littlegreendesigns

So far so good.

2012-01-14T22:49:00.001-08:00

Our new year is good so far. We are loving our new home, and getting back into the swing of normal life.

It feels to me as though the last year has been missing... I got pregnant, and although it produced something amazing, life was painful, stressful, and crazy. Then I had a baby, bought a home, and celebrated the holidays.

And then normal life started to happen again. And E is making our days amazingly bright. Here she is, bright eyed. Beautiful girl picked up a toy for the first time, eek! I laid the chain on her belly and left the room and when I came back she was holding it and bringing it to her mouth. I love moments like this one.

Life with two girlies is great. Sometimes I wish I could still give the time to M I did back in the day, back when we were painting and creating every day. And I think we'll get back there, we're just balancing things still, bringing it back together. But I also love to see them both there, in front of me, us just living how we live. I love it.

E loves her fur, she rolls around on it, wiggles, and my favorite is when she rolls to the side and grabs the fur and starts to chew on it, ha. Love her.

Walked in the front room yesterday and she and daddy were watching football. Weird thing = she loves TV. And that's not a joke, she really does. If M is watching something and I have to set E down while I switch a laundry load or something, I come back in the room and she's completely enthralled, more than M usually!

We've been using cloth diapers, which has been working great. So far, so good. But of course I've been getting the itch to make some more diapers. To create the perfect system. Once you've been using cloth for awhile you start to choose what you do and don't like, and what works best for you. I think i have come up with the perfect system, so I've been doing some creating, yes! Love it!!

Had a date with myself out to JoAnn Fabrics. Okay, E came too. But pretty much any time M isn't there I feel like I'm rockin' it. Not that I don't enjoy both of my children's company. But I do love to go to JoAnns by myself and just look around and really enjoy myself.

And that's just what I did.

They have a new little section of cloth http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdiaper supplies, did you know this? Babyville. Yup.

(on a side note, got these glasses this summer for $40, love 'em... but this is the first picture where I wish I paid the extra 30 or so for the anti-glare, oops, you live and learn!)

It's all overpriced but it's completely adorable. So I bought some. Cute snaps with little etched animals on them. Love loVe lovE!!

So basically life is good. Diaper supplies in my bag, renewed self through a trip to the local craft store, and the diaper I made yesterday actually worked exactly as planned, and I love it. I'm a brilliant diaper designer. :) Or something like that. :) After I wash it I'll take a pic for ya. Or after I make another one, with my sweet animal snaps that is...

Life is perfect. Perfectly awesome. It feels normal again, real. I love that. And the house is looking great. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll have more updated pics on that front. SO darn excited about the house happenings this week... or what is supposedly going to happen this week, more on that later, when it actually happens!! :)

Happy Weekend.

We are so blessed.

2012-01-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a special day for our family. Baby E was blessed in church. Jordo gave her a name and a blessing before Heavenly Father. It's an amazing emotion to experience something like that. It ties together all that I hold dear and sacred in my life. My husband, my children, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, our family (extended and immediate).

I felt extreme joy to hear him bless her. One of the things that stuck out most to me was joy. He blessed her to seek out the joy in life. I felt as though a ray of sunshine had poured down on her. It was perfect.

The dress was my Father's when he was a baby. It is so soft and delicate. It as special to me to think about that as I put it on her. My siblings and I were each blessed in this dress, as well as her cousin E and her sister.

So many precious children of our Heavenly Father have worn this for so many special experiences. The dress has a history, a story, a connection.

I plan to have each of my children be blessed in this dress, as long as it holds up, but I have no idea what the future holds for it after that. I wanted to know that my children would have something equally as special for their children and so I started a tradition with M. I made her, as well as E this time around, a blessing quilt.

The thing about a blessing quilt is that unlike the dress it actually really doesn't even get used. Not that the babies wear the dress for very long, but the quilt hardly gets touched. But the point is that it is there. The point is that I spent hours upon hours building it from the bottom up, stitching every thread in its place, creating something for my child, all while thinking of her, and imagining what she would do in her life.

For me, it's the emotion behind it. The process of the creation and all that went into it.

