Birthday Breakfast

The problem with having your birthday the week of Thanksgiving is that it often falls on a very inconvenient time. This year, Chris' birthday fell on the day before Thanksgiving, the day we spent 5 and a half hours in traffic trying to get down south for the holiday.

So we celebrated today. One of my favorite birthday traditions (from MorMor) that we have adapted for our family is the birthday breakfast. This is where the whole family gets up before you and prepares a table with breakfast, presents, decorations and cake!

We took a little long to make the breakfast and cupcakes, so Chris opted for a morning run while we made all the preparations and came home to his favorite meal, eggs with Tapatio and a whole plate of bacon.

The rest of the day was spent doing NO-thing, just bumping around our house, enjoying being home.

The girls managed to get pretty chocolatey
decorating Daddy's cupcakes.

Mmmm. Cupcakes for breakfast.

Zoe thinks we should have cupcakes
for breakfast every day.

Lincoln Logs: A Photo Essay

It's becoming Athena's custom to buy gifts for her Daddy that they can enjoy together. This year it was the new obsession, and Chris' childhood obsession, Lincoln Logs. Chris and Athena spent a good part of the morning creating the "Big L Ranch" and then...well...I'll let the photos tell the story...

The Living Desert

The day after Thanksgiving, we rolled our turkey and apple pie filled bellies out of bed and went to the Living Desert, a wonderful local Zoo in Palm Desert, with Aunt Katie and our beloved Uncle Corey. The girls really enjoyed their Uncle Corey. However, Zoe showed us her two year old side and was a total pill most of the day, insisting her very pregnant Mommy carry her around the park all day. The only thing that got her to settle down and sit in her stroller was when Athena played "Mommy" and pushed her. Every time Zoe started to fuss, we told Athena to tend to her "Baby" and Zoe was distracted by the game.

Athena wearing her "Mommy" props
and taking care of her "Baby".

The Family at the Living Desert,
this will serve as a recent belly pic,
see how huge!

All in all, we had a great weekend in the Desert
with Grandaddio and Grandma Andree!

Happy Thanksgiving

After a long journey over the river and through the woods (literally) we arrived in Palm Springs to spend Thanksgiving with Grandma Andree and Granddaddio.  Although it rained in the morning (!), the clouds cleared up and we enjoyed a golf cart tour of the country club and a fun day spent with Aunt Katie and Uncle David.  Dinner was beyond excellent, even Athena ate two helpings of Granddaddio's turkey, and in solid American tradition, we all nearly fell asleep in front of the t.v. after overindulging in the great meal.  However I did manage to rouse myself to eat two more helpings of apple pie, yum.

Uncle Abuse

Happy Sad

We think the second one can be used as evidence in a court of law.

Unpacking

It feels like it's going to take forever to get this house in order. Everything is everywhere and nothing has a place yet. And to make it even more challenging, Zoe and Athena's preschool closed this week, I have a ton of work to catch up on and I've been a little coughy and achy. If I can unpack two boxes in a day it's a huge achievement.

I'm realizing my limitations. I just am no good at "making pretty." I need MorMor or Aunt Mimi to help me with that. Each box of knick knacks, books and pictures that I unpack, I just put aside, having no idea what to do with it. So I'm essentially unpacking boxes and just creating little piles of stuff in the corners of empty rooms. It makes me want to throw everything away and keep a clean, minimalist home. Less to dust.

This house is so massive (twice the size of our house in New York) that even with all our things in it, it remains empty. Stuff will come, things will find a place, but not yet. So no pictures.

But we are head over heels in love with our new house. I love my kitchen, my walk-in closet, the three bathrooms, my front loaded washer dryer, the new house smell! To us this is all total luxury and we are literally skipping around (dodging the piles) gleefully. We are already very happy here.

In the vastness of the kitchen, two little girls can help make pancakes.

Each family member has their own sink.

Zoe is now sleeping in a big girl bed.

Athena helps by unwrapping all the knickknacks.

The empty living room begs for gymnastics and play.

Full Circle

The tag has come full circle. First from me to Kristen to Andrea and now back to me. And since I already did this one, and I'm not that interesting, how about seven random facts about Athena and Zoe.

• Athena likes pickles, Zoe prefers french fries above all other food.


• Athena likes pink, Zoe likes purple but is still unclear as to which color purple is.


