the park

on wednesday i took malcolm to the park. it was the first time we had left home to go outside and play in over a week. with the combination of me not feeling good, some really hot nc weather, and then lots of heavy rain over the weekend, we had been spending a lot of time inside... and we were getting cranky and stir-crazy. the weather has been great this week, since the rain has stopped. lovely, perfect may weather. so our trip to the park was really nice.

when we got there, there were no other kids on the playground. malcolm and i played on it alone for about 30 minutes. slowly a few children arrived, and then all of a sudden there were tons of kids running all around, screaming and playing. malcolm was the youngest one there, and he was having a blast chasing the big kids. he yelled "hi!" at all of them at least 10 times, haha. some of them ignored him, and one was kind of snotty and shoo-ed him away. but he just kept on trying to play along. it was really cute. he is pretty independent, and i'm glad that he didn't get his feelings hurt when those kids didn't want to play.

there was an older boy there, he must have lived nearby because he wasn't with a parent, and i'm guessing he was about 10? he was gathering all the kids together to play hide-and-seek tag, and he was very careful to include malcolm. he helped him find good hiding places, and told him to run away when the other kids were looking for someone to tag. i just stood at the side and watched. i heard him say to malcolm that he thought he was cute. malcolm came over to me, and after the boy realized that i was his mom, he came over to tell me how cute and nice he thought malcolm was. when it was time for the boy to leave, he gave malcolm high-fives, and then came over to me again and said, "you raise him up good! he is a really good little kid. probably the best little kid i've ever seen!" it was so nice to hear. it really, truly made my day. not only because it made me proud of malcolm (which i am!), but it also made me happy to see that there are other kids out there who are also being raised well. many of the kids out here are spoiled brats, were never taught any manners, and are mean. but this boy was so sweet, and polite, and had a great attitude. very cool.

here are a bunch of photos i took while we were playing alone.

(M for malcolm!)

going up...

...coming down!

this is the face he always makes when i say, "say cheese!", haha!

i would also like to point out that he has on two tee shirts. after i got him dressed, he came in with another shirt and put it over his own head, so i let him wear it too. it's actually a hand-me-down from alanna and is too big for him right now. but he loves to wear it, so whatever. funny guy.

on thursday afternoon, we went back to play some more. this time we met up with our friends alicia and luc. the boys had fun running around together. this is the only photo i managed to get of the two of them together. cute, wild little boys.

we are looking forward to a pretty fun weekend. i hope yours is good too! :)

friday favorite: splat the cat

sorry i missed a couple weeks of books posts, but this cold has really put me in a funk. i am finally feeling a little better today. i still have a lingering cough, but my head isn't quite as foggy as it was. so i think it is on it's way out... hooray!

today i chose splat the cat by rob scotton. this is another book that danny bought for malcolm when he was a tiny little baby. we've been reading it a lot lately. he loves it, and will ask for it by name. the illustrations are great, and the story is simple and fun. i had never heard of it before danny brought it home. good pick, husbandito! there are a couple more splat books, and this author has another character named russell the sheep, but we have yet to read any of those other stories. if they are as good and cute as this one, i'd like to get them all.

have you read any of these books?

wow, it's thursday already?

i can't believe how fast this week has flown by. i still have this stupid cold, and it is making me feel like not doing much at all, including updating my blog. but despite not feeling good, i have been very busy this week with mail order and errands, etc. plus we are currently sharing one vehicle, ugh. it is really nice to not have any car payments (on top of our mountain of other bills), but having two totally unreliable cars is extremely inconvenient. it seems like we are constantly juggling between the two. one will break down, we will get it fixed, then the other one goes. it is a never-ending cycle. after malcolm was born, we actually went 8 months with only one car. we are grateful that danny's dad is able to help us fix most problems. but wouldn't it be grand to have just one car that was dependable?! maybe someday. anyway, enough about all of that, and on to the good stuff in life! here is what we were up to last weekend.

on friday, malcolm and i spent a lot of the day outside. the weather was great. the sun was shining, and it felt so nice on my skin.

on friday evening, alanna and i went downtown to artspace for first friday. our friend garrett (who lives in our basement) installed a new piece for the show. this is the second one he has done for this exhibit, and it is amazing. danny helped him hang it earlier in the day (plus the other one last month), so he stayed home with malcolm while we went to check them out. wow, they are huge, and so amazing! he is a very talented artist. he does these with hand-cut stencils, painted in layers. pretty freakin' awesome. look how big it is compared to alanna (she is about 5' 4")!

it was hard to get a good photo of both pieces, because they are hung in a hallway. they have so much detail that you cannot see unless you are right in front of them.

and we thought the little (huge) bunny was funny, so we took some fun photos too!

my friend lia took this one of me with her iphone, and sent it to danny and garrett, haha. she is the director of programs & exhibitions at artspace, so we got to see her there.

on saturday, we drove out to danny's parents house and dropped malcolm off with them. then danny, alanna, and i went and saw iron man 2. it was great! i just recently saw the first one, and i really liked it. we've all been looking forward to this second one. malcolm had fun hanging out with "gramma bicky" and "pop"!

vicky always makes yummy vegan treats! this was orange cake.

they took him to the park to play

after the movie, we all met up again in raleigh, for dinner with the family to celebrate mothers day.

