Star+Flower

Fruits

YUMMY FRUIT

I thought I kinda liked plums, but now I think I really love plums. Actually I love plums so much I want a plum tree just like Mom G. The kiddos and I can eat plums all summer long and we'll be saying a collective "mmmmmm" as juice dribbles down our chins :)

FRUITS OF LABOR

Painting of the house is done!

Our mantle was originally maple-stained and now it's painted with Dunn-Edwards Swiss Coffee mixed with gloss. Swiss Coffee is what we have on all our main areas. And just in case...prints bought at Etsy (L-R: SuspectShoppe, betsywalton, myfolklover, ashleyg)

Another view of the mantle.

This is the master bedroom painted with Dunn-Edwards December Sky. It's such a calm light-blue shade. Oh, and you can see what our flooring looks like. It's vertical carbonized bamboo. I will never, ever go with carpet again.

This is what you see as you walk into Mia's room. The paint here is Dunn-Edwards Camellia. Pink is her favorite color.

And this is Aidan's room, the brightest room in the house! He picked the color himself. I've adjusted to it but truly my first reaction was "whoa" and I thought the painters had made a mistake. The paint is Dunn-Edwards Lightning Bug.

This really isn't part of the painting but the stairs were redone and I think it looks nice. Solid bamboo treads :)

This is the first room you see when you enter the house. It was originally a formal dining room in the builder's plan, but I decided to make it a library of sorts since we're not the formal type. The paint is Dunn-Edwards Morning Calm and I really, really love it.

AMAZING FRUIT

My boy turned 8 last Sunday. He kept asking me the week before his birthday, "Mommy, can you believe I'm going to be 8?" No, I still can't believe it. We had a small, just-family gathering for him but celebrations will continue 'til next week as we're headed to paradise this weekend. Oahu, here we come!         

Still Here

Imagine this is me thinking that maybe I should update the blog. As much as I want to it's hard to get back into the groove. Plus I didn't want to sound too much of a whiner about the house although I have to say that there's still the painting and countertops to be done. The painting might start on Monday and we were told it would take 3-4 days. I'm just crossing my fingers that it will actually happen.

I purchased this camera a few weeks ago on eBay and I hate that I'm absurdly late in knowing how wonderful Polaroid pictures are. While surfing the web for inspo I came across My Polaroid Blog which led me to Nectar and Light. Such gorgeous, gorgeous pictures. It's a shame that Polaroid has stopped making instant film so, yes, I've made my share of purchases before there's no more left. Sigh.

Life hasn't been crazy, but I just feel like there's not enough time right now to do everything I want to do. I guess that's been the case for the past couple of years though! Anyway, my head has been so wrapped around house stuff and, as much as I want to get it all done, there's just times when I want to get away from it all and step outside, breathe in fresh air, and clear my mind. I was feeling sorry for the kiddos because every weekend it's either been cleaning up, buying furniture or putting together furniture. We took them to Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena two weekends ago and they had such a good time. The place was just the right size and not overwhelming at all. We spent about 4 hours there and I'm sure Aidan and Mia wouldn't mind going again. The price is pretty good too at $8 per person. And, yeah, what you see is right! Aidan wears glasses! He's had them for the past month.   

These are my layouts for the April Story Of My Own kit. Have you seen the announcement where they will be on hiatus and will ship again beginning September? Alas, May was my last month as a DT member and I will miss those beautiful kits, but I just feel it's time for me to go. It's been such an honor to have been able to design for both SOMO and October Afternoon. A huge thank you goes out to Kim and Jon (although I doubt they will read this) for having me since September 2006. 

boohoohoo

It was supposed to be finished yesterday but someone measured wrong. Halfway through the last bedroom, they ran out of flooring.

Allan is at Minneapolis 'til tomorrow night and he calls today to tell me that he'll be picking up the boxes on Saturday and the floor guys won't able to come and finish until Monday.

We've been living with Grandpa and Grandma G. since last Wednesday. Without them around and without Grandma being able to take care of Mia, I don't know how we would've been able to get through this.

