We have not fallen into the Pacific over here. Just unbelievably busy.
I mean…we’ve been designing soccer plays for cats for goodness sake!
This pic cracks me up every time I look at it. This was ALL Addie. (Even the spelling on her “Socer Bol!”)
Promise, promise, promise to be back soon and fill you in on all our chaos.
I’ve caught a little bit of the Halloween/Fall decor bug, all thanks to Aunt Vicki. She sent me an email with a great blog that I’d never seen before. Which led to a few more blogs that I’m now obsessed with and so now I’m heading down this Halloween decorating path, and honestly…Halloween is my least favorite holiday. Imagine when Christmas hits.
So, we made little mini monogrammed pumpkins inspired by Brown Paper Packages (LOVE her blog name!) today for our mantle…
See Nana’s handiwork in between the pumpkins? We’ve been getting a card every few days for the past two weeks. The big question before the last card was, will it spell “Happy Halloween” or just “Halloween?” Very clever, no? I have a great idea for the cards when we get the final piece of the puzzle. I am so in love with the “A” one. The Frankenstein is just too much.
Anyhow, yes. We did little pumpkins for us, and a few others for the neighbor girls, and still a few others to give away as gifts.
And then, I stupidly showed these ridiculously cute bats to Ad’s teacher. Uh huh. As you might have guessed, we made bats in Ad’s class last week. 30 bats later (I didn’t get a photo of all of them!!), I still have hot glue burns on my thumbs, but they were a definite hit. Such a cute idea.
(Photo Credit: BabyCenter – Click for instructions)
And other than those little guys, I’ve been doing a lot of house stuff. Like painting trim (yeah!) in the kitchen and a bunch of little stuff that nobody else will even notice, but I notice it all, so therefore it is very important.
I’m getting closer to prepping the cupboards to paint. But it is such a huge job that I keep putting it off. Well, that is not entirely true. The real reason is – I’ve been on Pinterest looking at ideas for the kitchen. Specifically, what colors to paint the cabinets. I have a few friends that are pulling for that really cool light green color. If you look really closely in our tile, there is a slight green outline that the cabinets could pick up.
Well…you can’t really see it well in this photo, but it is there. And if we painted the cabinets a lovely green like this…you could really see it.
From jasdesignbuild.com
Oh, I love that green. And I’ve always loved just white cabinets, but I am a little worried that it will be too much white in there. But oh…look at this beautiful kitchen…(with my green in the BACK of the cabinets!)
And this one… (Yes, I realize that white cabinets is not going to make my kitchen look like this. But oh, is it pretty! Totally impractical with ALL of those windowed cabinets. Where do you hide your stuff? But, again. Oh.So.Pretty.)
From cococozy.com
This one?
From traditionalhome.com
So this one was interesting because I was drifting into a creamy, not-so-white color. Which has been our dilemma with the trim color around here. We have a Spanish-style, old house. It deserves/needs antique-ish colored whites. I’m still looking for a good one for the upstairs trim. So maybe an off-white color like this above would look good? But with the tile?
Then we were watching Modern Family the other night and I almost fell off the sofa. First of all, if you’re not watching this show…you must start. Now! It is the funniest show. I am convinced the Clare and Phil are J. and I. At least once every episode I look at J. in disbelief. “Seriously? Are they just hanging out trolling for material in our house? That is us!”
But I digress. Yes, falling off the sofa. I love Clare and Phil’s house on the show. It is so comfortable and beautiful all at the same time. And then I noticed their cabinets. Love, LOVE that color. So I started doing some scouting online. Apparently I’m not the only one crazy about the color. These are the best pics and guess to the color (thanks to Reckless Bliss!).
I’m just bad about this kind of stuff. What would this look like on the cabinets with our current tile (which is staying.)? What do you guys vote for? First a look at the kitchen again in its’ current state:
And a little refresh of those colors on the table:
– all white
-a vintage, light green
-a cream, antique white
-this “straw” Modern Family color
-something completely different??
Ok…discuss.
Our house was obviously shook up by the news of Steve Jobs passing away last week. We are a completely Apple-driven house; are long-time admirers of pretty much everything Apple produces; and every member of the family has a well-loved favorite Pixar movie (I think it is a different film for each of us, too!). The loss of such an innovative man, well it is just that…a true loss to the world.
