Kate Eva

Color Land and Friends Shop Sale!

2012-02-10T16:51:00.000-06:00

Here's something fun for you guys! Right now, Color Land and Friends Shop is offering you all 50% off your entire purchase! She has some seriously adorable stuff for the kiddos. Visit the sweet blog here...

And visit the adorable shop here....

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Codeword: FRIENDSHIP

Happy Shopping!

Little Friday Blog

2012-02-10T16:33:00.000-06:00

I'm so happy it's Friday! It's been a long week at work and I've just been sooo tired! Adjusting to working outside the home, especially at a job that has me on my feet for many hours a day with no breaks has been a bit challenging. I'm a high energy type, but I gotta say, I'm zapped! But ok, this weekend is going to be fun! I get to go to an art show tonight and tomorrow we're meeting up with friends to go see the US women's national soccer team play. We've had tickets for weeks and are all super excited about that! On Sunday Aria has her first game back with her soccer academy and Amelia has her last soccer game of her indoor winter season. So we are going to be busy doing fun grown up stuff and fun kid stuff. I couldn't be happier to spend some time with my family!

The art show I'm attending tonight should be quite fun and interesting! The artist is Robert Deyber and he is an acclaimed artist who creates paintings with a mix of surrealism and contemporary. I've been studying him quite a bit for the past few weeks since the opportunity came up to do write up about his exhibit tonight.

Robert Deyber, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

I'll let y'all know how it goes!

And just for the heck of it, here's some videos of my girls. I've started putting together "highlight reels" for them after their soccer games and setting them to music. They think it's so funny! So here's my amateur highlight reels from this past week!

Weekend Snapshots

2012-02-06T21:26:00.000-06:00

This weekend was really defined by Saturday. On Sunday we seriously slept in and didn't really do anything. But Saturday was super awesome. Before I go there though, check out this produce! Ok, the reason I'm excited about it is that it came to us via a new service we're using. An Austin based company just expanded to Dallas and it's awesome. It's called Greenling and you can order your groceries online and have them delivered to your door for free. Everything is organic and local. Basically, this produced was grown on a nearby farm, picked out of the ground that morning and delivered to me that evening! If you live in Dallas, it's worth a try. We think it's pretty cool!

So back to our weekend adventures....

I worked Saturday morning and made tons o' treats! Then I came home and Rob was all, "What do you want to do?" and I said I'd been wanting to go to The Nasher Sculpture Center to view a special exhibit that went on display recently. (I'll fill you in more on that in another post. Amazing stuff. Seriously.) So we called up our friends and they were down with going too. The first Saturday of every month, the Nasher in Dallas is free and they host a scavenger hunt for the kids. Basically the kids have to go around identifying certain sculptures and record information about them and then turn in their form for a prize. So once we fueled up on dessert at the Wolfgang Puck cafe inside the museum (so yum), we let all the kiddos go for it. If you've never been there or heard of it, the museum is awesome. They have Rodins and Picassos and de Koonings and a giant sculpture garden where the kids can be free and experience the art and the Dallas skyline is right above you. So amazing. We always feel lucky to live near a cool arts district like Dallas'.

Hello Dallas

Hey, it's a faceless crowd!

Big sculpture, little girl

Finding stuff!

Waiting for cookies in the museum cafe

Boarding the trolly to get to Uptown for dinner

After having some delicious burritos for dinner, we headed home for the evening. Such a fun day. Hope you all put some fun weekends on your books as well!

Imagine The Possibilities....My Organized Laundry Closet!

2012-01-31T08:31:00.000-06:00

Ta- DA!

My tiny laundry closet has been a project that has been staring me in the face for so long! It's been way too easy to just shut the doors and leave it until the elusive "later". I have to tell you, it feels so nice to have it done. Never again will it go back to being a disorganized disgrace!

Here's the before picture... (ahem, embarrassing)

Here's how it came out....

