Oblivia strikes again...

Springs fits and starts have begun. If i were to do a character sketch of who i think spring would be if she were a person. She'd definitely be a she, and she'd be HORMONAL and bipolar. laughing one minute, full of creativity and energy and joy and crying pitifully the next feeling utterly hopeless... This is how i feel in spring. I'm literally a crazy person.

It's been a weird few weeks. I keep forgetting things that i remembered just a moment before, i chopped off a small hunk of my left pointer finger (it's pretty gross), and one minute i'm: wall papering the house in packing paper and drawing all sorts of things, baking a quiche, dancing around in a tutu, singing out of tune but joyfully, and the next minute i'm: weeping in a pile of dirty laundry... 

oh well. i guess that's how it goes for some of us. I'd like to ask folks who i've come in contact with recently to forgive me though. as much as you can at least... there's really no excuse except oblivia seems to have taken over as the strongest of my tri-fold personalities. 

in the mean time, while we're waiting for normal me to return, not too much is going on. work is kicking along as usual. busy and slightly dissatisfying but i guess that's normal. the kiddos are doing great. and normal i guess. though they had their first dentist visit and yikes... may require taking Asa to an oral surgeon... but more on that later.  ben is ben. the hollow is trying to wake up for spring but it's so hard when it's so cozy under the covers and the alarm clock just isn't ringing very loudly. 

I can't wait for CSA to start again. for trampoline weather, for short-sleeves and hoola-hoop weather... for canoe rides and frozen bananas. 

while i'm day dreaming of warmth, here are some pictures to keep you occupied.

The Monster Calendar... Good luck with printing... :P

My folks and brother in 1979? (before Libby existed)

stop looking at me like that!

Asa's birthday post

Asa turned 3 on January 10th. We had another spaghetti dinner but this time at my parents house. He asked for chocolate chip cookies instead of a cake. So made a plate of cookies (with real chocolate and sugar - though not as much as the recipe called for) and we had several flavors of rice dream ice cream. When i asked him a week ago what he wanted for his birthday he said "Chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, and a new gun". So we also bought him a new gun. Actually several people got him a new gun.  I bought him a bubble gun which is just a bubble machine that you hold like a gun. (i'll post a video of him playing in the bubbles). My folks got him a wooden toy replica of an old flint lock pistol (and a fake coon skin cap to match AND a radio-flyer style covered wagon). And my brother made him a rubber band gun (i didn't get any pictures of this, but i will). He had a great birthday i think. And we've been taking advantage of the mild winter and throwing both kids in the covered wagon and pulling them along the drive way to collect acorn caps and shoot at pretend bad guys and food.

i've been slacking and still have yet to write Asa's birthday letter, AND Esther's is long over due now. I feel guilty about it. But not guilty enough to do much about it.

\Here are some pictures to keep you occupied.

January, my old frienemy

So. January. End of...
We're enemies,  January Through mid-March. Or maybe more like frienemies. I think i like winter. i like the idea of winter. i love snow. i even like feeling cold (sort of). But the 8 weeks between the middle of January to the middle of March, is the slowest, most awkward, most bipolar inducing 8 weeks of the year for me. So say hello to one of my many alter-egos "Blubby" (a combination of blubbering and Libby.  Both cause i feel fat these months (shut up) and because i am a whiny blubbering fool.  Other alter egos include "Oblivia" (spacey and slightly hyper Libby), "Libidia" (combination of libido and libby, this also usually involves alcohol) , and "The Liberator" (super hero libby and sometimes trouble maker but in a wholesome way).

A couple years ago i decided that if i plan adventures for Jan, Feb, and March i will have things to look forward to and distract me enough to help get me through the winter without going to the super dark place and making everyone miserable and possibly greeting each person i came into contact with on a daily basis with a punch in the ear (if your so tall i can't reach your ear, i'd likely go for the groin, so no short jokes).

