BYOF....will yall be my F

okeeeeeeeeeee. 

remember how i said i was teaming up with my corporate crushmonster, IKEA, for some exciting things in the kiddos room? well here we are, nigh on three month since we started by adding the play loft and the room is almost done. 

of course, i shan't actually let you see the results until everything is spic and span, so go ahead and prepare to be teased in that regard. but here are a few little nugglets of the room in progress.

the kids have been unceremoniously kicked out of their room and made to sleep in the studio/office as we toil by night next door. they actually love this and call it "camping." of course, everyone knows the word camping means "wrestle and terrorize each other nonstop until you decide to join forces to get out of bed and ransack mother's perfectly organized spaces by night."

my electrician surveys our fuggo BEFORE lighting and plans his attack (by garrote!)

holy moly, we re-floored the room by ourselves, narrowly avoiding institutionalization AND divorce in the process. it was worth it. peace out, carpet a la hazmat! (please note Michael Scott managing us via satellite. we are scared by how much we love him.)

the STUVA skeleton being set up. this hefty lil' bank of built-in glory is the cornerstone of the room and makes TONS of beauty, organization and general wonderment possible.

i promise i will drown your eyeballs with better lit, prettier, and more inclusive photos of this transformation SOON.

BUT OH, HEY, HERE'S SOME AWESOME! every year IKEA hosts a BYOF event at their stores nationwide. BYOF stands for "bring your own friends" and is a day full of freebies, giveaways, discounts and general Blue-and-Yellow awesome that we've come to expect from our favorite Swedish overlords. 

it is happening on Saturday, March 8th, and yall (i almost cant even type it), i am giving a little workshoppy seminar (because adding a fake word to a serious grown-up one helps me) at noon on how we transformed the kids' room from necessary jumbled evil to magical, organized and dare i say, pretty space! 

let's just pause for a moment and reflect on how swoony i have been about IKEA for a good 10-15 years now and how bananarama coconuts thrilling this is for me to get to go sort-of-kind-of BE one of them for a day! honored, nervous, humbled, confused, giddy...these are all relevant words (dont know if i'm elated or gassy...but i'm somewhere in that zone).

so i would love (LOVE!) if any of you local-ish folkish people would come look at the finished product of the kids' room and say hi to me, provide moral support (because i think there is a britney spears mic involved, and i just cant do that alone!), and general just let me meet/snuggle you.

everyone who comes to the BYOF event gets a free breakfast, a free IKEA blue bag, free chair massages (not by me...no worries), free meatballs and--if you eat in the restaurant and then spend $150--you get your entire meal receipt total deducted from your total. check out the day's events to get details on all that's going on.

but the most important thing of your life, and just life on earth in general, i think,, is to come play with me at noon on March, 8th at IKEA atlanta (RSVP here!). okay i may be overstating it a bit, but i would love to stack the audience with friendsome faces. especially if/when i do something embarrassing right into my pop princess mic. 

and so, on this valentimes i ask you, will you be my F?

Target Cartwheel App ($1,000 Target GiftCard® Giveaway)

i have confessed my weakness on Facebook and Instagram, so let me just reiterate it here: Hi, my name is Keight, and i am a (unrepentant) Target addict.

 .

from the moment i get sucked in to the $1 section at the storefront to what feels like just a few blissful moments later (but is actually 2 hours and jesse is texting "WHERE ARE YOU!?! because i just ran out to get paper towels...whoops) as i am swooning over the baby clothes...going to Target is basically a spa day for me.

 .

and even when i am not alone and have to bring the kids with me, they have their own kind of Target fun too. i would bet $100 that if youre a mom who has been to Target with her kids, that you have seen some version of this scene:

 .

it's hard to blame them. i mean, if it was fun for me as a 22 year old trying to frog hop over them and invariably getting stuck in isometric straddle mode...then naturally it would be fun for my preschoolers. oh man but they love the big red balls (and the Icee and popcorn bribes that await them inside if they just let mommy ogle/fondle the merchandise in peace).

