Kiersten’s Blog

When we first moved into our place, it needed to be fumigated for termites.  We had been in less than a week when we had to move out.  We spent that weekend with Taylor’s parents, where his mother helped me make curtains and/or valances for almost all of our windows and patio doors.  When I say “helped” I mean she did most of the work and I tried to figure things out here and there.  They all turned out really cute except for the valance in our bedroom.  I was really excited about it when we bought the fabric, but once I put it up, I hated it.  So I went to the store and bought some fabric that I thought would work better.  I LOVE the new stuff I bought.  It’s my favorite window in the house (I think).  I’m going to attempt to explain how I made this super cute and easy valance.

I started out by cutting a piece of fabric large enough for the size of window I was decorating.  Since I didn’t have one, I had to sew two pieces together.  I just lined them up so the pattern matched.  I can’t even tell where the seam is unless I look really hard.  Then I took some foam board that I bought and cut it to be the right height of the valance I was making.  Since you can’t buy foam board long enough to make it the right width, I hot glued it and stapled it together end to end.  I then wrapped the fabric around the foam board and hot glued it on.  Taylor already hung the rod, so I took it down and hot glued the back of the valance to the curtain rod.  Easy peasy.  Really, it didn’t take much time (or crafting skills) at all and I absolutely love it.

I had some leftover fabric from my valance and curtains so I made a square wood frame.  Okay, I bought the frames from Ikea and just assembled them.  I then stretched the fabric over them and stapled it to the back to make fabric squares.  I hung them in our stairwell.  I just love that fabric.  I wonder what else I can use it for.

I finally got around to putting things on Ashton’s walls.  We’ve been in this place for six months now, and Ashton’s room is the only one that doesn’t have anything on the walls.  Ours doesn’t have much and still needs a lot of work, but his was really starting to bug me because I had a few ideas, but I just never got around to finishing them.  I have had the valance up for a while, but I’ve been needing to tweak a few things about it.  I finally did it today and it took all of five minutes.  Why I didn’t do that months ago, I’ll never know.

Marisa (my amazingly crafty sister-in-law) sent me the cutest letters spelling out his name months ago.  I was so excited about them and until today, they sat on the dresser.  They looked cute, but the dresser is tucked away under the windows in the corner and behind the closet where you can’t see it.  I needed a shelf to display them.  After I looked around a bit for a perfect shelf, I remembered that I had a shelf.  I didn’t need to buy one.  But I did need to finish it.  I wasn’t looking forward to that job, so it took longer than it should have because I kept putting it off.  Finally last week I finished that project.  Now it was time for the hanging, but every time I had a minute to do it, Ashton was sleeping in his room making it impossible for me to work in his room.  Taylor told me that he would do it (because he didn’t think I could) but finally today, I took matters into my own hands and did it.  And I love it!  If you want to see a better picture of the letters, Marisa posted them on her blog here.

We also added on the adjacent wall a “beach” sign.  In case you were wondering, the sign really is pointing in the direction of the beach.  I really like the way it’s looking and have a few other ideas milling around in my head that will be in the works soon, I hope.

P.S.  I just realized that you can’t see how cute the letters are by the pictures I took, so I’ll have to take more because they are SO adorable!!!

London graduated from pre-school on Friday.  I think it’s kind of silly that they had a graduation ceremony and everything because why in the world do they need to graduate from pre-school and what did they do that warrants a graduation?  That said, it was pretty cute.  They had their little caps and each of them got a certificate of completion.

London and her teacher, Mrs. Greene

The ceremony took place at the park where the kids played for a bit and we all had potluck before the actual ceremony.  The sad part for me is not that my little girl is growing up, but that all of the great people I have become friends with throughout this year are sending their kids to a different school.  You see, we didn’t know where we would be living when it came time to go to kindergarten, so we chose a pre-school that was highly recommended by a friend.  It was a mommy and me pre-school class, where the parent (or grandparent) had to stay once a week and work in the classroom, and stay another one of the three days for a parenting discussion.  The third day, we could drop our child off and leave for the morning.  Since I spent so much time around these other parents, some of us became really close.  I hope that we can retain our friendships even though our kids will be going to different schools.