She looked beautiful. She is beautiful. Sometimes I look around me and cannot believe what I see. I could not have imagined being quite this happy. With an adoring husband and two charming little girls. It's a beautiful life and I pray that I will always be appreciative and deserving of what I have.

Happy Monday, and we love you all.

Our New Home - Part 2

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

And so then, after putting bids in on several houses, this being my ultimate favorite, we had a baby and bought a house within a week... or maybe two or three, but whatever it was it felt intense and like the wildest ride we'd ever taken!

This is the day we received our key... technically a day or two before papers were final final, but still... we were excited.

Jordo redid the kitchen. He widened the base of the island and added gorgeous trim to all the cabinet ends and crown molding to the tops. We wanted to make the most of what we had but weren't in love with the orange-ish builders cabinets. It will eventually be painted white, which was supposed to happen before Christmas, but we will see!

And we lived in a giant crazy mess for several weeks!

We redid the floor in the kitchen, dining room, hall, and front entry... replacing it all with wood. We probably wouldn't have touched it but the dining room was carpeted, and with kids that's not fun! So after we decided to change that it just sort of snowballed... and we love the result!

Floors, mid process!

Slightly more detailed shot while they are getting started.

Jordan's Island... LOVE!!!

A look-through into the kitchen and dining room of the newly finished flooring.

Finished entryway... doesn't that look amazing? We love how it turned out... and it will be nice to have the tile there for when people come in with snowy shoes all winter.

Cleanin' the place up a bit to get ready for Thanksgiving!

This is where little E has been resting amidst all of this craziness and chaos... she has been a pretty good sport, as has M, those two girls love the new house, although I am sure they didn't love it when we were busy painting and building and cleaning all day every day those first few weeks!

This is us, ever so slightly more clean and organized. Go figure though, those two couches there around the fireplace (which we found on ksl for $75 total, yay!) came to us the morning after Thanksgiving. Oh well, even if there wasn't a lot of hang out seating on Thanksgiving at least the crazy sawdust and table saw and pile of kitchen supplies was sort of cleaned up. It looked pretty good if I do say so myself!

Ohhh, the dishwasher. That dishwasher. Gave us a headache for quite a few days. Or Jordo mostly. We knew it was leaking when we moved in but didn't have a chance to fix it before they installed the new wood floors. So poor Jordo was on his back watching water spill all over his new wood as he tried over and over again to fix the darn thing.

And guess what? It is officially working. I have the HANDIEST husband ever. No joke. I am quite serious on this one!

Fixing the clown molding. We spent all night one night adding crown molding to the top of our cabinets. When we stepped away at the end of the night I said, huh... looks a little funny, almost like it should be in Disneyland... maybe toon town. Yeah, our crown molding had bowed and we had nail-gunned it to the cabinets that way. Oops. So this is us fixing it, pulling it off and down and re-nailing it, awesome. At least it looks good now!!

Our messy living room, which still looks basically this way.

There is an area on the main floor that the original floor plans titles as a formal dining room, but it's just a weird corner of the family room... so we've turned it into a library corner with two shelf sets and a desk... I would love to have an overstuffed chair or game table in the corner as well one day!

Wood putty. Wood putty. Wood putty. We wood puttied so many nail holes and cracks and whatever else that I would happy if I never saw wood putty again. In my entire life. And we had to do it over and over and over again. And the sawdust drove me nuts! But I think we're done now. Right? :)

And here's a little teaser for what happened next in the kitchen... I love when you are getting ready to cover something and you can graffiti it all you want, very fun feeling to write on your walls (or kitchen floor mom and dad!) like that!

TO BE CONTINUED...

:)

100 Days

2011-12-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

This is the only time I'll mention this on this blog... or at least that's the plan... it's my new goal, my new plan... I just need to get this body rockin', that's all.

Join me if you feel like a jump start is necessary.

I think I might make a 100 day calendar just for this so I can see my day progress.

Happy New Year!

love my holiday girls

2011-12-26T20:55:00.000-08:00

so a happy holiday to you from us. again. cause we are just like that. :)

and we just can't stop celebratin'. good times!

Our New Home - Part 1

2011-12-25T23:36:00.000-08:00

So this is it... finally what you have been waiting for...

