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[altarflame]

This is a really enormous photo post with 37 pictures and my kind of captioning. I stopped cutting entries awhile back because, 1. I don't mind other peoples' uncut ginormous entries and 2. LJ seems half dead anyway and so my perception is that most people are reading this right on my page or from their google readers, BUT - I seem to get an email that somebody unfriended me like clockwork just about every time I do a photo post? So, FINE, here's a cut :p Feel free to tell me if you have an opinion on this, I genuinely find the extra click more irritating than the extra scrolling myself but then I don't read many ljs so my friends' page is slow.


Delicious vegan burrito bar.


Aaaand chicken and cheese for other people.


Cheeseless om nom pizza.

This "me being vegan" thing is like the best thing that ever happened to Ananda :)

"Why do I have a class that starts at 8am that I have to get Elise to preschool before, ON A BIKE? Why?"

I feel like I can really see changes in my face in the last two months, like all of a sudden I look thirty when I looked 24 until January or something.

Three things my husband brought home with him, for me, one evening last week:

1. Funky flowers I'd never seen before. I adore flowers and if I could my house would always be full of them...


2. THE BEST dairy-alternative ice cream I have ever had, hands down, no question.


3. And holy shit this was sooooo GOOD!


What he brought home for me last night :)

This is not a nightly sort of thing, but it's awesome when it happens and I think he's trying to take care of me because of this whiplash pain. It worked out very well both times that he arrived right as it started to get really terrible after the whole day had gone by, with things to cheer me up ♥

Elise and her little crew, at PATH.


Fools.


Sweet ol' Oliver.


Aaron is obsessed with lamborghinis (sp?) and ferraris and whenever we see one he panics and begs to use my phone to take a picture and then uses Ananda's phone to call their friend Adrian (since he recently put phone #2 through the washer...which is why he gets $10 "Go Phones") to rant and rave about how he saw a freakin' car. I do not get it.


Eating at Whole Foods one night.


At Dr Geraldi's for Ananda's check-up. Turned out to be the first time she was "on file" for one since she was 8 (I frequently piggy back other-kid-concerns on particular kid visits such that their files don't get updated, but I get reassured). Look at Isaac!


So we got our tax return...








This is the inside of the Royal Palm Grille, and that banner is about this kid I went to school with who was in the Super Bowl (that was some kind of sport thing recently, I think). Generally speaking I can expect our waitress to be an old neighbor of ours and customers at surrounding tables to be teachers I've had, owners of stores we go to and so on. This place is kind of crazy, the other side is half diner, half pharmacy, such that the extra silverware and trays are piled up IN AN AISLE with cleaning supplies and toilet paper for sale? It is really weird how they've expanded their space, but kind of awesome if you can get into that sort of thing. The food is delicious and dirt cheap.


Elise going to preschool. That thing folds up to hang on her little cubby hook, and this is how we do it since my bike with her seat on the back was stolen off our front porch and my cheapy replacement bike has no child seat.

She wears those shoes everywhere.

Ananda going to the grocery store.

She's getting scary good on Grant's long board.

Children lined up in Publix in Ft Lauderdale for a "We know you've been in the car too long but this is not a zoo" lecture.


Grant designed those labels, years ago.


The nurse walked in when I was taking this and was like, "Why are you doing that?!" I interpreted it as, "I see in your file you sue people, there's nothing wrong with that hep lock!!" :p


Isaac wanted a rainbow cake for his birthday. I think it came out pretty great, and it was really easier than I thought. Batter:


Layering in the pan - how radioactively awesome is this?


Leftovers. Grant got all the pics of the whole thing together, I'mma have to steal them off his camera.

Isaac ended up getting SO MUCH birthday out of this birthday. He got to choose everything for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and got his new bike, on the actual day, but since it was a weekday his party was the following Sunday. It was kind of a bummer that friends' schedules didn't mesh, but Oma (mil) happened to be in town, Opa came over, and Shaun, and Kristin, and Gloria and Lj - he LOVED his cake, and dude! He got Super Mario Galaxy 2, the metal detector he'd been begging for, a Donkey Kong Wii game, a bunch of new books and a couple of games, a bag of money (it added up to about $15 I think which seemed like a ton to him)...he also got cards from Nana and Pa, and from Aunt DeeDee in the mail on different days, both with money. AND THEN Grant took him camping just the two of them THIS weekend, out in the Everglades, since he said that's what he wanted "more than anything".

I would say he cleaned up :p My third child, one of my "little kids", is 8. EIGHT!

While we were having a party, Laura was having a baby. Kind of puts my cake accomplishment in perspective, eh? :p

Be still my heart.

HOW beautiful is my sister, just hours after giving birth?


They've decided to name her Isabella Grace.






I think it's clear she loves me already.


While I was putting baby pics on my sister's fb wall, I came across this pic from her wedding. That is my pimp ass father. I mean geez. If only you could see how green his eyes are in it.

Pre-stroke pictures of Nana are so sad for me, now :/

Back to the present...




Annie and I have had a lot of she-and-I time, this week. The night that Grant spent out in the Everglades with Isaac she and I found this amazing art tumblr and poured over it for an hour, and I introduced her to My So-Called Life, which she is now obsessed with and wants to burn through much faster than I have time for (because I am definitely watching this WITH her). Her opinions thus far seem to be, "They made this so believable!", "the acting is so good", "who cares how a guy LEANS?!" and "I am really glad I don't go to public school".

We had a big date afternoon on Sunday, up on Lincoln Rd, perusing the South Fl Art Center (aka ArtSouth 1.0), having treats and shopping at Books and Books. I love her all to little bitty bits and pieces.

Now that she's a fan of Claire Danes, and has been reading Shakespeare for a few months, I'm thinking of the 1996 Romeo and Juliet. It helped me understand that dialogue tremendously.

