Tuesday, October 26, 2010

moving on....

Hi. So I've moved - now you can get the same thrilling wit and banter, just at a different address! Check me out here:

http://butlerfive.wordpress.com/

And you can also find me here:

http://thisandthatdesign.wordpress.com/

thanks for sticking around through that little 3 month (ahem) vacation. catch me over on wordpress!

Sarah

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

put me in the corner.

just do it. put me in the corner. i'm a very, very bad blogger. i keep saying i'm going to change, i've even fired myself once or twice, and nothing seems to get through. i'm a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad blogger. i should be put into a very long timeout. in my room. where my bed is. and could you leave me a stack of books, while you're at it? i'll punish myself by not coming out until i've read them all.

anyhow, easiest way to catch up? see that big orange section in the post below? well, just keep watching. as i update, those orange parts will turn into green parts, which means you can click on them and a link will take you to that entry. I promise, i'll work hard. as soon as i'm done with all those books. :)

Thursday, June 3, 2010

staggering.

It really is staggering, how fast time has started to run on me. I know I probably sound as though I am 172 years old, but it's true. Time runs faster when you grow old.
And even though I'm pretty sure I don't have more than 4.7 readers, I do feel a bit guilty about the little 2 1/2 month hiatus I've taken from blogging. Not because I'm nearly positive that there are people gnashing their teeth and wearing sackcloth because they've been unable to pop in for a witty post or a glimpse of my ADORABLE offspring, but because I know there are nanas and papas and mimis and pas and even super awesome family friends who keep track of our little tribe through this site. So. All teasing about firing myself aside, sorry it's taken me a bit to catch up. In my defense, it's taken me this long just to "catch up" with my life. For reals. HERE'S WHY: (and mind you, this is not a complaint)
In the last 3 months we have: had a birthday, had a visit from nana & papa, gone to the zoo, had cupcakes for st. paddy's day, spent spring break with mimi here in oregon, gone to the aquarium, spent a bunch of days at the beach, spent easter on a farm, then gone snowboarding for the weekend, brought mimi & pa back to watch the kids while we snuck away to NYC for 5 blissful, wonderful, etc...days, started baseball (playing AND coaching), started karate, earned a new yellow belt, had another birthday, had a girls trip to Hawaii, had preschool graduation, had an anniversary, had ANOTHER birthday, (party for which is yet to come) and it doesn't show ANY SIGNS OF SLOWING. DO YOU HEAR ME, INTERNET?? I'm realizing something, here:
THIS IS NOW MY LIFE. It doesn't ever slow down - it just keeps getting faster. More people start playing sports. And demanding that you drive them places, like to play with their friends and such, and feed them THREE TIMES A DAY. OR MORE. It's staggering. So, I'm going to work hard to catch up and show you what we've done. It might not be witty, or bitingly sarcastic (well, it probably will be that) but there are pictures. Lots, and lots of pictures. So - here goes.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

baseball.


baseball season is upon us. playing, and coaching, and practicing, and lawn chairs and snack bags and the baby sisters pushing dollies around in tiny strollers. i would love it more if i wasn't putting a puffy down vest on my kid for games, in JUNE. i'd love it more if we hadn't had 4 rainouts so far. but it's baseball. it's striking out, getting on base, tagging home and little boys cheering and clapping. it's keeping score for the first time, it's shoulders up, faces grinning, or even taking a ball to the face. (poor jackson!) we didn't win a lot of games. we had fun. we played baseball. we pitched the kids who wanted to try, not just the ones who could get it over the plate. we took them to ice cream. we ate sunflower seeds. i love it. i grew up on it. what else do you really need?


we think the coach is pretty hot. and he multi-tasks, too.



the pitcher...


the crowd goes wild!


the mama, keeping busy
the girls...

Monday, May 24, 2010

fired.

hi. so, in an effort to promote efficiency, reliability, and consistency around these here blog-parts, i've fired the blogger. she's been a COMPLETE slacker lately. i mean, it's like she hasn't even SHOWN UP to work in over two months! and get a load of that header - it still says WINTER. winter. and it CLEARLY is no longer winter. it's almost like she's had a million other things taking priority - birthdays, jaunts to NYC, visits from family, trips to Hawaii - jeeze. like i said - slacker. however, i'm I MEAN SHE's applying to be reinstated. so, we'll see how it goes. check back in a few days and we'll see if she got her job back. :)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

i heart ny.

new york. in april. things are blooming, and there's sunshine, and there's the plaza hotel, and central park, and the babies are all safe at home, loving time with their mimi & pa. we snuck away for a few days, shawn working, me just, well, alone. with my camera, in new york city. for four days. shawn was worried i wouldn't have enough to do, or that i might get lonely. all by myself. for the first time in, well, you know - since the dinosaurs and all. oh, it was glorious. i loved it all. except for the one day i got a tiny bit turned around, and walked about 14 blocks in the wrong direction. but even then, i loved it. i'm breaking it down by days, because there were a LOT of photos. like, a lot. you can also see the whole set on flickr.

day one.
day two.
day three.
day four.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

nyc days 3 & 4

Ugh. it's new york, right people? so you understand that there is so much to tell, and so much to do, and there was almost an entire day spent wandering through soho and visiting some shops i'd been yearning to get inside for a long, long time. there was dinner with shawn in a quirky, dark pub. there was a confection from vesuvius bakery in soho that included these things: toasted, crusty seeded sourdough bread, warm sweet ricotta cheese, and a drizzle of SPICY CARAMEL SAUCE. yep. there was purl soho, and of course, glassybaby nyc. there was cappucino all by myself, just sitting at a little bar inside a shop and enjoying it. there was plenty of time to photograph all the buildings, bikes, and yarn i felt like. there was a bath ordered up from our personal butler service, ready and waiting for me when i walked in the room. (shut. up. there are people who live like this? really? shut up.) it was unreal. really. a series of days, IN A ROW, where i was responsible for no one but myself. tomorrow, our last day. greenmarket, sunday brunch. mmmm.








