cherry blossom time

So, what year is this of our Cherry Blossom Festival tradition? I think the first year, Daniel was 10 months old. Actually though, we went the year before that, only it was night time and with other friends too. So yeah, we've been doing this for 5 years! Wow. Hard to believe.

Aubie watching the sea lions with some random children.

Pre-drama picture. Naptime + Crowds+ the motorcycle already being taken= Little man not riding anything the whole time and lots of tears. I even tried to see if he wanted to ride later when the motorcycle was free, but he just wouldn't do it. :(

Another pre-drama picture. Should have known better (I did, actually, but didn't stop her) than to let Aub ride with Daredevil Daniel. She enjoys going round in circles at the lowest level. He enjoys pushing the throttle and staying at the highest the dragon will take him the entire ride. Needless to say, there were LOTS of tears. :(

Some fun after all. It's always fun to continue throwing rocks when your mother is telling you its time to go and all your friends are waiting on you.

The PINK choo-choo train could not be avoided by this young man. Even though it was pink. :) But, it was a stationary train, so there were no tears here!
(Oh and a crafty thing--Matthan's shirt is a freezer paper stencil I did for him. The boy needed a motorcycle shirt something awful!)

All the kids are in this picture somewhere... The more children, the harder it is to get the picture! So next year, I am not sure if I'll be able to get a shot at all--the newest member of the bunch will be really be wanting to explore by then. :)

As we were walking back to the van, a helicopter was about to fly off, so we all stopped to watch.

After minutes of waiting, finally, it took off! It was a lovely day to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival and we all had a lot of fun. Sadly, I forgot to get the traditional 5-kids-in-the-back-of-the-van picture. Kinda sad, cause next year we'll be driving separately. Oh well, I'll still have the memories. :)

if I live to be a hundred...

I hope I'm as cute as this little old lady. :)

Thursday was the 100th day of school at Aubie's kindergarten and they were asked to dress up like old people. I was out of baby powder or she would have had grey hair as well. :) With the dressing up, and the counting 100 cookies, 100 marshmallows, 100 pieces of candy, I think she had a pretty fun day!

a glimpse of the kitchen

This is a picture of the wall above the stove. As you can see, I still have the yellow tile that I described in detail here. I'm ok with it for now, but when it is gone, I will be so, so happy!
I have my pots and pans hanging on the wall--I wanted a baker's rack, but David said that it would be hanging too close to the stove and everything would get covered with grease. Yuck! So, I made my own baker's hangers using 2 black plant hangers I found at Kmart. They were a lot more economical and definitely take up less room!
I painted the "P" plate at a local pottery place. It was so much fun, I would love to paint plates for the entire house! But, speaking of economical, that's probably not the best idea. :) The other two monograms are David's and my initials and they were done using the same Black Adder font. Only this time, I just Mod Podge-d them onto some $.25 plates I got at the Rescue Mission. I had to darken the letters by coloring them with black permanent marker after I "cut" them out by outlining them heavily with a ballpoint pen. Yes, that was probably a weird way to do it, but at least it made the edges as softly jagged as I wanted them, as opposed to the horribly jagged job that I would have done with an Exacto.
And the adorable little cookbook that's framed in the middle is one my mom got at an antique shop. She told me that Mimi used to have one just like it! I just love that.
Well, that's a glimpse of my kitchen. More to come later.

wedding bot

My future cousin-in-law, Kat, suggested that we do a swap back at Christmas. She'd make me a scarf, and I could make her a robot shirt sorta like the one seen here. Well, Christmas came and went. I had my scarf, but poor Kat didn't have her shirt. Organizing the house, sicknesses of various kinds, and fear of making a shirt for a New Yorker working for a designer, all kept me from getting started. After receiving the sweetest letter from her, I finally found the courage to just do it, and send it, no matter what it looked like.

I had always wanted to make a detachable veil for the robot, since she and my cousin were getting married very soon. Now that the wedding is next week, I have finally completed the project and it will be there in time for her to wear it only once before the wedding. :( Oh well. At least she'll have it before the wedding! I used an 80's-ish cut tshirt in case it's too big for her, so she can make it look as though it's meant to be big. I also made her a little robot tag for the present. Hope she can use at least one of these two items!