Budding Photographer

So last month we had a bad streak of things breaking in our house. My car, our laptop, our hair dryer, and our camera all broke with in a week of each other. The car is fixed for the time being (though it's on its last wheels, literally. I see a new car in my future...) we splurged and got a nice new laptop, we are letting our hair dry naturally and asking for a camera for Christmas. My parents lent us an old camera of theirs to get us through the holidays.

Our camera was broken by me and R. It was mostly my fault because I left the camera on the counter with the camera strap dangling tantalizingly over the edge of the counter. R came along and pulled the strap. The camera crashed on the floor and the lens popped out and cracked. Bummer.

The camera still works, but it has no way of focusing. So tonight I gave it to R to entertain him while C and A were doing some exercises and P was working on homework.

He had a blast, he didn't care at all about looking at the pictures he took, he just wanted to run around and take pictures of random stuff Here are some of his best ones:










-The Good Stepwitch

Growing up

Today was haircut day for R. (sigh)

I have mixed feelings about haircut days. Chris loves the look of buzz cuts on little boys, and I agree it's cute. But I also think little boys with blond curls are A-DOR-A-BLE. So this past summer we buzzed R's hair for the first time and I loved it, but I could not believe how much OLDER it made R look. I was really shocked. He kept the buzz all summer, but come September, we let it grow again. And his curls came back!

And they were A-DOR-A-BLE!

But they were getting a little unruly, and Chris started hinting that it was really time to get his haircut again. I agreed, but didn't want a super-short buzz. So this was R last night, still curly:


And here he is tonight:

This milk is quite good, could I get you sippy cup? Or some juice maybe?

He looks a whole year older! How does that happen?? He can't be getting this big this quickly, can he?

Thankfully, his second pose proved to me he really is still 2 1/2. What a ham. Buzz cut or curls, he's still pretty stinking cute.




-The Good Stepwitch

My First Sweaty Concert!

Any one who knows my hubby knows that he is a music-junkie. He likes all kinds of music and goes to all kinds of concerts, sometimes just by himself, sometimes with his son, P. Sometimes with his mom, and sometimes with me. A lot of the concerts he goes to with P are Punk / Rock concerts and festivals. He crowds surfs, he stage dives, he moshes and he sings REALLY loudly and is right up front for every number.

Needless to say, the concerts that he and I go to are not usually those kind of concerts. We go to see Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, Aimee Mann... where there is a slightly mellower crowd. We are still must be right up close to the action when possible, but there usually just a lot of swaying and singing along and cheering and the feeling of: Ahhh, this is a nice night out listening to music with my hubby.

Then two weeks ago, I had my first sweaty concert with the hubby.

Sweaty Concert was a term I coined after realizing that when C would come home from some concerts, he would be bruised, bloodied, sunburn, clothes ripped or lost, and he would be so stinky and sweaty (even AFTER driving home!) that I would not let him touch me until he was showered and had started the laundry. So now, whenever he mentions to me he is thinking of going to a show and would I like to go, my first question is: Is it a sweaty concert? If the answer is yes, I tell him why don't you take P?

However, when he asked me if I'd like to go with him to see Frank Turner at the TLA in Philly, I was interested. I LOVE Frank Turner. For many reasons. First of all, he's a punk singer/songwriter from England, he's adorable and witty and plays accoustic guitar (he admits not very well) but what he lacks in skill, he makes up for with passion. Did I mention he's British - such a lovely accent... If you haven't heard of him - please look him up!

So I was totally up for a Frank concert.

Will it be a sweaty concert? I asked.

I don't think so, C answered. He doesn't have a big following here.

So we went! We had a wonderful date night dinner out in Philly on South Street. I was facing the door, and after we ordered, I looked up and guess who walked in the door of the restaurant? Frank-Freaking Turner and his band!!!! I had a famous-person-flip-out moment as I choked out to C: Look, it's FRANK! He walked by our table, and cool as a cuccumber, C says very politely, Hey Frank, we're looking forward to the show later.

Frank smiled at us and said, That's brillant! (or words to that effect) and went on his way. I was dazzled.

We got to the concert and waited through 2 opening acts before Frank Took the stage. He started playing and all of a sudden I was moving. Literally picked up off my feet by the crowd around me and we all surged ahead to the stage, to FRANK! C held me tight, for a moment I scared I was going to fall, or be trampled or something, but it was great! We were right up front, maybe 3 people back from the stage, and we screamed every song and moshed and danced and C saved me from a crowd surfer landing on my head (good thing he is so tall!). It was a great, crazy date night!

And the best part was we were both so stinky and sweaty afterwards we could hold hands all the way home with out feeling icky!




-The Good Stepwitch

Excuses

I have not been the best blogger lately. I was really good at this two years ago. I would think about what I was going to post every other day or so, and take pictures and sometimes even create artwork for my posts! Now I seem to have no time for sitting down for even 10 minutes to post an entry! Hmmm....

Something must have happened in those two years... something small, and blond, something usually hungry, and always wanting to play. Someone, actually, with a ridiculously cute smile and a super special way of taking my face between his two cute little hands, physically turning my head towards his, and whispering: "Let's play, Mommy! Let's play!"

Well, duh, of course we're going to play!




- The Good Stepwitch

Pirate Shirt

So, I try be to crafty every now and then. But being a graphic designer, I have high crafting expectations, and when my crafty projects don't end up the way I want them to, I get bummed out. But I have finally learned an important crafting lesson: Get the right (AKA: better quality) craft materials, and you will get the results you are after.

I am constantly frustrated by the lack of cute, graphic boys casual shirts available. And I don't want to pay $20 for a shirt Ryan will grown out of (or stain) in a couple of months. So I decided to start designing some graphic play shirts for him, and use iron-on transfer sheets and embellishments like paint markers and embroidery floss to add some character. The problem was I also was cheap, and got some crappy brand transfer sheets, so the transfer never lasted through more than one wash, and sometimes wouldn't even adhere to the fabric! And I got the crafty-blues.

But then I tried Avery brand Transfer sheets and all is well. They are great and I have never had a problem with them. Go Avery!

SO: I found this adorable pirate ship graphic for download on one of my favorite blogs: The Graphics Fairy (there is link to the site on the right).


I added an "R" the middle sail, and printed the ship artwork on to the transfer sheet, after mirror-flipping the image. I had picked up a $3 gray long sleeve shirt from WalMart for this project, I wanted the design to be subtle, so I left the ship black.




I cut it out, and placed it in the lower left corner of the shirt, like it was just sailing along. Then I ironed it on.

Now the fun part! I used fabric paint markers to add some colors to the flags of the ship. And that was it! It's cute and easy, and the shirt is gray (so hopefully it won't show stains too quickly.)



That reminds me of another transfer trick - if you have a shirt that has a stubborn stain on it, but otherwise the shirt is in good shape, just place a dark color transfer graphic over the stain, and it hides it perfectly! I did this with a cute white and blue shirt R got. He wore it twice before getting a spot of spaghetti sauce on in that refused to come out. So I designed a large Thomas the Train graphic that used a lot of dark navy blue, and placed it so the stain was covered! It's like a brand new shirt, plus it's a Thomas shirt , so it's new AND improved in R's opinion.

Can you find the stain?

Let's hear it for cute, cheap play shirts!!


-The Good Stepwitch