A Blue Day

So, Mikey and Natty have both been begging to have their hair colored for quite some time now. I have been too cheap to take them in to have it done and too scared to try doing it myself, but last Sunday Aunt Honey and Uncle Mac brought by some blue dye and explained the process. Which meant that today was hair coloring day. May I be the first to introduce you to the new & improved Mikey and Natty Perkins!


While my hands were busy, sweet little Lizzie managed to dump out an entire bag of freeze dried fruit and mash it into the carpet, shred an entire box of kleenex, clear a bookshelf of all its contents and cause all kinds of havoc. Somehow she knew I couldn't stop her with dye on my hands. She's pretty smart like that. Speaking of how smart she is, this morning she added "shoe," "on," and "ball" to her vocabulary. While I don't advocate allowing your toddlers to give you stern commands, it is really darn cute watching her stomp over (footwear in hand) and insist, "Shoe. On."

(Ha, Ha, mom. I think it's funny when you pretend that you can keep me and/or the house clean. Silly, delusional lady. Now fetch me my shoe!!!)

In return for coloring his hair, Mikey allowed me to practice FX makeup on him. I think he is such an amazing actor. Look at him get into it!!

Happy Saturday!!

This last Saturday was such a fun day! We had unexpected visits from a bunch of our favorite people. It was the best!!!

First, Aunt Honey came over to skate with the kids. Mikey and Natty were so impressed by how good she was. She could ride down and the driveway without falling and do twirls. And she didn't fall once. Now Natty calls me "the old lady" when I go out skating with her. (Thanks for showing me up, Aunt Honey!!)



Then, we were surprised by a quick visit from Chad's cousin and her adorable family, who made a pit stop at our house on their multi-state road trip. It was a blast catching up. The kids hadn't seen each other since '09, but they acted like old buddies. Mikey and Natty have been trying to talk Chad into a trip to Idaho since they left! (Okay, I have been too).




It was a great day. Yay for amazing family that we love to be around and surprise visits that cheer up a regular, routine day!!!

Mid July Update

Here's a post for the grandmas! Just a quick update on what the kids are up to.


Lizzie is officially a talker. About a week ago she started calling out for Mikey. She said his name super clear, but it sounded like it took every ounce of strength in her to force her mouth into the right shapes to call out, "Miiiiiiikkkkkeeeeyyy!" So stinking cute. She says "natty," "more," and "mac" too. Oh, and she will sing along to the Yo Gabba Gabba Goodbye song. I love listening to her babble!


Natty has taken an interest in roller skating. She can often be found skating up and down our street, much to the amusement of the construction workers building the houses next door. She is a little wobbly still, so she takes out a stroller weighted down with laundry detergent with her. It's pretty adorable.


Mikey has spent the week at scout camp, where he has built a periscope, shot bb guns, shot arrows, launched eggs and gotten very dirty and tired. Chad went with him on Wednesday, and they both came home covered in mud from head to toe and exhausted. Could there possibly be a better way for a ten year old boy to spend his summer?!?


Monday marked the first day of our 30 day journey into the land of purely unprocessed foods. I started a blog over here to chronicle our adventures. Suffice it to say, I've spent the bulk of my days in the kitchen trying to keep everyone fed!!!

And that's what we've been up to!

Davies, Daveys and Perkins, Oh My!

My whole family came out to visit this weekend. It was so much fun! I can't remember the last time we were all together. This visit included everyone--parents, siblings, spouses and children. We only had a few days together, but we crammed them full of a ton of super intense, fun bonding time.

Thursday:
The family came in a little before noon. We ate lunch and lounged around a bit. I met my beautiful niece, Kenley. Then we ate again. Then we went out to 2 am in Bellevue for a little karaoke fun. Natty did a stirring rendition of Tik Tok. Mikey performed Crazy Train. And Lizzie yelled into the mic every chance she got.

Friday:
This was our Seattle day. First, we hit up a super cool lunch truck for some yummy BBQ sandwiches (well, my family did. Me and the kids partook of the wheat, dairy, egg, soy, corn, rice and peanut-free lunch that I packed for us). While we were eating lunch, Natty complained that her loose tooth hurt too much to eat. I told her if she could wiggle it out, then I'd save it in my purse for her. She looked me right in the eye, stuck her hand in her mouth, ripped her tooth off with one deft tug and handed it to me, (gross, pulpy mouth blood and all) and told me to "feed it to Grandpa." I'm sure that did a ton to whet the appetites of all those onlookers waiting in line to order their lunches. (This was particularly funny because about a year ago Mikey lost a tooth while my family was out visiting. Mikey brought his tooth downstairs to show my parents. In his excitement, he set the tooth down on the kitchen counter and forgot about it. A little while later, my mom made my dad a pb & honey sandwich on the same said counter. Somehow the little tooth snuck into my dad's sandwich. Which he ate. About half way through the sandwich he complained that he had broken his tooth on something hard--crystallized honey we all speculated. He spit out "his" broken tooth. But as much as we inspected, we couldn't find a hole in his mouth left behind by the broken tooth. After awhile we realized it looked too small to be his tooth. Because it wasn't. It was Mikey's. I had inadvertently fed my dad my son's tooth. Funny now. Not then.)

