favorite of the week - custom narnia art

Since I'm kind of on a Narnia roll with the last couple of posts, I thought I'd make my prized custom-made Narnia art the subject of my fave of the week too. You got a glimpse of one of them last week in this post, because our lovely state lizard (okay, we might not officially have a state lizard) decided to hang out with the only other reptile in the room for awhile when he somehow made his way into our living room last week.

I have this little sister who is practically my mini-me, only cuter, more talented, and with greater overall panache. One of her many talents is illustrating stories (another is writing stories, check out her sporadically updated story blog). Since we are both literature lovers, and Narnia fans, I knew it would be easy to get her to do a series of pictures for me as a wedding gift. You can get her to do anything as long as you only ask her to do things that she wants to do.

Between us we came up with an idea to make the art to look like pages taken from a book, with the illustrations surrounded by text. She surpassed my expectations when she presented Jessie and me with this series of four drawings taken from the following books:

"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"

"The Magician's Nephew"

"The Last Battle"

and

"The Horse and his Boy"

I love them, and I love telling people where they came from.

I have reason to believe that they may be joined by a fifth in time, since I informed Aunt Rachel that Emeth would really, really like an illustration of his namesake for his birthday.

favorite of the week - safari friends slippers

The only thing better than dressing well yourself, is dressing your kids cutely. I just like looking at them and thinking "Cuuuuuuuuute!" even on days when their hair is dishevelled, possibly caked with syrup, and they chose their own clothing. So I'm so glad we got the girls these slippers for Christmas, from GAP, which never fail to elicit a mental "Cuuuuuuuuuuute!" from me when they are wearing them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that is certainly preferable to "Oh my, would you just look at the filth on the bottoms of those socks?!" I don't need any more reminders of how dirty my floors are.

I said (months ago) that I thought I might make this "favorite of the week" a regular thing around here, then I promptly forgot about it. But I like it. It's nice to take a moment to appreciate something I already have, might have even had for a long time, instead of wishing for something else that I don't have. If you gotta be materialistic, try to do it with materials that are already on hand ;).

favorite of the week - large cutting implements for the diaper bag

I've been thinking about my favorite things this week. I think I might make this a regular around here. Do you have items that you have a weird emotional attachment to, or that make you feel clever or sophisticated (or otherwise) every time you use them, or that you feel you really couldn't live without, or fill your heart with warm fuzzy feelings when you look at them?

I was struck with a feeling of weirdness in the food court of Sam's Club the other day, when I opened my diaper bag and pulled out a rather lethal looking pair of kitchen shears, and proceeded to (very efficiently!) cut up hot dogs for each of my children. I tried to imagine to myself that all the people who were already staring at the pregnant woman out alone with 3 small children in tow were just admiring my ingenuity and foresight.

I mean, who carries these around in their diaper bag? (Answer: only exceptionally brilliant people, of course.)

I love these scissors. They are awesome for cutting up meat without dirtying a cutting board (I hate getting meat juice on my cutting boards), and I use them for cutting up the girls' food every day. They actually come apart and the large piece doubles as a santoku knife too.

I always kick myself when I forget to slip them in the diaper bag on days when we end up eating pizza or hot dogs on the run, or at a church function or birthday party (not that we would ever stoop to eating hot dogs or pizza. That would be unhealthy, after all). It gives me an immense feeling of satisfaction to reach in my diaper bag and come up brandishing these babies. Its about 16 times faster than trying to use a silly plastic fork on a paper plate. They have saved me from many public meltdowns from hungry children, and from personal starvation, since I can't eat my own food until all the girls' food has been properly cut up and distributed. I definitely recommend adding them to your baby shower registry ;).