Selling out

We get $10 for posting this... you should post yours I guess.

Stationery card

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The Incredible Hulk.. reader..

I guess it isn't so much reading as much as it is putting that little creative mind to work and coming up with her own story. Today, Anabel ventured out to the library and apparently insisted on coming home with The Hulk. She got up on the bed and started to read it, or at least her interpretation of it.

Recessed lighting is easy, unless you stumble upon air ducts and water pipes... oh my..

Sometimes bad light is better than no light at all. In this case, that is not true. Bad light is as bad as no light. So the solution is to make good light.
Hence...

I got tired of waiting to be on one of those HGTV shows.. so...

I re-did the bathroom myself... not ALL by myself. I had help from several family members and I hired some people to do some stuff. The first picture was taken on July 29, 2011. And presto chango, 7 or 8 months later, we are done! The original plan was to just replace the shower, before I knew it the entire bathroom was gutted. I tend to go overboard on things sometimes. Features include...
- Custom cabinets made by my dad (we now have more storage space than bathrooms twice the size-except for soap we don't have to keep anything on the counter!)
- Custom shower, shower curtain and curtain hooks-sorta (I had to reshape store bought hooks to change the pivot point to work better with the ceiling mounted track system).
- Custom art work by Bethany
- Electronic bidet toilet seat - thanks to Japan who had these things everywhere, I had to have one.. I couldn't go on without it.
- New plumbing - put in a new shower valve; pipe sweating done by yours truly. Plumbing for the sinks had to be re-positioned to accommodate the design of the vanity.
- Custom shaped granite counter top.
- New base boards, added crown molding (thanks for the help on that too dad!)
- Added a wall to create some separation with the toilet from the rest of the room and in doing so we were able to add a second medicine cabinet; had to add some walls for the shower
- The shower has a nice little foot rest for those in the household who like to shave their legs. Instead of a tiny little niche in the wall for soap and stuff a shelf was built that spans the entire width of the shower.

I thought the theme from Tetris (performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra) was somewhat fitting since something like this is kind of like a puzzle.
Feel free to watch the whole sequence or skip ahead to about 3 minutes for the before and after side-by-sides.

Meet Clara, and her many faces of cuteness and whatnot

When Anabel was born I pretty much had nothing to do but sit at the computer, play with keyframes and listen to songs and work on videos and whatnot.. For Clara the situation is different. Now I have Anabel to entertain and keep me busy, remodeling bathrooms, taking care of a pool, yard, and other house stuff. This means Clara's first video all her own comes after 2 months.. But I finally got some pics and even put them into a little slide show. Clara is a happy baby and likes to play and giggle, as long as she isn't hungry or sleepy, and occasionally doesn't like poopy pants either. Maybe one of these days I'll bring out that video filming device for some live-in-action stuff. If there's a 3rd Bergman kidling hopefully Colbie Caillat has another song suitable for a video so that tradition can continue.

so THATS a stink face

Somehow it was tolerable to be outside long enough to do a little running around. As a result Anabel was distracted enough to not care too much about the camera. I suppose it helped that it looked like a phone too. Anyway, a stink face is a face you make when you're kinda mad about something. Anabel has a pretty good stink face and I didn't know she knew I referred to it as a stink face. How's your stink face?

Echos and Splashes

What good are random videos if you don't do anything with them? Here's the 4th of July in Ouray, CO. The town is surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and they launch the fireworks from above the town. It makes for a pretty good show, both visually and audio-ally(?). And then we have a few clips of our little fish. Since we've bought a pool that came with a house, Anabel pretty much lives to swim. If she catches you even glancing at the pool she will do her best to persuade you to go swimming. She even offers to go get your swim suit for you, and before you can say "ok, ok!" give in, she's bouncing back down the stairs with your trunks. Admittedly, having a pool makes the blistering AZ summers rather bearable.