Totoro Claymation Movie

The Pea loves creating stop-motion animation videos, but I think this is one of her best yet.  She filmed during our recent visit to the Children's Creativity Museum. Their Animation Studio lets kids create figures out of clay, and provides sets, backdrops, cameras, and software so they can create a stop-motion video.

This was the longest we've ever spent inside the Animation Studio -- three whole hours! Even though Totoro is a relatively simple character, The Pea took her time and spared no attention to detail, so the results are truly adorable. I'm so proud of her!

How to throw a fuss-free Indoor Soccer Party -- Jammy's 11th birthday celebration

When I asked Jammy what kind of party he wanted to throw for his 11th birthday, his answer was immediate: a soccer party at Sports House, and indoor soccer venue.

"Okay," I asked.  "Let me get this straight.  You play soccer with your friends Every. Single. Day.  And for your birthday, you want to play..... More Soccer".

Disney DIY: How To Make a Mickey Paintball Bandana

When you sign up for a paintball birthday party, you'll probably be told that the paint is washable, but you probably don't want to be wearing your best clothes. Recommended clothing includes long sleeved shirts, long sleeved shorts, close-toed shoes, and bandanas.

Since 3Po was celebrating his 11th birthday with a paintball party, I thought it would be fun to make bandanas for all his guests. And since we were giving the party a Disney theme, I decided to add a Mickey silhouette to the bandanas!  I bought 4 yards of plain white cloth, cut them into 20-inch squares, and hemmed the edges.  Then I stenciled the designs on with freezer paper.  Freezer paper stencil designs are so easy to do and the produce such great results.  I used freezer paper stencils to make Mickey shirts for last year's DisneySide party, and the project went so well, it was pretty much a given that I'd use the technique again this year.  Here's how I did it:

Halloween Costume Watch 2014: Bank Robber

Whew! The Pea's bank robber costume came right down to the wire: I came downstairs today at 7AM and found her furiously making black masks.  I told her there was no way she would be able to make it to school on time without my help at this point, so why didn't she ask for help sooner.  She said she didn't want to stress me out.  Like cutting out felt masks when I'm supposed to be doing a million other things isn't stressful!  Sigh. Kids. I do appreciate her thoughtfulness, though.

The Pea is certainly spreading her wings.  This year, she and her bank robber posse are trick or treating by themselves, without an adult.  The idea freaked me out at first -- four thirteen year-olds, on the craziest night of the year, all by themselves!!  But I consulted my Facebook posse and almost all of them said it would be okay.  And when I think about it, they're right.  The Pea and her friends are good kids, very responsible, not flighty at all.  As long as we set the appropriate boundaries (location and time wise), and ask them to check in every now and then (thank God for mobile phones!), everything will be fine.  I know they'll be fine.  I'm just not sure about me!  But I'm going to be like Elsa and LET IT GO......

Halloween Costume Watch 2014: Minnie Mouse

Minnie Mouse is such an easy and fun character that I don't know why it took me so long to dress up as her for Halloween.  She was an easy choice for this year, because I already had my hands full helping 3Po and Jammy with their costumes, and I've had this costume assembled since April!  I made the skirt and collar at the Disney Social Media Moms fun run, so I was good to go.  I just swapped my running shorts for leggings, my tech tshirt for a sleeved cotton tee, and my Minnie ears cap for a Minnie ears headband. Easy peasy!

How to make an Arabian Nights costume

Every year the PTA at our elementary school hosts a fancy dress fundraiser. It's always held on the third weekend of October, so parents like to come in a costume that matches the party theme.  This year's theme was 1001 Arabian nights, so we had a lot of Arab sheiks, sultans, genies, and belly dancers.

There's a huge variety of costumes for this theme available for sale.  Most of the women's costumes are pretty skimpy, though; they're totally inappropriate for a school social event, even an adults-only one!  And many of them require more of a $$ investment than I'm willing to make for just one night. I found it cheaper and more fun to put a costume together myself by purchasing individual costume items.

