New exercise bike

Well, technically it's not new.  It's another one of those neighborhood App purchases!  Maybe I need to just uninstall that App on my phone.  I definitely browse on it too much.  Ha ha!

The bike just managed to fit into the back of the minivan.  I don't think Bobby was too happy about this purchase because it was probably more than what he wanted to pay for AND this means I'm going to nag him about using it!  Plus, he says all my other "equipment" is just taking up too much space AND collecting dust.  Hmm... perhaps he does have a point but that's besides THIS point :-)

Boys are testing out the bike by hee-ing and hoo-ing, like they are rowing a boat:

Maybe the boys will use it too! 

The seat goes all the way down to the bottom, so Charlie can use it as well.  Here he is within just a few seconds of pedaling:

Too funny!!!  And actually, I was on the bike for 5 minutes today and within the first minute or so, I was already feeling the burn on my thighs.  And by about the 3 1/2 minute mark, my heart rate was definitely starting to pump harder.  Good thing I only set myself up for 5 minutes! Plus, by then I had to switch off the sprinklers :-)

And thinking we needed some sort of resistance on the bike, that is definitely not necessary now!  Hope to get some more minutes in.  Those 5 minutes on the bike only burned like 70-some calories.  I suppose it's still more than zero!  That will account for a few gulps of that cookies-and-cream milkshake I had this afternoon with lunch.  And oh, also those mini almond biscotti that I had with my coffee this morning.  Hmm.... sounds like I need a lot more minutes on the exercise bikes to cover even just that.  LOL!!!

Bobby has yet to get on the bike routine.  I hope he does soon and just not make the exercise bike as part of another piece of outdoor furniture :-P

Even more stenciling

 I just can't help myself with these stenciling projects!  Although with this one, we are using Charlie's "snowflake" creations.  He has cut up a lot of paper snowflakes and have stuck them on the sliding door that leads to the backyard.  I've been trying to get them down and so far the only way to convince him is to paint it on the pavers on the side of the house:

It's a good thing we have plenty of cardboxes so I was able to paste the "snowflakes" on them and create a border.  Charlie, in the meantime has been making baby stone towers while I get these sorted out:

Hmmm.... not what I expected!  This definitely looks like those Rorschach's ink blots.  Ha ha!

I couldn't find the other color that matches the house trim, so we are using the color of our master bedroom.  It definitely does not look like the same color when it's on these pavers!  

Not too bad??? I think it looks better in person.  And actually, I think the color worked out too because it's not too much "in your face" so to speak :-)

And we have how many more to go??!  I think we're just going to work on the square ones.  So we need 12 more!  Easy-peasy right?

Well, 2 weekends later and we still haven't finished up the stenciling on this side yard.  And we still have "snowflakes" on the sliding door.  Ha!  It's going to hot this week so maybe we'll get back to it after this heat wave is over.  

A friend that recently moved into another rental home gave us a couple of dressers and I was hoping to get one of them in Charlie's bedroom.  I suppose I could work on that while it's hot outside.  Just maybe :-P

Recent happenings

We decided to splurge on a Palos Verdes blanket last week.  It was a choice between this colored one:

... or a one-colored one.  The store had other colors too but this brown one was hanging in the store:

We picked the colored one.  Love it!  It has most of the iconic places around us.  Right now, we have it hanging by the boys' TV/living room.  I think I want to hang it somewhere else where I can actually see it.  Still deciding then... hmmm....

While I was in the store, I found these pair of sandals.  They were pretty comfy but not sure if they were $100 comfy!  I'll have to think about these, but according to the store owner - a lot of people were recommended this brand of sandals for foot issues (and of course, she was trying to sell me a pair, right??):

One of Bobby's work shirt had a nice rip by the elbow so as usual, we are going to use the boys' iron-on patches.  These patches never quite stick properly so I decided to reinforce it by sewing it too.  I'm glad it was just the first stitch where I accidentally stitched another part of the shirt.  Otherwise, I would have been quite mad!

He he... I hope Bobby likes shooting stars! :-D

Our snail "Zebra" is trying to escape again!!!  But so far he has not gone beyond the lip.  Phew!

