Priceless photos

I walked into school last week for my shift and there they were, Graham and Charlie - having lunch together! My heart almost melted.  They do love each other!

And then, there is also this photo to share - Charlie with his hair all fixed up (all by himself!) and wearing his aviator sunglasses:

This kid is too funny!!!  We definitely have our hands full!  I mean, look at Charlie's 2nd Grade photo.  It almost seems like he is trying to put his tongue through the hole where his two front teeth were.  His cheekiness definitely sums up his 2nd Grade!

And Graham is looking very sophisticated with this smile:

Boys are growing up for sure!!!

Front yard mulching

Here, again is a never ending story.  I let the weeds have their way in the front and now I am paying for it!

It took forever to then get the black landscape fabric on too, especially trying to get it around all the plants:

But after a few days and perseverance... it looks so much better!

There's too much green and brown so I plan on getting a few more plants/flowers for some pop of color.  Eventually...!!!  I did try to recently get some free rocks too but somehow these people will say they have them and then give me the silent treatment - which probably means that someone else had taken them already.  Which is fine but where is the courtesy note?!!

Garage organization

This garage seems to be a never-ending story.  Eventually, we will actually see some garage floor here!

And then, there is this too... a door up on the framing of the garage???!  I wonder if this is the original door that is a fire-proof one into the house (from the garage).  Seems that the current one is just a regular interior door which is totally not up to code!

I did managed to unpacked a few more boxes and found multiple pairs of golf shoes.  How many do we actually need??!

Yay...!!! I see some floor!!! 

Although I did cheat a little.  The Thule is now outside by the rubbish bins:

I did unload about 6 boxes but now there are clothes in the garage that Bobby needs to go through:

And there are also some sheets that need to be rewashed and repacked/stored elsewhere... and also a few other things back in the house.  My form of organization is so NOT organized.  Ha ha ha!!!

Recent updates

So remember the portrait that Charlie drew of me?  It's this one below:

Well, now I think I know where he gets the crazy hair from.  The resemblance is uncanny! LOL!!!

Charlie is continuing to draw some more.  We are thinking we might submit something into IKEA for their soft-toy drawing competition:

Last week, we were at the local Farmer's Market and this lady was selling a cookie that you can draw on.  How neat!!!  The colors are obtained from wetting your brush onto M&M-like candies:

Ta da!!! Graham drew a happy smiley sun and obviously it was a yummy one too.  The photo is bit blurry... my bad!

And I think we finally found the right school bag for Graham.  I think this was attempt #4??!  His old school bag was too small for his big binder.  Our (adult) travel backpack was too heavy and bulky.  And then, I bought a baseball backpack which I thought had wheels but nope, that didn't work either.  So finally I found the perfect one with wheels at the Staples store.  It's an executive rolling bag with a 2-year warranty on wear-and-tear.  Perfect!!!

The new bag works really well especially when Graham has to carry his violin too and his additional music binder!!! 
And speaking of bags, I finally finished up my Community Emergency Response Training and I too now have a new bag.  At least I am somewhat prepared now for an emergency with my helmet, gloves, vest, and goggles included:

In the meantime, the boys and I went dumpster diving recently during Graham's eye exam/appointment.  The chair looked like it had some good bones!

We'll see when I will actually get to re-upholster it.  One more home project.  It only took Bobby about a week to discover the chair at the back of the house.  He he... :-P

I found the cutest saying recently - "i need vitamin sea".  I didn't buy it but I could probably steal the phrase and put it somewhere in the house :-)

Update on pumpkin plant

Looks like we are going to get some baby pumpkins!  There were plenty of "male" flowers starting out:

And then finally, a few "female" flowers appeared.  You can see the difference on the stamen (middle-inside) of the flower:

You can also tell the female flower by the "fruit" underneath the flower:

But the fruit will only become the pumpkin if the female flower is pollinated.  We found this out the hard way last year when we had our pumpkin plant at our apartment.  Unlike tomatoes where the flowers eventually become the fruit, the pollen from the male flower needs to get into the female flower.  I sort of had to use this same analogy when Graham and Charlie asked me how they got into my belly. Ha ha!!!

So, just in case the bees and other insects were not quite doing their job pollinating, we decided to hand-pollinate. Not sure if these pumpkins will be ready by Halloween but we should be getting some for Thanksgiving.  We will needs lots of it to make pumpkin pie since Graham wanted to plant little baby pumpkins!

And while we're still on the topic of planting, I was able to harvest some tomatoes and some red sweet peppers for our salad last night. Yay! :-)

I might have to branch out and plant some more/different veggies.  Supposedly green beans will help replenish the soil too (and our soil probably needs a lot of help!).  I will have to check the almanac to see when I can start planting green beans.  Might have to get rid of some rose bushes or move them to the front so I have some more space in the backyard.  Phew - that front yard is another project!

CERT Training

I recently decided to join in on the CERT Training - which stands for Community Emergency Response Training.  It's basically a training to be prepared for any sort of disaster.  It involves being in class for 3 Saturdays in a row from 9am to 4:30pm.  Phew!  Thankfully Bobby was willing to watch the boys while I go to the training.  Although Bobby is convinced that I have left to watch movies, or go shopping, or play 36 holes of golf all day.  Ha ha!

The training booklet is massive!

The training has been handy to know what sort of tools we might need at home to turn off all the utilities:

I finally got a chance to use a fire extinguisher!  The fireman/trainer lit a controlled fire in the parking lot:

Then, you use the P.A.S.S. acronym, which stands for... wait, let me think about this again.  Oh, here we go - Pull (the pin), Aim (the hose), Spray (at the base of the fire)... hmm... this doesn't seem right.  What's the other "S" for...???  Looks like I already need a refresher!

After 2 weekends of training so far, I have come to realize how unprepared we are if a disaster did strike, which would most likely be an earthquake living in this area.  I have bought a few things so far, like extra backpacks, and foldable knives, and this handy-dandy tool:

If anything, this fancy tool will keep the boys busy if we did end up getting stuck somewhere! (Knock on wood!!!)  I still have a lot to stock up to be prepared for a disaster.  I think I am still in denial about the "Big One" that everyone keeps talking about.  Based on the training, you are suppose to have an emergency bag for each of your family member, plus one in the car, and also one in the office.  That's 6 backpacks!!!  And then, also a gallon of water per person for at least 3 days.  That's at least 12 gallons of water!!!  The other problem I guess is trying to figure out where to put all this.  I am still trying to sort out the garage.

Speaking of garage, I did take the boys to IKEA one day to pick up some more shelving.  Oh, there was no school last Wednesday for Yom Kippur.  Weird that the school did not bluntly say that, it was only written down as Holiday on the school calendar.  Anyway, I miss IKEA!!!  Just admiring some closets that I could really use in the master bedroom:

Even Graham was getting into it :-)

And then, I see a double sink in the As-Is section.  Aahhh...!!!  We could really use this.  AND... it was only $30!!!

I was so tempted to just buy it without telling Bobby and hiding it in the garage.  But it would be such a pain trying to put it into the garage.  I would have to take a lot of things out before the double sink would actually go in.  LOL!!!

So glad to see the boys working together on one of the shelves:

As the Wonder Pets would say, "What's going to work?  Team work!"

Yay!!!  Graham and Charlie did it!  Hopefully they can take over all my IKEA projects.  Except the 2nd shelf from the top was installed upside-down.  In a way, it sort of works out so things can't fall off the edge of that shelving.  Ha!

Perhaps I will try and sort out the garage tomorrow.  There are 2 more shelves to put together. Hmmm... I am already tired thinking about this.  Blah!!!

Charlie ~ Our artist

We walked by an art studio a couple of weeks ago and it prompted Charlie to ask again, "When can I take art classes?"  Well, I told him "Instead of going to a class, why don't you take a class on the computer?"

And so the minute we got home, Charlie was so excited to start an art project.  And here it is!  Charlie followed a random lesson online and he made a portrait of Mommy.  Too cute!!!

Does my hair really look like that??!  Well, the people in Bobby's office might think so because I bought a photo frame and now this portrait sits in Bobby's office. Ha!!!

In the meantime, speaking of art... I am still trying to figure out what sort of backsplash I want to install and what color I want to paint the kitchen:

The selections are endless!!!

I am thinking of painting the ceiling too and perhaps doing something else to the ceiling.  Did someone say stencils??!

I've actually already bought the pattern.  He he... let's see what Bobby thinks of it once I get started (which still might be a while).  Although, not sure if Bobby is doubting my taste recently as I took a photo of a shoe that I thought looked quite pretty.  Nothing like red and grey faux snake skin shoes! :-D

I am back painting again in the front of the house.  I did touch up the slats of the garage and am moving on to our awning.  Bobby didn't even notice the difference today!  Although it was starting to get dark when he got home.  We'll see if he notices it tomorrow!

Great-Great-Grandfather's violin (Sept 20)

Who knew there were other violinist in the family!  After visiting Grandma and Pop-pop in New Jersey this past summer, it has come to our attention that Graham and Charlie's great-great-grandfather used to play the violin!

Grandma is thinking that perhaps the violin is about 80+ years old.  It is a Stainer... and we were hoping we could retire on this discovery but unfortunately, nope!  I took it to a music store to have the violin looked at by a "luthier" - someone who builds or repairs string instruments. What a fancy name!  Anyway, the "luthier" sort of sighed and remarked about the violin's flaws when I showed him the violin.  And then he asked me if I really wanted to have it repaired.  And once he told me how much it would cost (which was a lot below of what I was expecting) I quickly said yes!

Looks so much better now :-)

Even Bobby got nostalgic about it!  He was originally not interested in having it repaired.  The music repair store recommended that I buy a new bow too but I bought some fancy rosin instead.  I am able to make a sound with the violin so I guess that's a good sign.  And perhaps I could just put a new bow on this Christmas' list this year.  Ha ha!

I have been practicing a little bit with this violin and occasionally will play the same tunes with Graham.  I have never played the violin before so this is quite the treat to learn while Graham learns.  Maybe someday Graham and I can play a Mother-son duet.  Someday... :-)

And oh, on top of this discovery - I also found out that my great grandfather on my mom's side of the family also played the violin.  My uncle in England has his violin.  How cool!!!

With all this excitement about music, we ended buying some tickets for the LA Philharmonics for December and also in the Spring.  It all started when I found out that the famous pianist Lang Lang is coming into town next April.  Charlie is so excited and so am I!  And actually Bobby is too as we bought some tickets for date-night too :-D

Water polo

Instead of learning water polo at the YMCA, we decided to join a league. It's been a month now since Graham and Charlie joined.

It's a nice big outdoor pool!

The boys have to learn what they call "egg beating" with their legs to stay afloat (turn their legs like an egg beater):

Charlie is so excited to be in water polo for the first time and is even more excited to play games.  They looks so cute with their little head-gear on :-)

Graham on the other hand, has decided to join the younger crowd/with Charlie and seems to be a bit pre-occupied with the straps of his head-gear.  This goalie is not working very hard!

I suppose you can tell how much harder Charlie worked compared to Graham. Ha ha!

Not sure how much longer Graham will be doing water polo though.  It seems that every single time he is there, there is some sort of meltdown.  We'll see what happens this Sunday.  If anything, I suppose he did manage through 5 out of 8 sessions.  Charlie on the other hand is loving every bit of it!