fab

All of a sudden, the courtyard of my condo complex has become a virtual aviary. Somehow, these dead crab apples have gone unnoticed and unwanted all winter long and then word suddenly spread among the bird community, it's a free-for-all! Hundreds of birds flocked in today, it was so entertaining. The frumpy but good-natured robins verses the dowdy starlings who all they have going for them is their gang mentality and movement en masse. My favorites were the Cedar Waxwings (seen in my photo above) which seem very graceful and polite and somewhat mysterious. Unfortunately, because I was having so much fun watching them I opened my window shades all the way. . . and even more unfortunately, because hubby is so fastidiously tidy we had the windows cleaned in December thus making our large front windows practically undetectable to at least three of those hundreds of birds. . . Fortunately, however, none of them died from the impact, but some did leave feathers on the glass and one had t

The great crib debate of 07/08 may be coming to a close! Hubby has really wanted to build a crib for little Lu based on some very fabulous, very expensive modern baby cribs by ducduc . Well, 5 months have gone by (let alone the six pre-baby months where this has been in the works) and still no crib. I have all the confidence in the world that he could do it and would do a brilliant job, he just doesn't have the time. Sigh. But alas! A compromise. . . Target just announced that they are going to carry two cribs by Dwell Studios (and a whole line of other cool baby stuff). I think I've convinced him that this is our perfect alternative! He loves Dwell style and I love Target prices. . . it's perfect!

Have you seen this page in the new CB2 catalog? It came in the mail last week and I dog-eared this page immediately. What a clever way to display family photos! It is so easy to do in Photoshop, too. I thought it might be fun to put together a simple little Photoshop tutorial on how to make these bright, posterized prints. Choose a nice, good quality (high resolution) photo without to much mess or noise or clutter going on in the background. This is a nice one of hubby smiling with nothin' but blue sky behind him. Crop in, if necessary. All the photos in room above are close-up shots of faces and heads which is really effective. As you crop, remember your standard frame sizes are 4x6, 5x7, 5x5, and 8x10. This will save some hassle later if you keep your crop proportionate to these sizes. In Photoshop, first drag the crop tool from corner to corner and let go to get the image proportions right. Then grab one corner and hold the shift key

h&m is opening three stores in seattle! these will be more accessible to us than the ones in California just because we go up to seattle several times a year to see my family and the one in Vegas is close but is soooo dinky it hardly counts. (Thanks, not martha , for the heads-up!)

This deserves a list of its own. . . Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park (*photo from their website*) Archie McPhee's , where my dad stocks up on the funniest stocking stuffers . . . like the yodeling pickle Mike got in his stocking this year and these cute little Russ bean bags I couldn't resist Boeing Tour This factory is the largest building in the world by volume, completely mind-boggling. (*photo from their website*) Cupcake Royale in Ballard. MMMMmmmmm. And we HAD to pick up a little hat for Lu that says "Baby Cake" on it. Lots of fun with cousins and family. . . obviously Max and Lucy enjoyed it. The Donut House in Anacortes (it's bright lavender, you can't miss it) with Big Foot donuts Ferry ride and day trip to San Juan Island with my mom and dad The cute little Santa doll is the perfect size for Lu to hold and play with. It's from a company called Under the Nile that makes organic cotton products from Egypt. Cool. Found at a cute

Send out Baby Announcements. . . finally! decorate for Christmas host my sister-in-law and her three kids for a couple weeks take photos with Santa go to Seattle to spend Christmas with my family (this will get its own list in a subsequent post) read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls read No Country for Old Men by Cormac McArthy put away Lucy's 0-3 month clothes. . . no one prepared me that this might be emotional host New Year's Party Guitar Hero on Wii Chocolate Fountain easiest hors d'oeuvre that never fails to please: frozen meatballs and BBQ sauce in a crockpot. . . I'm almost embarressed to tell people how easy this is when the rave about it Lots of friends Martinelli's toast at midnight a balloon drop at midnight make your own party hats Blueprint calendars in cd jewel cases for all guests ** list items in this color are shown in photos above **

So these are a few of the many things I just didn't get around to doing for Christmas this year, but I wanted to! April's super cool ornament challenge print downloadable gifttags from amy karol photograph my christmas baking like amy karol send out christmas cards. . . i designed them (see above), i just didn't print, address and send them. quilt some potholders to go with the cookie cutters we gave to siblings this year build an upside-down snowman make these cool pincushions from Heather Bailey for all my crafty friends host a bad holiday sweater party christmasy cupcakes make a christmas tree skirt out of the beautiful fabric a friend brought back from China last year. . . (see below)

While feeding the baby in the back room this morning, I hear the “ding-dong” of my Outlook alarm telling me that I had an appointment in 15 minutes. An appointment for what? I thought my hair appointment was at 2:30 pm . . . wrong, 8:30 am. So I try to hurry Lucy along (which is impossible because she’s the slowest eater in the whole world), throw on some clothes, and run out the door. . . no make-up, no babysitter. My hair lady’s going to hate me. I booked this appointment in July, that’s how busy she gets. Oh well, I’ll tell her we can skip styling my hair so she doesn’t get backed up, I’m just desperate for a trim and color. And I’ll just have to suffer through staring at my bare face and puffy eyes sans make-up in the mirror for an hour and a half. Sigh. Anyhow, while under the heat lamp to set the color, I pick up the holiday issue of Vogue to look at their 250 gift ideas (I love gift idea lists, btw. Have you seen the one at Purl or in Blueprint? ) Vogue, I will let you k