..."enclosed by the walls of an old Abbey that contain a family clad in mystery, exciting, dynamic and mouth dropping gorgeous frocks. Oh, and their adorable and intriguing servants who appear more pure hearted and also more sinister than their masters." ~ a review

and i would be surprised if the trees didn't have their secrets too...

the long arm of summer is drawing back

on a dark and stormy afternoon ender and i found this fuzzy owl abandoned at a kiosk in World Market. It was so depressing,i had ender swoop down and pluck it off the shelf. i am starting to collect christmast ornaments that will take residency on the bottom floor of the christmas tree.

i would have loved to have found these guys too. by scratchcraft on etsy. sold.

september 9. & 11 months

worried.

 see his drum stick?  he mostly likes to hit the guitar and often i let him because God forbid i stunt his developmental growth by not letting him hear the sounds the the strings screeching in agony. 
he loves to dance in my arms too.  and he loves on me the old fashion way, cheek to cheek.  I eat it up because he rarely sits still to cuddle.

his current play list includes:

 I Saw the Light- Roy Robinson
Dream a Little Dream of Me- Mama Cass
Rockin Robin-The Jackson Five
1234 - Feist
Patty Cake- yours truly
Three Little Birds- Bob Marley
I've Got My Mind Set on You- George Harrison
Lets Live for Today- The Grass Roots
Don't Worry, Be Happy- Bobby McFarrin

When we are having one of those days, his play list completely changes his attitude.  mine too.   music and ender dancing is my therapy. 

and if we both wake up on the wrong side of the bed i immediately put in Keith Green singing about how going to McDonalds doesn't make you a hamburger. 

Oh Arizona.

there are so many layers to this state. i am so excited to celebrate.

"heat ma'am, it was so dreadful here that i found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones." ~sydney smith

so just imagine then....

A Room with a View

Lens: Where Children Sleep click.

hello aunt abbie!

how is your day at the office? in this picture i am eating dog hair.

words are not necessary

tender is the touch

here ender poses with roses for adorable jocie k.

a note:

ender, I can trust. he's determined to examine things very closely.he isn't quite ready to destroy or take things apart yet. I think that is how his brain works. First he observes...,then he goes in for the "kill".
and by kill i mean a ginger touch with his pointer finger.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

these little friends have stolen our hearts.
ender hoots along with the owl.

hometown haboob

article here.

if only storms spared the people i could then totally and completely give myself over to being in love with the desert monsoons.

he did a lot of soul searching.
i know i can learn something from this little dude. to let a journey grow you.
he returned a babbling, crawling, mimicking extraordinaire.

ender has no idea, but he is the first member of my Girl's Scout troop! I'm hoping to recreate the adventure I had in my group with my dad. We were an ornery, hardy bunch led by dynamic, trail blazing women with support from our patient dads.

Ender's first patch: "Make it Happen!" (a re purposed cookie badge:)

*i'll sew it on his diaper bag so he can proudly show it off

the challenge: to successfully be a passenger in a Boeing 737.

the skills he will learn-

1) pop one's own ear

2) make friends with fellow passengers (a girl scout knows that the circle is round, it has no end, that's how long they want to be your friend)

3) memorize the flight attendants safety speech so you can tune them out the next time you fly

We'll start there for now. He is only 8 months old.

BON VOYAGE!

ender's dapper moose, in ender's cozy little den.

this used to be the arena, where we would battle it out, i added a few trophies. ender was a worthy opponent. he would attack me at my weakest. sleep deprivation, middle of the night scrimmages, public humiliation. I would counter his moves with determination, prayer and my secret weapon, zander. there were two of us and one of him, but oh was he a might number one.

regardless, we soon defeated our little foe and actually signed an agreeable peace treaty. He would sleep at night and be charming in public and we would let him room and board for free.

he is now one of our most loyal allies.

"A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world"-l. buscaglia
-no this is not true of me. this is zander's quote. he loves roses.

this particular bush happened mysteriously on our doorstep one spring day.
got to hand it to the rose, it has wooed me. i now want a kaleidoscope of roses. but of the darkest hues. all of them slightly touched by the matchstick.

what once was....

now is.

if babies from the 50's have lived to tell the tale.... why shouldn't ender be given a fair shot at proving his survival skills too?
* meaning he brought home a high chair from one of his favorite antique shops that would not pass any of today's safety regulations.

he told me to be strong, not to wimp out, and carry his 7 month old tush up the ravine. so i took orders from a baby and up we went with no trail to guide us. I sang a made up diddy about Going Up Up Up! so we wouldn't go down down down. Stayed on the path the sun lit for us, so I wouldn't feel lost and alas we broke over the slope to a brambly clearing. We had a goal, though.
To find this guy. And we did. phew.

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues Music Video

someone else has a crush on arizona too.
thank you my desert dweller *wink*

mama

mama on her honeymoon, camping in alaska. oklahoma. those are her two daughters, not sons, but I don't blame your confusion. me and my sister.

why Baby Gap made an easy sale with me

In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again, the phantom went down, but on reappearing once more, with a stiletto like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out. "There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale! The White Whale!"

Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard arms, as in swarming time the bees rush to the boughs. Bare headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo.

Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whether is eagerness betrayed him, whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave orders for lowering.

