Decorating...

When we move to the new house, none of our current living room furniture is going to work in the new living room, so I've been consumed lately with trying to come up with how it should look and what pieces to choose.

I'm trying to start with a rug, because I figure I can build all the colors of the room, etc. around that--but it has NOT been easy to find one! We know we want a Persian rug and it has to be large because it's a large room, so I've been doing a lot looking both online and in stores. Point blank (and I'm not kidding) every time I see a rug I like and that's the right size and inquire about the price--it's over $100,000 (sometimes WAY over--a couple rugs I asked about were $250,000!!)! If you put me in a room full of rugs, I will undoubtedly make a beeline for the highest priced one. So obviously this is getting difficult!

To make things more complicated, I have it in my head that I want the rug to have a lot of orange in it because I have this blue color in mind for the walls and I think the orange would be a great compliment to the blue. Of course--it might look totally awful! But it looks good in my head.

So the closest rug I have found so far that is even remotely in our price range is this one:
It's kind of wild, but I like that it's an antique and has that bombed-out orangey-red that I've been searching for, plus lots of nice blues, green, pink etc. So that rug is a maybe.

Then for the furniture, I have this idea of mixing old and new--so I found this funky vintage sofa in its original kooky green velvet:
Me likey!!

And then I need a new sofa that I want to upholster in a silvery velvet. So I found this one that I really like the look of, but I sat on it and it's not super comfortable--not uncomfortable or anything, just not really cushy. But it's so pretty!
And there was another sofa there that I don't like the look of quite as much, but it was really comfortable.
And finally--and this is sort of out there--I have this notion of a mirrored coffee table. I think it would be a nice change from the typical wood and I like the idea of the table reflecting all the colors of the room. I found this one that I really like:
Oh and here's the blue I have in mind:

So, I don't know, just throwing around some ideas! Any decorating whizzes out there? Let me know what you think.

Eye Love It!!

I'm sure you're all well aware of my eyeball obsessions/collections by now...

I'm happy to announce the newest addition to my eyeball family:

Antique Eye Chart!

Isn't it supercool??

I think the root of my eyeball obsession comes from the fact that my eyes were so messed up as a baby. I had to wear teeny tiny glasses at age 3 months and have an eye surgery at age 3 years. All this resulted in lots and lots of trips to the eye doctor's office. All of it is burned into my memory--the waiting room, the awful blur-inducing eye drops, and the loooooong dark examining room with the lighted eye chart at the end.

Well now I've got my own! The kids have been having fun checking their eyesight--kind of handy!

I think it will look good in the new house--I need to put it at the end of a nice long hallway!

Pig Out on the 4th!

Despite the kind of rainy/gloomy weather that descended upon us, we had a really fun 4th of July. We pretty much just stayed inside and ate all day!

I turned to my fabulous blogfriend Cathy from Noble Pig for some fun 4th recipes--and, as usual, she didn't disappoint.

But before I get to that, here are a couple pics of the kids decked out in their patriotic get-ups:

Pickle and Gooser on the stairs:
Group shot:
Close-up of Miss Pickle:
So first up, we made Cathy's contest-winning peach margaritas. I can't even begin to explain how good they were! Do yourselves a favor and make them. Like right now!
They were so good in fact that we made them twice--once earlier in the day and again later after the fireworks...

Then for a midday snack, I went with the Reuben dip from Noble Pig. Totally delicious! By the way, Cathy's pictures are a million times better than mine--I was so hungry it's a wonder I managed to take any pics--the quality is not so great...

Then it was onto chili dogs
and sliders...
I told you it was a pig-out! A NOBLE pig-out! Get it!? Recently, I've pretty much cut out red meat from our diets--except for special occasions--and I considered the 4th a special occasion so we really got our beef on!

Then onto dessert--again from Noble Pig--the brilliantly brilliant Pop Rocks cupcakes.

What kid wouldn't totally love these??
I will admit that I went "off recipe" and just used a yellow cake mix which turned out great--but I'm sure they'd be even better with the homemade version.
I think those raspberries and blueberries were the only healthy thing we ate all day...unless the peaches in the margaritas count too? Do you like my rabbit plates?

Also, Teddy and Patrick got a bee in their bonnet to make a red velvet cake (I have no idea where this came from) so they made one all by themselves and they did an amazing job!

Here's Teddy with his masterpiece:
And here's a nice pic he took of the inside:
After the feeding frenzy, it was time for Don to take the four boys to the fireworks show (the rain finally cleared up!) and for me to put Pickle to bed. Then I settled in to watch my absolute favorite movie--Rosemary's Baby. This has become my new tradition on the 4th of July!

Wow--I love that movie. I want to be a Minnie Castevet type (minus all the devil stuff!) when I'm old! I love her wacky style and her crazy get-ups.
So that's it! We're just finishing up the last of the margaritas...

I'll leave you with frosting-face Pickle!
Would it be creepy if I watched Rosemary's Baby again? Don says yes it would. Maybe I'll wait until tomorrow... Maybe I won't...

Random!

A random sampling of Fun House photos from the past couple of weeks...

Gorilla eating corn on the cob.

Portrait of Hazel.
Football boys!
Football is dirty...
Rainbow Goldfish on the floor.

Kanye!!
Pickle attempting to blow bubbles.
Gooser can do it!
Look Mom--I caught one!
Ferret grave.
Pickle in one of her get-ups.
Super Gooser!
Gooser as alien with weird severed hand.
My bride and groom taxidermy mice finally arrived!!

