I am getting closer to having these rooms look the way I want!

These are the new living room and what I think we will call the reading room. It is really supposed to be the dining room but we neither need or want it to be one right now. So My mom and I set it up as a reading room because we will really use that. I had the two chairs but their seats needed to be re-done. Matthew helped me pull nails and put them back together. My mom and I found the cute little table and lamp thrifting while she was here. We put the hutch between the two areas to hold our books. It also has my favorite loveboxes and my bowl by Miss Vanessa. I am quite happy with the living room although the table under the window will eventually replaced with another after it is repaired. It was one of the victims of the movers. We did discover a few treasures as we unpacked. I found a couple of pencil drawings my husband did about a million years ago that I loved and framed. The gargoyle/dragon is from my mother-in-law's home town in Austria. I also finally framed a watercolor he did a long time ago too, thanks to my friend Amber for the going-away gift frame. All in all, Ireally like my blue reading room and it is nice to have a room to have visitors in that is usually clean!

Favorite things!

Okay, remember how I was going to post some of the things I liked about California in an attempt to help me like it? Did it one time and then not anymore? Well here it goes again. We love this park! Hopefully it will be a part of our routine again starting tomorrow morning. It is about 15 minutes away when we walk and has a great little loop that Joshua and I walk and can see the kids the whole time. They play paleontologist and we (I) get a little exercise. And the weather really is so nice, it stays nice and cool until about 10 or so. And these stairs? Well, let's not say I love them but they are a great part of my new get-in-better-shape-plan. They are literally kicking my butt! Now if I could just quit snacking late at night! So there you go, thought I would give this a try this as Mom's leaving this weekend has made me kind of sad all over again. But having a prettier house has helped. I will put some more pictures up this week, I just want the rooms to be finished before I do. Man, that mother of mine is great at decorating!

Boys and Trains!

Why is it that little boys just come with an inherent love of all things pertaining to trains? I know this is a pretty trival topic for a post, but I just wish you could have seen my littlest guy with his brother's trains today. In celebration of not having quite so many boxes to unpack we got out old Toots the train. Joshua went nuts! It was definitely the best thing he had EVER seen! He was dancing and laughing and clapping. It was such a hoot! Just had to share!

We had fun thrifting!

Well at first I was a little discouraged with the trifting around here, but my mom and I have had a lot of fun this week! We have found some great little furniture pieces and this adorable little piece I only paid 5o cents for ! She is going to sit in the new kitchen!

The Kitchen before:




And after!

Okay the amazing mother has been here this week and you would not believe what we have accomplished this week! Well here you get to see! Just looking at the before picture, when I was trying to decide what colors to go with, I am almost embarrassed to look at it! Well, my mom always has great ideas and it just looks so cute! We decided to concentrate on the more central part of the kitchen instead of spreading things around like I had done. We also added more black and went with red, green and black. Oh, and apparently we may have a bit of a chicken theme going too. All the blue stuff, which I still really like, is probably going to find a home in the library type area we are trying to create. Anyhow I think it is so much cuter now. Hope you agree! There will be more pictures as we move along. I am thinking of having a give-away next week to celebrate the absence of boxes from our lives so check back!

I stayed up late to do a little painting to go in my new kitchen which I will post in the next day or two and watched this while I was doing it. I just love Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor is just so lovely. I know it is sort of a corny and predictable movie but I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This post is for my gluten-intolerant friends and family. If you have this condition you understand how exciting it is when you find something good. Well we tried a new cookie recipe today from Liz's blog killthegluten.blogspot.com and it was sooooo good! It is her recipe for white chocolate chip macademia nut cookies only I just used good old chocolate chips and they were so good. They look and taste like real cookies! Hubby is so happy and for those of you who can eat gluten here someone really enjoying one!

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened (I use half margarine and half butter)
1 & 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 & 1/2 tsp GF vanilla
2 eggs
3 cups white rice flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups (11oz bag) GF white chocolate chips
1 & 1/2 cups Macadamia nuts, chopped (I only use 1/2 cup, but would still be great with none!)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Blend in flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in white chips and nuts. Drop by teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes

The Batcave!

