Story Time with Diego

Diego the elf reads How do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors to JD's dinosaurs!

Diego vs Spider-Man

It looks like Diego has officially taken over Spider-Man's Hideout!  Other super heroes beware...

Diego the Elf is back!

With Christmas right around the corner, it was no surprise to me (JD was surprised) that a visitor stopped by from the North Pole.  Diego the elf is back!  From the looks of it he plans on staying to keep an eye on JD until Christmas.  Stay tuned for all of Diego's mischievous adventures!

Swap Meet Finds: Kitchen & Dining

This weekend hubby, JD and I took a little stroll through our local swap meet.  I haven’t visited the Rodium Swap Meet in a couple years, but now I may need to start visiting more often.  I came across a vendor selling Macy's kitchen and dining items.  Needless to say, this totally made my day!  For $30 I brought home an Acacia wood salad bowl and tongs by The Cellar and a 14 piece Martha Stewart cutlery set, both retail for over $70!

Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon

Julian wanted to be Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon for Halloween this year. I really enjoy making JD's Halloween costumes, so I was definitely up for the challenge.

To make JD's costume I purchased brown fur fabric to make his vest. I used left over strips of the same fur fabric and sewed them on to a pair of brown suede boots. I couldn't find just the right shirt, so I purchased a girls long sleeve shirt at Ross on clearance and dyed it olive green (I also dyed an old pair of pants). I added a little slit to the shirt and crisscrossed suede cord for our little viking. While searching for ideas online I found and purchased Hiccup's Battle Pack Set from 2009 on Ebay and voilà JD's costume was complete!

Wordless Wednesday: Pumpkin Patch 2012

El Dia De Los Muertos 2012

On Saturday we visited the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for their annual El Dia De Los Muertos celebration.  JD doesn’t scare easily and he's recently begun to understand the difference between real and fake, so we decided to take him along.  The event is very kid friendly and even provides arts and crafts stations for kiddos. I'm glad we were able to share this cultural experience with him.  To learn more about El Dia De Los Muertos click here!

Sussex Double Tube Sconce

I'm a bargain shopper; I dislike paying full price for anything (well, almost anything).  So when searching for new lighting for the bathroom, my champagne taste on a beer budget kept getting in the way!  I came across Pottery Barn's Sussex Double Tube Sconce and immediately fell in love.  Unfortunately the sconce is priced at $189.00 plus $21 shipping.  That is more than our vanity and medicine cabinet combined.  I decided to Google “double tube sconce” in hopes that I would find a similar, less expensive one.  To my surprise I came across the exact Pottery Barn sconce on Ebay (Market For Quality Living) for $99 with free expedited shipping. It arrived yesterday and I can't wait to install it!

Bathroom Update: Sink & Medicine Cabinet

So, I finally made an executive decision (a decision I do not discuss with hubby until I have my tools in hand, so he can't say “no!”) to fix up our one-and-only bathroom!  It's been almost three years since we bought our home and we’ve been storing a new vanity and medicine cabinet in our garage for almost as long.  This weekend after studying a few You Tube videos I began working on the bathroom.

Here is our bathroom before.  Our sink was very large and pushed up against our bathtub, and had a one lever faucet (not toddler friendly).  We had a large mirror but no medicine cabinet.  Oh, and our entire bathroom was covered in bamboo shades, moulding and all.

Friday night I started with the sink, and I have to admit I was a little scared to see what the tile would like underneath it.  I turned off the water valves and disconnected the plumbing. Then I removed the entire sink, and yup it was really yucky under there.  Then I started removing the bamboo shades and waited for hubby to get home to help me remove the mirror.

On Saturday morning after scrubbing the floor and tile, I was finally able to bring in our new vanity.  Unfortunately the little shelf inside our vanity and our plumbing wasn’t compatible (I didn’t even consider this when we bought it at almost 60% off the retail price).  But it turned out to be easily remedied with a saw and a super cute and helpful vacuuming toddler!

On Saturday afternoon hubby helped me install the new faucet and hang our pre-owned medicine cabinet, you can read more about this awesome find here.  Now we just need to paint, add our new lighting (it should be arriving any day now), touch up the medicine cabinet and add some personal touches.  I'll be posting more pictures very soon!

