Birthday Zoo Trip

For the actual day of Michelle's birthday we took her to the zoo! Mish loves animals (especially monkeys, giraffes, and elephants), so the Oakland Zoo was a no-brainer! We debated the San Francisco Zoo, but they don't have elephants (boo, but understandable since it's smaller and on the edge of the city in Golden Gate Park). Mish had so much fun the whole day!

She kept calling to the giraffes, but alas, they were too walking around and chatting with their other giraffe friends ;-)

When we saw the elephants she kept yelling "No sticks! Strawberries!" lol! She was snacking on some strawberries at the time and must have felt sad that her snack was so much tastier.

She wasn't as into the tigers though; not flashy enough I guess  :-)

Yeehaw froggy!

Hi, Goat!! 

Mish was really into the goats and kept calling them dogs when we first got to the petting zoo. Lol! After a while, she called them all "mommy goat" and "baby goat" depending on which size it was. It was so adorable!

How's it going, goat?

All in all, I know she had a great day! We had a picnic in the grass, road the little train, and left the zoo with two stuffed animals! Then she got her very own ice cream cone! Lucky girl <3
When we got home she couldn't stop talking about how fun the zoo was!

TWO

My baby is two! My sweet, strong-willed, adventurous, smart, crazy little girl is two. Where did the time go? I look into her beautiful face and I feel like no time has passed since I first laid eyes on her. How have two years passed?

I've been avoiding my blog because I knew writing this post would make me feel all sad and nostalgic. My little bean isn't a bean - she's not an infant, a baby, or even all that little. She's a sharp, witty toddler with likes, dislikes, and a voice. She knows what she wants and she's determined to get it. She amazes me. I wish I could be more like her every single day.

Michelle, at two years and 0 months old, is inquisitive, spunky, funny, so sweet, and fierce. She loves to read, has amazing manners (please, thank you, and bless you!), shows compassion for others, absorbs everything and is eager to learn (especially about animals, numbers, and songs), loves to give and receive kisses, tells jokes, sings, and dances for others, and isn't afraid to give a stern "no!" when she's unhappy.
She's a complex, interesting, amazing little girl, and I'm constantly surprised by how awesome she is.
She likes being naked, hanging out in the dog kennel, climbing things, Mickey Mouse, giving people checkups and watching Doc McStuffins, and monkeys (well, after visiting the zoo on her birthday yesterday, all animals!).

Right now she's decided she's done playing with her toys and that she wants to read a book in bed. I know that means I have about 10 minutes before she is demanding me to turn off the lights and go to bed. Haha! She likes her naps and she likes bedtime. Maybe because those are the only times of day that I let her nurse anymore. YES, we're still nursing (with no end in sight because this kid is strong-willed).

We love you SO much, Monkey. And we can't wait to see what you'll do next.

Late Spring Post

For St. Patty's day Michael and I made the BEST Reuben sandiwches! Mine was vegetarian, but it was still ridiculously good! Mmm. 

Mish wore her green rag skirt that I made, along with cute matching green hair accessories. I was feeling festive this year ;-)

For Easter weekend we spent a lot of time with family. On Saturday we went out to my parents' small town for an Easter egg hunt! Mish had fun collecting eggs but was so scared of the Easter bunny! It was so sad to see how afraid she was, but the faces she made were so funny.

After the hunt we went to my parents' house to play with their chicks! My parents have a chicken coop and just got a new little set of chickens. Mish loved looking at them but did NOT like holding them! Haha.

Mish, Grammie and the chick

 The next day, Easter Sunday, we had my in-laws over for Easter fun. It was a really nice day!

Easter Egg Hunt

Wearing a hat like Uncle!

Blowing bubbles with Uncle Ant and Auntie Rachael

Here's a pic of Michael and his siblings. They're all ridiculously good-looking, which is annoying for us normal folk. Lol

And here's a pic of their whole family, plus my little Michelle :)

It really was a happy Easter!

Blogging Fail!

I fail! I haven't updated my blog in 3 months! I kind of had my feelings hurt when someone I care about told me that she won't read my blog, and I sort of thought, "well, no one else is either, so why waste my time?"
But then I was thinking about it, and I realized that I started this blog in the first place as a personal log to track my pregnancy, newly married life, and fun adventures in being a new mom.

So, I will try my hardest to update more, and to not share updates when I post my blog. If someone wants to follow along, then great! But I need to remember that I write this blog for me :) No point in getting upset that someone doesn't want to follow along.