January's Distraction - So last weekend we had the joyous adventure of THE MIDWINTER BALL! The MidWinter Ball is a huge contra dance put on by the Baltimore Folk Music Society. This year they got one of my all-time favorite contra bands to play, Perpetual E-motion.  If you're not a contra dancer or you're a music snob (like my husband) you may not be that into them. But let me tell you, they are REALLY fun to dance to.  Also, the theme of this years dance was "Steampunk". Which, at first, seems very odd. But after some goofing around with costumes, turned out to be a fantastic theme!  So we all dressed up. I say we, because jesy, casey, mom, and myself all went together. So that was January's adventure. I'm not sure how i'm going to fair over the next two weeks while January comes to an agonizingly slow close. But Restaurant week in bmore starts this weekend so maybe food will do the trick.

(photo courtesy of ian)

February's Distraction - So far my scheduled distraction is driving up to pittsburgh (with ben and the kiddos) to celebrate my sister's birthday with her and her husband. Perhaps if we're lucky, it'll be a fun trip with little hassle and lots of sleeping children in the car.  I'm also hoping to schedule ben and my baby-free get away during either february or april, we haven't nailed down a time yet though.  We were considering not planning anything and just driving where-ever the wind blows us and sleeping in the car. you know, for old-times sake. and cause we're poor-ish.

March's Distraction - I bought a plane ticket to Boston. to see Kit again. No better way to round off the winter blues session with a fellow winter-bluer.  If you recall, last February i went to Boston to see Kit for the first time in TEN years. Determined to ensure that it's not another TEN years before i see her again, the gods have been selling cheap airfare through jetblue. So i bought a round trip ticket to Boston for a grand total of $89.

That will likely do it for the winter's distractions. Hopefully, the little things will help to. like doing yoga with jesy this thursday, taking ceci out for her birthday date, driving to the accountants office for the 3rd time in a week to do our taxes because we forgot yet something else...

so how are you this lonely and rainy winter?

The Incredible, Fantastic, Oh-so-creative, Unca-EEEEEN

Firstly, i want to thank Unca-EEEN for my christmas presents. He made new headers for my blog, 5 different ones to be exact. One of which you can see RIGHT NOW! They're wonderful and amazing and i'm so stinking excited about them. 

Secondly, the pic here shows you the very amazing Christmas present he made for his Esther. This dry-erase board has our faces as magnets so we can be anything we want to be. This has been the only thing that makes our poor sad, sick esther feel better these last couple of days. She draws and draws and draws. So thank you Unca-EEEEEN. We love you!

 

Christmas 2011

The little ones are sick. Double ear infections for both of them. Fevers, ralphing, in a lot of pain... quite miserable.  Esther was sick on christmas day and the poor thing was opening presents in between the chills and the ralphing. Asa got sick yesterday. They're living on toast, oj, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen...

Other than that our holiday has been a good one. Our house is now crammed with very small and weird toys, not to mention clothes, boxes, FOOD (please come eat all this food!!), and those tiny medicine cups with that disgusting sticky residue crusting on the bottom.

Hopefully, we'll be back up and running at normal speed come this weekend, as Tita and Badu are coming to celebrate the new year and dad's 60th birthday.

ben's ancestor???

found this amazing painting in an antique shop while doing some xmas shopping.  Isn't the resemblance to Ben a bit uncanny? i mean aside from the fact that this guy has hair... and is a little more gaunt...  still though, i'm thinking great-uncle, three-times great grand father?

I'm an Auntie!

Ben's sister, Jessica Hopkins with the support of her husband, Eric had their first baby. Mr Emmet Benjamin Hopkins on December 16th.

I'm still waiting to meet my nephew as i have sickie germs and do not want to pass them on (unless it's to a nemesis).

the hollow (thx ian)

Asa with the pretty face-a

Belated Halloween pics

the robot

and the gnome

Our hilarious attempts to get a good christmas card photo

don't worry, i don't think you'll be getting any of these jewels in your christmas card this year... i just thought i'd share the failure.

have you seen this?

also, have you seen this? http://alchemy.l8r.pl/

(thanks :ee)

the wayward poster...

