I took this "before" picture to sell this rug on Craisglist... still hasn't sold. But it shows the room before I freshened it up. It was a dusty room with never-used furniture, a hard, linty (ugly) rug, and three paintings that I had done. I wanted something fresh and usable! So we threw the lovesac down there, brought our old TV out of hiding and mounted it. I made some throw pillows to go with the gorgeous blue ones that I found at Pier 1. And my favorite thing is the rug! It is a 3 inch thick shag pile rug! It is so soft and comfy! The kids, and Dave, love it! It was Dave approved as he laid out and napped on it yesterday. I have a few little sea shells laying around in jars that I put in there to go with the ocean painting (hard to see it with the lamp light on it, but oh well!). We use this room so much more now. And it is the first thing people see when they come over, so hopefully it will give a nice impression. It is always good to actually use rooms in your house. The last thing I'm going to do is get some pretty white curtains and lamps.

Here are the last few weeks in pictures! Starting with the latest- Dave is working on a playhouse for our never-used sideyard. When you live in California, you have to use every inch of your yard- because it's usually pretty meager! Dave, his Dad, and brother poured the concrete a few weekends ago and now Dave's building the walls. Ebay got to stay up a bit late tonight to help his Daddy out. He and Lils were running back and forth fetching nails, screws, levelers, and tape measurers! They were also great helps with knocking boards over and playing in the dirt. :)

Just a few shots of Rose. She wore pigtails for the first time today! I've tried them in the past, but this time there was actually a decent amount of hair to work with. My kid's favorite snack right now: banana boats. You know, you cut a notch in a banana, fill with peanut butter and then put your "people" on your boat. Lils favorite toppers are chocolate chips, E likes goldfish on his, and Rose likes raisins. It's just the little details I like to remember about my kids.


Oh, if you haven't heard, Lils FINALLY lost her first tooth! One of her bottom teeth! I have never seen anyone so excited and consumed with a tooth coming out, but I know any of you guys with 6/7 yr olds can vouch for the awesome excitement of toothlessness... Dave tied dental floss around her tooth to "test" how loose it was. He took two little tugs to see if it was loose enough to tie on the door, but instead he just yanked a bit harder the third time and out it came! Lils was so surprised! She and Dave couldn't stop laughing! Daddys can be tricky!

Speaking of... Dave's usual month-long birthday celebration has not disappointed this year. His birthday seems to get bigger and more time-enveloping as the years go by. It starts in March with a "oh, I'll just get this for my birthday". It continues with "let's celebrate this weekend early because my family's in town" and ends with "this is my actual birthday weekend!" Yes. It is a good time. I surprised him with his Dad, brother, and bro-in-law taking him out to play golf on Saturday. Then we had pizza, chips, and this lovely cake. Dave's two favorite cakes are carrot cake and cheese cake... so I combined them. Yes, it is homemade cheesecake sandwiched between homemade carrot cake and finished off with cream cheese frosting! it was SO good! Try it! I froze the cakes to make them easier to layer.

MMMMMM.....

Last weekend we were in Oroville with Dave's family. We had a wonderful weekend playing outside and using their restaurant-grade ice cream machine every minute of the day! Yum! Everyone took a trip up to Table Mountain to see the blossoming wild flowers. Lils and I missed out on this outing because She got a migraine. So i stayed home with her. Poor girl. She gets headaches pretty often and migraines once or twice a month where she'll go up to her room, put a pillow over her head, throw up a few times, cry... and Dave and I are pretty helpless. We're trying a few medications to see if we can help her. I've also been tracking what she eats and does to see if there's a correlation.

Anyways, Rose and Ebay had a great time with their Grampy and Gramma.

E looking at the flowers up close.

We're in the grade levels now so that means project time! Lils first school project was to make a diaramma of her favorite book. She chose Dr. Seuss' "McEligot's Pool". She cut the shoe box, painted it, wrote all the the information and colored in all of the characters! The only thing I had to do was draw the pictures and hang them. She looked at the book and colored the fish just like the book, mixing colors! I was very proud.

Well, thats' all for now. Loving the beautiful spring weather! Oh, and Dave's REAL birthday is not until the 25th. More fun to come for Dave's Birthday Bash 2010!

I did this painting a few weeks ago when Dave was in Boston on business. I bought this huge 4 x 5 ft canvas from "Micheal's" for $45 and wanted to really take my time on this one. So, I put my "Masterpiece Theatre" on the TV, propped the canvas up on the back of my couch and began. I thought that I would spend the whole first night on just the sky. Well, three hours later I was almost done! So, this one took me 4 hours. I want to learn how to paint more technically and realistic. Maybe take some Rec painting courses, but for now I am happy with this! I wanted it to be playful, colorful, and fresh. It was a really fun experience. I am re-decorating my front room into a more useful, soft space. We never use the area because the rug was hard, the couch was not inviting and it was just a blah room. We've added our extra TV down there, we're getting a soft shag rug, new curtains and pillows, and throwing the love sac down there. So it should be a fun space for the kids to watch a movie or play games! Once we get all of the things together, I'll post before and after pictures.


Here's the photo. It's of Sand Dollar Beach at Ft. Bragg. I took this photo when we were there last Sept. and have been wanting to paint it. Don't compare too closely! I just had fun with it.