more time

about a month or two ago i decided no more dating for the rest of the year.

not even one lunch date.  

i'm totally sticking to it.  

it's one of my favorite decisions i've made all year.

it's been so nice to be with jackson on the times i would have gone out and not having to find a babysitter... so great.

my friends lately say that time i was willing to accept thinking about being married again was small but i think it will come again far down the road.

i just want to make sure jackson is always my number one with every decision i am offered.  whatever is best for him and i. 

oh and i do have to say going to bed early is the bees knees. 

weekend

listening to: the dandy warhols

since my recent trip to san francisco for a few hours... i have had school/work for 12 hours, parent preschool meeting for jack's future class, and now class for 9 hours then back to san francisco to pick my baby up tonight!

{bette davis)

<---------------------

if you need to find your guy a gift, this has the best stuff!  it says father's day but i thought it was rad.

this surf video is amazing.  if you like the ocean or cinemetography, you will like this one.

if you play a names game with me, i use a lot of cosby characters.  it stumps the young ones every time. claire huxtable? yessssss.

gluten-free recipe!  on old friend annie's site.

my new favorite blog... you have to translate it from japanese to english and it has pretty neat things on it.

i hope everyone has a great weekend!  i will be back on tuesday with something more interesting {hopefully}.  life just won't slow down and neither can i; it seems.

diego to francisco

francisco, you're not a bad way to spend our wednesday.  

this will be our first time flying out of san diego's airport.
jackson will be going for the weekend.


{acrylic paint attached to the windshield wiper... you can check link for helmit smits}

birthday

listening to: soft rock star by metric

i hope everyone has been enjoying their weekend!  mine has really been exhausting but i feel loyal to my promises of posting jack's birthday pictures.  not necessarily for my readers but for my memory's sake.  i do love having these posts for my family's record because as most of you know, i have very bad short-term memory.  so crazy i was emptying out my pictures from my old old phone and found pictures i don't remember taking.  sad huh.  that's okay though i get over things pretty quickly... i blame it on the short-term memory... right...

okay enough of my ramblings.

so here it goes:

the night before his party we were getting all the details together, blowing up his floaties and getting the gift bags stuffed.  we blew up this "lazy lounge" for grown children between the ages of three and eight.  the picture on package were two kids laying belly-down across these floaties.
when we were done blowing them up, this is what came of it...

straight up false advertising.
but we couldn't stop laughing about it.




jade + taylor. little twins (not really) but born only a few days apart and act like sisters.


my mom made this. so sweet.

i can't take much credit for this cake other than baking it.

wendy thought of doing a 3-D mr. potato head and then lindsay decorated him.  

{adults cake... chocolate... yum}

 for the kids i made them these sprinkles cooked inside the batter, vanilla-almond cupcakes.  i started out thinking they would be little bo peep cupcakes but then i couldn't resist throwing army men all around them and putting colorful candles with car-like flags that said "4" atop.             

{i'm suppose to be jesse from toy story but you can't really tell}

birthday boy and boston!

joseph! so full of energy...making it up for his twin...

daniel!  so sweet.  he just hung out.

jackson and his favorite person ever... cousin micah!  his best friend!

i asked micah around this picture time why he was so dark and his reply, "i'm just a brown baby auntie melis!" 

sweet baby dane!  he loved the buzz balloon and the "hot pool!"

jadey bug!  she is so funny.  just followed the boys around.

tay west sharking the boys!

the spilsbury boys came! so fun.

the bowthrope boys!  so sweet!  

their little brother boston.  he is the smiliest baby i've ever seen but of course the one i snapped he wasn't smiling with his teethless grin.  i want to take him home.

hahaha the boys with the "floatie"

they made imprints on their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  all sorts of shapes.

i want to make these pictures into a flip book. 

he makes me want all little boys to have hair like his! perfect hair.

jack lucked out and got spoiled with so many sweet gifts.  he loves his first football, his razor, the squirt guns, the clothes and other fun toy-story things like the slip-n-slide.  let's face it, i'll probably be using that slip-n-slide more than him.

we sang happy birthday to jackson but the candles didn't stay lit so we moved over...

... and finished singing him the song with mr. potato head.

while he is still holding a cupcake!

it was such a great birthday party. 

so grateful for those that came to help us celebrate.

jackson talks about being four almost every chance he can throw it in a conversation.

i'll give a proper update about him soon enough.  it's about time.

weekend.

listening to: building all is love by karen o and the kids

{found on we heart it}

hope everyone has a nice weekend.
ours will be super busy with going to the beach, weddings, san diego,  friends visiting from out of town and disneyland!

here are some things to keep your minds busy

i want to take a nap in this chair this weekend.  but i won't.

my friend daile has a fun blog where she has themes every day of the week

oh man does my mouth water when looking at these red velvet pancakes.

this art deco motorcycle - so nice!

new blog for you to gock over.

take care!
-melissa

lincoln park

so maybe you have seen one or both of these videos floating around...
well it's been a rough week for a few of my friends so i wanted to dedicate these to them...
it will make you smile instantly.

then here is the remix



okay so i did really do a post on this site about gluten free-ness... if you are interested.
peace-out
:)

rolling with my homie

listening to: sara cahoone (thanks elise) - you might as well

jack is a builder.  he loves to build anything, stack anything and lay similar objects next to each other.  he has been doing this since he was two with his cars.  i have read articles about how it helps children's development and social skills in the future.  i thought this guy joel had such a cool idea.  he came up with a way to allow the marbles to come down the handmade ledges from the box.  i want to make this with jack this week.

