Momma's Birthday

Saturday was my mom's birthday and today is actually my brother's girlfriend's birthday, so we spent the weekend celebrating! But before we get to the fun, first things first...

Smiles where you least expect it

I tend to get wild hairs up my butt from time to time (where did that phrase even come from??) and I'll decide to paint a random wall in the house, or hang up a bunch of random pictures, or rearrange furniture. Luckily for me, Brian is pretty easy going and just laughs at my randomness. This weekend was no exception. Like 2 years ago- I'm pretty sure before I had even met Brian- I bought this cute cabinet from Bed Bath and Beyond to replace my medicine cabinet. My current medicine cabinet is in the middle of the master bedroom and I think it is so ugly...

My bed is just to the left. Lame.

So on Friday afternoon, I finally decided to switch out the cabinets. This took some more of my magical strength )that I only have when I have no around to help and all the dog can do is laugh at me) as I held the ugly cabinet up while simultaneously unscrewing it from the wall while leaning over the counter that is full of a bunch of crap.

In the place of the cabinet, I found this:

Someone (dad) was trying to be cute when we painted the house! But it brought a smile to my face and on I struggled.

I had to assemble the new cabinet which was both entertaining and mentally draining. (I screwed a couple of parts in backwards. It took a good 5 minutes before I figured out why the doors wouldn't close. Nobody ever said I was smart.)

Anyway, before long, the newer, prettier cabinet was ready for it's debut. Turns out hanging a much wider, heavier cabinet is much more difficult than taking down an old one. But I managed as Kevin supervised...

Success!!! Much more aesthetically pleasing, no?

Nope....

That right there is about 4 inches of open wall. $h&#! F*c%!

So now I don't have either cabinet in the wall. But at least I have Wallson to keep me company.

Get it? Like Wilson? Silly me.

Anyway... 

Mom's Birthday!
Onto the fun! Since mom's birthday was Saturday and Jenn's is today, we combined to have the major celebration yesterday. We went out to dinner and it's always nice when we're all together like that. After ward, we went back to the parentals' house for cupcakes and ice cream. I made the cupcakes... and I was pretty proud of myself.

 Pretty delicious looking, right? Chocolate with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting. Yup.

And now a word about mom...

My mom has always been my best friend. I didn't always want to admit it, but she is always right about everything. She knows me better than I know myself and because of that, she has always given me the best advice- even when I didn't want to hear it. From the boys I dated to my education to what I should wear, she always knows best and she isn't afraid to be brutally honest with me. We laugh with each other because she is so silly, yell at each other because we are both loud, stubborn Italians, and love each other because we are best friends as well as mother and daughter.

And now for the last 2 and a half months, we've been workout buddies too! She has been working out with me every morning, 6 days a week. She even goes on the days where I just can't seem to get myself out of bed. She has made me so proud with her hard work and dedication, and I'm so happy that she is finally making some time for herself after all of these years of spending so much on time on the rest of us. Plus it's been fun getting to spend some extra girl time with her in the mornings! ♥ I love you, mom!!!

And if you're wondering why I am the way I am, it's because of the people I was raised by, raised with, and will raise future me's with:

Looks like poor Jenn is the only normal one!

My monkey butt goes back to school

Summer is winding down and that means one thing... BACK TO SCHOOL!!!

This year, back to school has more than one meaning for me. After taking a year-long hiatus from school to get married (the longest break I've ever had from school- EVER) I'm back to wind up my masters degree in Kinesiology. I only have 3 units left, and it's not even a class- it 3 units of thesis writing. So while I can complete this aspect whilst sitting upon my enormous rump, it's going to be a lot of work, hence, the reason I decided not complete that bad boy and plan/DIY a wedding all at once. Although I'm super psyched about my project and I strongly believe in what I'm writing about, I'm dreading doing the actual writing.

It's all kind of ridiculous because I've already done most of the research. And duh- obviously the act of writing itself doesn't bother me (as I am currently writing...). But sitting down and pounding out a thesis does not sound like a good time to me. Oh well. It'll happen.

Anyway, part 2 of back to school has to do with work. Last night was back to school night for the parents. We just wrapped up our 5th week of school and I really enjoy my kids this year. I got the chance to meet a lot of their parents last night and I really enjoyed them too. So hooray for that!


Before I could make it back to campus last night, I had to stop at my parents' house to feed their dogs. This was complicated because my sweet little Kevin would still be left alone at home after being alone all day. (Brian and I would be missing each other by an hour or so.) But before I left Kev, I played with him and fed him dinner, and he seemed to be okay.