 .

but my most passionate love (and most violent addiction) of all? the home goods sections that contain endless treasures from Threshold and this guy lurking everywhere ready to jump out and take my heart (followed by money):

 .

oh nate, with some major lifestyle changes from both of us, we could be magical together. i can just see it now "Target announces their newest house brand from their newly married design duo: N8K8®!" and our home would have useless--yet gorgeous!-- decorative accents, tufted ottomans and industrial modern nesting tables EVERYWHERE. i dare you to take 5 steps in our love nest without tripping over a rare sisal/jute accent rug.

 .

when the fall line of kitchen accessories (think cookie jars and such) was released i came upon them unsuspectingly from around a corner while looking for some plastic forks (thats how it always starts) and literally had my breath taken away by a salt cellar. this was when i realized my beautiful addiction (actually, it was right after i bought the cellar and like 6 other pieces of the line).

 .

so it's not like i needed another reason to go inside of Target. but, hooo buddy did they give me one. Their New Cartwheel App!
.

i heard about Cartwheel on a blog a few months ago and immediately downloaded it. like me plus pretty much everything else red Bullseye...it's love.

 .

Cartwheel is a Target specific app that lets you gather and curate offers (coupons) from over 700 available. I have the app, but Cartwheel works on your tablet, desktop or any mobile web program. you sign up/login using your Facebook info (god bless not having to type in all your info into tiny blanks) or using your target.com login.  the Facebook functionality lets you see which of your friends are using Cartwheel and which offers they have used or like (there is a really easy way to make anything private though if you'd rather not share that "Keight is saving 15% off preparation H ointment!" 

 .

you can browse by specific category (kids shoes, furniture, makeup, etc) or by new/hot deals and curated offer lists that are already put together.
.

              

  

i JUST found out about the barcode scanner too. if you have an iPhone or Droid you can use this tool to scan the barcode of any item to see if there is a Cartwheel discount currently available for it. i had been searching manually for each item that i was planning to buy manually like some cavewoman until i discovered this little beauty.

 .

so let me give you an example: sunday night i was shopping for some kids clothes. i opened up that section in my cartwheel app and was thrilled to see that almost all of the brands Target carries for kids clothes were having 25% off sales. after getting what i wanted (a Cherokee shirt for judah and a Circo skirt for layla) i grabbed those two offers and added them to my Cartwheel (you can add up to 10 at a time).

 .

 .

when i got up to checkout i pulled up my Cartwheel (which is just a specific barcode just for me with all of my saved offers) and the cashier scanned it as basically one coupon. blammo, $8.59 saved.

 .

extra good news for professional savers is that you can combine your Cartwheel offers/discount with any Target sales, coupons (Target or manufacturer's), and your Target REDcard discount. you can also use each deal on up to 4 items and can use your each deal up to 6 times a day. you can keep using the same deal until it expires.

 .

so if you never thought you could do a carwheel...now you can. and with this version you'll end up with one less sprained wrist and at least one more affordable salt cellar. see ya in the dollar section!...or dragging my kids off of the big red balls.

 .

BlogHer is giving away a $1,000 (ONE THOUSAND...yes) Target GiftCard®. Just leave a comment on this blog post telling me your favorite thing about Target! Detailed giveaway rules and ways to get an additional entry below.

 .

 .

Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 1/30 - 2/28.
Be sure to visit the Target Cartwheel brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!

near death in the most magical place on earth

my in-laws had their 40th wedding anniversary in september of 2013 (can i get a whoop whoop to love's eternal flame and jesus?). they decided that for their gift they wanted to take their 5 adult children, their children's spouses, and all of their grandkids to disney for christmas. and all stay together in one house.

i love my in laws more than probably 99.9% of wives do, but clearly these people are unstable maniacs.

i'm joking. well, sort of. they arent crazy, they just arent ME. i am a homebody, introvert, theme-park hating, scrooge. when i take those personality tests, "which disney princess are you?" i usually get Ursula. i also am not overly fond of inland florida. i know that's a little bit geography-ist of me, but i just think the only really useful (to my narrow mind) bits of florida are around the edges. (sorry to natives of central florida and your alligator pets whom i have offended).