Young House Love: The Book

I follow so many wonderful blogs, but one of my absolute favorite DIY and home decor blogs is Young House Love (1 young family + 1 old house = Love)!  YHL has taught me everything from painting wood paneling to hard-wiring a pendant light.  I love following all of their DIY adventures. They truly are an inspiration to anyone looking to update, decorate, or completely remodel their home without breaking the bank.

Well, just when I thought YHL couldn’t get any "AWESOMER" (more awesome), they wrote a book.  The book will be released on November 6th, 2012 and you can pre-order it here now.  I'm really looking forward to its release, especially since there are over 400 never before seen photos and illustrations.  I will admit that I'm a little heartbroken that their book tour isn’t stopping in Los Angeles, I really would love to meet them.  But hey, maybe hubby and JD will like to take a trip to Portland, Oregon in January (hint-hint)!

Design ideas for every style, skill level, and budget, from the beloved couple behind YoungHouseLove.com

This debut book by bloggers Sherry and John Petersik is filled with hundreds of fun, deceptively simple, budget-friendly ideas for sprucing up a home. With two home renovations under their (tool) belts, 5 million blog hits per month, and an ever-growing audience since the launch of Young House Love in 2007, Sherry and John are home-improvement enthusiasts primed to pass on a slew of projects, tricks, and techniques to do-it-yourselfers of all levels. Whether an experienced decorator or a total novice, on a tight budget or with money to spend, any homeowner or apartment dweller will find ideas for his or her own home makeovers here. Learn to trick out a thrift-store mirror, spice up plain old roller shades, "hack" your Ikea table to create three distinct looks, and so much more.

Packed with 243 tips and ideas--both classic and unexpected--every project pictured was exclusively executed for the book. With more than 400 photographs and illustrations, this is a book that readers will return to again and again for the creative projects and easy-to-follow instructions in the relatable voice the Petersiks are known for. Adding a little wow factor to your home has never been more fun!

(Source: Amazon.com)

Baby Gender Reveal Photo Shoot

My best friend Angie is 4 months pregnant and last Thursday she found out she's having a boy! They have 3 beautiful girls, so a boy is definitely a welcome surprise. Angie was in such disbelief, she literally asked the tech 5 times, “Are you sure it's a boy?”

I came across some really great gender reveal pictures and shared them with Angie, so we decided a photo shoot would be a fun idea. I'm not a professional photographer, but I love taking and editing pictures. This weekend we did the photo shoot in my backyard. Angie and Alex used this opportunity not only to reveal the baby's gender to the girls, but also to share the news with their friends and family!

San Francisco 2012

We took our road trip to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, and we had an amazing time! We are happy to announce that JD enjoys road tripping just as much as we do, oh and that mini vans are awesome (we rented a Toyota Sienna and I fell in love with it). We were worried that JD would have a hard time keeping up with sightseeing, but he really surprised us. I can only recall using his stroller once our entire trip. He kept up with us the entire time and made friends almost everywhere we went!

I finally had a chance to look through our pictures.  I think we took about 700 or more pictures (definitely more) and I picked about 70 or so and uploaded them to my Flickr account, you can see them here!  I also plan on sharing a few of my favorites on the blog and share the story behind them very soon.

2012 Summer Road Trip

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer! With summer ending in a couple weeks we’ve been having fun, and getting things crossed off our bucket list.  Summer has been keeping us very busy, so I haven’t really had time to blog.  Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned this, but I'm currently addicted to my Kindle App (more on that later).  This addiction seems to keep me up reading romance novels, instead of blogging!

One of the items on our bucket list we haven’t crossed off yet, is our summer road trip.  So, we are taking a few days off in the coming week and heading to San Francisco.   This will be JD's first time visiting, and he is so excited to see the “big red bridge”!  I have to admit I'm pretty excited too, I Love San Francisco!

Art Credit: Eggplant Elephant

Wordless Wednesday

Underwood Family Farms

Saturday JD's aunties and I (daddy was working) decided to take JD on a little day trip.  While searching the web for fun things to do in Southern California we came across Underwood Family Farms. The Moorpark farm was about an hour away from our home and looked like a great place visit.  Once we arrived we realized the drive was well worth it.  This farm has it all: a farmers market, pick your own produce, an animal center, a playground, pony rides, animal show and so much more! The staff was super friendly, the farm was very well maintained and above all JD was completely entertained.  Weekend admission is $6, but if you decide to visit during the week it's only $3. I personally can't wait to visit again, this time with daddy of course.