Lovable Luna

At 4 months I'm loving:

*How she turns her head spontaneously and looks at me with her sparkling eyes and flashes a huge grin.

*The way she always wraps her fingers around me

*The way she chews on her thumb

*Her instincts- she just started to grab things and really hold on

*That she doesn't seem to mind 90 minute walks

*Her little giggle

*Kissing her smooth soft little head hundreds of times every day (not even exaggerating)

*She's going to be tall like me.  She's off the charts at 27 inches and quickly outgrowing the cute baby clothes

*Her somewhat regular 3 hour afternoon nap

*How she is rocking the vintage clothes

*Her ever growing bald spot

                         

*These old lady glasses in baby size that were given to us for free from the kind lady at a thrift store on the first sunny day of the season!

* Her little arm wrapped around her dad

*These cute pajamas from grandma

* These chubby ankles

*These pictures of us

  *Her strength is growing every day. She likes to be on her tummy and can really flip!

 *Crawling into bed between these two late at night

  *Her long eyelashes

  *Her explorations and bath time swims

 *Her first piggy back ride

 *How she sleeps with her hands behind her head (She used to sleep with her fingers wrapped around her blanket.

*This face

Appreciating a Walkable Neighborhood

I love walking on South Altamont.  The weather is getting warmer and signs of spring are cropping up everywhere.  Ok- so the view was amazing at our last place but we were confined to walking in one little loop- not so fun.  I can't wait to check out all the neighborhoods in this area.  There are some amazing old houses that are awesome.  I get so inspired after long walks.  I think taking pictures while walking is my favorite kind of photography. I think you'll see many more of these posts.  There are 16 pictures here and that isn't even all of them.   Enjoy the pics!  

 I love seeing bright pops of color peeking through from the brown and gray debris of winter.

 Can I admit that I'm secretly hoping to get to know the owner of this place.  My goal by the end of the summer is to be invited to tea in this little room.  Creepy and stalkerish- yes- but if I walk when they are doing yard work I can chat it up right?  And having a cute baby helps- doesn't it?

  I'm hoping to get some good gardening ideas from the owners of this place.

 And this is my dream place.  I also need to get to know the owners of this place.  And my agenda here is to let them know that if they ever want to sell the place they wouldn't even need to put their place on the market.  Sam and I want to turn this place into a bed and breakfast/wedding facility.  Many of these properties have two houses on their lot.  And after running a bed and breakfast I realized that it is ideal to live in your own separate house.  We could live in the other house and have the best of both worlds.  The lot is huge, which means plenty of space for gardening and chickens.  And it even has some woods in the backyard.  But they have neighbors, so it's not as lonely as the country.  This place has 10 bedrooms.  Couldn't you imagine beautiful weddings taking place here in the summer?  Of course I looked up all the stats on zillow.  Am I a complete freak?  Does anyone else do this kind of daydreaming?

 If I walk far enough, I see this great view.

 More signs of spring.

 Spotting this red trailer made me happy.  Doesn't it look cheerful?  I imagined what kind of memories were made inside of it.  It made me reminisce the happy days we spent in our van.  I also was day dreaming about more trips in our van as a family of 3.

 This place was kinda cool.  Reminded me of a Frank Lloyd Wright place.  I thought they did a good job of modernizing it.  I just love this neighborhood.  It has every style of house imaginable.

 There are big beautiful trees that make the sidewalks crack.  My shins were so bruised from the stroller jamming into them.  I am definitely thinking of investing in a jogging stroller, even if I have no plans of jogging.

Luna seems to like the walks too!

The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe

This is the best and easiest sugar cookie recipe you will find.  Back when I was a cake decorator a fellow decorator shared this recipe and now it's the only one I use for sugar cookies.  I love it because it's great for last minute rolling.  Usually you need to refrigerate your dough for several hours before you can roll it out, but not with this recipe.  You can mix it up, roll it out, throw it in the oven for 4 minutes and you're ready to decorate.  I like to roll mine out a little thicker for a soft cookie.

Sugar Cookies:

1 Cup Soft Butter

1 Cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3 Cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cream of tartar (this is the secret ingred. for allowing you to roll them out right away!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine the butter and sugar.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix well.  Add dry ingredients.  Mix well.  Roll out.  Cut out.  Bake at 400 degrees for 4 minutes.  Enjoy!

Frosting

I like this frosting the best.  But if you want to do the piping like I did in the pictures below you will need royal icing.  Sorry to be confusing, but I like the taste of this frosting best.  Royal icing doesn't taste the best, but it makes for the prettiest cookies!