But here's the thing with something so fun and new like a home, it can't be blogged about in just one post. So here we go. A few days of pictures and you will be sick of us and our new house. Luckily, we are not sick of us, and I suppose that's what really matters!

So this first set of pictures is from when we were house hunting. So this was the first day we looked at the house, before any of the craziness really began... and while I was still 7 months pregnant or something, yikes!

The Green House... at least that's what we called it when we were hunting...

Not only is the outside green but when we bought it the entire downstairs was green, almost at least.

It has a fantastic open floorplan everywhere, very spacious and comfortable.

LOVE love lOvE this kitchen! So amazing... we've done a few things to it but still, the size and layout is just awesome, we are loving it so far!

Fireplace, nice... it's gas which I didn't hink I wanted necessarily, but I LOVE that a nice cozy fire is lterally a simple switch away, so very cool.

Like I said, the green house, green green everywhere. (looking back at the front door)

On our way upstairs.

At the top of the steps it opens into a loft/bonus family room. We use this room as a kids family room or toy room, it's been great to not have to squish all the toys into M's bedroom. SO very nice!

Ah yes, the master bedroom. Pink. Need I say more? We got to be good friends with a paint roller before too long. What husband let his wife paint the bedroom pink? Seriously!? :)

And our small but humble and perfect back yard. My only requirements were that our yard could fit a garden and 4 fruit trees and still have room to play. And it's perfect, we need to fence it and get the grass growing correctly again, yikes! But it should be fun next summer!

And there you have it, a quick basic run down of the green house. We love it, we are so very happy to be where we are and we truly have had a blessed year.

Love ya!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T22:23:00.000-08:00

From our home to yours.

And well wishes for a Happy New Year!

(And yes, this is me, blogging at 11:30 on Christmas Eve after I have wrapped all the presents, Santa has come :), and I should probably be in bed!)

Happy Holidays and Goodnight!!

Baby Lovin'

2011-12-08T00:03:00.000-08:00

For those of you who feel like you haven't seen enough of little E. Here she is, a lovely sunshine montage in her honor. :)

Happy day!

Baby Havin'

2011-12-07T23:55:00.001-08:00

So, we had a baby.

Seems like such old school news now. I suppose it has been 10 weeks now. 2-1/2 months, crazy! My entire world has revolved since then. It’s such a big change to have a baby, add another little one to the mix, get back to nursing 24/7, waking up all night long, and recovery, let’s not even revisit that one! But amidst all of this we decided to push the envelope and we bought a house, eek!

It’s true. Jordo and I are now proud home owners. Seriously? Rock on lobster! The second day of little baby E’s life I remember sitting in the hospital, still hardly able to move, and Jordo had to go run errands, have papers signed and scanned and faxed, taking care of the “bizness” of buying a house. We didn’t find out for sure that we got the house until a few weeks later, but still, it felt wild!
But so to update you on what we’ve been up to, we had a baby. A healthy and strong little sunshine girl. And she is a sweetheart. She just started smiling, but that’s another story.

Labor and Delivery was a whirlwind. Seriously. I will post my birth story next, but this post is mostly for the pictures of that time. That crazy sunshine of a time. Megs was my Doula so she and Jordan were both there for the delivery and I wouldn’t have had it any other way! It was as perfect a delivery as I could imagine. It hurt like crazy but it was incredible.

On that note... I am Woman, Hear me Roar.

More updating to come, stay tuned.

pinterest BIRTHDAY

2011-11-20T22:14:00.000-08:00

So I haven't been around, and wish I could get my act together and update this space with all the crazy life happenings that have been going on, but I am not that organized or energized or whatever!

But I am sitting here tonight and wanting to share something that I threw together.

So, I have been introduced to Pinterest. When my mom came down for the baby being born she introduced me and I am addicted, as are many of us I am sure. I feel like I have a good excuse because it's a nice little thing to occupy time when you are sitting nursing a sweet lil babe. But the truth is I just love to be inspired by others creativity. Of course we all pin and forget to create, so tonight I just ran with it and finally created something I had pinned.

And here it is.

Again, Happy Birthday to my girl.

And here are the inspiration pins:
this and this

Happy Sunday.

Happy Birthday to my Grown Up Girl!