This hanging hamper from the Container Store not only hangs out of the way, but it also hides the breaker box.

Ok, I'm going to link up with everyone else who tackled their impossible challenges! Can't wait to see what everyone else accomplished and can't wait to tackle my next project!

Weekend Snapshots

2012-01-30T21:45:00.000-06:00

How was your weekend?
Ours was filled with shopping trips and errands, church and soccer. Pretty typical around here! But since I'm a constant photo snapper, even of the relatively mundane, here are some pictures!

Amelia at the Apple Store playing while daddy was at the Genius Bar.

Doing some shopping. By shopping I mean we bought the shoes at the shoe store and they bought the bubble gum at the candy store.

Little ladies heading into Sunday School

At home, the girls build some pretty sweet forts!

They really had no interest in coming out of them for about half a day or so. So I served them dinner in there (-:

Little Lucy got sleepy and fell asleep in Rob's arms- aww.

And here's a little highlight reel from our little Mia's soccer game. I've decided that video of soccer is way more fun than pictures of soccer. She's number 7!

Laundry Room Update!

2012-01-26T16:27:00.001-06:00

Oh gosh, I really meant to blog about this the last two Mondays, but it just didn't happen! Remember how I was participating in a challenge to start the new year off with productivity? Well I'm doing it, I swear! I just keep slacking on the updates and linking up. Next week is the final link up with our final projects and so I wanted to sneak one in before then even if I'm tardy to the party.

So my focus has been my laundry closet. It has been shameful. And while I do keep it clean in the sense of wiping it down with Clorox wipes, I haven't even attempted to make it a pleasant place organizationally or aesthetically. It's kind of a catch all - things in there that don't belong because I'm in a hurry or just lazy and put them in there instead of walking the extra 10ft to the garage. And the door is pretty much always closed because, well, you can see... here's the before....

Here's some progress....
(sorry about the grainy iphone photos. I'll do better for the final pic!)

This was actually intended for last week's update so I'm even further along than this. Can't wait to link up with everyone to show off the finished product next week!

Click on the button to find out more about the challenge that's going down on these 6 pretty blogs!

Photo Challenge Day 9: {Someone I Love}

2012-01-24T16:02:00.000-06:00

I was going to put up a picture of someone I "love". You know, like a celebrity crush (looking at you NPH) or something like that, but then I ran across this photo and decided instead to put up a picture of someone I l-o-v-e.

Photo a Day Project

2012-01-24T12:35:00.000-06:00

This picture cracks me up. Aria and I were taking a bunch of silly pictures in the bathroom to entertain ourselves. Why? Why were we just hanging around in the bathroom finding stuff to do? That would be because Amelia is terrified to be in the bathroom alone while she showers. Again...why? Well, some kid in her class decided to regale her with the tale of "bloody mary". I remember walking in on some kids in elementary school (maybe about 1st grade or so) trying that nonsense out in the bathroom. All the girls screamed and ran out. I remember not running out and thinking they were all a bunch of ding dongs. But poor Mia can't let it go. Oh and the kid got it all wrong and made it that the ghost lives in the toilet so there's that that I get to deal with too.... Thanks random second grader!

Weekend Snapshots

2012-01-24T12:17:00.000-06:00

I've been a little m.i.a. for the past week, but for good reason. Way back last summer I had planned on getting a job and working while the girls are in school. I had to my advantage the luxury of time to figure out what this job might look like- where, hours, etc. and so I decided I wanted to bake. I love baking. I was thisclose to enrolling in culinary school when I found a bakery that likes to train their own people. Enter Kate. So I'll be making amazing breads and sweets in the coolest kitchen I've ever seen. Pretty fun and exciting for Kate.
OK so that's that. Here's how our weekend went down.

More exciting news... our kids got their own library cards this weekend. They are going to be reading fools!

We went to a Chinese New Year celebration!

