The Doting Aunt and another hiatus

I'm an Aunt!!! It's official! And I'll admit, it's turned me into a monster. All of those annoying people that have a new family member born and insist on showing everyone baby pictures, yeah, that's me. I can't help it though! She is honestly the cutest baby I've ever seen!

Her name is Dahlia Jane, and she was born last Weds, 4/7 at 6:02PM. Believe it or not, Dahlia came out of an online Anagram finder when Tali and Cliff entered my name, my mom's name, and Cliff's mom and sister's names. How cool is that?! And to make it even cooler, when Cliff googled "Dahlia Wildman," they discovered that the "Wildman" is actually a type of Dahlia!

Ok, you get it, I'm smitten, and I frankly have been insaaaaanely busy, and will continue to be, so I leave you with photos. Pretty much everyone who reads my blog has already seen photos, because, yeah, I'm that aunt. Remember?

I'll try to be back soon with some house (*ehem* baby) updates. :)

spending time with mommy

spending time with Auntie

The battle of the bench

The age-old battle of bench vs. chair has come to a close! Allow me to explain. Mark's gorgeous dining table has two matching benches that I have nagged him about since the day we moved them into our house. They're beautiful, don't get me wrong, but having to climb over someone to get out, or scoot the whole bench in and out just isn't for me.

My other argument against the benches was that together with the table, the look is very rustic, and since we are going for a slightly more contemporary kitchen, I wanted to tie the whole thing together with some fun chairs.

And friends, yesterday my wish was granted! I found these gorgeous chairs at World Market that were on sale, and get this, GREEN! In case you don't recall, we're tying green into our kitchen with a green glass backsplash, so I saw this as a perfect opportunity to connect the dining and kitchen areas. I quickly called to see if the chairs were available in-store so we could avoid the shipping charges and test one out before diving right in and getting six. They had them! I placed six of them on hold and Mark went and checked them out yesterday after work and as luck would have it, he LOVED them!!! Not only were they super comfortable and on sale, but the friendly sales person allowed Mark to make six separate transactions with a coupon for an additional $10 off!

Now let's not forget the benches. They won't be going too far. Mark and I have looked into how to properly weather treat them and they will be making their next appearance in our backyard.

Back From the Dead

If anyone is still reading my blog, I apologize for my lengthy absence. Between devoting time to this blog/project for work, having friends in town, and just keeping busy, I just haven't had it in me to blog (here).

Rest assured, I'll be back with plenty to share soon. I have already begun the chair makeover, our stucco is complete, and we are getting closer to making our dream kitchen a reality.

But in the meantime, I'm happy to share that Lola graduated tonight! She will embark on an intermediate class next week. I told you we had a valedictorian on our hands!

A Star is Born!!!!

No, Wildbaby hasn't arrived yet -that was just the theme of the shower we had for Tali last weekend.

We honestly didn't plan the theme around Oscar weekend, that was purely coincidental. The theme was just fitting, with Cliff working in film, Tali being a photographer, plus the fact that Tali loves all things starry.

There was no Joan Rivers, no Charlize in a boobified gown, but there WAS a red carpet! (red felt yardage)...

Tali only made two requests for her shower. One was a onesie decorating station, and the other was cake pops. She asked and we delivered!

not quite at Bakerella's skill level, but they sure tasted great!

this was the onesie I decorated for Wildgirl

We even made a starrified cocktail (with a virgin option, of course), that contained OJ, rum, triple sec, sprite and sliced starfruit for garnish. Sooooo delicious!

Nadia, one of the hostesses and a photographer, set up a star-studded photo booth for guests to glam it up with the guest(s) of honor.

Overall the shower was a blast (I think Tali and Wildbaby would agree). :)

the proud parents

Tali with Alison and Carolyn (two of the hostesses)

Sisterly love :)

Tali & Nadia (photographer and hostess)

with mah ladies Rachel & Martha

wifey!!!

it aint easy being so glamorous...

and of course one for Grandma :)

All photobooth photos courtesy of Nadia Caffesse, Full Tilt Photography

Meant to be...

For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm a little bit obsessed with fortune cookies. I save all of my fortunes...

I was feeling a little down on my luck tonight. Things have been a little nuts at work lately, (all good things,) but I'd be lying if I said I haven't been losing sleep. Mark had the perfect solution to make me feel better tonight.

"I know you think you could use a little luck, so just pick one..."

I'm a lucky girl.

The chair up there

Exhibit A: $5.99 pricetag

Exhibit B: chair pad, batting, and green zebra fabric

Exhibit C: hideous chair in serious need of a makeover

It can't get any worse, right?

She's joking, right?

Over the past couple of rainy weekends, I have taken advantage of being stuck inside and purged a good 50lbs+. (Of clothes! duh!) I cleaned out the office closet, or at least started. This closet houses all of my overflow. There were items in there that I haven't worn in years.

Mark's advice was, "If you haven't worn it in six months, get rid of it." I can't quite abide by that logic seeing as how I'm a pretty finicky dresser and tend to return to clothing items that were once forgotten. But I did get rid of 1 suitcase full, 3 trash bags full, and 1 Loehman's bag full of clothing. That's a lot for me. I wish I had gotten a photo of everything before it was gone.

At least I know that my candidacy for the show Hoarders is no longer looming. I loaded up my car and went to our local Goodwill. After unloading all of the goods, I decided to go into the store and check out the chair selection.

I found a perfect specimen! It was only $5.99 -solid wood, hideous seat cushion in serious need of reupholstery. This project will include sanding down the chair, staining it in a dark espresso finish, and repadding and recovering the seat in lime green zebra print.

Wait a minute. Did she just say "lime green zebra print"????! What is this chick smoking???

That's what I said! It's okay, Mark thinks I'm crazy too. -But the green isn't a neon lime. It perfectly matches our drapes and accent pillows, and at a sale price of $6.30 a yard for upholstery fabric, I couldn't turn it down.


The beauty of this project is, a) if the fabric looks horrible once the chair is done, it's a quick and easy fix, since this chair just needs the seat covered and it will require no sewing, and b) if the whole chair looks like crap, well, it cost me about $25 for the chair and all of the materials, so I think I can live with that. But have faith, ye of little faith! I do! I'm pretty sure if I can ever get this project started and uhhh finished, it will look great!

*photos of the chair coming soon*