crazy weeks have past.  therefore, it seems proper to end it like this.  yes, i have bathed, multiple times in fact, in one day.  i haven't been sick in years and this one is a doozy.  for some reason my pictures uploaded like this. 

and it just seems right. 

with a little luck.

i think they are old car lights....but i could be wrong. any ideas? either way...they were apparently patented oct. 8 1907. pretty cool right?  

i have this thing for colored glass.

so instead of trying to just buy one i bought them all!  hooray for sales bins at yard sales!

the cuteness

most of the time, i put the baby in clothes that i like.  weird, crazy and sometimes downright adorableness ensues. like this cupcake hat.  it looked WAY cuter on the sales rack.  but once you put it on her, i just can't resist. 

most of the time, when people see aiko, they automatically say "whoa, she looks like her dad."  or "she looks a lot like hannah."  or "she looks like a walker." no one really says "she looks like her mom."  well it's true, if it weren't for the fact that she came from my uterus, i wouldn't believe it either. 

most of the time they just say "i love those cheeks!"

maybe that's why i love this hat, because it fits all her rolls

this is super late, but happy six months baby girl!

she was thrilled about her new toy from bijou market, as we can all see. 

happy monday

i just can't get enough of this quilt

mama thoughts.

remember making books for your mom's in 1st grade?  well, apparently, i dedicated my mother's day book to tyler's mom. 

 i. am. awesome.

i often find myself comparing other mama's to myself, which, isn't entirely healthy.  most of my friends have at least 2 kids, often many more.  i'm way behind the game. while my girlfriends are talking about schools, i'm debating on if my baby's poop looks healthy.  i'm researching when teeth start to come in, while their kids are already loosing teeth.  they seem way past it all.

but then, i realize, i'm surrounded by so much experience.  they've been mama's for years, so they've already ridden some hard storms. 

they know what gets out the touch stains, what babies should be eating (although i will never understand giving babies corn syrup), pooping, when and what they should be sitting.  what this weird rash could be...

so, as out of place as i feel sometimes, it's not a big deal.  because we are all still mama's!  so thanks friends, for experiencing things way before me so you can give me advice.

big shout out to my mama!  although we don't always see eye to eye on everything, she's always there for me.  hopefully, i can always be as solid as her when the hard times hit.

 hey, and she still loves me, even after i dedicate her mother's day gift to someone else. 

love ya mama.

i may have a little time on my hands

i do actually.  see, i have this baby, who sleeps all the time.  

all. the. time. 

she still takes 3-4 naps a day.   when she is awake, it's only for an hour at a time. yes, and she sleeps through the night.  she must be related to my sister, who loved to sleep as a baby and as an adult loves her naps.   i was telling my friend about my baby's sleeping schedule as she replied "do you miss her?!"  

i never thought of it that way, but yes, yes i do.  i was worried about her not seeing her dad enough... when in reality....I hardly see her!  anyways, but the whole reason this came about is because i've been filling my time prepping for this baby shower. 

little miss avy jane is going to debut anytime.  you guys, her brothers have the biggest blue eyes i've ever seen.  i'm always looking for excuses to make something fun! plus getting together with family and friends is also good.

so we thought we would welcome her with some delicious foods.

why yes, that is bacon on a stick.  in this light, even i think it looks delicious. like tracey said "everything is cuter on a stick."

we had some berry parfaits

made some paper flowers

a lot.

i also believe everything is cuter when put as a bunting

so below is my prepping and end results of my bunting.  when i decide to make something, i usually make it in mass amounts.  i believe in mass production.  i originally saw these flowers on Pinterest and planned on making them for the mother's in my life...then i realized i scheduled this baby shower the day before and why not have a fun party favor to boot! 

i don't have a color printer at home but then i saw a plethora of diy paper flowers from ellidesignstudio!!  so i printed out the patterns and starting cutting! thus starting my mass floral business.

so many hot glue gun burns.

my mom once told me that i don't have the patience for little details.

i feel like i prove her wrong all the time. 

but mothers generally know best.

as you can see, i may have gone a little overboard.

 

but once i started making them, i couldn't help myself.  they were so pretty!

well, my mom is right actually.  maybe it's that i like things to be efficient and easy. so with bunting...i had cousin tracey cut out the little flags (i'm good at delegating)...in mass production again, which is why some of them started looking less like triangles...but that's how we roll.  see the letters?  well, to make these easy, i went to my auntie's school.  there they have di-cuts. LOTS of them.  take a couple staples to the letters and BAM!  easy do it yourself banners.

to make the flowers easy to attach, i hot glued some pins that i had already (apparently, i had a lot on hand...hoarder here.) to the burlap and then we were almost done! my last step included the stapler once again. 

i wanted to be able to use the flags for various occasions, so if it takes some extra time to pull out (or not pull out is the more likely option) the staples i'll be okay with that.

so there you have it.  i may or may not have a little time on my hands...but i like to keep myself busy!  you guys should try out these flowers!  so fun! so pretty. 

cinco de mayo, asian style

sometimes, i get these crazy ideas, then...it turns into lots of work. sometimes some spousal spats happen, but that's okay.  because see these colors?  these are HAPPY colors. 

cinco de mayo!  i feel as though we can celebrate this.  it's happened often enough that people think my siblings and i are spanish...so why not celebrate our adopted heritage?  see previous post here, and here

i think my husband is sulking.  see, i wanted to use all of my ceramic dishes, he wanted to use paper plates.  i wanted things to be festive.  because my plates are also HAPPY colors.

see who won.  

he eventually got over it when all this delicious food came out. 

it's like they were posing or something for me. 

i places out all these rugs to be even more festive, but then all these "white" people thought it would be too much sun. point for the husband. (i assure you, i use the word "white" people with the most love.  it's a continuous battle in our house, whites vs asians) i just noticed though...poor uncle scott, that the uncles heads are in the sun.

our deck needs to be refinished...but that sounds like way too much work for now.  for now, i will endure getting slivers.   no, we aren't nazi supports.  this rug happens to be one of derek's great grandpa's who worked with the native americans.  apparently the swastika symbol was used in their rug designs way before hitler. 

like my "china"

i used an entire pack of paper to make these bad boys.

as my trash can shows, there was much cutting. oh and mucho staples.  i learned this nifty trick from my teach-in-laws.  staple papers together so you can cut multiple layers at once!  then they don't get all skiwampis.

muy bueno.

now that my large pile is complete...i will have decorations for years to come!