Mia is studying ancient China in her gifted and talented class at school so she really wanted to do a Chinese New Year something. She's one of the kids in this lion!

The kids fed the lion candy and lettuce and then the lion spit it back out after blessing it. Apparently if you get hit with lettuce, it's good luck!

Ahh, it's been so warm down here in Texas that the girls put on their shorts and t shirts, grabbed their toys and made the most of the sunny afternoons!

One of those sunny afternoons was spent tooling around the streets of Dallas. (We were running late to church and so I didn't properly supervise the dressing of the children. Mia totally wore those hot pink fuzzy boots to church)

And Aria was giving me fevers of some hybrid Uncle Jesse, Madonna (80s Madonna) and Prince(for the raspberry beret).

We ended our weekend with Mia's soccer game. She scored and played well, but ended the game with a nasty collision and head bonk. Poor kiddo. She was back up and at 'em last night though and did an hour and a half of work at a soccer skills clinic. Boy, these kids love their soccer!

So that's my little my weekend diary!

Weekend Snapshots

2012-01-17T15:46:00.000-06:00

Home from school on Friday and ready for a 3 day weekend.

Saturday morning

So much fun at the American Girl Store

And at Claire's!

Tacos at Fuzzy's. You can often find our family here!

And a little stop for ice cream.

Weekend complete!

Photo a Day Project

2012-01-17T15:37:00.000-06:00

Just Some Things

2012-01-12T18:07:00.000-06:00

It's been a pretty rainy and cold week. We've done ballet lessons and science night at school. Some family dinners at home and some out at restaurants. Cookie baking, scooter riding and relaxing by the fire. I'm still doing my photo a day project. This week has been fairly hum drum for me (Except I actually have some really fun personal news about something I've been up to! Not gonna share just yet though (-:) but I need to remind myself to do it no matter what. Anyways, here's what we've been up to in picture form.

Scooter ridin' with the kitty umbrella

Little imaginations are so cool

Licking cookie dough beaters and doing homework

Ice cream cone after dinner last night

Lucy and cozy spots are like peas and carrots.

Little Rosette Sign DIY

2012-01-11T09:13:00.000-06:00

For a while now, I've been wanting to use these rosettes that I made to go on a frame, however I didn't have a frame that I could use where the wood would be completely covered. So not wanting to buy a new frame, I used some foam board that I had laying around. Aren't some of the most fun projects made using stuff you already have? Once we were with a group of friends and some of the men were talking about what they liked about their wives. Rob chimes in and says, "Kate. She's just really resourceful." After all of the other guys saying their wives were really compassionate and caring, etc., my husband made me sound like some pioneer lady or something haha. Well, over the years I've come to take that as a compliment. It's kind of a feeling of accomplishment when you can use otherwise useless stuff to make something fun.

These rosettes are made from old sheets, pillowcases and t shirts that my daughters have ruined...

I printed off a vintage bath sign and fixed it in the center of the frame and then attached a fancy wire decoration to the rosettes and used it to hang the new picture in my daughter's bathroom

Linking up at lollipops for What I Love Wednesday!

Starting 2012 Off With a Little Productivity

2012-01-10T16:31:00.000-06:00

I'm taking a challenge! Linda from It All Started With Paint is doing a fun multi blog link up party this month to kick off 2012 with productivity! I have very much needed to organize certain closets in our home. It's just too easy to close the door and do more pressing things. So I'll be reorganizing and decorating my laundry area. I'll post before pictures next week when I update on the process. It's not pretty so you'll definitely appreciate the after pictures!

To learn more about this challenge and to participate, click on the button.

Photo A Day Project

2012-01-10T08:28:00.000-06:00

4th grade long division...part of our day (-:

And sometimes it's pretty funny.

