Little girl in big old bed

She takes up approximately 1/20th of this big girl bed. But she's got about a million elephants, zebras, babies and teddies to keep her cozy.

Happy (Chinese) New Year

During one of Ken's recent trips to Asia, he acquired a bunch of very cool chopsticks, a love for sticky buns, and the idea to host a Chinese New Year's Party.

We decorated the house (thank you, World Market, for having such great stuff and I curse you for going out of business now that I've just found you . . . ).
We ate a ton of great food.
We admired the Margetts' concoction for cooking sticky rice (I've got to get one of these).
Taryn won best of show for her great cooking (and great serving dish).
Baby Gabriel and a I modeled our Chinese silks.
We enjoyed great food and great conversation. Looking forward to a yearly tradition!

the Projects

We've had a bunch of projects on our plate recently (which would explain the reason why nothing else seems to be getting done. Blogging, laundry, actually cooking meals, etc, etc).

Here's what we've been up to (in no particular order):

1.  Valentines.  Luke and I made 'em together.  Not the cutest things I've ever created (don't look, please, Stacey) but Luke was proud of them.  And I like how he wrote his name on every single one.

2.  Evie's Big Girl Room

Evie decided that it was finally time to learn to jump out of her crib.  So we decided to get rid of the red wall, change it all into a nice, neutral cream, and bring on the girly.   
Note the high-class art work on the wall (done by yours truly with scrapbooking paint to match the quilt, which I absolutely adore).
We decided to be neutral because of our next (and biggest) project.

3.  Selling our house

We're planning on staying in the south metro, hopefully in Eagan/Rosemount.  We're hoping to take advantage of the market and so, as of today, our house is officially on the market.  Which means we've done a ton of painting, organizing, cleaning closets and throwing stuff away.  We'll see how it goes - but let me know if anyone you know needs a house!  

Activity

What do you do when it's cold outside?***

***Yes, I let him do this. And I might have given him
the bag because he "wasn't going fast enough"

Rome: Recap, last few days

Some last few pictures from our trip. Ken had the last day free so we finished up the touristy sights. We took a guided tour of the Vatican which was really, really interesting. We saw the Sistine Chapel (amazing. absolutely amazing) and St. Peter's Basilica.

Ken and I at St. Peter's. The entire church (artwork and all) is done in mosaic, so it would last forever. They also have engraved in the floor the length of all other basilicas/cathedrals just so they have proof that St. Peter's is the largest.

The view up at the dome - incredible.
A few shots in doors at the Vatican. They had some of the most beautiful mosaics patterned after persian rugs.
There is so much art collected by the various popes that it was literally stacked on top of each other for halls and halls and halls. I especially loved the roman statues.

We took another quick walk so I could show Ken the Roman Forum and then we wandered aroiund the Colosseum. Another simply incredible structure. It used to be covered with marble, but the marble was "recycled" and turned into much of the marble at St. Peter's.

Ken cheering on the gladiators at the Colosseum:


Ken and I at the Roman Forum
Then we finished off the day with dinner (more gnocchi for me!) at a great restaurant just around the corner from our hotel and a stop and our favorite gelato place. We literally went there every day. Note my Italian souvenier - black leather boots.

We then got back on a plane and headed home to our happy and tired children.