Corners are Evil!

My second quilt is done!! My friend and neighbor, Jodi, is having a baby shower next weekend and I want to start making baby quilts as gifts. I remember someone doing this for Mark's baby shower and it was one of my favorite gifts...it still drapes over the end of his bed. Considering I've become fairly proficient with my sewing machine and really all I'm doing is sewing straight lines, I think I'm up to the task. Except for those darn corners...I despise them with every ounce of my being! I'm sure I'll figure it out someday (many, many moons from now) but for now they are the bane of my existence. I'm just praying no one notices them at the shower or maybe if they do, they will be kind and give me some tips for defeating them.

So other than the EVIL corners, I'm pretty happy with how the quilt turned out.



Here's a close-up of one of the corners.



Yes, I know this is not the proper way to sew up a corner but hey, at least it looks normal if you squint your eyes...sort of.



These are some more things to get done on my project list...both the desk (which I got off craigslist for $100) and the file cabinet (hand-me-down from the parents) are getting a brand spankin' new paint job. I'm thinking it'll probably have to wait until Tim's next deployment but maybe I'll be able to squeeze it in somewhere between potty training Gigi and our trip to Virginia in June. I doubt it.

Speaking of Gigi, would you like to see what she is doing right now?



Heehee! This is what my children look like after an hour at the pool. Tim got home early from work today and decided to go to the pool since it's 90 degrees today. Oh yeah, East Coast, be jealous! That is the one thing I will miss when we leave for our next duty station...being able to wear flip-flops 9 to 10 months out of the year.

And now since posting that picture, Mark is asleep too, poor boy!

Happy Birthday to my Little Man

My little boy is three today. It's hard to believe that much time has gone by since we had our first baby. Maybe that's because so much has happened in between then and now; a cross-country move, a second pregnancy, a first deployment, a second baby, health set-backs, a THIRD pregnancy, a second deployment, a mini-move to Virginia, a third baby, mini-move back to Cali...and this is all in less than three years. Just thinking about all that makes me ill. So I don't.

I'll think about my mini-hubby then. Seriously, Mark looks NOTHING like me. The girls, yes. Him, not so much. Nothing. Nonetheless, he is an adorable little boy. Like how he wakes me up in the morning with, 'I hata pee pee, mommy.' Or when he'll just randomly shout out, 'I so happy!' and then when I ask him why he gives me a long string of jibbery-joo in which I'll only recognize one or two words like 'pancakes' or 'train.'

He's got some pretty cute faces too.






This picture makes me laugh...he looks like a giant!




This is his daddy's face all the way




He is just so precious. Now that he can say 'I love you mommy' and give me a great big hug, I love him even more, if that is possible.

Happy Birthday to my first baby, Mark!! You are turning into one handsome little man and I love you so much!

Happy Birthday Sweet Gigi!

My little girl is two today. My, how time has flown by! I still remember inwardly laughing during her birth because she couldn't wait 24 hours for her daddy to get home from Iraq. She came on HER time and I remember thinking, 'oh boy, if this is how this child is going to be we are in for a ride.' So here I sit, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the terrible two's to kick in...

But let's think back to cuter days...











She is such a spunky, sassy little pistol! Oh, how I love her! Even when she's screaming.

Can Anybody Relate?

I've been in a bit of a rut the past few weeks. I wouldn't exactly call it writer's block since I am not really a writer. Not even close. Writing is hard, for me anyway. I know it come naturally to some people and those are the people that I envy, the ones that can pull a witty comment out of their brains when needed (I also envy people with great hair). But I am not like that. It takes me a very long time to put together a thought to put on paper (or computer) and then when I do find what I want to say, I often end up changing it about two or three times. I might need to come back and change this entire paragraph in a few minutes. We'll see. I think I over-proofread, if there is such a thing. Or maybe I'm just anal.

So writing aside, it's been very busy in my house lately. I'm going to chalk it up to having three very small children and a hubby who has had to work a lot the past few weeks. And I'm not gonna lie; it is tough having all three of the ankle-biters by myself. Sometimes my friends without kids refer to me as 'super-mom' and while that is flattering, the truth is, I barely make it to the end of the day some days. I thought I was tired when I was pregnant. This does not even compare. Most of the time I wish I could do this all day:


I love my girls...and my boy too, of course, but he wasn't in the picture. He was probably busy...thinking.


Isn't that where all men do their deep thinking? On the toilet? Well, my boy is just following suit. And yes, I put his potty in our living room because it was easier during potty training. Don't judge me.


Are these not two of the cutest little girls? They are so sweet. Gianna decided to kiss the pavement a couple days before I took this picture...I swear that girl is always smacking herself somewhere!



He's such a sweet boy

I still haven't been able to get a good picture with all three of them...I'm working on it.

That's it for now. Hopefully by my next post I will have finished a project or two so I have something interesting to talk about!

I Might Have an Addiction

I've discovered the awesomeness of spray paint. In particular, a wonderful color called 'Heirloom White' by Rustoleum. I'm pretty new to this whole DIY thing and I recently stumbled upon a blog called 'Centsational Girl.' It's by a woman named Kate who lives in Northern California and is possibly one of the most creative people ever. Here's the website if you want to check it out: http://www.centsationalgirl.com/.

After finding her, I now have a list of a million things I want to make or refinish. It'll keep me busy when Tim deploys again next year. One of the projects she did was to refinish some ugly, brassy, crystal lamps; a little spray paint, a new lampshade and voila! A brand new beautiful lamp! So I started thinking, 'I can do that too!' I just needed to get some lamps in need of a new home and all the essential supplies and I would have some gorgeous lamps for my master bedroom. So I started looking on ebay to see what I could find and I came across three lamps that I had to have. Two were crystal and brass and the other was this awesome driftwood lamp: one crystal lamp for my nightstand, the driftwood lamp for hubby's nightstand and the other crystal lamp for my craft and sewing desk. And the best part was I got all three for under $100, including shipping! I actually think the shipping was the most expensive part of the whole project.

I just finished the two crystal lamps today and they look gorgeous! Here is a picture of one of them before:


Notice the rust on the bottom...classy.

I forgot to take a before picture of the other crystal lamp but it's basically the same idea, although the crystal design is a bit different. And no wonder the shipping was so expensive...those suckers were heavy!

During this project I discovered that I really like taking things apart and putting them back together. Here are the lamps after they were disassembled and before I started spray painting.



Gianna was NOT in the mood to have her picture taken.

Yesterday it was warm enough to start painting and since it was my first time spray painting anything, it took a little while. But the results made it all worth it and the 'Heirloom White' was the perfect color for this project.



Finally it was time to put them together, the moment I had been waiting for! I purchased some lamp re-wiring kits at Wal-mart because who knows how old the current wiring was. And the lamp shades were quite a find. The white shade to go with the lamp for my desk I found at TJ Maxx for $10. And the shade for the other lamp I got at Pottery Barn with a gift card so it was FREE. So, after all the scrounging for deals and elbow grease, I have a couple of (NEW!) gorgeous crystal lamps!




I paid 99 cents for the first lamp and 9.95 for the second lamp...for real! A crystal lamp can retail for hundreds so I'm pretty happy with what a steal these were. And now I have a lamp for my nightstand and it looks perfect.



I know I said I got a third lamp...a driftwood lamp...but I will have to save that one for later. It needs LOTS of tlc because it is the ugliest thing right now!



But just wait. When I'm done with it, this nasty, narly piece of driftwood is going to be the perfect masculine lamp for my hubby's side of the bed. But for right now I'm going to peek into my room to ooh and aah over my new feminine crystal reading lamp...again.

My First Quilt

I LOVE quilts. I think they are beautiful. I prefer sleeping under a beautiful, warm quilt to a traditional bedspread any day. Martha Stewart has some incredible ones at Macy's and I actually have one of hers on my bed that I got on sale. Here is a close-up of the embroidery.



Love it! I have lots of color in the rest of my house but in the bedroom I like to keep it warm and neutral and light. I find it more relaxing.

So I got it into my head a few weeks ago to make a quilt. I took some of the girls' old receiving blankets and made a small quilt. It was tough and it took a few weeks to get it done but I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

Here is the front, cut from receiving blankets.


The backing fabric I found on Amazon .


It was not an easy undertaking but I'm so proud of myself for finishing it and now the girls will have a comfy quilt to snuggle with that mommy made for them.

Naval Aviation Centennial

This past Saturday was the 100th birthday of Naval Aviation. North Island on Coronado hosted the event and had booths and military aircraft on display and had an air demonstration of all the different types of aircraft in today's military. Tim was lucky enough to be able to fly in the formation of 53's from his squadron, HMH-466, The Wolfpack. He told me how excited he was that he would get to be a part of history. After all, Naval Aviation only turns 100 once!

For about two seconds I considered going to the Centennial with the kids. By myself. In a huge crowd of thousands of people. With a 2-year old, 1-year old and 4-month old. Okay nevermind, bad idea. I mean, I wish I could have gone and gotten pictures of Tim flying and actually been able to SEE him fly (I still have never done this and he's had his wings for almost four year), but after hearing that some people were stuck in traffic downtown for FOUR hours, I'm so glad I did not. Can you say nervous breakdown?

Anyway, Tim took our camera with him and had his crew chief take pictures during the flight. They turned out so well.


You can see his name on the back of his helmet.




Look at all those people crammed onto the U.S.S. Midway

I'm so proud of my husband for what he has chosen to do with his life. And I'm so proud to be able to say that I'm a Marine Corps wife. Semper Fi.