Have I mentioned lately how much I adore our little Quinnie the Quaker? I do. I had fun photographing him last week, and just fiddled with his portrait in PhotoScape a bit. I’ll try to get video of him soon!

That’s it for my daily distraction, I must stay on task. (rinse, repeat.)

Chickeymonkey thanks you very much for the wonderful birthday wishes! She had a lot of fun this weekend, and in fact her birthday is STILL being celebrated today at class with monkey brownies. Everybody has been ooh’ing and aaah’ing over this cake, and for anyone who wants to get creative with their next birthday cake, you can find tons of really neat cake molds right here at Wilton.com.

The absolute highlight of the entire weekend? One of the girls hit a jackpot on those games that churn out tickets to be spent on cheesy plastic toys. The machine kept spitting out tickets, and she ended up with a pile about 3-4 inches thick. She was so excited, and then she had an idea. She said “I know! Why don’t we put everybody’s tickets together and then we can all get something!” So that’s what we did, we combined all the tickets, they counted them up, and each of the 9 girls got 80 tickets to spend. Chickeymonkey was first in line and wanted something that she didn’t have enough tickets for. So I asked everyone, if they got what they wanted and had any tickets left over, they could donate them to The Birthday Girl so she might be able to get the one she wants. Nearly all the girls had leftover and donated, and at the end of it all, Chick got what she wanted and had a few tickets left over for something else.

I nearly cried at the generosity and giving spirits of these kids (there were 2 boys, too!). It was truly a heartwarming moment.

After all the bouncing, cake, presents, pizza, smores, flashlight tag, shakes, movie, slumber party, church, grandparents, dinner at her favorite restaurant, laundry, and baking a monkey brownie for her classroom party today, I’d say it was a pretty busy weekend and I’ve got a very happy little 7 year old.

And as for me? I’ll be diving in to my own very special project for a week or maybe two, and then I’ll be painting a whole bunch – starting with a custom cat portrait of a beautiful orange tabby, and I’m pretty excited!

Tomorrow, my little Chickeymonkey turns 7. Today, she and her friends will be bouncing and playing for hours. Yesterday, I spent the entire day working on this beautiful and tasty moist marble monkey birthday cake that I will be slicing into little pieces and serving to several children. I will be wiping monkey remains of off of the tables. Pieces of this fun little dude will be smashed and smeared into forks, plates, and ice cream puddles.

The girls will squeal and giggle and ooh and aaah and not hesitate to devour him. Me, I’ll be sniffling, quietly, over my lost consumable masterpiece, and also, over my daughter – who is growing up so fast.

It seems like just yesterday I was screaming at the nurses to go get the doctor because I was gonna push RIGHT NOW, WITH OR WITHOUT HIM. Just hours ago that I received my baby girl swaddled up in a warm receiving blanket and listened to her squeak like a mouse. Moments ago that the nurse took her from me to “have that checked” and seconds ago that I took her home after an emotional week in the NICU. Upon her arrival home and our first realization that there was dark hair covering every inch of her body, she became our sweet little Chickeymonkey. Seven years later, she’s stopped all the squeaking and is still covered in hair.

Happy Birthday, Chickeymonkey! (A day early, even.)

If you’re looking for a plant that will attract bumblebees, honey bees and butterflies – this one does it all. My favorite aunt gave me a bit of Sedum from her landscape in the Spring of 2007, and it has quadrupled since I brought it home and put it in the yard. I was surprised last fall to see so many honey bees working on this plant, and this fall it’s gotten even busier! I’ll be splitting this in a couple of weeks and spreading them out more with my Bee Balm.

I am not sure if my butterfly bush has brought the Monarchs to my yard and the Sedum has kept them coming back, but it sure is a beautiful sight to see three of them sitting atop the Sedum. I loved this shot, the dense blushing pink blooms bordering that gorgeous butterfly.

Usually, when Monarchs have landed, they keep their wings tightly closed, and they open and close like a trap door. I managed to capture this one with its wings open, so this is a rare shot for me and I’m loving the paper thin dimension!

