Kid 1: Oh yeah! Boo-pow!
Kid 2: Uh, why boo-pow?
Kid 1: Because I’m not allowed to say boo-yah.

Scene from last weekend—a completely gratuitous shot of someone reading our paper.

Dave and I have a long standing Friday morning ritual. After we get the kids on the bus, he goes into the kitchen and fixes us breakfast (greek yogurt topped with blueberries, almonds and honey). I pour us coffee. Then we plop ourselves down on the couch, cue up Thursday night’s episode of Colbert on Tivo and hit play.

I’m sure we look quite the sight—us two, sitting side by side on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, laughing and eating yogurt. I don’t mean to be all sickeningly sweet, but I think it’s fair to say, I’m a lucky woman. I really love that yogurt.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I love Andrea

I know! I can’t believe it’s all paper either

I need to get myself invited to a costume party like this

Valentine’s Day cards with heart

I once had a guy come up to me saying the same thing. Seriously.

A great new project by two extraordinary women: Finding the lovely

It was a nice way to be welcomed home

I don’t know where the week went. It’s all a hazy blur. I have foggy memories of lunch packing, suitcase unpacking, meetings, signing school papers, searching neighbors’ lawns for errant nerf darts, an attempt to get into Downton Abbey, and an impression of Eddie Vedder.

“Um, you should probably stop that.”
“What? You don’t like my Eddie Vedder impression?”
“That’s what that is?”

See what I mean? A totally hazy blur…

Okay, so let’s get on with the Friday links. Here are a few links that compelled me to comment on this week. Now I’m kind of shy (Eddie Vedder impressions notwithstanding) so I consider this a major breakthrough moment…

Oscar watch is on!
All these people went to Alt and I only met a handful of them (sniff!)
Keeping the mystery
Making junk mail beautiful
Uncrushing a dream. <--If you read nothing else on this list, read this one. It's completely brilliant!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

We’ve all seen kid bedrooms shot for magazines, design blogs and floating around on pinterest. But what about REAL kids’ bedrooms? The super cool Allison from All for the Boys shares a peek inside some of our favorite bloggers kids’ rooms. I think you’ll find it quite affirming. I know I did.

*photos above are from my kids’ room. The much loved Owl is from klt:works & new favorite snuggly, Octopie, is from LemonPie.

When you grow up with a dad who's a photographer, you learn valuable lessons

...like how to bounce light and break down equipment

...and the art of getting your subject to smile.

Alone in Pajamas (feeling alone, writing into a vacuum) | Kind of sums up what made Alt so fantastic. They get you. They really get you.

I’m going to be honest here, I don’t know where to begin with this wrap up. All I can say is, it’s kind of mind-boggling what can happen in 72 hours. You walk in thinking, “What am I doing here?” and walk out feeling, “I got this thing.”

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re creative (which, of course you are!) and you’re a blogger, start saving now for next year.

In the meantime, here are two wrap ups that should give you a sense of what this Alt thing is all about: here’s one and two. Many thanks to Estelle for the Old Sweet Song link.

I have another Alt post planned later this week. In the meantime, throw me your questions about the conference below. I’ll answer ‘em best I can.

Packing

In a few hours I’m hopping on a plane and heading west. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. You know what I’m most looking forward to? Sunday morning. When I’ll be back home, eating waffles, telling my daughter all about the parties…

“I want to know everything about the parties!”

showing my son what goodies I brought back…

“Do you think you’ll get anything good? If so, can I have it?”

and telling Dave what I learned…

“You need this. I know you’ll come back full of ideas.”

Which of course I’ll share with you all! I’m not sure how much tweeting I’ll be doing. I’m much more of a writer downer than a typer outer. But I’ll do my best for you guys.

One last thing before I head out… Yesterday, the kids and I tested out the project I have in the newspaper I’m handing out at the conference. In a nutshell: it asks readers to make something out of it—like the paper bag creativity challenge, but more colorful.

My daughter wanted to turn it into a gift bag. We got directions here and I helped a bit. My son wanted to make a truck with no help at all. “Don’t look up how to do it on the computer or anything.”

Have a great week everyone! I’ll see you back here next week.

I have so much I want to say about this weekend, today and well everything. But my head is all swirly gearing up for my trip in a couple days.

I will tell you this weekend’s highlights included an impromptu magic show for the kids (they’ve already decided the tricks should, nay, NEED to be a Classic Play feature—stay tuned), couch date night: martinis and Page One, procurement of a 3D doodle kit and the kids offering fashion advice for Alt:

“Well, what about this for the winter wonderland white party?”
“That’s perfect!”
“That’s perfect,” pauses, “but you need some leggings.”

In fairness, the dress is rather short so the kid had a point.

Since I doubt I’ll post on Friday, I thought I’d start the week with a post from the end of the week. Oh yeah, that’s right people! I’m doing it—breaking the rules and going 88 mph. So without further ado, here are some links I loved FROM THE FUTURE!:

I love my fellow Baltimoreans

No wonder I couldn’t put two thoughts together those first three years—there was no escape

Peggy is the coolest!

This bit of amazingness deserves it’s own post, yes? Must work on it

Love these illustrations! Aspirational mental note: make plans to visit each one

Fantastic idea! Also, diggin’ the redesign

They had me at Hei