it's going to be a lot of fun!

look at all this fun stuff!

Handmade Trunk Show
Rue de Lyon & Sweet Petula
invite you to join us
Saturday, May 10th
10am-6pm

Stop by and enjoy special treats and great giveaways
all while shopping for handmade gifts from a few
of the area’s talented artists. Discover beautiful
handmade jewelry, home decor, gifts for baby, custom
pet portraits, and more. Artists will be present for you
to chat with as you shop their remarkable creations.
*Pet portraits require an appointment. Please call Rue de Lyon (325.3682)

2717 East Madison & 2719 East Madison
Celebrate!
Saturday, May 10th

“The world is mud-lusc ious
and puddle-wonderful.”
e.e. cummings

look at all this fun stuff!!

a sneak peak of the new line!

it's like camping

when you don't have a computer.
normally i cry and whine and dig a hole in the backyard or something to get over the pain of not being able to access my computer for a long period of time. i experience this when we travel to seattle or whidbey. it feels like being locked in a dark closet without food or water. our computer monitor started flickering a few weeks ago and we shipped it off to texas last night to get repaired. AND I DONT CARE. i got such an amazing stash of FANTASTIC beads i don't even know what to do with myself. i have no words. i have been busy making what i think is the BEST pieces that i have ever made. and let me tell you, you are going to LOVE them. i cannot wait! the hard part is i wont be able to list them for most likely 2 weeks. it's killing me, but it's SO worth the wait. stay tuned!

a few new additions this weekend. more to come!

pineapple quartz
vintage glass pale pink trumpet flowers

vintage glass melon

vibrant teal flowers on brass

lots of pretties will be listed this weekend!

welcome little one!

we are aunts and uncles again!
Madeliene Grace Keating was born on Saturday April 12th 2008 at 8:10pm
she weighed 7lbs 15oz and we cannot wait to meet her!
Congratulations to Julie and Stephen and US! :) whoo hooo.

ikea $500 winner...

i am sure most of you know i TOTALLY WON THE 500 gift card to IKEA in december...but in case i did not tell you, I TOTALLY WON THE 500 GIFT CARD TO IKEA.

i was just on their IKEA MOBILE site and i saw my name! i feel like a celebrity. i wish that my friend jo would have won as well, but maybe next year. there are people at my work that are thinking "suuuure you "won" whatever..." so i am enclosing the link so you can see that I WON.

i have yet to spend it. the last trip we made to seattle i forgot it, but we had NO room to bring things back, so it was probably best. scroll to the bottom red part and there i am!

ann, jo and i had often wondered how many winners there were. there were 15 total and then some lucky duck named Karyn won the jackpot at 5,000! can you imagine?! how awesome.

http://info.ikea-usa.com/mobile/seattle/

sunday, april 13th

well we can say that we enjoyed all that spring had to offer us today. we never did eat outside, but we spent a lot of time out walking about and seeing the sights that we missed all winter long. we are back at our walks on the centennial trail three times a week. after work every tues and friday we have a pic-nic on the grass. we also do walks on sunday. its 40 mn of walking that we very much need. after all, i do eat all.day.long. here is what we saw when we got there. not the empty park that we are used to. there were tons of people and birds.

so many people were there, the birds were already full. so they left. just like that.

we enjoyed a wonderful birthday lunch for me courtesy of our friends mark, julie and dylan.
we all love the Mustard Seed and lanna especially loves it for the cool 'monkey water' that you get.

our fortunes were all PERFECT. we had a good laugh.
rachel's
lanna's
nathan's
FANTASTIC!!! So, the only question WHEN am i leaving!!?? and WHERE am i going? i love it. we all kept them.

oh, and we had dessert.

lanna fell asleep in the stroller from all the raging fun we had.
and now for the random photo of the asparagus tart that i made when we got home. it was delicious and will be posted in my recipe section.

helloooooo spring! saturday.

