the birthday of the queen bee

so friday, as we all know, was the big 58 birthday of our own dear marmy-pants. a very special day on the earth, honoring one so lovely and energetic and finedandy. anyway, here's the haps:

we supped at mel's (feasted, really) and then presented momma. with her presents. darin and i gave her a guitar and she is going to be a folk singer princess once again like days of yore! doesn't she look great with it?!happy to be with a fellow musician:then reconnoitered later at powells for karaoke night! momma wowed the crowd. no one could believe she was any older than 40 and beleaguered her with compliments. (poor thing)

now her singing just didn't live up. she couldn't hang with the performance side of karaoke! can you believe it? first she forced mikie to sing this song with her:

"islands in a stream"

and then she refused to sing! he had to take over, making up his own melody since he doesn't really know the song (and doing a damn fine job i might add) and then mom got some back-up:luckily the crowd was forgiving and mom decided she's more of an "audience" gal.

and that she does very well!

happy mama and daughter:

and here is one more photo that i just think is hilarious:

Happy Birthday Mamma Mia!!!

Money, money, money.. Am I hungry?!

Aw... the wait. Who will be the lucky soul to walk by these two. They will be forced to pay for...

Edamame, a piece of cereal (one oatmeal square to be exact), blue wiggly spider, shell, shell and more shell.

Made them take a break to swim. As soon as we got home they went right back to work.

They don't EVER tire of the waiting game. In fact if no is coming they go knock on doors and yell at cars driving by.

This is what oey does. This is what he does after every swim.

Heather. You have brought soooo much joy into our home. Jarom was able to get Torin and Colin to come over by showing them his new candy machine. Plus he wants to be extra good so he can go to the dollar store to put candy in it. Every Friday is show and tell- Bet you know what he brought that first Friday. He is one cool dude. So again Heather- Thank you!!

fall-cleaning

I love the beattyblog. I miss it when I don't post anything here. So....here's my excuse to post something today.

Yesterday to celebrate the first day of fall darin and i spent basically all day CLEANING OUT THE GARAGE.

there is family stuff in there to beat the band. large plastic bins upon more large plastic bins full of all kinds of sweet surprises. for example, i found joey's baby book and looked through it. there was a letter that mom wrote to him when he was five and a half months old. she told about how scared she and dad were when he had to have hernia surgery as a newborn and how he was the light of all our lives and how he would be a grown man sooner than anyone could imagine. and here it is, that time has come. strange to think.

there's a lot of fun stuff in there too. anyone need sporting equipment? halloween costumes? we got 'em....
but really, folks. let's have a big garage sale. darin and i now have a neat and LARGE pile of give-away stuff. if you have anything to get rid of now is the time. i'm hoping to have a massive sale in mid-october. let's simplify our lives!

Our House Atop A Tree

Where do I begin...It's been a long and filthy road to the completion of our little love nest at 442 A Main Street, Placerville. But, lord oh lord, has it been worth it.

When we first heard that there may be a one and a half bedroom apartment available above Sierra Rizing Bakery downtown, our stomachs were alive with butterflies! We called Gloria Smith (the almost 87-year-old land lady, who informed us it was ours if we wanted it, no deposit, no lease, just $450 per month).Giddy with excitement, we ran down to main street and unlocked the dark red door with the adorable mail slot. As we climbed the steps, a foul (to put it lightly) odor filled our nostrils and we were hesitant to even set foot in the front door atop the stairs. But, we continued up anyways. Past the cracked walls in the hallway, we came upon a front door with two shattered window panes and a living room (I would prefer to call it an "un-living room") with what used to be white carpets (I think...?!). There were black spray paint stains, concentrated dark colored smudges, and trash EVERYWHERE. Crumpled paper, an old couch, trash bags full of rotting food, a leaking refrigerator with spoiled mayonnaise and half and half, stuff carved into the walls, empty jars labeled "Medicinal Cannabis", YOU NAME IT. Well, see for yourself (mind you, it is unfortunate that the pictures are unable to capture the rank smell)...

The cracks all along the hallway




Now this is a sight! Rotting bags of trash in the sad little clawfoot bathtub


The molding, disgusting sink


Perhaps the most disgusting, although it's hard to say...the back porch. How nice it was to find out we have a placerville rooftop to ourselves AS OUR BACK PORCH, and then how horrible to see this!




And just when we thought there couldnt be any more CRAP around, we found this cubby above the stairway..filled to the BRIIMMM.



Every square inch was covered in a filthy energy that was hard to stand. And I told Joey I didnt think I could do it, because doing work on the place meant spending money on the place, and a LOOTTT of work meant a LOOOTTT of money. So, joey decided to call our land lady. She decided she would pay for new floors, new paint, dump runs, and anything else we could possibly need to make the place liveable and make it our own! So, who could refuse.

Our first trip was to The Paint Spot, where I put almost $500 on her account. And so, the painting began.

The first coat, primer on the random and dirty blue wall.


Overwhelmed by the work ahead..


Just crap in the living room


The bedroom going from blue/white/gray to beautiful brown (Evan was our HELPER the WHOLE time!)



<>

The living room, Periwinkle as can be! :)



My beautiful Spanish Blue front door, in progress



More living room work!



...and play



Then Heather joined us and helped paint the kitchen Sunflower Yellow (as the other projects were still underway)



okay, now, get ready, some serious results are just ahead.

Living room coming along..


Bedroom coming along (WITH CARPET PULLED UP, Thanks to Stanny)



Our other SAVIOR pops.



The New Mexican Pueblo of a kitchen coming together!!







And then it happened...the best day of my life.
THE HARDWOOD FLOORING GUYS CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So, we took a trip to Home Depot to get a refrigerator, a new toilet seat, new light fixtures, a new showerhead, screening materials for the windows (since many were torn or just plain missing), more painting tape/brushes, a door knob, cleaning supplies, glass to fix window panes, etc etc etc etc....$900 dollars later, we were SET!

Then came the bathroom

(first I painted it bright orange, then re-painted it ha!)

So, once the painting was done, we were ready to move a few things in and celebrate a bit.

My brother and Evan enjoying our 2nd hand sleeper sofa


Joey dancing his pants off


Rounding up stuff at Heather and Darins


Joey getting started on his Music room (the work never ended)


Boxes and Boxes moved into our new house, waiting to be unpacked to become part of the nest.


Now, even though it was grueling and filthy (cant stress the FILTH FACTOR enough), and even though I had to spend 3 hours in the emergency room to get stitches on my thumb..








...it has been MORE THAN worth it!



And here's why..


Before- Kitchen view through living room, into bedroom



After:



Kitchen Window before:



After:


Living Room before:



Living Room after:



Bedroom before:



After:


Joey's music room before:

(yes, thats a hole in the house, semi-boarded up)..

After:


Bathroom before:


After:




Our kittens before:


Our kittens now:


So thats it. Maybe the longest blog ever made. Of course there is much more to see, now that we are completely moved in and living happily across from Placerville Hardware, but we have no plans to leave anytime soon, so come check it out. We are so happy and at peace and, being the ones that worked so dang hard up here, we adore every speck of space and detail surrounding us. Cant wait to have you all over for some Office, some red wine, and some LOVE.