When I got to my parents' their dogs were happy to see me and even happier after they got to eat. Success- 3 happy labradors!

I finished getting ready at their house. Connected to my aforementioned large ass are some pretty large thighs. Thunder thighs + skirt + hot, crowded gym = chub rub... so off I went to find some baby powder in my parents' bathroom.

No baby powder.

Instead I found something better...

Anti Monkey Butt! Is that not the best product you have ever laid your eyes on?? I need to find out where they got it because I want some in my house. I don't even remember if it worked (which probably means it did), but it just feels reassuring to know that the members of my family are no longer suffering from Monkey Butt.

That's a clinical term, by the way. ;-)

Hallway Project Part 2

So I finished the Hallway project weeks ago, but then school started and apparently, I am not a multitasker. But here we go...


Before, the hallway was pretty empty except for some little goofy picture frames that I painted the same color as the rest of the house:

From the bottom looking up (with Supervisor Kevin)

From the top of the stairs looking down

Then with the help of my printer, my hammer, some nails, and of course- our shower gift from Alexis, we now have a more sophisticated hallway that displays some of our favorite memories from our favorite day!...

Looking down

Looking up

 I added the other black shelf to the top of the arrangement. I wasn't going to, mostly because I was afraid we would run into it, but I think it kind of balances out the hall. Plus it's a great way to display my flowers. (I didn't really know what to do with them, but I certainly am not ready to throw them away!)

Also, those birds were on our guest book table and I made that photo strip out of some of my favorite candid shots from the wedding... someone- I think Mike- made us all take a shot of tequila before we went out for the grand entrance. It was the most vile liquid I have after consumed and I knew the photographer was there snapping away. I think she captured the moment perfectly.

Here's a closer up version of the last shot:

My face, Brian's face, and my dad's face (far left) are CLASSIC. I love it! ♥


Anyway, Hallway Project, check!

Thursday Things

1- Brian started a new job on Monday. It's definitely a good change for him and it's a step in the right direction for our little family. Really, the only downside is that he has to take the dreaded 405 to get there, so his commute (which is shorter mile-wise) takes longer and he gets home later.

We lose some together time in the evenings, but it's good because I've been able to straighten up some things around the house, catch up on some grades from work, and check it out- even write a blog post! Plus, his job comes with some pretty sweet perks. (More on those later!)


2- I'm getting really excited about Alexis' birthday. It's still over two months away, but we're going on a cruise and it's going to be so much fun! Brian's never been on a cruise before, so it will be exciting to see how much he likes it. Oh, and we're on a mission to design some really loud and obnoxious shirts. Stay tuned...

3- We had an earthquake today. It was a 4.2 which sounds pretty big, but it didn't really feel too bad. As far as I know, there wasn't any damage anywhere. It happened during 5th period and I was on the track with my class while they were running the mile. They didn't even feel it and I'm pretty sure they thought I was on drugs when I started asking them if they felt it. I was worried about Kevin because  we still have some wedding presents on the kitchen table and I was afraid he would have an imprint of a slow cooker on the top of his head he's never experienced an earthquake.

But when I got home, he was his usual happy, wiggly self. So, everyone's safe and sound... just makes me realize I should probably be more prepared. (And put away all of the potential projectiles that could kill my dog.)

4- I ran 3 miles this morning. Well, ran/walked. I finished just under 36 minutes, so I averaged a 12 minute mile. Kinda lame, but I wasn't going 100% either, so I felt pretty good about it. Like, really good about it. Like, if I actually tried, I might really be able to get faster. There's a 5k in December that I've done 3 times before and I think I'm actually going to race in it this year. I did it 2 years ago and my goal was to run without stopping. I did and finished in 31 minutes. Me thinks I can PR...

5-I feel like I can't catch up. Like at work, they keep changing my rosters so my kids are switching around all the time. And at home, as soon as I clean something, one of the boys will go and poop on it. I feel like I'm one step forward, 2 steps back. Oy.

6- I want to move. But that's probably not happening any time soon. So after I spoke with real estate mom (glance over to the right side of your screen), I decided I should probably just give in already and start doing some of the things I was putting off around the house. They were being put off because don't want to put more money into a house that I don't see myself in forever. But the time has come to either do something with this house or move. So floors and counter tops, look out because I'm going to rock your world.

7- I'm looking forward to this weekend for the sole reason that I don't have to go to work on Monday. We're 3 weeks into the semester...

I think that's all for now. I'm going to whip up a post about the hallway project and then go clear some space for those wedding presents!