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Life has been very routine these past few months. We've just been driving home on weekends and coming back to Y during the week. The weekends are usually jam-packed with appointments, to-do-lists, and meet-ups. The week days are boring, almost like we just live the bare minimum until the weekends, then we go full-force.

Our house in the Bay Area had a termite scare, which ended up just being water rot above our sliding glass door. I say "only" because termites would have been a disaster, but this water rot is actually a big mess. We are taking the door out tomorrow and putting in french doors! In anticipation for the re-do, I got excited to start re-designing our living room. I painted the walls, bought some new decor, and re-did a really nice coffee table (which I'll post about soon).
The room looks great, but it'll finally be done after this weekend; which is great, because Michelle's 2nd birthday party is going to be in 3 weeks! We definitely are working against the clock, but I think we'll get it done. I'm staying in the Bay this week, so I will have 10 days to do everything I need.

So here's my quick update! Sorry blog, I shouldn't have abandoned you. <3

Rocking Horse Revamp

Around the time Michelle was an infant (for the life of me, I can't remember when I bought this!) I was treasure hunting (or thrift store shopping)  with my sister when I came across this guy for $20. I brought him to the register and to my surprise and delight, he was on sale for $14.

I had grand plans of sanding, painting, priming, and hair removal, but then life with a baby caught up with me, and he's been living in the garage ever since. That's almost two years, right? Sheesh, sorry horse!
On one of our trips home, I saw him in the garage and impulsively grabbed him and shoved him in the back of my Subaru (Charlie was thrilled. Made the whole car more cramped than usual).

He sat in my kitchen for two days, in which Michelle rode him, played with him, and chatted with him. I was excited that she liked him, but sad that I had deprived her of such a cool toy for so long.

He looks like a bull or some evil nobleman's horse. Haha, weird imagination over here.

Finally, I got to work, I started by ripping out his disgusting mane of rough, sticky, dirty yarn. Gross! Then I went on with removing him from the rocker and spray painting the base mint green. According to the spray can, the color is Catalina Mist. Cool.

Then I panicked. Did this color match his wood stain? They looked weird when put back together, but maybe they just needed a color in between. I decided to put that on the back burner and focus on his face.

 He already had plastic eyes glued on, but I drew around the eye and then filled it with white. I feel like it brought life into his eyes. Who wants to ride a soulless horse?! Haha ;-)

After that, I went on to add gold chevron/arrows on the base of the rocker to bring some continuity to the horse - the mint/teal felt out of place without some gold tying it all together.

I also painted his ears and the handles at his neck gold too - I really liked using that gold and I'm still looking around my house for things to spray paint! Who knew gold metallic spray paint was so much fun?

Then I taped off the leather on his saddle and painted the gold chevrons on there too. I was surprised how much it changed the feel of the horse. It gave it such a fun south-west vibe!

Like the lightning bolt scar? Harry Potter!

After all that, it was time for the mane and tail. I wish I took pictures of this step because I couldn't find anything online that really helped me, and there has to be someone else out there that could use the help too. Basically, I wrapped off-white yarn, mint embroidery thread, and gold embroidery thread around a cardboard square that was cut to my preferred size. Then I sectioned the "hair" and taped around the top.
To attach it to the horse, I hot glued the taped ends into the groove along the top of the horse's head. I glued extra pieces of yarn to cover any "bald" spots, or places where the tape was showing.

And that's about it!!

Have you noticed I've called this horse a "he" the whole blog? Well, once it was finally all put together, I decided it was too sassy to be a boy. So now it's a girl. Lol.

I wish I had pictures of Michelle riding it; but the only ones I have are of her pants-less or naked. Lol. Oh the life of a family with a nudist child ;-)

Being A Mama

Being a mother is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm thankful every single day that I get to be Michelle's mama.
There will never be a day I will turn away her love, or withhold my understanding and affection.
Until my dying day, I will forever be her mom and that's my life's greatest accomplishment.
Because of her, I try to be the best ME possible. Because of her, I love Michael more- because I see how much he loves her, and that together we made such a cool kid. Because of her, I see the beauty in every day.

I'm not the type of person to pat herself on the back or to brag about herself, but I'm a damn good mother and wife. I'm proud of the life I've built with Michael. I treat people with compassion, I have an open mind, and I'm always open with affection.
I'm deserving of love, warmth, and understanding. Starting now, if I'm not given it, i will give it to myself (wise words from a beautiful, wise woman who listened to me with love and an open heart-thank you!).
And to you reading this, you do the same! You are deserving of love, affection, compassion, and understanding. We all are.

Pics Via Pinterest: here and here

Needed a Smile

I promised myself I would make a blog this week, but with crappy private stuff going on, I couldn't get myself to the computer to write.
Because I needed a smile, I thought I would make this blog post all about things that have made me smile in the past week.

