for mother's day

There is a portrait photographer at the Fremont Sunday flea market in Seattle that has a small photo booth. He charges $10 to sit and pose you, and only takes one shot with his digital camera. Then he prints out an instant black and white portrait for you to keep. The whole experience was under 5 minutes.

It's a great idea, a simple set up, lots of foot traffic, instant gratification for customers and he has the talent of composing a good portrait. He's there every Sunday. I admire his work.I have been wanting to get our family picture taken by him for some time now. So being that it was mother's day, everyone was obligated to go. We brought the dog too...

gorillaz • plastic beach

I really like the Gorillaz 2001 debut album. I remember it came out around the time of the September 11 attacks. The "Clint Eastwood" track magically lifted spirits in the workplace or while driving with it's dub, hip hop, alternative rock, electro pop beat. They were cool. They mixed things up. I hadn't heard anything like that before. Since then though I hadn't paid much attention to them.

When I realized Yukimi Nagano from Little Dragon is featured on two of the tracks on the new album, Plastic Beach, I was really intrigued. Empire Ants is really worth listening to, particularly the end. However, my favorite songs on the album are Rhinestone Eyes and especially, Welcome to the World feat. Snoop Dogg.

I noticed my sister posted "Rhinestone Eyes" on her Facebook. The lyrics are really good. I thought it was neat that we shared that. Also, Athen has taken a special liking to "Welcome to the World." Although, I believe it's because I told him Snoop Dogg sang in the song. He thought his name was hilarious!

Almost a decade later, in a different present of uncertainty, the Gorillaz are back and making me groove.

the birthday party

Athen (photo: kim gray)

Athen wanted a superhero birthday party this year. I planned a few games to play in the back yard. I have fond memories of playing the spiderweb game for my 5th and 6th birthday parties. I thought it fit the Spiderman theme really well for Athen's superhero idea. John set it up. The prize was a superhero pez.

The spiderweb obstacle course.

Elliot, Athen & Ailor (photo: kim gray)

Asher loved climbing around the web! He's getting to be such a big boy...
(photo: kim gray)

We tried to play musical chairs, but the kids just wanted to dance!

After the dancing was done, we ate Batman birthday cake. Gamma sent a pull spiderman pinata that I filled with bouncy balls and bubble gum. Each child got a superhero pin back button too. It was a pretty successful party. No melt downs. Only 1 broken toy. The weather was perfect, which completely made up for last year...hurray!!! (I'm so glad it's over...!)

athen is 5 years old!

The eve of Athen's birthday, John and I decorated the house. I had to work on his actual birthday, (of course) so we didn't officially end up celebrating until later in the evening. I invited my good friend Mika over for dinner. We ordered pizza and ice cream cake and opened presents...It was a pretty mellow evening.

Mika hit the jackpot with this battery operated walking, vintage reproduction robot.

photo by mikaphoot by mika

photo by mika

birthday presents

Athen is turning 5 in five days. He has been dying to turn 5 since last November. Now that he knows the day is finally approaching he has been eager to discuss his gifts. For the past few weeks Athen has been obsessed with the ever popular japanese animation tv show/toy/computer game/mass marketing gold mine known as Bakugan. Athen has a few of the characters from the game, and he plays with them constantly.

This morning he crawled into bed with us and informed me that all I had to do was "go to Target and go to isle 6 and there they are!"...."How did you know that?!" I said. "Alfred told me," he said....good to know.

nevermore

The older my children get, the more my career aspirations from my past life seem so inconsequential and superficial. Simultaneously, I am struggling with letting certain dreams go...

I made this the other night while working on some belated thank you notes. The card is of an old photograph of the NYC skyline. It was from a stationary set I've had since high school. The stylish woman is from a magazine clipping that my great Aunt Nancy had saved. She worked for Mademoiselle magazine in New York during the 1950's. The image of the raven is from a glass blower's business card and the photographer is from a album promo poster. The moon I made myself.

boys & pets