Cinnamondee

what to do when you are bored

kids decided they were bored.   what to do with a soccer ball, a plasma car, a camera and too much time?

 
take action shots of each other!

 

Halloween

So anyway, its pretty sad when your own daughter tells you that you take Halloween way too seriously and need to spend more time with your kids. Sigh.  Me, scolding my son "Stop bugging me- I need to finish my costume!!!" is possibly a sign that I need to ease up.  Well, here's some Halloween love, I have to admit I spent way too much time setting up for one days worth of festivities, but I will have them for next year when I again neglect my family to decorate, play dress up and watch way too much Addams Family reruns. :p

 

C-boy as something scary that we don't know the name of

C-girl as Jack Skellington, and her two cousins the Woodland Fairy and Birthday Present

Me, as Angry Bird.  Ugh. Cause I enjoy bumping into a dozen different kids in the head as I walk around and have my husband carry my drink and feed me through a straw because my beak is in the way and incidently the beak stuffing was going up my nose.  I definitely won't be going as this next year.

My sister's family did the Domo pumpkin

We did the evil "why is our pumpkin sinking in?" one.

C-boy seemed to enjoy his mask a little too much.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!!!

Happy Happy Earth Day

Hope everyone had an excellent Earth Day. We did the usual, school, soccer, dinner...

But you should see my trash for the past week!  Or lack thereof.  Sweeet.

We're going to shoot for 4 weeks and one trash bag, but who knows?  Might be five.  Yes, I hate to have people get all jealous of my exciting life. 

Happy Happy:)

New Year

Hope everyone is having a super new year !

Its been a long blog break, so far we've been...

Chasing off the bad spirits, guess who liked that the most?

 

Bubble, bubble, bubble.  My brother in law is the chemist behind AMAZING bubbles-

 
Trying out different cinnamon roll recipes, this one is Alton Brown's Overnite Cinnamon Rolls-

We'll see tonite if it passes the test at Nana's house!   

Right Down Santa Claus Lane

 
How can it be over???? Well, we had a blast this Christmas...

(pattern for the ornament I made above by pimpstitch)

we put up our new (to us) tree (given by our Aunty) our old one that we bought on Craigslist bit the dust and Aunty was getting rid of hers, just in the nick of time.

the kids got a couple of new games, Jenga MAX anyone?  The girl screams everytime it falls, almost louder than I do...

our traditional walk around the neighborhood to look at lights-

 

The best presents from the kids - a wall hanging sewn by C-girl and pinch pot tree by C-boy. Love it!

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone!!!!

“Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.” 
-Francis Pharcellus Church, 1897

A life without love is like a year without summer.

 

With summer finally coming to an end, some fun times -

Well loved, rotated toys (so they dont get tired of them easily)

 

Daddy & kid boxcar racing (no gas required -yay!) 

Still keeping with the mostly 'no shopping' pledge' except for a couple of returns for gifts from others for my kids, and school supply (ugh, that i could so do without).  It makes life so simple not to have to think about buying "things' all the time.  What did i really need anyway?

We've had such a great easygoing summer...be back soon!

"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want."

                            -Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes

Oh Tannenbaum

Just moving along the Christmas front...

The tree is getting there, but not done yet.  We decided on a artificial one this year, its second hand thru Craigslist. I know, I know, no smell.  ack.  But I don't know about flying these by refridgerated containerfuls from Oregon. Also didn't want these critters or these.  It also seems so wasteful when people keep posting these sad babies secondhand for sale. But after setting it up, maybe we should have tested the branch lights first. Eh. Live and learn (in other words my mom knew what she was doing after all).

Some Christmas friends, I finally finished my soft trees that I started last year.

C-girl made her own Christmas village. 

"just like Nana's, but no lights." (working on that)

"and no trees"

::sigh::

and C-boys' army parachute man(long story short, his parachute got tangled and so I cut it off his head which why his head has a loop on it) is hangin' with the ginger man.  Apparently, they are great pals. 

He's also checking the chimney out to make sure it safe for Santa.

C-boys drawing of the two kids and the tree.  I love those first preschool stick figures.

jai guru de va ohm

Thanks so much for all the sweet birthday wishes, we had a great day.  You just got to love ice cream for lunch.

We've set up a 'meditation area' in our dining area.  Well, of course we use the dining area.  For cutting fabric.  Oh, and wrapping presents too.  Its also good for crafts and reading
magazines...

Lets just say the kitchen counter gets a lot of usage at mealtime since its, well, where the food is.  And I'm lazy like that. 

This is behind the dining table (or craft table slash reading table). 

OHHHMMMMMM....

I never promised you a rose garden

"Where, you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow."                                           'The Secret Garden', Frances Hodgson Burnett

Much cilantro in the garden.

My kids won't touch it. Oh well, they're fun to grow.  Maybe I'll make a vat of salsa.... big, big vat. 

My tomatoes are looking suspiciously like hot peppers.  I hope they're tomatoes, you know I sing to them in the morning.  Maybe to get back at me they turned into peppers.  Maybe I should stop singing to them.

Heres the yard, almost all grown in. 

I want to plant much more, kind of shade in the paver area.  And get a decent outdoor set.  I just tried to buy one from someone on Craigslist, but someone got to it before me.

Please ignore the weeds...goodness  knows I do.

Have a great weekend!

Trashy Talk

Some people might find this totally disgusting but you know we all have one in the kitchen.

The reason I took a picture is that I am oddly proud of myself and my clan as we have made this much in a week and a half!  Okay, don't all jump up and clap at once.  But coming from a 4 person and one dog family that used to make this much in a couple days I am very happy with it, so I will jump up and down by myself.  Anyway, in case anyone cares we did this by -

a) taking us off this list

b) subscribing to Greendimes

c) calling off all the catalogs using the 800 number given on the back

d) buying much more veggies (reusing over and over the produce bags), and making most of our snacks than processed packaged foods

e) composting - we always did that but I made sure ALL of our veggie scraps went into the bin

f) taking our own plastic tupperware when we eat out, avoiding those styrofoam containers

In addition to recycling the rest, this has made a huge and obvious reduction in the amount of trash we create.  Who'd have thunk?

Well, in things of less trashy nature, theres some spring happening in the yard.   

I posted a while back in my old blog about how pathetic our yard was...yuck Now its finally coming together, but we're not really there yet, so I'll only give some glimpses until its really done.

Hooray!  We are no longer the sore thumb yard in the neighborhood.  We are, however, the weirdos that take pictures of their trash in the garage.