2011-11-09T10:42:00.000-08:00

Today is M's third birthday. We've celebrated all morning long and will be celebrating all day long. Can't wait to spend some more time here on the blog and update you on the craziness and awesomeness of our life right now!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!!

Welcome to the World,

2011-10-18T21:32:00.001-07:00

Baby Girl.

Emmeline Marie

9.29.11

And that is why I haven't been around... I think it's a pretty darn good excuse, don't you?

Happy Fall.

Baby Projects - done, check!

2011-08-31T21:45:00.000-07:00

I had one brief little awesome spell a few months ago where I sewed quite a bit, but other than that brief period I have been accomplishing pretty much nothing in that area.

Until a few days ago. One afternoon I decided to cut out fabric for my new diaper bag I had been hoping to make. So I did. And within 48 hours it was completely done, yayyy!

I LOVE the fabrics I chose in the end. (I know they're wild!!) I had wanted the funky colorful main fabric but had originally paired it with a much more safe and boring (but still cute) green polka dot. I liked it, but I kept going back to this funky brown print, which I LOVE. And I am glad I chose it in the end, I really love it!

It felt SO good to just get that bag done that it made me want to do more. So I busted out the wool interlock scraps I purchased for dirt cheap months ago and I made a few diaper covers...

These two are pretty small but I was using my tiniest felted sweater bits just to practice the concept. I will make some larger and taller ones for sure.

So back during my last productive spell I finished these sweet diapers... I had wanted to try this and finally bit into the project. I purchased a boatload of prefolds to diaper M in and I liked using them but didn't LOVE them. So I wanted to try and convert them to little fitteds and I LOVE the result.

I will still use a little snappi thing to secure them closed but now they have a nice elastic back waist band and leg area. LOVE that!

And then I finally busted out this little project. It's always the boring projects that get delayed for forever... All I had to do was cut a bunch of squares and rectangles and serge serge serge. And I finally did it. Presto, wipe-o's. :)

Oh, and the diapers, when you convert them you end up cutting off these rounded side strips. You can then unfold them and layer them together to create little soaker pads for the insides of the diapers. I sandwiched a layer of microfiber car cleaning cloth inside to make them uber-absorbent, very nice. Just finished these this afternoon, yet another boring serger project. :)

The new diaper stash. Hope they work as well as I plan, I have more prefolds to make a bunch in a bigger size if I decide I like them.

And check out my latest KSL purchase. Some gal was getting rid of cases of gerber prefolds that she had bought to make a bunch of cutesy burp cloths for her baby business. I guess she had a ton that hadn't sold and then had a ton of unopened boxes of blank prefolds as well. She sold me a case of 72 prefolds for $25. Nice!
I figured since I've been converting a bunch of mine it'll be nice to have a sweet stash on hand for burp cloths, changing pads, etc. Plus, they come in the nice packaging so I could even give a few packs as gifts. We all know that with new babies the uses on these things are endless!

When I was finished late last night with whatever project it was I was working on, now I can't remember, I wanted to start a new project, but nothing too big. So I looked around and realized I had bought these towels for M a few weeks ago to turn into a new hooded bath towel for her.

I made one for her last Christmas, along with all my nieces and nephews, and I love it so much I wanted another for when the other is in the wash, or to share with new baby as well... And my mom had brought M this awesome DORA ribbon that I had NO idea what to do with! And so there you have it...

Basically I have had a very productive week. In the sewing department anyhow. Not so much in any other department. The nice thing about sewing is that you don't have to move around or bend over to do any of it. My ironing board is set to chair height right now and I have two chairs in my room so I can just scoot back and forth without much effort.

Plus, it boosts my self esteem and energy mojo to get something crafty done. That always gives me a natural high.

Happy Wednesday. And happy crafting.

(I don't think I have too many more projects ahead of me before baby arrives. I need to make a blessing quilt, but that can wait until after she gets here even... although I do plan to hand quilt it, so maybe I better get started... hmmm. oh well, it'll get done eventually! For now I feel ready, except I should probably at least wash some baby clothes at some point, haven't even opened that old box yet)

Remembering Summer

2011-08-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

I still feel as though it is summer. It sure is hot enough to be anyways! But with school starting and my due date rounding the corner I also feel like we're bringing this summer to a close.

This of course has me wondering where it went. Knowing. But also just wondering. Where is all of the documentation, where are the pictures, where are the blog posts about our fabulous summer? Understandably the summer has been less enjoyed and less documented than normal, but still... there has been joy.

And so I uploaded photos, found photos that had been uploaded forever ago, and basically, here is our summer in a nutshell.

And although it's been a crazy one, it had also been a fabulous one.

Here's to a good summer. Maybe not a perfect summer, but a good one none-the-less.

:: The back yard nail fiasco... They removed our old garage roof and replaced it. But the sunshine workers that removed it didn't put any sort of tarp down while pulling the old shingles and throwing them onto the lawn. ::

:: We literally spent hours and hours and days using super duper strength magnetic tools pulling every nail we could find from the lawn. ::

:: And there were a TON of nails. Cups and cups of old rusty nails. And this paranoid mama wouldn't quit until I knew for certain that my girl's barefoot sprinkler running toes were safe. ::

:: It was mostly just ridiculous, and Jordan and I were furious at the situation, but we survived never-the-less. ::

:: And then there was the summer reading program at the library. Back in the earlier days of summer when I was still willing to ride my bike with M to the library every Tuesday morning! Okay, okay, so that was just a few weeks ago, but still. ::

:: The reading program had us making all sorts of fun and random crafts and recipes and reading more fun things than we would have ever on our own. M LOVEd doing all the fun things and she loved even more getting to choose her prizes each time she went with another assignment accomplished. We will definitely be doing it again next year! ::

:: I mean, come on guys, who doesn't want a pretzel fairy wand, right? Or princess wand, or whatever! Actually they were kind of yummy because it was cream cheese frosting, and if any of you know me you know how big of a sprinkle fan I am... basically anything a 6 year old (or two year old) would like, I like as well! ::

:: Littlest Pet Shop. Need I say more? :) We were given a sweet LPS collection from a dear dear cousin who had outgrown the set and M took to the little critters immediately. She LOVEs all those cute buggy eyes. ::

:: So we have built our fair share of pet houses, and we have carried handfuls and purse-fuls of those little creatures everywhere with us. Thank goodness she is currently on a kick where she doesn't want to play with anything that will make her room messy because then she'll "have to clean up before bed" which she apparently hates. That means we've had a few less days of pet shop scattered in every room! ::

:: New IKEA wall art stickers, found at the local thirft store, unopened, score... ::

:: Oreos and milk... an ALWAYS welcome snack... that is of course until my crazy anemic self had to go off milk to try and get my iron to absorb better... whatever. ::

:: The Children's Parade, which our church group had a float in and I, yes even in my preggo state, stayed up until wee hours of the morning covering those beautiful colorful paper doll shapes in tissue paper and paint. ::

:: It was all worth it to see this shining happy face the morning of! ::

:: Local carnivals and festivals that brought lots of fun partying, treat eating, and fun rides! M freaked us out on this one because she kept leaning over the edge of the boat. She even grabbed onto one of the passing pillars once and I could just imagine her getting yanked from her seat and thrown into the water and then of course run over by the following boats before it finally slowed to a stop... talk about a heart attack! ::

:: The cutest little projects she brings home from nursery at church. These are her Scripture Spectacles, to help her see and read the scriptures I think!? So cute! She wore them for a good hour after church she was so proud of them! ::

:: A fun surprise from our new Indian family. My new SIL's family sent this adorable outfit from India and M LOVEs it, especially the little jingle bells on the drawstring waist. So cute! ::

:: We have had our fair share of summer picnics in the yard. Mostly on nights when daddy is working late, because those are the least planned meals, as you can see the lovely spread of apples and mac 'n cheese. Hey, can you blame a pregnant girl? ::

:: Unfortunately there has been WAY too much of this in the mornings. Mommy lies in bed while M busies herself with playing until she gets tired of hanging out by herself. Then she usually comes and tries to wake me up. I of course am so exhausted out of my mind I can't think straight and so I bribe her with almost anything. Fruit snacks, a movie, and of course, the beloved ipod. ::

