one-ofakind-sies!

i have recently joined the online community of etsy! if you're having a baby or know anyone who is, come check out my site: jhouseward.etsy.com.

here's a small sampling of what you might find over there:

all of my designs can be ordered on any size onesie in any color. and i would love to make a custom design if you have another idea for me.

thanks for taking a peek!

what a hoot!

at the end of the school year i put on a baby shower for my friends/coworkers alyssa and meghan, both due this summer. i decided to make some fun cupcakes from hello, cupcake! for the event:

little baby owlet: mini chocolate cupcakes, chocolate frosting, mini oreos, mini m&ms, and yellow chocolate-covered sunflower seeds

babies and their mamas (the mamas use oreos, junior mints, and banana runts)

i had fun giving the baby owls different expressions.

t & r

remember our friends tom and ruth? the ones that we immediately bonded with after moving here to california? the ones who we got together with multiple times a week? the same ones who moved to nebraska a year later to be closer to family and so that tom could begin a doctorate program in lincoln?

we decided to visit them!

as always with close friends, we picked right up where we left off and had a great time together. here are some of the highlights:

 tom and ruth hosted a murder mystery party with a napa valley theme. 

here we are in character: tiny bubbles and ralph rottengrape. 

i'm a good girl and he's a bad boy. and we're married.

it's hard to see, but ben has a cigarette behind his right ear and a skull earring dangling from his left.

tom and ruth in character: papa vito and hedy shablee. 

it's hard to see, but tom is wearing a fake beard.

we laughed a lot, ate some great food (cornish game hens, orzo, and poached pears were the highlights), and enjoyed meeting tom and ruth's friends steve and molly (pictured here as otto von schnapps and marilyn merlot).

we spent some time downtown lincoln, going out to eat, going in shops, visiting tom at school, etc. here we are at the lincoln train station posing with a caboose. 

and a locomotive.

we enjoyed indian food downtown.  

on tom's day off he showed us around the university. this is a mammoth at a museum at the school. 

the mammoth is the nebraska state fossil. do you know your state's fossil?

after seeing the museum we headed to the state capital building. when we arrived for the hourly tour there was already a group of fourth graders there. we tagged along with them and enjoyed the fourth grade version of the tour. we were very impressed by the class's knowledge of their state (could you name the month, day, and year when your state gained statehood? they could. in unison.)

at the end of the tour we got to watch the state senate in progress. 

here we are (we're the tiny people in front of the doors) outside the capital building. 

the figure on the top is the sower. he has holes in his head from lightning. 

if you went on the non-fourth grade tour you might not know that.

on wednesday both tom and ruth had to work. so we drove into omaha for the day. 

we spent the afternoon in old market going into a variety of shops and grabbing some lunch.

most of our time was spent talking, eating, and playing a variety of games (dominion, agricola, cargo noir, endeavor, forbidden island, euchre, etc.) but we don't have pictures of those activities. we (i) also spent a lot of time doing crossword puzzles. i mentioned to tom at the beginning of the week that i like to do the usa today crossword online every day. so he brought home four newspapers for me every day.

we had a great time with the clarks and are so grateful for their friendship which continues despite being four states away. thanks, t & r!

a mexican wedding

how does this always happen? the more time that passes, the less i feel like posting. well, we have a LOT to catch up on from the past, oh, three months or so.

first stop, carrie and jorge's wedding!

back in february (even before the sledding escapades) i flew out to monterrey, mexico to celebrate carrie and jorge tying the knot and to catch up with several dear college friends. 

 the cathedral that jorge and carrie got married in

 the happy couple at dinner friday night (just imagine the dimples their kids will have!)

the beautiful bride - getting ready on saturday morning

third noordy girls! groen, me, carrie, marlene, and dena

just after jorge first saw carrie in her dress - she walked down the beautiful staircase in the background

all the calvin friends: me, mandie, christina, marlene, groen, and dena

the reception was held in a beautiful historic building. they had a live band (in the background) which was a lot of fun.

jorge surprised carrie with a few songs of his own. 

the reception was unlike any i'd attended before. over the course of the evening, a variety of 'props' came out on to the dance floor. here everyone is dancing with balloons that had just been handed out. later on there were masks, light up rings, necklaces, and more. in the states, i'm used to seeing mostly young people on the dance floor with the older generations sitting and watching. here everyone was out there having a good time - mostly dancing the salsa and other traditional dances.

mandie and groen

me and carrie

i'm so glad that i was able to be there and to enjoy being with old friends again. 

congratulations, mr. and mrs. quintanilla!

