family in town

Paul's aunt and uncle and cousins were in town last week from Colorado. The last time we saw all of them together was last Mother's Day in Denver before we flew back to California after our trip to Wyoming, and then we were all together again this Mother's Day.

We spent a day playing at the beach, had a barbecue, played in the pool, visited Paul's grandma's (Nani) grave on Mother's day, had brunch, visited, played, etc. etc. It was a fun week. My sweet Lulu, trying on her new suit, all ready for summer.Getting the kids ready and sun screened up for a beautiful day at the beach.Garrett loved playing with his (second) cousin Austin, in the sand.We brought Garrett's play pool to wash the sand and salt off. He loved it, but it wasn't long before he added some sand to the clean water. And Lulu had her first experience with sand and ocean water.While Lulu was catching some zzz's, Garrett found the cookies in Grandma's bag.Hanging out at Grandma and Dude-pa's house. Playing in the water on the new
'floating island', and Garrett trying to call some ducks.More hang-out time. Addie loved meeting new extended family. Notice Garrett's new 'time-out' spot in the middle picture. Stuck behind the bricks. It was a great idea until he almost flipped over the side.Visiting Nani's grave on Mother's Day.The Whole group at the cemetery, minus Matt (Rachel's husband), who was taking the picture.
Left to right: Uncle Denny, Poppy, Rachel, Austin (in the tree), Aunt Esther, Aunt Joyce, Annie with Garrett, Grandma, Dude-pa, Brandon, Paul with Addison, and me.

...I don't do names much on my blog...I'm sure I'll regret that in the future...maybe I'll start doing it more.

After all this fun we were off to Utah for Great Strides. Stay tuned.

long delicious hair

...is NOT something I'm enjoying in life right now.

Paul wants me to have long hair again. And while he loves me and thinks I'm beautiful whatever the length or color, I decided I'd give it a go again.

And besides, (sarcasm) what better time to grow my hair out than when, one, I don't have the time or money to keep up on the cut, color, and styles like I used to. Two, the gray hairs are flooding in at a dangerously rapid rate. And, three, I'm still losing hair by the hand fulls due to the post-baby hair loss that is STILL in full force due to back to back pregnancies.

Needless to say, I hate my hair right now. Hate.

I never do it. Like ever. When I do wash it, it usually ends up in a ponytail before it's even dry. And a few days ago, I was going out with some girls so I decided I'd straighten it and wear it down. I couldn't find my straightener, and I found it still packed in my travel bathroom bag from our trip that we'd been home from for almost 3 weeks. True story.

I used to wash it everyday. (pre-kid) Then it went to every other day. (pre-multiple kids) And now I usually skip 2 days. And once in a while, 3 days. WHAT?! I said ONCE IN A WHILE.

But the past few days I'm starting to kind of like my hair again. And it's because of my 2 favorite little people in the whole wide world. Addison loves when I lay next to her and tickle her cheeks with my hair. She flutters her eyes and gives me the sweetest smiles and sighs.

And Garrett loves tickling MY face with my hair. And thanks to my hair being available for tickles and peek-a-boo a few days ago, we all survived being on an airplane for 2 hours.

Garrett's also a fan of the ponytails. He's been playing with my hair more and more these days.

And one last thing, in my defence about the washing schedule. When you don't use product in your hair, and you pull it back when its fresh and clean, it doesn't get dirty very fast! Unless you're one of those people who think cookie crumbs, jam, and spaghetti sauce makes your hair "dirty".

mixin' it up.

There is one room in the house that has always remained spotless. Well, two rooms. The guest room, and the 'formal' living room. I hesitate to say formal, because I think formal means nice, high end, matching furniture. And this room is anything but that. It consisted of 3 book cases, a papazan chair and ottoman, a small table with two chairs, two big chairs and a coffee table, a floor lamp, and a piano. Everything in the room was bought either on sale, unfinished, not put together, or given to us for free. The reason this room has always been clean is because we never go in there. We have another living room with more seating, the TV, close to the kitchen, etc. We just naturally gravitate to the great room. Once in a while one of us will sit down and play the piano, or read, or talk on the phone in the formal living room, but I can only think of one time that a visitor came over and we spent more time in there than the other living room. And it was just a few days ago, the day before I un-formaled it and made it more kid friendly.

Here's the before pictures, how it's been, pretty much untouched for a year and a half.About half of the stuff is staying in the room, because there is no where to put it, and Garrett doesn't need THAT big of a play space. Although, now that I've finished the changes, he has enough stuff to easily fill the room. The other half of the stuff is spread throughout the house. We have a really wide hallway, so the big black shelf is in the hall. The table and two chairs fit nicely in the guest bedroom, and the papazan is in the odd space/'tiny room' at the end of the hall, where I originally thought I could get Garrett to play. But he's not a fan at being at the end of a long hallway, with bad lighting, all by himself. I don't blame him. This space also stores clothes that the kids have outgrown, blankets, more books and toys that we will rotate in and out to keep things interesting.His new playroom has been usable for a few days now, and so far he's enjoying it. And Paul and I are enjoying that we have a convenient, well organized space to keep all his stuff. He still brings things from the room and leaves toys/magnets/books all over the house, but it's easier to clean up now and everything has a place.

I had a lot of fun creating this space. It's not what I'd want in a 'normal home', but this apartment is temporary, and it works well for now. It's really Pinterest inspired and it was really inexpensive. I'll show you the fun things I made and bought, but I don't want to take time to link to every idea. So if you want to see, it's mostly on my 'fun for kids' board, and a little on my 'DIY craft ideas' board.