i went to disney just once as kid. i was 8 and my brother was 5. these were good ages. we did all 3 of the parks that were there at the time, stayed in a disney resort and went all out. i remember wearing floral denim,  climbing into a lego, getting alice-in-wonderland's autograph, attending a musical dinner show i think was called "hoopty doo," and being really pissed when the "beach" we were at was just a lake with large-grit sand around it. nice try, inland florida, 4th grade keight aint nobody's fool. magical. but even i, the least sympathetic and emotionally perceptive child EVER, perceived how much work it was for my parents (who are wired similarly to me with the crowd-hating and the exspensive to-do avoiding).

the dukes are not wired this way. they have a time share at disney and go once every two years. jesse's brother and their family (my kids' 3 cousins) have gone several times with the grand dukes and done like a full week of parks. the thought of these trips gives me jawline stress acne. they are amazing and love it. i tremble in fear at the very notion. 

we had previously decided to not take our kids until the money spent would be worth it. to us, this meant: they're old enough to remember it, they are big enough to not need strollers (in my head we would train for this. they would have to walk 3 miles without complaining on our home course before they could go), and they would  ideally have part time jobs to defray the costs. unrealistic? possibly. i was okay with that.

but when its for the grandparents' anniversary (and they SWEETLY offer to pay), you sack up, pack up and go with a smile.

so as we departed the morning after christmas, i was sure of only one thing: this trip wasnt FOR me. it was first for the Grand Dukes. to shower my wonderful in-laws with love and appreciation and quality togetherness in celebration of their decades of living together for jesus; and secondly it was to give the littles (5 grandkids) a taste of the magic.

*it's pretty telling how great of grandparents and humans jesse's parents are that for their ANNIVERSARY gift, they wanted to spend their time and money and sanity on making magic with their grandkids and kids. they are better humans than me, to whom the word "anniversary" comes from the latin roots anni meaning "get these" and versary meaning "snot-and-crumb-coated kids outta my face so i can mack on my boo and poop without being watched." 

the first thing i thought when i woke up on the 26th was, "uh-oh, i think i detect a sore throat." as soon as i acknowledged that it wasnt really bad enough to actually get me out of the trip (not that i would....) i shut down all recognition of that fact. i am NOT sick.

when, on hour 5 i started feeling super achy on the drive, i paid it no mind. road-trip aches!, i declared, it's only road trip soreness in these old bones! 

if you dont go into Disney strong and confident, it will eat you alive. this i know. (this is true of the body and soul. jesse and i had 3-4 power-up, come-to-jesus, "WE ARE ON THE SAME TEAM AND WILL NOT LET A CARTOON MOUSE DIVIDE US" meetings before leaving. these are CRUCIAL to your disney experience if you are not a genetic MagicMouseketeer). 

the game plan was pretty relaxed and chill: 5 days. the single park day in the middle surrounded by two hang-out-at-the-awesome-house days, and bookended by the two travel days. 

on relax day one i was unconscious most of the day. i went out and got a huge bottle of advil that completely masked my sore throat and aches and gave me super powers. i was at 100% strength while on it.  the plan was to get to the park at 8 when it opened and to stay as late as physically possible to milk all we could out of Magic Kingdom in one single day. whatever my non-sickness was would be kept caged by my wonderful pharmaceuticals. MAXIMIZE THE MAGIC!!!

 heated pool in december, all to ourselves. cant complain there! sweet moment: on the drive down, i asked layla who she was most excited about seeing in disney and she instantly replied, "GANDADDY!" that's some love right there.

napping with grandaddy!

we loaded up our stroller and bloodstream with everything we would need for the mega-day, girded up our loins to HAVE GOOD ATTITUDES NO MATTER WHAT and crossed over the border into Walt's domain. 

