Apartment Therapy - Ohdeedoh

I have long been a fan of Apartment Therapy and their kids' division, Ohdeedoh.

I am pleased to share that today they have featured Sawyer and Aspen's room!

Hooray!

Check it out by clicking HERE!

ps- the following day, it was featured on another design blog - Adobe/Casa/Home

see it here (if you're not already tired of looking at it)

Outings // Seattle Aquarium

Our friends invited us to spend the morning with them at the Aquarium (thanks, guys!)

Most of the Aquarium is inside or in tunnels where it's poorly lit (on purpose - then you get to see the bright colors and cool glow of a lot of the fish!) It is poor lighting for photos, so I didn't take many. I thought maybe we'd try for one of the four kiddos together, looking all happy and such...but it just didn't work. Some days are like that (most days!) - so here is a shot of the four of them, doing their "thing" - Sawyer and Forrest looking like "why do we have to stand here for this?" Sawyer making some sort of strange noise - really loud - and the littler ones, I think they had dropped an animal cookie through the cracks and were looking for it. Even if they don't look thrilled - they all had a really good time ;)

I accidentally paid the max amount of parking time, so when we were done visiting with the fish and sea animals - and our friends had to head out - I decided to take the kids to Ivar's - to EAT some fish ('n' chips). My mom brought me here when I was little, and her mom brought her when she was little. We've been to other "branches" of Ivars around the city, but this one is the classic - on the waterfront.

Feed the Seagulls, Please!

Quote for the day from Sawyer -

"I really don't want the seagulls to EAT me, Mommy.

(pause, a moment of thought)

Maybe they won't - because I'm TALLER than them!"

oh, and I don't want to forget the moment of the day, either -

Forrest loves to run his fingers through Aspen's hair. It is cute and sweet - and sometimes she doesn't mind, and sometimes she does - but it's pretty hilarious to see a 3 year old putting "the moves" on an 18 month old :) I always wonder if one day Aspen will have crushes on her brother's friends. As long as he keeps having such good friends, I'm okay with that ;)

Green beans!

We prepared the garden beds.

We threw in some seeds.

Watered them.

(and tried to keep the slugs away from them, I should add)

The glorious sun beckoned to them - and,

they grew!!!

For some reason I am still totally amazed that our garden grew and is producing actual food to eat. I guess it's not that hard to do, with a little time, attention, and love - but still, I am amazed how these perfectly lovely little herbs (oh how I love fresh cilantro and basil!) and veggies are popping up all around our garden.

It makes me so happy!

We picked some green beans and then made pan roasted chicken with lemon-garlic green beans for dinner. Topped off with some left-over red velvet cake from dinner at my sister's house last night (thanks Kate & Tay!) it was quite the little feast for a Monday night meal. Yum!

Sawyer and Aspen's Nest

The finishing touches have finally been made, and after over a year of working on it, the nest for my little birds is complete.

Here's a little tour:

thoughts on the process:

Just because I have a boy and a girl, didn't mean I wanted to get stuck decorating their room with yellow and green (aren't most of the "unisex" things you find those colors? ugh!) SO. I opted for a pale yellow, gold, gray, and then splash of ballet pink and robin's egg blue. This room is our happy place - it gets the best light in the house, and I love how calming it is to hang out with my two little kidlets in their little nest (we gave them the Master bedroom since we spend way more time playing in their room than in ours).

I sold a few items we didn't need/use anymore on Craigslist and used the money to splurge on a couple of things (dwell crib sheet for Aspen, knock-off Eames rocker, and the ultra cool Roadster car,new bookshelf, and a fresh coat of ceiling paint).

UPDATE SEPT 2011: by request, I am including the paint colors - the room itself is "Lily" by Sherwin Williams. The play kitchen is "Robin's Egg" by Benjamin Moore. ;)

A few special pieces in the room were made by family friends - the Modern English Alphabet print was designed and then color-customized to my color palette by our insanely talented friend, Jeanie Nelson, of The Papernut on Etsy. (You should really check out her shop! and her letter-pressed wedding announcements!)

The retro play kitchen...well...this one is a treasure. A serious treasure. It will be an heirloom, for sure, in our family. I did some work for some wonderful family friends - The Flanders Family (they really are just like family) and in return, they built this for us. I had been gathering and collecting the supplies for months (tracking down mini bar faucet on ebay, splurging my birthday gift cert. for the anthro knobs, picking out the perfect color, etc.) but about two days before Jacob and I were going to rent the equipment to try our hand at wood-working, we came up with the trade arrangement and it could've have been better timing! I was getting really nervous about the prospect of me and Jacob with nailguns in our hands. So, I did their family photos while in Oregon in July, and then Dan built it - he even designed the refrigerator from scratch and from a picture in my mind I had, and did it just perfect! Lori painted it. My mom delivered it a couple of weeks ago. Last weekend I spent an HOUR in the fabric store picking out the perfect fabric for the sink skirt and then I stayed up REALLY late one night last week sewing away at the sink skirt and little tea towel. I never had a play kitchen growing up, so I have to admit, this is just as much for me as it is for the kids. I am SO in love with it! It is just perfect! I can never thank the Flanders enough for this special treasure. I spent many many hours babysitting their children as they grew, so it is extra special that they made this for my own children. (thanks you two!)