The Footage

Or "the footie" as Jared calls it. Enjoy.

just because you're older does not mean you're wiser

Last weekend we went up to shaver lake with some friends to "visit the snow" as it's called in California.  We got all bundled up like we were children again, and had some fun in the snow.

There was a sledding hill behind our cabin, and we had a couple saucers that john had gotten as a white elephant gift one Christmas because "he would never use them in California."  Ha!  We used them alright.

In fact, we even broke one of them.  But that was after we got bored with regular 'ol sledding and decided to show how much we had matured since we were kids and build ourselves a jump.

Here's a teaser of what we accomplished.  videos to follow.

babies: can't live without 'em

remember the cupcakes that we made back in october to reveal the gender of jonathan and lisa's baby? well she has arrived! annie chiharu was born early on wednesday morning, about 3 weeks earlier than anticipated. she was 5 pounds 15 ounces and 19.5 inches.


before going to the hospital to see the maher family, i decided to embellish some cloth diapers to bring with us. here's the end result:

a surprise visit!

during my weekend away in carmel, ben and julie spent some time plotting over skype. since nick and sofia were going to michigan to surprise nick's mom, she thought it would be the perfect chance to come up and visit me.

she was going to make the entire trip a surprise, but decided to tell me instead so that i could clear my schedule. what she DIDN'T tell me was that they were coming up on thursday afternoon, not on friday.

ben and i got home from school around 4 thursday afternoon. when we walked in i noticed that the christmas tree lights were on (yes, we still had our christmas tree). this wasn't a huge anomaly since our lights are on a clapper; perhaps they had gone on due to noise outside during the day. but then i noticed a sucker on our fireplace! i looked at ben who had a sneaky glint in his eye. he said, "do you hear something?" sure enough, there were faint shrieks and giggles coming from the laundry room. we opened the door, and there were julie and eva! 

what a fun visit we had. friday morning we were surprised by a fog delay which meant a wonderfully relaxed start to the day. after school on friday, ben left for a track conference, so on saturday julie, eva, and i got to have a little girls' day out. we went to fresno to do some shopping, went out for lunch at panera, and stopped at bravo farms cheese factory on the way home for eva to visit the petting zoo.

with all our fun, we didn't take very many pictures. here are just a couple snapshots of our activities together:

right away on thursday, eva suggested that we make cookies! so we made the dough together on thursday and then while we were at school, julie and eva rolled, cut, and baked the cookies.

friday when i got home from school we frosted and sprinkled them.

sunday before they left, julie decided to pick some grapefruits to take home. 

thanks for a great visit! surprise me anytime!

sweet escape: a weekend in carmel

over martin luther king jr. weekend, i was invited to be part of a girls' trip to carmel, a beautiful town on the monterey peninsula. i don't do a lot with these girls, but i was excited to get to know them better and to enjoy a getaway with them.

i have a LOT of pictures of our time together, so i'll just give general captions of the things we did.

we left friday afternoon after school and drove up in two cars. we stayed in a beautiful house with an ocean front view. it included a hot tub, a sauna, a fireplace, and enough beds to sleep 12.

all of the girls that came along were teachers from cvc: amy (1st grade), me, kerin (11th and 12th grade English), melanie (4th grade), darcy (2nd grade), and julie (6th grade). bekah (4th grade) took the picture.

 

the view of the house from the outside (taken the next morning)

 

 the view from the living room

on saturday we went downtown carmel. we spent several hours stopping in shops, getting coffee, and just enjoying the town.

kerin, bekah, amy, and darcy

from there we headed to the beach. the green you see is pebble beach (the famous golf course) 

on sunday morning, i took a walk with melanie to the lobos reserve park. the fog was just burning off and we had a beautiful little hike. 

on sunday afternoon we drove down the pacific coast highway to big sur. on the way we crossed (and took pictures of) the bigsby bridge. 

julie and kerin in big sur

we took a quick hike that led to a beautiful view of a waterfall and the coast.

monday morning we packed up and took a couple last pictures. the first one was intended to show the magnitude of the house. the camera is sitting on the ground level (the garage), we're sitting outside the front door on the second floor. the balcony behind us is the third floor and the windows at the top are the fourth floor.

and another close up to show our beautiful sleepy faces! thanks for a great weekend, friends!