McKenna's last day of school

Who would've thought that McKenna's last day of school would make me as emotional as her first? I just couldn't believe that my little baby had finished her very first school year. As I was explaining the significance of it to her, I got choked up and teary-eyed. They actually made her a little spiral-bound yearbook too. It was the sweetest thing to see pics of her with her classmates, playing, having picnics, etc. I'm so proud of her for adapting to it so well. Erick bought her a graduation present - the pink gardening accesories from Target. He bought her gloves, a sun hat, a little rake and hoe set. We also picked out some seeds and bought gardening soil. Tomorrow, she and I are gonna go out front and plant ourselves a little garden....

...now that they're finally done painting our building. We are FINALLY reaching a point where we aren't dealing with some apartment issue or another. I don't want to give the impression that we're fighting with our landlord because he is seriously the greatest landlord on earth. It's just been about 8 months of something always needing to be done! We had the flood in Kyla's room and then the rodent problem which took forever to fix but thank God that's over! Out of the blue they told us they were going to tear down the fences in our backyard. Well, we had JUST killed our old grass because we were going to lay down new grass for the summer. So we basically had this white-trash looking backyard and then all of a sudden we had piles of rotting wood out there since the fences were pretty old and they just tore 'em down and stacked 'em. Then they just stopped the whole process. Didn't put up new fences. Turns out they were bidding with our back-neighbors to get them to split the cost of the fence. I guess they finally gave in because a few weeks ago they finally started to put the fences back up. But THEN they decided they were going to power wash and paint all the buildings. So they STOPPED the fencing process again and we went through a few weeks of waiting for THAT to be done. Couldn't garden then because they would've killed everything. Couldn't put a new lawn in the back, flowers in the front, nothing. Well FINALLY today they finished putting up our fences and the painting on our side of the building is finally done. So we can finally get into the final stretch of making a nice yard for us to enjoy this summer. It'll be so nice to have a large, enclosed space for the girls to play outdoors. We'll probably put an inflatable pool and hopefully a picnic table so that we can eat dinner outside on warm evenings. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do both girls birthday parties at home this year too, since we now have yard space and their bdays are in July and September (two hot months for California!)

Ok, I'm sure that was just fascinating for you. : D You would not believe how pitifully excited I was to see those silly fences put up today. I didn't even care that they'd kept both girls from napping well because of all the noise! But anyway, that is about all I have to update on for now.

Oh, one other thing. In my opinion, it is so flattering when someone scraplifts your work. And recently, Stephanie scraplifted my Wagonride LO and created her own version called San Diego Weekend. I love the clean, crisp papers she chose to compliment the beautiful sailboat photo. Thanks for lifting me Steph! I'm so honored!
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Recent LOs

Silly Faces

Credits: I took these photos of McKenna but I'm never inspired to do multi-photo layouts. Gina Miller's sketch challenge 13 at SBB was perfect! I used Amy Tanabe's Sure Thing kit, Gina Miller's stitches and yarn stitch circles. Tags by Michelle Coleman. Fonts are Juliet and Artistamp Medium.

Because I'm McKenna

Credits: Just a little conversation I had with McKenna the other day that I thought was cute. I used Kim Christensen's fun "Spicy papers and elements", Fhung Lie's ARTiStitches. Photo action by Photoblast. Fonts are Book Antiqua and CK Chemistry.

God Knew

Credits: Almost everything from Kim Christensen's "Cherry Blossom paper and elements" except for the journal strips which are from her Spicy kit, the felt heart by Amy Martin, chrome alpha by Jen Wilson, single stitch by Gina Cabrera. Photo action by Photoblast, Font is CK Chemistry. Quote is uncredited.

Punk Rock Gurl

Credits: Why do Daddy's always like to give their baby's mohawks? = D I used Kim Christensen's Divalicious kit, white background paper from her Spicy kit, Furry Stars, and Furry Chenille RicRac (all by Kim). Zipper by Jen Wilson, Notebook paper by Gina Miller. Photo actions by Photoblast. Inked edge action by Atomic Cupcake. Font is Dazzle.

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I think I'll start being random with my closers. I'll just ask a question or link a product that someone in my household recommends or tell you a random fact about someone in our household. Just to keep it interesting. Or not interesting. Either way.

Today I'll tell you a product I love. My absolute favorite summer scent for the past 8 years or so has been Davidoff's Cool Water Woman. It is so cool and refreshing and clean smelling even on the muckiest, ickiest, sweatiest days. It actually makes me enjoy summer a little more and feels so "California" to me.

And as promised, Kyla's 8-month pics. Small batch this month. She's mobile now so she's not as easy to catch. ; )