the milk bottle restaurant

it has finally arrived! and she is feeling very bad that we have been given such a long winter that she feels that she has to make it all up in one weekend. fine by me! 6 months of snow that we had. we woke up to 60 degree weather and what is really better than that? i will tell you. 70 degrees just a few hours later. there was a light breeze and oh so much sun. winter is over. want to know why? i SWEPT MY PORCH. i am pretty sure that if mother nature does not want to get punched in the face by me, she will leave winter behind me.

saturday was cam's birthday and i could not have ordered better weather for her.
happy birthday my dear!

we took it easy and picked up our pottery that we painted last weekend. masterpieces as you can imagine. i will post them later. we had lunch at the milk bottle which is just 2 mn from our house. a great kids place. they are a little burger/salad/milkshake & ice cream joint. its like they forgot to update their prices in 1980 and left it as that. the burgers are 4.oo! a big side of fries 1.20 shhhh...
no one tell them, they might catch on. it is beautiful again today and we plan to take a walk and who knows, we might just get wild and EAT OUTSIDE.

lanna got new shades and a matching purse as a potty training gift.

a sweet petula blog about me. check it out!

http://sweetpetula.blogspot.com/2008/04/nice-hooters.html
pretty cool!

bingo!

the last two weeks have been tiring. lanna has been sleeping in shifts and wakes up twice nightly to ask for cheese crackers. (cheese nips). she is grossly addicted to them. sadly this is one of the items that we got at costco. she asks for them all hours of the day. i will be sleeping soundly and be alarmed to the whine of "i neeeeeeed some cheese crackers puhleasaaaseeeeee". we ry to ignore her a few times in hopes it stops, but it just gets worse. "i reeeeealy neeeeeeeeeed some cheeeeeeeeeese crackeeeeerrrrrssssss.....PUUUUHLEEEAAAASEEEEEE".
and then is followed by "mom! hey mommy....mommy did you hear me?! Daddy! dad, come here, i need you! hurry...can you hear me? MOM i'm in here! i need some cheese crakers" it's the plea of help from someone that has been stuck in a well for a week and they see a cheese cracker at the very top and need to reach it to survive.
OH MY GOD WE HEAR YOU!!!!
here, eat your cheese cracker and for the love of cheese GO TO SLEEP. my eyes burn.

this potty training thing has gone on for 9 years now and i am just at the end of my patience for it. we hit a milestone this week. she is on day 8 today with NO accidents. it has just been wonderful. I will accept very little sleep for dry pants. it's a great trade to me. We threw a little party tonight when she pooped int he potty. she was on strike for 5 days and did not go. she insisted that she did not have to, and she would when she felt like she needed to go. 5 days is a long time. she was not bloated or did not appear to be constipated, so i was not going to freak out until tomorrow. man i am sure glad i don't have to freak out about that tomorrow. that's at least 45 mn saved.

p.s.
we are watching Alvin and the Chipmunks right now and alvin just said "holy nuts"
you can bet your nuts that will be in my immediate vocabulary.

sunday.

we have nathan home now on the weekends which has just been wonderful. he is a monday thru friday, so we get to do a little extra on the weekends. today we took a stroll to the mall and painted some pottery.there is a weekend star wars marathon so we broke out our light sabers.

that's how we roll.

she's got cabs...and she knows how to use them!

on the way to get daddy from work

(RHCP 'under the bridge' is playing)

lanna: this song is from the wiggles!

me: uh, no. this is red hot chili peppers, and i don't think they ever opened for the wiggles.

lanna: wow, i love jellie peppers!!

sweet victory

we went to costco for the first time in 3 years. it's been hard to store things where we live now, because we don't really have any cupboards besides the ones our cookware is in. it was glorious. we snuck out of work 30 mn early (i asked, i didn't really sneak out) but it felt sneaky. nathan and i were able to roam the big beautiful isles completely childless. it was like santa knocked on my door to tell me that i won the publishers clearing house sweepstakes wearing nothing but ikea utensils. it was beautiful.
goooo costco!

ooh la la

www.rachel323.etsy.com

like lentil soup?