P.S. Is anyone having trouble with Blogger pre-posting now working? Every day I try to schedule blog ahead of time. kt just sits there under "scheduled." weord...

Halloween in June?

Yesterday, Pickle and Gooser emerged from the the basement dressed like this:
Full Batman attire and a strange stripped-down butterfly! Both ready for action with trick-or-treating bags. Since we were about to go out, I found the rest of her butterfly costume and she's been wearing it non-stop ever since.

Then Gooser was experimenting with various other remnants of Halloween--and he ended up up with a combination Alien-Zombie-Freddy Kruger. I should have taken a pic of the whole get-up, but I took these artsy ones of him looking out the window:
Pickle felt left out and called out to me to take her pic through the window too!

And finally--isn't it sad about Billy Mays dying?? We met him in March when we were in L.A. and he was so nice. He took time out to talk with and take pics with the boys.

This sure hasn't been a good week for celebrities--they're dropping like flies! Poor Billy Mays...

Wishing You...

...a double-fisted bacon kind of weekend!
And in honor of poor Michael Jackson, I give you one of my all-time favorite songs. He is pitch-perfect and it always blows me away. This is how I like to remember him best--before the baby-dangling and the elephant man bones and the monkeyshines and the freaky surgeries--as a sweet little boy with a beautiful voice. The part right around 2:06 gives me chills.

My Kids Are Weird...

A few days ago, my kids started their own "business." They've been hard at work at their "office" in the basement thinking up money-making schemes--pet sitting, doing odd jobs around the house, etc.

Apparently the plan is for them to save up money so they can buy a fish tank for the new house. They saw these cool neon fish at the pet store and that's what they want--so they have called their business "NeoFund."

Part of their planning has been assigning job titles to each other--Andy and Teddy are the CEOs (the fish tank is to go in their room), Patrick is the salesman, Pickle is the Vice President (??) and poor Gooser's title is "Janitor."

To add insult to injury, not only is Gooser the janitor in their business scenario--they have given him a "uniform" that he is required to wear every day.

Note the name tag: "Hello I'm Gooser. JANITOR."

I don't know if you can tell in the pictures, but his uniform looks like the remains of what once was a George Washington costume from a school assignment. It's a velvet jacket and pants and a ruffly white blouse--a la Jerry Seinfeld's "puffy shirt."

He has diligently been wearing it every day with out complaining--and, strangely, it actually really looks good on him! He might start a new trend?

So--my kids are really weird--but you have to give them points for creativity!

Inevitable...

Well, even though Pickle is a self-proclaimed princess and movie star, it was only a matter of time that the influence of four big brothers would kick in:Now she has added football player to her resume!
Here she is practicing some of her running maneuvers:
Note how she also is wearing her Crocs over her footsie pajamas. She has some kind of Croc obsession and also insists on wearing them to bed at night (??). I'm choosing my battles, so I have let that strange habit slide--though it can't be comfortable!

The upside of the football getup around the house is that she can crash into things (like the dining room table, which she did!) and just keep running unfazed!

Finally!

Well, I'm happy to announce that we finally FINALLY have a signed contract with Mr. Howell!

As I told you the other day, this deal has been like a roller coaster and today was no different. We got word this morning that the selling broker would be meeting with Mr. Howell and hopefully getting the contract signed. I wasn't holding my breath as I've been disappointed so many times--but I drove past the house as I was picking the kids up from camp and saw that her car was there--so I was hopeful.

Then a friend and I met up with the kids for lunch after camp and my realtor showed up (don't know how he tracked me down!) at the restaurant waving the contract.

But after a quick look through it, we soon realized it hadn't actually been signed, only initialed.

So he had to run off and find the listing broker, then go back to the house and really get it signed!
I said to him that based on the way this whole deal has gone down, it's really no surprise!

But anyway, it is signed and we are very excited! We do, however, still need to deal with our current house (we dropped the contingency) and our current plan is to rent it for awhile and sell it later when (hopefully) the market has rebounded. So renting vibes are appreciated now!

Although we will very busy in the next couple of months preparing for the move and planning for some cosmetic things we will have to do to the new house--I feel a huge sense of relief!

So...cheers!!

Thrifting

I LOVE thrift stores and I had the opportunity to do some fun thrifting the other day when Patrick was invited to a 70s-style disco party.

I had been to a funky thrift store a few weeks prior and noticed that they had these really 70s ruffled tuxedo shirts in pastel colors, and I thought they might work for Patrick's disco outfit. So I took the whole gang to check out the store--turns out, they all love thrift stores too! It helped (particularly in Pickle's case!) that the store also had an elaborate candy display. Pickle was happy in her stroller with a bag of Sugar Babies while the rest of us perused the goodies.

Andy found some shirts that were right up his alley--an authentic mailman's shirt!

And a Holsum bread delivery guy's shirt:
Here he is posing with bread for extra authenticity:
The ruffly shirts were amazing and the colors were all so great it was hard to choose--but we went with lavender. Patrick has really captured that bleary-eyed disco haze in this pic, don't you think?
And here I forced him to strike a disco pose:
Finally, here he is fully discoized and ready to party!

P.S. I had a nice long conversation on the phone today with my new best friend, Mr. Howell! He was inviting us to a lecture about the architect of his house over the weekend. Good sign? I hope so!!