P.S. i can be a curmudgeonly wet blanket talking about how i'm not super Disney lady, but i really was excited to enjoy the park with my kids and extended family for the first time ever and was truly grateful for the opportunity gifted to us of this trip by the dukes.

 first ride of the day: PARKING TRAM! judah was thrilled to be in charge of remembering our parking lot "simba 16!" (hint: one of these unsuspecting fools secretly has the flu right now and has no idea!)

i pranced in the faint rain with the kids while jesse bought the tickets, almost passed out when he showed me the receipt, and screeched my heart out when i caught my first glimpse of cinderella's castle. okay, so seeing Disney through my own kids' eyes is slowly changing me into RAH-RAH disney freakazoid lady. if i'm not careful soon i will have a dedicated collector's pin lanyard!

i LOVE a good monorail (simpsons, anyone?) and themed topiary.

nothing but love in the kingdom.

one day her prince will come. until then: daddy's king.

we nailed "It's a Small World" (which we weirdly loved for the first time in our lives after dreading it as required but lame) and the carousel a few times while the lines were small and the rain lifted. we got fast pass reservations for Peter Pan and decided judah (who was rapidly spiraling toward grumpsville from hunger) and i would take a snack break while jesse and layla waited in line to meet cinderella and sleeping beauty (she had to choose between those two OR snow white/rapunzel...tricky disney racket. since she has no Snow White experience whatsoever, she went with the other two). 

judah came to happy chirpy life after we downed some premade sausage biscuits we had brought in with us followed by some m&m's. i gobbled down 4 more advil and was feeling awesome that we would beat the system with our massive cooler and stroller full of needs-waiting-to-be-met (extra shoes, underwear, deoderant...you name it! it was basically a mobile room of requirement)

jesse and layla emerged 30 minutes later with NO princess pictures because layla decided once they got up to the wonderful actresses playing the princesses and they tried to engage her, that she HATED them and went all Mean Girls diss-style on them. she even yelled that she wanted snow white. right in front of cinderella. low blow. at least the royal ladies got an eyeful of my husband as a reward.

just before we boarded the teacups layla informed us "mah belly huhts." this struck fear like none other into our parenting hearts as half of the dukes had already been stricken with diarrhea/vomit sickness on the way down and leading up to this day and we brainstormed a 3 year old plus a stomach bug plus disney facilities. please, lord, no.

 please do not barf, child. or poop.

 this was before the ride started so i cannot blame my face on dizzy.

we let judah man the steering wheel, which meant we basically didnt spin at all. two birds, one stone win on this decision: no barfing, and control-happy firstborn feels in charge. we are CRUSHING disney.

first park purchase. (and an inadvertant showgirl head dress). classic kid move...he ate one bite and then wanted one of what layla got. THATS OKAY we are rolling with it. daddy eats the chocolate ice cream at 10 am!

at lunch (waffle sandwiches in sleepy hollow...shockingly really good) it randomly started to pour. this was NOT forecasted and by then the crowds were HUGE (post christmas is one of the peak periods), but we were awesome enough to already be dining at a picnic table under cover. crisis averted. the rain blew over after 10 minutes...freaking inland florida, what's your damage, dude!?!

as we were leaving lunch we noticed the park workers roping areas off. we figured it was for a parade, which jesse and i were pretty blah about (i dont find 18 girl scout troops holding banners or shriners in the back of trucks very captivating) and were going to skip it. but when we heard it was happening in like 5 minutes, we decided to just stay for it rather than fight the traffic.

OH HOLY CRAP. that damn parade was the most amazing and magical and wonderful and impressive shit i have ever seen in my life. it BLEW MY KIDS AWAY and even i was enchanted straight to belieber-levels of screaming. the sheer organization of this spectacle was breathtaking and having all the characters some RIGHT by you without having to wait in line to see them was perfection. 

and bonus: the grand dukes just happened to land right across the way from us and were able to see our kids see the parade. i was flabbergasted by how pumped this parade made my kids.

 first glimpse of characters as the parade approaches. he had weirdly sworn that pluto was the first character he would meet as we talked about it days before, and wouldnt you know, pluto was the first in the parade and actually GAVE judah five! judah spent the rest of the time going, "i cant believe pluto gave me five with his excellent paw!" mommy dream come true. THANK YOU orlando pluto! 

 and then minnie and mickey showed up.

i will never stop watching this.

losing his marbles over buzz and woody.