She is OBSESSED with the Hunger Games, organizing a midnight premiere group trip within TLC on fb and bugging me to go get her the shirt at Hot Topic and telling me about it nonstop. She is also frequently seen texting, reading, listening to music or some combination therein. She's grudgingly working through the new spelling and grammar workbooks I got her, and eagerly devouring geometry. She's hilarious:

Me: Jake's card has to be around here somewhere. I mean it's Jake, maybe we should -
Her: I already looked in the fridge.

Me, struggling with a BJ's case of popsicles and a knife: This stupid thing!
Her: Give me that, let me do it.
Me: I feel like a toddler that can't get into something.
Her: Then you DEFINITELY shouldn't have a knife.

I was completely caught off guard the other day when I asked her, "You'll tell me when you have your first kiss, right?" I was expecting an eye roll or a "Mom!" or something, but she immediately said, "Of course!"

Comments

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

FWIW I'm not really bothered about cuts when there's, say, a dozen photos or whatever. Either way, I'm not about to delete you off my flist for it, if you choose not to cut them!

That is one incredible cake.

And one pretty beautiful baby. Did she have her at home?

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Thanks, for your feedback and about the cake :)

She did have her at home, on the same bed where she had the last one :D

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

A lack of cuts does bother me, as I usually line up several tabs with entries I want to go back and read and/or comment on, and huge long scrolling entries with tons and tons of photos (text doesn't bother me as it doesn't muck up the formatting) on my friends page messes that up... but I'm not about to unfriend someone for it. That seems... weird. O_o;
I just sort of figure that LJ cuts for massive posts of photos are one of those polite things that some people do and some people don't get.

Also: Ananda is like... a full blown teenager. And Aaron looks like he's just about there too.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I can dig that. You and one other person starting to leave bunches of pics uncut is actually what made me go "eh" about it originally, but you don't leave THIRTY SEVEN pics uncut, so...haha. Anyway yeah, my friends' page gets like 1-2 new entries per day so it doesn't really make a difference on my end, it's easier to not have to click since there's nothing beyond that one entry regardless O_o

I get about 1-3 new Tumblr followers and an email registering for my wordpress blog per DAY. But on lj I seem to go down about one follower a week for the last couple of months. I don't really know if it's about cuts, or what. It isn't people I had friended or really "knew" for the most part. My hits are still through the roof?

A and A....I know. And they're TEN and ELEVEN.

[ariellejuliana.livejournal.com]

I scroll through my friends page several times a day to go back and check comments on older entries, so long photo entries without cuts does get annoying. But I love your photo posts and it's not like I'm going to unfriend you either :)

I remember Ananda and Aaron in their Harry Potter costumes when I first started reading you. So it's amazing both that they are so big now, and also that Harry Potter has been a "thing" long enough for your kids to grow up that much.

[ariellejuliana.livejournal.com]

And oh my goodness PRETTY BABY!

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! Her kids have so much more hair at birth than mine :)

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I watched the first movie with Bobby when Ananda and Aaron were babies! So, the first couple of books were already out. I think I came across a boxed set of the first three at Grant's house before I had Isaac and got hooked. There's a funny gif A and A really identify with that goes around on tumblr, of a bunch of little kids holding their parents' hands going in the theater for the Sorcerer's Stone, and then a bunch of teenagers dressed in robes carrying wands running in for Deathly Hallows. Alternately, there's the one of a scared preschooler in the theater for the first one and a sobbing preteen in the theater for the last ;)

[aelf.livejournal.com]

I don't know how to make burritos. A burrito bar is very confusing to me, and I am going to have to google. So, thanks! :)

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Hint: the only other thing needed is tortillas. Also, it's synonymous with "taco bar". Are you picking up what I'm putting down? ;) You just fill it up with stuff! Whatever you want.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

That's so free form. I don't know that my very constrained and rigid brain can handle this!!! :)

Apparently, burrito bars are a thing. I fell down the hole in google and was astonished.

[gypsymommy.livejournal.com]

I do prefer cuts. I open them in a new tab and come back to them as soon as I've skimmed through all unread entries.

I actually had that same exact first kiss conversation two days ago with Amberielle.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

:)

[gardenmama.livejournal.com]

I don't mind if you don't cut picture posts. I love how your picture posts are completely random dumps of camera shots from the past several weeks ;) If you do cut though, then I do what other people have mentioned an open it in a new tab so I can read it after I've skimmed everything else.

That said, please put all needle shots behind a cut! With explicit warnings that people with needle phobias should not look! I've had an iv twice in my life and I didn't look at it either time. In fact, I've even been so brave as to have accupuncture. I kept my eyes closed the whole time. Can't watch someone get a shot. But the idea of a needle actually in a vein gives me the serious heebie jeebies!!!

LOVE the shot of your kids all lined up for a lecture, each with a different expression. Aaron cracks me up. Annie seems really really tall in that picture. Jake's hair is out of this world, and Elise's hair doesn't look as curly? Is that to do with the weather? I know my kids hair is much curlier in the summer with the humidity.

I don't have many people that I follow regularly on LJ either any more. So many have migrated to Twitter or Facebook and don't blog any more. I like FB for random updates and random pictures, but I miss the more indepth feel of LJ. I understand though, cause it seems like I never have time to sit down and write!

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the needle thing, that definitely (hopefully, geez) won't be an ongoing feature ;) I didn't think it would be a big deal since there isn't actually NEEDLE in the shot/it's got the covering tape on it and all. I can't watch them do it, either! I always get told to lay down because I'm kind of swaying and closing my eyes and they think I'll hit the floor otherwise :p

Elise lost her curls completely when we cut her hair awhile back :/