Cutie Kate

Kate, lying on her daddy, while playing on the grass outside yesterday afternoon.

Stay away from those giant mutant alien worms!

I had a dream the other night where I was in a play that involved these giant mutant alien tubeworm things. The alarming part was that they were using real giant mutant alien tubeworms, waving menacingly at the front of the stage. There was one scene of the play where I had to pull one of these things out of its tube and wrestle it or something. I remember I was ranting to somebody in my dream about how irresponsible it was for them to use these dangerous creatures, and somebody could be killed. I said, "What happens if these things go running through the audience?" I was quite put out.

I seem to recall that I was also upset because I hadn't learned my lines properly.

I have weird dreams.

Dishin' the Digi (woot!)

My Sidewalk Chalk layout is being spotlighted DiSc Talk Radio's "Dishin' the Digi--Coast 2 Coast" show this week! This is cool. I'd heard of the show but I hadn't listened to it before. It was fun to hear them talking about my page. (Mine's the last layout that they talk about, starting at about 40 minutes). And they even said my name right! Wheeee!

Beyond BLT

Last summer we discovered that BLT's make pretty good travel food (as long as you've got a place to sit down to assemble and eat the sandwiches, and aren't trying to do it while you're driving or anything like that). We added avocado to ours, which of course made BLAT's. One day, in a punchy mood, we came up with these other variations:

BLOT--bacon, lettuce, olives, and tomato.

BLECH--bacon, lettuce, egg, cheese, and ham

BARF--bacon, avocado, radishes, and feta

The one about the crocodile

I've added, down at the bottom of the sidebar, a link to a webpage I put together a few years ago with my sister Betsey's emails. (I asked--she said it was okay.) Betsey spent a semester at the BYU Jerusalem center, and then later went to Costa Rica for an undergraduate research program. The emails that she sent were very interesting and quite funny. The entry called "Crocodile hunting and Rollerskating (not simultaneously)" is particularly noteworthy.

There's a hole in my layout!

I made this torn-edge template a few days ago. I'd kind of gotten myself into a little creative funk, where I had lots of semi-formed ideas but nothing that was really capturing my imagination, and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do next. But once I started working on this it all came together beautifully, and this morning I woke up with more ideas, so life is good again.

Here's a layout I made this morning, using the template. The paperclip and the ribbon are from Anita Stergiou's "Floriade" collection; everything else is mine.

(Update: Since NDISB has closed, this template is now available here.)

We Wanna Rock!

Kate has discovered the joys of throwing rocks in the water. We've been going out to the beach a lot, as the weather's getting warmer, and that's all she wants to do. Luckily there are lots and lots of rocks on the beach, so there's no chance she'll run out any time soon.

Her throwing technique has improved dramatically. A few weeks ago I took her to the duck pond, well-supplied with bread for the ducks and peanuts for any intrepid squirrels we happened to meet. The ducks were hungry and Kate was trying to feed them, but just couldn't manage it. She kept walking toward them with bread clutched in her out-stretched fist, which of course made the ducks run the other way, and then she would fling her hand out and the bread would fall right at her feet.

On this same outing we did in fact meet a squirrel who was not only intrepid but downright stalker-ish. He followed us all around the pond, begging for peanuts. He climbed halfway up my pants leg, and also climbed up trees as we went by and peeked out, right at eye-level, stretching forward and kind of bobbing his head like he was getting ready to take a flying leap. Now, I like squirrels, but I was worried that he might jump on Kate, and I could see that going badly. Don't want to give her a squirrel-phobia for the rest of her life. (I couldn't help thinking of that line from Over the Hedge--"I am a crazy rabid squirrel!") We managed to avoid being leapt upon, and after he ate up the last of our peanuts he eventually figured out that there was no more forthcoming and stopped following us around.

Kate can actually get the rocks into the water now. Or the bread to the ducks, as the case may be. Of course, she still throws like a girl. And she doesn't seem to like waves, so if the water is rough at all she doesn't get too close, and instead of throwing the rocks in herself she has me throw them. She picks up rocks and hands them to me and says, "Throw this!" (Toss) "Throw this!" (Toss) "Throw this!" Lather, rinse, repeat. As we walk around on the beach I've been picking up rocks myself. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with them yet, but something. My jacket pocket is now full of interesting-looking rocks. In fact, as I was putting on my jacket to leave for church this morning I noticed how heavy it was. I need to get them out of there.

Easter Dress

Here's Kate in the pretty dress that her Aunt Barbie made for her. (It looks a lot like last year's dress, since they were both made from fabrics that Barb picked out for her wedding.)

We have church from 9:00 to 12:00. It's always a mad dash to get Kate ready in the morning, and then when we get home she's tired and cranky, but I took along my camera so could snap a few pictures as soon as we got home (and she had a couple of eggs that they gave her in Nursery). It was sunny and the lighting was not great, and Kate did not have an overabundance of patience. Here she is hollering at me to stop taking her picture.

"If you like to waltz with potatoes..."

After I posted about Kate singing wordlessly to herself, we were having dinner and she was sitting in her highchair playing with her applesauce, and we heard her sing, "He's a tramp... I looooove him!" (Guess what she'd just been watching?) We were much amazed and amused. And last night she was singing part of the Primary song (from church) that goes, "Hello! (Hello) Hello! (Hello) we welcome you today." It's so fun. I've heard her sing recognizable snatches of the alphabet song, but it's just neat to hear her putting things together with words.

All of us at NDISB have been working hard at getting the store put back together. They weren't able to restore anything from their older backup, which means they lost their entire customer database. Very sad. But we're determined to bring it back better than ever.



I just finished up this Potato Prints set. I did the potato stamping back in January, and then got distracted with other things. It was fun. And messy. I had potatoes and paint piled up on the kitchen table for days. I also painted a cantaloupe and rolled it on the paper. (And then we ate it!)

I also got Baby Blue-Eyes up in the store, and the creative team ladies have been doing wonderful things with it. Here's a layout by Karen and one by Audrey.