happy weekend

taken yesterday. i love it when she wears her hair ribbons like this.

when asked what she and daddy plan on doing while i'm gone for the weekend, her reply was: to play tag and hide and go seek and chase around the house. daddy plans on taking her bowling and a movie. and i'm sure lots of junk food eating. *yikes* just let it go kristi, let it go...

more to share when i come back. got a full schedule today before i leave tonight. yeah me! happy weekend my friends. happy weekend.

still in my jammies type of day

1. this is not kaylee wearing an adorable kimono but how i wish it was! now on a kimono search. via keira's adventure.

2. happy to see we got our tax refund money. holla!

3. in typical teenage fashion, ham was pouting last night because i told him i would rather him find an automatic car and not a manual. when he goes to buy his own car then he can get whatever he wants. hey! i got to make some rules for him somewhere.

4. debating on two lights for the dining room. we took down the generic ceiling light/fan last may and haven't found a replacement yet.

5. today i should be getting my happy mail from last week. stupid post office!

6. the business lunch went well. she wants to branch out to the blogging world. debating on how much i want to do. definitely want to help and it would be nice to make some money while working from home...

7. this was the weekend i was suppose to go down to indy with some girls but i canceled/chickened out. i don't know the host that well and the rest of her friends i don't know at all and i feel that i've spent enough money this month at ikea even though we wouldn't be spending much money.

8. why do i always talk myself out of doing something? {depeche mode concert, lady gaga concert, indy weekend...}

9. this totally cracked me up this morning. must read till the very end. and i want that chalkboard. i'm going to make me one someday.

10. i've posted my love for all things suann at simplesong. this week she's guest blogging at design sponge. {today she shares more on her son's totally wicked, super rad party}

*changed my mind-going on that girls weekend to indy!!

love it!

i love this pinata made by inchmark. would love to make one for kaylee's room even though she's never in there except to change her clothes. and why is it that i find great party ideas after my kids birthdays?

remember monchhichi's?

one of my favorite on-line stores/artist is japanese designer shinzi katoh. i love everything in his shop. he also sells these adorable monchhichi dolls. this took me back to my younger days. i remember getting one for a birthday present from a friend. i can even remember the song from the commercial. {gotta love youtube}

good morning wednesday!

1. valentine's day cards kaylee and i made for her class. i got the idea from shim +sons. {she has the best ideas for parties and gift giving. i got this idea from her blog last year} the teachers asked for no names to make it easier for passing out.

2. few things kaylee has said this week: its dark in there {when she closes her eyes}; asked if booah (our pesky cat) wants to play "betched" {fetch}; and this morning she told me we can make fruit salad by adding oranges, bananas and " Q- wii" {kiwi}, and also requested for chicken and "ducklings" for dinner and she loves fruit "smoovies".

3. my allergies can suck it! my nose is back to being raw and red from blowing and wiping and its really stuffed up. can't smell poop figurally and literally. not that i want to literally. sick of feeling out of it too.

4. finally got some food enzymes from our local health food store and my stomach has not been achy after eating since. not so sure if it helps with the lactose intolerant, kinda nervous taking that chance.

5. got a lunch date with a friend today to talk business. her business and how i can help.

6. i'm really behind in teaching kaylee how to read. she did well on her "progress report" but needs help with her phonics.

7. hate it when i find an inspiration photo and forget to save it or write down where i found it. looking for dining room lighting, we took down the generic ceiling fan light last may and haven't found a replacement for it yet.

8. the pioneer woman is giving away a le creuset french oven on her cooking blog. i want one. i've been tempted to buy one at marshalls since they're cheaper but once i get one in my hands, i find them kinda pricey and put it back.

9. kaylee and i baked a white cake with chocolate frosting yesterday. its good. even for breakfast. but not good for me trying to lose some poundage.

10. i've read from one of my "friends" on facebook that william shatner will be playing the dad from the blog/twitter justin (shit my dad says) on twitter. i'm not sure if william would of been my first choice so he better not screw it up.

word!

via happy things

love this!

i want these in my kitchen, front and back porch too. via this is glamorous

ketti handbags

i love love luuuuvvvv these cute and adorable camera bags by ketti handbags. i would even use it as a regular purse. sadly, i didn't win one via tara whitney. they're currently out of my budget and looks like she's currently out of stock. {check her sold items for current and past designs}

dreaming...

ever want something so passionately that you feel every. single. beat of your heart when you think of it and you lose all breath? that you break down and cry? thats how i feel this morning.

i SO want to be living by the beach, where the weather stays warm year round. i want my family to be surfing. to smell beach water, fresh flowers and eat fresh fruit everyday. to be the skin color i was meant to be. to embrace other cultures, history and surrounding land. to enjoy the beauty life has to offer...

the weekend

ham giving me the evil eye. and ham with my parents. {i always said i looked more like my dad}

1. my parents took ham and cousin shawn out to ruth chris for their birthday dinner. of course ham didn't want to go but i think he was glad he did. he said he had filet, shrimp and an $8 potato and then half of grandma's filet which doesn't surprise me, the kid can eat. he also got 100 bucks because he knew which president was on it.