It has been a really busy week, to say the least. I’m waiting for a cake to cool right now because this afternoon I’ll be decorating this Monkey cake for my Chickeymonkey’s 7th birthday party tomorrow. I’ve driven hundreds of miles, going to Catybug’s volleyball game (an away game, 150 miles round trip), spent a day with a dear old friend from High School that I haven’t seen in –ummm– several years (here we are), mowed the lawn, went to another Volleyball game lastnight (we won!) and finished up a blog design for EW. All since my last post on Tuesday!

The sunset was beautiful on Tuesday night, I snapped the farm silhouette on the way home, driving on the freeway. When we got to our exit, the sun had completely set and the moon popped up on the horizon, big, bold, and this really wild yellow-orange color. I left the cars & headlights in the photo so you could get a perspective on how low it was and how bright and oddly colored! Is this our harvest moon? I recall it being much more orange. Anyone else catch a glimpse of the moon this week?

The timer just went off, so it’s time for me to whip up a batch of frosting!

As promised, here’s me in my new specs! They’re going to take some getting used to, of course. When I walked out of the clinic they immediately transitioned to the sunglasses which was SUPER cool – but they’re slow to transition back so there’s a bit of a tint left over. Still, overall, I like ’em. What do you think?

 

On September 3rd, I had my annual eye exam. It was a normal exam, nothing unusual about it other than they dilated my eyes and I had green eye gunk (and post nasal drip) for the rest of the day. I know, too much information. You’ll have to deal with it, my blog, my story.

So. My prescription changed just slightly, and new specs were on my horizon. Oh, how I love the opportunity to change my appearances with a pair of frames! I opted to come back later that day, after my vision returned to normal and my pupils didn’t make me look like some alien being, taking up my whole eyeball and all.

After I picked up the girls from school, we returned to the clinic. The girls loved having so much say-so over my new look, and made me try on at least 50 different frames. I had collected my faves along the way – and it wasn’t until we reached the very last section of girly frames that my heart went pitter-patter. I had never heard of this brand before, all I knew is these frames were cool. And I mean, I loved every pair of them. My kids did, too. I picked my favorites and I kinda knew – I mean, I had a sit down in front of a mirror and ran through all my choices again but I just knew the last pair, this new brand, they’d be the ones.

And they were.

I ordered them, lenses with all the fixin’s (or so I thought) and got a little excited about their arrival. They came, I saw, there was glare, they went. I’m waiting for them, again. They’ll be here later today or tomorrow, probably, as I forgot to get the anti-reflective coating on the lenses. My bad. And glare? Sucks.

So here I am telling my husband about them this weekend, because he hadn’t seen them on me. He got the impression that they were those new “hip” retro frames that would make me look all crazy 60’s kinda, so I did a quick google to see if I could find them, and sure enough, I did.

And when I did, I gasped. Could it be? These frames were meant for me. I’m serious. Let me show you:

So yeah, they’re cool and I know – you want to see them on me. I’ll show you when they arrive. Pinki swear. (She says, with fingers crossed.) So they’re called Heliconia, and just in case you can’t see the blurb, here’s a closer-up view of that:

Sheep says: Mmmmeh.

 

Barn Owl says: Look eento my eyeeees. You are getting verrrry verrrry sleepy.

 

Gibbon Monkey says: unh. yeah, looking… *yawn*stretch*flops down*

 

Barred Owl says: ZzzzZZZ wootWOOOOooooo ZzzzzZZZZ

 
TGIF!

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Another bird from our local zoo, this is a Lilac Breasted Roller. I am always looking for these cute colorful birds when I visit the zoo, they’re stunning to look at. I rarely get a good photo of them since they’re kept behind plexiglass and their lighting is so blech, every time they move even slightly, the shot is a blur. They’ve recently relocated the Rollers to a better area near a door that has natural light filtering through it, so I’ve got a couple of decent shots now. You’ll definitely be seeing this bird become an oil painting!