding off to do it completely different. I'd have a nice very intimate ceremony at Lake Tahoe with just Ryan, Luna, and I with a nice man to officiate us at one of those little wedding chapels near the lake. We'd do it by a campfire at dusk and I'd be in a light airy white dress. It would be simple, but very heartfelt and meaningful. We'd kiss then hug our little Bean after and we'd be married, man and wife. Simple as that.

Instead I'm having a wedding where we'll be the center of attention (which I hate), I'll have to speak up in front of people (which I hate), and I've have to party for the better part of an evening (which exhausts me). Hopefully I'm not the only bride to feel this way. Oh, and not to mention having to get all dolled up. As a girl, I feel like this should be my dream -- to have a nice fancy wedding, with all my friends, and it's the most special day of my life. Here's the thing though: I never really fantasized about my wedding like other girls. I didn't plan things and expect things. Frankly, I didn't care too much. I did fantasize about actually being married, just not getting married.

A good week or so has passed since this initial breakdown. I'm trying to be a bit more mindful of the wedding tasks at hand rather than seeing them as something comparable to "homework assignments." That's helped some. I'm sure I'll appreciate all the work I've done once the day comes but it doesn't make me too much happier when I'm sitting on this side of my wedding date.

In the end, however, I'll be happily married. And that's all that really matters. I just need to keep reminding myself of that. :)

-Ms. 246