:: I am trying to break the habit of giving in to her sneakiness in the morning, but I have to admit I think it may last a little bit longer... at least until the baby is a month old, I deserve that, right!? ::

:: Froot loop necklaces... ANYthing to keep M occupied where I don't have to be up and moving around, and let me tell you, it can take a 2 yr old quite a while to string a froot loop necklace, score! ::

:: Me lying in bed while M does her doll's hair pretty "for church". This little mermaid doll, which we got at a garage sale for 25 cents has provided countless hours of sweet sweet entertainment for the little one. ::

:: And I love the determination with which she will do doll's hair... and sometimes I get the pleasure of having my hair done fancy as well... which mostly feels great, except for the few moments where she decides to remove a barrette without unclipping it, yowza! ::

:: Following this particular hair do she proceeded into one of her favorite activities. Pretend play. This time we were at library story time, and she was the teacher. Ariel, little Dora, and I were the kids. She sure loves her pretend play, with Cinderella being the most popular story choice. ::

:: Soccer with dad in the back yard. We have had an occasional fabulous weather evening where we can enjoy the back yard without being fried or eaten alive by bugs... and we love it when dad joins us. Especially because then mom gets to sit in a chair and just watch the joy happen. ::

:: Lots of joy here, lots of love, and lots of patience from my little one. She really has been good to me in my not 100% state. She puts up with a lot of grumpy mom time and still loves me through it all. Love that about parenthood, not that I am saying it's okay to be grumpy, but currently it's just inevitable. ::

And so there you have it. Our summer in a nut shell. Lots of random fun things, also lots of lazy painful days that I of course did NOT document, and yet through it all lots of blessings and exciting new things around the corner.

Good times. Happy end of summer.

(I make no promise of any additional blog posts before baby comes... and yes I know that is weeks away yet but I still make no promise!)

M

2011-08-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

my little gangsta sunshine.

at the 24th of July parade.

so classic.

love her!

on a side note, she picked this hat out herself, from a Kmart clearance bin, it was only $1. good find on her behalf, right?

hula hoopin' it

2011-07-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

Can I just be honest and say right upfront that this summer is not what I expected it to be. I knew when we got pregnant that my pregnancies are not a walk in the park. But this go around is nothing in comparison to the last. I suppose it is just my lot in life to suffer through the pregnancy to gain such a beautiful gift as a child.

Don't get me wrong, I know many of you struggle more than I. Some of you have trouble getting pregnant to begin with, some of you have trouble staying pregnant, and some of you struggle to keep you and your baby safe throughout. I simply am in pain, no real threat to me or the baby, just pain.

My point is, and maybe this is all too much information, too personal, but the real point today is that I am not hula hooping. Was that TMI to get to such a silly point!? I want to hoop! I can maybe hoop for about 20 seconds but that's it and THAT IS RIDICULOUS! :)

But, on to the other point and that is that while I am not hooping, someone in the house IS. :)

Little M is rockin' it these days. Seriously rockin' it.

***VIDEOS HERE***

So I made her a new hoop. A new, shiny, pretty hoop.

I love her last one, but it was pretty lame color wise. It was made using tape that can be found at local hardware stores, you know, very basic colors. Well last winter I made a fun hoop tape purchase for some more pretty colors: blues, greens, purples, pinks, etc. Also a fun shiny mirror tape.

And seeing as how I am not hooping I decided a new hoop should go to M since she is loving it these days. We'll hang out in the driveway, me sitting in a comfy chair under the carport/garage so I am shaded and relatively cool, and her spinning and hopping it up on her own. And although she has not mastered the moving of her hips to keep the hoop moving she does get the spinning of it more than she used to.

I love to watch her over and over and over. And she loves to say "want to see how I do it, Mom?" over and over and over. We have a good time.

I LOVE this shot and how the camera warped the hoop around, so fun. I use my little kodak flip video camera for everything these days even though it's not the greatest quality. I just love that it's small and always around and SO easy to upload photos quickly.

Happy Tuesday.

and Happy Summer.