sunday was pretty chill. since we don't ever really do much for mothers day, we had just planned on going grocery shopping (blah). but after a quick trip to costco, we decided to go to duke gardens in durham instead. alanna opted to stay home to work on homework, so it was just the boys and i. it was very nice out, and we had a good time. i was glad that i got to spend the day outside, instead of at the store.

we stopped and bought a cheap kite because there was a nice breeze, but we weren't very successful with getting it up in the air.

and we got bubbles too

malcolm liked climbing in all the bushes, and the bamboo

and we found a nice grassy spot where we could relax, and malcolm could roll around

i found these leaves that looked like hearts!

and i loved these big purple puffball flowers!

after the garden, we went to cosmic cantina for dinner. it was delicious, as usual. we always get the vegan platter with a side of chips. we ate out on the patio.

we also stopped at whole foods before heading home, and the lady at the register told me that i could get a pound of food from the salad/hot bar for free for mothers day! how nice. score for free food, and a nice day spent with my boys!

i'm in love...

...with my life.


happy mothers day to me. to my amazing mother. to my wonderful mother-in-law. and to all you lovely mommy friends out there.

(and for those of you who read my blog now, but maybe didn't last year, if you are interested you can read about how i became a mother here)

sick of being sick

my weekend started off with flowers.

well, a beautiful flowered quilt, to be exact. i spotted this quilt around the web over the last few weeks (on a few different blogs), and i thought it looked so pretty, but i could never seem to find one in any local target stores. then on friday i went to one that i haven't been to lately (we have like 7 different target stores within 15 miles of our house... crazy, i know) and they had ONE! and it was a queen size! so i felt like it was meant for me. plus i've been hoarding away some birthday money that my dad gave me before we left utah last month, until i found something special to spend it on. yay for a lovely new quilt! the one currently on our bed was mine from waaay before i met danny. i love it, but over the past 5 years lucky dog has pretty much destroyed it with his nails. i am going to wait to put this new one on our bed until we can get his nails trimmed. i've never cut them myself. it scares me too much. i'm afraid i will cut them too short. anyway, the colors match all the artwork we have in our room. it's going to look so nice on our bed.

i started feeling kind of crappy on friday night, like in my head a little (which is why i skipped my friday favorite book. looking at a computer screen made my eyes want to bleed.) then saturday it got a little worse, and by sunday i was totally wiped out. i have a terrible cold. this is the sickest i've been in a long time. i very rarely get sick, most likely because of my awesome vegan diet. none of us ever really get sick actually, only an occasional cold here or there, but that's about it. so this illness hit me hard. i slept most of the day sunday, and danny played mr. mom, which was very sweet of him. he was a saint and took the kids and did all the grocery shopping for the week, which let me have some quiet time alone in the house (i slept most of it). it's really hard taking care of a very active toddler when you don't feel good. i could barely keep up with him. as of today i feel mostly better. but i still have a sore throat, a stupid cough, and i sound like i've been chain smoking my whole life. ugh. i hope it makes it's way out of my system soon. we didn't do anything fun over the weekend because i didn't feel good. but here are some some random pictures i wanted to post.

alanna and lucky took an after school nap together on friday. how cute!

malcolm and i did some exploring in the yard on friday evening. he found a bush covered with green berries, and had fun picking them off and throwing them at me :)

on saturday we took a quick trip to target to get alanna some index cards for school. we went down the outdoor toy isle, and alanna found this huge magnifying glass (meant for looking at bugs etc.) we thought it was hilarious how it made our heads look big, haha!

on sunday when danny and the kids got home from their grocery trip, they surprised me with an early mothers day gift. danny drove to the ends of the earth, to a walmart way outside of raleigh, to get the one and only weeride seat in town! i wanted one of these bad, so that malcolm and i could go for bike rides together, and i'm super excited that he found me one! it's sweet. he put it on my bike already, and we've used it a few times. since i am still sick, i only went for a short ride around the neighborhood. but alanna rode him once, and danny took him out twice. i plan on taking him out on it as much as i can this summer. sooo rad! thanks again husbandito!

here is alanna taking malcolm out for a spin

of course malcolm needed a helmet to wear on these rides, and alanna found the cutest one ever while they were at walmart. i love that damn caterpillar. he loves the helmet so much, that he wants to wear it inside the house too. i'm glad he didn't complain about having to wear it.

so that was our weekend. let's hope we do lots of fun stuff next weekend to make up for this bummer one.

in completely unrelated news, my parents are currently on a trip to arizona with my aunt and uncle. they are staying in scottsdale. i talked to my mom last night for a while, and they are having a great time. i wish we could be there with them, enjoying the beautiful desert weather. but our weather is nice too, so i can't complain too much. they drove down from salt lake city in their brand new car! remember how i totaled their old accord? well, they definitely upgraded to a much nicer crv. here is a photo my mom emailed me. pretty fancy! maybe i did them a favor after all? :)

my friend kate posted these photos on facebook for me a couple days ago. this was from when we had brunch at the vertical diner in salt lake. look at malcolm's crazy hair! danny says he looks like a jonas brother, haha. this one has jason and kate in it.

and this one has kate and my brother brad. malcolm is so funny.

and lastly, here are a few photos i got from dan and vicky. they took these at our birthday/easter get-together a couple weeks ago, but i got them late and never got to post them until now.

what a stud!

getting ready for dessert!

putting a flower in my hair. what a sweet lil' man!