flattered

i am flattered. my friend greta over at picnic's in the park wrote a post about our chicken coop. she had so many nice things to say about us and our coop. i have to say it made my day. i hope you will go and check it out. greta has an excellent way of writing and her blogs (she has 2 here and here) are some of my favorites to read.

our chicken coop she writes about

and these are our chickens. they have found a new roost. we let our chickens roam free during the day if we are home. we built the coop to protect them from wandering animals such as skunks and what not. yes, i said skunks. we had an unwelcomed little critter in our backyard this past week. apparently we are not the only ones. there have been two skunks patrolling the area. i read that skunks do like to eat chickens and their eggs, but thankfully our chickens were in their coop and unharmed and we were able to get the skunk out of our yard without it spraying. phew! needless to say we are thankful for our modern little chicken coop. thanks greta for the awesome write up!

on a total side note and having no relation to this post at all, have you tried this?

trader joe's lemon & triple ginger snap ice cream - it's delicious! pricey at $4.99 for this little quart, but worth it! next time your at trader joe's pick one up, you won't regret it.

summertime

i love summertime. i have nothing but good memories of summertime as a child. i loved the freedom we had during the days to play, swim, and pretty much do whatever we wanted. we swam a lot because it was hot where we lived. after swimming all day we would come inside to an air conditioned home, flop on the couch, pop open an ice cold pepsi and "veg" out to tom & jerry cartoons or some other classic shows. that's just what we did. summertime still has that same effect on me. every once in awhile i find myself craving an ice cold pepsi and flopping on the couch to "veg" out. in reality, that's not the case for me anymore and it hasn't been for a long while. you know, with two littles in tow and running around there's a lot of other things i am busy doing. however, we are enjoying time together and the freedom that summer brings, especially more this year since we have our own backyard and space to be free in. i am loving, loving, loving our summer evenings. we just bought some new patio furniture and have been enjoying most of our meals outside, some have included our handpicked tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden. take a look...

i had been searching garage sales for some vintage looking patio furniture with no luck i might add, when i stumbled upon these chairs at lowe's.

extra bonus they were on clearance. after going to 3 different lowe's i was able to get all the chairs i wanted for $12 each. score for me!

we also found the table at lowe's on sale, but it was originally painted black. nothing a can or two of spray paint can't fix, right?

we got the furniture together and decided an umbrella was much needed, so we headed over to cost plus and found this colorful one on sale for $49. next up, we just need to paint the umbrella stand that we got at yes...you guessed it... lowe's. i think i am in love with lowe's.

we have been finding lots and lots of shining red tomatoes in our garden and they are super yummy.

also, finding lots of cucumbers too. tomatoes or cucumbers anyone?

avery crowned herself the cucumber queen with this crazy shaped cucumber.

just two more reason why i love summertime... i love these kiddo's

and all their sweetness.

oc fair is here

it's that time of year again - time for our annual family photos. the oc fair opens today and will be up and running until aug 14. i can't wait for all of the fair craziness and madness. you can check out some free tips from me on fair going here. also, check out the fair's website here to get all the latest info and schedules for the day. have fun at the fair and don't forget to go on the euroslide!

our home: garebear's room

it's hard to believe that we have lived in our new home for over 6 months already. time has certainly flown by and suprisingly enough rooms are actually coming together. little by little, i have to say, but it's happening. when we first moved in here my little fella's room was pretty ridiculous looking. it had pink carpet and white base board in the middle of all four walls. you can see what it looked like before we moved in here. one of the first things we did was install new carpet throughout the whole house. we used martha stewarts line from home depot and chose the color molasses. why carpet, you ask? we rent. as much as we would like to put in different flooring like wood or maybe even cork, it's just too costly for a rental. why the color molasses, you ask? we have two little kiddo's and one little dog running around and anything lighter would just end up looking disgusting down the line. trust me, i am not a carpet lover, but it's much better than the white, pink and rust carpet that was here before we moved in. we also painted all the interior walls throughout the whole house in behr's, fresh day, satin finish. it's a really pale blue color and to me gives the whole house an open, airy feeling. again, it's a rental and there are a few things we would do differently if we owned it, but for now it works and we like it. first up on the tour of our home is our little fella's room...