Hallway Project Part 1

I had to go back to work today... I've been on summer break since June 4th- just enough time to get used to sleeping in and doing nothing all day really comfortable. Actually, I had a pretty productive summer. I was able to clean/reorganize the house, do some crafty things, go to the gym pretty frequently, go camping... oh, yeah, get married and go on a honeymoon. :)


But going back to work means no more of this...

More importantly, no more of this...

Not getting to hang out with that face all day is probably the worst part. But although 2 months is a very nice break, and I totally could see myself being at home every day, eventually I would run out of things to paint and I suppose I would get bored. So back to work I go!


This whole week is meetings, so no new and fun stories about the kids yet. Too bad, because meetings are B-O-R-I-N-G. I hate them.

I made sure I brought a pad of paper with me and I was pretty much making lists of things I need to do the entire time. Well, switching off between that and playing solitaire on my phone. Don't worry, I was listening too!


Today's meeting was for the coaches and it was all pretty much common sense stuff. There were some inspirational quotes that I liked that you may see popping up here soon. And we watched this video (which made us all laugh out loud because it's so true)...

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But enough of the work stuff and back to the fun stuff... as you can see in my chicken scratch drawing above, I have plans for the hallway going upstairs and I started this project yesterday. It's already an improvement from this...

It was funny how the project came about though...


It started off with this 16x20 canvas that our photographer gave to us a wedding present.

Look familiar??

It's one of my favorite pictures of us- we both have our eyes open, I'm hiding my muffin top behind him, you know, important stuff like that. Really though, we both look happy and playful, and that kind of sums up who we are. Oh, and I really like the colors. Yellow is one of my favs. But nothing around the house is yellow. And I don't want to scare people with a gigantic picture of us greeting them every time they come over.


So I was looking at this canvas and trying to figure out where the heck to put it. I was lost. So I put that down and decided to work on a project that I liked from The Chronicles of Ruthie Hart where she made a silhouette of her dog. Using her basic instructions, I created this little guy...

Before I put a back to it and framed it, a thought occurred to me- I could make a collage with the canvas and some frames I already had. I grabbed some green scrapbook paper and this frame, and put this Kevin silhouette together. Love! Then, I painted another frame with with a yellowish green accent (grellow, for those of you YHL followers) and searched for a picture to put in it. I knew I didn't want a picture of the dog right next to his silhouette and I knew I didn't want a picture of us since I had our gigantic 16x20 grills paired up with this frame.


After looking through so many wedding photos on websites and in magazines these last months, I've learned that a lot lies in the details. So with that in mind, I looked through our honeymoon pictures for two things- greenery (in Hawaii, that's easy to find) and details that would bring back memories. The winner was a picture we had taken while we were on a hike on the Road to Hana. We were overlooking a HUGE canyon and I wanted a ring shot. And if you know anything about out honeymoon, this was after The Incident, so our pictures were important and few and far between.

I played around with it on Picnik a little bit to make the colors a little more artsy and matchy-matchy.


I was just going to hang up these 3 pictures, but I thought that would be boring. Then I remembered some black shelves I had from Target that I haven't used yet. I though it might be fun to rest the canvas on a shelf and hang the other frames.


Then while in the garage putting laundry in the dryer, I looked up at a frame that the previous owners had left almost 4 years ago and I had never touched.  

Epiphany!!! What if I used the frame to enclose my little picture collage? Done. So I brought it in, dusted it off, slapped some black paint on it, and less than a half hour later, I had this:

 I had originally wanted the bottom frames to be lined up with each other and contrary to my Sorry Dad posts, I had actually measured these goofy little frames. But this turned out to be a happy little accident. Forced to find something to fill that empty space on the bottom left, I spotted my collection of starfish. I nabbed one that fit the area, painted it white, and done!

It makes me happy. And this is the beginning. I have more plans for the rest of the hallway going up the stairs!


What projects do you guys have going on right now?

Do you have any art or pictures that you love, but just don't go with the rest of your house?

Beach Dog Jog

I guest posted over at Tara's blog today, so head over there and check it out! It was all about my DIY wedding projects- fun stuff!



I head back to work this week after a much needed break this summer. In honor of the end of my summer break, Kevin the dog and I went to the beach to exercise and enjoy the 65ish degree weather (as opposed to the 95+ degrees in the Valley).

We started off with a jog at Zuma Beach in Malibu. Unfortunately for Kevin, dogs are not actually allowed on the beach there, so we had to stick to the sidewalks.

