Which faucet?

So, I realize that I do this for a living, but I have had it up to here (exasperated gesture) with finalizing the details on our new house. Most of the things were easy to decide on because I know what I like...walnut floors, maple glazed cabinets in the kitchen, espresso stained cabinets in the bathrooms, lots of white moldings, clean lines...

Now I am stuck on bathroom faucets. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, Moen's Eva two-handle faucet. Slightly organic, contemporary and also classy. We had it in bronze in our last house and now I want it in brushed nickel. But now Moen also offers a single-handle version. To me, this new faucet is more daring. It's kind of like a really cool accessory that I would see a friend wear, but which I might not be able to pull off myself.

So now I would like your advice please. Check out the two faucets and let me know which one you like better. If you know me well, tell me which you think would fit better with my "style" (if I even have one)!





I'll post a decision later, along with some of the other cool products we are using in the new house. Thanks!

A truly Happy Easter

We had a truly wonderful Easter this year. Sunday, after a wonderful program at church, we spent the day with friends and family. Marina carried her Easter Basket around but we didn't actually fill it with candy. Instead we gave her a blow-up swimming pool like the one her friend Jackson had last summer.


Then on the Monday after Easter we had a little Easter Egg Hunt. We invited some of Marina's best friends over to Grandma's House. My mom has the perfect house for kids; playhouse, trampoline, swings, slide, lots of grass and a kid-friendly doggy. The kids, especially Marina, loved playing in the backyard. I love that Marina has so many fun little friends and I'm also a little sad that we moved away from all of them! I hope we can keep getting together like this. I think these pictures pretty much tell the story of the awesome afternoon we had...(Jackson, Boston & Ayden we missed you guys big time!)







Hope you all had a wonderful Easter too!!!

Success!!!

One of the things on my "100 Things to Do before I Die" list is to sew a fancy dress for my daughter. A couple of months ago I got the brilliant idea to sew Marina a pretty Easter dress. I thought I was being so clever because I would accomplish something and save money on her dress too. There were several problems with my brilliant idea:

#1 After spending about $75 at JoAnns I discovered that sewing a dress costs a lot more than just buying one.

#2 A couple days after I bought all my supplies, our house sold. Turns out it is a lot harder to complete a difficult project while packing up, moving and trying to get situated in your parents' basement.

#3 Also turns out that I am not as experienced a seamstress as I thought I was. Yes, I did sew a cute little ABC book, but this just gave me false confidence. Sewing an actual article of clothing is a lot more difficult, especially if you choose a particularly challenging pattern. Four or five nights I would go down to my basement to start sewing, read the first few directions and get so confused I would give up and go back upstairs without accomplishing anything. I had to Google almost every word in the instructions. It was like a foreign language!

Finally, I just decided to just start sewing, hoping that I would figure it out as I went. I managed to get some of the dress completed last week and then thanks to my procrastination, finally finished last night at 1am. Just in time for Easter :)

Here is the fruit of my labor, my first and last, homemade Easter dress:

P.S. It is supposed to look bunchy like that, I promise!