{sorry real post update soon... tests all week}

from hipster to hippie

listening to: not your lover by blitzen trapper

{picture found from this great website}

has anyone else noticed that everyone is turning into different types of hipsters if they chose this path of style?  i thought this was pretty entertaining...

warm.your.heart.wedding story

this week has been one of my busiest to date.


i went to so many weddings that i have added new words to my vocabulary like spanx (sp?), enjoyed reading my friends who are in the wedding business' tweets about similar wedding stories,  bonded with some pretty fun mother-of-the-brides, pinned my first yamaka, helped other mother-of-the brides find the perfect dress for the reception, tamed the wildest red hair i have ever laid fingers on, placed garters on my bride's legs, went back and forth from los angeles to san diego........whilst brazilian blowing out my friend, shaved initials in my friend's head, cut my siblings hair... okay now i'm going off on my lists...all in one week.


anyway, there is a story that won't leave me all week.
i have wanted more than five minutes to sit at my computer to type it out.
it's pretty simple, really, but extremely heart-warming.


about two months ago i did hair for a gorgeous bride in san diego and her roommate called me a month ago asking me if i was free for her wedding date.  i had that morning open and we planned it. she called me a few weeks ago asking me if i could do hair for her bridal shoot and that she wanted to look really pretty.  then she trailed off in the conversation to tell me that she might not have any hair on her wedding day. i asked her why.  she said she has stage four breast cancer and might be loosing her hair once she starts chemotherapy.  my heart sunk.


tuesday 6:30pm
with nothing to expect, i knocked on her door in huntington beach.  she was on the couch relaxing.  she told me she had to rest all day to prepare for this photoshoot. she sat down on the chair in the kitchen and i asked her how her day went.  she told me she was very tired and was on heavy medication to dull the pain.  as i started her makeup, i noticed all of her glands were wet.  she told me the radiation treatments were making her sweat.  i told her i would stay for the photoshoot and would be there to touch-up or blot the sweat if she needed me.


she told me her story & her story is this ... she met her fiance a few years ago.  they fell in love quickly and he proposed.  it was very sweet.  she then told me that she just found out she has cancer and that it spread to her spine in four different areas.  she told me it went into some of her organs and that the pain was getting worse as the days go on.
......... i couldn't hold back the tears.  even as i type this i am finding these emotions again.  luckily, i was applying eyeshadow, so i had her close her eyes so she couldn't see my eyes swell with water.  she was so strong as she told the details.  danielle started to tell me that her fiancée  calls her throughout the day to check on her health status and is fully aware of her probability of not making it much longer than a year or two, at best.  she said her biggest fear is to have her husband come home to her in a few months and she isn't there....


oh man.  i couldn't hold the tears.  she stayed strong.  complete tears were falling.
i continued on to her hair and tried to hide my emotions.  i asked her how we would do her hair and what the veil looked like.  in my mind, all i could repeat back was how close she was to death and how happy she was.  she just fell in love with the man she has been waiting for her whole life at age 41 and will never be able to have her own children.
i wanted to be friends with her; not just her wedding makeup and hairdresser.  i hoped that even just a little bit of her goodness, inspiration and strength could just rub off on me.  she was so special.


we finished quickly and headed to irvine to meet her photographer.  throughout the photoshoot she was smiling, twirling her dress, playing with her veil, kicking her feet up and having fun with each shot.  her sister and i just watched and it made me so happy to see her so easily smile.

 she was so beautiful.  she was so happy.  she knows she only has numbered days left and still could carry the most genuine smile i've seen.


on the drive back to her house, i sat in the back while she told me how she picked each vendor for her wedding.  she told me that she could feel a connection with me and that when we met, she knew i was the one for her special day.  she then told me that she would still have some of her hair for the wedding this coming saturday but some of it might not be there from the therapy.  i told her i would purchase human hair and color it to match her hair.  she has always wanted a french twist or some sort of timeless hairstyle but her hair has been falling out. danielle was so excited i could do that for her.


when we got to her house, she was so exhausted.  she had to sit down immediately.  her fiancee called and she told him to come over to see her.  she told him she felt really pretty and wanted him to see her.  danielle let me cut part of her hair off in the very back so i could match her hair to the extentions.  we said our goodbyes and i walked to my car.  as i was putting all my supplies in my trunk, the reality of what just happened, hit me. i sat in my front seat and couldn't move.  my heart was so full of love for this amazing woman.  the tears began to stream down my cheeks while i just sat there; car still parked parallel to her house.
10:30pm.


what a sweet little mercy i had been given. maybe that saying that every person you meet is for a reason or a purpose, is true. when life may seem so busy, or possible future trials come or things may seem hard, i can reflect on this story and think there are strong people like danielle who knew how to smile in her white dress.


i heard these quotes once and thought they were fitting:

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."
- Henry Van Dyke

“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.” ~Mark Twain