Thursday, April 15, 2010

day two. brooklyn and tiny m&m's.

brooklyn. took the subway to brooklyn, all by myself. felt like a big girl in my big girl panties and pretty sunglasses. brooklyn botanical gardens was a delight, cherry trees all in bloom, nannies and babies roaming, tourists, tiny old ladies, and hipster dads all mingling in delicious sunshine and pink fluff petals. scrumptious. wandered with my camera for quite a few hours.








it was such a beautiful day, really the perfect definition of spring. i headed back to the city, only this time i got even more adventurous and decided to get off a few stops early to go to chinatown. i heard there were some sweet fabric shops just begging to be explored. unfortunately, my innate sense of direction apparently doesn't work from under the ground. i wound up a bit turned around, which was FINE, really. i used my iphone to navigate a bit, ended up in tribeca, which was pretty cool, but the whole sitch got a bit LESS cool when i realized i had wandered about 20 blocks in the wrong direction and was now very close to the financial district. folks, my hotel was by central park. my feet were tired, my camera bag was suddenly very, very heavy, and i decided to give in and just catch a cab. at 5-ish. near the financial district. pause with me now, and then laugh at me. hard. laugh so hard soda snorts out your nose. it only took me 45 min to get a cab that was going the wrong direction. this included one guy who stopped and then laughed at me when i told him where i was going. i didn't cry. really. i didn't. much. when i finally DID get a cab, he'd never heard of the Plaza Hotel. Um. Kay. Then he took me the longest stinking way possible, while I NAVIGATED. FROM THE BACK SEAT. WITH MY IPHONE. and at the end, i just paid him the $40 because my feet hurt and, well, mostly it was just cause my feet hurt. does there need to be a better reason?

after i met shawn at the hotel and recovered (read that "had a large glass of wine") in the room for a bit, we headed out for dinner. we ate at a little place the mister usually goes for work, trattoria dell'arte, which was super yum. this is why i like traveling with him: i'm kind of a giant wuss/baby/fraidycat when it comes to telling people i don't like what they've given me. for instance, the first table we were shown to was about 2 inches from the table next to it. pretty sure the man next to us was almost in my lap. pretty sure they had to pull the table OUT for shawn to get in. not exactly the nice, romantic dinner date i was looking for. so shawn nicely, but firmly, asked for another table. we chose to sit on the little street patio, which had heaters, and was sweet and lovely. DISCLAIMER: this is how you know you live in oregon: when it starts to rain (sprinkle, really) on said patio, and the wind picks up, you just put on your sweater. and then about 20 min later, you realize that every soul that was sitting on the patio but you has gone inside, and you didn't notice. and the waiters don't want to come out and serve you. :) anyhow, we finished up our bottle of wine and by that time the rain had stopped, and we went walking towards times square. not because we love it all that much, but because we had made a promise to our baby girl that we'd bring her tiny m&m's from the store in new york. and we did. $30 later. ha.


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

nyc, day one.

i'll pretty much do anything to get the heck out of here for a few days, including being willing to basically spend the night in the airport. we met my parents after their flight, which got in at like 11:15. our flight left at 6:30 the next morning, so we did a handoff, giving them our car and crashing out at the airport until we could check in at 4:3o. other than witnessing a guy get patted down by the coppers and then calmly inform them of his outstanding drug warrant, the weed in his shoe, and the needles (recently used) in his bag, it was a pretty uneventful night. we tried to get some rest.



we landed at JFK early, like 9 a.m., and headed into the city. my man looks good in the city, folks. i'm just sayin. :)


we checked into our hotel early...because when you're staying at the Plaza, and you're a president's club member, that's how you roll. they offered to carry our bags up and have our personal butler (no pun) unpack for us, but i kinda felt like that was a little much. i had a vision of a man in white gloves fluffing out my spanx, and that was enough to make me politely decline.
anyhow - the Plaza. There's a reason Eloise liked it so much, folks. it's scrumptious.





Shawn had to run to a meeting, so he let me loose on the city. can you even believe it? and here's how much of a GIANT nerd i am - i went straight to the New York Public Library. right? i like it there. it's pretty, and quiet, and just full of books. sigh.



somehow, i managed to while away the afternoon. sunset found me meeting the mister in central park for a walk.



We even dressed up (heels, people, HIGH heels. i kid you not) for dinner and drinks out - dinner at Five Points (yuuuuummmmeeeeey) and drinks with my sister-in-law's sister (our family is cool!) at one of my most fave new places ever...Pravda....which is essentially a russian speakeasy that is UNDER THE GROUND, peeps. they sell about 18 trillion different kinds of vodka, i couldn't read the "men" & "women" signs on the bathrooms (they were in russian), and my fresh pear martini was killer.






we even passed possibly my favorite window display of all time....before we caught a cab back to our little slice of heaven.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

snow.


i like winter. i like it a lot. especially when it stays in the mountains, all the way into april. i like taking off for a quick weekend getaway, staying in a cozy lodge, spending a sunny day on the slopes watching all three of my guys rock the snowboards. i like a baby that naps so i can sit in the lodge, drink coffee, and read. those boys are cute. so is my baby girl, who puts the delicious in snow bunny. (? yes. it's my blog. i can mix metaphors.)

"weady to go no'bodeing" she says. um.



loving that hipstamatic for iphone.














heading home....


down the mountain...to spring!
 

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