Yep, it does hail in the Bay Area, California

Waiting on pins and needles

We are waiting to find out what our next move will be, it all depends on my husband's job. I am just so anxious to get the call from him, telling me where we will be going next. There are 2 places at this point we could go...I won't tell you, I don't want to spoil it! We should find out this week or next. Oh, why can't it be today?!

A garage sale can't be that simple, can it?

You would think it would be simple to go through piles of old clothes and junk to sell, right? But so many things hold so many memories. Part of the reason it's hard is that I really don't think we will have anymore kids. I just don't think I could handle anymore and be a good mom. And to be pregnant again...whew, I really think I'm passed that! I dunno, maybe adoption could be a choice down the road.

Although, I do feel at peace about this, it's just hard to hold up those cute little onsies and pretty little dresses, thinking about when the girls were so small. It kind of seems distant...the memories of when I brought them home, how small they were, how floppy they were, their disposition, of every discovery, of their developmental milestones. *Sigh*...my girls are growing up so fast...

No, Claire, the paint is not shampoo!!

So, I pulled out the rainy day activity....decided to be adventurous and go with painting. Claire decided she was the canvas! She painted on her legs, hands and rubbed some in her hair for good measure. She also taste tested the paint. I definitely think she is an artist, Olivia was never so bold with paint at that age.

What I miss about where we lived in Texas

Really great Tex-Mex food and margaritas.

Cajun food.

Terrific indoor malls with indoor play areas for kids.

Big houses.

Nice neighborhood pools.

Central Market.

Children's Museum.

Houston zoo.

SuperTarget.

Our really close friends.

The cost of living there.

Good ole southern hospitality.

What I love about where we live in California

It is beautiful here.

The weather is fantastic...except for the rain and fog, but most of the time it is great.

The great food.

No smoking.

People are genuine (at least most of the ones I met).

Trader Joe's.

We are within 1-2 hours of mountains, vineyards, ocean, Bay.

We can walk to town from our house.

Great parks for kids.

We have a wonderful backyard.

We have a big pantry...snicker! Well, and lots of storage in this house, too.

Great neighbors.

Friends at church.

Am I a gypsy?

It occured to me the other day that the longest I've lived in one city was for 7 years in Dallas after I graduated from college. Even then, I lived in 3 different apartments.

Just desserts...

No, I'm not talking about food.

When I told my mother how Claire was such an artist, drawing on the floor, on her arm, basically anywhere but paper, my mother told me I was getting my 'just desserts'. She reminded me of how I drew on her lovely blue (fuzzy 70's)wallpaper in our foyer of the house I grew up in.

Pictures from our walk

What I love about where we live is that we can walk to 'town' to go to the library, farmer's market, grocery store, etc. We haven't walked too much lately, it's about a 20 minute or so brisk walk one way. It's a great walk on a nice day though. There's a trail that runs behind our house, goes over a bridge, ends on a street which leads to the local popular bike/walk/run trail in our region. There's a creek that runs underneath the bridge and a waterfall as Olivia likes to call it. I took a few pictures of our walk to town:

We walked to our local farmer's market today...

It's really tiny, but I just love going to our farmer's market. It was a beautiful day to go. It's every Saturday morning, rain or shine. It's one of those things that reminds me of when I lived in France during college. Olivia loves to go with me because she gets treats (samples of fruit). She also likes the 'cackorn' (popcorn)...it's kettle corn cooked before our very eyes. It's really sweet, but salty at the same time.









Today we bought: bread, broccoli, strawberries, kiwi, kettle corn, navel oranges.

There is quite a variety of things...flowers,small pots with bamboo, homemade soaps, olive oil, Middle Eastern foods, Mexican foods, seafood, fruits and vegetables that are in season, bakery items, honey, nuts.

Usually there is a musician who plays music while everyone is shopping and enjoying themselves. Today there was a strange woman playing a guitar, but she really wasn't playing music, she was making animal sounds...she had gathered quite an audience of kids! She is blind and has 2 glass eyes. I think she was originally from South Africa.


The caboose in the pictures is part of our local museum, also very tiny. The museum shows some small exhibits during the year.

This is me...

circa 1970's.
One of the few pictures of me as a child.

Making cookie bars!

A bunch more pictures from today of Olivia making Magic Cookie bars and both girls enjoying the finished product!

What to do when a playdate is cancelled...

Bake something! Olivia was so upset her friend, J, couldn't come over today. I made the mistake of telling Olivia in advance of the playdate and unfortunately, J, got sick, throwing up, etc. this morning. So I decided we would make some Magic bars, here she is crunching up graham crackers for the crust.

Can you tell, I like to cook?!!

She fell in the toilet!

Claire that is! Not sure what she was doing, maybe she thought she would try to use the potty. Her feet got stuck in the toilet somehow...can we say, yuck!

Hide and Seek

So Olivia likes to play 'hide and seek', mostly she likes to hide before her afternoon nap. So today, she runs in her room saying 'wait...wait...I got to hide'. So I walk in and as usual exclaim 'where are you?' 'where is Olivia?'...meanwhile I hear giggles coming from a lump under her covers...she thinks she thinks she has me fooled! I keep asking where she is until she pops out from under her exclaiming 'Here I am!!'

Claire is a mimic

Here she is wearing one of Olivia's shoes...only one! And also trying to get it off! You probably can't tell, but she is bawling her head off because she is having trouble getting the shoe off.

Sisters...

Cook it and they will come, right?!!

Not! Ugh, it's been so frustrating lately. Olivia has been incredibly picky lately. Sometimes she will skip dinner completely, put on a gown and go play in her room till bath and bedtime. I thought I was a pretty decent cook, but now I'm being to question my abilities in the kitchen. Please,please tell me this is a phase. Now, Claire is following in her footsteps. She used to really put away food, but lately she just hasn't been eating as much and is more picky. And we can forget about any kind of manners, despite all my efforts, they eat like Neanderthals!

At physical therapy today...

So at physical therapy today, I took a couple of pictures. Last week, the hand therapist had me dip my hand in paraffin wax about 6 times, it created a cover which warmed up my hand. See, at every appointment, she will do something to warm up my hand before we 'work' on it. It used to be just something like a heat pad, but last week was the wax, it was funky so I wanted to take a picture. The wax is heated to 130 degrees (farenheit) so the first dip is pretty hot. It really felt good though after all 6 dips.

Here I am dipping:

Here is what it looks like:

Here, she wrapped the heat pad around my hand:


Here is something else freaky, a few weeks ago, the therapist started hooking me up to a machine with electrodes which make my fingers more. It was so weird the first time. I felt a rush of tingling run down into my hand and my fingers moved by themself! It's to get the tendons to move better.

Here I am doing that today with a ball of 'theraputty':

For the more mature palates...

Roasted oregano chicken with potatoes and tomatoes. This is one of my favorites because it is so simple and it tastes so good. Just chicken, potatoes, tomatoes, salt, pepper, dried oregano, olive oil and roasted at 450 for about 45 minutes. My girls, on the other hand, hardly touched it.