Save The Toys!!

As you may know, I'm a huge fan of all things handmade.  I've also, since the lead scares of Chinese made products, become more vigilant about what toys I buy for the kiddos.  Which brings me to the reason for this post.  I can't type eloquently right now with both kids at my knee, so I'll send you to this link, but to sum it all up, congress is passing legislation that would make it almost impossible for small handmade toy makers (including, possibly, my talented lil' sis) from selling their toys (by forcing them to go through very expensive testing).  There is a huge community of people who make their living this way (check out etsy.com if you haven't already), making awesome toys that are personal, handmade, well crafted and unique.  Coming from a long line of craftsmen, and being a small business "crafter" myself, I'm asking you today to take a tiny bit of your time to help.  Because I want to be able to buy this and this and this for my babes!

Dance, Dance and more dance.

Just wanted to get this video up for everyone.

Sweetie Pie SugarBunch

Sweet is a word used a lot when people talk about Fin.  He's a "sweetie pie" a "sweetheart" he has the "sweetest voice" and the "sweetest eyes."  People just can't help but turn into gooey doe-eyed puddles of goodness when they are around him.  Not to say that he is just an angel sent from heaven who only says and does amazingly sweet things.  But there is something special about him, that touches even the most jaded of adults.  

Last week when I picked him up from school, he had a sticker on his shirt.  Everytime I pick him up he has a sticker.  And every time I ask him why he got a sticker, I get the same response I get when I ask him what he did at school.  "I don't remember."  This is a boy who remembers exactly what he wore one year ago to his Christmas pageant, a boy who remembers exactly who went with us to pick out a tree two years ago, and a boy who recognizes the hospital he was born in, though we've driven by it maybe twice.  But he "can't" for the life of him remember what letter he learned about or what book he read that day.  *grrr*  So I've kind of given up on the sticker thing.  I figure he got it because he washes his hands or something.  So as I'm signing him out, his teacher comes over and says, "I have to tell you why Griffin got a sticker today, it was so sweet."  Apparently they had more kids than usual stay for nap time, and were short a few mats to sleep on.  So some kids got mats, and some had blankets.  Well of course all the kids wanted the mats.  Griffin got a mat, but saw that his friend Blake did not get a mat and was upset.  He turned to Blake, handed him his mat, and said, 

"Here, you can hab my mat Bwake."  

His teacher continued and said, "Its stuff like that that really makes my job great, its so nice to hear a kid who doesn't always just say MINE!"  I got all teary and ruffled his hair, and said, "yeah, he's a sweet boy."

Two days later we're at his Christmas pageant and Griffin stands next to Blake on stage.  The entire time, Blake is teary and looks just miserable.  Afterwards, we were watching the video at home, and I said, "Hey Fin, what was going on with Blake?  He looks upset."  

"Yeah, I don't know.  Maybe he's just annoying."

Ahhh my sweetie pie.

Its Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

We started our Thanksgiving weekend by making some felt ornaments with Auntie Jessie.  Although she said she wanted to make them since she didn't have any for her tree, she left every single one here, and will probably not remember to take them till Easter.  The kids loved the glue, and cracked themselves up by putting noses where mouths should have been, boots where eyes should have been, you get the idea.  And I mean, they were laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.  Thats how funny it was to them.  The next morning (Thanksgiving Day) we had some cheerios and watched the parade, though Daddy couldn't sit through more than two floats before he rolled over into the fetal position and started crying.  What kind of perverse childhood he had to have had to not at least have some fond memories of parades I don't know, but the man can't stand to watch them.  Then we headed over to Nannie and Poppies new house for our annual Thanksgiving brunch.  Parker walked half way up the walkway before she realized, what a tic, I have not been to this house before and stopped dead in her tracks.  She wouldn't move till she saw Nanny in the doorway.  We hung out, watched football (my eyes promptly glazed over) and I marveled at my husband as he talked football with his family.  Later in the day I would do the same as he talked with my family about football.  Its just still bizarre to me that he likes/cares/knows anything about football.  He doesn't watch at home (I'm sure because he can't stand me groaning and flopping around on the floor, not unlike what he does during parades.)  After nap time at home, we headed over to my aunt's house in Huntington Beach, where my mom's side of the family was all gathered.  Sadly my Nana was taken to the emergency room earlier that day for some chest pain.  She's okay now, but she missed Thanksgiving, and we all missed her greatly.  My great aunt and uncle (Nana's sister and brother-in-law) also joined us for the first time.  They live in Montecito, and unfortunately their house was destroyed in the recent fires.  Though the circumstances were sad, it was fun to have them there, my mom's cousin also came and brought her little pug with her, to the delight of the kidlets.  With the addition of the pug, that brought the dog count up to four.  So with four dogs, two kids, and like twenty adults, it was a loud, raucous Thanksgiving, just how I like it.  

Friday and Saturday I had to work, but Sunday we FINALLY got out the Christmas decorations and started decorating the house.  I say FINALLY because Fin has been OUTRAGED that we had not done so earlier.  "THEY hab dere Srissmiss decorations up!  Why don't we?!  We MEED our Srissmiss decorations up!"  he would proclaim at the mall.  The first words out of his mouth upon waking were, "Are we going to put up our Srissmiss decorations today?!?"  So we decorated.  We started with the kids room, and they ended up with about 75% of all our decorations, since Fin kept saying, "Yeah, that wooks good.  But what else can we put in here?"  His appetite for decorating has been sated sufficiently, though he's still a little peeved that we don't have a tree yet.  I let him decorate his little tree in his room, and its so cute to look at it, there are twenty ornaments on it, all on the right hand side, since thats the side that was closest to him.  I put up some decorations downstairs too, and when I asked him what he thought, he took a step back, pondered a bit, then nodded sagely, "Yeah. That wooks good."  Watch out Martha.  There's a new kid in town.

