Me.

My friend Kirsten did this and I'm copying her. :) Here are 50 interesting (hopefully) things about me that you may or may not have know about me.

1. I've never had braces.

2. I served a mission in Italy.

3. I think that as the older I get, the more addicted to chocolate I'm becoming. Or maybe it's just because I'm home now, instead of working, and the chocolate is ever present. :)

4. I almost broke up with Dan right when we started dating.

5. Despite having been an avid flosser for 10 years, brushing daily along with mouthwash, I still get cavities! It's so annoying.

5. When I was pregnant, I really wanted a brown haired baby and was worried I would have a blonde baby. Nothing against blondes, just all of my family is dark, so I've always had that image of having a dark haired baby. Imagine my surprise when I got a red head!

6. I love Anna's red hair and how it makes her unique. I hopes it stays.

7. I never realized I was crafty, until we bought a house.

8. I like having money more than I like spending it. I always tell myself I don't have any money, then it's easy to save it. :)

9. After serving in Italy, I use olive oil like it's going out of style. And I can't eat fake Italian food, it's nasty.

10. I love my life, I have been blessed with so many things and more.

11. I wanted a girl first and now, it doesn't matter what the rest of my kids will be. :)

12. I LOVE craigslist. If I ever meet Craig, I'd give him a big hug. It has saved me so much money and helped me earn a little.

13. I have an artificial lens in my right eye. My brother accidentally poked a stick in my eye when I was 8 and damaged the lens. To make a long story short, they replaced the damaged lens when I was 12. I was actually legally blind. I could barely see and because of this I never learned the song in primary, that taught what the books of the Old Testament because I couldn't see the board. Tragic, I know. I'm still dealing with this situation. :)

14. I worry about the future and how my kids will turn out.

15. I think LOST is one of the most creative, well-written tv shows out there.

16. I'm so grateful for Dan and his love for me.

17. I love blogging and reading other blogs, especially crafty ones. It's amazing to be able to share all this knowledge for FREE!

18. I've had a total of 29 different roommates during my college years.

19. I love trying to make my house into a home.

20. I love discovering new talents I didn't know I had.

21. I've never really liked having a summer birthday because no one remembers it.

22. I love the way Anna says, mama! It melts my heart.

23. One of my pet peeves is when someone pulls out in front of you and makes no effort to speed up to the speed limit or the speed you were going. Especially when there is no one coming after you and they could have just waited.

24. I like having a clean house, but it's hard with a 19 month old sometimes.

25. I'm addicted to chapstick. I used to get cold sores a lot, so I would never want to get chapped lips. Now, I can't live without it.

26. I have wide feet and it's so hard to find sandals that look good.

27. Dan is a pack-rat and I'm not really, this can lead to problems sometimes. :)

28. I have a real problem with paying full price for a lot of things, mainly clothes and furniture. I think stuff is so overpriced that I'm just not willing to pay it.

29. I love Red Robin hamburgers and fries. Mmmm good.

30. I like to tell the truth. What I mean by this is, I like to get the facts straight. It bothers me when someone is telling a story (where I was there or know what happened) and they leave out details or make something seem different/worse/better than it really was. I like to tell it as it is. I don't like fabricated details.

31. I love the Italian language. During my mission, I prayed that I would marry someone that spoke Italian. My prayer was answered. A few months before we started dating, Dan took an Italian class and knows Italian!

32. I love, love, love to workout. It's so good for you and I love the feeling afterwards of having done something good for your body.

33. I don't know how to swim.

34. I make my own whole wheat bread. It's delicious and so good for you. I even grind the wheat myself.

35. I used to read like crazy, then I went to college and never had time. Now, I could make time, but I don't know what to read.

36. Speaking of which, I've never read the Harry Potter books and at this time, have no desire to.

37. I like to keep myself busy. We don't have cable or any channels and that allows me to be more productive. Of course there's always hulu, but I only watch a few shows here and there.

38. I love to laugh and have a loud laugh.

39. I love being a mom and am so grateful for this opportunity and experience.

40. I am the 5th of 6 kids.

41. I'm kind of anti-germ when it comes to public doors and things like that. If possible, I never use my hand to open doors. I either use my sleeve or one finger, like my middle or pinky. One that I don't use a lot. Or I use my arm or shoulder to push it open. I even wash my hands as soon as I come home from the grocery store. You never know what kind of germs are on there.

