December Madness- Big Girl Room Initial Makeover

We have bought our little girl a big girl Princess Canopy Bed from Hom Furniture a couple months ago and moved furniture around in her bedroom. While the tiling was going on in our kitchen a couple weeks ago, I sewed a purple fabric that goes on top of the canopy. I also bought a pretty purple comforter set at Wallmart for her bed. Before I could sew the canopy top, I went to Joann Fabric Store to buy a non-sew cornice project for her window. It was very easy to make and time-efficient. I am so satisfied with how Isabelle's bedroom looks now. Thanks to Marcia, my SIL, who let me borrow her great sewing machine! I can't wait to repaint the walls once the recarpeting is done. I want to make the walls to look more exciting with multi-color paints. Right now it is lavender.

The cornice!

Her canopy bed!

Her reading station.
Her education station.

This Blog has a page rank of 2!

A blogger friend of mine wrote about page ranks this morning and I got curious and checked what this blog's rank. It used to be 1 for many months. When I checked it at Rank Widget a while ago, it went up to 2!!! I don't really know what advantage I would get from having given that rank because I haven't been grabbing opportunities to earn money from blogging yet. But I am glad I got that rank. I don't know what that page ranks mean and what the requirements to get higher ranks are, but somehow I feel happy.

December Madness- Marble Tiles

Tiling our hard floors was really the reason we had December madness. The "tile" man, who Isabelle calls Mr. Roger, owed my husband 8 days of work and he had the time to pay that amount of work to us by tiling our hard floors the last three weeks. It was madness! Christmas was coming and here our house was in complete chaos. It all started when they moved all the furniture and appliances from the kitchen to the living room. When they started tearing out the vinyl and the flat wooden board from the floor, thick dust was all over everything, including my pretty "Christmassy" window treatments. But I decided to just be okay with the temporary state of our house thinking that the tiling won't last long. What was planned to be a 2-day project in the kitchen turned out to last for a week! I admit I was a little disappointed because we were expecting company over Christmas time. But when they came, they were very considerate and were even happy to help me clean up. My hubby was very busy with painting jobs and came home doing what Mr. Roger left unfinished. But when the tiling was finally over, our floors look fantastic! These marble tiles were imported from the Philippines. We wanted to support the Philippine economy in this little way. The tiling is actually an initial make-over for our house. We are planning to change all the wood work in the house and enamel it. Part of the make-over project would be the recarpeting of our floor on the second level. P believes that it is healthy to put on new carpets after 5 years. So, there we go... can't wait to pick a lighter color and get rid of the old purple! Well, I am not talking about the Vikings, Okay? We are so happy for the Minnesota Vikings Team! They are in the play-offs! P and I will be watching their first play-offs game at the dome on Sunday! Go, Vikings! It's funny how Vikings got in here... I was just talking about our marble tiles! LOL!

Paul, grouting the spaces between tiles! He works soooooo fast and excellently!!!

Contemporary Portrait Contest

I almost forgot that I want to join the Contemporary Portrait Contest hosted by Aisha. Well, I hope this one will win. It was taken the night before Christmas eve when two of my Mongolian girl friends came to visit us. Our little girl entertained them with her goofiness! It was fun to take pictures of them that night. They all were in the mood for posing for the camera. For the series of photos taken that night, check them out here... In the mood for picture taking!

And to view other entries, visit this site... http://www.imincultureshock.com/2008/12/contemporary-portrait.html

In the mood for picture taking!

December Madness- Snow time

It is been snowing a lot this month. It would have been fun if it is not painfully cold because it's very nice to play in the snow. But the weather has been frigid that it's been impossible to enjoy outdoors at all. We were blessed to have warm temps for a couple days last week. Izzy got to play outside. When we were in Winona, it was warm enough to take a walk and make a snowman in front of Paul's mom and dad's house. We even got to take Izzy and her cousin in a sleigh ride. Paul had fun working his muscles out while pulling the sleigh. The girls kept demanding him to run faster for a faster sleigh ride. I was also running, trying to catch up with them. That was quite a work out for Paul and me.

Izzy, enjoying the snow!

Paul, snow blowing our driveway.

Izzy and Payton on their sleigh ride! Oh, they had great fun!

Paul, having a chance to work his muscles out!

December Madness- Parties

Our Christmas party this year was with friends who live just a few miles from us. We were not supposed to come to their party because we got already invited by our Somali friends to a birthday party. It was snowing hard that day and P didn't really feel like driving all the way to Edina to attend the birthday party, so we canceled it and went to our friends' Christmas party instead. It was a really nice party. We got to meet the husband's side of the family who flew all the way from South Africa to visit them. We have met the wife's side of the family last summer, so it was nice to get to meet the other side. The food they served was all American I guess... I guess I was hoping I would get to try some South African food but maybe that's for next time. We had the game-version of exchanging gift and it was fun. Izzy and I got a giant pencil from that game. After the game, we were led a to their spacious project/music/education room and the husband started handing music sheets and play the piano. We all sang Christmas songs. They're were more or less 40 people and each one was a great singer, so that the house was so full of wonderful music that night. It was wonderful!

Everybody was singing at the party, except for Izzy and Zoe, the party hosts' baby girl!

Our second Christmas party was at our house right after our candlelight service at church. The third one was in Winona, at Paul's parents' house with everyone in his side of the family. R, P's oldest brother and I had a little carolling the night before the party. I sang while he played the piano. We also had a huge concert from Isabelle and two of cutest cousins as they all played one piano together at the same time and were singing their own different songs... yes, at the same time! They sang to the top of their voice too... that made it really funner and funnier! The following morning, we opened our gifts. We all got really nice gifts, except for Paul who decided to ask the "gift givers" to buy The Way of the Master books for him to give to the pastors in the Philippines. I love him! That is so him... he can easily spot a great need and want to be one who provides for the need. Made me more and more proud of him.

Izzy got a big Veggie Tales book from her grandma and grandpa among other gifts.

Our fourth Christmas party this year was with my Filipino-American group of friends. Well, if you hear the words Filipino and party, then think of f-o-o-d!!! It was definitely a feast! We had it at the house of one of our friends, who is the favorite "ate" of all. Last year, we had it at our house and it sure was jammed packed by happy laughing "pinays". Anyway, the party this year was also a lot of fun. We had a few good games and gift giving. In our culture, we don't give wish list out and we don't necessarily draw names for gift giving. So it was fun to give and get gifts that were not expected. We love the surprise factor in gift giving and we truly treasure whatever we receive. Well, it was another wonderful party that brought Filipino friends much closer to each other! Thank you, Lord!

If you think that's a lot of food, think more because that table was just one of the few places were food was set! See the lechon? That night, Izzy ate lechon like that of someone who has never eaten anything for a week!

P's eating lots of lechon too!

"Re-bonding" with friend, Lorelei and her 2-month old baby girl, named, Audry.

That shows barely half of the people who crowded Ate Debra's house.