Green Waffles

For St. Patrick's day we dressed up in our green and headed downtown to our favorite Vietnamese place for some green coconut waffles. We thought this would be the start of a great new tradition. We love green vietnamese coconut waffles and we are lucky enough to be so close to one of our favorite places to get them - BC Deli.




Every Sunday evening we have our FHE. Growing up our family home evening was always on Sunday nights instead of Mondays, no other plans to get in the way. I decided we should have our FHE on Sunday nights instead of Mondays for a few reasons. First, Rick rarely gets home in time on a Monday night to have FHE, and secondly, there always seems to be something that comes up and gets in the way. Sunday afternoons we are all home and don't have other plans. We can have it early enough in the evening to spend time together. We say prayers, sing head, shoulder, knees and toes (our family song), have a quick little lesson and then Athen is in charge of the games. He always picks Cooties (every now and then he will chose Don't break the ice). After games we have our treat which usually consists of a few mini marshmallows which Athen is completely satisfied with. Here is a picture of us playing our weekly Cooties game.



This weekend we went to cousin Blake's 1st birthday party. We had tons of fun.






A few weeks ago we were invited to a party with some friends in the ward. I decided to make a hostess gift. I made little bags of confetti in celebration of the day they met.



Last week at my mom's house it was so beautiful outside (in the 70's). We took a bike ride and stroll with the kids on the walking path and we went for lunch downtown at the Ale House. This is one of my favorite places for lunch downtown. It is delicious. It was so beautiful outside that we decided to eat lunch outside. This was PERFECT. Athen was distracted by all the cars and trucks driving by on First st. He was good the whole time. We will have to remember this for next time.


LOVE this picture - my 3 boys sitting down on a Saturday afternoon to play trains,cars, farm etc. - so precious.

Fabulous

We had a fabulous weekend! It started out with me heading to the city on Bart kid free to Rick's office. He had no idea I was heading there. I got there around 5ish. It seemed like a pretty sleepy office. There were only a few people around. I figured they must all be in a meeting or something. I headed to Rick's office and just sat down at his desk and waited for him. Luckily, it was just a few minutes before he came walking in and was surprised to see me. His first question was "Where are the kids?". A few minutes later we were off to start our date.

We walked over to the Wharf. I have been wanting to take him to Musee Mecanique for a long time now. This is the place that I bring "out of towners" and I thought Rick would enjoy it too. It is a museum filled with old video games and I mean old - even back to the 1800's. Each game is a quarter or two. We played some video games and got our fortunes told and our characters read by Lady Sal.




We then headed over to Ghirardeli Square were we caught the Trolley car. It was a beautiful night in the city, clear and not too cold. We rode the Trolly car across town to Union Square. We had dinner reservations at Farallon Restaurant, a delicious seafood restaurant. We had the following:

Appetizers:
Organic baby spinach with Balsamic grilled red onions, crisp gigande beans, and warm Crescenza fondue dressing.
Maine lobster bisque with cognac chantilly, chives, and extra virgin olive oil.

Main Course:
Pan seared Rhode Island black bass with green garlic puree, pea sprouts, crisp leeks, and pepper-saffron vinaigrette
Roasted Alaskan True Cod, with braised durock pork belly, crisp pancetta, roasted sunchoke, and cider reduction.

It was delicious. It was nice to sit down and enjoy a nice restaurant and delicious food without having to deal with wild kids. After dinner we took a little walk to our hotel. Rick had no idea we were staying the night. We stopped into the Clift Hotel so I could "use the bathroom". I told him it was a cool and funky looking hotel so we should take a look around - straight to our room. We liked the Clift. It was a great hotel. The crazy thing was, Rick had wanted to take me to that exact hotel when Athen was Crew's age. He had made arrangements with my mom to watch Athen and booked a room there but Athen and I both got sick and so he canceled. He had gone there for a business meeting and thought it was nice and wanted to take me there. Strange that of all the hotels in the city I picked the one hotel he wanted to take me to.

The next morning we headed out somewhat early. We had a delicious breakfast from a cafe on the way to Bart. We had a ham, cheese and egg croisant sandwich, an almond croissant and fresh squeezed orange juice. It hit the spot. We took Bart to the White Elephant Rumage Sale in Oakland. This is our favorite sale of the year. I get excited about the sale around Christmas time each year and patiently wait for its arrival. It was nice to enjoy the sale this year without a pregnant belly and a little toddler running around.

We didn't find any thing amazing like we usually do but we did get some good stuff. Of course we got lots of books for the kids. We got 54 books for $36. This year we bought books that were a little more expensive then in the past so we spent more money then we usually do on books. My favorite books are: Milton and Caps for Sale. We got a lot of old books with the best illustrations in them. We also looked for books that we grew up with in our childhood, like - Hucklebug, Scuffy the Tug Boat, and There's No Such Thing As A Dragon.




We also got Athen a pair of blue monster rain boots for $3. I think this might be my favorite purchase. He LOVES them. He put them on and wore them around. We took them off for nap time but when we went in there to get him up he had them back on. He had worn them while he was sleeping. That night after we changed him into his jammies he put his rain boots back on and wore them while papa read him bed time stories. We had to leave them out in the family room for bed time.




