Art by Von Frankenstein

Ah, time has passed again and I haven't updated the blog. Where did the month of February go? We Von Frankenstein's have been pretty busy though. We've decided to change up the house. Switched two rooms around and transformed our main living room. We even made room for a dining area! So the search for a dining table on Craigslist have been a daily chore.

I posted some photos in my last blog entry from our day at the rodeo, but what I didn't post was what the kids and I came home to...

A HUGE mosquito YIKES!

Finished Mosquito project

Leaving daddy home alone to be bored out of his mind actually started our need for more than just rearranged furniture. Dave's bottled up artistic energy has finally exploded despite his busy schedule at work.









We decided that it was time to finish painting all the rooms of the house. Valentine's evening was romantically spent painting our kitchen gray to bring out our gray countertops and weird colored cabinets while drinking a bottle of red wine together. The kids came out to hang out but for the most part, they watched a movie and then fell asleep.

Kiyomi and Daddy painting Keanu's room 2008

I finally got around to painting Kiyomi's room pink (at her request). I figured it was unfair that Dave had painted Keanu's room really cool when Keanu was still in my belly, but yet Kiyomi's room was still white.

Once her room was painted, I found a really cute sleigh bed on Craigslist for her room. I wasn't happy with the color of the bed and it was in need of a new paint job anyway, so I spray painted the bed white. It looks super cute in her super pink room. Her room needs some more work but at least I got the painting and the bed taken care of for now.

Dave started his next project today. Of course it's something artistic. We have decided that our house should reflect our individuality and the personality of our household. We want our house to look nice, but it definitely should have our personality as well. What's wrong with painting something cool on the wall? It's not your house, so why should we care if you approve or not? We want our children to grow up knowing that you don't have to conform to society's standards. Obviously, we want them to be responsible, law abiding citizens, and positive contributors to the community... but that doesn't mean that they should be boring. We want them to think outside the box. Mom and dad have pink hair and tattoos. Doesn't mean we are bad people. Doesn't mean we are lazy. Doesn't mean we don't contribute to our community. Doesn't mean we do drugs. Doesn't mean we are on public assistance (nothing wrong with public assistance, not trying to spark any debate here- just saying our alternative look doesn't mean we are on it). It doesn't mean anything other than we have pink hair and tattoos. I know society tends to group certain people together, but we don't want our children to fall for false labels.

Photo by Inspire Me Photography: Check out her blog: Inspireme-photography

 Anyway, I didn't mean to get too deep into that for this particular post. I'll save that rant for another day. My point was just that we have chosen to provide the art for our home rather than buy some pretty picture at the store. When I say we, I really mean Dave. I like art, I like to get lost in doing something artistic, but I'm not actually good at it like Dave is. I MAY attempt to do something on Kiyomi's wall but for now, I'll let Dave work on his ideas. And I'm going to attempt to start a mini garden (again, another post for another day). The next two photos are not very good quality but I wanted to post the current art pieces up on our wall in our living room. It's late at night and the lighting isn't great and for convenience, I just snapped a quick pic with my phone to share.

Left over laminate flooring put to use

Living room wall painting 2008

And finally, a pic of the kids bored out of their minds on one of our many trips to Home Depot during this productive month of February.

Easily discouraged

Twice I started my second blog entry. Twice it got erased just as I was putting the finishing touches and perfecting picture placement. Each one taking about an hour each... only for me to push some button on my keyboard (still don't know which one!!) and then everything erasing!! I quickly would try to "undo" my "erase" but blogger's auto save beat me to the punch both times! 

ARGH! 

So yes, I haven't blogged since then. I had planned on blogging daily or at least every other day. I blogged the second day after posting the first blog- it got erased and I had other things to do... so I tried again the next day and the same thing happened.

Then one of my three followers decided to light a fire under my butt and tell me I need to blog (because one of my other followers told her to tell me to hurry my butt up and blog!) How flattering is that!? Feels good to know somebody wants to read my blog! 

Since I'm tired after an exciting day of watching my kids ride carnival rides at the rodeo, this is just a quick blog to complain and to let my three followers know that I haven't forgotten them. I haven't given up yet, just too lazy to put in more effort for fear of losing all that "hard work" since I'm also making an effort not to let my need for perfection get in the way. I've reached the point of over-formatting so I think it's time to just publish before I lose everything again!!

Here's a few shots of the Von Frankenstein's at the Rodeo:

You just don't understand me

"Mom, you just don't understand me" is the newest phrase that Kiyomi uses. Seriously, isn't this supposed to happen when she becomes a teenager? She is 4. My friend blogged about this the other day and it inspired me to start an online journal of our adventures. click this to see her blog. (She is also the one who took three of the four photos below).

                                                     So here it is. 

My daughter is a diva. She loves the camera. She's a performer and she loves to play dress-up. 

She wants to have a slumber party with her ballet friends. She loves anything and everything girlie, including make-up. What did I create? 

I think I'm pretty liberal with the kids, maybe a little too much. But yet, she says "you never let me do anything" (also a new phrase she started using recently). I let her play with make-up, I let her dress herself (and she has better fashion sense than her mother), I let her listen to the horrible teeny bop music that her pre-teen cousins listen to. At 1, she was in love with Hannah Montana. At 2, she discovered High School Musical. At 3, she had an imaginary boyfriend named, JJ. And now at 4, she is absolutely in love with that Justin Bieber kid. She broke up with JJ because she loves Justin. *SIGH* What am I going to do with this little girl? 

At least we were able to convince her to play flag football last spring and she made it fashionable. She was the only girl in the league, at least in her age group. 

I love my little girl and a part of me is glad that she ended up as girly girl as she did, even though I originally wanted a tomboy. She is smart and outgoing. I think she will do well in Kindergarten this fall. She is an awesome big sister and her brother is as smart as he is, because of her.