Weekend Snapshots

2012-01-09T11:47:00.000-06:00

We had the loveliest winter weather this weekend! The kids both had soccer practice and did lots of scooter riding at the park. It was really nice to be outside. Last year our winter was so harsh with lots of snow, ice and freezing temperatures. Then we got hit with a really intense summer with temps exceeding 100 degrees for days on end. So it's been so nice to actually have a mild and extremely comfortable season after what us North Texans have been through!

The girls both had soccer games this weekend. Aria's team won and Mia's team took a loss this week. She did not take it well. She got mad and started crying after the game which I honestly did sympathize with. She played really hard and scored two goals so she was understandably frustrated. But not wanting her to set a bad example in sportsmanship for the other girls, we ushered her out of the facility really quickly. Then in the parking lot she told us that yes, she didn't like losing but she was crying because the other team was calling her team "crap". What?? They are 7! Upsetting.

Here's Mia after church eating a grilled cheese from In N Out. I'll be so sad when she stops thinking that a tiara is the perfect accessory and should be worn everywhere!

Do you ever put the kids to bed and then have a late dinner and watch Netflix(How I Met Your Mother marathon in our case) with the significant other? I seriously love those evenings! It's worth waiting until 9pm for pizza, wine and laughs!

So it was a nice low key weekend for our little family. Aria attended a roller skating party and we got a few errands done. Oh! And both girls came home on Friday with yet another dual set of straight A's on their report cards. Mia always has an extra report card since she attends gifted and talented classes and they don't do letter grades, but it was a fantastic report as well. So we were happy parents!

I have a busy week on my calendar with work, friend time, volunteer shenanigans and driving my kids all over the place, but I'll be around the blog. Hope your weekend diaries are just as nice as mine!

Self Portrait

2012-01-09T10:28:00.000-06:00

I was so inspired by a story I read recently about a man who for the past 13 years has taken a self portrait every day. He said that having that photo project ongoing had inspired him to do more interesting things. Not only that, but even through very trying circumstances, he kept up the project. He did mention though that maybe only one or two photos a month were actually interesting- which makes sense.

While listening to his story I thought maybe, just maybe, since I manage this particular little corner of the Internet and therefore have somewhere to put these photos, that I can try this out and see what comes from it. Hopefully it won't be the ultimate narcissistic endeavor but instead something that has the potential to be fun, help me to achieve goals since I know they'll be documented and to tell some sort of story through photographs.

So here's my first photo.

Here's me doing something I thoroughly enjoy... blogging for artsamerica.org

I'm not promising a photo of me everyday for the next 13 years or anything (unless you're really lucky haha), but I just kinda want to try it.

ps, you should totally check out this guy's story.

Photo Challenge Day 8: { A Bad Habit}

2012-01-05T22:21:00.000-06:00

Well this is easy. Spend a day with me and you'll figure this one out. My habit started back when I was about 18ish. There's actually a story behind the beginning of my bad habit. It's not super scandalous or anything. It's just something I've moved past, but the residual habit I picked up as a result of this story remains. Rob, poor sweet Rob, tries to get me to stop with his poignant facts but I'm an addict. It's not the caffeine either. I know this because I've tried to caffeinate from alternate sources. It's the fact that I don't feel quite right until I have this. I was reading a write up recently about others out there. How you can tell a fellow addict by the way their shoulders sort of slump with relief once they get it. This is me. First thing in the morning I head to the fridge for my vice. I am kind of a health freak but whatever. Don't ask me to give it up!

Up next for the photo challenge: Someone You Love

Photography Challenge Day 7: {Fruit}

2012-01-04T21:55:00.000-06:00

There is a January photo challenge going around and I thought about joining in but then I remembered the photo challenge that I started but never finished. Oops! I didn't even make it a week. I got slipped up on "fruit" because I wasn't inspired to take a picture of fruit. I don't even really like fruit that much. I have to remind myself to eat it. It's actually one of my goals for this year- to eat more fruit.

So here's my way of eating fruit...smoothies! Rob bought me a new blender recently and it is so fast and powerful that making smoothies is a snap! I've been making them for the girls for breakfast, after school snacks, etc. We are going to ingest so much fruit!

