Halloweening

Well. The decade + of hating Halloween is over! We have a kid who can walk. Thus, we soaked it up this year! Birdie dressed up as a ... wait for it ... BIRD! A chicken, chick-a-dee, duck, canary, whatever you want to call it. She was some kind of cute fluffy bird. I took advantage of three events to dress her up for: Saturday's Pumpkin Bash at the Woodland Park Zoo and the ward trunk or treat as well as today's trick or treating around a friend's neighborhood.

The photos are out of order (if anyone knows how to help me get the new blogger uploader set up with my two old blogs, please tell me!) so sorry for the jumping around.

We saw an elephant!

Bird chills out for a pretzel break in the rain.

This is I think the only picture we got of her with the head on. This was tonight ... more on that later...

Back to the zoo. Birdie running from the bird room.

A plump birdie in the distance.

Wandering freely at the zoo.

Sitting on the steps at the elephant exhibit.

Ward party. She tried a sucker for the first time.

Tonight our friends Kelly and Christian invited us over for dinner and trick or treating in their cute neighborhood. Their 15 month old son was a monster. Birdie is 18 months old (and had her first day of nursery today; it was rough).

I'm not sure who had more fun, the parents or the kids.

And DONE.

This Old House

Here's our house in no particular picture order. I'm too lazy to narrate at the moment so it's The Bird's room, then our front room and kitchen and our bedroom. The usual 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom thing. And no pictures of our bathroom. It's kind of depressing.

'Round Here

Here are some random pictures of our area.

Adam took this picture while on a boat trip on Lake Washington.
These next ones are of The Bird's and my exploration of the Puget Sound area down the road from our place.

This is our neighborhood. The Bird and I were out playing in the street when Adam came home so he's in a few of these. These houses are directly across the street from us.
This is our backyard. We live in a triplex and the 3 dudes who live downstairs enter from the backyard, so although they are super nice and friendly , Birdie and I don't go back there much. We stick to walks in the street. She just likes puddles and rocks more than grass, what can I say?
This is our entrance on the right side of the house. 2 girls live next to us and they enter from the left side. Sienna goes up and down these steps a million times a day.

This is the front of the house. Our side is covered by that giant tree. It's lovely for privacy and shade but on the rare occasion that it's sunny and warm outside our place is still chilly inside. So I'm getting used to wearing socks and pants and long sleeved shirts and sometimes my big, poufy bathrobe around the house.
We have a garage and that's The Fo in front of it. We park Zippy inside the garage. She will not be used much in the next couple years because Adam rides the bus to and from school.

Here's Adam coming home from the bus stop which is super close.

Birdie kneeling in the water and sampling rocks.

This is a different day when we were out when Adam was just getting off the bus. Birdie runs to say hello.

She thinks it's really funny that he carries a thermos of hot chocolate with him to school. Ha ha!
We are next door to this nondescript corner bakery. It bakes bread all day every day to be distributed to stores and bakeries. You can also walk in and buy your own loaf if you want. And we ALWAYS want. But at $4 a loaf, it's expensive. And sooooooo good. The smell is delicious torture, but good thing I have my trusty breadmaker that makes a loaf that is almost just as tasty for way cheaper.
Here is Crown Hill Cemetary where The Bird and I enjoy quiet exploration.

One last shot for you. THE BIRD! She's growing up and soooo insanely cute. She can now: go down a slide without me holding onto her, go down a few steps if there is a rail to hold on to, run, kiss with her mouth closed (video coming soon), hug, and loves saying UH OH! She'll also say Wuh Wuh when she sees a dog, Miii when she sees a cat, Buh Bye when daddy leaves for school, Yeah to every question asked (another video coming soon). And one more month until nursery!

InCircle Interiors

InCircle Interiors in duh house! Boom!

Our Facebook page is up. Search for us by typing InCircle Interiors in your search box at the top of FB and click LIKE. And give yourself a big thumbs up for doing so.

Our Twitter page is up. Follow us by going to Twitter, clicking Find People and typing @InCircleInt. Give a squak after doing so. Because that's just a very enthusiastic version of a tweet.

Our email is InCircleInteriors@gmail.com. Email us any ol' time.

