A little sneak peak...

Can you guess where we are in these pictures?
Multiple choice:
A. The Land of the Mouse
B. The Happiest Place on Earth
C. The place people go to wear silly hats, wait in long lines and spend a lot of money
D. Disneyland
E. All of the above

The correct answer is E but if you answered with any other letter I will still give you full points.
We spent 4 days. "We" being just Lilian, my mom and myself. Well, you know...also Mickey and Minnie, all the princesses, Winnie the Pooh and his friends, and a few gazillion other people.

More pictures and stories to come but here is a sneak peak for today. A story in pictures, if you will indulge me....

I decided it'd be a great idea to take a picture in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. After all, not only is it one of THE PICTURES TO TAKE while in Disneyland, but also, the castle was one of Lilian's favorite attractions. We toured the darn thing FOUR times!
I handed the camera to my mom and....

Trying to get Lilian to look at the camera. Despite what it may look like, it's NOT the view behind her that is making her not want to turn around. It is pure 4 year old Lilian stubbornness. This picture was NOT her idea. Therefore, she is NOT going to participate.

Ummm..... ??? Should we just call it good? Sorry for making you stand and wait there, Mom, on what should be a quick photo op.

Maybe if I flip around really fast when she's not expecting it we'll get some face time....

Wrestle, wrestle, wrestle

{Resigned.} Okay fine. Bag it. Maybe I don't want the picture THAT bad anyway.

Lilian: Oh! Mom gave up? I guess I can stop hiding my face now.

Hi Grandma!

JOSH GROBAN!!!

I went to the Josh Groban concert last night. Although I am nearly 38 years old, when it comes to Josh Groban I tend to revert back to a drooling, shrieking, obsessed teenager. (I even wore a Josh Groban t-shirt!) I kid you not...when Josh first arrived on stage I had goosebumps and my hands were shaking!! So you will have to forgive me for the amount of pictures I post, despite their less than stellar quality. (I took Rebekah's camera but it was not responding well. I took pictures regardless...messing with settings along the way...deciding that grainy, even blurry pictures at times, were better than no pictures at all.)

(Singing, and playing, one of my all time favorites "February Song.")

I have been a Josh Groban fan from nearly the beginning. A few weeks after my friend Lori had first mentioned his name to me, I heard a song from his first album on the car radio. I turned the volume way up and then listened in stunned silence. I bought the album the very next day. When he came to SLC on tour the next year my friend Chellie and I went together. It was Josh's first arena venue and the cute kid looked confused, awed and humbled when he came out on stage. As if he couldn't quite believe that not only had he sold out an arena but that all these fans were screaming his name!! It was rather sweet. And a great concert.

I had to miss his last "Awake" tour. It was the summer Lilian was born. So when Chellie called me a few months ago and wondered if I wanted to attend Josh's "Straight to You" tour I jumped at it. Jumped so high, in fact, that I joined the Friends of Josh Groban (FOJG) Fan Club so we could buy our tickets a couple of days earlier than they went on sale to the general public. It was worth it. We got seats on the floor, center, row 12.
A--MA--ZING!!!Josh Groban is older now than the first time I saw him in concert. More experienced, more well known, more successful and more confident. And he puts on one heck of an amazing concert! Not only does he have one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard, he also plays the piano. And the drums!! He is wicked funny...he kept us in stitches all night. Which was probably good, you know...to break us out of that swoon state we were constantly reverting back to every time he sang a note."You're a little grabby, Salt Lake, I'm not going to lie. I feel equal parts jubliated and violated right now!" --Josh Groban as he ran up the aisle through the audience.


My seat was the 3rd in from the aisle. Which means that Josh ran past close enough for me to touch numerous times. And seeing as the people in the seats next to me were a cute little older couple who didn't tend to stand up when everyone else did and then left at 10:30, a half hour early (bedtime, perhaps?) my view was pretty unobstructed. I am proud to say that I was not one of the "grabby" Salt Lakers...although that was mostly because I was all sorts of determined to get a picture of just how close Josh Groban was to me!!! (Is it bad if I admit to wishing that I had thrown my hand out there in hopes that he would touch it as he ran by? Nah...I've already fully admitted to turning into an drooling groupie whenever Josh is around, right?) Oh well.
After 2 encore numbers the lights came up, the stage crew starting taking down sets immediately and Chellie and I came back to reality.
All together now: Ahhhh....{SIGH}.
It was a great night.

Wall art

I've been changing things up a bit with some different wall art.

First things first....
I'd never really found anything great for this wall in the master bedroom. Temporarily I had hung a wedding picture but despite how big it looked on it's own, it just seemed to get swallowed up on this wall once I hung it. Still, there it stayed until I came across this post from Maillardville Manor a few months ago.
It looked really neat...and even better, very do-able! Just a poster board, a vinyl wall decal from Target and a couple of frames! So I totally copied her. And although I think hers turned out better, overall I am quite pleased with how the finished product looks over our bed.



Next project...the kitchen. Specifically the space between the cabinets and the ceiling.
Originally it looked like this:Not the best of pictures but you get the idea...lots of pottery and greenery. And while I liked the idea of bringing some color into the kitchen this way, I've never been 100% satisfied with it.

I'm a big follower of design blogs. Not that designing and DIY-ing is my forte, certainly, but I enjoy reading about and seeing the pictures of the beautiful rooms and fun projects that others take on. While surfing through some of these sites a few days ago I had a realization. I immediately started hunting through blog after blog searching specifically for "kitchen reveals" and home tours...