This smoothie has bananas, apples, pineapples, pineapple juice, vanilla yogurt and ice.

Next up for the photo challenge: A Bad Habit

What I Love Wednesday

2012-01-04T09:19:00.001-06:00

Lots of my new year resolutions involve my home. Recently we've been touring lofts. The one we toured last weekend was super cool, but I was disappointed with certain aspects. Not saying they are deal breaking aspects and we may end up living in that particular little slice of urban cool, but for now I'm taking another look at this little house we've called home for 7 years and focusing on a few things. One of those things is our outdoor space. Here's some ideas that I'm loving!

A cozy and pretty place to relax

Source: lookslikewhite.tumblr.com via Kate on Pinterest

Pretty lights

Source: browndresswithwhitedots.tumblr.com via Kate on Pinterest

Source: blog.sarawhite.com via Kate on Pinterest

A nice, lush garden in containers. ( I'm convinced that this is necessary in north Texas because of the extreme heat and cold that we get here. I need a mobile garden!)

Source: blog.sarawhite.com via Kate on Pinterest

The prettiest story book door.

Source: lookslikewhite.tumblr.com via Kate on Pinterest

Linking up with Lollipops for What I Love Wednesday!

Weekend Snapshots and Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T16:48:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had a fun time ringing in the new year! Whether you stayed home or went out, it's always for some reason fun to change the calendar to a new year, right? We kicked around a few different ideas of what to do. We originally wanted to go to Austin for the weekend but it turned out that Mia had a soccer game scheduled on new years day so we stayed in town. I actually wasn't kidding before when I said we were thinking about laser tag. And that's what we did. Well, not just laser tag. We bought 4 tickets to an event at Amazing Jake's. From 6 to midnight on New Years Eve, we had all you can eat food and drinks, unlimited laser tag, video games(pinball and PacMan!), go carts, carousel rides, mini golf, bumper cars, bowling, movies in the theater room, little train rides, rock climbing wall and more. It was fun, but after 6 hours Rob and I were ready to go. The girls had a blast though. They had on happy new years tiaras and had noise makers that the employees gave them for the balloon drop at midnight. It was pretty cute to see them having so much fun!

Balloon drop!

Today was back to school for the girls. It was really fun having them home during their Christmas break but they were so glad to get back to their teachers and friends. I can't believe we're on the downhill ride of the school year!

We had lots of family meals out while the girls were home. This one was at Twisted Root, a burger place (although our family goes in and orders a table full of veggie burgers ha ha) that makes their own root beer and shows old movies. This one was Godzilla.

And fyi, I'm obsessed with my mini donut maker.

And here's little Amelia with the frozen yogurt that she got after her new years day soccer game. She scored 5 goals. The treat was well earned!

Here she is Sunday night in the center in the purple shirt.

And these three pictures are from last fall soccer season. I just needed an excuse to put them up (-:

I don't have any indoor winter soccer pictures of Aria simply because her field is enormous and the bleachers are above it. It's hard to explain, but we actually have to look down on the game. Fun to watch that way, but not great for picture taking!

And here's my chiweenie just because she's cute.

I think that's all for my random little update!

Christmas recap and family fun

2011-12-29T12:55:00.000-06:00

I'll just start right in with the pictures. Thankfully my kids are obsessed - OBSESSED with a Littlest Pet Shop game they got for Christmas for their Wii. They're naming the pets and taking care of them. It's pretty cute. And also it means that I have a little time to do this little post...

We've had lots of time for sleeping in the last couple of weeks which has been nice.

We've made trips to Sprinkles Cupcakes

We got hot chocolate at Starbucks and looked at all the amazing Christmas lights.

