giving thanks

before the orbiting of this beautiful planet thrust me into december against my will, there was november. i love me some november. november brings my favorite food, people, and feelings to my dining room table.

we did most things just like last year- katrice peeled potatos, mom made miss blake's recipes, brian took pictures of my cleavage, tiff read lots of picture books, and we all played lots (and lots) of cards. some things were new- mia & grandma's delicious homemade apple pie for dessert, shirley temple's with dinner, and me helping with dishes.

dear summer,

i miss you. like, a lot.

the "snow kitty" has a death wish...

my house smells like singed hair and aerosol sunscreen.

miss miley & the fake alice

miley attended her first "drop-off" birthday party last weekend. because she has a tendency to go missing, i took her picture before we left. it was an alice in woanderland tea party. we were all very eager to hear about her experiances on the car ride home. she delivered the following synopsis very quickly and with much attitude:

there was tea, but it wasn't real tea, it was only juice. there was an alice, but she wasn't the real alice, she was a fake alice. she didn't go to wonderland. she took off that wig and went home.

30 by 30

1. make a chalkboard list for every season
2. buy real shoes and actually wear them
3. become a better listener
4. get a passport with my picture on it
5. earn a degree with my name on it
6. read for enjoyment
7. dine at sundance with my man
8. "desire less in order to avoid obligation" (to quote my favorite professor)
9. grow lots of pretty, native, drought-resistant somethings in the front
10. grow something edible in the back
11. sled down a hill in sensible, winter clothing
12. make yoga a part of the daily routine
13. ride a zipline
14. have margaritas with my cousin karen
15. hike to a waterfall
16. sleep in a bedroom i'm not embarrassed to photograph
17. publish the photographs in a post entitled "where the magic happens"
18. make halloween costumes for the whole fam damily
19. see credence at the fair
20. when the kids ask to do something rad (yoga, paint, puddlejump) say "yes!"
21. ride in a taxi (for the first time)
22. host a girls night at the roller derby
23. fill the house with instruments and learn to use them
24. figure out what i want to be when i grow up
25. introduce my aunt brenda to the wonderful world of hand & foot
26. foster gratitude
27. make photobooks for years 2003-2010
28. dance with christa at the joshua tree music festival
29. sail in a boat
30. let it shine

twenty-nine, i'm ready for you.
bring on the shine!

impatient & impulsive

11/2010 race weekend

because i'm impatient, i ended up with a shaggy mullet version of this. because i'm impulsive, i let a total stranger "fix" the bad cut and ended up with the justin bieber pixie pictured above. on most days, i like it.

obligatory october post

happy belated halloween from the teacher, the firefighter, & the fairy princess. i have given up trying to coordinate costumes or manipulate the kids choices. levi picked out his firefighter suit at costco, but his favorite part of his costumes was daddy's flashlight. miley went for the fairy princess (of course/again).

mia wanted to be a teacher (yeah!). we got her reading glasses from the dollar bin, a $5 sweater from walmart, and borrowed jewelry from her kindergarten teacher. i cut apples and letters out of felt and hotglued them to the sweater. she was very happy with the result and even happier when she took first place in the girl scout costume contest.

mia asked me to put a chicka chicka boom boom tree on her sweater. i love her creativity. and i love hot glue.

a few lazy cooking tips

1. you won't feel nearly as guilty feeding your family quesadillas for dinner if you cut cute shapes in them.
2. banana bread made with wholewheat flour is grose.
3. banana bread made while listening to cat stevens is great.
4. cook once a month (what!?!?). i havn't done it yet, but i'm going to very, very soon.

dining room before & after

(let's pretend that i didn't fill the previous post with dining room pictures)

this room was used by the previous owners for television viewing. this room is used by the current owners for about everything but television viewing. it seems like our giant dining room table (housewarming gift from crazy grandma- thank you!) is never without craft supplies, homework packets, or laptop computers.

this room, like the rest of the house, was a family effort. tiff helped place the photo wall frames (which was a lot more work than it sounds like, or should have been-sorry). katrice helped me paint. but, as usual, brian did the bulk of the work. he installed flooring, baseboards, & the light fixture. and made my red bench long enough to sit the monkeys and all their crazy cousins.

chalkboard by brian, tree painting by mia, misspelling of 'origami' by me.

a more accurate depiction.

too much time on her hands

upon receiving the fourth quarter girl scout newsletter, my favorite gs dad said that "miss marisa has too much time on her hands." he he ha ha. it's not that miss marisa has time, it's just how that irresponsible miss marisa chooses to spend her time. making banana bread, cutting out gratitude leaves, and posting pictures is way more enjoyable than doing the floors, completing homework on time, or cleaning a boatload of laundry detergent out of the dryer (levi, grrrr). responsibility is so overrated.

but i have been checking things off the fall to-do list-
#1 my grandma's banana bread (of course!)

she hearts books

and she hearts reading them through her favorite halloween costume accessory. she says that when she grows up, she will write a book "all about the importance of reading." and i hope she does. i would heart reading it.

(the walls of her room desperately need this poster)

i am grateful for

talented friends, a husband who humors me, and the beautiful heart-shaped faces that fill my days.

photos: lydia
music: "go together" by jillian edwards

karma

"mom, take a picture of me with this plant"

this week was parent teacher conferences. they were quite enjoyable. it amazes me that both my girls have teachers that can understand their special little personalities so well and customize a school experience that is effective for them. it blows my mind.

but that really isn't what this post is about. after the enjoyable part of the conference was over, mrs. graham leaned over and whispered this bombshell: mia has been holding hands with her boyfriend while walking in from recess.

i avoided the conversation for a few hours, not wanting to make it a thing. it finally went down a little something like this-

me: mia, do you have a boyfriend?
mia: i don't want to talk about it.
me: mia, do you have a boy friend?
mia: yes.
me: you know your to young to have a boyfriend?
mia: but mooooooom, how can i stop loving?

i text a synopsis of the situation to my sister. her response- "i have one word for you: karma."

profile picture 2

if my sister had a facebook, i would hack her account and make this her profile picture.

profile picture

if i had a facebook, this would be my profile picture.

a note to my friend kim

hi!
next time i'm in the 801, will you cut my hair like this?
pretty please.
with sugar on top.
hope the family is well.
xoxo,
marisa

the girls that made my morning

 

my lovely friend and fellow girl scout mom, miss bridget is volunteering at the school today. she just sent me a picture text that made my morning- a photo of my scouts voluntarily gathered together around a picnic table enjoying their lunches. smiles.

hot for teacher

apologies about the title, i just couldn't help myself. but it's true. brian is a teacher. a part-time ROP/adult ed auto shop teacher. the king of the comfort zone successfully jumped through a million hoops to get his vocational teaching credential and then jumped through a few million more to land a job.

collecting letters of recommendation was one of the more enjoyable parts of the journey. brian has a fabulous teacher/customer/uncle who, as luck would have it, doesn't share his last name. because i could never speak to my husbands qualities as eloquently as uncle bill, here is an exert from the kindest, most genuine letter of recommendation i have ever had the pleasure of reading:

Over the course of my 34 year teaching career, I know what it takes to teach young men and women who want to learn to work with their hands in addition to their minds. Brian is the ideal sort of person to teach auto shop. He combines a comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter with years of real world experience. This gives him instant credibility with students. He can genuinely say “been there, done that”. Brian has serviced all of my vehicles for the past several years. In short, he knows his stuff when it comes to auto repair. Whether the job was big or small, he completed all repairs quickly, professionally, and correctly.

In addition to his knowledge, he is an honest man. At at time when the public seems wary of price gouging and false repairs, Brian stands as a beacon of honesty. My associations with him over the years have proven him to be a man of both honor and integrity. This extends into his private life as well as I know his wife and children and know the way he treats them. He is a solid family man. In addition to teaching students about cars, he will teach them about the value of honesty and solid life relationships by his own example.

