MY CRAFT ROOM IN PROGRESS...

My youngest daughter's 3rd birthday is coming up next week and I wanted to wrap up some presents...so I went upstairs to our

(craft, wrapping, office, odds and ends room...you know we all have some where like it....)

and it was a MESS!

I couldn't take it anymore....

i went down to our  garage and stole a IKEA wire rack that was holding our christmas stuff...

i'll worry about the garage later...i was on a mission and i didn't want to spend any money...

and 1 hour later i have the start of a future craft room...

so exciting...

CRAFT ROOMS

I love organizing...and I love Craft rooms here are some great pictures of some I found...

WE'VE BEEN GETTING AROUND

From the BEACH to the BAY...I love SAN DIEGO!...

we've been enjoying our great city here are some pictures....

SOME PICTURES OF THE JERSEY SHORE

THE JERSEY SHORE

In a few weeks i am taking my family to NEW YORK and NEW JERSEY to see where i grew up...

for the first time...i'm sooo excited...i grew up just a few steps from the sand...i could never live too far away from the ocean...we have a connection...the beaches in New Jersey are BEAUTIFUL...

clean, well kept, combed every morning nice and smooth just the way i like it...sea shells, sea glass, star fish, long, long stretches of board walk....ahhhh...i hope they like it as much as i did every summer....fire flies and crickets, the ice cream man, the kiddie rides at the board walk, salt water taffy, sandy feet, not a care in the world.... i absolutely LOVED it there in the summer...

now for the long cold winters not so much...this is why i sought out somewhere that was ALWAYS warm and sunny...good ol' SAN DIEGO!

BUT for now.... a little stroll down memory lane for me...and a new adventure for my family....

We are going to start out in NEW YORK CITY... CENTRAL PARK ...since that's where we are flying into...then a drive down the coast to the tip of New Jersey to CAPE MAY... we rented a beach house there for a week...then back up to POINT PLEASANT BEACH where i went to high school... i can't wait to take my own pictures...but for now here are a few shots of the house in Cape May....and some of the Jersey Shore....

to be continued... 

WATCH OUT I"M GOING HOME!!!!!

I LOVE ROSES!!!

My husband and my oldest girl came home with these cut roses for me the other day...i loved them and they were so hardy they lasted two whole weeks...the purple rose one the bottom just bloomed in my front yard...i love roses... i would love for them to grow everywhere in my garden, but there is an art to them that i lack... i try... some thrive, some don't...but it sure is great when you seen one bloom...

TOMATOES!

All year i have been boycotting buying tomatoes at the store...1. because the are taste-less..and 2.the are about $1 A PIECE!!!

i miss  New Jersey tomatoes... so i am growing some this year...i think they are looking pretty good...

can't wait to taste them...and the kids LOVE helping with the gardening...

WHAT I'M THANKFUL FOR...

so many things...but today i want to give thanks to the fact that i get to be a MOM....

i get to be the "hostess" to two special lives...to share in all the fun of dress up, tea parties, hide and go seek, bubbles, nap time, butterfly kisses, tickles, giggles and hugs...and to be there to make a little better... owies, tummy aches, hurt feelings, misunderstandings, bad choices, mean words, hard days...thank you Sophia and Lucie for letting me be your MOM....

MORE FLEA MARKET FINDS....

i collect vintage christmas ornaments...one of the few things i do collect...this weekend i found 5 boxes when i was out shopping with my friend...I also found a Anthropologie-ish chair that i had steam cleaned...i'm hoping to learn to make slip covers in the near future and i thought this would be a good project chair...but still cute without the cover...we have started taking pictures of our finds...mostly the things we find get turned into presents for friends and family...some are just little things we find for our girls ( she also has a daughter)...and of course some a great little treasures that make a house a home....

SOME FLEA MARKET FINDS...

Soo, i was complaining about missing my marble counters the other day right?

well i happened on a large piece of it today....it's a really rather thrifty compromise, (at $5 whole dollars)

and it's large enough for cut cookies or pie crust...i have a feeling that some baking will be going on in our house soon...

DREAMING OF A ROCK PATH....

We have a little cottage behind our house and when it rain you have to walk through mud to get to it...so it's been on our "to do list" since we moved in...two seasons passed and still no rock path...then one day  about a month ago my husband informs me he is going to start on the rock path..."REALLY!!!!!" "OK!!!"

here are some before and afters....

today my mother-in-law thoughtfully brought over not one but two beautiful rose climbers for our arbor...as a early Mothers Day gift...I was thrilled!

SOPHIA AND LUCIE AND THE MARBLE...

here are some of the memories.....

I LOVE MARBLE COUNTERS

I miss my old counter top in our old house...this is a picture of the finished kitchen.... when we first moved in there was a layer of cheap Formica over two layers of dirty tile...i lived with the kitchen ripped up for 6 months....the fridge. was in the garage and the counters were just plywood waiting for the marble...ohhh i loved making cookie and pie crust right on the couter...it was awesome... sadly now i'm back to tile and grout...i'm dislike my grout and i do not love making cookies and pies on my grout....one day i will have my old counter tops back until then i have fond memories of my pretty little kitchen...