J. made me watch the commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave in 2005 to Stanford graduates. If you have a few minutes, give it a watch. It is incredibly moving and inspirational. (If you can’t watch the video, but want to read the speech you can do so here.)
Kinda makes me want to be like Steve when I grow up.
And then today in church, during his homily Father Gary quoted Steve Job – from that speech.
“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. ..Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
I’ve said goodbye to two friends in the past two months. It is fascinating to me that both of them did exactly what Steve Jobs advised – they didn’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Another not-so-gentle reminder, perhaps.
RIP Steve Jobs.
We’ve decided that rainy days do not deserve to be lumped in with Mondays.
They are such a novelty around here that they definitely don’t get us down.
Although it is always an interesting exercise trying to hobble together rain gear for
everyone that still fits, and I’ve totally given up hope on getting them to match.
Piddling around with little projects here and there between fitting in some trim painting. Now that the cupboard is out of our kitchen, and I took down the shutters to give them a good cleaning, it is painfully obvious that our trim needs a fresh, new coat of paint.
I think we have decided on a color. I repainted a door and some trim upstairs that J. says is too “white” and looks cheap or something. I think a nice white is crisp and clean. But, very rarely does J. voice an opinion about anything around here, so I figured I ought to listen and let him have his say. So we picked out a “warmer, less stark, creamier” white. And I’m on a mission to start painting all our moldings, doors, and basically anything that isn’t taped down.
We also have the hole in our ceiling that the cupboard left we need to deal with and…oh! A big portion of the next-door cupboard wasn’t stained, so it looks like the painting of the kitchen cabinets, that I have also wanted to do for so very long, has moved up on the list as well (yeah!).
Let’s see – we had a September birthday round-up on Friday with our friend, Alexander, who also turned 6 last month, and whose name also starts with an A! So the two A’s got “6” cupcakes and some much overdue time together.
Evah…our Silhouette machine, has gotten a little love in the past few weeks. We personalized the girls’ soccer jerseys for the Terrible Teal team. I need a pic with all of them lined up with the backs of their jerseys.
And I’m working on getting a custom project done (they are coming, Aunt Laura!). I’m making her a whole bunch of the little wallets to use at Christmas time for giftcards.
These little wallets are the best way to use up scraps and I can just sit and cut a few out each night as I watch tv. I know I eventually have to actually sew them and get them together…but I like looking at the stack and feeling a little bit of progress.
What kind of crafty progress are you making lately?
So, to all of you who have seen our kitchen in person (or in photos), notice anything different?
Nope…we still have that ugly linoleum and horrid light fixtures. It isn’t so much about what is there, but more about what is not there anymore...
THAT cabinet that has been the bane of my existence since we moved into our house. I cannot tell you how many times I have hit my head on THAT awkwardly placed cupboard, or how broken up our kitchen felt and looked with it hanging out right down the middle of the kitchen.
So my hair-brained idea that has been stewing for a few years – just take the whole cabinet out. Earlier this week I started Operation Destroy Cabinet and cleaned the cupboard out, reorganized the kitchen so we could “live with it” for a few days to make sure we could really do without the storage…and happily I can report we don’t need the extra space!
Then today, as I was prepping the trim to get a fresh coat of paint I simply thought “out loud” and my sweet husband knew that it was coming down one way or another. So he (only mildly grumbling that I waited til the END of the weekend to hint about the cabinet’s demise) set about to taking it down for me. About an hour later with a little help from Jeff, we have an incredible open and spacious kitchen.
Addie is excited because when the girls help me bake we can all work and not be crowded under the cabinet. I’m excited because I can see out my the windows when I’m in the kitchen – I can see from one end to the other! And…no more cranking my head. Yeah, definitely that, too.
We have curtains over here this week. One fun curtain and six necessary ones.
My friend needed a curtain for the Kidspace Pumpkin Festival – for one of those game booths. I think for this game you throw the fishing line “into the witch’s brew” (over the curtain) and fish for a prize. Anyhow, they needed a 10′ x 6′ curtain. So…we fashioned a little one for her.
It was kinda impossible to get a good photo since I don’t have a floor spot big enough to spread it out. Imagine trying to sew that cauldron on in the middle of the 10 foot long material. It was tricky to get it all through the machine, believe me.
Added a little spider…
And a witch peeking out, too…
I think it turned out really cute. I’ll have to get photos of it in action, though.
And then I turned my attention to much needed curtains for our dining room.