Brian has the personality that makes him a natural teacher. He is patient, keeps a cool head, and knows how to make complex tasks easy to understand for even the rawest novice. He is fun-loving but commands order and respect. These are the things that will be required to reach some of these students.

i second that.

trouble pants goes to school

i will not lie. i have dreamed about this moment for a long time. it's been a calming thought through many a storm. it's okay, don't worry, only x number of years until they're all in school.

brian and i were supposed to drop levi off and go out to breakfast to celebrate this tiny sliver of three hour, two day a week freedom. but apparently it's not very fun to celebrate with someone who can't stop sobbing. literally, for more than an hour.

but this isn't about me, is it? this was trouble's milestone. and unlike his mother, he handled it with dignity. he marched up to school swinging his lighting mcqueen lunch box, guided us to his classroom, and hung it in his cubby like an old pro. he is attending the same school as miley did (the one with all the alarms) and was excited to finally get his chance to stay and play.

three hours later, he emerged from class proudly displaying a smiley face sticker on the toe of his new chucks. 4 weeks later, the shoes no longer look new but the sticker is still there. levi would be happy if every day were a school day and if every school day were a share day. and as far as i know, he hasn't done any major damage to anyone/thing in class (knock on a big piece of wood).

my final act of rebellion

all that being said, man, i love those girls

this is a post about what i loved about facebook and why i had to quit (and its not because my sister outed me). disclaimer: this is not a judgment on fb users. this is about why it doesn't work for me. you see, i am an all or nothing kind of a gal. moderation has never been my specialty. it was all, and now it needs to be nothing.

i loved- competing against my aunt in addicting fb games, keeping tabs on my cousins, uploading mobile photos, rekindling old friendships, and nourishing new ones. i really did.

but i hit rock bottom walking through target the other day- i saw a cute dress and literally thought to myself 'like button.' my linguistics professor recently defined 'cliche' as 'an excuse not to think for yourself.' omg, then what does that make my overused fb acronyms!?

and i'm just too white bread already: i live in a planned community, author a blog, lead a girl scout troop, and spend my free time gluing giant googly eyes on kindergarten handprint crabs. i need a bit of nonconformity to maintain my sanity (as always, using that term very loosely). since tiff and brian pulled rank, forbid me to pierce my nose, tattoo my foot, or grow dreadlocks, i will delete my facebook account in my final act of rebellion.

as part of my detoxing process, i plan to give my husband that waste-of-money, addictive-as-all-getout smart phone of mine. but you'll never take my texting. i'll hide that full keyboard under my arm and run away screaming like trouble pants with a chocolate bar.

i'm going to publish before i loose my gusto. i've lost too much gusto already.

miley's middle names

i was worried about miley starting kindergarten. not because she isn't capable. "capable" is her middle name. miss miley capable suggie. but her other middle names (unaccommodating/stubborn/fiercely independent) worried me. she plays by her own rules, speaks her mind, yet still manages to steel hearts. our beautiful little dichotomy (tiff's perfect word for miley).

tiff is usually right when it comes to miley, and her response to my kindergarten gitters was no exception- i didn't have anything to worry about. miley's first and subsequent days of kindergarten have gone on without a hitch. we were lucky enough to get the wonderful teacher we requested. mrs. c ran around that first day of school singing, dancing, and carrying on as if there wasn't a room full of adults watching her. it was great. long live the energetic kindergarten teacher.

there was one runner on the first day. a little boy that cried, screamed for his parents, and beat on the windows. my heart broke for him and his poor, poor mom. i don't think i could deal with that. i would home school (exaggerating- i could never home school).

bearing in mind how grateful i was that i had never had to pry myself away from a screaming child, i gave miss independent a tear-filled squeeze good-bye, she looked at me like "why in the world are you still here?"

first day of second grade

first day of kindergarten, first day of first grade, first day of second grade

this morning was full of firsts for miss mia- new school, second grade, riding the bus. and she wasn't nervous about any of them, only excited! she was not happy when mom insisted on taking her to school for her first day, she would have much rather ridden the bus to her sparkly new school.

the district completed construction on the site just a few weeks ago. all the kids sat in the school's beautiful outdoor amphitheater and watched the ribbon cutting before walking in single file lines to their classrooms where they were instructed to say good-bye to their parents.

this was the first year our family had two kids starting school at the same time. we had to split up- brian & trouble pants accompanied mia to the ribbon cutting while i went to kindergarten with miley. i did cry this morning (of course!), but only because i couldn't be in two places at once.

i made it back to mia just in time to give her a good-bye hug and tell her that i was proud of her. because i am. very, very proud of the beautiful individual she is turning out to be.

and now i'm crying again.

new traditions

lately, i've felt a need to be outside. a need to see and experience beautiful, natural places. luckily, i have a little brother that feels the same way.

sunday morning, john and i woke early, dawned our camelpacks, and snuck out of our mom's house leaving four sleeping children in our wake. we headed south to the timpanogos caves. we stepped eagerly onto the steep 1-1/2 mile trail and made our slow way up the 1,160 foot elevation change to the mouth of the cave. the views from the trail were only trumped by the beauty of the cave's formations. they were spectacular enough to make me instantly forget the grueling trek up.

on the way down the mountainside, john and i decided that we had stumbled upon a new tradition- every time i come to town, we plan to spend time hiking utah together. despite my pleas, my older sister refused to take part in such a hot/dirty/sweaty tradition. luckily, she has no objections to delicious mexican food, which the three of us enjoyed together after the hike (we should make that a tradition too!).

talking to myself

teenage self with the girl that really was and is my friend

1. it's cool to be kind.
2. those girls you worry aren't really your friends, aren't.
3. appreciate your dad on his terms.
4. your not fat.
5. don't stop dancing.
6. that interest you have in writing, nourish it.
7. don't manipulate your mom. it's just not nice.
8. take care of your skin. pre-mature wrinkles really bite.
9. thank you for always being a good sister to katrice, you will always be proud of that.
10. tori amos and incense don't make you 'deep.'
11. channel all that energy into figuring out how to be you, not how to be them.
12. don't take yourself so seriously.
13. your parents are usually right.
14. everything is going to be okay. i promise.
15. your really not fat.

i subscribe to lots of great blogs. one of them regularly writes off list promps, her latest was 'things i'd like to tell my 17 year-old self.' her list has kept my mind churning about all the things i'd like to tell my younger self.

not my 17 year-old self, more like my pre-teen/early teen self. by 17 the continents of my life were already shifting, starting to take there permanent shape. this list was an interesting exercise. it made me sad for my teenage self, content with my current self, and curious what my future self will have to say.

she writes with curlicues and does achieve

 

miss mia got an award this week 'honoring writing achievement.' mia's writing does achieve, less grammatically, more creatively. she dots with hearts and embellishes with curlicues (and i can't bring myself to correct her- sorry mrs. c). she was given a certificate along with a copy of the school's writing anthology containing her story, 'the lovely unicorn.' pretty cool beans.

for my anthology, i have selected a quote from brian's father's day card where mia wrote, 'we love you so much. your house is carved with anjls.'

the last week of school

4/2010- grandma gloria surprising mia at school

it's the last week of school. i like this kind of school- no homework, spelling tests, or reading reports. just centers, recess, and yearbook signing. it is the week of bare classrooms and bursting backpacks. of minimum days and in class movies.