I was rummaging through some old things and going through a box in the garage and found a whole bunch of names!  It's a list of names suggested by my mother-in-law for either Graham or Charlie before they were born.  Precious!

I finally finished up clearing the side yard.  Here's the before:

Ta da!!!  Hmmm... looking pretty bare now.  Ha ha!  But at least the ivy is under control and soon enough, those flowers will be sprouting again.  

These flowers... I have no idea what they are called.  There are ones with pink flowers too:

In the meantime, our green big spider is still in the yard!

And yesterday, our neighbor came by to chat with us for a few minutes.  And while he was there, I noticed a giant grasshopper in our garden!  And he said his turtle would eat it so he just grabbed the big grasshopper by it's leg (it was at least 2.5" long!) and off he went.  Ha ha!

Busy Charlie

 Just a few photos of Charlie.  Here he is busy at "school" at home:

I thought Charlie did a great job with his Minion drawing!

Charlie making a mess of his face while having ice-cream:

Charlie is doing really well with his music too.  He is almost finishing up his 2nd level of his piano book.  Can't believe he's been learning for over 1 year now! 

Here was his last piece: "Down by the Station"

Never a dull moment with this kid, I tell you.  I wish I could send him back to school!!!

More decals

I've been looking through lots of inspirational sayings for a while now as I was going to paint them on the boys' bathroom.  There are so many to choose from!  There were lots of Dr. Seuss ones which I thought would be fun, but I didn't want it to look too busy.  Actually, I was going to put several all over the one wall so they can read it while they are on the john :-)

But anyway, I finally bought this one.  Hopefully it will be one that Graham and Charlie will live by:

Looks pretty good!  Although, the instructions were terrible and I didn't realize you were suppose to take these stickies out after you put them on the wall.  You can see how it's reflecting off the light:

There!  Much better, although you probably can't really tell the difference.  But trust me, it looks much better.  And I still love the new pendant light fixture too!

Yup... that's the message.  Be Kind! :-)

Music decals

I got tired of having the violins on the floor and also having the ukulele on my foot-stool.  Although, it was definitely convenient having the ukulele on the foot-stool as I would just open it up and strum a few strings occasionally :-)

I'm glad the hooks that I bought worked out, but somehow... something was just missing:

Here goes! Don't mind the curtain rods... I've been wanting to hang drapes for months, but somehow just haven't figured out the who, what, where, and how yet:

So in the meantime, here are the selection of decals.  So many!  I told Charlie to remind me not to over-do it (same rule as stenciling, I guess, he he):

Charlie is my little helper when it comes to decorating:

He was so careful and he wasn't quite sure where to put the decals, but he was like "I'm going to try it anyway and be creative."  Ha ha, I was so surprised by those words as he was not afraid to try different designs.  Too cute!

I really need to just paint over that white switch plate to the same color as the wall.  It sort of stands out a bit.  But nevertheless, here's our handy-dandy work!  I may have overdone it, just a tad.  So much for saving some of those decals.  Lol!!!

Ta da!!!  Here is our little music section, so to speak.  The violin on the top is the one that belongs to Graham and Charlie's great great grandfather.  And the violin below that is one that I have purchased 2nd-hand from someone from the neighborhood App, along with the ukulele (bottom right).  I think we are just missing a guitar.  I have one more space/spot above the ukulele, so that why I can cover up the ugly switch plate too :-)

We have so many of Graham's old violins sitting around - both the 1/4 size and the 1/2 size.  I should probably try and sell them??  It could at least take care of some of my spending habits :-P

Installing 2nd pendant light

I finally installed the 2nd pendant light in the boys' bathroom last weekend.  I did send Bobby and Graham and Charlie out of the house so no one would complain that the power is off. Ha!

There was actually one piece/part of the pendant light that was missing, so it took me a while to figure what that part was even called!  So it made my online search even more difficult.  I suppose I could have just taken the part to the store, but that would be too easy :-P

So if you compare these 2 pictures (above and below), it was basically this ring/screw that was missing.  It's basically called the "collar screw", which makes sense now that I know what it is!

And while I was installing the pendant light, the crossbar/(metal) plate was somehow not long enough to attach to the recessed light converter kit.  So the whole process took longer than expected, as I had o ditch the new parts other than just using the new collar screw with the existing parts.  Was I expecting anything else???!

If anything, I think it looks pretty good.  Ta da!!!

I found a couple of Graham and Charlie's dinosaur painting when we lived in Abu Dhabi.  Thought I'd hang those in their bathroom.  Too cute! :-)

This seems to be all the electrical work... for now. Bobby did suggest taking out the florescent lights on the back patio and putting in a nice fan/light combo.  We'll see.  That seems a lot more complicated!

Poor Tiger, the snail

Our little Tiger (snail) has died!  I'm not exactly sure why but maybe the water was getting too dirty.  I knew I should have changed it out the day before (this was 10 days ago):

I found Tiger upside down in the fish bowl.  Poor thing!  And for whatever reason, Zebra - our other snail, ended up way up on the top of the bowl.  It has never done that before!

Ya... water is pretty filthy :-/

I put everyone is a measuring cup.  It seems to be the only thing I could think of to put everyone in.  I think Zebra is sad that Tiger is dead, as he climbs over him:

I walked away for a few minutes and then Zebra is all the way at the lip of the measuring cup!!! He's trying to run away!!!

Well, for whatever reason the water in the fish bowl is getting dirty pretty quickly.  I'll have to check on how much Fishy gets fed every day.  It's such a chore to clean out the fish tank after a few days! But so far so good, I think Fishy has survived for about a month now.  Yay!!!  I hope Graham has forgotten about the lizard he had wanted if Fishy lived for this long :-P

Random recent happenings

The boys have been doing PE once a week.  Charlie has PE first thing Thursday morning.  He was doing it outside until the air was not so good these past couple of weeks. I really should join Charlie.  I'm getting out of shape! Unless round or oval is considered one :-)

I ordered some cheapy earrings online.  It took forever to arrive! But when it finally did, the earring hung really long/low under my ear lobes.  So I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I can be quite handy with a pair of pliers.  Ha ha!  Again, good thing these were cheapy earrings :-P

I didn't trim off the same length for each of the earrings but they will work a lot better on my ear!

I was also able to fix Bob's birthday watch.  The little pin came off so I used garden wires to put it back together.  Told you I was handy with a pair of pliers!

This is what happens when Graham eats store-bought banana bread.  He picks out all the walnuts:

Look at the figs from our other tree (the bottom ones).  They are so much bigger!  

Unfortunately, we haven't had too many figs from this other tree.  Oh well, but so far I have come to realized that I need to pick the ripe figs before the squirrel steals them.  I caught him sniffing around the fig tree today and he wasn't even afraid.

I'm glad Charlie brings out the chess set to play with occasionally:

Look at these pretty flowers!  I just need them to grow a whole lot more to cover up more ground in the back:

I told Charlie to draw a snail - so we can put it by our house number along the curb.  I thought he did a really good job!  He copied the snail planter that we have in our front yard :-)

I added some colors and patterns just like in a book on Aborigine objects and animals.  I haven't painted it yet on the curb.  Maybe this weekend:

I told Charlie to put away the recycling bin under the kitchen sink.  Hmm... no wonder I'm getting more white hairs on my head:

We recently purchased one of these air quality monitors.  Somehow, 2 fire alarms have gone off now - one in Charlie's room and the other in the hallway near the boys' room.  And there was no fire!  Could it have been carbon monoxide??? Anyway, maybe this monitor will help. And hopefully the fire department won't be dispatched again.  At least it is good to know that our security company was efficient! 

Another weekend and some more of the side yard cleared up:

It's too bad the garbage truck only emptied out one green bin so I could only fill out one of them this time:

The weather is getting nicer these past few days.  I guess it's time to start doing some more outdoor projects and as usual, there's always something!

And the wall paper finally arrived.  I'll have to find some time to get that put up too for our bathroom.  Hopefully it won't turn out too hideous.  Lol!!! :-P