Michelle's cute little way of saying "thank you" has morphed into "ti-ti-wehca" hahaha. It's a combination of thank you and you're welcome. We always say you're welcome when she says thank you, so now she just combines both words. Lol

Yes, this is Michelle riding a big wheel! Haha! Her cousin got it for her birthday and graciously let Michelle ride it (she ended up just going backwards the whole time. Lol).

Aren't those sunglasses a crack-up! She loves sunglasses, so when I found these little kid ones with Mickey Mouse etched on the lenses, I knew I had to get them. Mish is obsessed with Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

 She just melts my heart! So cute! And no, we didn't get a new dog, that's just Michelle's friend puppy.

 Sitting with her bunny friends while walking around downtown Napa. She saw them and immediatly ran over to sit with them. Nothing better than an animal lover :)

 Cool dude!! Mish is finally big enough to play in her little pedal car. Of course she had to wear the sunglasses and bring Minnie along. Road trip!

 This pic makes me smile because it took me forever to talk her into getting dressed, and once she was dressed, she kept pulling her skirt up around her stomach. Haha. We are potty training and she's usually naked.

Playing with her doll friends. I bought some beanie baby dolls from a consignment sale and I've started making them over. I pinned back hair on one (just need to sew it down, at the moment it's clipped), and the other one got her frizzy curls turned into braid/dreads. I've also sewn them a few dresses because the outfits they came with are hideous!

Today I am working on refinishing an old rocking horse that I bought when Michelle was a newborn/or I was pregnant? I can't remember. But I am so excited! I will make a blog post all about it when I finish.

Keep smiling, friends.

Sewing Sewing Sewing

If there's one thing I've ever wanted to learn it's sewing. I've tried to learn so many times throughout my life, but I just can't sew a straight line for the life of me. Well, I had some ideas about the outfit I wanted Michelle to wear for her Elmo Birthday Party and I figured it was time to figure something out.
After pinning 1,000,000 things on Pinterest onto my sewing and Elmo party boards I decided it was time to tackle my project.
I ended up making Mish a fabric scrap tutu and some coordinating bows. It was my way of making her outfit but not having to pull out my sewing machine ;-) I know, cheater!

The one on the RIGHT is the party tutu. The left currently has more green and is for St Patty's Day

CUTE!!!

Top bow is on tutu, bottom is for hair, middle will have Elmo faces on them and get attached to the shoes!

The bows aren't finished because I'm waiting on my plastic Elmo faces to come in the mail, but once they're here, they will be ready to go on Mish's shoes. My mom also text me a picture of Elmo fabric she found at the store today, so I might add some of that to her tutu since the party isn't until June 7th.

Oh! And then I went totally random and made some fun (and adorable!) flower crowns. My family was thrilled.

Now you'll notice the title says "sewing sewing sewing" and not tying, hot gluing, and ripping. Lol. Well after making forty-eight million rag tutus for Michelle, her cousin, and 3 American Girl dolls, I decided to pull out my sewing machine and frustrate myself and waste fabric ;-)
I started easy and sewed some bedding for my niece's American Girl doll. It came out so cute! And then Michelle stole it, so I made another (better) one to give my niece.  I didn't take pics, but it's puffy and cute ;)

THEN I came across the freaking cutest vintage pillowcases while treasure hunting some thrift stores. I bought 6! One is going to my cousin for her adorable daughter's vintage themed bedroom that's in the works, two were sacrificed to a bow banner/garland I'm making (here's the inspiration), two are set aside for making half aprons (my new obsession) and one was made into a pillowcase dress for Michelle!

I am very very pleased with how it came out! It was such an easy and fun project to do.

So then I started thinking about other things I could sew. It was almost manic! What can I sew next? Does Charlie need a bow tie? I want to make a quilt! Wait, I can't sew straight lines and quilts are all about lines. I decided to use some ribbon and a cute pink tea towel to make Michelle a little apron to wear while playing with her kitchen. I had enough left over to make a mini half apron for Mish's play kitchen at her Nonna's house and got to try my hand at making pleats. It wasn't hard, but I think I did it wrong. Ha, oh well. Mish won't mind!

I can't wait to make some more goodies for Michelle and her Elmo party. I've made so many things with the Cricut cutter that I had to buy a new mat for it! haha, the old one completely lost its sticking abilities. So all of my fun with paper and glue will have to wait until the mats come in the mail (should be here this weekend!). I'll try and share some pics of what I have up my sleeve with the Elmo party soon.