knitting, creating, and loving life in the Midwest
My in-laws have treated us to a couple of vacations – we’ve gone to Disneyland with them and last week, they took us to Legoland, the San Diego Zoo, and the La Brea tar pits.
They rented a minivan so we could all travel together, comfortably, and chose a hotel right across the street from Legoland for convenience.
It was an awesome time. I’ll be sharing pics from our trip this week, and reliving some great moments we had.
The Easter bunny left a few treats in the backyard:
I love the color contrast of this pink egg and the greenery around it!
My boys did a great job finding each and every single egg.
My oldest was such a good big brother – he shared his loot and helped his little brother find a bunch of eggs.
Then we all pigged out on chocolate eggs, yum!
I’ve been feeling like lightening up my home with some spring-y blues and greens. A couple of trips to Michaels and IKEA helped in that endeavor.
These candles got glammed up with some flowers – $2.99 for six at Michaels – and ribbon.
The center one is on one of my yellow ramekins from World Market.
We’ve had this lovely glass vase since our wedding – we used it for cards with good wishes our guests wrote. After, it languished in the master bathroom for almost eight years. Then I saw this on the PB website.
I got a fake plant (because our dining room is so dark it wouldn’t be fair to a poor real plant) and I love how it looks, flanked by my beloved Fleur-de-Lis candlesticks.
With the help of one of my new BFFs, Valspar’s Everglad Glen spray paint, I brought a frame into the spring season.
This is one of my all-time favorite pics of my boys together.
Last week I was super inspired by Kimba’s Map Decor link party and did this:
The lantern is from IKEA (I also have one in light green) and the tray was paint sprayed with another new favorite, Valspar’s Exotic Sea. I love the combination of the bold turquoise with the muted map print and the white lantern.
So that’s my mini Spring-a-looza tour – I am currently working on a long project that involves lots and lots – and lots – of fabric. Stay tuned!
My oldest had his school walk-a-thon last Friday. It was the warmest day so far this year although it didn’t get miserably hot. He and his buddies are showing off how many laps they walked:
Or rather, how many laps two of them walked. The boy in the center, my son’s BFF, ran all 42 laps. His own mom was surprised. My thighs hurt just typing that, “ran all 42 laps.”
The teacher told the parents we could walk alongside our kids if we wanted to, so I joined my boy at about lap 8 (I’m no fool) – we did 7 laps together, then the DJ started playing that Baby Baby Baby song and I was walking around in the heat with a zillion tweens singing along and thank goodness right then my boy said he was tired. The goal for kinders was 15 laps so I told him we could just chill if he wanted. After the walk was over, the kids went in for lunch and then there was a carnival. My son was very happy I joined him for the carnival.
We ate pizza, popcorn and otter pops. We sat in the cool grass, under the tall trees and watched people. We met his teacher’s little baby and my ovaries started to hurt. He was all chubby grumpiness at first. I don’t blame him, I was scared they’d start playing another Justin Bieber song, too.
I’m joining my bloggy friend Donna’s Taking Care of You Tea Time this morning!
My youngest with one of his dragon toys, while waiting for his older brother to get out of school.
Most of the veggie garden has been planted. We managed to get most of the plants in the ground in between bouts of rain. And when I say “we” I mean my husband.
Out lovely swiss chard, I saute it like spinach, with butter and garlic, and I have a recipe I want to try – a white bean soup with chard. We’ll see how it turns out.
This is what I call Onion Hill, there are yellow onions growing (I hope) in between the two patches of green onions.
These green onions are legendary in our house. You can grab a bunch and put them in a bowl in one corner of the kitchen and you can smell them from the other corner. Fragrant and flavorful, these have grown all through the winter for us.
Our peas and beans, my husband made a little structure for them to climb:
My picky 6-year-old who won’t touch anything green will happily pick them off the vine and pop them in his mouth.
Squash Row – we have grown baseball bat zucchinis in our garden, although I will be more diligent about harvesting when they’re smaller, because they’re much yummier then.
I have a feeling lots of zucchini bread and zucchini chocolate chip cookies (kids love them!) are in our future.
We’ll also be doing tomatoes, of course, I hope to do some canning this year as well as drying some with my awesome new food dehydrator. The grapes and blueberries are also planted, and the corn has a reserved spot as well. Thanks to my husband for all his work on “my” veggie garden 😀
Are you planting any fruits or veggies this year?
Aidan turned six, yeah!
Godzilla party was fun,
pinata went boom.
Or
Lots of kids had fun
Godzilla’s not so scary
in fifty pieces!
I would do it all over again. 
There have definitely been times in my life where a different decision would have resulted in a much different present. But whenever I see one of those quizzes about “if you had to do it all over again . . . ” the answer is always yes. I would. If only to see these squishy faces every day.
My husband thought a pirate theme would be awesome in our oldest’s room. I was expecting our second baby and we decided to keep the nursery as it was for the baby, and make our office into a room for our big boy.
The initial sketch was then fine-tuned and entered into CAD – my hubby’s BFF is a very good artist – with the dimensions of the room and we just had to copy the drawing onto a grid that was pencil-drawn on our walls.
Here are some pics of the project – it was under $500, including all paints, wood, rope, muslin, etc.
Shading on the sandy beach!
Initial painting of the ship area. The ship was 3-D, painted on a piece of plywood and installed 4 inches from the wall. The space between the plywood and the wall serves as a shelf for us to plug in lights, etc. and there is a sound system hidden behind the sail, for white noise at night.
Initial stages of the ship.
A super friendly dolphin splashes near the light switch.
My mom sewed the sail and my husband did all the woodwork and ropework. The railing is made up of unfinished candlesticks from Michaels that were painted to match the wood 😀
The treasure chest, the coins were painted with metallic paint for sparkle.
On the wall, next to where the crib went, the outlet was camouflaged as a starfish, it even glitters!
My little man showing off his pirate room! There was never an issue for him to switch rooms, he slept just fine in his new bed from the beginning, and the pirate room is still the most ooh-ed and aah-ed part of the house tour we give to new guests.
Hope you enjoyed our son’s Pirate Room transformation!
We’re getting ready for our oldest’s birthday party in a few days, so we’d like to revisit some of our past happenings – yes, we’re cray-cray around here!
Casa de Berry 