Self Portrait

Last day of the photo challennnnnnnnnnnnnnge!

Done done duh-duh-duh done!

Today for my self portrait you get "Mari Unscripted"

I don't even know what that means actually. Basically what you're getting is me with no makeup and wet hair. 

And by the way I don't even like to go out in public like this so you should feel very special. I like to pretend the blog isn't really me so if you see me on the street let's just say this never happened.

So, just as I was getting started guess who wanted to get in on the action?

Yep, that one.

I figured having him there would be nothing but helpful so I let him stick around.

Would you like to know where my exclusive photo location with the nice light is?

It's the bathtub.

Glamour shots by Mari coming to a tub near you.

Black and white

If there's a puddle, he's in it.

Flower

So at this point in the season the only flower I have in my yard is this.

Okay who am I kidding. The state of this flower and my front yard has nothing to do with the season. I've always only had one or two sad little marigolds surrounded by dead things on display in front of my home.

We can't all be Martha.

My neighbor on the other hand, who even has a full time job, always has tons of pretty flowers and beautiful landscaping surround her home. I'm counting on her to keep our property value up. 

So I creeped over there this afternoon (under the guise of chasing Logan) to take pictures of her flowers.

Until I looked up to see her husband through the front window.

Hi!

Then I creeped back home. 

From a Distance

Sunday afternoon we went to Lucia Falls to watch the salmon run and enjoy the fall colors.

I'll admit the first time I saw the "falls" I thought they should have been called Lucia Rapids but seeing the salmon leaping up through the water increased their cool factor.

Um, and that's what we did there. Ha ha, I can't think of anything to say today!

I did wake up this morning to find that two more frames from my alphabet wall fell down. 

Crud. 

I gave in and now all the frames have nails holding them up. So you don't have to worry about things falling off the wall and landing on your kid if they come to play.

I know. I'm a good mom.

Hope you've had a great Wednesday!

Close up

This is my new favorite treat. 

Oreos, specifically mint oreos, dipped in almond bark with sprinkles on top.

Gotta have the sprinkles.

Ever since Logan's birthday I have made these for every occasion I can think of. Friend's birthday? Oreos. Dinner party? Oreos. Ran 7 miles? Oreos.

Oh, did I not mention that I ran 7 miles? I did. This 10K is gonna be a cinch! 

Especially since I keep giving myself double stuffed reasons to run. 

Pumpkin patch in pictures

Something Pink

We're on day 25 of the challenge, woo hoo! At this rate I'll finish by... Christmas at the latest. 

My something pink is, of course, a part of a bigger project.

An alphabet wall for the playroom! 

I was so proud of myself for finally getting these up. I started making these letters like, two months ago maybe? 

This was one of those projects that you think is a brilliant, fun, totally-worth-the-time idea. But then about halfway through the only thing keeping you going is sheer determination because your fingers have blisters on them from using an x-acto knife so much, you've accidentally hot glued so many pieces of fabric to the carpet you don't even tell your husband anymore, and you're not even sure you like crafting that much anyway.

Anyway, I used this sticky silly putty type stuff to adhere everything to the wall. I sorta knew that wasn't a great idea for the heavier things but I thought if I put enough blobs on it would do the job. 

Actually, you know what? If I had put enough on it probably would have done the job. But the instructions said 4 tabs hold a pound, this weighs max 3 lbs, 3x4=12 so... I'll just go ahead and put 6 tabs on.

This is why I usually wait for Tyson to hang things for me. 

And, as you might expect, as soon as I got the final letter hung and put all my stuff away I grabbed the camera, jumped for joy, and the board with "DEF" on it fell off taking half the letters and another frame with it.

Daaaaayyngggg it.

(notice my yarn balls hung in the corner? yep, finally got that done too.)

My "hang it on faith" approach failed me. 

Then, when I went to pick up the pieces I found that the frame took a bite out of the baseboard.

There is a 95% chance that this does not get fixed in my lifetime.

Luckily the clatter of wood crashing to the ground did not wake Logan from his nap and neither did the sound  of his mother hammering the bare minimum of nails into the wall. 

 Sometimes the risk of waking your kid is worth getting a project off your back.

Also, next time you come to my house don't slam any doors or do anything else that might vibrate the walls.

Just sayin'.

Mothers Without Borders

I recently contacted a friend of mine about volunteering for a charity that she does a lot of work with. I've been wanting to do more service lately and this seemed like a good opportunity.

  "Whether children are orphaned as a result of disease, poverty, violence, or natural disaster, the results are the same - children alone. Mothers Without Borders is committed to supporting programs that offer sustainable, long-term solutions to this global orphan crisis."

They are currently working on children's feeding programs in Zambia and Zimbabwe, a children's resource center, and more.

Seems like a good cause, right?

Want to help?

We are doing a fundraiser on Monday, October 24 for those of you in the Vancouver/Portland area. This is where it gets kinda tricky so lean in...

What you've got to do is put down your pots and pans and go out to dinner at Chevy's.

Yep! That's it! If you eat at Chevy's from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm, 25% of their proceeds will be donated to MWB. Here's the part that actually is kinda tricky. You've got to bring one of these flyers with you when you go in otherwise, like calories on Christmas, it won't count.

Want one?

Just let me know! :)

Hope to see you there!

Animal

It seems that we have a serious lack of animals in our area. 

What we DO have is a dog costume that Logan likes to carry around and bark at (with?). So I had a great idea that I'd get him to wear it and he could be the animal.

But he won't do it.

Which is posing a problem for Halloween, and how am I going to dress him up without making him think he's dressing up, but that's a discussion for another day.