So there's still half a bedroom and three stair steps to finish.

Then the baseboards.

Then we have to find someone to paint Aidan's bedroom and do some touch-ups all around the house.

Then there's the kitchen countertops to be done.

Not to mention putting all our furniture and things back where they belong.

But we have to dust everything off because there's dust all over the place.

There's also like a hundred flies buzzing about from the doors being left open.

I'm being a baby, wanting my house back to normal already. I need to get my desk and computer and scrap supplies back because I have projects that need to be done by the middle of this month. I'll probably be staying up late to finish what I need to do.

I had to say no to something I wanted to say yes to.

I'm trying to look at the brighter side of things but I can't help feeling bummed right now.

Signing off for the month!

My layouts for the March Story Of My Own kit:

(I really love that orange floral paper.)

(This one goes down as one of my most favorites.)

Last Saturday was Aidan's First Communion. I'm really just amazed at how time has flown. I keep thinking about him when he was smaller asking if he could have a taste. We ate out afterwards at our favorite Korean BBQ place in DBar.

The work in our house starts next week and I've been going through our rooms purging all the unnecessary stuff we've accumulated over the years. We could have another garage sale! I'm excited. I'm going to redo my craft area and we're going to totally redo Aidan's room and paint over that awful blue I chose years ago (yes, I'm taking the blame, Beez).  Right now I'm going to put away all my scrap stuff because that built-in in the loft is also going away. Talk about major spring cleaning!

(A simple card for Prima.)

I'm really sorry I haven't been around, visiting and commenting on my favorite blogs. Promise I'll be back in normal mode once all the house stuff has settled. TCCIC!

How you gonna fix it,

fix it, fix it. Mia and I have been singing the new Danity Kane song, Damaged, for the past few days. It's so catchy.

It's been a little crazy in our house since we found the water damage. For the past week and a half Allan has been busy getting quotes from various contractors to fix our flooring, cabinets, and kitchen countertops. We're anticipating that all the construction will start after next week, but the time before that has to be used putting everything out of the way so the job can get done. And since we're going through all this hassle we decided to put wood flooring throughout the house. That means I'm going to have to pack up all my scrap supplies so I'm trying to get my assignments for this month finished as quickly as I can. Tomorrow we're going to go shopping for granite! Ayayay, there's just so much to do right now.

I've been so lax in posting my pages (yep, gotta get that done too), but here the most recent ones.

These are for Prima:

A litte Wonderpets action. I cut that image of Ming-ming from a NickJr. mag.

I'm trying to like my handwriting on my pages. Sometimes I do. Most of the time I don't.

These three are my pages for the KI gallery:

Hmmm...I really have to do some more pages of Aidan!

Thank you to my friends, Rita and Iris, for making my day! You two really do inspire me so so much. I'm passing it on to The Girlahs because they are super special to me.

I'll be back next week! (I'll post my 7 random things. Thanks for the tag, Christy! And about the SEI box, I know now why I got it. Caroline, thanks so much for telling me! I should've known! Duuuuuh!)

Refrigerator Woes

A couple of weeks ago when Allan was on an out-of-town business trip, our old fridge died on us. Its temperature climbed to 70 degrees and because it was already the third time that it happened we decided to buy a new one. It was such a waste tossing out all the food that was inside!

Anyway, so we got the new one and as soon as it was plugged in, it began making this weird noise every now and then. We called a technician and it turned out that the problem was simple. The icemaker was turned on, but Allan never connected the water supply. Once he connected the tubing the noise disappeared and we were happy. A brand new, white, sparkling fridge!

Well, yesterday, as we were headed out for a walk we noticed water on our garage floors and it seemed to be coming from the bottom, inside the wall. This morning there was water coming from beneath our kitchen cabinets and we noticed that the flooring (our bamboo flooring!) around the area was beginning to warp!

Turns out that the culprit was the fridge and its water supply connection. Allan says he tightened the tubing until it could be tightened no more, BUT sure enough it was leaking.