When we moved in, we had…well, some very lovely wrought-iron hardware. But no curtains. (Look how little Emmy is!!)
And, four and a half years later…still no curtains. Mostly because I didn’t want to put money into something we didn’t really need, or might not be in the house later to enjoy. And also…I couldn’t quite decide on a color. Oh, and also…curtains are expensive! I really loved these at PB, but do you see how much they are?? Even on sale. And we need the very long ones (high ceilings) and SIX panels (big window + 2 french doors!). So since I didn’t have $850 to drop on drapes, we were doing just fine without them, thank you very much.
Then a few weeks ago we stopped into a The Great Indoors store that was closing and I found gorgeous silk drapes that look suspiciously like the ones from Pottery Barn marked down from $89 a panel to $16. $16!! Yep. $96 for all the drapes in my dining room. Sold.
Of course I did need to hem them, hence the other half of the curtain edition today. I know it isn’t really crafty, but it is all the action my sewing machine got this week. And I’ll have to take a better photo of the room in better light – they are really pretty, kind of a cross between a spun gold color and a butter yellow. I think they are neutral enough to go with whatever we decide to do in there. It may take us another four years to paint and rearrange the artwork, but baby steps…baby steps.
I have about 200 photos from the first soccer games this weekend still on my camera that need to be downloaded, edited and backed up. And I have a sticky note with blog post ideas and promises that I’ve made – like “how I put the supercapes together’ (I promise it is coming, Carey!) and all sorts of other “when I get around to its” that I could be writing.
But here is one that is pretty easy and I can cross off my to do list right now – the recipe for the Lentil Salad that I’ve been raving about almost every day for lunch. Although I guess now that fall is upon us, most of my friends and family are looking for a lentil soup recipe!
At any rate, my friend Diane introduced me to this lentil salad from Nicole’s – the little french bistro in South Pasadena. It was delicious – but expensive – so I’ve been trying to perfect the salad at home. It is close…so very close!
I use the already cooked lentils from the refrigerator section at Trader Joe’s. I have some dried lentils in the pantry, but haven’t attempted to soak, rinse, cook them yet.
For the record, they are awesome right out of the package…and look! They are really good for you, too!
They have a whole 8g of fiber for 1 serving! Nice.
But to make them even tastier, and more like the Nicole’s salad, you will also need:
A little olive oil, parsley, lemon, scallions (I only had little green onions on this day – also works!), salt & pepper.
Chop the onion ( I used one green onion), squeeze the juice of one lemon, chop up a little-ish bunch of parsley, give one round dash of olive oil (once around the medium-sized bowl), and mix it all up with the lentils. Salt and pepper to taste and stick it in the fridge for salads for the week.
Okay, well it has never lasted me an entire week of lunches. It is about three days (tops!) worth of lunch for me, unless one of those days happens to be a very hard workout day. Then I get two days out of my bowl. But my bowl of lentil salad costs 1/4 of what Nicole’s is charging.
Budget friendly AND delicious!
…but we have Fishin’! That is kind of crafty, in a way, sort of, right? Nah…well, it is the excuse I have for no finished projects again this weekend. We traveled to Denver for J.’s cousin’s wedding.
The girls were amazing troopers since we got up at 4:30am on Saturday morning to catch a flight. Spent all of Saturday exploring Boulder and having dinner with family and were back up and on our way to Estes Park for the wedding by 9am on Sunday.
(Yes, we had to do a little creative double-buckling to fit us all in the car! Shhh…you didn’t see that!)
Anyhoo, Colorado is so beautiful. I think I could totally live there someday.
And the wedding was incredibly beautiful, too.
But it was in a bit of a fishbowl, so it was really windy. Uncle Jeff had to loan Addie a hoodie…
And Daddy found a jacket for Em….
After the wedding we had a few hours to kill and we found this little trout farm and the girls really wanted to learn to fish. So Daddy and Uncle Jeff, in their wedding attire, helped the girls experience fishing for the first time.
Em got really good at casting…
And got close to the worms…
But Addie landed the first fish (with a lot of help from Uncle Jeff!)…
How big was your fish, Ad?…
Exaggerated like a true fisherman, it was a bit smaller….
Finally Gracie snagged one, too…
She was less enamored with the fish once they were on dry land…
And then…I expected some tears when they started cleaning them. I heard Addie say to the guy at the fish counter, “Don’t hurt the fish!”
