Making for Other People's Babies

Before I begin I would like to say that if your name rhymes with Shmustine, Hit the bricks, sister. Nothing for you to see here.

OK, now on to the post.

I have three things to report today.

1. It's Dash's little friend's birthday. I made him a cape just like the one I made Dash for Christmas. Except with a C for Cameron, which is his name. Because if I did it with a D, that wouldn't make a ton of sense.

These capes are incredibly satisfying to make. Not too much trouble, but I think they really are lovely and Dash has started to really love his (6 months later).

Also, they carry with them the gift of flight. On an airplane. As long as you have a ticket.

2. Craft Hope 4 is asking for sock monkeys for young burn victims through the Firefighters Burn Institute & their Little Heroes Preschool Burn Camp. You know, I know I usually do a big spiel here about Craft Hope, but today, I can't. My heart is so broken thinking about babies who have suffered burns that I just start crying when I think about it. I'm crying now. I swear to God. Please, if you have the means, make a sock monkey. They're not that hard and you'll feel incredibly accomplished after. Also, hurt babies will love them and that's really all anyone needs to know.

Mort & Saul

3. Finally, finally, my girls are starting to have some babies. Our first one is due in November and I made him a quilt. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be making him an insane number of baby things because I have been waiting THREE YEARS for someone to hurry up and HAVE A BABY around here. I have a lot of pent up baby crafting to get out.

Awesome, beautiful pre-cut squares from the seriously talented Amy Smart and her Etsy store here.

The back is pieced together from the most cheerful scraps in my stash. (Kitten & insane slippers not included.)

Unplanned

We woke up early on Saturday morning and hustled buns to get on the road by 9 am. We had plans to meet Jen & Tom in San Diego--about 2 1/2 hours away--to look at the wedding venue. We were about halfway there, stuck in horrible traffic, when I called Jen to say that we were going to be late. Can you guess where I'm headed with this story? "Oh, no!" says Jen. "It's not today! It's tomorrow." So then Josh beat me to death and then I died. (Only in his mind).

Determined to salvage what we could of the day, we headed downtown, to the Natural History Museum (#7 on the list! We are kicking that list's ass.)

Dash was kinda overtired and cranky and hungry, so he only lasted about 45 minutes at the museum. But it was really absolutely beautiful, and if you're local and haven't been I can't recommend it highly enough--especially the bird exhibits.

Dash was obsessed with the idea that the animals were taxidermied (are they? I don't know. I told him they were and then I got the opportunity to explain death to him which was totally awesome and not something I feel I should have prepared for at all).

Over and over again, "Are they real mama? What happened to them? Are they real, mama?"

Professor Bird explains the difference between birds and humans in eight simple steps. Not really, but I wasn't paying attention so I have no idea what he was saying. Dash was mesmerized, though.

And then! Then the best thing ever happened! Aunty called (just as I was about to have a seizure from pure grossed-outededness at the insect exhibit) to invite us to the fair. All of Dash's little mamas were in town and headed to the Ventura County Fair, and I have no idea how but somehow I managed to convince Josh to get back in the car and drive another two hours to meet up with them. And we did.

From left, Hayden, Mackenna & Dash and Masie.

And the fair was truly, honestly the best thing we've done all summer. Dash and his dad were daredevils and Dash's little mamas loved on him until he was bursting. And they had wine there. And food that was so deeply fried that it was almost metaphysical. It was a gorgeous, cool afternoon into evening and no one was crying and everyone was doing exactly what they wanted to do and it was just one of those perfect summer days you figure you only get when you're nine and don't know what a mortgage is yet.

When Dash said he wanted to go on the carousel we were all, Psfft, BORING. But then it started and it went so fast we almost flew off. And, no, there weren't any seat belts. And no, Mother, you may not hold onto me to ensure my safety.

Dash & Daddy wanted to hit up the ferris wheel and I was all, Eek, oh no! Little did I know what was coming.

They are up there, somewhere.

