Life is short...

This weekend it was about 45 degrees out (Fahrenheit). Gorgeous. Kalina painted the bathroom. You can see the evolution of colors from where we removed our tiny shelf. It was a long time ago a horrendous pink/peach color. Then they painted it white. Then white with a tint of yellow. Now it is white with a tint of less horrendous pink with designs in a white with a tint of yellow. And if you look closely there is still some white in there, like inside the medicine cabinet. Very exciting. Apollo is wound up even though it's time for bed. He started babbling yesterday. Incessantly. But at least he's not crying. Like when his teeth hurt. We can see the whites of two new ones on top and one new one on bottom. And in a week he'll go in for his 9 month checkup.
On one of our walks today in the snow melting, sun shining spring weather we saw a sweet bumper sticker that said "Life is short, don't be a dick." I liked it. But for now I'm going to bed. Gotta wake up at 3.

thank god for easter

easter is my favorite holiday. by far the best candy. a delicious creamy goodness delicately wrapped in milk chocolate, could you ask for anything more? and easter has the best of colors. sure christmas you get to whip out shiny and sparkly things and i love it, but easter colors just make you feel good. don't mistake me for a big pastel fan, cuz really im not. but i like the patterns on easter socks, and i like bunnies. i hate eggs, but i like plastic eggs filled with candy! so what's not to love about easter.

it also harbors in the spring. which is wonderfully messy with mud and melting snow but cheery and bright. i like spring. i've got mostly waterproof boots, so what do i care if there's puddle after puddle on the sidewalk? in fact i like puddles. love puddles. love puppies. and little chicks. steven took apollo and i to see little baby chicks at murdochs* today. they were so cute! like spring. and they were cheap chicks- 2.99. if i had a yard of my own i'd buy a few chicks and make them into chickens so i could have fresh eggs every day! a lot of people do that here in bozeman. a lot of people also use wood axes to break up ice on the sidewalk/driveway/etc. its a little scary.

*murdochs is a ranch & home supply store.

three chairs and a crown

 

the outside photos are taken with the camera on my phone, so the resolution isn't great. but he looks so goofy i wanted to post them. apollo managed to pee through his regular clothes five minutes after leaving the house. the clothes he is wearing in these photos are all i had with me. he looks like a clown with a crown. steven and i have also been taking some video of apollo, so hopefully we can post that soon. 

so we bought some place mats for our new-to-us table! how sweet - a new table. it has three chairs, which is pretty awesome cuz there's three of us. on a whim i wanted to go to salvation army and it happened to be friday madness (everything is half off). so we got this dining set for less than the price of a new car. cheaper, even, then the watch i wear. and its perfect for our house. four place mats totaled to $2.30 so all-in-all i'd say we are pretty awesome. and now i have a chair to sit in.  

the last photo is an example of how apollo is now crawling. he does this bizarre one foot one knee thing. his left leg is always on the ground like a normal hands-n-knees crawling. but his right let rarely touches the ground. instead he manages to tuck his foot under. like a sprinter before the dash. goofy kid.  

teething blues

teething is the worst thing ever. apollo has been cranky for days. maybe even weeks. we've tried all the possible remedies: teething tablets, frozen teething rings, teething toys, and tylenol. it's starting to make me hate the letter 't.'

lately we've done a few new things. sunday we went to the "wild west winter fest." the wild west fest turns out to be a mini fair at the fairgrounds. they had a petting zoo filled with kids, kids, and bunnies. and pete was there. pete, the ton of a horse.

yesterday we took the bus to a place on campus that has ducks. when we visited bozeman back in september, we were shocked  to find a duck crossing sign in the middle of campus. we were even more shocked when we had to stop for ducks to in-fact cross. apparently there is a little pond fed by a hot spring that keeps all the bozeman duck residents happy. so we took apollo there yesterday and he loved it! he was trying desperately to chase after the ducks. this was quite comical as one of us would hold his hands in order for him to walk. so-imagine a lumbering adult bent over holding the little chubby fingers of a boy that can't yet walk on his own chasing ducks at a very slow, stumbling, but excited pace.

and finally apollo stood unassisted for the first time the other day. it lasted about 5 seconds.

! and ! apollo had his first big tumble today. he fell off the bed. aside from a little rug burn on the face he seems fine. bam! the end.

ive taken so many photos my camera is dead.

the last photo is apollo's valentine portrait for everyone. he knows he's got it going on, with or without pants. merry love day!

dressed to impress

apollo got his first pair of shoes the other day. they are keens and have a lemur on each shoe. we also pulled out some more clothes from storage. most of the shirts are polo shirts. so now my baby is stylin'. no more baby outfits. we're wearing collared shirts with jeans and street shoes. he looks like a toddler, not an eight month old. at this rate he'll look 20 when he is 12.

palak paneer

i just made palak paneer with some lassi for an authentic indian meal. yummy yummy yummy.


yummy.

apollo is good. while i was washing his diapers today apollo exploded in his all-in-one diaper. now im debating whether to wait the normal two days until i wash diapers to wash his all-in-one, or to wash it now. its like a lose-lose. if i wait there's a good chance the diaper pail will smell heavily of poopoopoo. if i wash it now i will have only one diaper to wash, which is a big waste of money and water.

oh boring old faith- why do you have to be so enduring?

im not schooled in christianity or any other faith. im fairly young in my own relationship with the god, but i like to think questioning our belief is key to deeping our faith. i think of it in two different ways. the first is like baking a semi-difficult item, say a french almond chocolate cake. sure, you can go buy the cake mix, add 2 ingredients to the powder and wallah-instocake. but if you bake a cake from scratch-whipping the eggs, melting the chocolate, chopping the almonds- you find out what goes into a french almond chocolate cake, and what happens if you miss a step or add too many. and it just tastes better.

and i think a large reason why it tastes better is because of the time and effort you put into it. it's not the cake that is the gift- it's everything that went into making the cake. so i feel this way with faith. until i put my time, effort, and over 20 minutes of whisking into it- it's not quite as rewarding. in the end you get chocolate cake or you get chocolate cake. in the end you get faith or you get faith. it may look the same to a passerby, but the recipe varies greatly.

the second way i look at faith is rather personal. i look at steven. more specific i look at my view of steven & our relationship. it has changed throughout the few (7 or 8) years we have been together. everytime i get frustrated, hurt, mad, or sad, our relationship grows. i learn how to cope with something. i learn how to share my feelings and ask the right questions. sometimes i find out quirks about my inner being. everytime im happy, we giggle and sing together, im reminded of the reasons i chose to hang out with this guy. and when really bad things happen, his unwavering love is an anchor i use to pull myself through the muck. i loved steven when we got married. and i love steven now. but love, like faith, means different things at different times. my love for steven is bigger than before, deeper, more resonate with the universe. and i wouldn't trade it for the old love, even though i know what we've had to go through to get it.

i like trying to find out what i believe, and why i believe it. when i push my faith, when i question it, i erase those invisible boundaries that restrain faith to a building, or a book. if god loves everyone, surely he will love one that questions his motives. doesn't a teacher love a child that wants to find out why something works? it may be burdening some, but once the child figures it out, it's like gold. enduring. last forever. so i question, wonder, and ask. and if, after the whys, a particular belief doesn't hold up, then it wasn't for me.

and obviously i did not make my goal of not using my computer for a month. im a failure, i know.