2. in college, thats how my parents would end the day when they came to visit. if i could name a president on a bill, i got that bill. i surprised my dad by saying grant one time. he didn't have a $50 bill but did give me 50 bucks.

3. ham is ranked 51 out 349 in his class. i am proud.

4. jisoo from joyful beauty asked how i make my mosiac's. i use big huge labs. its easy and free.

5. finally took the plunge and got a bissell steam mop. {they have a rebate going on on their website}

6. went to lowes to look for a new kitchen sink and faucet. didn't see anything that i had to have and prefer an under mount sink so i think we are going to wait till we put in new counter tops.

7. mike's doing a small version of the atkin's diet. {he says this is his last week doing it} its not easy and its making him grumpy. i think i will just to stick to eating smaller, healthier portions.

8. just as i start to see some green grass it starts to snow again. it is pretty snow so i can't complain too much.

9. happy that the amazing race is back on. after watching the first show last week and last nights show, i hope the cowboys win. they seem honest, funny and loyal.

10. as i was flipping through channels the other day i caught some of qvc's spring show. it made me want to cover my back porch with pretty flowers and mini fruit trees.

* kaylee was looking for a size in her undies and she says "my tighty whiteys don't even have a number"

bad mom award moment

january 2009

as i sit here waiting for my oldest to get home, just hoping and praying and wishing that he's not doing anything stupid, i feel a huge pain of guilt. i went into ham's room to watch a movie since he has the only cable box upstairs. i picked 17 again. my sweet little kaylee comes in and starts making all this ruckus and starts blabbering away when i get tired of hearing it that i yell at her. i yelled for her to get out of the room and to be quiet. after the movie, i find her sleeping on the couch all sweet and innocent. it was just a movie. i am a bad mom.

love/hate

i love love love luuuuv! this rug by dwell studio found this morning on design public. hate the $550 price tag.

yeah its friday!

{1. entering front door, 2. to the right- living room, 3 hallway going into the main bath, master bedroom +chill/computer room, 4. main bath, 5. chill room, 6+7 master bedroom, 8+9. kitchen, 10. family room, 11. stairs leading to 2nd floor, 12. hallway seen from landing, 13+14. kaylee's room, 15. hallway, 16. 2nd full bath, 17+18 ham's room}

1. inside the old house, wish i had some before photos. 10 years. it went through a lot of transforming. {it did have a basement but it was for laundry and weigh lifting. it also lead to the garage}

2. yesterday was a rough day. watching what + how much is tough. i found out that i have to eat continuously throughout the day or else i will feel nauseated and get headachy. i felt hungry all day too.

3. this morning was much better. i don't feel as hungry. {so far i've had a fruit smoothie}

4. ham didn't notice anything with the car. when i asked he said its a crappy car. so for punishment i think he should get the "crappy" rover while i get a lincoln navigator.

5. we need to hire someone to follow kaylee around for day so they can keep track of how many times she says "hey mama" to me.

6. whenever she says "hey mama" i start singing the black eye peas song.

7. even though i have a long list of things to do and get done, i didn't do any of it yesterday and was super bored.

8. i didn't get my happy mail either so i ended up giving kaylee hers. she was super happy to get her american girl doll jammies and wore them rest of the day.

9. love that its starting to get light out by 7am again. a much needed sign that spring is coming???

10. love when i overhear kaylee's conversation with ham. last night she was telling/showing him her valentine's day cards and she asked him if he knew katie. he said no. she then tells him that katie's her best friend from school. it was so cute!

the week so far

1. mike and kaylee have a ritual after playing in the snow, they go across the street and check out the river (behind the trees) then go to the pond and sit on the dock. i love this special father and daughter times. {blogger. this is when i don't like you. you make my very large photo look itty bitty}

2. been a semi busy week. monday the kids had the day off from school for president's weekend so kaylee and i went to shipshewana. met up with some friends to play in the toy store, ride the merry go round and eat some amish made pretzels. our friends then left us to do some shopping.

3. tuesday we stayed in and did this thing called housework. (though the house is a mess again)

4. wednesday was finally back to normal day. both kids had school. while driving out of our neighborhood to take ham to school, i almost took out one of my neighbors mailbox. thats how bad my tires are.

