and now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

The next several posts are not going to be in chronological order. Just sayin'.

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous - blue skies, perfect temperature - so of course I had to take the kids to the park.

It is most definitely fall. Leaves are dying and falling off - but look at the sky!!!

Yeah, I get this look from him a lot.

While we were there, I put my camera around my neck and started swinging, taking random photos as I went. Not much good came of it. Except for this!

That is a photo, drawn on with my graphics tablet.

Wait wait wait, did I mention I have a graphics tablet? No??
Shame on me.

Meet Hawthorne.

He's really posh. Best get used to it.

Two nights ago I started painting an idea that I'd had, and after I finished the background and stuff, I decided I really didn't like what the finished product is going to look like. Here's the background:

It's supposed to have ghouly things on it.
I don't really like ghouly things - and what would I do with a painting of ghouls anyway? Not display it, that's for sure.
So anyway I'm trying to figure out what to put on it instead. I'll probably change the colouring a bit 'cause the background looks scary.

I have so many photos to upload and share, so expect picdumps for the next several days.

guess what? I'm not dead.

It's been what, three weeks since my last post?

I CAN EXPLAIN.

1. No internet for two weeks.
2. Other more important things. Photos to follow sometime... maybe...

But seriously, the past several weeks have been incredibly full with insane craft-making, beach trips, family photo shoots (Jem is such a good little camera, yes she is!), preparations for Joshua's surgery, broken arms (blame the trampoline), museum trips, teaching, and dude, there is just so much to do. If any of you have a few spare hours lying around, pass them this way, k thanks!

I haven't even uploaded to Flickr in ages.
I started to do NaNoWriMo and quit on the fourth day.
I have a half-sewn Mr. Toast who is crying for stuffing.

Here, a photo to distract you! It's me! Whoa!

I will land with mah feet on the ground.
And totally get this blog rolling again.

p.s. I really need to organize my tags.

deeper than all roses

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

— e. e. cummings

berry-flavoured fire

Firstly, this post is completely full of pictures.
Secondly, none of them are of high quality. This is due to both my lack of skill and the fact that I used a phone camera the whole time. You don't think I'm crazy enough to take Jem (my camera, by the way) to beach, surrounded by sand-throwing wind? Nope. I wouldn't.

Oh yeah, I went to the beach.
That's the point of this post, and I suppose I gave that away already.

I almost caught an in-the-air shot! With a phone camera!
Melody, jumping for joy because her little sandcastle is complete. Way in the background, Beth walks in the freezing cold water.

I think I'll continue along this line of thought and bring out the rest of the sibling photos here!

Caleb (now 6 months) is not amused. ("No pictures please," he told me.)

It was about 65 degrees at the beach (maybe it got warmer, I'm not entirely sure), so Caleb gets to wear a silly hoodie. Is that how you spell it? Hoodie?
Anyway.

Because of Josh's cast, he couldn't really get in the water. Not that he would've really wanted to anyway; as mentioned earlier, the water was way too cold for swimming. I have a way to be sure about that, too: you know those little rubber ducks you get at the baby store (not the store from which you buy babies, the store from which you buy baby supplies (which is only somewhat different from office supplies))? The ones that turn a different colour, like red, when the bathwater is too hot? I have one of those, except the opposite.

Also, I'm lying. But that doesn't make the water any warmer.

So anyway, we stuck together and explored the dunes, and generally had a lot of fun.

Shadow pictures! I love those.
No, I don't have something wrong with my side, I'm just wearing a loose jacket that blew around in the wind.

Jeremiah lets me fly his awesome kite pretty much whenever I want to, so he's pretty cool. Today we were able to fly it for quite some time, until the wind went and took a nap. IN THE MIDDLE OF MY FLYING SESSION. We need to get regulations on these things, and make the wind fill out a form and then wait for approval. That makes the most logical sense, I think.
Please form an orderly queue and the Department of Magic will address your inquiries as soon as it gets the health care issues solved.

So, it's rained for the past several days, and all the ground and sand was wet. (Yes, I realize we were at the beach. I mean that the ground that's AWAY from the water, the dunes and such, were also wet.)
It's sorta tradition for us to build a fire while we're there and roast marshmallows over it, and it's also sorta tradition for us to forget any sort of fire-making tools until five minutes before we want the fire. Seriously, every time we're at the beach, we all say to each other, "We really need to remember to bring stuff for a proper fire next time" (except I don't think we say "proper"), and then we never do.

SO. The kids rummage around the truck for napkins, papers we don't need (I think we've sacrificed some school papers, at one time), etc, while me and the older kids go find driftwood from the dunes. Sometimes it's really easy, other times, like today, it's almost impossible. Not only did the driftwood seem to have taken a vacation on this particular day, but the wood that we did find was soaked!
Did I mention it's stormed for the past several days?

But we shall not be daunted! we all shouted (in our heads, I'm sure), and brought the wet-ish driftwood anyway. In the truck, we found some things that would aid our mission, leaving us with the following items to build a fire:

wet driftwood
a cardboard box
clean napkins
pizza-sauce napkins
tissue
a lighter
(and, the secret ingredient):
HAND SANITIZER

Now, we had been worried that even the napkins and cardboard box for kindling wouldn't be enough to get the driftwood hot enough to burn, but the hand sanitizer saved the day.
In case you're wondering, hand sanitizer has at least 60% alcohol. Ours happened to also be berry-flavoured.

We had a berry-flavoured fire.

Anyway, it worked; we built a fire and had our marshmallows (have I mentioned marshmallow is my favourite word? It is.)

Here Melody is trying to see how long it takes for her marshmallow to catch on fire.

Josiah, ecstatic about his first marshmallow of the day! At least, the first marshmallow he can eat, as the other ones all landed in the sand.

So that's all. After the marshmallows, we wrote the fire a cease/desist order (which it promptly ate) and packed up, leaving the beautiful beach behind us.