This wasn't all bad- like I said, the weather was way more enjoyable and I could still see the water. Kevin, however, was too short to see over the wall. If you look in the picture above, you can see that the wall opens up every 30 feet or so for beach access from the parking lot. And so every 30 feet or so, Kevin would stop and look at the water.

See, Kevin is obsessed with water. He'll just keep drinking it if you let him and he loves playing in it. Blame it on being a labrador, I guess! I felt bad since he's not allowed past the wall, so I told him if he did a good job running, we would go up the coast about 5 minutes to the dog beach.

I swear, he understands English, because after that, we were cruising and he did an awesome job. We probably only went about a mile, but I was satisfied with that. We were both huffing and puffing, I was sweating, his tongue was practically touching his toes... so onto the dog beach we went!

Post run- check out that tongue!

I love watching Kevin at the beach. It never fails to make me laugh the entire time. He used to be afraid of the waves and he would act like a little kid- like when the waves crashed, he would run from them, and when the water went back out, he'd chase after it. Well now, he full on attacks the waves! When they would crash, he run up and pounce on them. Adorable!

After a bunch of wave-pouncing and seaweed consuming, we decided to call it a morning. We were both feeling good- just enough exercise, just enough sun- time to head home.

Before we even made it back onto the highway, Kevin climbed up into the front seat and started to fall asleep. You know you've had a good day when you fall asleep before you even lay down!

He's so cute! I love him and I'm going to miss him so much when work starts back up. Hope your summer days are so much fun you fall asleep sitting up!

10 Meaningful Things

I recently started following Tara over at Dashing in Pearls, her post today is a sort of project started by Lindsay over at Cotter Crunch. The idea is to go through the photos on your smart phone and pick out the 10 most meaningful ones. Well I just got my iphone in May and- as I shared before- my phone was stolen on my honeymoon, but found with all of the pictures erased. So my pictures choices were limited, but meaningful nonetheless. So here we go...

This one is special for a few reasons- it was taken before the wedding (that desk was actually used at the reception), and the only reason I still have it on my phone after all of the pictures were deleted is because I had sent it to Brian, and my sent messages were still in my phone. Plus, my mom and dad were helping me work on the desk and they're pretty goofy. I just like the whole pre-wedding/family vibe this picture has to it.

Kevin. He's so funny. He isn't supposed to be upstairs by himself (because he still tends to chew on underwear whenever he gets the opportunity), but he managed to sneak up there one day and I caught him hiding from me. I love this picture! :)

Honeymoon ring shot on a beach in Maui during sunset. 'Nuf said.

So Brian will probably hate that I put this up, but it was also during our honeymoon. We had just woken up and I looked over at him and he just looked so cute and I remember feeling so happy that this is the man that I will be spending my life with. I wanted to take a picture right then to always remember that moment. ♥

I don't remember what we did that day- dog park, swimming at my parents? Not sure. But what I do remember is that both of my boys fell asleep while cuddling with me on the couch. For a point of reference, that's my hand that looks like it's growing out of Brian's neck. And the pink is a breast cancer awareness ribbon on my shirt. ♥ ♥

Kevin watching Marlie and Me... Brian and I had never seen it, mostly because we know how it ends and we didn't want to have to think about it. But it was on TV one night and I was curious, so we all watched it together. It was the most emotional I think either one of us has ever been in front of each other. And Kevin was enthralled by the movie. I'm pretty sure he thought he was watching his life story. (For the record, Kevin and Marlie are pretty much the exact same dog. Kevin was even a discount puppy!)

The original 4. Obviously, I love Brian and Jeff's girlfriend Jen. But it's rare that it's just my mom and dad and me and my brother. We all hung out for my dad's birthday on July 21st, and it was nice just getting to spend the day with them. I can't even remember the last time it was the four of us before that...

Later that night at my dad's birthday dinner. He's so cute! And he just turned 57... looking good, right?

Jeff and Jen were laying in the grass in front of my parents' house (where I may or may not have seen one of their dogs pee minutes prior and didn't say anything) and I saw a photo op. So I grabbed a step stool and my iphone and snapped away. I really like this one of them.

This one is actually from yesterday afternoon. Kevin was laying on my lap (see my pink toe nails next to his ear?) and he curled up and stuck his nose into his own leg. He was pushing his face up, kinda giving himself a pig nose. It looked pretty uncomfortable, but he stayed like that for a while, so Brian and I got some good laughs and a couple pictures out of it! :)


So that's all. Not bad for just a couple of weeks' worth of pictures!