Jon C.’s Neighborhood

...if there's anyone left reading this besides my mom and my husband.  shush now, i think you're probably the only one who didn't axe me from you neighborhood when i quit posting regularly!

anyway, a lot has happened in the last few months.  jonathan took a job with alamofire, which is pretty much completely awesome!  at first that meant a move from our beloved downtown fort worth to the southlake vicinity, or for us, the parental guest house in colleyville while we considered our options.  while we were considering, alamofire decided to move to austin!  so we shifted focus a few hours south and started visiting austin every other weekend or so.  after a some rearrangement of our plans and expectations, we found a loverly house, set a move date, and got moved!  so now we've been in austin for about 2 weeks, and so far it's pretty awesome.  we miss our friends and family in fort worth, but fortunately we already had some friends in austin, and we really like all the guys (and thier families) that jonathan works with now, so we're not feeling too lonely or anything.  in fact, noah's best friend will be moving here in the fall!  and speaking of noah, as you may have gathered from a couple posts ago, he is eagerly awaiting the arrival of a little brother or sister in early january or late december!  we're really excited about the little jelly bean, but it certainly has been a lot to deal with over the last few months.

so that's what's going on around here.  i will now return to my completely random postings of whatever happens to be on my mind.

= )

get a watermelon.  decide to cool it down quickly by putting it in the freezer, it's big it'll be fine for a while, right?  forget about the watermelon for 24 hours.  find it in the freezer, say some things under your breath about how stoopid it is that it didn't find it's own way out of the freezer.  put it on the counter to thaw because you don't know what else to do with it.  let it thaw for 24 hours, periodically wiping up the puddle it's sitting in.  place it on a cutting mat and stab a large knife right into the center.  stand there, ankle deep in juice, and ponder on why it's called a "watermelon".

n: it's a monster!

j: no, it's a ghost!

n: no, it's a monster and it's trying to get us!

j: it's a ghost and it's friendly!

n: i'm going to shoot it!

j: don't!  it wants to be our friend!

n: no it doesn't, it's a mean monster and it just got me!  i'm dead!

j: no, you're not!

n: (from the floor) yes i am!

j: (pulling on hand) no you're not!

n: ....

j: can we play some video games?

1.  wear an apron, 'cause it's going to spit grease at you.

2.  yes, the fancy expensive stuff does taste better.

3.  make more.  no, really, you're not making enough.  double it.

that is all.

 

seriously, i couldn't make this up if i tried.

noah:  i wonder what i'll get for christmas.

me:  christmas is a long way off, and don't you think that's a little greedy to be thinking about your christmas presents already?

noah:  but i just wonder what i'll get.

me:  well, sometime around christmas you'll get your baby brother or sister.

noah:  and that'll be the biggest present.  all the other ones will just be little ones.

me:...sniff...

noah:  yep, mommy, you already have my best christmas present in your tummy.

then noah runs off (probably to have a play fight with his stuffed animals) and i am so moved it causes me to return to blogging.  tearful blogging, because i have the best son in the whole world.

see you in 6 months...

ok, not really.  but i do love tea, and also teapots, and have somehow started a collection without meaning to.  it all began when my seester gave me some yummy tea and adorable teacups for a bridesmaid gift.  later she found out i had no teapot, so she gave me one of those for christmas.  then my voonderbob husband gave me an adorable teapot one day just to remind me that he loves me very much exactly how i am.  imagine my distress when i broke it.  serious llama face.  eventually he gave me a new one, and then my mom got me a seriously cool one and suddenly there are as many teapots as people in our house, and i'm the only one who seriously drinks tea.  for some reason this has only made me like teapots more, perhaps because every time i see one, i think of someone i love.  speaking of love....

on february 3rd, my mr. jonathanly and i celebrated 8 years of blissful marriage.  i have loved every moment of it, even the tough ones, and am thrilled to say that i love him every bit as much and probably more than i did on the day we got married.  i still feel like i've been given an incredible gift every day when i wake up and find my best friend already beside me.  and this year, my wonderful, thoughtful anniversary gift was, naturally, a new teapot.

(as usual, pardon my less than stellar photography)

guest starring the bubby and my mr. jonathanly!

this is coming rather later than i intended it to, seeing as it's christmas related, but it's still fun, so....yeah.

paper chain winter wonderland!

first, of course, you need paper.  we considered coloring ours first (which would look very festive, i think), but in the end we went with snowy white.

you'll also need scissors and tape.

after some trial and error, i felt that cutting one sheet of paper into 8 strips widthwise resulted in the nicest looking loops.  i had the easiest time getting uniform sizes if i folded the paper into 8ths first and then cut along the folds.  this can leave a bent edge on your loops, so if you've got a good eye, you might prefer to freehand it like jonathan did.

after cutting strips, it's a simple matter of making a loop with one strip and then another loop through that loop and so forth.
noah was really good (and really liked) making the loops!

we also made a few snowflakes to add to our wonderland, but somehow i don't seem to have pictures of that...

don't make the chains too long, or you'll have a terrible time handling them.  don't forget to decorate yourself a little during the process.

after you have all the chains you want, (we ran out of time for all we wanted, but still really enjoyed what we had you'll need someone skilled in the stepladderly arts who also has a good eye for draping and looping.  in our house that is unequivicaly jonathan.  (i'm fine on a stepladder, but not so much with the making pretty stuff).

once it's all hung, sit down, drink some cocoa, and admire the loveliness!

aren't they cute!

it makes me really happy that he loves the gloves i made him enough to fall asleep with them on. = )