Met Monday & Monday Show and Tell-a 2fer

Welcome to the second week of Metamorphosis Monday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. Be sure to click on her blog name & it will take you to her blog where you can see a list of all the other people participating.

Also, my family does a weekly Monday Show and Tell. Unfortunately, I am the only one in my family who usually does the show and tell,, but that is OK. I have no problem with it being the "Kim show" in my family. They all love me even if I am the spotlight hog.

This week I wanted to show you the 2 small windows in our master bedroom. When we purchased the house 3 years ago, the windows were covered with a plastic covering made to look like stained glass. See the photo below. I didn't get a very good photo, but you get the idea. It didn't really look like stained glass at all. Looked like the cheap vinyl paper it really was.

We have quite a few odd sized windows in our house & all of them had been covered this tacky paper. The first thing I did (I mean hubby did) when we moved in, was to rip out all the ugly paper.

For about 2 years we had nothing covering the windows. This was OK for awhile as you really couldn't see in from the outside as our house is up a small incline from the sidewalk. But I never felt quite at ease with the windows being bare. The biggest problem with bare windows was the light that came in at night. Every time a car drove by our house, the lights shown in our bedroom. I got used to it, but my husband promised me he would make some real stained glass windows.

So for Christmas 2007 my hubby finally made my windows. I had decided I didn't want any colored glass in the windows as I couldn't decide on colors & I can change my mind quite a bit, so I decided to go with clear glass & bevels.

Since I love anything French I told my hubby that I wanted a "Fleur de lis" design. He made the 2 windows exactly the same. He framed them & painted the frames black. He attached them to the inside of the windows.
The windows are made of glass bevels, water glass (the wavy glass) & glue chip glass. I'm so lucky that I have such a talented hubby. I haven't found anything that he doesn't know how to do. I'm a lucky gal. Don't you think he did a great job? Except he splattered a little of the black paint on the wall & didn't clean it up before it dried. Oh well, no one is perfect.
The windows look great on each side of the bed. They let in lots of light during the day, but we get our privacy. The added bonus is that it keeps out the noise from the street outside.
There you have my "before & after" for this week. Sometime in the future I will try & post something that I have done. But most of the things around our house were done by my wonderful hubby. I think I will keep him around for awhile more. I've got much more "hunny do's" for him. Tee hee!!!

Thanks for stopping by & don't forget to leave a comment. I love to hear your thoughts. My hubby thinks blogging is a bit weird, but he loves it when everyone comments on how good a job he does. I know I can convert him to blogging if we butter him up enough.

Metamorphosis Monday

I'm participating in a new weekly blog party. It's called Metamorphosis Monday and it is sponsored by Susan at Between Naps On The Porch. This is the very first week. How exciting! Be sure to go to her blog & check out all the other before & afters. It might just make you want to post your own.

I wasn't going to participate this week as I didn't think I had a "before & after". I'm terrible at remembering to take "before" photos, and even worse at finishing projects in order to reach the "after". But I remembered that I did post back in October about our backyard. So I am reposting it now with a few tweeks in order to join the party.

Keep in mind that our backyard hasn't reached the complete "after" stage. It is always a work in progress, but it is a million times better than the before. So here we go:

Welcome to our backyard. You can click on any photo to make it bigger. Most of the after photos were taken back in October right before dusk. I didn't have time to clean up anything before taking the photos. I wanted to get pictures taken before it got too dark. The before photos are from 2006 when we bought the house.

This is a before photo of our backyard.



This is the after photo. Looks much better with concrete. I just wish we could have afforded to have the concrete stamped & colored. But plain concrete is better than the before. It's amazing how much bigger the yard looks & feels now, not to mention much cleaner. We have clay dirt, imagine tracking that into your house? My hubby also put in french doors to our master bedroom & the other bedroom (turned game room) on the back of the house. He also put up the retractable awning as well. We have an outside bed in the tent canopy. We used it quite a bit the first 2 summers we were here. But since hubby put in the french doors in our room, it's almost like sleeping outside without leaving our bedroom (at least in the summer).
Notice that I didn't move the hose before taking the photo? So much for staging. Also, you can see the new pot next to the dolphin topiary. That is what it is in now. Looks much better.

This is a before photo of our side yard. Ugly huh?

This is the after photo of our side yard. Hubby built the patio for this area of the yard. He put in french doors from one of the bedrooms to access this area from the house. Eventually he will put in french doors from the other bedroom on this side of the house as well. The pillars we got on clearance from Home Depot for about $25 each. They were broken, but hubby fiber glassed them back together. He still needs to patch & paint.