42. In high school, I wanted to become a choir teacher. I love to sing and play the piano.

43. In college, I wanted to become a dietician, but Heavenly Father had other plans for me.

44. I sometimes wonder how Dan and I got together. We're so different, yet so perfect for each other.

45. I love black. I gravitate towards that color in some many facets of my life. I finally told myself a few months ago that I couldn't buy any more black clothing. I had to start buying color because that's usually the first color of clothing I choose.

46. I'm so glad I get to be a stay at home mom. I couldn't bear to leave Anna all day, every day.

47. I have lived in Southern California for 2 1/2 years and still have never been to Disneyland. I'm hoping to go soon, very soon. It doesn't help that Dan has no interest in going.

48. I've always known I had curly hair, but I didn't actually starting fixing it curly till I was 16.

49. I was sick on my wedding day. It didn't help that I got married in December and was out in the freezing cold, taking pictures.

50. My favorite things about me are my hair and my smile.

I would love to read 50 things about you on your blog!

Stuff...

I feel like it's been a long time since I last posted. Well, last weekend, we went to Oceanside. My great aunt and uncle were visiting their daughter and her family. They invited us to join them. It was fun, but unfortunately, our camera died and I only got one picture. We borrowed my aunt's camera, but we'll have to wait for her to send them to us. So, here is Dan and Anna at the beach. I have no idea why it's turned, this has never happened to me.

Anna LOVED the beach and the sand. Well, actually the first day we went to the beach and we were letting Anna's feet get wet, when a bigger wave came and got her soaked, then me soaked as well, when I pulled her up. Which resulted in my phone getting wet and the screen not working (I just got a new one yesterday). We had to pull her pants off because she was so wet and wrapped her in my jacket. So the first trip wasn't very successful. The next day was fun. We brought her a bucket and shovel and showed her how to put sand in her bucket and that's all she wanted to do-the whole time. She got mad when we had to go and started crying. :( We'll definitely have to go to the beach more this summer and let her continue her fun.

As for decorating, I covered one of our light switches in our room. I love it. I'm so glad I found that sewing blog, I never would have thought of this in a million years.

Then, I added this wall hanging I got for $2 at goodwill. I don't know if I'm going to keep it red. Also, it looks really bright in this picture. I think I may paint it white and do a black wash over it. We shall see...We still need to add trim to our bathroom door. So, yes, it looks kind of ghetto. :)

I got a little table off of craigslist that I just started sanding today. I should have that done in the next week or so. I think I'm addicted now to buying cheap furniture and redoing it. I just love doing it.

I am SEW impressed...

I found the coolest sewing blog. This lady is so amazing. But before I share about her blog, here is the finished night stand!

Before.

After.

Isn't she a beauty? :) I love how it turned out. The flash makes is look not very dark black, but look at the bed and that's really what it looks like. Now, I finally feel like I have a matching bed set. I have a black bed, black dresser and mirror and 2 black night stands. Everything but one night stand was purchased on craigslist. Love that website.

Okay, now on to my favorite new blog. It's called http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com

This lady is really amazing, she makes dresses and shirts for her little girl out of adult sweaters and shirts, plus a ton of other stuff. Check her out!

So, she had a few projects that I did. One of them was a jewelry holder. I was thinking of making one of these anyways, and when I saw her idea, I copied it.

I have also been introduced to mod podge. I didn't know what it was until I started following crafty blogs. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it's basically a craft glue that you can use on paper, material, etc, to adhere stuff onto whatever you want. Make sense? :)

Here is an old frame I bought at a garage sale for a dollar or so. I covered it in cute material with mod podge, then covered the inside with different material, hot glued some knobs from the old dresser I bought (spray painted them black).

And this is what I got!

I'm going to hang it up next to the dresser, but need to nail something on the back, so I can hang it up.

Her next idea I copied is this. Cover your light switch cover! I never would have thought of that!

I love it! It's so easy too. Even if you rent, you can still do it. Just buy an extra light cover and keep the original to put back on when you move. You just cover the plate with mod podge, lay the material on it and smooth it out. Make sure to make holes before hand for the screws and switch.

Here is what I did for Anna's room. I'm really thinking of doing this for her outlets as well. And I want to do it for our room too. See? I'm getting addicted to mod podge. It's such a cool thing to use.

In case anyone noticed, there is paint on the door trim. We're going to replace the trim, so we didn't care if paint got on it.

I love how it gives a little more character to the room.

Speaking of baby's room. Here is a cute idea to spruce up a lamp.

She made these pillow cases. I love the idea of bow/ties on the pillow. So cute!