Ah-ha! No one really puts stuff above their cabinets anymore. Part of this is because cabinetry is being built taller so there is less room up there. But there is also a trend toward simpler, sleeker lines. Kitchen decor of any sort tends to be on counter tops and table centerpieces.

So I took all my stuff down immediately. Just needed an excuse...
But then wondered if I had done the right thing. It looked SO bare! Was it because I was so used to having decor up there and it was just a matter of getting used to the emptiness? Or did I really need SOMETHING because my cabinets aren't as tall?

I thought on it for awhile and remembered this blog post from A Thoughtful Place. As she writes in her post, she found some awesome botanical prints from an old botany book on-line and printed them to hang in her dining room.

I decided to try it. I printed out 5 prints that I liked (out of over 80), put them in frames and propped them up on my cabinets.
Wow.
What a difference! So much better...in my opinion, anyhow. Less cluttered, more simple. And I love the idea that these prints are from an old botany book. How cool is that?

Next up....I think I may attempt a gallery wall at the bottom of my stairs.

Favorite Photo Friday: Too young to remember...

March 2008

This is Lilian the last time we went to Disneyland. She was 10 months old. As you can guess, she doesn't remember any of it. Next week the two of us, with my mother, are heading back to the Land Of The Mouse. Lilian is 4 years old now....the perfect age for Disneyland to be not only a fun time but, more importantly, seriously magical. My princess obsessed, Mickey Mouse loving daughter is so excited she can hardly stand it. Truth be told, I think I'm almost as excited as she is.....

Progress update...

Remember that sneak peak I gave you a few weeks ago about the new view out my back window? That up and coming "man cave" that was being built in my backyard? Yeah...well, a lot of progress has been made. I though I'd give you an update. But first we have to rewind a bit...

On March 1st this big crane made an entrance and dug a big hole in my backyard. My thoughts ran somewhere along the lines of...."well, at least I now have less lawn to mow...."


Seemed like the ball was rolling. But Mother Nature caused that ball to come to a screeching halt before it'd had any time to do much rolling. Remember that crazy spring we had? This was Spring Break in April. See the pit behind the kids and snowman in all their winter finery?


And then just when we were waiting for things to dry out enough to pour concrete....Mother Nature showed her power once again by causing the greater part of May and June to be deluged with rain. The water table rose and we awoke to a swimming pool on Memorial Day.



But finally come early July, Mother Nature eased into a more calm summer and construction got started in earnest. First footings were poured for the foundation. (Our sweet new neighbor, Helen, agreed to let us use her side yard for our big cement and delivery trucks to access our back yard more conveniently. It made such a difference...bless her heart!)

A few days later forms were constructed in preparation for another visit from the cement trucks.


The cement was poured, the forms came down, a drain was installed and the building was backfilled.


More cement for the floor of the building.



Framing and walls.


Trusses were delivered yesterday and lifted up into place today.



As well as the trusses being delivered, the cement truck showed up AGAIN and poured that little deck/porch on the side of the building....colored and stamped cement to match our patio and walkway. After a slow start, it's amazing how fast it is all coming together. It's starting to look like a real building back there. I think shingling the roof is next. I'll post another update in a few weeks....

Girls and Ice cream

Mary, Sarah, Rachel, Katie, Melissa, Mom

With Rachel in town from Georgia and Mary visiting from Idaho it was decided that a girls night was a must. All five of us plus Mom and ice cream at Leatherby's... could anything be more perfect?

I have the best sisters and mommy in the entire world.

Favorite Photo Friday: Sibling Love

Summer 2003: Rebekah, Julianne and Brandon valiantly trying to beat the summer heat at the Gateway fountains in Salt Lake.

Brandon looks a little less than thrilled about being smothered with love by his sister during this photo op.

Julianne does that, by the way. Smothers you with love, I mean. She's a cuddler. She climbs into my lap and wraps her arms around me almost daily.

Problem is...now she's not the same little 5 year old size as she is in this picture.

No, now she's a big 13 year old cuddly teenager. She about smooshes me! But all the same, I'm grateful my big teenager still wants to smother me with love.

Farmers Market

We went to the Farmers Market in downtown SLC this past Saturday. It's a place I'd never been but always wanted to see. And it didn't disappoint. An outdoor market filled with not only all the fresh fruits and veggies you could want but also fresh flowers, jams, breads, meats, baked goods, jewelry, and crafts. There were all sorts of performers...musicians, balloon twisters, etc, working for tips. Dogs on leashes were more than welcome and I've never seen so many different breeds in one place before. We had a great time....I hope to go back soon.


Rebekah was insistent about buying raspberries. Bryan gave her some money and let her go to it. She wandered around looking at all the different raspberry vendors checking out quality and price...finally settling on one and then standing in line and making the transaction herself.


We watched this guy play his tinny-sounding portable piano for quite awhile. He was pretty good. And we were fascinated by his set-up. Yes, he hauls that piano behind his bike!


















There was a college-age girl who was manning a little "photo booth" for tips. She had Lilian sit down and make 4 different faces while she drew them up really quick. Lilian put her money in one slot of the "photo booth" and the pictures came out the other. It was cute and creative...and Lilian loved her little face pictures.



Here's a few more shots from our day...