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.

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!!

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.

All You Need is Love...

Ok, I really don't agree with that statement, but I do love Valentine's Day. I usually try to make a fun breakfast for everyone, but Jeff had meetings at 6:30 that morning and we had church at 9am so that was out. Instead, the girls and I snuck into Jeff's car and filled it with balloons and decorated the outside. He loves all the attention and was thrilled to clean it off :) Tehee!

I was not in the mood to deal with restaurant crowds that weekend at all. Instead, I made a nice dinner for Jeff and the girls.

Since my traditional creme brulee wasn't ready in time to get the girls to bed, they had mini red velvet cakes (which worked out better since there was more creme brulee for me! ).

Getting Ready for Brother

Cara and Natalie are so excited for their new brother. They wanted to do something to help get ready, so we went to the fabric store and they picked out a few fabrics (with some guidance from mom). They cut out all the squares by themselves and I taught them how to use my machine.

The finished product!

We also signed them up for the sibling class at the hospital. The videos were hilarious, and maybe a little young for them, but they had fun changing diapers on their dolls, learning about how they can help take care of the new baby, getting a tour of the NICU and a room set up like where mom will deliver.

Happy Birthday Cara!

Wow! I can hardly believe my Cara is already 9 years old.

Time needs to slow down just a little.

For her 9th birthday, Cara really wanted to go ice skating. Since I can't get on the ice in my pregnant condition-and it's torture for me to just sit and watch the fun, Jeff took Cara and Natalie ice skating.

Later that afternoon, Grandma & Grandpa Moody, Uncles Mike and Ian and Aunt Kara and Desire came down to share her birthday dinner at one of our favorite dining spots.

Cara is growing up so fast and there are so many things I love about this child. She is such a sweet girl. She is so kind to her sister and always doing little thoughtful things. For no occasion, she will often make breakfast for me and bring it while I'm still in bed. She loves being busy. Reading, sewing, cooking, and drawing are some of the things she loves to do. She is very musical and I enjoy listening to her play the piano and sing. I am so excited I get to be her mom and love watching her grow up.

Christmas

I love Christmas. It is my absolute favorite holiday. I love spending time with my family, waking up and watching the girls and everyone open presents and staying in my pajamas all day.
We had our traditional Christmas Eve with Jeff's family. It was at Aunt Alison's house this year. Cara sang a solo and both girls enjoyed participating in a poem with all their Knight cousins.
This year the girls decided they wanted a Wii from Santa. It was our first year without a ton of "toys" as they've moved on to the electronic gadget stage. It was kind of sad to see the ending of all the dolls and dress up type things of the past. But I was so happy to have their new stuff take up much less real estate when it came time to put it all away :)
One of their favorite toys they received were the DSi's from Grandma and Grandpa Moody. Not only did they have games to play, but what they seemed most amused by were the built in features of the camera and sound recorders. After being banned from screaming into the device and replaying it (over and over), the girls spent countless hours of taking photos of everything. It was interesting to see what subjects each was most interested in. Cara seemed to enjoy photographing people while most of Natalie's pictures consisted of all the animals around Grandma's house.

Christmas 2009 was fantastic spending time with all our families around.