Orange tree love mug, inspired by this mug and this pencil holder.

Funky orange dotty bowl, inspired partly by this bowl.

These were both painted for Carole Axium, jewelry designer extraordinaire. I love Carole’s earrings (the pair in the bowl were made by her, actually) and was very flattered that she asked me to paint a mug and a bowl for her. Carole, they’re both in my shop when you’re ready to buy them!

Remember this tree mug I just blogged about recently? I painted it for Kerri, but wasn’t 100% happy with it because I didn’t think it was exactly what she wanted. So I tried again, and offered Kerri the choice. She chose my second attempt. The bottom of this mug says “for Kerri” on it, so I marked the price down. It’s on sale in my shop, if anyone wants it. If your name happens to be Kerri, so much the better.

I painted this colorful Gumball mug a few months ago. It’s one of my pay-it-forward gifts. I finally managed to ship it to Falwyn last week so I can post photos here without spoiling the surprise!

Falwyn, as you might know, is something of a Gumball enthusiast. And that’s an understatement. Naturally, I wanted to paint her a Gumball mug, but I wanted it to be unique. So I came up with the idea to fingerpaint a mug with all different colors, then use white puffy paint to outline a “ghost” Gumball.

I quite like how it turned out. I had a hard time letting go of it, I liked it so much! But I’m happy knowing that the mug now belongs to someone who will appreciate it.

The day that Jill & Kevin were here we noticed our first cucumber was ready. Technically that wasn’t the first thing we’d picked from the garden since I’d been using the herbs since day one, but it was our first vegetable. (Or are cucumbers fruit, since they grow on vines like melons and pumpkins? Yes, Wikipedia says they’re technically fruit, though they’re usually considered, prepared and eaten as vegetables.)

After we’d waved our friends on their way, I asked Annalie if she wanted to eat the cucumber for a snack. She thought that was a great idea, and asked, “Can I peel it all by myself?”

Well, sure, why not? She spent a looong time making sure she got all the dark green skin scraped away. Then she asked, “Can I cut it myself, mom? I’ll be careful!” I thought about it for a few seconds. Annalie had been doing more in the kitchen recently, stirring things on the hot stove with supervision, and she’s been helping Troy make pancakes on the griddle for a while now. I figured, she’s gotta start using a sharpish knife sometime, and a cucumber’s probably a good thing to start on.

Annalie was very careful with the knife. I had to remind her several times to keep her fingers tucked under so she didn’t accidentally cut herself.

As she was slicing she chattered excitedly about how she was going to surprise Daddy with the cucumbers, and wasn’t he going to be proud of her for peeling and cutting the cucumber all by herself?

She was pretty proud of herself, for that matter.

Annalie arranged the slices on the plate she’d just painted for Troy for Father’s Day and sprinkled them with salt, which is our preferred method of eating cucumbers.

Annalie excitedly called Troy into the kitchen and presented him with the plate full of cucumber slices. Troy did a good job of being surprised and amazed to hear that Annalie had prepared the cucumber all by herself. Then we enjoyed eating our first garden-fresh cucumber.

That’s all I have the energy to say right now, because I’m tired and plan on doing almost nothing tomorrow. What did you do for the 4th of July?

(View this mosaic large)

The Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge opened about a year ago, spanning the Missouri River between Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa. I guess it’s the first pedestrian bridge to connect two states, which is kinda cool. We decided to go check it out.

Annalie was thrilled to be there, can you tell? Mostly she was hot and impatient. There’s a really cool fountain for kids to play in at the base of the bridge, and she knew we were heading there after we walked out to the middle of the bridge.

I remember when I was in high school in the early 1990s there was a little walkway in this same area that just went out over the river a few yards, like a lookout point. I think they were even talking way back then about making it into a pedestrian bridge, which I thought was a great idea. When I was a kid, every time we drove across the Mormon Bridge I would think about how cool it would be if we could walk on it, but it was and is a cars-only bridge. I enjoyed the chance to finally walk over the Mighty Mo.

Annalie just enjoyed getting off the bridge and getting to the fountain!

Annalie loves playing in fountains and sprinklers. One of the things we missed most last summer, after we moved here from Maryland, was the sprayground in our town. So we were quite excited when we recently discovered a really nice park not far from our house with a FREE sprayground!

It’s a neat one, too, designed to look like an ocean filled with sea creatures. There are fish and dolphins and an octopus, and some of the poles and fountains and water guns are arranged so they look kind of like a pirate ship. My favorite, though, is the orca fountain. The fountain is the blowhole!

Spraygrounds: they make kids happy.

Which makes moms happy.

Last weekend I got to meet Jill, aka GlossyVeneer! She had some vacation time she needed to use up before it expired, so she and her husband decided to go on a vacation to Southern California.