ZOMG a float FULLLLLLLL of princesses and all their princes. (mommy lost it too here after despairing all morning that we'd see NONE of them up close due to crowds and lines)

like ten feet behind the parade (with its perfectly timed choreography, music, etc) the workers had un-roped everything and it was a flawless transition back to normal parkdom...mad respect! the dukes were able to cross the street (did you know in the downtown of the colonial US portion of the park that the brown center of the path is a representation of how sewage was dumped in the middle of the road in olden times? way to be historical, walt!) 

we bypassed the buzz lightyear line thanks to strategic fast passes and judah and i DESTROYED Zurg and his evil minions with our sharp-shooting laser skills. a fun candid built-in photo from a hidden camera shows you how seriously i take evil galactic tyrants. yikes.

shockingly layla was still awake after 6 straight park hours including a surprisingly enjoyable-for-all show of Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. but she was getting less able to walk and more whiney. jesse and judah went to Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and i parked and rocked our little-bit until she was comatose.

i was SO jealous of her at this point.

i started to feel pretty exhausted here. changing out of my flip flops (ew with the crusted disney juice all over my feet...PRESS ON!) into my running shoes (with jean capris....dont judge, fashion doesnt matter in theme parks, only SURVIVAL) and it was like sticking my feet in magic jello. i was revived. also a $6 corndog might have helped. (our bounty of brought snacks was flagging at this point even though we had planned for WAY more than we could possibly need. i swear magic disney elves steal your stash during the day so they can sell you $15 french fries come nightfall when desperation strikes).

while layla slept for about 3 hours, i chilled and followed judah and jesse around to all the rides they wanted to do (he loved pirates or the caribbean and aladdin). i also became viceroy in charge of maximum fast pass acquiring. this is an art and to someone efficiency and competition-driven (see above buzz photo) it was a challenge. i may have gone too far at one point when the fast pass dispenser was down at the bottom of some stairs and i had to choose between skipping the passes and leaving layla alone go get them.

OBVIOUSLY i made the right choice.

...and got the fast passes while leaving my sleeping child unattended in her stroller. relax, WORLD, she was 100% in sight the entire time and never more than 20 yards away during the 40 seconds i was getting them. trust me, aint nobody at disney wants MORE kids, anyway. i did have a slight panic, not for layla's actual safety, but when i imagined the news story, "Atlanta mother locked in Disney Brig for leaving child to get fast passes for Jungle Cruise. Execution by Imagineers scheduled for after Evening Parade" this is not what i wanted to be known for, and as we know, over-reactive tattle tales are far more prevalent than abductors.

we rode a million more rides, recalibrated our and judah's moods several dozen times, watched 2 more parades (seriously, i'm a fan for life) and basically were hard core awesome straight up til dinner.

we started all losing a little spring in our steps at hour 10 in the park. layla turned too-cool celeb and refused to pose for photos.

and my low point so far was steering a tray of like 12 lbs of bbq piled hot dogs back to the family through literally wall to wall people JAM PACKED and staring at the castle. (oopsie, it was like the major christmas show lighting of cinderellas castle that i stepped out to grab food during). i died a little inside as i straight SHOVED and "oh my goodness, i am SO sorry, excuse me'd" my way back through, terrified my $30 of hotdogs would topple as everyone on earth got annoyed by me. 

challenging...but worth it. this pic was all Bob Dukes wanted for christmas. bless that man.

after a family picture (10 adults, 5 kids, main street disney at 7 pm...you go ahead and imagine how relaxed that was) and one last group ride we split off again. me taking judah to thunder mountain (i did NOT tell him what to expect...that kid is fearless as long as he doesnt have time to think about what's coming and how he could be afraid..in which case he is basically the most timid guy on earth).  when we had measured to make sure he was tall enough and discovered he was 42" tall he declared, "all RIGHT! i feel like a 5 year old!!!" dream big, my son.

my 4 year old rode a fairly intense roller coaster with nary a tremble! he said the worst part was the loud noises (i covered his ears).

it was on this ride that i started to realize that something was wrong with me. despite GRAMS of ibuprofen in my system, i was feeling so sore. like cant-move-my-neck sore. this is not ideal on a clap-trap railway themed rollercoaster. the noises coming out of me as we plummeted through the dark were hilarious. massively sore throat trying to scream with glee and not agony so my kid wouldnt be scared while also trying to not move my neck on a wild ride that i had no anticipation of where it would turn next. i think i mostly just sounded like a washing machine that is about to break. 

