These two got their red hair from their mom. Yes, they did. Do not even question it.
This is {Stephanie} MAY and {Stormie} DAE, who make up MayDae :: both a trend-setting blog and vintage and all things fun and interesting Etsy shop.
Just wanted you to get in on the fun.
This is my little Hunter-Magoo :: future big brother http://powersadoptionstory.blogspot.com/
Our very seriously creative and talented, colorful and multi-faceted photographer and graphic-designer friend, offers to help the {very expensive} adoption process along.
Ellie is proprietor of 2 super-cool businesses, one being her photography (www.lilacphotography.com) and the other, specialing in unique, personalized photo cards and announcements (www.photocardchef.com). You can read all the details here , but basically, Ellie will donate $100 off any Lilac Photography photo session and/or 20% off any orders with Photo Card Chef. Mention Tara’s blog to get the discounts. Check out Ellie’s work. It is really good!
Which turned out w a a a a a y better than they should have for my little $69.99 Kodak digital camera.
Check out this weed. This was in the mountains when Dave and I were there a few weeks back. It was getting ready to spread its’ seed everywhere. I just like how it captured the almost explosive-movement. No touch-ups. Just this. As weeds go, pretty lovely.
And then these two. With really good cameras you can adjust the focus so that the things you aren’t focusing on are blurry, out-of-focus. I do not have that option. But my camera, for some strange reason. did that anyway. I think I may have been zoomed, I am not sure. But I love how it blurred the background. These are not touched up. If I’d known I’d stumbled into something, I’d have tried more of whatever it was. *smile
Look at that crazy-awesome background blur.
I LOVE corn on the cob. Did you know that? Love it. It is the Iowa girl in me.
All together now – JUMP!
Remember when we were kids and adults made us smile for pictures when the sun was totally in our eyes? Yeah, well, now I have done that to my own grandbebes. I just thought they should experience it. Haha.
Little tiny Amelie walloped her cousin, Gavin, the other day and when her daddy said, “Amelie-no hitting,” she crossed her arms and lowered her shoulders with a decided **harrumph** and plopped herself down. It is hilarious thing to see such an itty-bitty pull such a big-girl move. It probably won’t be that cute 6 months from now, but it sure was this week.
Engagement to her cute guy? Check. Amazing ring? Check. Location for the wedding (a barn!!)? Check. Dress? Check.
I should mention, I had just dropped the green beans into boiling water for 10 seconds and then quickly submerged them into ice water to shock them green-green and make them positively delectable for random all-day-long munching. Mmm. Mm. Mm!
You’re just going along, enjoying summer living, and then the veins of the leaves go blood red and begin pumping color into a random branch here or there. Fascinating!
Is there really any actor who is more beautiful than James Garner? I mean, he stayed good looking,too. And he is a man’s man. And when he had his show The Rockford Files, my dad loved it because he had a similiar swagger. And I always thought of my dad as very handsome and put together, too, and definitly full of self-assured attitude. So, yes, James Garner could have played the role of my dad.
My mamala never wore one stitch of make-up in her life until retirement and barely now, so this younger, slightly less-than-ultra-glamorous version of Barbara Stanwick would work, more innocent. Barbara was always a little feisty, and my mom was and is just plain SWEET! She is a loving, forgiving, guile-less woman. She is truly beautiful, really gorgeous features, but never capitalized on them. To this day, she has a jawline women pay big money to try to get.
Joe. He had to get glasses in the 4th grade, I think. He was a cutie, really, always a fav with the girls. He had coarse, naturally wavy (a little bit curly) dark hair he tried to keep under control. He still has all his hair, though it is silvery with wisdom now. He was like-able and nice, a good friend and sweet brother who just had that awkward glasses stage for a time. But oh, I love him. Yes, Ernie from My Three Sons could be Joe in the TV version.
Irrepressible. Cute. And asked mom to shave his head on a couple of occasions, oddly.
Remember that show? Buffy was a twin to Jonny Whitaker? And she had a doll names Mrs. Beasley? Tami had that doll, too and was cute as a button, 6 years younger than me.
Danny was the cute little cuddler. The baby. Mom’s little fella.
She played Danny Partridge’s girlfriend, Gloria, in an episode or two of my fav show. Her teeth, like mine, were a little big for her head and her hair was fine, like mine. And if she weren’t an actress with a make-up crew, I bet it would have been as stringy as mine, too. She was blonder, but yes, Jodies could play the role of Jeanie, I think.
I found an image of a slightly messy chalkboard on google-images.
I uploaded it to Picnik.com.
I typed in some text and a few “stickers” and then faded them 30-40% or so from the orginal full-strength white and voila! I have no idea if I have any use for this in the future, but I did it. 5 minutes of good fun.
Right-click on the empty chalboard at right and you can give it a go, too.
So, like 75 days now…actually less. Luckily, though, Ryan and Tredessa are having a small family wedding, so we should be able to pull it off. I mean I have got all the talent in the world in my fam!
Elise-the-Niece is getting married to Matt in 11 days.
Better bring a sweater, Stef.
Love your love, my sweets. 8 very, very good years.
Five beautiful years for two gorgeous lovers! Congrats, my sweets!
I am catching up on reading and writing and organizing my computer files and photos and downloading video and editing video and getting room service every morning. From Dave.
Yes. It is time.
UPDATE 9/14/11 :: Apparently rain in Denver = snow in elevations over 10,000 feet. Living in Colorado this long I should know that, yet am here, expecting up to 6″ of snow tonight, in flip-flops and a hoodie. Hehe.
Just after the proposal – sporting the ring.
Recently.
A super-tiny family ceremony to follow in really short order. On with the business of being married!
Our very first son-in-law just drummed his way right into our hearts and and still keeps the beat, all these 10 years later, to the soundtrack that is our family-life.
Wow, we got spoiled. We lucked out. We got blessed. We couldn’t have done it better if we’d spent years and years auditioning candidates. God just knew. He knew what we needed. He knew what was missing for us, for you, too. And He put you in our family, where you are looked up to as the big brother, the musical genius, the technological wizard, the guy who knows everything we need to find something out about. Ask Tristan. You’re like our very own, personal search engine. AskTristanDotCom. *smile
That you are a good man, one for which we can thank God everyday, is evidenced by Stephanie’s success and deepening beauty. That you are a trustworthy and righteous man is proven by the honoring and great-hearted children you are raising, so loved and so loving, each distinctively developing their own joy-bringing personalities. Your family, Steph and the kids, look at you in a way that says: Tristan is in his element, right where God created him to be.
We so appreciate and admire your bravery and courageousness in providing for your family creatively. We applaud the sacrifices you’ve made for the greater good and commend you for good choices in hard times. Yours is a colorful, thriving, gorgeous family. All you are doing right – shows.
Your parents got you at birth. You are their son, the best of the best, the great product of the heritage they have given you. But then God knew what we Rhoadeses would need. And He sent you our way as a gift. And that was a blessing for us. So we celebrate your birth. And we thank your parents for the way they raised you. And we thank God for showing us His favor in this way.
This kid does it all!Gavin comes over on a Saturday to help his grandpa with some car stuff. Looking spiffy in his army shirt while they enjoy their fast-food breakfasts, he watches the military channel with his grandpa and thinks maybe the army would be a good career. Although, he muses, being a fireman might be something he would like. He has been thinking about it and how to put out fires without inhaling the smoke that could kill you.
Awhile later, he comes in to cool off from these hot days we are having. He carefully unpacks the by-permission-only tote full of his grandpa’s very old, original Hot Wheels set up and races some new cars they have just purchased to see if they are as good. He likes them a lot. Upon pondering the fact that his grandpa played with those very toys at his age, and then his Uncle Rocky and even his mom played with them and now him, he very thoughtfully sees ahead, “And someday I will give them to my kids.” There is a catch in my throat.
To him that seems a million years away, but I know the truth – that is just around the corner and yes, God willing, even Gavin’s children will play with those Hot Wheels on miles and miles of that old orange track.
“Nonna, come and see my office,” he tells me after we had watched 10 minutes of the Hurricane Irene coverage. He’d been explaining how he is good at science and is seriously thinking of a career as a weather-man, the kind who does reports from a helicopter. He has a computer and headset and he is feeding reports to a TV newsroom.
When his little cousin Averi arrives, he explains to her that he will be giving her reports from the helicopter while she sits at the news desk. She runs off at will talking on her little play cell phone and tells him she is too tired to work. He explains to her that she has to get back to work because he needs to give his weather report to some one. She is the perfect on-air personality. He keeps flying around and doing his thing, reporting on the very inclement weather somewhere in the world.
I ask Gavin and Averi if they’d like a snack. Averi checks the pantry for something sweet and wonders if I might have candy. I offer them tortilla chips as an alternative. But Gavin says, “I’d like a tomato, please, and the salt.” The kid is genius, truly. I slice a red, red beefsteak up for him and he enjoys it thoroughly. And this is undeniable proof that he came from me.
He carries heritage and our whole family history and probably all the quirks, too, and is carefully planning to pass it on in a rich, giving, hard-working, enthusiastic, imaginative life. He is better than I ever was, or will ever be.