This view of the room is from the doorway. My dad and I built the room divider about 2 years ago. My mom sewed the fabric inserts. I painted it a few months ago, and Paul put the hinges on a few days ago. I never had a place for it so I never got around to finishing it! I don't love having it jet out like that next to the piano, but there's a shelf on the other side of it and this looks better than the back or the shelf...and it hides the mess.
Here is the reading corner. The big comfy bear, and both of their rocking chairs.The art area. Chalkboard/dry erase/paper roll easel from Ikea. We've had all the Ikea stuff for a while, just haven't really used it. The table and two chairs, also from Ikea.And this toy box is from Ikea, too. I think all three items totaled about $45.00. (Don't remember, we've had it all for a while, and they were gifts.) Really inexpensive stuff, though. And I also painted all the blocks in the green canvas bin on top of the toy box, then just used alphabet stickers I had in my scrapbook stuff. The magnet boards and toys.Now I'll tell you about the details, and all the good deals I found. The magnet board is an oil change pan. I got the idea from pinterest. The pinner said, $12.99 at Wal-mart, but I got mine for less than $10.00 at Auto Zone. That, and this road-rug were the only two things I bought for the room. Everything else was stuff I already had.The framed striped magnet boards were just unfinished ones I've had forever. I painted them white, then put blue painters tape on them to do the stripes. I love how they turned out. Garrett loves magnets. He's obsessed with these boards. All the magnets are from Micheal's and Hobby Lobby, between 10 and 50 cents each. The pop cycle stick ones I painted myself and just glued a magnet on the back of each one.

This hangs above the magnet boards.I had the board and the over-sized clothes pins. A little paint, stain and scrapbook paper and I think it turned out cute. The cute black shapes are chalkboard vinyl, so I can write names and dates of the artwork, etc. The vinyl was also in my stash. About 3 bucks for 6 of them at World Market. And the artwork are Garrett originals! String painting and ziploc bag painting, fun and almost mess free!

These are also Garrett originals...kind of...I took some of his crayon scribble work and punched it out with my 2 inch paper punch. I painted the boards and glued his scribbles on. The solid color dots are with my 1 inch punch and they are paint chips. I'm pretty happy with these, too.

These are Andrea originals. The circle art on the white board are also paint chips. I love all the color. And the 3 frames are from my Michael's frame sale where I got 40 really cool frames for less than 80 bucks! These were silver and black. A little spray paint, paper glued on the glass, and a metal clip, spray painted to match, and now I have 3 fun frames that will be easy to rotate pictures of the kids, or more art work. I love these frames, I kind of want more all over my house.Here are the toys and books on the other side of the room divider.The grow chart that I made forever ago and never had a place to hang it. (It still doesn't really fit, but it's still cute.)And here is Paul's project. I saw this on Pinterest, too. He really had fun making it. All the wood was less than $10.00, I spray painted it black, cut the vinyl on my cricut, and we were done. I thought when we decided what size to make it that I might wish it was bigger. I'm glad it's not any bigger! It's even a little big for the space, but it fits the animals perfectly. I made the pennant flags with leftover scraps of fabric from other projects. And this spot stayed the same so we can all comfortably hang out in the room.I love how it turned out. And Paul loved that it cost me less than $40.00 to makeover this room.

Today when I hung the last frame I was kinda sad to be done. Don't really know what to work on next... Maybe Addie's birthday?? I only have 6 months to plan!! ;)

Family Fun Day #2 (plus a little)

Paul had today off work because he's working Saturday. We had a fun day planned at Crystal Cove. But it was too cloudy and cool for that today. So we had a last minute, and much more simple change of plans.

We went to lunch at the world's oldest operating McDonald's! Don't be jealous. It's in Downey, California, pretty close to our house. It's super old school. No pictures of the food, a walk up window to order, and a separate pick-up window. Outdoor seating, and a little McDonald's museum.Garrett, of course, didn't sit still long because we were outside and there were pigeons to chase.Why yes, that is a cockroach behind Garrett's foot, that Paul had kicked over there earlier because it was alive and right by our table. I lost my appetite, Garrett was feeding his meal to the pigeons, which is just fine because I probably would have made him stop eating so I didn't have to picture roch-burgers going in his mouth. In McDonald's defense, we were outside, but still.Paul also had to ask a man who sat down at the next table to leave because he was smoking. Fortunately, the man apologized and left.

(Museum sign, NOT the prices we paid today.)After our eventful lunch, we went to Paul's parent's house so Paul could work on a Pinterest project for me that he's thrilled about doing. (He's actually kind of enjoying it.) Me and the kids hung out on the deck while he cut wood. (Garrett was eating the bench while I was taking this picture of Addie, I didn't notice until later when I was looking at it.)*****************************
Some other little family fun.

Last Sunday evening we barbecued at the park, Garrett ran around, and then we walked to the pond and G fed the ducks. There was a sign that said don't feed the ducks, but Garrett can't read...so it was fine. (oops)****************************
And in case you forgot that my kids are the friggin' cutest, here you go:

The white trash toddler- hand in his pants, no shirt, watching a little tv.Garrett doing the Tarzan. He pounds his chest and does the jungle, "ooohhh ooohhh oohh oh ooohh!"And little Lulu. (we call her Lulu) I love this smile.What a little doll! Grandma White said she needed some retail therapy after they had to put one of their dogs down. My kids always strike gold when Grandma is in the mood to shop.