Mellow Lane: April 2013

In the area where we live in Southern California, we are surrounded by many beautiful, large homes. I shouldn't say surrounded, because our house is actually surrounded by small California ranch houses that look similar to the one in which we live. But in the area, there are many big, gorgeous houses. Each year, the Pasadena Showcase House of Design chooses one of these big, beautiful houses and sets loose a bevy of designers to do their thing. After a quick four month turn around, the house is opened to the public to tour, admire and raise money for local music programs. It's estimated that this year 40,000 people will tour the house. My good friend Courtney was fortunate enough to be one of the designers chosen to design one of the bedroom suites this year. I have been "selected" to be one of the docents in Courtney's room. (*By selected I mean I volunteered my services as cheap labor. And by cheap I mean free.) It's been really fun. I even got in trouble yesterday because there was too much of a back up in our room. Can I help it if I'm representing the best room in the house? If you want to see some pictures of the room in progress, check out Court's blog at http://strongstudiodesigns.blogspot.com
She doesn't have any pictures up yet of the finished product. Oh crap. That's my job. Better get on that...

We also have a home tour every spring of local "real" people's houses in our town as a fundraiser for the junior high school. One of the houses is a 12,000 square foot Normandy estate. I'm sure our whole house could fit into the master bedroom.

All this talk of home tours has gotten me thinking about what people will see if they come on a home tour of our home. Let me give you a sneak peek of what you would see. I know you're super excited to see it, so I'll just give you a little preview!

As you meander up the driveway, look to your right to notice the flower beds. Lavender, society garlic, day lilies surround the base of a birch tree. Feel free to pick a few weeds. Wait. That gives me an idea. Pick a few weeds. Ten apiece. That will be your entrance fee. Mind your step on your way up the driveway. The driveway hasn't been swept in awhile and is carpeted with crap that falls from the tree next door. As you approach the front door, make sure you notice the basketball hoop. Attached you will find the remains of a "raccoon trap" that Zachary built last year. The planter box has a unique element! Instead of plants, you will find old pots, wooden spoons, sand toys, various doll parts, watering cans; you get the picture. This is where Juliette "cooks", "teaches", plays "Mommy", holds court over the cul de sac. You will also find the pots not used in the planter on the porch, along with various markers, maybe some dolly clothes. In the vintage egg crate by the front door, you will find either soccer balls, cleats and shinguards or baseball cleats and a mitt, depending on the season. The rainbow wreath on the front door is left over from Juliette's birthday party several months ago.

Enter the house into the grand foyer and be sure to gaze upon the spiderwebs that just haven't been removed yet. They are not only beautiful, but functional as well! They catch many of the various insects that enter the house when the kids leave the door open as they run outside to play. From there, enter the kitchen. The kitchen table sits in a lovely nook of windows overlooking the front yard. On it you will find homework papers, preschool notices, cookbooks and picture books. Assorted stuffed animals watch the youngest member of the family eat her breakfast. The homemade bulletin board, which has way too much stuffing for thumbtacks to stay in place (sometimes) holds birthday party invitations, photographs and preschool art projects. The refrigerator door holds pictures of soccer and baseball teams. The water heater cabinet door holds class pictures; lift up this year's to see the ones from years past. Piles of important and not-so-important papers are stacked on the kitchen counter, next to the lice preventative spray, next to a clay butterfly. There may or may not be dishes stacked in the sink. Probably the crock pot is filled with soup for dinner. The kitchen chairs, purchased almost eleven years ago for our first house, "until we can afford something nicer" sport spots of pink and red paint and one has a broken back.

The living room, which Courtney designed and put together as a surprise for me, is actually awesome. Take a look. It looks like a grown up owns that part of the house.

Further through the house you'll travel. The family room, the laundry room, the bathrooms, bedrooms. Toothpaste remains in the sinks. Spilled mouthwash makes the counters sticky. Piles of folded laundry are on the family room floor, the unfolded laundry spilling over the basket in the laundry room. The carpets are stained, the furniture dusty. Books and toys, plastic party favors clutter up desks and corners of bedrooms. Mothers' and Fathers' Day cards decorate the master bath. Pictures of smiling children cover every empty surface.

My friend Beth once told me, as I asked her forgiveness for my messy house, "You're raising a family, not a house." I try to remember this when I see dollies and kitchen toys filling up every corner of the house, crumbs on the dining room floor, unmade beds, red handprints on the wall out back. Someday my house will look like my parents' -- everything in its place, floors vacuumed, furniture dusted, papers filed. But for now, our house is our home, and we live here, all five of us. Our house is not worthy of strangers coming through to gawk and admire, but perhaps our family is. We aren't perfect and we aren't perfectly staged either. There are times when we are a lot prettier than others, all of us getting along, running through the sprinklers, playing basketball, having a real conversation at the dinner table. And there are other times you will hear yelling, arguing, bad grades on tests, lice. (OK, I'm hoping you won't have to see that again!) But we are a real family in a real home. We don't need a special tour to invite you inside. Friends are always welcome. Come inside. You'll find the greatest thing to see is the laughter and the love.

This is so long overdue, but finally I have the time to sit down and write about Juliette's Rainbow Art Party! It seems like such a long time ago... It certainly was a different hairdo ago! Here are the final details and pictures from her party.

We made this banner so easily! Just a cute, free downloadable font, with the letters really big in rainbow order. I printed one letter per page and then cut them using my paper cutter. To do the bottom, I just folded the page in half only part way up the page and then cut on an angle from the corner to the middle. I strung them using multiple colors of yarn and my hole punch. Then I just taped that bad boy to the garage!

We also made these cute tissue paper puff balls for decorations.

They were really easy and cost less than a dollar each, having bought tissue paper at the Dollar Store. I planned to make a super cute balloon arch that I saw online, but time management still is not my friend, and the arch never got made. We ended up with balloons all over the living room which provided extra entertainment for the kids! Some balloons got hung up around the front yard, but most were kicked around, thrown and added to the fun. We also had our fabric wreath on the front door.

So have I mentioned that I have a problem with time management? Yeah, so it's a major issue. Now would be a good time to bring up the fact that all these pictures (with the exception of the wreath picture, which was taken well before the party) were taken by a ten year old. If I were an organized person, I would have taken pictures before the party started. Instead I was trying to string together a balloon arch that never got finished while my husband and mother spent the first half hour of the party finishing assembling the food. So you'll have to believe me when I say that the fruit salad was beautiful. Bottom layer: purple grapes, blueberries on top of that, then green kiwi, yellow pineapple, orange tangerine sections and red sliced strawberries on top. Here's what it looked like when we finally took a picture of it:

Oh well. At least they liked the fruit!

We bought white bread (Those who know me are shocked!) and took a flower cookie cutter and lengthened it to make cloud-shaped sandwiches.

The veggie cups were super easy to assemble... just some ranch dressing in the bottom of the cup, then a red pepper stick, carrot stick, yellow pepper stick and a celery stick. (Sorry, no blue or purple veggies!)

Grown ups had different sandwiches. When I have a lot of little people over, instead of buying a lot of water bottles that just get wasted, I buy these little shot glass size cups for water. There's still a lot of waste, but not as much as one four year old going through four water bottles at one party. One of our grown up friends got clever and served himself up a little wine!

Here are the rainbow cupcakes. They were a little tricky and time consuming. For one batch, I just lumped the batter in instead of spreading out the layers. Juliette got a lumped up one. Still super pretty, I think!