Tricky Quatrefoil Lamps

Last time my parents were in town, I let Vinny go with my stepdad to Lowe's Home Improvements. (Yes I have to say Lowe's home improvements because ours happens to be next door to a Lowe's foods...very confusing.  We call them them the Loweses)  This is a big deal because Vinny never comes back with exactly what he went in for.  Sometimes that a good thing and sometimes not so much.  This particular time, he came in with new lampshades for our bedroom.

Before:

After:

This was particularly thoughtful because he knows how much I love the quatrefoil pattern, and this particular color. (I present as evidence this post where I made quatrefoil patterned curtains)  It took about 3 days before I realized that they weren't actually quatrefoils.  DUH.

It's actually the other pattern I considered when making the curtains, I call it firenze or a trellis pattern. (Here is the post where I talk about deciding between the 2 patterns for the curtains)  In the end, no big deal because I obviously loved both patterns.

The jury is still out on whether or not they'll stay in our bedroom though.  The new shade is a bit smaller than the old one, but I got used to that really quick.  The problem is that we're working on painting in there now (I hope to show that off soon), and I'm not convinced they still look right with the new color on the wall.

So did you notice it wasn't a quatrefoil before I admitted it, or did it fool you too?

Bombs over Stella

Our home is situated about 30 minutes from 2 Marine bases.  The one to our north is primarily flight related and the one to our south, where Vinny works, is gigantic (over 100,000 acres) and includes and air station.  I thought with us living so far away we would be sort of insulated from all the military activity.  On the contrary, we're privy to flight exercises from both bases.  Resulting in this being a common sight:

And for some perspective on how far away these were:

They aren't always so far away though.  The day before, they did their turn basically in the back yard.  I was on the back porch and actually felt the wind from the helicopter blades.  Crazy!

The past few days, they've been doing some sort of bombing or artillery practice.  Sometimes it even makes the house shake.  Provides some pretty unique opportunities for sure.  So far, it hasn't been enough to bother us, just enough to be really interesting.

Have you ever been to an air show?  Have you seen the crazy airplanes with helicopter blades on the top?

Doughnut Cake

I ran across this picture from my birthday and figured I would share my birthday cake (at least a picture of it).  It looks like a giant doughnut to me.  It was a funfetti cake that Vinny made in a bunt pan (ours is a springform pan from Pampered Chef and it's pretty flat on top) iced with rainbow chip icing.

Bella and I ate half of it and then, in mourning recognition of my old age I sent the other half with Vinny to work so I wouldn't polish it off to share with his coworkers.

Anyone else want cake now?

Backyard - 1 month later

So, I hinted in my earlier post about the backyard (see it here) that we had a lot going on in the backyard.  There have been an immense number of man-hours put into cleaning up both the front and the back of the house.  My family hauled away 4 trailer loads of debris and it's perhaps about halfway finished.  I thought I would share the progress.

Panoramic Before:

Panoramic After:

The sunset wasn't quite as magnificent, and my angle was a bit off, but I think the progress is pretty clear.  Here are some single shots of the main planting area there in the center of the yard by the water:

Before:

After:

There was poison ivy in that madness that was (no kidding) 6 inches across on the vine.  There is still some poison ivy in there, but we're trying to kill it with spray instead of pulling.  Luckily, so far I've only managed a small area of it.  The downside was that small area happened to be on my face.  Oh well, can't win them all.

Have you ever faced down poison ivy?  Any tips, besides don't burn it, or touch it...or take a hot bath after contact with it?

Hummingbirds

My stepfather bought me a hummingbird feeder for my birthday after noticing hummingbirds feeding on some flowers in our yard.  We filled it and hung it outside where we can see it both from the porch and our bedroom and we've been thrilled to watch a little hummingbird couple start making good use of it.  They make this funny little chirping sound when they come to eat that almost sounds like a squeaky hinge, so even if I'm reading a book, I usually hear them come to the feeder and am able to look up and watch them.  Even more interesting is watching them eat and then go perch in a nearby tree.  They move so quickly and are so tiny, that I have never seen (or noticed at least) one perched before.  I managed to sneak a shot of one late in the afternoon.

I look forward to trying to get more shots of these little ones.  Wish me luck!

Have you ever seen a hummingbird perch?

New family photos are here!

I finally got around to photoshopping and going through all the family photos we took with the Howell family before we left.  And by that, I mean I took photos of their family and then Stefanie took photos of our family.  Yay free photography shoot!

It was before I got my hair chopped off for Locks of Love (that post is here), so they already seem a bit outdated, but we hadn't done family photos for almost a year and a half, so we were due.  So here is what we ended up with:

You know how I love to photoshop heads and faces (see my post about that here).  Can you guess which photos here I did that to?

Oh, and of course one super sweet photo of Bella and Xander, her BFF, on their way to the shoot.

How often do yo u get family photos done?  What are your favorite places to take photos of your family?

Nature Table - Cicadas

Rather than create a nature tray for Bella, I'm letting ours evolve naturally.

It all started when I found a few cicada exoskeletons in the bushes.  For those of you who live where these guys aren't native, they shed their exoskeletons in the summer and it leaves behind a perfect little model of what the bug used to look like.  They also make crazy loud noises in their mate search.

It surprised me that Bella wasn't squeamish about touching them once she saw me do it.  Here's the video of her seeing them for the first time:

And for those of you who don't want to do video, here are some stills:

Though from time to time she squeezes a bit too hard and a piece breaks off and she gets a little worried.

How were you with bugs when you were a kid?  Did you love em or hate them or did it depend on what it was?