But neither of them budged while they conked the fish on the head and gutted them. And we haven’t had any nightmares, so I guess my city girls still have a little country blood in them.
After our tough day of fishing, we bellied up to the bar and swapped fishin’ stories…
Stopped by the rest of the party…
Tried for one family photo documenting us all dressed up – and this is what I got at the end of long weekend, on our way back to the airport…
And that is how you do Colorado, a wedding, a fishing expedition, and a reception in 48 hours. In case you were wondering.
Yes, yes…I know! I’ve been berated by my two most faithful (maybe only 2 at this point!) readers – apparently I have been far too absent on ye olde blog as of late.
I don’t really have any excuse other than…life happens. And it is happening at warp-speed around here and I’m just barely trying to keep up.
Soccer season has begun. And this year we are doing soccer season x two.
I thought it would be difficult to help coach Em’s team this year with double practice and game schedules, and thought it might be a good time for Daddy to step up, so I “volunteered” him to assist Daddy Alain with coaching the “Terrible Teals.” (Of course I didn’t volunteer him without asking him first…I just strongly suggested that it might be a good idea!)
But then Addie’s team was kind of limping along and her division doesn’t have very many girls, so for awhile they were trying to get me to head coach one of the teams. As I was vehemently declining I said something to the effect of “I cannot commit to head coaching – I have two in soccer this year! Maybe I could help assist if someone needed it…”
Yes. You see where this is going? A head coach (from the team that Addie was temporarily on) heard that…and made sure that Addie stayed on his team so that he got an assistant coach as well. Soooo…Mama is helping with the Purple Ponies. It will for sure make Soccer Saturdays interesting. Already on Friday nights we go in completely opposite directions for practices. Addie and I go one way and Emma and Daddy hop across the street. But so far, everyone is happy and excited for the season, although we all have to miss tomorrow’s first game as we head to Denver for a wedding!
The girls are settling into school nicely. There seems to be a lot more going on over in homework land this year, but I’m happy with the progress both of them have made in just a few short weeks. Addie was star of the week this week in her class, so she got to share her prized possessions every day this week. She brought in her cat collection every single day – including Tiger this morning.
All of the kids in class write about the star of the week and then Mrs. K. puts a book together for each student with the writings from their friends. I was peeking at some of the pages when I was in there this week working and every single kid started out with, “Addie loves cats.” A few of them said, “Addie really, really, really loves cats!” To their defense, she didn’t give them much more than cats to work with! I am pleasantly surprised and happy to report that the reading is finally clicking with her, though. And I am hardly getting any push back at all on her reading to me at night, instead of the other way around! So that is real progress, my friends.
Em is in a 3rd/4th combo class, I think I mentioned before – NOT with her BFF in the whole wide world, Audrey. There were a few rough days there, and since Em ends up lumped in with the 4th graders, she doesn’t have recess or a full lunch with Audrey, but they are managing just fine. We are trying to find time for them to hang out – and they have soccer together…so there is still plenty of bff-ness going on.
Her class seems very challenging, which I am grateful for. She is the type of kid who will rise to the challenge if it is put out there by a teacher and she seems to handle it all beautifully. If it is put out there by Mom, however…not so much of a chance. And that is reason #562 that I could absolutely never homeschool. Her new teacher is really able to motivate the kids, and Em is again with a great group of 3rd graders, so I’m very happy so far.
Oh, let’s see. What else? That hardly seems like enough to fill our days around here. The girls have both joined the choir at church. Both are taking piano still – Emma is rocking it, Addie is still struggling. In fact…they are working on a little duet piece…it’s pretty sweet. They are working the kinks out still, but getting close!! This was from a few weeks ago, the piece is much better now. But just to see all this sweetness on one piano bench makes me smile…
The Duet from carrie voris on Vimeo.
Em is still swimming on the swim team, although with soccer she can’t do much, so we are just swimming once a week to keep her spot on the team until soccer is over. And Addie is sticking with ballet for another year. Her idol (Audrey’s older sister) Yvette just went en pointe this year…so now Addie has something to shoot for. She REALLY wants to get pointe shoes. Granted it is another 6-7 years of ballet…so we’ll see how that works itself out.
Yeah…that is pretty much it. My days fly by and another week is gone. I seem to be incredibly busy but feel many days like I got absolutely nothing accomplished. It is just life, I guess.
I’m off to pack us up for the weekend, we’ll see you back here next week!