when we got off (3 out of 4 of our tickets and some fast passes had flown out of my pocket on the ride...but NOT our credit card...thanks, jesus) i officially hit my wall. the advil completely stopped being effective and i texted jesse that i was legitimately afraid that i might pass out, leaving judah unattended. (which you might figure i'd be okay with given the above story about leaving layla, but this time you'd be wrong...i'm unpredictable!)

we tried to reunite but were blocked by my erstwhile lover, A PARADE! i was devastated when jesse texted that he was on the other side of a bridge but they would let him through because the parade was beginning. HOW COULD YOU, PARADE!?!? I CHANGED FOR YOU!!!

when we finally reunited i collapsed onto jesse and started bawling. that was another red flag. i am lame and dramatic, but not, break down crying at disney at 9 pm lame and dramatic. it hit me that i had probably been pretty sick the entire time, but had ignored it until it came back to crush me.

30 seconds upon exiting the park this was the site:

again...so jealous. and despite being infected with what must be ebola, pretty proud as a mom that our little team did the magic without turning against each other.  (paci in public? oh hells yes, at disney world, all bets are off. if parents can buy $18 balloons for their kids, my 3 years old can rock a paci without me feeling an ounce of shame. THE PARK WILL NOT WIN!)

jesse was my hero and did every single hard part to get us to the car, home, and tucked in. 

the next day i woke up and wanted to end it all. i havent felt that bad in years. i dragged myself to the nearest urgent care and was told i had the flu and probably strep. i told the guy i had gone to disney on day 3 of feeling bad and he was like, "oh yeah, that kicked your butt. you probably would have been fine, but throwing that in wrecked you." and then i started to think about all the people i encountered that day and to assemble an Outbreak-style map in my head of my infection chain. the people i shared foot-juice puddles with alone numbered in the low thousands! i'm so sorry, yall. i am patient X.

overall it was an AWESOME trip. it's so-very dukes style that 75% of us had the flu or some awful diarrhea barf virus the whole time we were there (cousins and aunts), but that we also completely enjoyed each other and had a blast together. judah complained the whole way home that he just wanted to live in this zebra-themed room in the condo house forever and never go back to georgia. 

is there a collector's edition pin for "i survived magic kingdom with the flu!" because i will rock that proudly on my lanyard.

well, hello there!

evidently i have a blog. could have fooled me...WOCKA WOCKA.

and with that little nugget of comedic gold (GOLD I SAY!), i'm back. 

youre welcome/i'm sorry!

well that was the longest blog break i think i have ever taken when not pregnant/morning sick or encumbered with a newborn. 

so what gives? well i dunno, life. we went on vacation for a week, got a new mattress, tackled a few biggish projects at home, have spent a lot of time on family adventures, have been gardening, and i am working on drafting a digital sewing pattern and that has been taking up a lot of my internet time.  also i just wasnt feeling the bloggy mojo. it happens. 

but i think i'm back and just jam-packed with things to slap yo' eyeballs with.

so with a whispered promise of more focused posts to come, here's a moderate sprinkling of things that dont fit elsewhere.

local berry pickin'. pinkies up, you classless swine!

this turned into 7 lbs of blackberries which turned into cobbler and a TON of amazing fresh blackberry lemonade:

urhmygah

back in another life when we were just fresh-faced soon-to-be-newlyweds, we went to IKEA and bought everything to fill up our new house. we even got our mattress there. at $199 for a king, it was still mega expensive to our little college-budgeting brains. and it felt great to our lithe, spry, fatless bodies.