So here is Logan dressed as animals for the last two Halloweens.

Year One: Giraffe

Year Two: Penguin

And that's the best I've got for animals today. Clearly a trip to the zoo is in order. 

New Blog!

So I'm starting another blog. I wanted to have a place where I could write about more family stuff and not worry so much about what strangers will learn about us. 

So, Fingerprints on a Windowpane is up and running and will be a private blog. 

Let me know if you want to read! If you want to leave your email address in the comments I won't publish them. Or you can send me an email at marissalowder at gmail dot com.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Woot woot!

Guess wha-at!

I ran FIVE POINT THREE miles this morning, what up endorphins!? Tyson does not even KNOW the runner that he married. And it only took me 3 hours! Ha ha, kidding, it was under an hour but still slow. I pretty much had an entire conversation with an elderly couple I was passing.

But, dare I say, it kinda felt good. Or at least not bad. I'm pretty sure it's some sort of trickery. Like when I was was in cross country freshman year of high school and I ran seven miles and felt awesome. I thought I was really turning a corner with the whole running thing. Maybe I could be good! But then I still stunk at it and continued to find myself racing at the end of the pack chatting it up with slow girls from opposing teams.

So today was probably a fluke and now I'm going to spent the next couple months trying to recreate that feeling before I give up again.

But for now I'm going to be joyful that I ran 5 whole miles.

And don't laugh, that's a lot for me. I've had a 3 mile barrier since that freshman year of high school *cough* 14 years ago! *cough* and it has been plaguing me until now. For now I am victorious.

Downside: definitely gonna be sore tomorrow. Bad.

On a related note, have you seen this?

source

Except I both look and feel like that little girl.

Especially since having Logan. Things will just never be the same I guess.

Sunflare

Well folks, it's that time of the year in the Northwest where the sun is replaced by clouds, fog, and mist and we all become Vitamin D deprived and pale and walk around telling ourselves that we like the rain in order to preserve our sanity.

And then, since we know we'll be wearing bulky sweaters and jackets for the next 8 months, we start overdoing the Halloween candy a month early because we can blame the appearance of pudge on a sweatshirt.

But then our love handles jiggle when we walk.

So we use that as motivation to run.

But it doesn't work.

So we buy another bag of finish off our Reese's, sign up for a 10K, and use that as motivation to run.

And STRESS OUT because we've never run a 10K before and what were we thinking and who wants to run more than, well, any miles anyway, and why does running in the rain WITH a jogging stroller have to be so hard?

Running = Boo, frowny face, and hurt.

Eating = Happy, yummy, and Biggest Loser.

You win for now, running.

Does anyone remember my original point? I must have had caffeine today.

What I was trying to say is that I did not take this picture today because there was no sun.

It was like a month ago, maybe more. Logan was sitting in the yard, pulling peas off the vine and opening the pods. We now have rogue pea plants continuously coming up through the grass.

And uh, this is sunflare, right? Sun... bubbles? 

Hands

When we wrapped Logan's presents for his birthday we had ordered them so that a tricycle would be the last gift he opened. The Grand Finale if you will. He loves bikes and always wants to ride them and we were worried that once he saw it he wouldn't be interested in looking at anything else.

We envisioned the excitement of his previous gifts would make the anticipation so great that when we brought out the final present he would screaming with joy (he does that) and our role as parents would be triumphantly validated. It's possible Tyson and I high fived over how awesome we are. No one will know.

So that meant he opened a train set before the trike. He loves Thomas the train. He wanted Thomas opened right then. He showed Thomas to everyone. He would have been done after Thomas.

But the CHAMPION PRESENT would be better! We knew it.

When it came time to open it I had the regular camera and video going to capture his moment of delight and joy upon unveiling The Finale. And maybe even his first unprompted "thank you"? A mom can hope.

Tyson brought out the carefully wrapped present (sometimes we wrap birthday presents in Christmas paper and newspaper, not a reflection of our love and devotion to the recipient) and set it in front of Logan.

"What do you think it is, buddy? Tyson asked as he lifted up the paper to reveal a wheel.  

"Bike."

Logan's monotone and uninterested reply after tearing his eyes away from Thomas.

Grand Finale FAIL.

He did give his bike a whirl that night and has enjoyed many rides since but man, he loves those trains.

Especially when Dad is here to play with him

Faceless Self Portrait

Crafting away at my favorite spot on the living room floor.

Bokeh

So Logan and I are doing Kindermusik together. 

It's a great idea in theory but the practice of it... I honestly didn't think my kid was so wild/disobedient/out of control/possessed until I got into this class where every child sits perfectly on their mother's lap.

I mean, really? I swear they are all about 2 too, how can they be so well behaved?

We took a class picture this week. In the first one Logan was standing on the edge of a blanket with me holding him still while the other kids sat demurely by themselves in a half circle. 

He wasn't in the second picture because he ran away.

That wouldn't even be so bad if he wasn't picking his nose in front of everyone while hiding from me.

But then today at the grocery store, after I finally corralled him into sitting in the appropriate place in the cart, he started making high pitched noises with random syllables thrown in.

I smiled and asked him what he was doing to which he replied, "Singing!" 

And he continued to sing until we got home.

And I loved it. 

This has nothing to do with my picture, a fake flower in front of a window facing our street, but it seemed to be time for a little something besides me attempting to improve my photography skills.

Something Orange

Hooray for October and bringing out the decorations!

Do you decorate for Halloween? I used to think it was too much trouble to decorate for anything besides Christmas, but now I love it!