garebear's room

his bed - it's a queen because this little fella has issues with sleeping on his own and it's just easier and more comfy for all of us at this point.

i made this pillow case from an old sheet and a t-shirt that didn't fit the mister.

i love it. it's the van's saying "skateboarding is not a crime" in french.

we had an old copy of margaret wise brown's book, goodnight moon that fell apart, so i put some of the pages in these acrylic frames i found at joann's fabric for .99 cents each. the colors from the illustrations unintentionally set the color scheme for his room. above the frames is his moon night light i got at ikea.

his toy chest - it's from ikea like 6+ years ago when they use to make things from real wood and not press board. it's a media stand, but we have always used it as a toy chest for the kiddo's. the cubbies are perfect size for most of their toys. sometime's i wish i bought two of them. that's how much i like it.

all his big trucks lined up.

the bookshelf - this bookshelf is one of the first pieces of furniture made by the mister. it was in the office of our old apartment. it was inspired by a bookshelf that i saw in the pottery barn catalog and couldn't afford. so, he made it for me and i think he made it much better. it is painted with ralph lauren paint and the color is barn red. i don't think they make it anymore though.

the top two shelves hold a few knick-knack items, g's framed birth annoucement, his owl piggy bank (i really bought this for me), the mister's teddy bear from when he was a kid and our complete set of beatrix potter's original stories.

the next three shelves he can reach, so they hold his books and toys.

i have a thing for vintage fisher price toys and though these are only replica's that i bought at target, i still love them and he does too.

reading/music nook - this red chair was bought for the little miss when she was probably 2. she still sits in it every once in awhile, but let's be honest she's getting to big for it. it's from pottery barn like four years ago. the painting is one of the mister's from a show he did when i was pregnant with garebear. the ukulele was brought back from hawaii for my nephew 10+ years ago. the guitar on the right was sitting in the trash area of our old apartment and the other one was a christmas gift from the mister. i have a feeling though that this corner will soon be replaced with a set of small drums because as much as i don't want to admit it, this kid is a drummer.

that concludes the tour of garebear's room. next up on our home tour will most likely be the little misses room. it's almost done. thanks for looking.

a rant...

ok friends, i'm going to rant for a second or a minute or however long it takes because something has been bugging me lately. it's the gardener. not my gardener in particular, but all gardeners. especially the gardener that mows the lawn to the left of mine and the other gardener who mows the lawn to the right of mine and the gardener who mows the lawn across the street and the gardener who mows the lawn around the corner from me. ugh! we all have different gardeners', that come on different days, at different times. i'm tired of it. i'm tired of being woke up by a gardener or having my relaxing afternoon interrupted by a leaf blower. oh and you know what? they're even at the park! we can't escape them! do you remember the days when your mom or dad mowed their own lawn? it was usually a saturday morning. it was like protocol, everyone was out mowing their lawn on saturday morning. now, don't get my rant wrong, because i am thankful for the gardener and the mister is too. it's one last thing we have to do and he comes with the house, but all i'm asking for here is a little coordination on all the gardeners' part. can't you guys come together and figure something out, so that you are not sabotaging innocent peoples days? like, divide up the turf. jose gets my street, juan gets the next street, felipe gets the block behind me and pick one ding dang day to come to my neighborhood! it seems like a good, reasonable solution don't you think?

4th of july harvest

home grown corn on 4th of july, what could be tastier? well, lots of things, but we are pretty excited to harvest our first batch of corn on this holiday, where we will be celebrating with friends at a bbq. we got about six ears for today and there are still a few growing. we also picked our first cucumber today too, which you can see is growing like crazy.

and this bad boy, our tomato plant is producing a ton of tomatoes that will soon be ready to harvest as well.

anyone make it to the parade today? we decided to stay home and make our own. as you can see our parade had a little traffic congestion, but i'm pretty sure it was a lot more mellow than downtown. happy 4th friends! let freedom ring!