I had thought about printing an image of each of my children, or one of them together, on a large, gallery-wrapped canvas, but then decided against it. You would think, for someone who takes lots of photos, I would have more on the wall. But I actually think it's a little strange to have big pictures of yourself hanging by your bed. I don't want to encourage narcissism or anything. I wanted to keep things simple. So I printed just their silhouettes and a little reminder of who's children I am really raising nearby (I am a Child of God). I did a 5x7 more recent one of each of them, just to have a print on the wall, with a little reminder for them (Love one Another.)

This is their room, and also the room we spend lots of time playing in. My goal was clean lines, contemporary, minimal, yet with personal touches. Not only did I do a lot of it myself, or have a few pieces from special family friends (my sister Jamie made the ceramic piggy bank and the crocheted teddy bear on the shelf) but there are a couple of pieces from my childhood there, too. Most of the little golden books are mine (well, my twin sisters, too, but she doesn't mind...) and the vintage golden book encyclopedias were my Grandmothers that she gave to me when I had Sawyer (funny enough, he has loved reading through those encyclopedias - as un-"PC" as they are, since he was a year old! He seriously has them memorized.)

I made: Sawyer's toddler bedding & bird pillow, the bird mobile and prints, painted the birdhouses, the fabric poms above Aspen's crib, her blankie, the silhouettes, and then I pulled a bunch of "wishes" that I have for my children together from other sources and designed the print that hangs adjacent to the rocking chair(last photo). I tried really hard not to over-do the birds. I wanted it to be part of the room, but birds are a bit trendy right now and I tried to use them more as a soft touch to the room rather than the primary "theme". If there is a "theme" I wanted it to be "come, relax, be yourself, and play here with us. Feel free to dream and let your imagination run for a while, or just sit and read with us. Or sleep for a bit and dream sweetly." I wanted them to feel surrounded by "things" that were carefully placed, carefully thought of, and made with love.

Which, it was.

I had fun doing all the little things that made this room complete, but what really makes it complete, are the two little people sharing it. Oh, how I love my Sawyer and my Aspen!

our little bike gang

see ya on the streets of North Seattle!

Outings // Museum of Flight

Yesterday, directly from swim lessons, we went straight to the beach. The Blue Angels are in town for their annual SeaFair hurrah, and we wanted to make sure and catch their practice show.

Some friends met up with us at Madrona beach - it was the most crowded I've seen that little stretch of beach, ever. There were a ga-zillion boats out to enjoy the show, as well. Grown-ups sat in lawn chairs to watch up on the grass, and kids and their parents played in the sand and water while the Blue Angels soared above and before us. It was aaaahhhhmazing! And at times, breath-taking, as they reach speeds close to Mach 2. They boooom and zooom and leave your eardrums ringing!

After lots of fun in the sun, we went home for some naptime and then we went and picked Jacob up from work and headed down to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field.

(a passer-by offered to take a picture so I could join my family...and the kids faces are cracking me up...they are like - who's the strange dude saying "cheese"?)

Generally speaking, Sawyer is a HUGE fan of cars. After he saw the Blue Angels and it dawned on him that they are even faster than race cars...he is now a big fan of jets. Check him out below, can you tell he's trying to sound like a jet, himself?

And here's our little Aspen, inspired by the history at the Museum, to spread her wings, and fly :)

I think Jacob was pleasantly surprised at how awesome this museum is. (I think he was wishing we weren't chasing after two little busy-bodies so he could've read all of the signs, etc. It is really that cool!)

We crossed the sky bridge and went outside to see the Concorde and Air Force One. We made the kids wait in a long line to hop on board Air Force One and check it out. Sawyer wasn't super excited to wait in line. At least he got to see airplanes taking off and landing while we waited :)

Aspen wasn't thrilled about waiting, either. She kind of ran around and was entertainment for everyone else in line, which made her happy. She also loved to see (and hear) the planes taking off and landing.

I had promised Sawyer that we could stop by the gift shop on our way out, so he could see if they had any toy blue angels. We were having such a great time looking through one of the galleries, that all of a sudden a voice said "it is now 9pm and the museum will be closing"...so we booked it over to the gift shop - which wasn't letting anyone else in. After I asked, the woman at the door heard me trying to explain to Sawyer...that we couldn't go in...(she no doubt saw how upset he looked) and she said "hey, come here - I have 3 kids of my own and I understand the importance of keeping a promise". I could have hugged her to pieces (almost). She let us sneak by, and we quickly found a F/A-18 Hornet and of course we let Aspen pick out a plane, too - and bought them, and quickly made our way out the door. The kids held their planes in hand, making plane noises, all the way home. In fact, they both even slept with them last night.

Hooray for the Blue Angels. It was an awesome day.

And now, it's friday. Last day of swim lessons was this morning, and Daddy came to watch. This evening we are headed out to the Magnuson Park Amphitheatre to see Creme Tangerine, a great Beatles' cover band we try to see every summer. It's not as warm as yesterday, but we will bundle up a bit and enjoy a bit of dancing and our picnic as we listen to them play all of Abbey Road.

Happy Weekend, all!