Posting this from my phone in bed at an akward angle so I’m making this short.

I think the main thing to take away from these sketches is that Isabelle is afraid of bees. I think today, yes a month later, is the first time she walked towards the house without worrying about bees. But who knows. Maybe she briefly forgot and will be back to asking tomorrow.

I haven’t posted a video in weeks. And now you get two. TWO!!

Getting closer to walking by himself on Flickr

Isabelle saw me uploading the video of Nathan and asked, “what about me?” So, I shot a video of her.

Isabelle singing on Flickr

Have a good weekend!

I think I need to start sharing pictures from the same day as my sketch pages. I think it’s the only way I’ll possibly ever get caught up.

And this time around it’s easy. The only photos were from the Beaver Festival.

I am racking my mind and cannot think of a single thing to say. Maybe because this happened a month ago. D’oh!

I have commented about my crap memory before. So, it may come as no surprise, to you, that I have no idea why I titled this post brain soup. I’m positive I was on a particular train of thought when I dreamt that up. Something that made perfect sense at the time. And then that perfect train of thought got derailed.

I think it must have had something to do with how my brain is mush and all my days melt into each other. Some days my brain is so mushy that I cannot remember what I did the previous day. How ridiculous is that? But of course that’s why I try to take photos. And why I draw. How else am I to remember it all?

With the aid of photographs I can say, hey last month on August the 8th, which was a Sunday, Alan put these glasses on Nathan and it looked so silly and cute I took a picture.

And by looking at that picture I can also lament on the rashy battle we fight constantly. Nathan’s face looks pretty much like that right now, the redness and bumps near his mouth sort of on his cheeks. Mmmm…actually maybe it’s a little worse than that right now. We’ve been dealing with this for months and months and months. Dare I say since he was born? I could not tell you exactly because, hello, brain soup!

Needless to say we’ve been fighting it for a long time. We put stuff on it from the doctor. It clears up but just comes right back. We’ve tried vaseline. We’ve tried lotions. And right now I’m off of cow’s milk, suggestion from my sister thinking it was allergies.

But I digress, brain soup. Photos. I take them to help me remember. Like was this Nathan’s first time down the slide on August 11th?

Maybe. Brain soup. I cannot remember.

And this, also on August 11th:

Alan tried to block Nathan from the kitchen by using the excersaucer. He was not successful. Thank you brain soup. I totally forgot this until I pulled up that photo tonight.

Oooh this is a good memory. I made banana chocolate chip cookies, on August 11th, because Bethany blogged about it one day.

Ok, brain soup, you need to remember this is too many cookies. I was the only one who ate them. Sigh.

Oooh here’s another good memory, on August 12th, I made a popsicle house for Isabelle. And I’m super glad I have this photo since the house is no more. Oh wait, that’s not quite accurate. It’s still here, just flat. Nathan got a hold of it.

And if it weren’t for darn old brain soup I would remember to fix it.

Ok did you notice all these photos were from a month ago? Why am I showing them now? There IS a reason. These dates correspond to the pages from my sketchbook. Brain soup is trying to get all caught up. And yes I’m using brain soup in all sorts of weird ways. Just go with it.

Ok I’m all brain souped out.

How was your weekend? Our weekend was awesome. Yesterday we celebrated Isabelle’s fifth birthday! For the past week I’ve been asking her what she wants to do for her birthday. She would always reply, go for a walk.

Well, Alan’s coworker had mentioned a festival in Albany/Berkeley where they closed off twenty to thirty blocks, the Solano Stroll street festival. So, we decided to take our walk there. Ummmm…it was crowded.

I mean CROWDED! Can you see the hoards of people in the background of this picture?! I may or may not have hyperventilated a teensy bit in that crush of humanity. Just a teeny bit. Tiny, eensy, oh my god strangers are touching me, breath, breath, breath, teeny bit.

Yep. We walked a good length of it, me and Isabelle. Alan drove a good length of it trying to find parking. We didn’t really look at much though. I was too busy concentrating on not being touched. Isabelle just walked along with me unless she was diverted by some colorful booth. But mostly she was intent on getting a blow up hammer or bat that she saw so many other children sporting.

Finally at the very end we came upon the hammer and bat wielding people.

For three hits, at a dollar each, Isabelle got to bring home her own blow up hammer toy, guaranteed. I really liked how they set it up so the kids felt like they won. I’m glad she didn’t have to actually try to hit the ball into the tiny holes. Just three swings and you got a prize.

I didn’t take any pictures of the hammer though because…ack! Too many people touching me, cannot concentrate on doing mundane regular things. No, just joking. I was probably distracted by Nathan. So, let me describe it. It’s pink and purple with a pair of big red lips on it and the words, “sexy”. When I told Isabelle what it read she responded, “S.E.X.Y. SEXY?! Eeeew!”

After Isabelle got her hammer she was done. She was perfectly happy to go home so we headed to our car, which was, strangely, parked by a cornfield. I’m not used to seeing cornfields in cities so took this picture.

All that food at the festival and we didn’t get anything to eat. So, we went to an ice cream parlor for a late lunch.

And for dessert Isabelle got a child size sundae.

Seriously? This is a child sundae?!

And then we headed home. We pulled up to our house and I thought, let’s get Isabelle some balloons. So, off we drove again and while I occupied Isabelle at the dollar store, Alan went and bought her some balloons and stuffed them into the car. When we got to the car, we opened the car door and Isabelle was surprised with her balloons. She said, “Balloons? This is the best birthday EVER!”

But of course it wasn’t even over. We went home and she opened her present.

Totally weird random wrapping paper right? Alan wrapped it while Isabelle was asleep the night before. He used what we had on hand. And when I woke up and saw it, I decided it needed a pink handmade pom pom.

Then while Isabelle was busy playing I made her carrot cupcakes with browned butter frosting. Yum!



And that was how we spent Isabelle’s birthday. But we’re still in birthday mode here because we will be having a party this coming up weekend. So, put on your thinking caps because tomorrow I’m going to be asking for party ideas.