Halloween decorations...

We were a little late this year to do our Halloween decorations. I am not sure what has been going on with me the last few weeks but I cannot seem to get organized. Maybe it is the weather, maybe it is the fact that I am lacking a little bit on the exercise department, or maybe it is has been just an insane October; with competitions, parties, and loads and loads of laundry.

What's up with that?

There is also the stress of an upcoming competition. Sude made it to North State competitions which is in two weeks. Every time I think about it I have a knot in my stomach.

Wait a minute... This post was about the decorations... Finally I was able to manage to decorate outside with the kids and inside by myself...

Fall cleaning...

Last week was a busy week. I had a huge list of things to do and was able to go through most of them. Then the weekend rolled in with a gymnastics competition and the International Festival in town. We came out the weekend with no rest. Monday night I was in bed right after the kids at 9:00 pm...

One of the things that I did last week was to organize kid's rooms and clean out their closets. I put away summer stuff and got long sleeve pajamas and sweaters out.

This is Korman's room all cleaned up. I just love that there is no clutter...

I organized the shelves which will be all mixed up in few days. Korman has a bunk bed which is very convenient when we have sleep overs. When Sude is ready for a new bed, I am thinking of getting her a bunk bed too...

Sude's room had more work. She had some pictures and medals on top of her bed and I decided to move them to the wall across. Now we need to figure out what to hang on top her bed. She thinks it is too "empty"...

This little project left me with a messy game room. Today is my plan to start organizing game room. We shall see... I have a kid who thinks all of the tiny toys should be in a display mode on the tables all the time...

I painted the kitchen walls...

When we got our house painted before we moved in, we picked exactly the same color that we had in our previous house. It is a shade of taupe (See the ceilings...). It is a color that both I and my husband like and it works great with our trims.

But lately, I have been craving some change. Finally on a week that my husband was out of town, I got the courage to paint my kitchen walls. First I tried few color samples with no luck. Finally, I started to look for household items that had the colors that I had in mind. At the end, I took a jar of paprika to the paint store and asked them to find me the color of the spice. And they did...

It worked out great with the existing walls and gave our kitchen warmth and energy...

It took me 2 nights to finish it up. The first night was the painting and the second one was the touch up. I also rotated the kitchen table to have a better angle with the backyard and put away the carpet that was usually placed under the kitchen table.

At the end, my husband was pleasantly surprised with the results...

Backyard project - pool

This winter we have embarked into a big project in our backyard; to build a pool. To our surprise, everything went really well. The pool company did a great job, the weather was cooperative and project has finished on time.

It all started with digging a giant hole in our backyard...

Then they framed it...

Put the plumbing and steel into it...

And poured the concrete...

They framed the decking...

Poured the decking...

Put in the material that ultimately becomes the "pool"...

And filled it up... By then, spring was starting...

 Grass was looking pretty bad at the time but that is to come later...

We replaced the fence. We put wood in the back and iron on the side. It made the backyard so much bigger and now we can watch kids play in the driveway...

Put in new grass and built a walkway from the house to the pool...

And the finished product. We put flowers into the flower beds. It looks very pretty...

Living room...

For a while, I have been wanting to work on our shelves in the living room. When we moved in, I just put some things on them but lately I have been feeling they were a little dull. After looking through some web sites, I made some changes to it. There were two big changes really;

1) I added books
2) I hanged some frames

I am very happy with the results. I did not buy anything and used all the things that we have acquired through our travels. I had to steal some books from my husband's library but he did not mind...

Here is before (from Halloween)...

And here is after...

I also switched the carpet between the living room and kitchen. This one is a little smaller and lighter than the one before. I thought it was a good change for the summer since the tiles will keep everyone cool.

I have a plan for the area above the fire place but I will have to wait until the end of summer...

2011 Home Project 1

I am planning to do bunch of mini projects in the house. I do have my to-do list already and will be posting when I am done with each.

The first one was the homework closet. This is a closet next to the kitchen and I have been keeping the books, study sheets, crayons, etc in there. It is a convenient spot for the books that I get from the library, the bag that we take to gym to do homework before the practice, as well and coloring sheets,etc.

I did not have lots for shelves and space in there, thanks to my husband hijacking my shelves.

I got some new ones last weekend and assembled it with my very smarty helper. Girls rule...

Working on the shelves from IKEA...

We put some wrapping paper to the back of the shelf to jazz it up a little bit...

Ta daaaa...
After:

2010 Decorations...

This year, I was determined not to get any new decorations since I got bunch on sale last year. I am looking for a red tree for the top of fire place but still could not be able to find one. Maybe next year...

This is our kitchen table...

Fireplace...

This is a new ornament from my cousin representing our new home...

Korman picked a pair of sports shoes this year as he ran his first 5K at school... ;-)

Sude picked ice skates as she got so much better at doing ice skating this year...