'why even send them,' my friend asked,'they aren't learning anything.' and she's right. i've spent the last few days at the elementary school. i've walked the hallways that smell of hot sand, pizza, and popcorn. they aren't learning anything, but they are having fun. if there's anything that being raised by gloria and leading a girl scout troop has taught me, it's that there's great value in just having fun.

the goal (partially accomplished)

the girls took most of these :)

the goal: connect with nature and each other.

while attending a street fair and sleeping 20 feet from running water, air conditioning, and cable television doesn't exactly constitute connecting with nature, we did sleep outside, star gaze, and make smores.

we were much more successful at accomplishing the latter part of our goal. we connected with each other and with my only relative in the pacific time zone. brian suggie (i was going to write 'we' but that would be deceitful) pitched a tent on my cousin dustin's property in rural san diego (as rural as so cal gets anyway). we spent 24 hours basking in his hospitality and positive outlook on life. we will be making another trip down to dustin's soon... i need another shot of optimism and rumor has it that he's now the proud owner of a pair of sheep!

and it was fun.

it was a crazytown graduation/finals/race weekend. brian took mia to the race saturday for some much needed daddy-daughter time. i stayed behind with the babies to finish a ridiculously long term paper.

when miley and levi woke that morning, daddy and daughter were long gone. they never asked where their big sister was. they probably assumed it was a school/work/business as usual kind of day.

i tied myself to the office chair while the babies enjoyed a day of cookie dough, otter pops, and disney movies. as i was getting them ready for bed that night, miley jumped up in a panic- "we forgot to get mia from school!"

after containing my laughter, i explained that mia had been at the race with dad the entire time. to calm the ensuing riot, i promised that we would all go to the races together sunday. which we did. and it was fun.

7 things i love about this picture

i love...
1. that katrice's cell phone is (of course) by her side
2. that gloria is fighting with katrice about the rules of the game
3. that gloria's 'dp' is (of course) by her side
4. that john is (of course) telling them how to resolve their argument
5. that tiff's diet coke with lime is (of course) by her side
6. that tiff is silently saying 'oh my hell'
7. that i'm playing skip-bo with my entire family!

miss mia turned s-e-v-e-n

a few (very mia) things about her seventh birthday festivities-

• her birthday gifts included some of the things she requested: teaching supplies, indoor plants, junie b. jones chapter books, cooking supplies, and a fish.
  
• she originally named her fish "lefty" because the fish would "have to be left alone a lot."
• she has since renamed her fish "heart." which is appropriate because if i had to chose one word to describe mia it would be "heart."
• because her male betta fish has a dark spot on it's fin she's convinced it's pregnant. (?)
  
• out of everything we did to celebrate her birth, she enjoyed passing out snacks to her classmates best.
  
• she wrote "efth" on her birthday crown because she loves the earth. we have since taught her how to spell "earth."
  

happy seventh birthday to my bighearted, creative
little lover of life on this beautiful efth!

day trippin: part one

after too many weeks of too much work, we decided a family day trip was in order. brian sat the kids down friday night and had them vote on which trip they wanted to take. he presented their two options complete with google image searched pictures.

trip 1: palm springs. a self-guided tour of the cabazon dinosaurs followed by picnicking, swimming, and lounging in desert hot springs. (i cast my vote here!)

trip 2: long beach. the aquarium of the pacific, self-guided tour of the queen mary, and the beach. (i was unanimously outvoted!)

the aquarium is a very cool place and we hadn't been since miley was a baby. brian and miley loved the hands-on exhibits, touching everything from sea anemones and shrimp to leopord sharks and giant sting rays. mommy, mia, and levi preferred to enjoy the wildlife from the other side of the glass. i blame this entirely on tiffanie and john (my evil siblings) who knowing my fear of touching fish, threw frozen peas all around me while snorkeling in hawaii.

just outside the aquarium is an awesome view of the queen mary and long beach harbor. i insisted on one more picture of the monkeys before giving them permission to go tackle their father. that is when i put the camera down and joined the dog pile. so there are no pictures of the rest of our adventures from that day.

we (kind of) snuck onto the queeen mary and let the kids take turns navigating our way around the ships vast decks. made our way back to the car, headed south on PCH, and ended up at the huntington beach pier just in time to watch the sun slowly sink into the ocean that we'd spent all day admiring.