Blog and website coming soon with more information about EVERYTHING we know you have burning, itching questions about!

Sienna Bee Earrings on Sale

All earrings are $4 or $3 for the next month until they expire plus $1.50 flat for shipping. One of a kind, handmade, unique, quirky, cool, kitschy, neat, special, practical, awesome earrings for $4.50 or $5.50. You cannot find this kind of a mad deal in Target, Wal-Mart, Forever21, H&M, Claire's, or even Goodwill. I will not be replenishing them, so get them while they are hot.http://www.etsy.com/shop/SiennaBee

The Citay

Welp. City living. It is so fantastic I can't even stand it. It's not like we live in downtown Seattle or anything. We kind of do feel like the suburbs out here in North Seattle (I think that's where I am) but I will proudly claim that I live in THE Seattle because that is what my address says. Here are some things about the citay we have been enjoying so far. I will start taking pictures soon but until then ....

* Downtown Seattle / Pike Place / Space Needle is 7 miles south. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I'm driving around looking for World Market when suddenly, on the horizon, the Space Needle! And downtown sky scrapers! More surprise when our GPS (Veronica) says I've reached World Market only to see the sign for Pike Place market right before my eyes. After perusing WM, Birdie and I took a quick stroll through Pike Place before she got ornery and wiggly and we had to get our hineys home.

* The Puget Sound is one mile west. I love jogging there in the morning, looking out into the open (kind of closed off, half-saltwater, half-fresh water) sea and jogging home. It restores my soul to see that foggy body of water.

* We are technically in a neighborhood called Crown Hill but we claim Ballard because it's bigger and more well known. Ballard has its own quaint little downtown 2 miles south that has been fun to explore.

* Right around the corner from us is Crown Hill Cemetery, a great place to walk with Birdie without worrying about traffic. She insists on walking herself most of the time so we spend a lot of time wandering the streets of our neighborhood. Thankfully we don't have too much traffic in our neighborhood in general. We live just off a busy street but the one in front of our house is not a through street, so it cuts down on traffic.

* The Target here is an interesting trip. It's part of Northgate Mall. It has its own entrance that leads you up to a parking garage. The store is on two floors so, if you are a mom with kids, you use the elevator. If you are without kids you can use escalators inside the store - one for yourself and one for your cart. It is something to see those carts going up on their own conveyor belt thingy. Very futuristic.

* The houses here go in a sequence something like this: nice, nice, crap hole, abandoned, nice, dive, nice, nice, gave up, foreclosure. I LOVE IT! All different architecture, too. Just like water bodies, it does me good to see dwellings with personality and a story.

* Birdie and I have made it up to campus once so far. We rode the bus which we can catch right in front of our house and it drops us off right on campus. (Adam rides it everyday - it's very handy!) We met up with Adam for a student / family BBQ thingy last week and his new building is gorgeous (more about it here). I can't wait to explore the campus more to see what all the gushing is about. Maybe not the bus next time, though. Birdie attracted all the crazies and I'm not so thrilled about trying to keep her contained in that setting.

* Our ward seems to have a lot of people in our same situation - in school, in transition. Sucks for the ol' standbys but great for us. I've already made a fun connection - my fellow wardie who lives across the street knows all my Seattle cousins and even dated one back in the day. Ha! Gotta love the small Mormon world.

Coming soon ... house tour and neighborhood tour ... as soon as I finish decorating (although there is never a 'finish' to my decorating - it's a sickness) and as soon as I figure out how to wrangle The Bird away from oncoming traffic AND take pictures with my big, fat, heavy camera.

August

We are back from an amazing August vacation and settling into a routine here in Seattle. August 3, mom, Adam, Sienna and I drove from Irvine to Seattle over a few days. We stayed with cousins in Woodinville while hunting for an apartment. We found one pretty quickly but couldn't move in until September 1. We moved our stuff into a storage unit and flew to Utah. We spent a week in Roosevelt and two weeks in Denver with our families. It was glorious. We went to the pool, went boating at the lake, ate out so much we got sick of it, took a 3-day vacation from The Bird during which Adam and I hiked around Rocky Mountain National Park, went to a demolition derby, BBQ-ed on a regular basis, and Birdie became a skilled walker. Here it is in photo form: