china town + mini turtles

last week jackson and i went to china town in LA as well as the science center with brady.  we even adopted two mini-swimming turtles.

life is good and we will be going back to explore more in this fun china town!

a life without art, is no life at all

there has been some artistic things going on around our 'hood.

i was invited to another hair extention line for taped-in-extentions

from a salon interested in hiring me.  

it was a great class with the rep from their company being proficient and useful of our time with her.

we all practiced on the model and i must say, it is my new favorite line.

so guess what was hand-delivered to us?

the one and only scrabble game!

we all ordered the typography edition of scrabble drew made and it was like christmas opening up the box.  such a cool game!  we are going to celebrate drew's birthday, him being a dad soon and his new edition of the scrabble game this week! so many exciting things for the capener family!

to say we love mangoes would be an understatement.  

we are obsessed.

jack especially likes it when i cut them like so...

boring mango becomes a piece of art.

[or just easier to bite into]

for family night, jackson and i took a box and some crafts and started to make something out of it.

then once that clock rand 6:45pm, i had to get him to bed. 

he was bummed that we didn't finish...

so what did i do?

i stayed up until 2 something AM to finish it.

i got so far in over my head with the details.

velcro, hot glue gun and super glue was used.

i put it at the bottom of his slide so when he woke up to slide down, 

he we see it or slide into it!  

it was like christmas in september!

i was so giddy for him to wake up to it, it was hard to wait for him to wake up!

no, this is not a school project. 

i wish it were. no actually i wish he had those.

how fun would that be to help make big projects like this for your kids.

we might turn it into a halloween costume for a little church party but for now, 

it's his rocket out to space. that space in his imagination that gets him places.

it has been so fun to walk into his room with him sitting inside with his skateboard helmet on, 3-D glasses and talking to the people who live on MARS.

one of my dear friends is an actual artist. 

she lives on a huge hill in were her backyard is filled with many eclectic things like so...

two seats from the anahiem angels stadium. 

her husband is a VP of a company that is affiliated with them, so no, i'm not ratting her out but how random and AWESOME is that?  just sitting there like it ain't no thang!

she also showed me a sign that she makes for a lot of businesses and families.

i so want one.

if you do too, let me know and i can ask her.

she is really such a gifted and talented artist that uses these qualities wisely.

she helps out at the homeless shelter at least once a week, would do anything for anyone in need, and gives her pieces of art to many charities.

such a great and honorable example.

one of my cute clients has a daughter that is such a beauty.

she has never colored her hair and let me ombre it this last summer.

she was in shock for the first week but i just got this picture from her school pics and she said she loves it.  i think i could have made her hair mustard green and she would still be gorgeous but i love it when hair transforms a person and taps into their artistic side.

i can't believe she is only 15.

lego stores are almost as colorful as a two-second segment on yo gaba gaba.

my favorite part is always the wall with buckets of legos.

even better, when jack has to look through each bucket and tells me his favorite colors.

he loves color, but most especially red - anythings.

i work part-time in a very artistic city.

so artistic that it's mostly lefties.

i actually stopped at the GOP office there and put this bumper sticker on the back of my car.

it really was the fifth most bravest thing i have ever done.

you have got to educate yourself and then stand for something, right?

this was our week.

we both got sick.

i have a flexible enough job that i was able to take it off to spend it with jackson.

so we watched movies, read books, took naps, made a few forts and tried to get better.

when brady would call from the hospital, this is how it felt.

we rarely get sick so when we do, the world seems to stop.

until... 

he and i felt loads better...

then our world began to swell again!

the first thing jack told me he wanted to do was watch the surfers and the sunset.

he was wearing his trunks, so he wanted to touch the water.

i told him to test out the water but no going in it.

he was pretty stoked to not feel gross anymore.

double ear infections

september 20th, my little bean started to cough.

it was a harmless cough but something i noted.

the next morning he wasn't coughing too hard but enough where i questioned his attendance at school.

i took him since he said he was fine.