When we first told the kids that we would be moving and that meant the Mom and Dad would be going to look for a new house my four year old Matthew asked me to find a house with a Batcave. He is really into super-heroes and has been after his dad to take a saw to one of the walls in his old room and make him a Batcave there. So when the kids came to see the new house and found a storage space under the stairs he was thrilled--he found his Batcave! So on one of those days when I was trying to be the fun mom I remembered I had picked up some vinyl letters that were a misprint from the lady I buy that stuff from. I had no idea at the time what I would ever do with it, but it was a dollar and I knew that if I could find something, my batboy would love it. So believe it or not I am sharing my storage closet with my kids, we tried to put all the Christmas stuff around the corner and will hand a curtain or something and now they have a Batcave. They like to take bean bags in there and read or whatever. I am such a sucker! Oh, and he is showing you his muscles!

I actually had a minute to go thrifting the other day and I found this cute chair to sit at the computer desk. I am going to recover the seat. I think the wood is walnut, a real plus in this house of wood-lovers! Oh and best part of all--it was $8!

What to do with the kitchen?!

This blog seems to be taking a turn in the home decorating direction. I think that is just to distract me from the chaos that is surrounding me! So I start planning what I will do once the boxes are gone. So the bright blue stuff I had going at the old house is just not going to work here. The granite in the kitchen is just too warm and dark for it to look good. So I am trying to think what next. I am considering these. I think I may go with more jewelled tones of red and green maybe with a little black, although I am afraid of the dust factor up there. Although I do like the colors in my Diane Duda painting and yellow would be happy for a kitchen if I could go mustard enough. What do you think? (I know the important questions plaguing my life, but I gotta have some fun somewhere!)

Well, we had our first trip to the beach!

You can see how excited the kids were although it was much colder than expected. They had a great time playing in the waves but we didn't stay long enough to make them happy, I think Brittany would still be there. She would just squeal every time the waves came. Matthew was a little less sure and made sure he was holding my hand. Joshua was not a fan at all. We went to a place called Half Moon Bay, it was pretty but very misty. I think we will try another beach a little further south next time. But all in all I would have to say it was a successful first adventure!

Okay guys, here is where I need your help!

This is Matthew's room, he is almost five. Tiff at Loveboxes told me that these colors would be alright and I think she was right. We also have big blue shelves the same color as the bedspread the will go up on the walls and have primary colored legos sitting on them. I found some fabric in my stash that I think ties the colors together. It has big sailboats and I really like it. Now I don't know what to do with it. The room has these little, high windows that I put temporary fabric in just to keep out the morning sun. So I could make some kind of window treatment. Or cut it into squares and make some kind of quilt for the end of the bed. Anyone have any ideas? Thought about painting some canvases but don't really know what they should be of. Thanks for your help!

Okay, so in an effort to foster love in my heart for my new home in California and an attempt to share with the folks back in Utah I have decided to pick new things I like about this new place. So todays item is flowers.

These little beauties are everywhere! And the trees are all blooming, I mean a tree that is covered in fuchia colored blossoms! How can you not love that?! That is the tree I think I will ask for on my birthday. The more of them I see the more I want one!

Thank you so much for your lovely words of welcome and commiseration on moving! You guys are the best and have just fulfilled one of my hopes, that this blog would help me feel less isolated as I adjust to my new place. Nothing like taking your friends with you, in one way or another!

We are here!!!
Yes folks I am back! It was a pretty intense couple of weeks there. Let's just let pictures explain. The first picture is of our old living room after a crew of movers and my amazing mother had at it. You would not believe those movers, I have never experienced this before so I thought it was great, like having magicians pack for you. And my mother, I am telling you the woman should rent out, except it would kill her off. She cleaned like a mad woman and my house had never looked better. Now the new house, oh boy. Well look for yourself. This is the living room after about three days of unpacking. Obviously the living room is pretty far down in priorities. Just in case you wondered that couch should be going the other direction but there isn't room to turn it around yet. But hey, the kids rooms are pretty well put together and the kitchen is too so we will get there eventually. The calvalry is coming in a couple of weeks in the form of that same amazing mother so hopefully we will eventually become cute again. I hope this isn't too boring, we probably won't be too crafty around here for awhile but I will probably be posting some house stuff to get your great opinions on. It sounds a little silly but I missed you guys! My kids were talking about imaginary friends today and they thought I should get one too and I told they I didn't need to because I always think of my blog friends as my imaginary friends! So hello again!