The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab in advance, and all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas of hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast, pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-color, lay floating on the water, innumerably long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to catch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct, but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.

As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed, "Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!"

"What was it sir?" said Flask.

"The great live squid, which, they say, few whale ships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it."

But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the rest as silently following.

easter portrait

he is our little friend!

the size of my miracle was so small, so significant. as ender was leaving a chamber in God's heart to come to earth, his hand reached out and brushed up against a pulsating wall, raking it through his tiny fingers, and clenching tight, he bore a piece for the journey. it took me so long to realize why his fists were always closed as a newborn. he held a very precious gift. i know he will share it with the world.

on another note: i accidentally changed my family's life.

the said kid up above, that cute, adorable midget, morphs into a snarling dragon at night. I'm not kidding! It is a whole process of rocking the scaly serpent to a sweet slumber. Then only to repeat the process 5 more times during the night. Sometimes he traps me in his lair for 3 tortuous hours!

Well on Monday night I found myself, exhausted and with a nasty cold. The dragon summoned me into his cave once again to rock him. But it wasn't enough for him. I knew, then, that I faced my demise. Tonight was the night he would conquer. And in one last desperate attempt to survive......!! I rolled over and played dead. Oh did the beast roar! He was frothing at the mouth, gnashing those pointy white teeth, swinging that long neck from side to side. I was frozen in fear.

Thankfully, a brave boy came along, curious about all the noise, found me lifeless, dragged me out and told me to go take a shower.

He only blew steam for an hour then.... golden silence. The following times he stirred, i shoved some raw meat under the door, then he fell back asleep in minutes. For his siestas it only takes him seconds to realizeI'm not his slave and off he frolics to dream land.

The key is to give him a cloth diaper he can shred between his claws- get all that angst out! Then lay his bunny next to him. After he calms down, he likes to pet Rutabaga.

The curse has been broken, the dragon tamed, the village is free.

often i think "is this guy for real?!" he can't possibly be a fallen human. "i'm onto you God. I know he is one of Your cohorts." and just when a glimmer of an angelic wing begins to appear beneath his dirty o'l shirt, "Aha! I've discovered your celestial secret!" he goes and does something so stupid, hurtful or embarassing. but I know its just to try and throw me off His trail.

and my heart grows

our little pale crow.

his current obsession, a bedazzled image of himself.

did you see us swing under a great tree

under a canopy of white lights, strung like pearls on fire

under twinkling mason jars, glassy fruit, we swung

your daddy pushed us and you smiled and laughed

with each arch we drew in the night air

i held you tight and felt your downy hair on my lips

time stopped to watch you fly

charmed,

your mother

img.

you are what real heroes are made out of. hard core fluff.

when i sneak away into the shadows behind his door, i see you in there, on the front line, holding his hand. when i hold my breath so he doesn't hear me, there you are coaxing him to sleep. i can't think you enough brave one.

ender, by the mercy of God, has become smitten with a bunny from his aunt patti. i'm starting to dismiss the idea she found him in a store, but rather am convinced it hopped into her back yard, pawed her ankle, and begged her to be given to a little boy who needed assistance going to bed at night. he's magic.

i thought i lost you.

plump and sweet, just like ender. but a nasty o'l tom at peed on them! he is also the cat that sneaks outside our window impersonating ender waking up at night. yes, ender sounds like a mewing fur ball.

i do. i really do.

since ender has been born we have had this awesome rainbow colored balloon night light plugged in our room where he slept. it gave off this warm glow. however, since moving him into his nursery, that lovely lighted companion kicked the bucket. zander thought he would go green and buy an LED night light. For being the tree cuddler that I am, he was irritated that I loathed the eerie blue light it emitted. It made Ender's room like a cave, a scary one where a little beast slumbered, waiting to devour the first person to enter his lair....me. So every night, I have to banish all thoughts of vampires, ghosts or clowns waiting for me in his blue room. (i know i know, i'm more baby than ender. but you can pay for my shrink). And I'm thankful for our creaky wood floors, a dead give away for even the most weightless of foot falls.

Scene: 1:30am, crying, crying, crying, in the blue eerie room. A whole month of ender fighting us at night time has left me a little, oh, i'd say emotional and tired. I bravely enter the mouth of the cave and gently cradle the baby beast. my eye catches something in the door way, though. a figure. still and staring. i never heard it approach. i scream. thats right, on top of ender screaming, i let out a shrill wail. my sanity is doomed. i yell for zander.

well how convenient, the dark figure materializes into zander and comes to my swift aid. I yell his name again in relief and annoyance. now i'm shaking,zander takes me and ender in both his arms and starts to shush and rock us both.

no more sneaking zander!

however, wow, being rocked is very soothing. i totally getcha kiddo.

but no more! I can scratch "being rocked like baby" off my bucket list.

Heres to 99 birthdays Arizona!

one of my most favorite experiences of being in europe or in one of our great country's coast land states, are the beautiful parks. phoenix, its sad, but you have too many parking lots.

but thank you for sparing some mountain parks and places like the Desert Botanical Gardens. because, i love this land.

ender and i are members at the Gardens: a pocket of Sonoran sensation!

i adore creatures from all walks of life!

beautiful blue braved the cold