We visited the Trains at Northpark which we do every year at Christmastime. It's a charity thing for the Ronald McDonald House. They set up electric trains in an elaborate around-the- country theme. The trains go through models of many of the major US cities, including of course Dallas and Ft. Worth. It's really cool and the kids love that little tradition. (It's hard to tell but that's Washington DC behind us!)

We stopped by the movie theater to see Chipwrecked. The girls laughed all the way through. Thankfully Uncle Ian is in it so I get to laugh too.

After the movie, we went to Grimaldi's for a late night pizza and the girls watched the pizza get made while Rob and I sipped on some sparkling wine.

On Christmas Eve the girls had their traditional Rudolph sandwiches and hot cocoa for lunch.

Then later it was out for a little spaghetti before attending a Christmas Eve service at church.

The girls always get to open one present on Christmas Eve.

Then they rolled, cut out, baked, frosted and sprinkled spiced sugar cookies for Santa.

We always read The Night Before Christmas and The True Meaning of Christmas on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning was so fun! Aria even said at breakfast that she wishes she could go back in time and be surprised all over again. The girls got pink razor scooters with wheels that light up, Wii games, DSi games, a little video camera, Mia got an ipod touch, Aria got a digital camera, they got hula hoops, remote control cars, a ping pong game and on and on. It was so fun!

Lucy wasn't too sure about the new puppy.

We had Rudolph pancakes and hot cocoa for breakfast. I think I could have made this look more like a reindeer, but this is what it was and the kids were pretty happy ha ha. PS that's fake bacon for the "antlers". We are a complete vegetarian family now.

Later on Christmas night we went to my sister's house where the kids had a blast playing Twister with their cousins!

The girls stalked their uncle while he hooked up a new serious karaoke machine. They were gonna break down some Bieber on that thing before the night was over!

After a busy night, the girls had a few games of table tennis before it was time for bed.

It's been an awesome Christmas season. Now on to New Years. We're thinking Laser Tag.

2011-12-28T13:38:00.000-06:00

Since it's still technically the holidays, here's a message I stumbled on from Bob Dylan. I'm going out now to do errands and maybe find someone to help.

2011-12-28T11:49:00.002-06:00

So this is just a little test post. I got a new laptop and I love it but we're still getting acquainted. I went from a Mac to a PC.

Source: piccsy.com via Thorben on Pinterest

Oh. That's just my amazing new laptop personified as Barney Stinson responding to all the exclusive Mac users who just got light headed and clapped their hands over their mouths and gasped. Ok so I didn't know how I'd like going from a Mac to a PC and Rob even made me look at all the Macs before we left with this computer, but I love this one and although still in the honeymoon phase, Kate thinks this is a long term love match. Honestly something weird that bothers me..... now my iphone and my laptop don't match. Is that dumb? Anyways, I want to put up pictures from our super fun Christmas and some art stuff, etc., but I'm taking it slow since my kids are still home on break this week. But I'll be back soon (-:

A Very Merry Christmas Post!

2011-12-24T15:55:00.000-06:00

My brother and I back in the day, aww.

Hope yall have a very merry Christmas! We have been spending the day baking. We've made reindeer food (aka muddy buddys), white chocolate peppermint fudge, gingerbread truffles and we have spiced sugar cookie dough in the fridge waiting to be rolled and cookie cuttered for Santa later tonight. We'll be going to church in a bit to celebrate Christ, the reason this family celebrates Christmas. Later we'll let the girls open one present before bedtime. Tomorrow after presents, we'll be going to my sister's house for chili haha. We always do something fun. One year it was red and green lasagna with a Christmas pinata. I love that she shirks the traditional Christmas dinner and makes fun memories for everyone.

Aren't we cute? There are 4 of us siblings, but these ones are just me and my older (by only 11mos!) brother.

And apparently no one received any of the hundreds of holiday cards we sent out (weird!), but if ~~we would have actually mailed them~~ the post office hadn't lost them, they would have looked something like this...

So Merry, Merry Christmas from our family to all of yours!