This photo shows some old pin ball machines back there & a coke machine. I didn't clean up before taking photos, so everything is quite a mess & dirty. The pin ball machines have now been moved into our game room. But this patio area is still a work in progress and still a mess.

This is the before photo of the west side of the pool.

Here is the after photo of the west side of the pool. Looks much better. The lamp post came from Scotland. Hubby fished it out of a trash dumpster about 15-20 years ago. He got out 3 of them. They were broken, but hubby welded them back together and painted them. We still have 2, but only 1 has been installed. (Hubby has been moving lamp posts from house to house since dumpster diving for them). The light at the top isn't that old, only the post. We normally have 2 flower baskets hanging from this, but they all died in the summer heat & we haven't replaced them.

Our pool is my favorite thing in our backyard. My hubby always told me he would never have a house with a pool. Now that we have a pool, can't imagine living without one. Especially in our hot summers. Just wish we could afford to have solar power to heat it so we could use it year round.
The dolphin topiary came with the house. It used to be on the back hillside but was pretty dead. Hubby replanted it and brought it back to life. It almost died this past summer while we were on vacation. But it is slowly coming back. This is my hubby's baby. He just replanted it in a beautiful pot that looks old, but I didn't get a chance to take a photo. There is a photo of the pot in one of the above photos.

I love going swimming in the summer at night in the dark. It is quite cooling & relaxing. The only thing is that I start thinking of "Jaws" and "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" and I spook myself. Even though I know there are no creatures in the dark water, it still scares me enough to get out. One night I was relaxing in the dark pool when all of a sudden a bat buzzed my head, now that was something to be scared of.

In the summer time we sometimes watch movies outside. Hubby built a screen he can set up & take down over the pool. He also has an elaborate speaker system outside for watching movies or listening to music. You can watch the movie from either side. Some people watch from the pool, others sit in the warm spa & others sit in chairs on the edge of the pool. We watched movies out there all summer long. At Halloween we even watched "Dracula" outside as it was quite warm that night. (We live in Southern California.)
My favorite thing about the pool is the spa. We use the spa more than the pool as it can be used all year round. If I had to choose between the spa & the pool, I guess I would have to pick the spa. It's great to sit in it at night & look at the stars. We have seen many shooting stars from the spa. We've also had the sheriff helicopter fly over & shine a light on us as well. Normally we have beautiful flowers around the spa. But they all died in the intense heat of the sun while we were away on vacation this past summer.


This clock is another of Hubby's "before & after" projects. It didn't look anything like this when we got it. It was missing the clock face & was broken in 2 or 3 places and it was aluminum. Hubby welded it back together, painted it to look old. He also handpainted the clock face, then he cut the glass, added battery packs & the clock was finally finished. He has painted our last name at the top since the photos were originally taken. It's great knowing what time it is when you are in the pool or spa.

Hubby also made the fire pit. Luckily the area was already piped for natural gas. He stacked the pavers, added the lava rocks. It's fun being able to make s'mores in your own backyard.

Here is a close up of the clock face. You can tell the time from either side of the clock.

Here is a wooden swing just outside our son's bedroom. Hubby made this swing many years ago. I'm sure lucky to be married to someone who is so handy.

This is my rusty mermaid that I bought on vacation this past summer in Cave Creek, AZ. I found it at a salvage store & just loved it. So of course, it had to come home with me. Looks great on the edge of my pool. It has been knocked into the pool once since bringing it home. It is quite heavy so someone has to dive in to retrieve it. Luckily is hasn't fallen or been knocked into the pool this winter. Water is toooooo cold. If it does, I'm not retrieving it. Knock on wood.



Well there you have it. I've shown you the "before" & "afters" plus all the favorite things in my backyard. Just don't look to closely at all the mess & dirt. I didn't clean up prior to taking photos. It had been quite windy at our house when I took the photos (the infamous Santa Ana winds), so there is dirt everywhere. Plus there are no pretty flowers in any of my pictures. I'm hoping to have beautiful flowers again this spring. Can't wait.

Monday Show and Tell-Part 2 Christmas Finale

I lied when I said there would be 3 parts to my Monday Show and Tell. Well, I technically didn't lie, I fully intended to make this 3 posts, one for my Christmas tree, one for Christmas Eve & one for Christmas Day, but at the last minute there was a change in plans. I am a woman, therefore, I can change my mind. I had an epiphany. I decided to combine my Christmas morning photos along with Christmas Eve photos so you get them in one humongous post. I hope you don't mind. Too bad if you do, it's my blog (even if I share a little), so I make the rules.