PinkySwear Launch

Its official!  As some of you know, I've been working on a jewelry line with my good friend/old boss Alina.  As kindred souls, we've shared the same frustration at the lack of any great "mommy" jewelry.  We wanted to show off our babies names, but couldn't find anything that we really wanted to actually wear.  So we took our combined design and retail experience and came up with PinkySwear.    

And (drumroll please) as of yesterday our line is in the Santa Monica location of This Little Piggy Wears Cotton, and by this weekend will also be in Newport Beach, Montecito, and Santa Barbara locations.  We are so excited!!  Our website too will hopefully be up by this weekend, and I'll be sure to post when that is up. 

 In the meantime, here's some pictures of what we're doing.  All the pieces are made from 99.9 pure silver.  The silver we use is recycled silver that is combined with an organic binder, that we sculpt and fire (like clay).  When you fire the pieces, the binder burns away and you are left with the (almost) pure silver.  It makes the silver a really nice pale color, and all the pieces have this really great handmade, organic feel to them.  And since there is more silver content than sterling, it doesn't tarnish as easily.  We're also really excited that all the pieces are really flexible, in that we can add (or subtract) whatever you want from them.  So if you want a piece to show your love for your babies, your puppies, your man, whatever, we can do it.

Please feel free to show this to all your nearest and dearest (and whatever strangers you run into too!) :)  I'll be sure to post again as soon as the website is up!

Also, I owe a HUGE thank you to my brother-in-law, Chris, whose amazing pictures really made all this possible (aren't the pics bee-yoo-tiful??).  There's no way we could be where we are without those pics, so THANK YOU SO MUCH and I owe you some horchata!  :)  

A Reminder That They Are Always Listening

Parker was fussing.

"What's wrong Parker, are you hungry?"

"No.  I wanna 'ote."

"What?"

"I wanna vote!"

"You want to vote?!"

"Yes."

As we exit the polling place:

"That was fun!  I had fun!  Its weally cewl!" she exclaimed to everyone waiting in line.   

Next election season I'm going to send her door to door to register new voters.  Who could say no to that kind of enthusiasm?   

This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

We're big on Halloween in the Wright house.  We started talking about costumes months ago.  Parker immediately declared she wanted to be Tinkerbell ("A pink one!") and Fin initially wanted to be an astronaut, but I was hesitant to take that at face value so far away from the actual date.  But as time went on, he kept coming back to it, so an astronaut he was.  My dad asked if was learning about astronauts, or where he came up with that idea, and I have no idea.  Fin said he didn't learn about astronauts in school, and its not something we've talked about, we've been more all about spiders and dinos.  Its funny where they come up with this stuff.  It was probably something little like he saw a show where the kid dressed up as an astronaut.    We went homemade this year, and I think they turned out pretty awesome.  Fin's entire costume cost me $6 and Parkers was under $20, but more importantly, everything can be reused as regular clothes, and dress up.  Aunt Jessi made Parker's awesome tutu, and we painted her wings.  Fin's helmet was made out of a plastic pretzel jar, and he decorated it himself.  I made his "patches" out of foam stickers.  They looked so cute.  

We started our Halloween festivities with a pumpkin carving party at Gammie and Papa's house, where we made Fin a spider pumpkin and Parker a Mickey Mouse pumpkin.  Every time Parker would look at her pumpkin, she'd hug herself tight and say, "Oh, I wuuuvv it!  I wuuuvv it!"  Unfortunately those pumpkins only lasted till Tuesday, till they all burst into hairy mold and collapsed.  I didn't see  a lot of pumpkins out this year, so I'm thinking this was a common phenomena.    On Thursday we went with our friend Christy (or "Sristy" as Fin would say) to the Circle in Orange, where they were having a "Trick or Treat" The kids walked around a bit and got some candy, played some carnival games and danced with a "boneman" in the pseudo dance club they made for the kids out of two easy-ups.  They had a blast.  And finally on Halloween night my grandparents and parents came over for pizza and lasagna before we all headed out to trick or treat.  I was nervous because Parker has been going through an "anxious" phase, where she doesn't want strangers to talk to her, look at her, acknowledge her existence.  While my grandparents aren't strangers, Parker still immediately burst into tears when they arrived and demanded to go to bed.  But two hours later she was dragging Grandpa by the hand, commanding him, " 'Ome on! ome on!  I wanna go see Halloween!" as she walked over to our neighbors house.  The house is covered top to bottom with Halloween decorations, and Parker has designated it simply as "Halloween."  While trick or treating Fin was all business, running ahead to the next house as Parker chatted with the neighbors about how cute their dogs were, or explaining that she was Tinkerbell, or exclaiming "I'm having fun!"  Fin's helmet got too hot after a while, so he'd take it off in between houses, ring a door bell, then frantically yell, "Give me the helmet, give me the helmet!!"  They lasted about an hour, and half way through we had to hold the bags ("ugh! too heaby!" Parker'd say as she handed it off to Josh)  We'll have enough candy to last us till next Halloween and I'm already having to answer "When can we go trick or treating again Mama?"