Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Spring in to Summer

Spring is well almost over but it's still not super hot here so I'll keep calling it spring. Though, school just got out--it must be summer?

First off--from January to April, five people celebrate birthdays in our family! Two birthdays in the spring:


9 years?!?!

And


4 years! (Mom assisted!)


And of course projects!!

Spring plantings:
I took the square foot gardening literally--marked off my square feet like a true nerd.


One month later:
Everything's coming up green and good!!!


Painting:
ALL of my home has beige interior walls. I don't like it in any of the rooms in our house except one of the kids' rooms:
 


Dining room: 

Taupe and "baked earth" paint with Asian-inspired ginkgo stenciling. Took a while but I found the stenciling relaxing and very therapeutic.
 
 
 
 
Over spring break I enlisted the help of my two oldest daughters to paint their room. We did "urban sunrise" (a fancy name for a shade of gray) on three walls and one accent wall in a lovely mix of turquoise /peacock blue on one wall.
 



 
Tackled the downstairs bathroom next. It is quite a small space so I painted the ceiling the same color as the wall and used broad stripes to create the illusion of a bigger room.

Taping took all day--literally a whole day! Do not attempt without a yard-stick level tool!
 


Add some nice decor:


I love the final look!


 
Being that there are only 3 kids in my husband's family, getting together for impromptu family reunions is quite simple! His sister came over from New York and we hung out and took a little weekend trip to Lake Tahoe too. (First time his sis, her hubby, their two kids, and my mother-in-law had every been!!)
 

Almost all the Blissful grandkids--one was napping--lucky 13!

 
Let's not forget all my children:
 
Spring meant final choir concerts for #1 and #4.
 
(blondie in the very middle--below a fellow blonde)

(little blonde kid bottom left--singing to the crowd!)
 
 
#2 gets contacts and secures family record for amount of green kiwi frozen yogurt consumed:
 
 
 
#3 gives speech at 5th grade promotion:

(this is after the speech, receiving his promotion plaque)



Other fun stuff:

#1 and #2 get rabbits (one was in time for Easter!) Hubby made the hutch.


(2 girls--we don't want no babies! Clover, on left, and Poppy, on right)



As an end-of-school treat we took the four oldest on a sailing adventure on San Francisco Bay.




 
We hope to own a sailboat one day and it took about 5 minutes to convince the kids that, "Oh yeah-we want one of these!!!!!)
 
 

Can you guess what hubby's and my new hobby is? There are lots of places to kayak around here and we are in on the action!
 
 
 
And, because I seem to have no picture of #6--here she is now. Please note that she has finally grown hair and no longer looks like a boy!
 



ENJOY YOUR SUMMER!!!