greatest hits: summer edition

a friend recently asked me when i was bringing my greatest hits back, and my reply was "end of the summer".  well friends, late august only means one thing.

sorry for the little hiatus.  our summer was jam-packed and for some odd reason i rarely had my camera around to document the fun.  i did catch a few goodies, so i bring to you my abbreviated greatest hits: summer edition.

i'll be back to regular programming now that our schedule is back in tact.

this summer we:

made some potential love connections,

 practiced flying,

 welcomed visitors,

 added new/old faces to our bedtime reading rituals,

 went to the children's aquarium,

 oohed and ahhhed at sea-life,

 pet sting-rays (no thankyouverymuch.  blech.),

 raced cheetahs (and did not win),

 ate downtown,

 visited old friends,

watched some turtles "wrestle",

 ate ridiculously delicious pie,

 found art everywhere,

 primarily snacked at a spraypark (which are overrated according to my baby),

 saw a couple of half-moons,

 bounced on a birthday,

 admired a friend's reemerging gymnastics skills (that is, before all that bouncing caused her to pee her pants),

 observed a boy's committment to birthday rituals,

 celebrated nine years of marriage at one of our best places,

 took lame selfies,

 recruited our boy to mop,

 unsuccessfully searched for ducks to feed,

 made slime,

 went to the car wash,

 swam and snacked with our besties,

 walked the dog,

 swung in the yard,

 added to our  their collection of cicada shells (nasty),

 showed the city how big we are,

 ate popcicles in the park, 

snapped photos of gorgeous ladies,

 hung out on the adair's patio (in due time boys, in due time),

 worked on those gross-motor skills,

 bonked heads and lived to tell about it.

how was your summer?  what were some of the highlights?

love,

coco

bye-bye baby

just like that my baby became a fuzzy-headed toddler, who became a little boy with a fierce love of dinosaurs/trains/elephants/gorillas/ninjas, who then became a kindergartener.  like, in the blink of an eye.

next up: junior high, puberty and prom.

i'm not ready.

this morning ben's excitement turned into a nervous confidence as he entered his classroom.  he did great and didn't bat an eye when it was time to say good-bye (which is really all you can wish for as a parent).  i, on the other hand, had to walk out of the building in silence, for if i opened my mouth to speak, i would have gurgled instead.

i am a crier.  i cry when i am angry, happy, scared, frustrated, and apparently when my child starts kindergarten (and pre-school and mother's day out.  whatever.)  today was no different, even though i am so excited for him and he is so ready and i am so ready and he loves his teacher.

never in a million years did i anticipate missing thomas the train this much.

miss holford.  an aggie.  whoop! 

we suck at the self-timer. 

my sister-in-law shared this article by beverly beckham with me.

this part kills me:

September whisks kids away and entertains them and beguiles them, but returns them not as they were but changed and in a different size. That’s why parents cry as they stand and wave goodbye. Because first grade becomes fifth grade becomes high school becomes college even as you watch.

How is this, I wonder, that a day alone with a colicky baby and an I-don’t-take-a-nap-anymore 2-year-old can feel like a year? But 18 years can go by in a blink of an eye? 

 click here to read the rest.

are you plagued with the crying gene like me?  how do you cope with big changes?  

the newest kinder-mom on the block,

coco

paul ferney commission project

remember the paintings i had commissioned of the boys?

and remember how i promised i would let you know about the next round early enough to get one for yourself?

it's here!  and for only 24 hours.

click here order (or learn more).

love,

coco

girls trip 4 mix-tape, volume two

via

as promised, here is the second girls trip mix-tape from this year.  since i planned the trip, i decided to step it up with THREE mixes.  heeeeeeeeey.

here's volume two.  there's no rhyme or reason, only that i try to include upbeat songs (slow songs can be a downer for a dance party).  these are just songs i like and decided to make into a mix.  (to listen to volume one, click here.  for past playlists, try here and here.)

spotify playlist

1) from nowhere- dan croll
(this song makes me a really good dancer ;)
2) time to run- lord huron
3) ramona- night beds
4) everlasting arms- vampire weekend
(this song makes me a really good singer. by far the best album purchase of 2013 for me!  AND they'll be at acl this year.  holla.)
5) royals- lorde
(radio is trying to kill this for me, but i won't let it.  nosiree, bob.  p.s. did you know that she is like 16 or something ridiculous like that?)
6) 1957- milo greene
7) breezeblocks- alt-j
8) spotlight- leagues
9) feels like we only go backwards- tame impala
10) let's go- matt & kim
(oh please, oh please go see them live.  you will not regret it).
11) diane young- vampire weekend
(this song turns ben into a really great singer.  he must get that from me).
12) float- pacific air
13) two fingers- jake bugg
14) keep you- wild belle
(i linked to a live performance so that you could develop a girl crush similar to mine).

what songs are you loving?  i neeeeeeeeed to know.

i'll be back with the icing-on-the-cake of mix-tapes.  to be continued....

love,

coco

snapshots: master bed and bath

when we bought our house, it had schizophrenic floors.  one room had carpet, another beautiful old parquets, another had laminate flooring, bathrooms were tiled, halls were plastic parquets, kitchen was vinyl.  all fugly.  i'll never understand why there were so many types, but we did understand that if we were going to make all of the floors as uniform as possible, we needed to do it first thing before we got too settled in our new home.

so we moved into the only room in the house with real-deal hardwood floors (our bedroom), while we ripped up the other existing floors and laid matching hardwoods in as many of the remaining floors as possible.  we kept the tile and the real parquets.  everything else had to go.

we lived in camp bonner for a month.  it was awesome, see?  sexy.

good times, good times (kidding.  i cried a lot).

here she is now (and yes, i apologize for the dim, yellowy snapshot):

what we've done (bedroom):

painted walls

stained hardwood floors

new window treatments

what we've done (master bath):

***all of our bathrooms are in pretty poor shape, so we just added cosmetic band-aids until we can afford to re-do them down the road.

painted the walls

added new light fixtures, mirror and hardware

our headboard is actually made from old doors mounted to the wall.  these doors sat in our garage for years because we weren't sure what to do with them.  chris took them from a trash-pile at a customer's house years ago (he asked first).  there is an old note nailed to one of the doors explaining their origin.  nola, baby.

one man's trash is another man's treasure.

speaking of trash, we picked up this dresser off the side of the road.  it had no drawers.  my pawpaw built some for us, added some old hardware he found in the back of the shop, and painted it in one of my favorite finishes.  ta-da!  new dresser.

stole this mirror a hundred years ago from my parents' garage.  thanks, mom and dad,  hope you weren't saving that for something special.

photographs from johnny donnels studio in new orleans.  he has since passed away and his studio is no longer there.  but here's his website.

 chris and i made these jewelry hangers a few years ago to give as christmas gifts.  i kept a couple for myself.

 nude sketch bought at an art market years ago for under $5.  pawpaw made the frame.

 leaded glass (made by a dear friend's dad) was taken from our last house before we moved.  and from the house before that as well.  pawpaw recently framed them so we could hang them in our windows here (more about that in another post).

 print from my sister.  designed by southern fried paper. bought at dallas flea.

 hook: anthro.

 knobs: target.

 mirror: hand-me-down.

make up table: pawpaw made it.  thanks again, paw.

chair: bought for pennies years ago at an antique barn in forney.

my favorite paint finish of all time.  chris jokes that i want to paint all of my furniture black.  and it's true.  you know what they say....once you go black....

deets:

curtains: target

bedding: west elm duvet cover/pottery barn shams/target bedskirt

rug: overstock.com

bedside tables: target

lamps: marshall's