I’ve been reading Jill’s blogs (she has a running blog too) for over a year now. I think Jill has been following my blog about as long. We follow each other on twitter, and we’ve commented and mailed back and forth quite a bit. Remember how I donated that custom-painted pottery piece to help with fundraising for a marathon last year? That was for Jill. Given all that, I guess you’d say we’re pretty good friends by internet standards.

So of course when I found out she was going to be in town, I immediately invited her and her husband Kevin to come have aebleskivers with us!

Mmm, bubbly cooking aebleskivers…

And they came! And we all ate aebleskivers and talked and laughed and had a great time. As Jill said, it was one of those great internet/blog meetings where there was no awkwardness at all, only recognition and an invitation to come back and visit again anytime.

I only knew Kevin a little, from the hilarious Conversations with the Hubby series on Jill’s blog, but was instantly comfortable with him, and so was Troy. Of course, Troy is instantly comfortable with pretty much everyone in the world. He’s just fabulous like that. Though after meeting him I have to admit that Kevin is pretty cool in his own right, in a geeky sort of way—as all the best guys are. (You all know how I feel about geeks, right?) Even Annalie was relaxed with Kevin after about the first minute, which is a huge compliment.

After breakfast and conversation and plying Jill with a few lemons freshly-picked off the tree and some homemade vanilla and a sparkly magnet, we pointed them towards a farmer’s market in Carlsbad, told them to come back anytime (seriously!), and wished them safe travels.

I love meeting internet people. Who’s next?

These are rather unfortunately called Raspberry Strippers but they are surprisingly easy and quick to make, they look elegant, and man are they ever delicious. They have been one of my go-to cookies for years now. I made them one rainy afternoon at my parents’ house when my mom needed a dessert for a dinner she was taking to someone from their church who’d recently had surgery.

We usually have lunch at OJ’s, a Mexican restaurant near my parents’ house, with my mom and her friend Donelle (whom I’ve known my entire life and is like an honorary aunt—she occasionally comments on this site as “Aunt B”) when we’re in Omaha.

When we visit Troy’s stepmom, almost the first thing Annalie asks is, “Can I play with your jewelry?”

This is Kailyn. She’s one of the Kay girls, the closest to Annalie in age, and they’re good buddies. She usually sits with us in church and invites Annalie to come to Sunday school with her. This visit was the first time that Annalie went to Sunday school not once, but twice. Now that she likes Sunday school, we should probably work on actually getting ourselves to church on a regular basis when we’re at home, eh?

Kailyn went with us to see the stage version of High School Musical at the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center. The Rose is the home of the Omaha Theater Company, one of the oldest children’s theater companies in the nation.

When I was growing up, the Omaha Theater Company’s home was the Emmy Gifford Children’s Theater. I saw dozens of plays there over the course of my childhood, some on school field trips and many more with my mom and brother. From an early age, The Emmy Gifford instilled in me a love and respect for live theater, and I have extremely fond memories of it. The best thing was how, after every single performance, the cast invited the audience to stick around and ask any questions they might have about the play. Can you think of anything cooler than that!?

In the late 1990s, the Rose (which was formerly the Astro Theater) was donated by the Blumkin family to the Omaha Theater Company, and renovated with a multi-million dollar donation from the same family. Since the Rose opened, the Omaha Ballet Company has been established and performs in the same theater.

I was very excited to take Annalie to her second play here. She loves the movie version of High School Musical this play was pretty good. Annalie LOVED it. I think I’m going to have to make it a tradition to try to get tickets to a show each time we’re in Omaha from now on.

Annalie drew this picture in the car, on the way to Leslie & Ed’s house. I asked her to tell me about it. “This is a picture of me coming up to your bedroom because I had a nightmare. See, here’s my bed, downstairs in my bedroom, and here’s me on the stairs. I’m going up to ask you if I can sleep with you and Daddy. These are the stars and moon outside, because it’s night. Oh, and that’s the door the garage, down there. I didn’t go down there but I drew it because that’s where it is.”

Troy took this photo of me getting my hair done. In the background on the right, my mom is talking to Trace, who has been my mom’s (and my occasional) stylist for 15 years. We share a love of the movie That Thing You Do! and its music, and have awesome conversations about movies and TV every time he cuts my hair.

In the background on my left, you can see Annalie and her cousin FJ watching a movie on the DVD player. FJ’s mom, my cousin Tressa, just happened to have a hair appointment at the same salon at the same time as my mom and me. So we got to see Tressa one more time, and Annalie and FJ got to hang out with each other one more time. Very cool.

Troy’s stepmom gave us this photo of Troy and his dad petting a goat at a park in California. It was taken when Troy was about 2 1/2, in 1972. On the back Troy’s mom wrote, “Troy, Keith, and friend.” I love her inscription, and also Troy’s seventies-licious sandals and Keith’s plaid-tastic pants.