3/4 Cup Soft Butter

4    Cups Powdered Sugar

3    T water

1    tsp vanilla

1    egg white

Sift powdered sugar.  Combine butter sugar and water.  Mix well.  Add vanilla and egg white and mix well.  Add food coloring if you'd like.  Have fun frosting the cookies!

I wanted to do a tutorial on how to do flood work with pretty designs, but it's kinda tricky to photograph at midnight!  I made these cookies for my dear friend's baby shower.  We were celebrating the anticipation of Lucy Wren.  I didn't get a chance to snap many pics from the shower, but it was gorgeous.  I have some talented friends who know how to throw a party.  I made this little embroidery hoop sign.

And here are the pictures from the valentine cookie decorating party at my house.  

My Favorite Movie

I really think this is the best movie I saw all year.  It is a documentary about a singing group of senior citizens who sing REM songs, The Clash, and Jimi Hendrix.  It makes you feel good and might even make you look forward to getting old.  These people are so dedicated and in love with singing.  Their director is hilarious and expects so much of them.  I guarantee it will make you laugh and cry.  I can't listen to Coldplay's  Fix You without getting a little teary!  They play huge venues to sold out crowds.  I would love to see them perform.

Here is the trailer:

Laugh Out Loud

Watch this video for a good laugh.  It is slightly weird but so so hilarious and clever.   I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.


MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

Happy Monday!

The Ugly Corners of My Home

Hi everyone!  Have you ever visited favorite corners of my home on flickr?  I love it, it's inspiring and nice to see cozy little nooks in people's homes.  But for a long time I've been wanting to do an "ugly corner of my home" blog post.  I would love to see other people's ugly spots.  You know, the old ugly sink that needs replacing, the 70's mustard yellow countertop you've been meaning to replace.  I think everyone has them.  I've had them in all the places we've lived.  I always shared the awesome view and the cozy look of the lodge we lived in, but I never showed you the purple back door!

 Here is our backyard view.  Nice, huh?  All the neighbors have multiple junkers in their backyards!  We're no exception!  In our driveway sits our van and the neighbors below have a turquoise pontiac that doesn't run!

 Well in this house there are more than a few spots.  Overall this house has great bones and some lovely built-ins which is why I fell in love with this place.  But it's small, about 1000 square feet with 1 and a half closets!  We haven't been able to use the basement yet.  And I collect things to sell at antique shows and on etsy.  So Luna lives in our bedroom and the second bedroom is a dumping grounds.  No one ever goes in it.  Well today I'm hoping to tackle that room.

Last night Sam and I were dreaming of what could be of this space.  I'm hoping to turn our attic into a studio so that the other room can become Luna's room.  That is a little bit into the future because we still don't own this house quite yet.  But for now we have to be able to walk into this room.

 I dream of the attic looking something like this with a little more of my style thrown in.  It's not a huge space, and there is only about 10 square feet where I can actually stand.  The door to the attic is inside this messy bedroom and I had to spend 5 minutes clearing the space to get to the door, then another five minutes prying the door open, because as you can see, no knob.  Can you imagine the stairs being repainted?  The vaulted ceiling a nice white wash to brighten up the space.  And custom built in storage to utilize the small spaces where the roof slopes down.  Right now I can only take pictures from the stairs with a flash.  But awful before pictures make the afters that much better, right?  Right now it's half insulated on the ceiling and half blown in with one foot of insulation.  We were told by the inspector you do one or the other.  Sam and I have always loved small spaces and a space like this is right up our alley.

 Here you can see why I can't stand in the attic.  This is the foot of fluffy insulation.  

 There are 2 small dormer windows to let some natural light in.

I want to do a full before video tour of our home and then hopefully have a fun after.  This place mainly needs paint and some custom storage spaces to make it work for us.

Now tell me.  Do you have an ugly corner of your home?  Wanna share?

Style Quiz

I took this style quiz.  It was fun and pretty accurate.  You pick about 10 pictures and they tell you your style.  Try it out, who are you?   I'm California Country:
Details of craftsmanship with natural materials surround you. To cook a grand meal in an elegant kitchen is your joy. A bedroom with distinct character - warm and charming. Connecting to the handcrafting of the artist, you sense a skill and some chance. Enjoying elegant outdoor fare. A lithe and agreeable cab - no meal required. Pre-war, upper east side attitude. Wild and crazy days in your wonderful home..


Apparently so is Sandra Bullock, Harrison Ford, and Jeff Bridges.