(Hey, Mom! Want some bloody tooth pulp with your lunch?)

After lunch, we took a tour of Seattle via Ride the Ducks. This was my first Ride the Ducks experience and I loved it. It was so fun!! And super informative. We also visited Pike Place and stopped at the Health Expo at the Qwest stadium to pick up my sister's packet for the Rock 'n Roll Marathon. By the end of the day we were all soooo tired! All I wanted to do was hop into bed and sleep, but this weekend was also the 48 hr Film Festival. Gah! So, instead of curling up in my pjs, I came home and joined Chad & his writers for a brainstorming session in an attempt to write a winning script. After which, I crashed and Chad stayed up all night long to prepare for shooting the next day.(Isn't the flower in Lizzie's hair cute? My sister has a line of hair thingies she makes and sells. They're adorable!)

Saturday:
I pulled myself out of bed at 6 am to get dressed and set up a breakfast table for Chad's movie crew. Chad spent the next two days straight filming and editing his movie, Blood Will Have Blood, with his crew. I played with my family more! We played a few games, watched a movie, did some leisurely shopping, ate at Red Robin and went bowling. At about midnight I crawled into bed. At about 2 am I crawled back out because Chad & his crew were back at the house. I made some quick tacos for those poor exhausted souls and got to stand in as a body double for a few quick scenes. Then it was back to bed for me at about 4 am.

Sunday:
Sunday morning I woke up and crawled down the stairs in a half asleep daze only to find the movie crew still awake and still at my house. Can I just tell you that nothing will wake you up faster than finding unexpected menfolk sitting around your kitchen table? And how terrible is it that my first thought wasn't "oh I hope my kids weren't frightened," but instead "oh please. For the love of all things holy, please let me be fully dressed right now. Please say when I rolled into bed at 4 am last night I had the where-with-all to put on some decent jammies and appropriate undergarments first." (thankfully I did)

After breakfast, we said goodbye to my family and they headed back to sunny So Cal. The kids and I came home and got ready for church. After church we curled up and half watched/half slept through another movie. All the while Chad and his crew worked solid up to the 7:30 pm deadline. Remember earlier in the post that I mentioned they'd started Friday night? They had literally worked 48 hrs straight on this movie. So insane!!!

I honestly don't remember what happened the rest of that night. I think I ate dinner. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep on the couch. And when I woke up, it was Tuesday. (not really. Please y'all. My kids were up at six the next morning. But, this is my story and I think that would've been a happier ending.)

It was such an amazing weekend. I loved spending so much time with my family. It was great to all be together! And it was so much fun watching/helping with the 48 hr Film Project. Also, the movie turned out incredible. I was sooo impressed. Such a high quality film produced in such a short amount of time. Well, don't take my word for it. You can find it below. Be warned that they were assigned a horror film, so if you don't like creepy stuff you might not want to watch it. Or watch it with the sound off. Or paint a curly little mustache on your computer screen first to give all the actors a more comical appearance. Your call.

Blood Will Have Blood from Chad Perkins on Vimeo.

My Little Lizzie

I love my sweet little Lizzie so incredibly much. There isn't a single day that passes without my heart crying out with thanks for her. I wanted another baby so bad that it hurt. My insides literally ached over it. I don't know how else to describe it. For five years I dieted, exercised, prayed, pleaded, bargained, visualized, charted my temperature, and ingested all manner of medicines that supposedly upped my chances of being fertile whilst making me feel like death. When she was born it felt like my heart was finally complete. My sweet angel baby from Heaven! I can hardly believe that she is only a month and six days away from being one year old. Her infancy has sped past me at lightening speed. This morning, as she crawled inside one of the barstools and proceeded to use it as a really tall, awkward walker, I realized that in less than one year she had forever claimed a huge part of my heart as forever hers.

Lizzie at (almost) 11 months:

*She says mama, dada, hi & bye. Mostly dada, especially when she's happy. She will often sit at the top of the stairs and yell “bye dada” into the basement.

*She waves and blows kisses. She has just started nodding yes and no with her head, although it doesn't mean anything to her yet. She just knows it'll get a laugh

*She claps her hands and dances at the first sign of anything musical

*She isn't walking yet, but yesterday she stood unsupported for a split second

*She has four teeth and just enough hair for one wispy pigtail at the top of her head

My Truimphant Return

Okay, so maybe it's not triumphant. But it is my return. To blogging, that is. Life got busy and somehow I managed to go TEN MONTHS without a post. Pathetic, I know. Part of me feels as if I should go back and catch up. Somehow cover everything that's happened in the last, well, year really. But the other part of me realizes that I never would. I'd just continue to avoid my blog, feeling guilty for falling further and further behind. So, I am just going to jump back in.

