Summer Giveaway: Mati Rose McDonough print*

I have been decorating my house these days, slowly but surely, finding great prints on Etsy and 20x200 to adorn the walls in unique and affordable ways. My favorite print though is the one above. (I have three of Mati's prints!) As you can probably guess from the banner on this journal, I have a thing for stripes and pyschedelic colors. Mati is masterful at both and I love her quirky, childlike, and sophisticated style.

Today, one lucky winner will receive a print from Mati's Suspect Shoppe. Leave a comment and win!

And if you are in San Francisco this Friday night, we will be celebrating Mati's work at the Curiosity Shoppe in the Mission.

Giveaway Guidelines:
-You have until 9AM PST on Friday, July 10th to enter this giveaway.
-Just make a comment ON THIS POST to enter.
-This is a random drawing
-One entry per person, please. (Just push "post" ONCE and wait a few seconds. The comment should appear)

The Lovies of our Lives

Taken with my iphone, Berkeley, CA,

We got the first giraffe lovey at my baby shower. The aunt who gave it to me claims that I held it up with a puzzled look on my face, like what the heck is this? and gave a polite thank you. Little did I know that "Ra Ra" would become the most important and ubiquitous object in our home.

Let me start this story by mentioning that my mother is a shopper. She is one of those people that falls in love with a particular marinade for chicken and the next day will order a case. Discovers a great lipstick? She'll order ten, just in case the color is ever discontinued. If I ever found a great shirt back in the day, a few more in various colors would promptly arrive in the mail. Bless her heart.

So maybe that's what happened when Ben fell for the lovey, when it became his objet d'amour... (which some of the parenting books were saying was so vital for sleep) my why not order a case of em'? gene kicked in. Pretty soon I was online with my credit card.

It started out innocently enough.The challenge was trying to figure out how to rotate Ra Ra in the laundry when he wanted it in his hand all the time. So I ordered a couple more and hoped that he would never notice there was more than one on the premises. He didn't notice for a while, but when he did discover it he was delighted to carry two of them around. We'd hand him one and he would immediately demand, OTHER ONE Ra Ra!!! So I ordered five more. God forbid we ever lose one, right? He then started to conduct elaborate puppet shows with the whole fleet of giraffes as the characters. Snow white and the Seven Dwarves? We totally have it covered.

The only issue now is that for sleeping he insists one in particular: "Stinky Ra Ra" which is of course the stinkiest, dirtiest, skankiest of the bunch. I am afraid to wash it because I know he will notice and all hell will break loose.

When I look at this photo from this afternoon, my heart melts with all those eyelashes and rosy cheeks. I could have just left it at that, I know, could have just posted a dreamy little photo of Ben, but I also had to tell you about our team of stinky Ra Ra's. They are just so much a part of our lives.