i do. a lot.
i just posted a wonderful lentil soup recipe under my 'favorite recipes' section. i suggest you try it.
i added half of a can of diced tomatoes and 1 Tsp. of Tomato Paste.

well, it WAS spring

if it snows in 3 days, we will have had snow for 6 mos.

this was yesterday when it started to snow. we have since accrued 3 lovely inches. you can imagine how i feel about that. i guess it's cleaning day...

the long long road, then a missed boat or four

what a lovely mini vacation it was. never long enough. we set out to whidbey island, and naturally made it there in record time because we drive 90. ok, 80, but i wish that we dove 90. nathan and i had our much needed date a nice 'day to ourselves'. we get this about 2 times a year, so there was no way we would skip out on this. PLUS, it was kind of celebrated as my birthday and o got to spend the whole day buying whatever i wanted and i did just that. after a long hard grueling day of hardcore shopping we headed back to the boat which of course we missed. the universe would actually fall off it's tiny little axle should we make it. can't have that happen, so we volunteered to miss the boat by one entire minute. it was awesome. lot's of words were had. we jetted to hans and cam's new place, which is just darling. we were made a really great dinner. we loved it so much that i had to go buy all the ingredients tonight so i can make it too. we laughed the night away as usual and then left with full bellies and a slightly drunk husband. we made a wrong turn and ended up in the Gabeliens driveway. there was a deer standing right in front of us and my husband drunkenly remarked "did you see the look on his face? it was like a deer in the headlights"...and i lost it. i had to pull over to laugh really hard and then blow my nose.

easter. you can read more about that in cam's blog as well. it's pretty damn funny.
lanna hunted for eggs with a magnifying glass-what else? the easter bunny brought her a woody. relax, it's a doll.

hans, cam and my dad came over and we ate and chatted all day, and it was really great. the weather was really confused so we stayed inside to beat some kids up and put potatoes on their heads. it was great.

hans (nord) and cam.

lanna and pop pop

monday we met nathan's mom at the dog house for a lovely lunch. we had a nice visit and a walk around langley. nathan and i got our rings cleaned by Pat, the man who made our rings and it is always nice to see him. nathan's mom brought us all kinds of goodies that we got to take back with us.
tuesday we headed to the ferry that we missed by another cursed minute where we headed to have lunch with the usual suspects. i was forced to eat subway, but somehow i lived. i am still amazed. i loved doot's comment on that. in a very angry tone, "i guess i'll eat fresh..."
the hub was closed on the count of spring break, so yo have to take what you can get. it was that or a frozen burrito called the "BOMB". we chose subway so there would not be a BOMB in our pants i suppose. who knows. we then headed off to kind of the whole purpose of this trip...ann and jo's house. i had a new bundle of perfect cuteness to meet. daphne. what a snuggle bunny. she is absolutely adorable and looks so much like all three of them! i can't decide who she looks more like. they have a little downstairs apartment like area that was just perfect for us. lanna and lij were like 2 peas in a pod. they had all of the same toys and interests. she is still going on and on about him. she missed him dearly before we even got out of seattle. on the way out ann took us out to lunch at red robin and we had super yummy lunches. the kids drew their masterpieces and pretended to eat while daphne just took it all in. she is such a great baby. lanna and daphne. she really took to her.

it was so hard to say goodbye. i just wanted to stay the rest of the day.
lanna and lijah
we then headed home. we made a quickie stop at the north bend outlets because god forbid that i pass up a gap outlet and wonder what could have been. i love this stretch of road when we hit vantage. it is my favorite piece of road all along this whole trip. it is generally the most sunny, dry and right on the columbia river. it is also exactly the half way point to our house. so you can kind of take a deep breath here and realize that it's almost over and you butt can take a break from being totally numb.

here are a few of the wonderful birthday gifts that i got.
delicious vanilla bean tea..thank you miss shelly.
prints from the black apple. thank you cam and nord! (yes, they are already hung)

the week was wonderful. the end.