I spent so much time just going through her posts. She's so creative and always has a tutorial for how she made each item.

Dresser Mirror and Bedroom Curtains!

Last weekend, we finally got the mirror attached to the dresser. I finally feel like it's complete and love how it looks.

Dan was the brains behind how to attach it. It took a while and was not without some frustration, but we (mostly Dan) got it done!

It cost about $27 for materials for all of this (all those bolts and screws, wood, metal things). $10 for the mirror and $58 for the dresser. For a grand total of $95 for a nice dresser and mirror. Not a bad deal, eh?

I'm excited because last weekend, I also finished some curtains for our bedroom. These were super cheap, $10 for both of them. I got the while material for $3 a yard and bought 3 yards. The red is left over from the duvet cover and I really didn't even use a dollars worth.

Please excuse the messy dresser. That's our old dresser and there is no where to put it for the time being. I don't want to get rid of it at the moment. I do like the style and would like to redo it at some point, for a future child's room, but the drawers need to be fixed. So we'll see what I end up doing with it.

Unfortunately, I have ugly blinds on the windows. I really want to get the thicker white blinds, I can't think of the name of them at the moment. We really don't know how long we'll be in this house and so I can't decide if it's worth it to buy new blinds on something that we won't be able to bring with us. We shall see...

I have sanded and painted the night stand I got for Dan. I still need to get knobs and stuff for it, so once I do, I will post pictures of it. It really looks nice and I'm so excited that our bedroom is finally starting to look nice! It's only been a year and a half since we moved in. Better late than never, right?

And last but not least, here is Anna. This little girl just loves boxes. She spent about 20 min. in this box on Sunday morning, just hanging out. It was so funny. As you can see, it's an old diaper box I was going to throw out, but she found it before I could and it has now become a toy. :)

My Man Dan

This is a bragging post about my husband's awesome talents. These are some of the perks of being married to a ceramics teacher. I asked Dan to make me a decorative plate to put up in the kitchen. I actually want two. I got the idea from a plate I saw at Bed Bath and Beyond. Here is the one from Bed Bath and Beyond.

And here is Dan's variation. Isn't it cool? I love it.

I'm going to hang the plate holder here in the corner by the curtain. I think the second one will be green. You can actually see the plate holder on the floor, just waiting to be hung up. :)

Here is a cute little jug/pitcher that Dan made me for Christmas.

Here's another pitcher.

And another...

I've posted these before, but why not again!

Here is a utensil holder Dan made for me a year ago.

And a fruit bowl, which I absolutely love. It's actually black, but the flash makes it look brown. I was at Goodwill a week ago and actually got some fake fruit for $2 to put in my fruit bowl. If I put real fruit in it, I forget about it and it goes bad. It's on the table and I just don't think about/see it. Also, if it's empty, it becomes a holding place for junk and stuff I don't know what to do with at the moment. If there's fruit in it, I can't put stuff that doesn't belong in there! I'm a genius, I know! :)

I can't wait till the second plate is ready. Dan is going to start on that this week. He wanted to make the first one, just to see how it would turn out before he started on the second one. I love how talented he is and how nice he is for making me stuff I want. :)

Easy Homemade Baby Belts

I never thought I would be making homemade belts, but they were SO easy! I bought Anna a pair of pants a few weeks ago, but they were just a little too big around the waist for her. They would keep slipping down and half her diaper would show, or they would slip down and she could pull them off. Luckily, I found a really cute sewing blog recently and she had a post about how to make these. Here is the link: http://www.graceviolet.com/2008/04/im-belt-maker-i-make-belts-i-made-belt.html

Basically you just sew material together and sew in the D rings. (On the polka dot belt, I skipped the step of using iron on stuff with the material. I just ironed the pieces without the adhesive and it turned out fine. I did use a thicker, heavier material on one side, so that did help to give the belt its form). This is a very inexpensive project and not hard at all. It probably took about 15-20 minutes to make. I used 3/4 in D rings. This project is versatile and can be used to make adult belts too.

I just measured Anna's waste and added about 3 inches.

Anna, modeling her new belt! And sticking out her cute little tummy. :)

Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking when I made the first one. I liked the green material and decided to pair it with brown material. I forgot the brown would show up on the front, after I put the belt on Anna. So, it looks kind of funny to have solid brown showing. Oh well.

I love this picture. Anna loves belts. She's always playing with mine and pointing it out. Now, she has her own!

Oh, this cute little face! I just love this little girl so much!

Now her pants stay up!