The cute little graduate. I'm having flash-forwards of what she'll look like in 13 years.

The Lorax train

Yesterday Taylor got on the MTS website to see the trolley route to get to Balboa Park.  We were thinking of going yesterday.  When he got on the MTS site, there was an advertisement for a thing they were doing yesterday.  It started at a Barnes and Noble close to our house for story time.  They read the book, “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss.  Then we walked over to the trolley and rode the Lorax train.  A train (or maybe more than one because we see it all the time) was painted with pictures from the book.  The group of us, which was only 3 families, climbed aboard for a ride to SDSU and back.  It was a fun little adventure, the kids loved it, and it was FREE!  I’m excited for more adventures with our family now that it’s summer time.

London meeting the driver of the train, Daniel

I always feel like I need to be the one taking care of Ashton in church since most of Taylor’s nice clothes are dry clean only and I’m not willing to pay for his slacks to be dry cleaned every week.  I make it a point to only buy washable items (for the most part) so I’m the one to get slimed.  Last week we took animal crackers to church and I stupidly wore a black skirt.  Not a good idea.  After the first hour, I went into the bathroom and tried to get most of it out, but that didn’t solve the problem, as the picture London took shows an obvious amount of slime.  Just four more months until nursery.  I can’t wait!

Before

Before

I think the first hair cut for my little boy was kind of like a rite of passage from babyhood to toddlerhood, except that he’s still not walking yet.  But he’s looking so grown up.  It seems like suddenly he grew a bunch of hair and it was starting to get out of control and long.  One day not too long ago, I pulled out the clippers while he was sitting in his high chair and buzzed it off.  I was surprised at how much I took off, when it really wasn’t that noticeable to others.  I guess that’s what you get when you have blonde hair.

Not only did he get a new haircut, but he’s getting more teeth too.  Just the other day I noticed his bottom teeth have evened out, since another one poked through.  For some reason, I thought I would check in the back and see if he had any molars yet, and he did!  He has both of his molars on the top.  I have no clue when they poked through, but they did.  What happened to my baby?  Sometimes I miss those days, but most of the time I love watching him grow and learn so much every day.What happened to my baby?  Sometimes I miss those days, but most of the time I love watching him grow and learn so much every day.

After

After

See that bear in his hand? It's REALLY important.

We lost the bear tonight.  (Don’t worry, we found it).  The house was in a panic.  It was the third time today that it was time to sleep and no bear.  I tried substitutes.  London has a dog that feels similar to the bear.  Apparently not similar enough.  Ashton got pretty mad at me when I tried to get him to snuggle with it.  He looked at me as if to say, “Are you kidding me?  I don’t think so.”  Then he handed it right back.  He wanted nothing to do with animals that weren’t his bear.  It’s a good thing Taylor was able to come home and save us at naptime, as I had left the bear (and the pacifier) in the car.  I’m writing this in a plea to any of you who might know how to get your hands on a Circo brand bear with beans in its hands and feet and a ribbon around its neck.  I’m pretty sure I need a backup.  There would be no sleep in our house without that bear.

I have been wanting to start dance lessons with London for quite some time.  Being thin and flexible, I thought she would do really well.  I still think she has potential, but her first show last Saturday was quite amusing.  It doesn’t help that we missed a couple of classes and that she’s never done this before and that she only started a couple of months ago.  She’ll get better.  She’s only four.  She has another show coming up in a couple of weeks.  I’m excited to see her progress.  I think she’ll know the routine a little better next time around.  I’ll post the video on our videos page for any of you who would like to see it.

It’s interesting for me to be around kids and parents of kids.  Having taught elementary school and having a child almost ready for kindergarten, I meet a lot of kids who are very busy.  I sometimes think they’re over-scheduled.  I can see how that could easily happen.  I want my children to be able to do activities that they enjoy and if I don’t sign them up for things, how will they know what they enjoy?  Right now London is in 2 ballet classes (just because one will end soon and I had to sign up with the other one in April to get the amazing deal that we have since it’s now TWICE the price I pay) and a pre-school class.  Next year she will be starting kindergarten and I plan to keep her in one ballet class if she’s still enjoying it like she does now.  I see all sorts of her friends signing up for soccer and swimming and other activities.  I’m glad we don’t have to run around like crazy all the time, but sometimes I start thinking of other activities she might enjoy.  I have always wanted to teach her a musical instrument.  Being a music teacher and having started violin lessons when I was four, I’m not a huge advocate of starting kids really young.  It’s funny that I say that when I started really young.  My mom must have been crazy.  But then I see how London loves to play the piano and sometimes pulls out her violin to goof around.  Sometimes she even asks me to teach her things.  Is she ready for that?  Am I ready for that?  I don’t know.  I guess only time will tell.

A long time ago when we started buying furniture, we went the inexpensive route.  Okay, I almost always go the inexpensive route, but that’s beside the point.  We bought much of our furniture unfinished.  We liked the look of it and thought we could finish it some day.  That time came almost three years ago when we moved to San Diego.  We thought we should take advantage of our garage that we weren’t going to have anymore, and also bank on the fact that we were already having to take apart a lot of our furniture.  So we set up a staining/finishing shop in our garage.  It probably took us the better part of a week to get it all done with two coats of black stain plus a varnish.  We did a lot which included quite a few bookshelves, a computer desk, our bed frame, two night stands, a big bin/ottoman, and I’m sure a bunch of other things I can’t think of at the moment.  I vowed never to buy unfinished furniture again.  So far, I’ve been able to keep that promise.  Even so, today I had to finish some shelves.  We bought them when we were first married and used them in our first apartment, but haven’t used them since.  I have been wanting to use one of them in Ashton’s room and have been putting off staining the unfinished shelf.  It’s a small shelf so it shouldn’t be a big deal.  It was just a matter of taking the time to do it.  And today I finally did.  As soon as I opened that can of stain, a flood of miserable, hot, dirty, bug-filled, stinky memories came back.  I’m glad I only had to stain two shelves tonight and I have reassured myself that I will never buy unfinished furniture again.

I have needed new running shoes for quite some time.  On Tuesday, I was finally able to hit up the running store in San Diego.  I have been wanting to check it out for months.  I went in and they assessed my feet.  I stood on some sort of computerized thing that tells how you distribute your weight between your feet.  It tells information about your arches and other things.  I already knew that I had high arches, but I didn’t realize how freakishly high they really are.  After that assessment, I jogged on the treadmill, barefoot, while their little camera recorded me.  We watched the playback, and I could see exactly how I run.  This information would help in choosing the best pair of shoes for me.  I tried on a number of pairs and finally settled on some that I really liked.  The problem was the $90 price tag.  I opted to walk next door to the clearance store to see if they had anything comparable for a lesser price.  I was excited to find a similar pair for only $30.  I was pretty excited about it and I think they’ll turn out to be great shoes for me, although I wonder if I should have bought a half a size bigger.  I’ll just be sure to keep my toenails short.  I’m excited to get running again and hopefully not have a sore ankle anymore.

In my search for running shoes, I took my kids along.  London wanted her feet measured and tested as well.  She did throw a fit when she was told that she couldn’t try the treadmill because she was too young.  I told her I would bring her back when she’s 8.  She was pretty excited, though, to get her feet measured.  Then she really wanted a pair of running shoes of her own.  The store we went to doesn’t carry running shoes in a small enough size for her.  She was quite disappointed.  I told her we would keep looking, knowing that we probably wouldn’t find anything any time soon.  She knows that the 10K that I ran last month had a mother-daughter option and she decided that she should really run a race.  I told her that she would have to stop complaining about her knees hurting if she really wanted to run a race.  Today, after looking through her shoe drawer, she came out wearing a pair of shoes that I forgot she had.  They were given to us a couple of years ago and I forgot all about them.  Now, her feet are the right size for them and they happen to be . . . running shoes.  She came in my room wearing them and said, “Mom, are these running shoes?”  Of course, we had to go running.  Running with a 4-year-old isn’t the best way to get one’s heart rate up, but it is exciting.  She ran about a half a block (since she doesn’t know how to pace herself) and then started noticing flowers and other things.  Eventually, I got her to run most of the way around the block.  I can only imagine that she’ll be bugging me to take her running every day now.  I suppose it could be worse.  At least she’s getting exercise!  We’ll see if she’s ready for a 5K next year.