yay!

Welcome to the family, Solomon! He arrived at 3:20 a.m. July 2nd. My biggest yet at 10 lbs. 3.1 oz. and 22.5 inches long! We are all so happy that our sweet baby boy is here. :)

original artwork

I've had these brown squares for a while--I think Leah got them while she was teaching art or something, and passed them along. And I've always wanted to do something cool with them. Well, one day a few months ago, I decided to let the kids use just my kitchen colors (yellow and black) to paint something for the shelf (that is not yet completed, but kind of hanging anyway).

Aubie was neat, and stuck to the color scheme by mixing colors as little as possible.

Matthan on the other hand...



But now I have two very yellow-and-black and very original paintings for my kitchen. AND... you will have to see how they are arranged (currently) in another post, since I can't get my pictures to upload right now. So just enjoy these shots of this dainty girl and this messy boy and then imagine what fun I had cleaning my kitchen after they were finished. :)

numbers

75, 85, 45, 18. What do those numbers represent? Would you like to guess? That's the amount of times I blogged in the years 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. So far, though you may not believe it, I already have 14 posts for this year. I sincerely believe that I will beat last year. I really do. Thank you Miss Debbie for encouraging me to post again. I'll get a new picture post up next week. :)

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!

another finished corner... for now

Another finished corner? But wait... those curtains DO NOT match the ones she made. Bless her heart! No, I am not pattern-challenged--well, at least not too bad anyway. I ditched 'em. Well, I mean, they are in my fabric stash again, but they won't be hangin in my living room. When you find $50-a-panel-curtains (that match your living room pretty closely) for $4, it's kinda hard to convince yourself to continue working with vintage polyester. :)

Hanging on the wall is the guitar picture that I was having trouble finding. I was quite distressed, because it's one of my favorites. I drew it shortly after David asked if he could begin courting me, but we couldn't yet because I still had this final project to do and needed to focus on that. Funny how my subject was guitars (because of him) and that this picture happens to be my guitar and his guitar side by side. Kinda shows where my focus was heading. ;) I found it after much searching, and was so happy! (The little picture on the lamp table is one of us when we were dating--he's playing the guitar while I watch happily.)

For 10 years, I've searched on and off for a frame for the "our guitars" picture. The problem is, it happens to be 17 by 24 inches--way bigger than your average frame at Goodwill. I wanted so much to have a nice frame, but for very little cost. And though I never officially priced it, I'm pretty sure having a custom frame made for such a large picture is out of my budget. So how did I find one? My brother got this frame with the faded out picture of an airplane and a car from one of his civil engineer jobs and Mom had been saving it for just such an occasion (not really knowing about my endless quest for just the right frame). I had to do a tiny bit of refashioning to it, but if I don't tell you what I did, you might not notice. So, I'll keep it at that.

After looking at this picture, I realize how bland the fluffy off white pillow (and its mate that I've kept shammed for 6 years until now) and the off white throw look sitting on the couch. I'm going to have to remedy that. But at least things are starting to come together. And, having things still to fix means more posts later on, right?

instead of cards

Last year, I bought two or three boxes of Valentines that I just knew the kids would love handing out this year--Transformers, Hello Kitty, something I can't remember. Two months ago, I set them aside because I knew I'd need them soon. And although my life has been one long organizational ordeal since after Christmas, I have yet to find that special place that I stored the Valentines. My house is pretty dang small, so I'm a little confused. Anyway, since kids in Aubie's class are always giving out goody bags, and as of the night before the party I had still not found the cards--I refused to buy more!--I made these to go with the Valentine gummies I bought. Sure, what's a kid need a key chain for, but I thought they turned out cute.
The names were done on Shrinky Dink paper (I love to make small things, but Shrinky Dinks make things even smaller!). The little flowers were some small ornaments that I got on clearance after Christmas . (Had I realized at the time how many uses I'd find for these, I'd have bought them all!!! Pics of other uses to come later.) And I had the all the key rings already on hand. Pretty nifty little Valentine for about $.30.

snow!

This past weekend, we were so happy to get our first (and most likely last) snowfall of the season (possibly of the year). The kids had so much fun playing in it. Here's a few pictures.


The snow was much thicker across the street at the park, so we went over there for a while. I believe this big snowball that Matthan was playing with was Aubie's attempt to start a snowman. Matthan just wouldn't let us make one--he kept stomping it or whatever else.

In this first picture of Aubie, you can see one of the huge snow clumps right in front of her jacket. If it hadn't been coming down so hard, the snow wouldn't have gotten so thick on the ground since it barely got to 32 degrees all day.

Since we had to wait until the day after to make our snowman, we had to work with top-of-the-car snow. Poor little thing looks more like a bird in the first shot. We had to move him to a new home so he wouldn't melt so quickly. With this old white tarp in the background, it looks kinda like an ice cave--a great new home for a little snowbird.

As you can see, the kids had a lot of fun! Jennifer from Wisconsin and Becki from SD are working with me to figure out an economical way to ship us some snow, but so far none of us have come up with a solution. Oh well. I think this'll do me till next winter. :)

a finished corner

Sadly, a finished corner is all I can show you at present. But at least you get two views of it, right? As soon as I get the curtains made for the other window and my other guitar pictures hung, I'll show you the rest of the room. Hopefully while there's still a Christmas tree in it.

Interesting Tidbits:

• I made the curtain from some vintage fabric I got at Goodwill. It just matched the wall color too perfectly to not use it, even though it's 100% polyester. :(
  
• The picture is one of several I drew from my art class final project--most of my guitar pictures will be displayed in the living room. I really want to get the drawing of mine and David's guitars framed--its my favorite.
  
• Most of our doors have glass knobs. I just love them!

• The chair is sitting in front of the computer closet. I'll have to organize it again and then you can see. I think it's pretty nifty.

pumpkin patch comparisons

Now that it's almost Thanksgiving, I'm regretting not having posted these WEEKS ago. Anyway, I can't seem to make myself write witty things lately, so you'll have to make do with looking at pictures.
Year 1

Year 2
Year 3
Group shots:
Year 1


Year 2


Year 3
I can't wait to see next year's with another little baby thrown into the mix. Six kids at the pumpkin patch is gonna be fu-un!