Annalie took this photo of me when we were visiting my Gramma. I don’t post photos of my Gramma here because the internet makes her nervous and she doesn’t like her picture to be online where just anyone can see it. If you’re a Flickr friend, you can see the pictures there.

Rachel and Jeff invited us and my parents over for dinner, which was really nice. I love to eat out, but when we’re traveling we eat out SO MUCH that we always especially appreciate when someone invites us into their home and cooks for us.

The path to Rachel’s backyard garden (which is set down from the main part of the backyard) looks rather enchanted, don’t you think?

It’s working well for growing peas, anyway! Annalie was quite excited when I asked her what kind of plant this was, and she immediately recognized the peapods.

Hills are great for running down. Don’t you wish you had the energy of a five-year-old?

Annalie and Gramaw Debbie didn’t plan to wear matching outfits that day. Honest.

Two extremely random photos. We were in the parking lot of a movie theater when I glanced over and saw the antennae all lined up. I just liked it. If you’re from Omaha, you probably know where these antennae are. Any guesses?

Driving down the main street in my parents’ neighborhood, I cracked up when I saw the BK sign and made Troy go back later so I could take a photo. I was tempted to photoshop out the ‘G’ so it would be even funnier…but I refrained.

If you’re a good detective, you probably picked up on the clues in the title up there and the above photo and figured out that Erin (who normally lives in Oregon, where we visited her and Rocco last fall) is in California. She’s working in Pasadena this summer, doing an internship involving figuring out how to send satellites into orbit, or something that sounds totally unrelated to her field of expertise which is geology. You’d have to ask Erin to explain it better.

Even though Pasadena is a two-hour drive from where we live, and even though Erin and Rocco (who’s flying down this weekend) are coming to our house for the 4th of July weekend, we drove up there just to have dinner one day last week. I don’t want Erin to be that close to me all summer and end up only seeing her twice! I’m going to take advantage of it as much as I can, traffic be damned. So I dragged Troy and Annalie up there with me. I even roped Brenda and Bug into coming with us, because I was excited for two of my best friends to finally meet each other. Too bad they couldn’t stand each other.

Just kidding!!! Everyone got along great, which was no surprise to me. Erin and Brenda are both very likeable, and they’re both friends with me, so they must have at least a few things in common.

We picked Erin up at her work and drove downtown for pizza. We ate and talked and laughed, and after dinner we let the kids run around for a few minutes by this funky fountain that had what looked like a bug totem pole in the middle of it.

The shortest route to the minivan from the restaurant was right through the courtyard of City Hall. Pasadena has an impressive city hall, I must say. There’s a huge fountain in the courtyard and the building glowed in the late-evening sun. We happened across a wedding rehearsal as we walked through, which was rather comical because we kept trying to get the kids to quiet down and they just kept asking louder and louder, “But WHY do I hafta be quiet? WHY can’t I run?”

We took Erin back to the college dorm she’s living in for the summer, and I had to laugh because it smelled exactly like every college dorm I’ve ever been in, like fabric softener and pizza and communal living. Seeing the Christmas lights Erin had strung up around her room made me smile too, because Erin and I always had those up in the dorm rooms we shared as college freshmen many years ago.

Erin made Bug and Annalie’s night by letting them climb up on her loft bed for a few minutes. Then we had to go, because it was getting late and Troy had to go to work the next day. We didn’t want him to turn into a pumpkin on the two-hour drive home (which was actually a three-hour drive thanks to the lovely SoCal traffic). We said our farewells, got everyone buckled into the minivan, and headed home. As we drove off, Brenda said, “I like her! She’s fun.” I had to agree.

See you again soon, Erin!

I have a lot of cousins in Omaha. My cousins in Omaha have a lot of kids. Therefore, Annalie has a lot of cousins in Omaha! Yeah, most of them are second cousins or first cousins once-removed, but we just call ‘em cousins. Most people don’t even know the difference between a second cousin and a first cousin twice-removed anyway. (I do. I will bore you to death with the explanation if you want.)

Annalie is blessed with quite a few cousins close to her in age. Not only cousins close to her in age…but several girl cousins close to her in age! That’s not something I ever had. I used to be jealous of my friend Kara because her cousin Kelly was only a few months older than she was, and they were really close friends as well as relatives.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my boy cousins too. And I’ve always been close to my cousin Tressa, even though she’s eight years older than I am. I’ve often described her as the closest thing I have to a big sister, because that’s what she is. She’s even one of Annalie’s godparents.

It’s just fun for Annalie to have girl cousins close to her in age. I hope she manages to stay close to them as they all grow up, and that they stay good friends. I’m doing my part by making sure she gets to spend time with as many cousins as possible whenever we go to Omaha.