30-45minutes later i got a call from the office. 

he had a bad cough.

i stayed home with him and tended to his cough and tried to 

keep him from having to fly for the weekend.

he still had to fly hundreds of miles coughing pretty hard.

he was sick all that weekend and then came off the plane throwing up!

i set up an appointment on monday - the earliest he could be seen.

to our dismay... 

double ear infections, a bad cough and some film in his sinuses.

so sad! 

he sat in the office so patient as he was being examined.

i told him this was the same room he came to when 

he was only two days old and tiny tiny.

she ran some tests, one being an oxygen test.

after, she administered an oxygen treatment.

he once again sat there so patient for a while.. 

breathing through the dragon.

to keep him entertained, he took pictures.

this was the only non-blurry one.

we were able to go through all the major organs in the body, book, 

as well as all the pamphlets he was being tested for.

after those two hours, we wondered over to pick up his prescription.

to keep him entertained, he tried on glasses, 

acted like an elderly man in front of an elderly man and

 then tested his blood pressure for that hour.

such a patient and happy boy, despite what he had.

sure do love him!

{movies weekend}

this weekend was a really great one. it was filled with movies, more movies and then movies again.

we got invited to the movie premiere of "trouble with the curve"

it was pretty fun to see the green carpet for the baseball themed movie as we walked past the stars coming out to greet the westwood gawking crowds.  the vintage and famous westwood village theatre welcomed us with unlimited popcorn and drinks.

we sat in the front and got all comfy until all the drinks hit us from being
 so early before the movie started.

brady went first and rubbed elbows with JT.

brady was so stoked -- he said JT was with his parents but wanted to shake his hand.

he told me to go right away so i could meet him.
 i was mostly interested in seeing john goodman. that guy is a legend.

we did see him and his wife and was surprised he wasn't being swamped by fans. 

the movie was pretty good.

i thought it was a good idea and entertaining.

we love baseball so it was fun.

friday night we red-boxed that movie "The Lucky One" 

it stuck out to me when we were going through our options because i remember my dad telling me that i would relate a lot to it.

boy, did i ever.

poor brady had a puddle of salty tears all over his chest.

i thought it was a chick-flick but i think only 10% of it seemed to be, in my opinion. 

i really did like it.  it hit very close to home but i liked it.

saturday morning we thought about going to an early matinee but instead did the culver city stairs.
they aren't really stairs - more like cement blocks far spaced with a lot of people there.
we went up and down them 3 times and then walked up and down the switchbacks.
such a good work out.

our intentions were good for going surfing right after but that didn't really happen.
we thought about visiting the Reagan library in simi valley, but that didn't happen either.
we ran errands all over LA for a bunch of boring things i had to get done.  what a sweety he is.

costco was on the list.

we almost got jack one of these HUGE pillow pets.

or as they are called, pillow chums.

after, we saw the movie my parents also suggested, "WORDS"

we liked it.  the ending was so-so, but i did like the fact Ernst Hemingway was a huge factor in the movie since i do dig a little literature. of course i cried on a few parts.

what's my deal?

it was a good flick.

for dinner, this handsome fella took me to a great new place:

CAFE GRATITUDE

it's vegan, it is chic, it was wonderful.

you walk in and the place is all white with subtle decor of 

succulents, candles and words of gratitude all over.

brady had been there before with dave, and liked it.

everything was gluten free.

the owner told us all about what is best.

brady got:

i am liberated.

i got:

i am something

it was absolutely delicious

brady didn't think so this time.

while i am taking these pictures he is telling me how vegan people get sick if they eat bad food.

he said he actually feels sick while eating vegan food and that he
NEEDED to get something bad in him soon.

i thought he was borderline kidding.

he wasn't. 

as we are driving home, he went into the grocery store, and came out with a gallon of ice cream and a spoon.

he started eating that ice cream like he was starved.

it was pretty funny!

i felt great and he felt sick.

i sure love this guy.