Big things that have happened since my ten year anniversary:

The birth of Anna Elizabeth Perkins. Who is that, you may ask? You probably know her as Lizzie. We never call her Anna. Or Annie. Or Ann. Just Lizzie. Sometimes, when she's in trouble, I call her Lizzie Ann. Mikey has informed me that we named her all wrong. We probably did. But Chad and I love the name Anna Elizabeth. It sounds like a sweet little English child wearing stocking socks and a pinafore, politely asking for more biscuits or crumpets or whatever it is they eat with tea. We still love the name. And maybe someday she'll use it. But for now, she is definitely not Anna Elizabeth. She is spunky and determined and strong and...Lizzie. I love her to bits and pieces. We waited so very, very long for her, and it was worth every single second. She is my sweet little miracle. I love snuggling with her in bed in the morning. I love introducing her to new things---foods, creatures, sensations, activities. I love watching her dance when she gets excited. I even love her cry. It can be stressful and overwhelming, but it's healthy and full of life and passion. And I love it.

Mikey turned 9 in July. I am far too young to have a nine year old son! He had his birthday party at the Bouncy Place in Kent. There were a ton of kids and lots of energy. It was a blast.

We moved from Covington to Renton. It's a long story, but we had talked about moving for a long time. About a year, actually. We liked our ward and were comfortable in our home, but we had a nagging feeling it was time to look elsewhere. We poo-poo'd the gut feeling though, telling ourselves that we should be more content with all that we already had. So we ignored the promptings and went on with life. Then one night, while Chad and I were up watching our stories after tucking our wee ones into their snug little beds, we were startled by the sound of three rocks crashing through our huge bay windows. There were huge shards of glass literally everywhere. We had to sell our piano because we couldn't clean all the glass out of the keys. And it took the poor, sweet man from Glass Dr. until four o'clock in the morning to patch the holes in the windows up with plywood so that it'd be safe for the kiddos to walk about the next morning without fear of jiggling more glass loose. It may have been coincidence, but we took the rocks to be a strong prompting from the man upstairs to reconsider the whole moving thing. So, we did. Within days we had found our dream home, bid on it, and had our offer accepted. The loan process went lightening fast and before we had nary a box packed, it was time to go. We were sad to leave our wonderful ward, but we are so, so, so happy in our new home. Our new neighborhood, school and ward are all even better than we could've ever dreamed. It is our little corner of heaven. Oh--and as a bonus, there are deer that feed in the empty lot next door. Like, all the time. One followed me to the mailbox the other day. A buck with tiny little antlers. Heaven!!! (on a side note--does anyone know what you can feed deer? We want to make buddies with them, but don't want to make them sick.)

We transferred to a new homeschool co-0p in Renton. It's called Renton H.O.M.E, and we love it. Mikey is in 4th grade and is taking ceramics, photography, gardening, p.e. and a lego class on campus. Natty is in Kindergarten (yeah!) and is taking reading/writing, gardening, p.e. and arts/crafts. They have both made a bunch of new friends and are excelling. I love it there too. The other parents are so amazing. One mom is teaching me how to cook everything from homemade pretzels to authentic Thai curry in the school kitchen while the kids are in class, and another is teaching me the magic that is infant massage. I think I'm learning more than the kids!!!(First day of school photos)

Halloween! Mikey was a grim reaper and Natty was a bunny rabbit. Lizzie was a little lamb for about a half hour before she convinced me (through her wailing) that it was simply too humiliating. We made our annual pilgrimage out to Thomasson Farms as well. It was so much fun. A corn pit, hay maze, hay ride, petting zoo, homemade pumpkin pie and hand picked pumpkins--what could be better?


We also made a trip out to the REI in Seattle for some rock climbing with the Petersons. For those of you who haven't met them yet, the Petersons are pretty much the coolest people you will ever meet. They also homeschool, and they are in our ward. And we love them! The mom of the Peterson clan is one of my all time favorite people in the world. I'm kinda stalking her. And by kind of, I mean full-on-single-white-female-stalking her. Last week I tricked her into hanging out with me six out of seven days. It's only Tuesday, and I've already committed her to at least 3 visits for this week. Creepy? Probably. But she's just that amazing.
We headed out to the Pacific Science Center for a special member preview of the Harry Potter Exhibit. Mikey was sooo happy! He's read all the books and is somewhat of a super fan. While we were there, Chad took Lizzie to the butterfly house and introduced her to the beautiful winged creatures. She can't talk yet, of course, but I'm pretty sure she wanted to eat them all. Or at least gum them a little. Fortunately for us (and the butterflies) she never quite managed to grab one, although she gave it the old college try. What else? Oh, I don't know. I'm sure I'm missing a hundred and one things. Like, we made a short film for the Renton Film Festival and Mikey, Natty & Chad all won awards for their acting. Or that Lizzie is already pulling herself up to stand on toy boxes, chairs, sofas and anyone that will stand still long enough. So many wonderful things have happened this year that I can't even begin to list them all. Suffice it to say, we Perkinses are very, very happy. I think it is best summed up by Mikey's journal entry this morning. The prompt asked him to write about three things that he was grateful for (in honor of Thanksgiving later this month). His entry simply read, "I am grateful for three little rocks and everything that came about because of them."

Me too.