5. after dropping kaylee off at school, i went and got 4 new tires. since ham is now driving my car too, i want the car to be extra safe. will be interesting if he says anything today after school. {driving the car feels like buttah-its that smooth}

6. starting today i am trying to watch what i eat. smaller portions, better for me foods and some sort of movement as exercise. i am at my heaviest weight besides pregnancy weight. high school, college and even AFTER hamilton was born i weighed no more than 110 pounds. about 2 years before kaylee was born i weighed 115 give or take a few pounds.

7. the love they have for each other inspires me to be a better wife. {click on their red words to read the sweet stories}

8. one day last week kaylee asked me where daddy's girl parts were. i told her daddy never had girl parts, just boy parts because he is a boy. then she says something and adds -girl parts make more sense. funny yet weird at the same time.

9. this morning i found kaylee's american girl doll jammie package on the porch. i'm waiting for my happy mail so we can open them together and so she will have something to open when i open mine.

10. from the above photo, i'm thinking i need a new lens. something so that i can zoom across the pond while standing on the front porch.

perfect snowman snow

mike came home early yesterday afternoon after being out of town for the night. after he *shuggled the driveway, it was time to play in the snow.

kaylee and mike making snow angels.

the snow was perfect snowman making snow. so mike got it started

then had kaylee do the rest. (not really) she almost got ran over here, it started to roll backwards.

she was kinda scared standing on it but mike was right there to catch her and he did. and now we have...

a 6 foot snowman right in our backyard. he's got mini carrots for eyes, celery for a nose and to celebrate mardi gras, he's sporting some beads. *shuggle is a kayleeism

word!

via kind over matter

heart and stone jewerly

i love these personalized jewerly from heart and stone jewerly . i love how they look and that they still have a little bit of a modern flair to them. i also love that they are made from 100% recycled silver and how easy their website is to navigate. i made a mock necklace and it took me step by step showing the price of each item. unfortunately for me, i could not buy one- it was a little pricy for my cheap budget.

*well known fact: i do not get paid to endorse anything on my blog. i just like them and like to share.

super sunday randoms

1. yesterday evening my sister called asking kaylee over for a play date. so while she was on her play date, we went shopping. pier1, marshalls and target. (my brother-in-law and his parents were home)

2. we also hit chipotle- my first time there ever and krispy kreme donuts because their hot light was on. {hot light= free donut!} got kaylee and i one of these cute little mugs for her chocolatte and my whateverlatte for valentine's day.

3. kaylee woke up and the first thing she said was happy valentine's day where's my present. not exactly in those words but pretty close.

4. i ended up getting her a pink harmonica, a fancy nancy puzzle, the mug and a few candies. ham got lindt chocolates, gum and beef jerky.

5. i missed my ham all day today. he stayed the night over his buddies house and didn't come home till 9pm tonight. *sigh*

6. i've been eating what feels like non-stop. friday night it was my parents wing place, saturday for lunch it was their pizza place, saturday night i brought home an almost 10# burrito and a dozen krispy kreme both courtesy my sister. this morning finished said burrito, went to late lunch at hacienda, and ate more donuts...*sigh* food is evil!

7. since the kids don't have school tomorrow i'm thinking of going to shipshewana for the day.

8. its been nice not having car payments so we're going to let ham be as picky and choosy as he wants to be.

9. kaylee got herself a nice valentine's day present from mike's parents. they gave her enough money to buy herself pajamas just like the ones her american girl doll has. ($40 bucks!)

10. happy we did our taxes tonight and will be getting a nice rebate.

hard to believe

1. a year ago yesterday we moved into our current home thanks to the nice old homeowners who let us move in even though we hadn't closed on the house yet. we had a slight delay with closing thanks to the new homeowner of our old place.

2. we had to move pretty much everything into the garage because we technically had one day to move our crap, the new homeowner of our old place gave us till midnight friday to move because she's just not a nice person.

3. ham also had a haircut at our now regular salon a year ago. mike was not happy with that.

4. this is how we found kaylee after returning the moving truck. sleeping in ham's room with his sweatshirt on to use as a blanket. so sweet.

5. yesterday went to chiro, olive garden for lunch, hair appointment for ham, local mall to kill some time, dinner with friends.

6. today we are meeting mike's parents for lunch at my parents pizza joint. they haven't seen it yet.

7. mike wanted to get the kids a trampoline for valentine's day. well he was using valentine's day as an excuse. i dream stomped that idea.

8. still been feeling pretty good, not bogged down or out of it as usual. fingers crossed it stays. {this is all due to my allergies. both nostrils are still stuffed}

9. found recipes to make buffalo ranch chicken dip and some hazelnut cookies. bummed that i couldn't find any hazelnuts at two of our grocery stores.

