MIA

hello! it's been a while since i last posted. so many things have been going on. my aunt recently passed away. she had a heart attack and within a week, she passed away. it was so fast....i regret not going home (SF) to visit her in the hospital. she's was more of a grandmother to me than an aunt. i will miss her dearly........the above card was made with hero arts.

the 2 below are cards made with new lawn fawn paper & stamps.

brandon's 2nd grade homework has been kicking us in the butt. we had the whole month of february to complete a biography of someone who made a difference. we chose rosa parks. he had to submit the subject for approval, then a rought draft and then a final draft in addition to making this can (trader joes tomato sauce). ok, so it doesn't exactly look like her but it's a lot different when it's not flat! oh, and did i mention he had to present this in front of his class? man, being 7 is hard nowadays!

here is his write up. (sorry the pages are reversed)

ok, so i am going back a month! yes, it's been THAT long!

this is what i made for brandon's 2 teachers for valentines. a starbucks gift card and a trader joes choco bar. it all fit into the coffee cup perfectly.

i prettied up the cups with a hero arts heart and some red crochet thread.

wrapped the choco bar with 2 doilies & tied it up

as always, i made some for the support staff & the crossing guard.

brandon's monday & tuesday and sometimes wednesday teacher

his valentines

we went home to SF to attend my aunt's funeral beginning of the month. not easy but seeing this cute face kept me busy. can you believe my niece jadeyn is 16 months old now?? such a big girl and such a cutie! she'll be a big sister in JULY!! so excited for my sister & BIL!

she held her own with the boys. except she was trying to get her iPad back---the boys were hogging it!

we took advantage of the nice SF weather and made some playground time.

as you all may know, i hardly cook & we go out to eat often. so ever since bryan can read, we make him order his own food at restaurants. when the waitress came by to take our order, he said, "i'll have the mini hot dogs but i don't want the all beef ones. just plain hot dogs". she looked at him weird and just laughed. i whispered to her that he'll have the hot dogs.

saw this and thought it was pretty. i'm sure it has a name. anyone know?

a card i made for stamp fever's card of the month. it has lawn fawn stamps & papers. i love those butterflies!

a hero arts card

lawn fawn recently celebrated their 2nd anniversary with a celebration at stamp fever. i would have taken more pictures but i was busy with the make-and-take table. i didn't even get to take a picture of the cute card kelly designed. but you can see it here.

i am lucky enough to have local flickr friends tiffany & nancy near. and i was excited to meet annette, another gal from flickr! she is local too! (from L-R: tiffany, nancy, me, annette)

i have a project for the beauties in the near future!

last friday, i spent 3 hours at the pool with bryan. it was so hot already at 8:30am that i told him that he can go to the kiddie pool. a friend and her son met us a little bit later. i had time to read the newspaper & relax.

went to ikea and saw lots of pretty things. a sure sign spring is near!

can you believe all these pictures in this post were taken with my iPhone? pretty good quality, no?

sorry for the long post! one last thing, does anyone have recommendations and links to any place that sells good wool felt? i'd like to have a variety of colors. thanks!

sf trip---part 2

more pics from our sf trip! here's a picture of the kids at the playground. met our friend, kevin and his 2 adorable twins, kobe & nirobi (not sure of the spelling) at the playground in GGP. BTW, we don't know that older girl in the hip glasses in the picture BUT she was an angel. she played with all the little ones here and watched them. she entertained the kids so we adults could talk. yes, we let a random stranger play with our children. i have a picture of all of us, including kevin, and excluding nice stranger girl but it was "lost" somehow in downloading. been having lots of problems lately with downloading pics & losing the last half. luckily this time, i have the pics still on the memory card.

our little daredevil bryan climbing up high by himself

here's a cute shot, also with unidentified nice girl
cuties

likes to be on the big boy swing

my bad boys sliding down the wrong way (brandon calls it his "style")

see what bad influence my kids are? i think he was about to slide tummy-side down but he didn't!

he hung on by himself..........for less that 5 seconds!we got to walk around GGP before the playground

this is brandon walking through a bike rack

walking in the neighborhood with unkle matt & ah ma (my sister...it's what the boys call her)

brandon calls himself the corn monster when he eats these

made these into B&W...pics of bryan playing with my sister. i love all his different expressions

i got to meet up with my friend jennifer. i've known her since 1st grade! look at brandon's silly face! thanks for a great lunch jen!

and this is my teacher from 4th grade, mrs. fujiwara. it was great to see her again!

i got to see my friend andy too. i haven't seen him in years but i've know this guy since the 6th grade! brandon played ultraman with him at lunch. ok ak, he is waiting for you to return to japan to give you his ultraman shopping list!!!

i also got to see my best friends michele and cheryl. wish we had more time to hang out! next trip..........................!!

sf trip-- part 1

earlier in july, we went home to SF for a week. my sister took us to the discovery museum.

here's bryan hoarding all the frogs & trout

brandon playing the xylophone

my sister drew the boys robots

i love this place---it's so hands-on. the boys were not interested in this area below but i was. but i couldn't stop to play.....time to move on.

bryan did want to paint though.......but he stpped cause his hands were getting all goopythey had some chinese thing going on in one area and i thought this was too funny. these are plastic bok choy, chinese sausage, and chicken. couldn't figure out what the other 2 things are

climbing a tree

brandon & bryan LOVED this area. will need to ask eddie to build us something like this in our backyard

brandon could have stayed in this area all day

taking a rest in this ginormous tree trunk

eddie was in pittsburgh most of the week we were there so he missed the fun

now he's hoarding all the crabs

after a fun time at the discovery museum, my sister treated us to this place

it was yummy but i think i prefer sprinkles more

i have more pics from this SF trip. i got to see a lot of my friends this time! be back soon!