Want To Be Our Neighbor?

A house in our sweet little neighborhood is on the market. Here's a note from a local real estate agent, "Rare find open atrium style Eichler home on a large corner lot situated on a great Willow Glen neighborhood. This model like home is very bright and has been tastefully upgraded while preserving the original touch. Updated open kitchen over looks the large backyard w/ BBQ set up great for entertaining. All bathrooms are remodeled. A bonus room great for study or a 5th bedroom."

I went to the open house and it needs a little cleaning and some love. But I can certainly see the potential! Only drawback is that it's not on a cul-de-sac like our place ;)

Here are a few photos I took at the open house.

More info can be found here. 

PS- Word on the street is that it's bank-owned, so that price is probably flexible ;)

New Kid Pants

At the baby shower the other day, I made some little pants for Baby Valentino (not his real name, but my pal is due on Valentine's Day, so it's just a cute little nickname). I was pretty pleased with how they came out so I thought I'd do a quick little post!

We all know to use fabric paint for the best outcome, but the super key to awesome painted clothes is painter's tape!! Standard blue (or green) painter's tape is amazing for perfect lines. The second trick is to use one paint brush (bristles or sponge brush) for each color. If you use the same brush and rinse it off with each color, your brush will be wet and paint will leak under the tape!

I like the look of these simple pants with zig-zags (or chevron pattern, if you're feeling fancy). I think low contrast paint would also work well! Have you ever tried painting clothes? How did they turn out! Are there other tips you'd recommend??

A Shower for Baby Valentino

Woohoo! Hooray for friends having babies!! 

I hosted a shower today for my super-pal, Jill. She's expecting her first baby (a boy) on Valentine's Day. I used that idea and made little chocolate cupcakes and decorated them with hearts and other cute and delicious things. I also bought a bunch of candy and chocolate and we all dined on the fine quiches that Jill's husband made! 

I brought a bunch of onesies, baby pants, and baby shirts to decorate with fabric paint. I've seen this idea on other blogs. Originally I saw an idea on the Design Mom using bleach instead of fabric paint. And I also saw this on mer mag where they used freezer paper. We just moved and are renovating our house... therefore, we have a lot of painters tape lying around! Perfect and easy and makes for pleasantly straight lines on otherwise hard-to-manage fabric. I attached a few photos below... it was great to see that some ladies did it freehand and others used the tape. What do you think? What are your favorite non-cheesy activities for a baby shower?

Jill got cute little slippers (duck? chick?) and she decided that it'd be cute to put one on Prima's paw and it was cute! She left it on all afternoon :)

It was a wonderful afternoon full of lovely ladies and unexpected sunshine!

Next on my list of things to do in my spare time... my favorite things & ideas that have greatly contributed to my parenting career. 

A Pretty Little Mess

Our house is still a work in progress, but we love living here! The community is wonderful and the house is coming along... slowly but surely!

We've unpacked a lot of boxes, but there are many left to go. Here are a few pretty pictures of our current state of living. I think they're kind of pretty. I'll be glad I have them once we're renovated, unpacked, and settled.

On tap for this week: finish painting the hallway so we can lay down some floor already!