10. hard not to get into the valentine's day spirit with all the cool posts thats going around the blogging world.

vacation on the brain!

ham march 2009

1. i have this wonderful series of ham and a few of his friends skateboarding. just wish i knew how to change them from iphoto to video so i can post it.

2. today is going to be "one of those days"- feeling antsy, lonely, frumpy and bored. weird. i kinda feel like cleaning.

3. kids have no school tomorrow or monday for presidents day.

4. asked ham and his buddy, tyler, if they wanted to go to bdubs with us for dinner last night. ham always says no. his friends always say yes! they ended up staying for the whole meal which was nice.

5. decided against the hardwood floors for the time being. decided to go on vacation instead since i/we only have so much time left with ham before he leaves for college and never goes on a family vacation again.

6. would love to go back to hawaii but even with my parents timeshare it would still be pretty expensive. trying to convince the family to try another cruise but no such luck. the cruise ship that took us around the hawaiian islands was, to be honest, a shit hole and not much fun.

7. so florida might be the destination which has always been fun for us. islands of adventure for ham and princess disney stuff for kaylee. we would love to go with friends but sadly we have no friends who would want to go with us.

8. my sister called me yesterday bragging she was at ikea again and that she would be eating pf changs for dinner. i had her pick me up a few more plant stands.

9. i've been reading my old blog some more and even started going back through this one.

10. just wanted to say thanks to all those who leaves a comment. it makes me smile reading them. kinda feels like i'm getting happy mail!

i want some mail!

in-between doing laundry i've been searching for someone who does monthly subscriptions but haven't been able to find anything. {letterpress, polaroids etc..} i don't think i would be cool enough to join this exchange yet to be hosted by oh hello friend but it sure looks like fun!

random wednesday

1. my sweet little nugget eating some cereal last friday. it was sports day at school so she wore her cheerleading outfit.

2. i'm not sure what the deal is this week but my sweet little nugget has been clinging to me non-stop and the talking. oh my can this girl talk! thats definitely mike's side. (i'm sure it has something to do with us being together 24/7, even at night and being stuck inside}

3. and today school was canceled for her. {there goes my much needed break!} ham got a 2 hour delay. i let him take the car.

4. while ham was in the shower she asked when he was going to leave for school. i asked her why and she said he was getting on her nerves. {she hadn't even seen him yet this morning}

5. we made valentine's day cards for her class last night and had lots of fun making them. it was nice getting some crafting supplies out again.

6. i'm craving for some buffalo chicken ranch dip and for some kogi korean beef taco's that i saw on the best thing i ever ate on the food network channel last night.

8. i know i've said this before but if i ever win the lottery i am hiring a personal chef while living in hawaii.

9. while shopping monday found a really cute jacket for kaylee but couldn't spend the 40 bucks on it at gymboree. they do have some cute spring outfits.

10. when will spring/summer get here?

no photo stingyness super bowl party recap

so today things go back to normal. yesterday, instead of cleaning up from the super bowl party, i took the day off to recover and went shopping. i found a few things for me- some not on sale and i'm starting to feel guilty, and of course i picked up a few things for kaylee. while shopping it reminded of those days when i could shop for ham and he would be happy with what i bought. too soon, it will be the same for kaylee. she will have her own style and will want to shop for her own clothes. makes me sad that they grow up so fast. mike had the day off too, to recover but from different reasons. i still had him take kaylee to preschool.

on with the super bowl party details with a few photos! a few moms and kids hanging out upstairs.

the robinson's in their matching colts t-shirts- losers! definitely not the robinson's, just the team they 're representing!

everyone getting ready for kick-off

this goes to show you men like sitting at a bar. they're watching the game from the smallest tv.

mr. cutie pie ben.

and his little brother who has the "lady-killer" smile. yeah, thats big trouble.

kaylee and one of her friends in jammies

mike getting a new hair do because he didn't listen to his wife and betted against the saints.

yeah, try getting all romantic with that.

and this year we wanted to do something different and had one of those game boards. if you ended up with the ending score after each quarter, you won a prize. if there was no name on the square someone could volunteer to do a dare. we only had to bring out two of the dares. since most people left by 9am (kids + work will do that), we gave the prizes to whoever was left so tad ended up with the mack daddy prize. i don't think he was as excited about it as he looks. its still here. ham liked it so i think we will just give it to him.

think the party turned out successful even though i missed most of the commercials. thank-god football season is now over. i can begin to recoup and not have to think about football for 7 months and 1 day. the new season doesn't start till sept 10.

on the menu: spirals, cucumber sandwiches, humus with bread chips, meatballs, crunchy asian salad, buffalo chicken dip, spicy avocado shrimp salsa, chips, mac and cheese, italian beef, bbq pork sandwiches and lots of to die for desserts-brownies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter/chocolate chip bars, chocolate cake. {no, i did not make everything}