My Favorite Papparazzi shot ever.

And it's not of me making fun of anybody.

I snuck it this morning; Michael and our dear neighbor Max looked so sweet together sitting on her patio having a chat. So I snuck a picture before I got caught wandering the alley. And those shrubs that are a little overgrown got trimmed, lets call it our morning workout! We rewarded ourselves with an awesome day on the Harley with a group of great guys!




When we got home this evening, we found this:

I appreciate how Pickles stuck the mouse in the food bowl. It's poetic justice, since cats eat mice, don't you think? I thought the girls were going to be the ones driving me crazy with their stuffed animals laying around the house, but I think Pickles is putting his name in the race.

This last Friday Fritter (Kenzie) turned 5. Her mom forgot the pinata, and I was already on the island; so wonderful Uncle Mike stopped at the party store and picked it up for her! (P.S. check out the gun show. Reason #127 I love him. **sigh**)

Lazy days of summer

I think we finally had our first one (lazy day of summer, that is) on Saturday. It only took until August 20th get it!
We had to head to Bellingham to pick up my Little Miss who got to stay in CA a few extra days with her Grandma, so we invited ourselves to the Campbell compound to play for the afternoon.
Erin and I had a lovely day just lounging on the patio (minus the time she had to get up 3 times to make over 11 pb&j sandwiches for 7 ravenous children) while the kids kept themselves entertained (it helped that our two oldest disappeared down the street for hours to play, leaving the littles to have free reign of the back yard).


Nothing says 'summer' like knocking one back on a hot August day.


Jelly Joker Face.

Taking a time out to refuel.

Does it get any better than this?

The Kids Rooms

I'll beg for forgiveness now for the poor quality of photos, but being sick does nothing for my already shaky hands. And I've forgotten my "real" camera on the island twice now, so I can't rely on it to compensate for my poor skills.

While the kids were gone for 8 days, Mike and I had grand plans for the kids to come back to Extreme Home Makeover-style bedrooms. But Mike ended up working A LOT of overtime, we ended up crabbing A LOT, we squeezed a date or two into our week, and I had to make multiple trips to Bellingham for various appointments. The next thing we knew, the kids were due back!
So the girls' rooms didn't get the paintjob we (or they) had hoped for, but everyone seemed tickled with the transformations (and no I didn't do before pictures because their rooms were pigsty's before).

First up: Brady! His room was two shades of light blue before; his is the only room we got painted. Our first plan was to do cool Nautica stripes on the walls. With the amount of time we had, we decided a nice light-khaki was the right color palate ;) There is going to be blue and yellow corner shelves installed, but there was an incident with dry-time and sticking-to-surfaces problems; I'll be sanding and repainting the shelves in the near future.


Victim of the shaky-hand... My mom got Brady this old school map while whe was in Bakersfield and we finally got it up on the wall. We kind of worked his room around this theme and I'm really happy with the whole concept.

Natalie's room came with purple walls, and we're still working on what to do with them. She wanted a panda bear theme, which is easier said than done! I found a few panda bear items, then went black and white for the rest. I also went to Costco.com and found a huge library of images and found a panda bear that I had printed poster-size that I'm going to hang over her bed (I just have to get to Michaels to get a frame, and going there with 3 children just doesn't appeal to me).

I went cheap-o and repurposed a bunch of matching frames in her room by removing the back and just leaving the glass (I did this in Makenzie's room too), and adhearing wall vinyl onto the glass. I did this because our house is textured with 'heavy knockdown' and is not vinyl-friendly.

Makenzie's room is a sea of pink. And she wanted a Hello Kitty room. The pink seemed an easy start point, though I still plan on toning down some of the PINK of it all... I put little Hello Kitty bows on her shadow boxes, and lined her lampshade with the bows. I don't think there's any question what theme was trying to be achieved in this room! A world-wide marketed icon makes decorating easy!

Attack of the blury hand again.

Alone together

Our week of being childless ends today. We haven't been without our kids for more than 2 days in over a year and a half. And we made full use of our time! We actually ran out of time! Here's a quick highlight of how we spent our week (you know, besides the dozens of appointments, tedious chores and errands):

Crabbing. Lots of crabbing. And cooking of crabs. And cracking of crabs. And eating of crabs. And freezing over 5 pounds of crab meat. I love dungeness crab!

A friend couldn't go to the Mariners vs. Red Sox game last Sunday so I scooped up her tickets and they were amazing seats! 3rd row off the field!
They'll always be King beers to me...

Me and my super sweetie during the 7th inning stretch... Time to rally for the win!

We took the train from Everett to the game and it was terrific (after I switched seats so that I could sit forward. Heather and riding backwards do not mix!). Affordable, no traffic, and no concern about having one too many beers at the game! Perfect!

Seaside

Reason #98 Why I wish my finger was done being broken: Typing is difficult and I'm spending more time correcting typos than actually typing.

That being said, here is our weekend in photos: