what we mean by finishing the attic

We are finishing our attic so we can have guests with us. We're on a deadline to finish it in the coming week and a half. If is further along than in this picture, but this is similar to what we started with. The space will be great and quite large when completed.
Mike and I painted the trim tonight so it will be ready after we get the floors put in. We have a lot of work ahead of us in these next weeks!

a robot plate, please.

I have been inspired by Marshall's drawings lately. He is a little creative genious!
So, I bought some thrift store dishes that seemed to be new restaurant dishes, and we found a kind of paint that is dishwasher/microwave safe and started drawing. We're coming out with some incredible robot and alien life designs.
Check out a breif article about an art show that my work was in. One of my peices is featured in the photograph. It's called "Shoefitti by the School" which was inspired by having children and thinking about school options for them. Oh, the creativity that children bring! http://nuvo.net/articles/save_the_buildings/

nigel loves onigiri

Tonight we ate tilapia and rice ball (onigiri).
The way it has been described to me, onigiri is the equivalent of the American sandwich. They have many options at convenient stores, including barbeque beef, tuna, chicken, seaweed, plum and even omlette.
Some rice ball have the ingredient in the inside and can be wrapped with seaweed (nori) and some have seaweed in the rice with one or two other flavors.
Here, Nigel enjoys a salmon rice ball.

we missed the lilacs, I think

We visited Holcolm Gardens to walk the lilac garden, but there were only a few still in bloom. I think we were a little late. I suppose we'll try again next year.

I am anxiously waiting for my peonies to bloom. They are my ultimate favorite and should bloom soon and remain until Mid June.

While I admired the flowers, the boys toured the best climbing trees in the garden. Here they are with their favorites, which Marshall said was the tree of knowledge of good and evil since it was in the middle of the garden.

kaori is home tonight

Kaori has taken her place for the evening! Here she sits as we await an all new LOST episode. And I along side her, procrastinating, but pretending to work. We love that she hangs out with us and really puts herself into our lives. She makes herself available to conversation and is again falling into English quite nicely.

dressing up

Mike and I dressed-up for our friend's wedding this last Saturday. I was pretty excited to wear a thrift store $3 dress that was beautiful. Because I felt I like I "saved" money on my dress, I bought Mike a new shirt and tie. I think dressing-up is so fun when you know your clothes cannot be instantly ruined by shmeary hands and snotty noses. Dressing-up to go out without kids was pretty great. AND, it meant we had someplace fun to be.

obama boys

Mike took Marshall biking to the Barak Obama rally downtown tonight. They heard Stevie Wonder and they're listening to Obama now.

He gives off such great energy! It's easy to be convinced by him, not so much about policy but more about the excitement that he can bring to everyone.

The boys like cheering for him outside today (and it wasn't our idea)!

(re)coutour and endangerd historic landmarks art show

I contributed two larger peices and five tiny peices to the endangered historic landmarks show. The top one pictured is called "Division at the School" and is made from division flash cards and a sewn rendering of the endangered school called the Lowell School. The bottom peice is called "Shoefitti at the School". It's focal points are discarded children's shoes that have game peices glued to them and then painted. The smaller shoes are made up of cities and the larger shoes are made up of warriors and army figurines.

I also contributed a hat to the (re)coutour show that is made up of sewn peices of cereal bags.

soccer saturdays

Marshall's team is called the Meteors. They are super fun to watch. There is some ball playing and even more sillyness playing, as is to be expected of young soccer students. So we sit on the sideline, chasing Stewart and Nigel, talk with other parents, cheer a bit and laugh a lot.

Nigel speaks with his eyes!

a conversation with nana