Note that one of Annalie’s girl cousins close to her in age, Madison, isn’t pictured because while we were in Omaha her mom, my cousin Amanda, gave birth to Madison’s little sister Makenzie a few weeks prematurely. So they were busy and we didn’t get the chance to visit them this time, but next time we’ll get to see them AND meet our newest cousin. And hey, did I mention that my brother and his fiancee are expecting a baby GIRL in November? Bring on the pink!

As I mentioned the other day, Lindsey saw the beach girl plate that Brenda and I collaborated on and asked if we could do a beach boy plate. We could, and did, and now it’s in my Etsy shop.

I started painting this mug almost a month ago, just for something to do while I was supervising Annalie painting her pink kitty (of which I still have not taken any photos). Brenda’s mom has this IKEA lampshade and I’ve been eyeing it for a while. This mug doesn’t really look much like the lampshade but I did use it for inspiration.

When I took the half-painted mug back to the studio to finish it, I had planned to add a few more flowers and leaves. But Brenda said she thought it looked finished already. I trust Brenda’s eye, so I looked at the mug again and reconsidered. I decided to just outline the flowers and add some whimsical stems. I’m glad that’s all I did because I love it this way. I think I might just keep this one for myself.

Speaking of knowing when to stop painting, do you guys remember that tree love mug/pencil holder that I made for Kerri a while back? Here, let me refresh your memory.

I don’t hate it, but…it’s definitely not my best work. I should have left more white space around the trees and I don’t like the dotty pine tree on one side (you can see that side on the Etsy listing), which quite honestly was the result of me trying to fix a mistake. I knew as soon as I picked up the finished piece from the studio that I wanted to try again. It took me a couple of months, but I finally did.

I’m much, MUCH happier with take 2 of the tree love pencil holder. I’ll let Kerri decide which of the two she wants, and maybe I’ll eventually put the other one in my shop.

While I was finishing up the funky flower mug and take 2 of the tree love pencil holder, Annalie was painting something for Troy. We happened to be painting on Father’s Day, and Annalie took it upon herself to choose a piece she thought Troy would like and paint it specifically for him, which I thought was quite sweet. And I’m impressed with the finished product too! It actually has a sort of pattern to it, which is a fairly new skill for Annalie.

She signed her name on the back and drew the sun, a flower, and the moon. She actually painted all of this, by the way. In the past she’s drawn with a pencil and I’ve painted over that, but this was all Annalie’s handiwork. I love that she’s getting better and better at painting, and look hopefully forward to the day when she’s old enough for us to go spend an afternoon painting together without her getting bored and demanding to go walk a puppy.

Annalie also painted a little heart for Troy, which we made into a magnet after it was fired. I don’t have any photos of it, but I have a funny story related to it. Annalie painted one side blue and scratched her name and drawings of herself and Troy into it with a toothpick. The other side she painted red and then added pink dots all over that side. She asked me what I thought, and I said I loved it. She replied in this world-weary tone of voice, “Of course you love it, it’s polka dots.” She might as well have rolled her eyes and added, “DUH.” Kid has my number. I sort of love that about her.

I’ve been thinking about a recipe I read a few days ago in Catherine Newman’s cooking blog for Donut Cake. Catherine says her family’s name for this classic cake came about because the combination of nutmeg and vanilla really tastes like donuts. Hilariously, she adds that they also renamed it Donut cake “so that Homer Simpson might stumble on it via Google.”

Catherine says in the post that she likes her cakes plain, or maybe with a little fresh fruit and whipped cream, but I kept thinking about this cake covered in a thick white glaze and sprinkles, like my favorite cake doughnuts. Tonight while I was writing this post it kept coming to mind. Finally I told Troy was going downstairs to make a quick Donut Cake, at which Troy let out a very Homer-Simpsonesque “Woohoo!”

The cake was quite easy to make. When it was done and cooling on a rack I stirred together 3 c. powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, and equal parts lemon juice and water added a teaspoon at a time till it was the right consistency. I took the cake out of the pan and spooned the glaze over the still-warm cake so that it dripped just a little over the sides. I added some sprinkles before the glaze had a chance to set.

A slice of this cake and a glass of milk made an excellent bedtime snack. I bet it makes a good breakfast too…I’ll let you know tomorrow!

As you can see from the above mosaic, there are many things from our Omaha trip that I have yet to blog about. Only problem is, there are things that have happened in the week since we got back (like meeting Jill & her husband! and dragging Brenda and Bug up to Pasadena to have dinner with Erin, who’s doing an internship there this summer!) that I also have yet to blog about. And I want to write about it all, and tell all the stories, but…in case I don’t get around to it I’ll start by pointing you to my Flickr where you can find the above photos and many more in the photoset Omaha June 2009.