So there are some birthdays coming up. Hopefully the people who have birthdays coming up aren't reading this before they get their cards. These two are not the only cards I made, just two that I really liked. I have realized that it is harder for me to hake guy appropriate things.

And this is the picture I made for my cousin Alex who is having a little boy anytime now. His middle name is going to be Maxim, but that is what he is going by. His nursery is done in jungle theme. I might be a little biased, but I think it turned out pretty cute.

I went to Joann Fabrics this weekend and found a fabric with those animals, so I just cut them out. And I free handed all the letters for his name out of different fabrics I already had. To be honest, 4 out of the 5 are old shirts that got a stain or a hole of some sort. I love fabrics!

Sorry about the bad photo quality, I was too tired to set it up with better lighting. I love all of my crafting time that I have had!

More apartment photos

So I will save you the time of telling me to clean my room. I already know it is messy. This is the lack of organization I have going on right now. Soon I hope t get a dresser and that will help! But for now, deal with the mess.

Here is my room looking at it from the window. That is all my craft stuff that you can kind of see stacked on the far wall. The closet is to the left.

And the mess again, this time looking in from the door.

Last photo of the room. But be impressed I got all my clothes hung up and coordinated by color as well as style:: long sleeves, short sleeves, tank tops, etc.

This is the hallway looking from the living room down. My bedroom is at the far end of the hallway. Notice the rug that is "saving my carpet" according to my dad. It made me laugh. It doesn't match my colors at all, soon it will go.

And the bathroom, which has changed the least of all the rooms. Eventually I will get towels and floor mats, but for now I have an "endless pools" bath mat that I conveniently flipped over so you only see white.

And here is the kitchen looking in from the dining room. Notice my beautiful roses that Brian got me for Valentine's Day. They are so pretty. Also, you can see a few of my exciting purchases:: a spice rack on the far counter and oil and vinegar on the stove. Oh, and notice the hammer and nails Brian brought over. Someday I will get around to hanging up pictures!

And the kitchen again from the entry into the kitchen.

This is the dining room. Although I finally got a real table, the folding chairs are still being borrowed. That rug will go soon as well. I am more of a solids kind of girl.

And the living room. Someday I will get a bookshelf. Do you think I need one? I know, I have a lot of books. As I was going through them and separating them out, I have read almost all of them. So that made me feel better. I also love to light the candles on the mantle, it looks so pretty!

Last and final photo. I plan on putting a book shelf on that far wall. I can't decide if I want a tall one, or a long waist high one. We will see what I can find for cheap I guess. Any votes?

Oh, and Kim, I am thinking I want you to make me covers for the pillows. I am not a huge fan of the all brown couch, it makes the room look very dark. Any chance I can convince you to use your skills to my advantage?

Let the baking begin

I love to bake, but I really love to bake cute things. So I had a lot of fun baking all day on Saturday for Valentine's Day!

I got this recipe from my friend Kirsten. Her's looked much cuter than mine did, but that is to be expected. I still had fun baking them!

Here is a Red Velvet Cake Crumbled.

Add some Cream Cheese Frosting

And Mix

Roll them into balls, and freeze

I dunked mine in Chocolate and White Chocolate. Be warned, this was extremely messy!

And it made WAY more than I could even consider eating.

Like seriously!

And because I was being indecisive, Funfetti Cake Cookies

Now these I could eat the entire plate of!

Oh, and more indecisiveness...

I make these cookies every year. Last year I was in DC and made them with Kim. The year before I made them and sent them to Jon while he was in Iraq. Although don't ask Renee to send them to him, she ate more than she sent.

I absolutely love these!

They are just so cute I want to eat them all.

The finished product. A LOT of sweets.

The obsession continues

Yes, that is right, I went plate shopping again! I am beginning to think that having a Goodwill so close to me on my way home is going to be dangerous. Who would have thoughts?

So these are the new dinner plates. The one on the left isn't quite as big as the other 3, so I am not sure what I am considering it yet, or what I will use it for. But it was pretty.

Here is the plates from a little further back. I seriously am in love!

For some reason, bowls are impossible to find, but these bread plates are stinking everywhere. Some are also a little smaller than others, so I don't know what I am calling those either. They aren't quite small enough to be teacup plates either. They are somewhere in the middle. Oh well, it is all the fun of the mismatch anyways!
And this poor plate got left out of the above picture, so it got its own close up.
And a little closer view of the other bread plates. Some of these plates were on .50 cents too! What a steal! I get more and more excited about them the more I think about them!

If this dry spell of not being able to find bowls doesn't end soon I might be asking for some help. Don't be surprised if I ask for you to be checking your local Goodwill. But be warned, you might get addicted!

I just could not contain myself!

I might be a tad bit obsessed. Which isn't exactly unusual for me. Whenever I get a new hobby I tend to throw myself into it. I don't expect this to be any different!

The plate on top is my favorite. Oh, and these five are my dinner plates.


Now these ones are my salad plates. I tried to take close up pictures so you could see each one individually.



I love them all so much. And here they all are together! Now to find bowls! Enjoy!

Two things...

So, as you learned from my last post, I moved to Washington. Federal Way technically, but I am on a hill and have a gorgeous view of the water. Today I got home just in time to catch a glimpse of the sunset!

I love the water, I always have, I guess that is the California girl in me.

So to get to have this view is such a blessing!

I can hardly wait for the summer days when I can actually spend more than 10 seconds on the deck trying to take photos. I think this one was taken through the glass because the idea of going outside was just not happening. But I sucked it up so I could get a better view.

Totally worth it!


Oh, and the second thing........

I decided that instead of buying dished from Macys or Bed Bath and Beyond like everyone else, I wanted to be different. And thanks to some encouragement from my friend Katie, I decided to start Goodwill shopping for old China plates. And I am OBSESSED! It is so fun! Photos to come. Probably later tonight since I am sooo stinking excited about my new hobby. When talking to my sister Anna yesterday I told her to guess what I was going to do for my dishes. She replied "you aren't going to make them are you?" With a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Apparently I like to make things?

My new condo!

So it has been well over two months since I blogged last. So much has happened!

First, a little review. Kim and the boys were in California all of December (practically) for Christmas. It was wonderful. We all had so much fun. Jackson and Cullen have quite the personalities! They are little characters. We were laughing the entire time, either with them or at them. Not that they really knew the difference. We were quite busy with them and there was never a dull moment. They left I think December 21st or 22nd. I don't remember (that is how blurred this past month has been). Kim did a much better job of summarizing their trip on her blog than I could, so you can go read more there if you would like.

On December 23rd I had a phone interview for a nanny job in Seattle. It went really well and they said they wanted to meet me the next week. All things considered, it didn't want to fly up the next week (especially since tickets were outrageously expensive) to interview for the job, to fly back to California, to have to drive up and start the job on Monday January 3rd. So some quick planning went into this and I decided that I would leave on Monday December 27th to drive to Washington. Everything came together so smoothly. I was trying to figure out who would drive with me when I mentioned it to Brian and he said that his dad was going to Sacramento and that he could go with him. I could not have asked for things to work out better. So I packed all weekend! Clothes, bathroom stuff, craft supplies, basically all the essentials, and I left EARLY EARLY Monday morning to drive the first 6 hours to meet them in Sacramento. Brian was beyond wonderful and drove the rest of the way. Even through the mountain pass of hell. So side story:: we decided to detour a little off the 5 freeway and pit stop in Bend, Oregon where his family has a house. This way we would not be making the entire drive in one night. And since we were following his dad who was pulling a trailer (and let's be honest my car doesn't exactly have a ton of get up and go) we weren't exactly making record breaking time. So we head east a little. Little did we know there was a blizzard going on. And this isn't the kind of mountain pass where there are rest stops and gas stations and truck stops. When I say we were in the middle of no where, we were in the middle of no where. By the grace of God I had put new tires on my car the week before I left. Otherwise there is not a doubt in my mind that we would have been one of many cars that we passed that was in a ditch off the side of the road. There was a good hour to and hour and a half that neither of us said a thing because I did not want to distract him, and neither of us could really see the road. But I was praying that we would make it there safe the entire time. By the way mom, there is a reason I waited this long to tell you this story, so don't freak out now. We obviously made it out alive. Anyways, I really don't know how my car made it. It has been referred to a time or two as a snowmobile since. Although I do think that snowmobiles handle the snow better than my car does, but those are just minor details. So we made it to Bend. We were all exhausted by the time we got there, so we relaxed and took it easy the next day. Oh, and Brian made me get new windshield wipers. Apparently mine were only made for California weather or something. So off to Seattle we headed. We made it with no real obstacles.

Since December 28th I have been living in Washington. For the first two weeks I was staying with my cousin Alicia who graciously let me live in her spare bedroom. Then, when her boyfriend Shaun moved in with her, I moved into his condo that they are renting to me. I absolutely love having my own place. Now, it is a little bare right now. All of my stuff is still in California. My dad will be driving it up to me in about a week and a half. And once I get it all moved in I will take more pictures to show what it will actually look like. Right now it is a bit bare to say the least. I spend the majority of time in my bedroom. Except when I venture out to the kitchen for food. But I love being able to cook and bake whatever I want. Poor Brian has been the tester for all my food thus far. I have some of the basics that Alicia left for me until my stuff gets here, but that does not include seasonings. Which I have realized I need to get sooner rather than later. My macaroni and cheese was a bit bland. Oh well. All in time, right? So now for some pictures. Here is a little walk through of my condo!

This is my bedroom. It is a bit messy. Although I brought clothes, the hangers were too bulky and those are still en-route with the rest of my stuff.

My bed with my wonderful Lakers blanket. This Christmas gift is right up there with my Martha Stewart subscription!

More bags of clothes and lots of craft stuff!
So this is when you are standing in the door. When you look to the left you see the bed (the picture above).

This is my bathroom. Don't you just love my shower curtain? I got it for $5 at Ross. I am pretty excited about it. This is from standing in the doorway again. To the left is the washer and dryer.

This is looking down the hall from the living room. The door at the end is my bedroom. The first outlet on the right is the kitchen, and after that is the front door. To the left is the linen closet, and the door closest to the bedroom is the bathroom. Which by the way has a heat light in it. One of the most amazing inventions I have ever experienced!

This is my living room. The picture is taken from the dining room. And yes, I have a fire place. Although me and fire don't get along too great, so I have yet to light one. Eventually there will be furniture in here as well! The curtains on the left lead to the deck.

Here is my makeshift dining room. I think Brian got tired of eating on the floor so he brought over the two folding chairs. Shaun left me that table. On the left is the bar that looks into the kitchen, which I will eventually get bar stools for.

And this is looking into the kitchen from the dining room.

And here is another view of the kitchen!

And finally, the view I get to look at every day! Yes, I actually get a view of the water. I don't think I could ask for more. Well, maybe for it not to be so darn cold so that I can open the curtains and see it more often. I am learning all sorts of tricks, like leaving the curtains closed keeps out some of the cold air. Who would have thought?

Anyways, that is a tour of my new place. My first guest will be Adrienne when she comes to visit me in the end of February. I am pretty darn excited! I think this is the longest we have gone without seeing each other since the beginning of our senior year of college. Which was a long time ago! Anyways, I am excited for her to come, and to be a tourist with her. Since let's be honest, I have no idea where I am the majority of the time. Any one else want to come and visit? I would love guests. Well, once I have some furniture.