7 years later, to this shapeless, dimpled dumpling of pain and suffering: no more, i say!

 our old mattress. it brought us low. in all the ways. (the left side is mine. draw what conclusions you will).

cant remember if i blogged this, but jesse broke 2 vertebrae on memorial day. he was at one of those funsie play centers with the mats and the jumping and the angst (church youth event he was chaperoning) and decided to do a double front flip off of a diving board into a foam pit. well i guess one of the following happened: A) the foam needed to be re-fluffed after getting compressed by so many people jumping in. B) there needed to be more foam pieces added to the pit. or C) jesse is 30 years old and over 200 lbs and maybe the pits arent designed for such fragile behemoths. he hit the concrete bottom of the pit and thought he was paralyzed. thankfully just two cracked verts. he is on the mend already. but color me HARROWED!

but in addition to this awesome injury making us think about our sleeping environs, we had both not been sleeping well at all and waking up cranky and achy. i assumed it was just part of the wheels falling off because we're 30 and the grave creeps ever closer, but someone suggested a mattress change. i asked facebook if a quality mattress mattered and HOO BOY did they have something to say about that!

we scooted over to our local mattress firm and snagged a new fella for a deal (which was still like 8x the cost of the IKEA monster) with some sweet no interest financing for half of a forever. it's all been worth it so far. i call our new gemstone a "cloud bombastic" because its amazing.

chica posting up on our new BFF.

judah has been interesting lately. here's where i found him last week:

 sitting. reading. on the trashcan. in the pantraundry room with the door closed. with a donatello mask on as a headband.

i wanted to get back into running more so i challenged myself and anyone on FB/instagram to do a 30 miles in 30 days goal for the month of june. that might not seem like a lot--and it's not if youre a runner (i did 92 miles in july two summers ago and i am the world's worst and slowest at running)--but it was SO cool to have the accountability of the people doing the challenge with me. i hit my goal and loved the feel of sweaty torture again.

sometimes i wouldnt be able to get out to run until after dark due to kids or rain or whatever, but i was so motivated by the little challenge that i made sure it happened. even if that meant looking like this:

i'm for real about SAFETY!

and i just couldnt help myself and bought a few new fabrics for my beach bags. i have made FIFTY of these suckers this year. i usually stick to minimal stripes, zags or geometric prints in fun colors, but i LOVE the idea of this vintage nautical-sketched fabric made into a beach bag. 

AHOY, playas (see what i did there with the spanish?)

ok that's it. i did it. i blogged. ramping it up in the coming days. brace thyselves.

dukes & sons

if we ever start a family band (and by "we," i of course mean jesse and the kids since i am the least musically gifted human mammal since a burro with a broken tibia), we have the picture ready for the cover art of their debut CD:

of course we couldnt have gotten this picture on purpose if we had tried. rather it was right after we arrived at the fair and i was just finishing buying tickets while jesse attempted to control the kids' insanity at being plunged into so much stimulation, and keep them confined until we could point that energy in a direction that included seatbelts. 

he was trying to get the kids to come with him back over to me and obviously they took that to mean "peel off in opposite directions away from both of us...and layla, bust a sweet move on your way out, please. ready, break!"

come thou fount

during judah's birthday night extravaganza we took the kids to the fountain in the local shopping park/paradise/center that the cupcake store was located. we cannot go to any of the shops here without him BEGGING to go see the fountain. it's like the kids has never seen water before.

but when it's your 3rd bday, the would is your big stinky raw oyster. so we went and i lugged our nicer camera along for this portion. SO glad i did because the lighting was dummy-proof and the kids were undeniably adorable.

here are some of the best:

gosh he just loves me so much, so this pose comes naturally.

the pictures are just effortless.

oh yeah, except, to get these 2 shots, we had to live with about 50 of these:

this is far more representative

she's just a happy little sprite.

power stance

focus.....FOCUS! ("give me your hand" "but i can almost reach the grail!!!")

guess who did NOT want to be in this photo

he's mentoring.

ooooooooooh

sweating all over toys we didnt buy after the fountain time.

and now my MOST FAVORITE!

judah gave an inspiring one man performance of a dragon attack atop the fountain:

act 1: crouching judah, hidden dragon

act II: frightened villagers

finale: RAWR.

and the best picture of the day/life:

yes.

layla was not, as it may appear, dangling off of a building, holding on during a tornado or enjoying an anti-gravity simulator. she just has mad back muscles, i guess? bonus points because she is achieving this posture with a one-handed grip as she was adamant about taking the nose-suction tube device from home along on our adventures.