I spend a good portion of my time and energy trying to keep all of the assorted residents of this house alive and in good working order. Some people might call me overprotective. I prefer to think of myself as vigilant against danger. So when I announced to all who would listen that I was firmly in the "pro" category in regards to Josh taking a flying leap off of a crane many hundreds of feet in the sky with only an elastic cord secured by a carnie to hold him, even I was a tad surprised.

That's my husband, the badass.

Dash did a little bungee training his own self.

Dash has had three sodas in his life (he's keeping a running tally in his head), and all three of them have been recorded here for posterity.

After pizza, soda and funnel cake but before caramel apple with M&Ms (the remains of which are in the fridge now), there was dancing. With Masie...

and with Batman.

And then, much too soon , it was all over. A good, full day that was entirely a surprise.

Nuts

I have three things to report, by increasing levels of insanity:

I made a picnic quilt. Which is really not very insane at all. It's actually rather adorable. I made it mostly from scraps of fabric I had hanging around, and backed it with an old, stained matelasse that was taking up room in my linen closet.

This fabric came from a skirt I bought at Old Navy about 10 years ago. I wore it exactly once, but I loved the print so much I refused to get rid of it. And now, one decade, two apartments and two houses later, I found a use for it. Vindicated.

This is one of two half-yards I did buy for this project. Because look at it. If that doesn't say, "make me into a picnic quilt, lady," then I don't know what does.

Here. Just in case you didn't think it was really that cute before.

Level II:

I bought this slice of tree at Michael's with no idea what I would do with it. Maybe paint a squirrel? A doe? A deer? A female deer? But then I saw this amazing wedding invitation and I was deeply, profoundly inspired to create this totally insane family portrait. It is so crazy that every time I look at it I start laughing. But I'm still hanging it up. Because no matter how nuts this thing is, I'm more nuts.

And finally:

My new slippers. With microfiber mops on the soles. Which attach with velcro. For ease in machine washing. I wear them EVERY DAY. They are the third greatest thing to ever have happened to me. If you see them for sale somewhere and you, too, are totally fucking nuts, buy them. Seriously. They are life-altering.

Garden Update

When you factor in the cost of the dirt, water, compost & my man hours, this strawberry should cost around $125.

But this face is worth about $1,000,000, so we're cool.

When I planted this garden, my main goal was to grow veggies for a gazpacho. It's even on my list. Well. I made the gazpacho for book club today. Here's what was ripe last night when I went a-pickin'.

I'm calling it good on a technicality.

My take on the world's best gazpacho here.

(Thanks, Vincent, for the encouragement with the strawberries!)

Modern Art (or, Oh Jeff Koons You Are a Joker)

We took Dash to the contemporary wing at LACMA. We were kinda wandering around, looking for that garage installation that used to be there but is apparently in storage & I can't for the life of me even remember the name of the artist (I thought it was Keinholz, but maybe not. Do you remember, smart people?).

Anyway, at one point Dash started pulling on my arm. He wanted to go back and look at something again. My little art-loving heart skipped a beat and off we ran!

Can you hear the security guards laughing from where you are? Yeah, me, too.

Ring Pillow

Jen & Tom are getting married and I get to help a little! Wee!

The design for the ring pillow came from Jen & Tom's wedding invitations:

Right? Cutest ever.

But I had to take a little creative license with the beaks. They were meant to be the same greenish blue as the green bird's legs, but they were almost impossible to see in that color. Trust me. I tried 4 times, 4 different ways. So I made them brown.

For the stuffing, I cut some scraps of linen and wrote down wishes for their marriage. Obvious things like babies and prosperity and abundance. But also the things people don't think to wish for but usually need. Like a housekeeper and comfortable shoes. They went into the pillow along with some regular pillow stuffing for loft.

I appliqued the fabric birdies onto a nice, nubby, natural linen. I embroidered their initials & dates using my new favorite font, procured for free from this genius.

Here is the completed ring pillow hanging out near some books. I had to put the ribbon for the rings in the corner. I hope it's ok. Josh & I did a dry run and it worked great, but I think we won't know for sure until Jen & Tom try it out.

The Happiest Effing Place on Earth!