• They both like princesses, but Zoe is also quite fond of Tinkerbell.


• Lately they love playing Momma and Baby. They take turns in each role and run around the house calling each other "Momma" and "Baby" and then putting on a purse and going somewhere. When they are playing this game and one of them is the Momma, then I become "Big Momma" when they want me instead.


• Athena sleeps with her tiger, her owl, her Eeyore, her Clifford, her polar bear and her kitty whereas Zoe sleeps with her moose, her monkey, her baby, Max the Lion and her teddy bear. Plus specific blankets and pillows. They hate it when the cleaning lady comes and mixes up all their individual bed things when she changes the sheets.


• Zoe wakes up from her nap saying the last thing I said to her before I put her down. I'll say something like "Go to sleep now and when you wake up we'll go to the park." I usually have to wake her from her nap and the moment she opens her eyes and sees me she says "We're going to the park now?" In the morning, she calls me from her crib and says "I wanto get owwwwwt!" sounding alot like Arnold Schwartzenegger.


• Athena has recently become Miss Clean. She helps pick up the toys everyday happily singing the clean-up song, she loves to sweep and swifter the kitchen floors, helps me unload the dishwasher and is beside herself if I let her rinse the dishes. The other night, when she was suppose to be asleep, she crawled into her closet and paired and lined up all of her and Zoe's shoes. When I saw it in the morning, I thought we had a bad case of elves.

I also got tagged, like a month ago, by Allison with this photo tag:
Here are the rules:
1. Go to your pictures
2. Upload the 4th picture of the 4th folder
3. Post it
4. Tag 4 friends

So the photo above, my sweet Zoe baby last Christmas, is my fourth picture in the forth photo and I'm going to tag AJ, Aunt Diane, Andrea and Sheree. Have fun guys!

Brown walls white trim

For the last two weeks or so I have been agonizing over what color to paint the walls in our great room. They were a Barney purple (as purple and purple can get) and I envisioned a lovely Cafe O'Lait color. Yet after multiple trips to Home Depot, spending over $55 for at least seven different testers of color, I was still totally indecisive and near tears.

The problem is the kitchen has a medium wood grain cabinet and very light counter tops. So I was having a problem matching a coffee color to this without it all looking like one big beige blob. I went a final time with Chris I picked my color swatch and panicked at the last minute asking the guy to add more white because I was afraid it was too dark. I came back home and painted another corner of the room a blah paper bag brown.

Chris and I decided we had to go dark and be bold, it's a big room and can handle color. So, frustrated hormonal and pregnant, I sent Chris back to the store to pick out the darker version of the one we liked. Of course he "went rogue" and bought three gallons of the above color. He convinced me it would be fine and the painter was coming the next morning and we just had to go with it.

Well it's all painted. Brown with bright white trim. Chris loves it and it is starting to grow on me, although I have to admit, at first I was less than thrilled.

Now that the awful purple kitchen is no more we are ready to move in. We still need to do a couple more necessary projects, like moving a ceiling fan and somehow wiring the cable to go in the other room (how the heck do you DO that anyway?) but we're anxious to live in our beautiful house, so those projects can wait.

Post script...Chris wants me to add that he thinks the color looks better in real life and this photo doesn't "do it justice."

Total Insanity

We've been a little crazy lately what with moving in, not moving in, painting, unpacking boxes, working, going to school, trying to keep a semblance of normal and dying for the day we can actually live in our new house!! The movers dumped all of our stuff at the house on Saturday and we are slowly going through it while painting a few key areas of the house and still living at our temporary apartment.

We're hoping to actually move in on Friday? Saturday? We extended our stay at the apartment a couple of days so that we can finish this endless painting project. It's been a little bit crazy. Plus, I'm running around so much during the day that the only time I can actually work is when the girls are in bed, which cuts into my precious blogging time!

But the house is gorgeous, the girls love running around the hallways, exploring the backyard and playing with all the new light switches. I told them that we would soon be moving into our new, beautiful house and wouldn't that be nice? Athena said "We're leaving California?" Uh no. The apartment is not called Calfornia.

The reunion with all our stuff has been really amusing. Each toy box we open is met with squeals of delight and "Oh my (insert name of object here)! It missed me so much!" I, for one, am happy to be reunited with my maternity jeans. Ahhhh.