Now on with the post. We spent Christmas Eve down in El Cajon at Mom and Dad's house. Andrea's family was there, my family & Danica, as well as Mom, Dad & Jodi. We decided to let Jodi come since she lives there & it would be kind of rude not to include her (you know we love you Jodi). Eric & Todd's family were not there except for Danica who technically belongs to Eric's family but since she is my surrogate daughter, and Eric was out of town at his in laws, Danica was part of my family for the night.

Jodi cooked tacos for dinner. Yes, some Langston's can cook, at least simple things. It was very good. After dinner we opened presents and then we had ice cream cake that Andrea had made. Very yummy!!! Since I had been sick, I didn't have to make anything. Remind me to be sick every holiday. It's a great excuse for getting out of all sorts of work. I didn't even have to help with dishes.

Then it was time to go home to our individual homes. It was nice getting together on Christmas Eve with the family.

On Christmas morning we got up about 9:30am & I called Danica to come over to open gifts. Since we didn't have to be anywhere, we spent a leisurely morning opening gifts. Afterwards I fixed pancakes & Mike cooked bacon for breakfast. Danica left after breakfast to go visit friends. She said she would be back for dinner.

The afternoon was spent watching TV, playing games & relaxing, aka: laying around. Mike cooked a ham, I made cheese potatoes (you all missed out on some yummy cheese potatoes), green bean casserole, corn, rolls (the easiest rolls in the world, they are pre made, frozen, you just pop them in the oven to warm them up & they taste just like you spent all day making them from scratch. My kind of baking!) and of course our annual Thanksgiving/Christmas green jello salad. What did you have for Christmas dinner? Danica came back just in time for dinner. We all ate so much (I had to make up for Thanksgiving when I was too sick to eat much).

The evening was spent watching some of the new DVD's we got for Christmas. In fact, we spent most of the weekend just watching movies & of course the Charger football game last night. GO CHARGERS!!!!!

Here are the photos from our Christmas. There are a lot, hope you don't get too bored.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

How did you spend your Christmas? Let us know, you know we are snoops and need to know real bad. So give us a break & show us or tell us. Please!!!!!

Next Mondays show and tell will be anything in regards to NEW YEARS. You can post about your resolutions or goals for the coming year. Reminisce about the past year. Tell us what you did to celebrate on New Year's Eve and Day.

Monday Show & Tell - Part 1 Christmas Tree

Welcome to Monday Show and Tell. Again this week, show and tell will be in three parts. Too much Christmas to post in one. So part one will be about our Christmas tree. Thanks to Danica, we finally got my tree decorated 2 days before Christmas. You are probably thinking, why bother at that point. But you can't have Christmas around a plain fake tree. You must make it pretty.

So here is my decorated tree in all it's glory. Isn't it pretty? This year I made it my girly tree. But the boys didn't seem to mind. At least we had a tree with some presents underneath. The tree was in our family room this year. This was a new tree that I purchased from Target last year after Christmas on clearance. Pretty good for $20.00. It was simple to put together & already came with lights. Much easier than my old fake tree. (click on any photo to make it larger)
Now for some photos of my favorite ornaments on the tree. This one is of a unicorn. I got this ornament from Mom back when I was a teenager & loved unicorns. I still love them. I just don't collect them like when I was a teenager. Doesn't it look like it is brand new? I take very good care of my ornaments.
This is one of my newest ornaments. I purchased it this year. It is a large snowflake made out of pipe cleaners. Mike calls it my "Old lady" ornament. I don't care, I love it & that is all that matters.
I love all the ornaments in this photo. I love Victorian looking ornaments or any ornaments that make me think of that time period.
This dragonfly ornament I got for Brandon. It reminded me of when he was a little boy & loved insects.
Here is another of Brandon's ornaments that I got for him when he was little and loved bugs. I love how this ornament sparkles.
This Eiffel Tower ornament I just purchased this year. I love all the glitter. I love anything that reminds me of Paris.
I love this little angel. I picked up this ornament as a thrift store a few years back.
Here is a photo of our kitty Missy. She is about 10 years old or more. Not really sure. She was my mother in laws cat before she died. We then inherited her. We were thrilled. We all love Missy (except for Mike, he tolerates her). She was thrilled to see we had a Christmas tree with things she could knock around.
Here is one final photo of my tree. As you can tell, I love to decorate it with anything Victorian looking, angels, cherubs, crystals. or anything sparkly or glittery.
This final photo is the end to my stolen Santa story. Remember how I told you that someone stole my Santa from the sleigh in front on my house? Well Mike found Santa on the side of our yard in some bushes a few days later. So when I came home from work that night, Jesse asked me to get him something that was in my bedroom. When I turned on the light to my bedroom, this is what greeted me:
Santa was in my bed!!!!! It was pretty funny. I got a kick out of it & hopefully you did as well.