Hey! We went to Disneyland for my birthday! It was awesome and a little bit totally terrible, but mostly awesome!

We made the awful, awful mistake of telling Dash ahead of time that we were going. The child did not sleep a wink the night before. And because we were all three sharing the world's bounciest hotel bed that night, neither did his parents.

I have some notes about our visit. Try to contain your excitement.

A big portion of the day looked like this. Which sucked so, so bad because...

This is how much it costs to go to Disneyland. Not counting the custom double light-saber built for Dash the Ungrateful Turd by Josh the Loving Dad Who Totally Wished He Could Just Keep the Light Saber for His Own Damn Self.

Here's me on our first ride of the day, before it started. I won't post the picture of me on it after it started because you don't want to know what a grown woman clinging for dear life onto a kiddie ride looks like. Seriously, I'm still a little embarrassed thinking about it.

Is it weird that we did not see a single Mickey or Minnie or Donald or anything except Buzz & the Mad Hatter? I'm not that broken up about it because those things kinda scare me, but still. Weird. Dash was a little wary of Buzz (we had to kind of shove him into position because he wanted a parent between him & the giant toy at all times). But there were no hysterics, so that was cool.

That button I'm wearing tells people that it's my birthday. When the first couple of people said, "Happy Birthday, Liz!" I was kind of delighted. Hey! Total strangers want me to have a happy birthday! Ok! But after ten hours of constantly hearing people yell your name, you kinda start to freak out. I don't know why I didn't just take off the button. Probably the same reason I insisted on wearing that hat (really Dash's kids menu from lunch) for an hour after we ate. (I'm being a pirate in that picture. If you couldn't tell).

I just wanted to include this picture to show that he wasn't obnoxious the whole, entire day. There were actually large portions where he was a delight. Look at that smile. Come on! Look at it!

Dash says that Star Tours was his favorite ride. (I think he actually believes that he was in outer space which is so totally awesome). But I think that weird Innoventions house was a close second. We just wandered over there while waiting for Josh & Aunty to come down off of Space Mountain, but I couldn't get him back out again.

Have you guys heard of this house? Me neither. It's like this wacky "House of the Future," where all the pictures on the walls are screens that you can change (from knights & dragons to a waterfall, etc.) and all kinds of other assorted wackiness. But, the most important part is that there is karaoke. The song & video playing on the screen behind Dash were from High School Musical. He was singing the Imperial March. I've said it before and I'll say it again: NERDS!

I would like to take this opportunity to remind readers that I pulled Dash out of his last school because another kid said the words, "gun" and "shoot" to my kid. I'm not joking. I PULLED HIM OUT OF THE SCHOOL. Cut to less than one year later. Those are cap guns. Which came with a belt and holsters. He sleeps with them at night. You know, instead of a teddy bear.

We had some silhouettes cut of the three of us (p.s: if the selling point of the silhouette maker is that it'll take less than a minute, prolly won't be the world's greatest likeness. At all). While we were there, Dash "died." Here he is being "dead." Please note that his t-shirt says, "peace." Oh, irony.

No trip to Disneyland is complete without a set of mouse ears. Do you know how much these cost? Go on, guess. Thirteen dollars, that's how much! Seriously, Disneyland, I know you're all crazy with the prices, but just...seriously. Also, please to enjoy Dash's "fuck you" smile.

We had Dash's name embroidered onto the ears, because that's what one does. The woman at the place refused to believe that his name was really Dash, despite our repeated assurances. She told us that they weren't allowed to do nicknames and then proceeded to ask Dash his name. She was trying to catch us in a lie & wanted our three-year-old to sell us out. Anyway, later, I was all, "how can they possibly know if something is a nickname? Do you think they question every single person with an unusual name? And why do they even care?" And Josh was all, "Well, if someone comes up and is all, 'I want it to say Pookie...'" and it is a week later and that still makes me laugh. I don't know why.

And the day ended about how every day ends when you're an Engel man: light saber vs. shooters on the grass. This time they just happened to be in the Disneyland parking lot.