So yes. i'm a slacker. but we're going to skip all of my feeling bad about it and get right to the good stuff... or at least the mundane stuff...

So. sheesh, when was the last time i wrote here? Oct 3rd? geesh i really do suck at this. remember the good ole' days, pre-baby, when i posted like 3 times a week?

Ok ... so let's time travel back to early october shall we?

Ben's birthday was fun. I managed to do enough freaking out before hand that while there i had a total blast. Ben did too i think. Next year i think we'll try it again, but maybe try for a bit longer at the lanes.  For his actual birthday i made homemade reubens which were delicious if i do say so myself.

We sold the toyota pick-up... sadness. i loved that truck. We "bought" it from our friend Sam Reed in Arizona coming up on 7 years ago i think.  I say "bought" because he wanted to give it to us but we insisted on giving him something even though we didn't have much. So we "bought" it for $500. I had the biggest crush on Sam Reed. He's a magnificent poet... we even kept the letter that he wrote about all the truck's little quirks.... we used to have weekly luncheons at a the mexican place with the really amazing beans and the pepper bar with pickled jalepenos that used to be a pizza hut.  sigh. oh sam.   oh truck. oh nostalgia!  Anyhow. It was time the truck moved on. As the truck was actually Ben's truck, he got to make all the decisions about whether or not to sell it and what to buy in its place. In place of the truck Ben has taken over the RAV and he bought me (as a surprise) a silver subaru forester. Yes folks, i finally did get my dream car! I feel very much like the mom that i am driving around in a station wagon. But i also feel safe in bad weather and happy to have a clean car that is MINE all MINE and that i can keep CLEAN!!  soon to come, picture of me and my new steed.

On October 28th, Esther turned 5. We did not make it up to Quarryville this year unfortunately. Esther and Asa were both pretty sick that week and we ended up sticking around the house. We did, however, have a small party for her at Lali and Granpa's house (at her request, because apparently their house is much more fun than ours).  She asked for a vanilla cake, which she helped Lali make (because not only is Lali's house more fun, but she's a better cook). She got a few small gifts... nothing that really made her day though. She asked for fish and i got her a toy fish bowl with moving fish (battery powered) that i thought was pretty cool and would sate the urge to care for fish but i failed and the fish conversation continues. I feel the need to defend my hesitation for real fish here... in case you don't know me that well, or if you forgot i am a FISH KILLER... yes that's right. i accidentally kill all fish... and to tell you the truth i'm not sure i'm ready to deal with a goldfish funeral... not emotionally equipped to have Esther weeping by the toilet as we say heart-felt goodbyes to ole' Finnegan the fish...

And yes, coming soon, Esther's birthday letter which, in keeping with tradition is going to be VERY late...

Oh. also remind me to tell you about the Amish party we had at our house back in October sometime. It was awesome and apparently we have Amish friends. cool, huh?

Let's see, i got a massage by a wonderful woman over in Cockeysville who is AMAZING and i highly recommend her.  Her name is Stephanie Haddock. She's fantastic.


Um... on the 26th i saw the dentist and i have two cavities that need filled...

Back at the beginning of November, my mother and i drove up to see my sister (Hi Casey!!!) and to go to the Contra Fall Dance Weekend. It was great fun and boy do i ever miss dancing and even more so, my sister. I like to day dream about moving to Pittsburgh to be closer to her and so Ben can be a city-boy again.

And finally, last weekend we celebrated Rache's 30th with her in style with expensive champagne and REALLY expensive truffles which we had intended to sneak into the movies but decided against it as we'd probably all just fall asleep...

That about does it as far as the catching-up with my life goes. i have photos of the kids to share and the fun story of the amish party...  but i'm not good at this so i'll just leave that for another belated post...

in other news, we're trying to figure out if Asa will be right or left handed, or both?

Happy Thanksgiving.