'the dumbo ride'

this is something that jeremiah started doing with clémence a while ago and i wanted to capture it. i love that it's something special between the two of them and i love watching her gently floating in the air; up and down, up and down, with the most beautiful smile on her face.

double digits!

Happy ten months my love! Here are some snapshots i have taken of you with my phone over this past month! Oh my, how you have grown and how our love has with you!

a night at the museum

the children's museum of phoenix recently had their work holiday party. it's so nice because just the employees and us families get the museum all to ourselves for a couple of hours. also so wonderful to have jeremiah actually be able to play with clémence in the under 3's room...normally when we go we are visiting him for lunch so he is back working by the time we go to play.
here are a few pics from the evening.

they also had a photo booth which is always a good idea!

playing peek-a-boo with daddy before we head home:

a moment to boast

please induldge me for a moment with this post so i can tell you about the most incredible find i had the other day.

have you ever had something that you wanted that was rare or hard to find? where whenever you go to certain stores or places you have to look for it even though you know it's probably not gonna happen? that was me with the rare out-of-print book below; The First Book of Jazz by Langston Hughes. This version (the first version published by Franklin Watts) is nearly impossible to find unless you happen to see it on the internet for $100 and up. There is a different, newer publishing co that sells this on amazon for around $50 but the cover is different and not as good! It became a sort of small obsession over the last few months where everytime i stopped at a thrift store i would have to scour over the books just in case i would get lucky (which is actually how i found all those great classic books i blogged about earlier).

anyway, a few mornings ago, on jeremiah's day off, we wanted to go to zia records and get the new black keys lp that had just come out. so we grabbed a few old records to trade in and remembering that one zia location also takes books we rounded up some that were dusting away on our shelves. while we waited for them to sort through our stuff, we did what we always do...jeremiah went to the records and i, with my small obsession, went to check out the music section of the books. i quickly scanned over the area about jazz and didnt see what i was hoping for but then looked again. low and behold there she was... small and modest with that orange binding tucked in between the larger books. i took the photo below with my phone to show why i didnt see it on the first glance. curious how much they were asking for it, i turned it over to see that the price tag said $4.99.

$4.99 that's it? are you kidding me?? i walked... no more like paced over to jeremiah, slapped the book down in front of him and said, 'look what i found!' a few minutes later they finally called his name for the trade credit which was enough to pay for the lp (score!) and when we got up to the counter jeremiah remembered that he had a discount left on his card...which made the grand total for the book $1.87. And it is here that i will note that before we had left that morning he had found $2.00 in the pocket of his jeans...BAM!

here are some photos of the incredible illustrations inside. he gives all the history of how and where it all started as well as his 100 favorite jazz, blues, folk etc. songs which i totally appreciate!

babes first christmas tree

a dressed-up dresser

a couple months back i found this tutorial on how to stencil and paint this amazing pattern onto a dresser (the tutorial includes the printable pattern and very thorough instuctions). it had all these woodland creatures and flowers all over it and i thought how lovely this would be in clémence's room. she could use the storage space and i would love a dresser that could also be used for a changing table since the cheap one we have from ikea isn't cute at all! not to mention in my quest for a more colorful playroom, this would be the perfect opportunity to add something bright. i will say that i did not know what i would be getting myself into as this took me a lot longer to complete than i had anticipated, but i am oh so glad i did it! i found a cheap dresser on craigslist and thus began the transformation.

before:

after!!

should you feel up to the task here is the link to making your own!

bye-bye!

about a week ago we were spending the evening with jeremiah's parents and all of a sudden clémence just started waving bye. i know she is around the age when they start to do things like this, but what's crazy is that we really haven't practiced it at all with her...maybe a few times here and there but nothing recently. the natural learning capabilities of a child never cease to amaze me. here is the video we took that night.