Right now we have someone here who's working to dry the baseboards but he says we have to demolish half the kitchen cabinets, the area where we had a desk built-in just last year, the cabinets in our laundry room, and he has to pull up part of the carpeting in the living room to deal with the water damage. I'm still sitting here like, "Waaahhh???" I hated it last year when we had the floors put in because it sucked not being able to go into certain parts of the house. I can't imagine how this is going to be and how much this is going to cost.

All because of that new refrigerator.

Just imagine this is Allan and me and how we feel right now :)

eta: This made me smile. Mia was on my computer earlier and I saw this on the Yahoo! search box:

lykjkkykyyoyoiyjuiiujuyijjjjjjjko yfiihih iiiiitiiti

SOMO ♥

STORY OF MY OWN March kit. It looks absolutely amazing. Red, yellow, blue, flowers, butterflies and cute deer. I have been coveting that stamp set ever since I laid my eyes on it. I cannot wait. This kit may just get me out of my rut.

Favorite Things in Pictures.

 

Aidan loves throwing the football around with Allan and I'm loving the father/son bonding time.

Last Saturday, preparing to make kare-kare. Allan prefers it homemade, but it had been a long while since I made it last and it was good, but it could've been better.

The girl asleep in her own bedroom.

Oversized letters that spell "LOVE" and recycled glass vases from Pottery Barn. I think the stargazer lilies look absolutely perfect in them.

Yellow is my color du jour. I have yet to wear these because they're too pretty. (from Piperlime.)

I saw this print by Mati Rose on sfgirlbybay and I had to buy it (here). I showed it to Aidan and he liked how it was blowing out flowers.

Mad girl. I forgot why she was upset but it was something that Aidan did. She walked over to the door and just sat there with her head down. I can't help but smile because of her little face peeking out from under her ratty, bed-head hair.    

I think...

...February just might be my favorite month in terms of weather. I love that we had rain and now it's really mild and altogether wonderful. If we had a hammock I'd probably be tempted to lounge around outside all day. I hope March will bring more of the same.

Ah, the look of fascination. Aidan wanted to smash that poor snail and it was a good thing he asked me before he did it. It crawled all the way across their sandbox and then I caught it up with a leaf and put it on the dirt. My good deed for the day.

These days have been perfect for blowing bubbles. Mia loves it.

We found this little bubble-making robot at Target. It blows the tiniest bubbles and it would be cooler if there were at least three of them going at the same time. The kids like huge bubbles though so we need to find something does that.

Someone needs a haircut but is refusing. I wonder if his hair gets longer will it finally flop over or will it keep going straight up?

This is an 11x14 collage on canvas that I made last month. I used magazine clippings, old book pages, graph/scrapbook/textured paper, and a San Francisco map.

Here's the birthday card I made for my lovely friend, Michelle.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Allan comes home this afternoon after being away all week at Minneapolis so I'm feeling especially cheery today.

She did it!

We were shopping at Target after Valentine's Day to get Grandma a gift and, of course, when you go to Target you never leave with just the thing you intended. We found ourselves wandering down all the aisles again and inevitably ended up at the tricycle area again. (First, let me just say that Grandma and Grandpa gave Mia an awesome Disney Princess tricycle for Christmas, but her legs still aren't long enough for her feet to get on the pedals properly.) I brought down this little foldable Radio Flyer trike for Mia to try and I'm pretty sure it was the same one she had tried on a previous trip. She has a scooter here at home which she's pretty good at. It's so cute watching her little feet go so fast. Anyway, so the first time she tried the trike she started scooting with it and I told her she had to put her feet on the pedals just like the little girl on the picture. She would try but didn't really understand how to get herself moving. But this time she tried it again and she got it! I was so excited I could've done cartwheels. So this little pink and purple tricycle was yet another extra splurge, but how could we not? It's been raining here like crazy so she's been riding inside the house, following Aidan around while he rides her Princess trike. She crashed on her first time trying to get around the kitchen island but she's pretty good with steering now. She learns quick! Here's a mini MOOvie from last Saturday: