Once In A While

It's not that often that I can get Carley to look into the camera. And give a slight smile. I sure love it when she does.


What a pretty girl.

I may be a little biased.

The California Museum

On Saturday, The California Museum had free admission thanks to Target. We've never actually been and it's just downtown so I figured we'd check it out. It was pretty crowded, due to the free admission I'm sure, but it was great to see what they had to offer.


This museum focuses mainly on women, history and art of California. They also have the "hall of fame" about successful people, men and women, of California.


This is an exhibit about Dave Brubeck, one of my favorite Jazz artists.


And my all time favorite author, Theodore Geisel aka Dr. Seuss, had a tiny room as part of his exhibit.


In the Dr. Seuss room there was some of his art work.


And head hangings of some of his characters.


Another section I enjoyed was this area on Dorthea Lange, a famous photographer. She took the famous Migrant Mother photo.


As a special part of the Target family day at the museum there were arts and crafts for the kids to do. That's where Carley enjoyed spending most of her time.


They made whales out of blue paper bags.


And decorated pictures of trout with sequins.


All in all I was pleasantly surprised with this museum that I've never been to before. I look forward to going back again, maybe without Carley who doesn't like to stay in one place long enough to read anything.


Just so all y'all don't think I have kids that behave perfectly through all of our family outings here is a picture that Josh took of me giving Carley a time out as we were trying to leave the museum. In fact I had to sit her back in time out several times because she wouldn't stay there. Fun.

Evolution *And* Creationism

Carley had a very serious question for me yesterday.

C: Where did people come from?
N: You mean like you and me?
C: Yeah, where’d they come from?
N: From mommies and daddies. Mommies and daddies make babies and babies grow up to be big people.
C: But where’d they come from?
N: I don’t understand what you mean.
C: The first mommies and daddies and people.
N: Oh! Well some people think that God made people.
C: Where’d God come from?
N: Hmmm. I’m not really sure where God came from. Some think people came from God but some people think that people came from apes.
C: [funny look]
N: Like apes changed over a very long period of time, learning how to walk standing up and making tools and stuff. Over thousands of years they turned into people a long, long time ago. Not like people today but a different type of people.
C: I know! Maybe the apes made God and God made the people.
N: Maybe.

Apparently she's figured it out. For now.

A Few New Things

There are a few new things around here.

Last week I broke down and hung the last four cabinet doors. They've been hanging in our garage for two years waiting to be repainted. I figure if we ever get around to painting them (we won't), we could take them down from the kitchen rather than the garage.

Before:

Notice the door-free cabinet under the stove?

After:

A kitchen with all the cabinet doors. In another two years we should have the handles on.

Another recent accomplishment is a new vanity in our master bathroom. Our pedestal sink was ripped off the wall by muscle man Josh. I posted about it back in March, What a Friday the 13th!. We went over a month without the use of our sink!

One of the things that took us so long to do something about it, besides the fact that we had another bathroom close by, is that Walt and I had a hard time agreeing on what to put in place of the pedestal sink. Until now there was absolutely NO storage in our bathroom.

We compromised with a "Euro" style sink.


The cabinet isn't as deep as standard vanities, which is great for our tiny bathroom. With this we get some cabinet space and some counter space and that's a whole lot better than none at all.

The last new thing I have to share is my new hair. I got bangs, real bangs, cut. It's probably been since 1993 since I have had real, hang over the forhead kind of bangs. And back then I curled them and kept them in place with half a can of hairspray.

Before:


After:

I've been on the verge of cutting my hair short again so this was my last ditch effort to go with a mild change. For now.

With A Little Help From The Sun

Happy Earth Day.


Yesterday was almost a record setting high in Sacramento. 95 degrees. Ugh. I decided to take advantage of the sun's energy and save some of the energy that I actually pay for.


The clothes line came out for the first time this year. I despise the crispy jean feel after line drying clothes. To remedy that but get the benefits of line drying, I toss the clothes in the dryer for 5-10 minutes to loosen up the clothes. It beats the 50 minutes I typically have to dry jeans for.


I also decided to give container growing another go. A few years ago, maybe five, I grew tomatoes in pots on the side of my house. The sunniest part of my yard is the concrete area that lines the east side of my house. Typically I kill container plants during the hot summers here but those two tomatoes plants produced some fruit.


At this moment, I feel like I'll remain vigilant in watering over the hot Summer. We'll see. But I've decided to give it a shot. I have three containers with tomatoes or strawberries. I planted marigolds with the tomatoes and herbs because rumor is they prevent pests, another thing that has killed my many attempts at mini-gardens.


I started a small herb garden too. I'll take baby steps. If these plants survive maybe I'll continue to add more.


Carley and Josh will be big helps in the watering department. Maybe we can make this happen as a team. After all, I chose the strawberries for them since they don't like tomatoes.

Meditation on Peace

For the past couple months, The Crocker Art Museum has had an exhibition of Buddha. With so much going on, I never took the time to go see the exhibit until the closing ceremony.

There was a ceremony of mantra chanting and silent meditation on peace. Walt and I took the kids to check it out.


There were some Lamas there (is that right? it sounds funny to say.) that did some chanting in the beginning of the ceremony. It was beautiful.


The weather was quite warm and there wasn't much shade but the ceremony was suprisingly short. I was prepared for at least 15 minutes of meditation. It was only about 1 minute.

There was a request for more mantra when the ceremony was over. We did it for 5 extra minutes. Josh was a good mantra chanter.

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum


There were Blessing Cords given out to those who attended. These cords have been blessed by the Dali Lama and are a traditional memento to be worn around the neck or wrist to remind us to carry the ceremony and what it represents with us in our daily lives.


After the ceremony, we went back inside the museum to check out the Buddhas and permanent collections. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the Buddhas. I think that goes with any temporary exhibition.


This is my favorite room in the museum. I'm not particularly fond of old oil paintings or portraits but I really love how every inch of the walls are covered in paintings. It's so grand.


The Lamas followed us home.

Not really.

Notice Carley in the Cinderella dress? She still dresses in princess dresses often.

Better Late Than Never - Easter

It's been a week since Easter and I've finally got around to posting about it.

Easter was spread out for us this year. On the Friday before Easter, the kids and I had an Easter egg hunt at my sister's house in Washington.


The kids got to hunt eggs with their cousin, Owen, and that doesn't happen every year.


I'm not sure when Josh will decide he's too old to look for colored eggs but it doesn't appear to be anytime soon.


Some of the eggs were marked with money amounts and the kids would win that prize if that found a prize egg.


Owen was really excited about the prize eggs.


Easter morning was our first morning back home from our Washington trip. I'd snuck off to the Dollar Tree the night before to buy basket items.




We had no plans for Easter day so we just relaxed most of the morning.

I thought for sure that since Josh and Carley had already had an egg hunt in Washington that I wouldn't have to dye and hide eggs at home. I was so wrong.


Carley insisted that we needed to dye eggs. She counted 36 eggs in the fridge, got out the food color, cups, a pan and told me she was ready. How could I resist that?


Josh was happy about it too. I was happy I had everything on hand.




After the eggs were dry, I hid them. The kids had their second Easter egg hunt in our backyard.

Later Easter day, we made an impromptu stop at my cousin's house for another egg hunt. It was the kids third hunt of the weekend. They made out. Lucky kids.

52 Week Project- Progress Report

Here's some pictures I've taken over the past few weeks of my 52 week project (requested by my sister, Shelly, who just started a blog of her own) where I'm taking a picture of me and my kids once a week for 52 weeks. I'm sorry if some of these pictures are repeats.


Week 6 in Carpinteria.


Week 8 was really taken a week late.


Week 9. Going through my grandmother's things.


Week 12. Jumping at the motocross races.


Week 13 was also taken a week late. We were having breakfast at the Sacramento airport before heading to Washington.

Which brings us up to date.

Week 14. This week. This is the homework routine. This was taken just before the homework meltdown.

My Newborn Nephew and Family

This week the kids and I spent 4 days up in Washington with my family. We got to meet 3-week-old Octavian, our new nephew and cousin. My sister let me take newborn photos of him and their family. It's my first time and I'd like to share a few of my favorites. He's such a handsome guy.















The new family.


Okay, that's more than a few but I couldn't help myself.
I'll post pictures from the trip and Easter soon.