Halloween Costumewatch 2014: Chinese Dragon

I don't mind spending on Halloween costumes -- it's my favorite holiday, after all -- I try to encourage the kids to alternate between buying a costume one year, and then making or assembling it the next. I've been kind of lax in enforcing it with the boys, so this year I redoubled my efforts to get them to make their own costumes, and save a few bucks in the process.  As it turned out, I think I spent more on raw materials for this year's costumes than if I had just bought costumes from a store.... but we did have a great time making the costumes, and they ended with kickass costumes that will blow those generic store-bought costumes out of the water!

How to make a Lego minifigure case

When we moved 3Po and Jammy into their own room, we told them they could set it up and decorate it however they wanted.  Unlike The Pea, who has grand plans of wall organizers and posters and beaded light fixtures in her room, the boys asked for only 2 things:  they wanted their room to be green and blue (their favorite colors), and they wanted shelves to display some of their Lego Star Wars sets.  I found the coolest Lego minifigure display cases on Pinterest, so I decided to use them as inspiration to make some of my own. Here's how I did it:

A room of their own

When we first began thinking of adding a second story to our bungalow, The Pea was an only child.  3Po and Jammy weren't even a twinkle in Alfie's eye, let alone two.  So our plan was to add 2 upstairs rooms, one for The Pea and another for us.  I suppose we could have changed our plans once the boys were conceived and born, but we didn't really have the space or the money for the third room, so we decided to let all 3 kids share a room.

That's how it has been for 8 years.

Our kitchen remodel: Putting on a new face

 The Pea and I in our kitchen, 11 years ago

Since moving in to our home, we've made quite a few changes to our kitchen --  replaced the ceiling lights, replaced the stove, repainted the walls.  But the mainstay of our kitchen, the thing that gives our kitchen its look and feel -- the white cabinets -- have remained.

The cabinets came with the house, so we have no idea how old they actually are, but after seeing them deteriorate year after year, it was time for a change.  Some of the cabinet doors were falling off their hinges, and some had paint peeling and flaking off from water damage.  Simply changing the doors and drawer fronts was not enough, because we wanted to change the color of the cabinets from white to cream.  Since we were happy with the general layout, we decided on cabinet refacing instead of outright replacement.  This was too big a job to do on our own, so we found a contractor who seemed well established and charged reasonable rates.  We picked out our cabinet and drawer colors and styles, chose some hardware, and began the Refacing Phase.

Our kitchen remodel: Everything but the kitchen sink

We probably spend more time in our kitchen than in any other room in our home, but we've never given it the same amount of attention, design-wise, that we've given to our other rooms. It was high time to redecorate, so we embarked on Project Kitchen Remodel on November 21, 2011. We hired a contractor to refinish our kitchen cabinets (and that's the subject of a future post!) , but Alfie, the kids and I did everything else. We reframed the windows. We painted the walls, the baseboards, the cabinets and the windows. We changed the light fixtures. We restored the wooden butcher block on our center island. (I say "we", but in all fairness I have to give most of the credit to Alfie; the kids and I were the supporting cast).

Except for choosing a piece of artwork for one of the kitchen walls, we're finally done. It was a long, slow, difficult process, and it has taken me a while to recover from the trauma, but I'm finally ready to relive the experience, so over the next couple of months I'll be writing posts about the various areas we transformed, starting with the area around our kitchen sink.

I'm forever forgetting to take proper "Before" photos, but here's a shot to give you an idea of what we started out with:

Things I have learned about painting a kitchen

My parents are very ascetic people when it comes to their surroundings. As long as a house is clean and comfortable, they don't really care what it looks like. This is quite an admirable trait in the sense that they don't need a big home or lavish furnishings to live happily, but it also means that their home has aged right alongside them. It also means that I don't know the first thing about Do-It-Yourself home remodeling. My idea of hanging a picture is taking any old nail and banging it into a wall.

Admittedly, I'm not the first person you'd call to paint a kitchen.

The end is nigh... I think

It has been about 7 years since we added a second story to our home. Although we've continued to improve our front and back yards, the only things we've done indoors have been minor projects like replacing grout and installing an attic fan. Our home still looks great, but 7 years of living and eating and playing and partying and containing 3 active (and messy) kids has taken its toll. What was once a newsworthy remodel that people actually paid to see has been getting a bit shabby around the edges. So we decided it was high time to freshen up our home, and we decided to start with the kitchen.

That was almost 3 months ago.