Monday Show and Tell - Part 3

Ta da!!!! Here it is, I know the suspense has been killing you all day, waiting for this third & final part of my Monday Show and Tell.

I want to share with you my Christmas decor. I have to thank all the little people who helped me in the preparation of this production. Namely, Danica (my niece & surrogate daughter) who helped with the decorating part. Brandon & Jesse who helped me bring boxes down & up from attic. And to Mike who helped put up the outside Christmas lights even though he didn't get the last strand up as it got too dark & he didn't want to fall from the ladder and 2 of Santa's deer didn't get set up. At least we got some Christmas cheer!!!! Can I get an AMEN!!!

Before you click on the play button, you might want to scroll down & push the pause button on the Christmas music play list on the right hand side so that my Christmas music doesn't interfere with the music that accompanies my photos. It you don't, you may get conflicting Christmas songs & it won't be nice. You have been warned! In fact, if you don't like the Christmas music anytime you come to our blog, you can pause it so it doesn't play. But if you don't like Christmas music you must be SCROOGE and we don't like Scrooge. You have been warned!!!!

Now for the photos:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Did you enjoy the photos? I learned a very important lesson this Christmas. Don't leave candles unattended and real candles can burn a wood picture frame. Luckily I saw the error of my ways before I burnt the house down. LED candles work best in this situation.

Also, someone stole Santa from my front yard. I didn't even notice it last night when I was taking the photos. I figured it out this morning while driving to work. We passed one of our neighbors who has lots of Christmas decor in their front yard. Their giant Snoopy blow up snow globe was missing & they had posted a sign that it was stolen. It got me to thinking about dear old Santa at my own house. It kind of jogged my memory that I didn't remember seeing him in his sleigh last night when taking the photos. So when I got to work & looked at my photos, sure enough. Santa was gone, missing, no where to be seen. Someone stole Santa. I bet I know what list they are on & it's not the nice list. So if you stole my Santa & are reading my blog, bring him back & maybe Santa and I will forgive you and you might get something for Christmas besides coal. You have been warned!!!


Next Monday you can post about your Christmas or post about your New Year's plans or resolutions. Or you can reminisce about 2008 and your plans for 2009.

Monday Show and Tell - Part 2

Now for part 2:

Yesterday we decided we wanted to take some family photos. We drove around for a couple of hours trying to find the perfect spot for photos. After we took a billion photos (more like 20) at various locations we decided that we actually wanted photos with the snowy mountains in the background for our Christmas photo.

So we drove to Beaumont which is about 30-40 minutes from our house. We found a little park that had not one but two mountain ranges in the background with snow on them. We were in heaven, except for the fact that it was getting dark fast & it was cold!!!! Burr!!!

Brandon set up his camera on his tripod & we took more photos before it got too dark & we became ice cubes. Then I took some random photos as well. Mike & Jesse played on the teeter totter in the playground for awhile.

On the way home we stopped at Sonic in Hemet. Yeah!!!!! We finally have a Sonic close by. If you have never been to Sonic, you need to go. It's quite old fashioned how you park and order from your car. Then they bring out your order on roller skates. Mike got a lime slush, Jesse & I got strawberry slushees. Brandon got a Oreo blast. But I realized that slushees taste sooo much better when it is 100 degrees outside. Not so great when it is only in the 40's. So I guess Sonic will have to wait until summer to be enjoyed again.

Here are the photos I took at the park and at Sonic. I am not posting our final family Christmas photo until later in the week. So you will just have to wait!


Mike & I. I really should have got my hair cut before taking family photos. It is looking pretty scraggily.

Jesse & Mike. Jesse got his goofy Santa hat at Disneyland for his birthday.
Jesse
Brandon was taking photos of the mountains when I snapped this shot.

Self portrait

Me & Jesse

Me & Brandon.

Mike & Jesse on the teeter totter. They were actually moving when I took this photo so that is why it is a bit fuzzy.

Here we are at Sonic. Doesn't Mike look like he has had too much to drink?
Jesse & Brandon in the back seat while waiting for our Sonic order.


Brandon at Sonic. Don't know why he looks so surprised. I was hoping to get a photo of the waitress on roller skates, but she was too fast & I missed the shot.
All in all we had a nice family day and weekend. What did you do this weekend?

Monday Show and Tell - Part 1

This week's show and tell is soooooo big that I am posting in 3 parts. Yes, you heard me right, three. Not one, not two, but three, count them, three, posts. You can blame it on this wonderful time of the year & all the activities that go along with it.

For Part 1 I will tell you about our weekend with Gunner. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, Gunner is my Grandson. He is sooooo cute!!!! I'm a little prejudice I know, but who cares. I am a Grandma, I'm entitled.

Anyways, yesterday was my stepson Brandan's 26th birthday (not to be confused with my son Brandon). Happy birthday Brandan!!! I forgot to post a shout out to you yesterday. Well, Brandan & his wife Crystal wanted some alone time this past weekend to celebrate his birthday. So they asked if Gunner could spend Friday night & Saturday with us at our house. Mike jumped at the chance to say "Yes" without remembering that I was just diagnosed with pneumonia (this is the part where you all feel sorry for me). Mike couldn't understand why I wasn't excited to have my Grandson come stay with us. I then reminded him I was sick (it's still OK to feel sorry for me again). He said "No problem", he would take care of Gunner. So on Friday evening, he drove down to San Diego county to pick up Gunner & bring him home.
Gunner

Luckily by the time he got back, I was feeling better. Aren't you all relieved? But Mike kept to his word & he took charge of Gunner. All I had to do was snuggle with Gunner. That's what I like doing best of all. We had no problems with him, he was an angel. The only problem is that our house isn't baby proof so we had to keep an eye on him at all times to make sure he wasn't getting into something he shouldn't.

Right now, Gunner has an obsession (and I mean OBSESSION) with ceiling fans. I had to hold him up so he could keep pulling the chains to turn on/off the light & fan. Over and over and over again. No wonder my ribs hurt so bad. Between coughing up my lungs & holding Gunner up in the air, my ribs are killing me. I guess I didn't just snuggle with him. Oh well, we had fun.

On Saturday we decided to take Gunner down to Old Town Temecula to see the lights and to visit with Santa. Danica came over & went with us. My Brandon stayed home as he wasn't feeling well. Brandan & Crystal drove up from San Diego to meet us so we could all go to dinner to celebrate Brandan's birthday & for them to pick up Gunner.
Danica & Gunner

We barely made it to see Santa before he flew off in his sleigh, I mean, drove off in his car. Gunner didn't like Santa. He cried when he saw Santa. We tried twice to take photos with Santa & both times he cried. Mike even tried backing in Gunner to Santa's shack the 2nd time, but Gunner turned & saw Santa & began wailing. Poor Santa, he was a good sport. He's probably used to little kids being scared of him.
Gunner doesn't like Santa

Santa is trying to make Mike feel better.

Old Town Temecula-Santa's shack closed up for the night.

After Santa, we walked around Old Town a little bit but everyone was getting hungry so we headed off to dinner. We went to a Chinese Buffet in Temecula. It was good food. Brandan loves sushi & they have a sushi bar there. They also have a Mongolian BBQ, so this Chinese Buffet has it all!!!! Even crab legs!!! I love crab legs dipped in butter. But I could feel my arteries clogging up every time I dipped the crab in butter. So I didn't eat a lot. Plus it is a lot of work eating crab legs and with being sick, I just didn't have the energy. (I'll still take your sympathy. You can never get too much sympathy.)
Gunner pretending to eat crab legs

Danica, Brandan, Crystal, Gunner, Mike, Jesse at dinner (I'm taking the photo)

After dinner, we all went back to our house for birthday cake, in this case, it was a carmel cheese cake. Yum, yum!!! But very rich, so you could only eat just a small portion. Plus we were so full from dinner. We gave Brandan a chef coat & hat (I forgot to take a photo). Brandan would be a chef if he could afford to go to culinary school. He loved it. He said he would wear them every time he is cooking from now on.
Brandan & his carmel cheese cake with a tea light candle.
We didn't have birthday candles & Mike wanted a candle on the cake.
Don't pay attention to the boxes in the background. Remember I have been sick & I didn't get my Christmas boxes put away before company came over.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Brandan, Crystal and Gunner. We should had a good time with Gunner & can't wait until he can come back & spend some more time with us. I love being a Grandma!!!