Charlie's New Best Friend

Charlie has found a new best friend since arriving in California and her name is Rosie.  He absolutely loves watching her through the sliding glass doors and is in heaven when she is allowed inside.

Heather

A New House

We arrived in California yesterday and this was waiting for Bea.....her very own playhouse!  And if you're wondering, behind the garage door is a tricycle.  After all, what good would a new house be without a new ride?

Bea's grandparents assembled it from boxes used to ship organs and her aunt Shannon and Shannon's friend Annie painted it.  Bea absolutely loves it and was constantly asking (when we would come inside) to go outside and "play with my new house".

Heather

California Bound

Heather

Bea's Art Corner

Every once in awhile Bea will do or say something and I'm reminded just how much she pays attention to everything we do and say.  Monday night after dinner she wanted us to come into her playroom and color.  She gave us both pieces of paper and crayons and then sat with us at the table and worked on her own coloring.

After a few minutes, when T and I had stopped coloring she grabbed one of our pictures and said she wanted to hang it up and then took it over to her "kitchen" and put it up on the wall.

I do this with everything she paints (or draws, etc) so of course she wanted to do it with our pictures.

As you can tell, we're quite the artistic group.

Heather

New Friends

How adorable are these little guys?  They're Anamalz and I ordered them for Charlie's room (eventually they'll move to the playroom for him).  I found these three as a group on Zulily for a huge discount and I'm hoping this will be a start of a growing collection for him.

Heather  

Chillin with a snack

On one of our morning walks to Starbucks.  Bea loves the Peeled apple snacks they carry.

Recent Finds

A few weekends ago our little town of South Orange had a city wide "garage sale".  There was nothing specific I was on the hunt for, but I love going to garage sales, thrift stores, flea markets, etc.  We only ended up going to a handful of homes but that's because I hit my spending limit early on.

Here are a few of our finds.

Cute Melissa & Doug abacus.  Not really sure if I'll put this in Charlie's room for a more decorative piece or leave it out in the playroom for the time being.

A huge group of Dr. Seuss books.  They were $1 each and this isn't even everything we picked up, Bea has several in her room.

Melissa & Doug ice cream set.  Bea wasn't even that into this when we were at the sale but I thought she might be soon.  It's an understatement to say that she plays with this multiple times a day.

Box of Mr., Mrs., and kiddo potato heads plus TONS of parts.

Two vintage Sesame Street books.  I love these!

And finally the "catch of the day".....

A Thomas the Train figure 8 train set and a basketful of trains as well as additional tracks, a train wash, a crane, and risers.

I had been considering a train set for Bea but wasn't really sure where to begin.  Then we came across all of this for, get ready, $40.  I knew this was a deal, but wasn't sure how much of one until last week when we were in Toys R Us and I saw that just one of these trains could run anywhere from $16-22.  I'm not even exaggerating when I say we easily have 30 of them.  The only thing we don't have is a bridge for the figure 8 set.  That's what eBay is for, right?

I think we ended up spending around $70 for all of this.  All in all, a great garage sale day!

Heather