Saturday, March 13, 2010

Ronald McDonald House

I belong to a local association for interior designers and a little over year ago we decided to adopt the Pasadena Ronald McDonald house as a charity to work with. It was a perfect fit. The home (actually there are two of them) is a couple of historic craftsman homes in Pasadena across from the Huntington Hospital.

The master suite was adopted by the local Pasadena Firefighters association where inspiration for the room came from. It is called Firehouse 35 in memory of their firehouse that was closed many years ago. In fact, when firetrucks pass by, they give a little honk (we witnessed this first hand).

I collaborated with a couple of other designers and we completed a design plan for the room. It was submitted about the time that the home ran into some administrative issues so it was put on hold for quite some time. In the past couple of months though, the project was revived and today we finally had the chance to complete the room install-with a modified budget and scaled back plans for the space. It's a large room with its own bathroom, and two smaller rooms attached (a nursery and mother-in-law's room).

So here are the results--we're quite happy with what we were able to accomplish with our meager budget and volunteer help.



I was excited that I was able to help, in a very small part, make this a more welcoming place for families with sick children who may be away from their homes for an extended period of time. I hope that I never have to stay at a place like this, but I am so grateful that they exist to support families faced with the horrible reality of a severely ill child.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Belly Shots

I had never given any thought to preserving the memory of being pregnant in photographs. I mean, who feels cute when you feel like you're carrying around a tummy the size of a watermelon? ...Until a few weeks ago when I was getting dressed and Jeff brought it up. It got me me thinking. Since this is the last time my body will ever experience this, I figured I should look into it.

A friend of mine is a budding photographer and we were talking about these types of pictures and she offered to take some for me. So here are a few of my favorites...
I actually had no plans of ever sharing any of these. But seeing the finished results -I figured why not? Pregnancy isn't something we do very often and this also serves as proof that there is a belly here (for my kind friends who have said that I don' look very pregnant--HA!!). Thanks Liz!!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Showered with Love

My most awesome friends threw me a baby shower. It was such a fun morning with great friends, yummy food (a delicious quiche, sinful cinnamon roll cheesecake and yummy parfaits).



I was so overwhelmed by how much time and effort all my friends made to make this so special. You ladies are truly amazing!! Thanks for all who came to show their love and help me get ready for this little boy.