We found some cute European blue and red leather boots for little CrewB. They were only $2. He wore them to church today. We also got Athen a pair of skinny Levi's for $2 and a pair of blue and white striped train overalls. He looks pretty cute in them.




I bought some ice cream dishes of course. They are yellow. Although they look more brown in the picture. I also got a green glass bowl that I really like. Rick wishes I would stop buying colored glass things. We really don't have a place to put them but hopefully soon we will have a house and more space. They are going to look great when I have an outdoor dinner party in my backyard.



I also bought some orange napkins, a big black hat, a camera bag and a few little toys for the kids. By mid-day we were done with the shopping and called up Kimber (who volunteered to watch the boys overnight) to come and pick us up. The kids were doing good and happy as can be. It was like they didn't even realized that we had left them for a day. It was good to be back with the kids but a nice and needed escape.

After nap time we all headed to the park and walked around the lake and rode bikes. As we were riding bikes and playing at the park I was thinking to myself that life is good. I have a great little family and I LOVE spending time with them each weekend outdoors.
Life is Good!

This is the yellow glass pitcher that I got at the estate sale last weekend. The lighting in the picture makes it look more brown than yellow but it is yellow.

Is it summer?

We have had a nice week. On Monday Rick had the day off work so we headed to Moraga to look at some houses. We really like it out there. It is beautiful, however, no luck with the houses. We went to the park for a picnic lunch. We also got to see the firemen at the store.







On Thursday we played outside in grandma's backyard in the nice warm weather (75). We rode bikes and played ball. On Friday we went to San Jose to spend the day with grandpa O. We rode bikes down to the park and played soccer with grandpa. We also played basketball, rode the fire truck and had a picnic in the backyard.



On Saturday, there were no new houses on the market so we had the day off from house hunting. We decided to go garage sale(ing). We found some estate sales in Alameda that were GREAT. This is what I got:

1 straw hat
1 black vintage fur hat
1 pair of very old white leather baby shoes
1 set of vintage sheets for picnics at the park
1 vintage yellow glass pitcher (LOVE)
The Magic Umbrella book from 1925
1 silver shawl
all that for $3

At the next sale I got a beautiful mirror for just $5, and the next one I got:

1 box of old vintage fabric (some even labeled as 5cents a yard)
10 bonnets (I got these for the girls in the ward for Trek)
2 aprons
1 pair of vintage navy blue gloves

I think I got a few other things but I can't remember. I spent under $20 for the day. We then went to the park for a picnic lunch. After nap time we took a stroll along the lake. Athen rode his bike, I roller skated and Rick pushed the stroller. We strolled down to the bakery for some donuts. Lots of days at the park this week. We have loved this weather.

IKEA dinner party

For Christmas my family gave us a "Bathroom Reader" Book. I am not a bathroom reader. However, I was taking a bath recently and opened the book and began reading. It is a random book with crazy stories about people in the US. I read about a man in Sacramento who hosts an IKEA dinner party each year. He invites a bunch of his friends and they dress up, eat dinner in the cafe and then play board games on the showroom floor. I thought this was a brilliant and fun idea that I could easily do. I made a few changes and made it my own.
The hosts:


I first started out with some invitations. I made the IKEA logo on Illustrator. I added the Swedish words "You are hereby invited to.. (thanks to my Swedish brother in law Mats) and I designed a simple Swedish invite. I printed it on magnet paper so people could easily remember the party day and time while glancing at it every time they opened the refrigerator. I used the IKEA catalog to make envelopes for the invites and printed the IKEA logo on sticker paper to make stickers.


The instructions were to meet at the IKEA cafe at 6:00 dressed up and with a hat on. Rick and I got to IKEA early to set up our tables. We had 10 couples RSVP yes so we had 20 people. We put white table clothes down cute blue paper napkins that we bought at IKEA and 10 bottles of Kristian Regale Swedish Sparkling Pear, Lingonberry and Apple Cider (purchased from IKEA).







Once people started arriving, we got in line and ordered dinner. It was a lovely time. Towards the end of dinner I passed out envelope bags that had instructions and games pieces. The first game we played was called Noah's Ark. Each person had an animal name in their bag. Everyone spread out on the top showroom floor and had to find their animal mate by acting out their animal. No talking or noises were allowed. Once they thought they found their mate they had to report to Rick or I to see if they were correct. The second game we played was IKEA Bingo. I made IKEA Bingo cards with random squares such as - Lived outside the US, played in a band, or wore lingerie in the last week. Everyone wandered the showroom floor looking for people to fill in their squares. This was a good way to get to know each other. Once the Bingo game was over we divided into 3 groups and each group found a showroom to play games. One group played pass the pigs, another played Yahtzee, and the third played BS. The first few games people didn't necessarily know we were playing games. However, once we seperated into groups and found a showroom to play in people we smiling and asking questions.













Once the games were over we all headed downstairs for dessert. Rick stood in line and ordered 20 ice cream cones and 6 chocolate bars (for the winners of the games). The lady looked at him and said "Sir you need help". Not sure if she meant mentally or physically but it was still funny. They passed out ice cream cones to the group and we all added our own sprinkles (which I brought) just for fun.



It was a fun night and I loved that everyone dressed up in their own way and wore hats. Thanks for playing everyone.

The whole gang!