:)

Arizona Love

2011-07-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

Jordo's grandparents live in Mesa and we LOVE visiting them. There's nothing like a fun trip down to the warm land. :)

This trip we were able to take a relaxed driving speed. We stopped in Monticello the first night and in Kayenta the second night for a family wedding. Jordo's cousin married a sweet Navajo girl last year and this weekend they had their traditional Navajo ceremony, it was so fun to attend!

We also stopped in Arches for a few minutes and took in the sights. Luckily I had been there before so the fact that I couldn't be active and run around didn't bother me too much. We did do a quick walk out to the Delicate Arch overlook area, not as great as being up there with it, but still fun.

Travel snacks. Yum.

M, using her pillow case as a little travel blanket. She was surprisingly good for the trip, AND did not pee in her diaper once the entire trip there in the car! Go potty-training! We are definitely not quite there, but each day she gets better and I think there was some sort of excitement in using toilets at all sorts of different rest stops!?

Of course for Jordan, as well as M and I, one of the huge highlights of the trip was all the swimming time we got in at Grandma and Grandpa's house. One day I think Jordo went three times! I think for him it is like sledding is for me at Christmas time in Alaska... I wasn't AS comfortable swimming but I did my fair share.

It was a fun trip, exhausting, but fun. Wish we could go back. Coming home to a messy and chaotic house was also not so fun and made me wish we were still living the vacation life.

Happy Tuesday. Hopefully we are off to play group and library story time this morning, we'll see how long it takes us to get ready!

Happy Sunshine Friday

2011-07-01T14:57:00.001-07:00

We've had thunder storms and rain all week. It has been nice to have the cool air and doors open but at the same time we were itchin' that summer itch to get outside.

Today was lovely.

So we set up our new sun umbrella and our new slip n slide and took our lunch outside.

It was perfect. And I didn't even get burnt, can you believe I've never owned a sun umbrella before? The BEST invention ever!

Happy Friday.

Father's Day Strawberry Banana Pie Love

2011-06-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned earlier that I made Jordo a pie for father's day. Didn't I? I think I did anyways. The point is here I am to share the recipe.

We have a new tradition, started last year, that on Father's day and any other "Jordo-celebration" day that it is requested, Dad gets a pie of his choice. He can choose any pie, one that we have made before, a newly found recipe, or even sometimes it is just a description of something he longs for that I go chasing after to create.

This year it was Strawberry Banana Cream Pie. Yum.

I don't usually love strawberry-banana combos, but who wouldn't love that in a cream pie with just delicious fresh fruit yumminess?

Alright, on to the makings of the pie!

Strawberry Banana Cream Pie

Crust - I used good ol' Western Family frozen premade crust (I mean come on guys, I am uber preggo and uber uncomfortable, even on my fancy new kitchen stool, like I was going to make the filling AND the crust from scratch!?)
Fresh Cut Strawberries
Fresh Cut Bananas
Vanilla Custard Pie Filling (RECIPE HERE)
Fresh Whipped Whipping Cream (with a touch of sugar and vanilla of course!)

Directions:
Layer like a mad woman. :) That's all! Obviously the major recipe step here is the custard cream filling layer. You could go easy-peasy and do some sort of jell-o pudding something but it wouldn't be nearly as delicious! The custard was a bit tricky to get just right, like she said, with the thickening and such. But it turned out great!

Oh, and positive note... also just like she said you can make this custard a bit in advance before you layer it all together. I actually made it on Friday but then ran out of time to put the pie together. I put it together Saturday morning and it worked great!

Like my egg yolks? Yeah, I thought so, very flower-power-esque.

The end result was delicious. Because you use fresh bananas you really need to make this pie the day of your event, and then it's only good for another day or two. We made it to day three with no problems and then it was gone. So who knows if it would be good past that? Not that you would ever know since it was so delicious I doubt this pie has ever seen a day 4 in its recipe lifetime!?

We also have another fabulous tradition starting, which I think everyone should do... we don't just celebrate Father's Day. We celebrate Father's Week. It was awesome. A new card from M on each day with some sort of treat. The final gift was this cute apron with M's handprint. I think in a year or two we'll add baby #2's handprint, that's why I put the year next to her hand.

(Oh, Jordo also got water guns for his birthday... and can I just say that water guns for the whole family is the coolest gift ever! We have been loving them, even M!)

Basically we had a fabulous Father's week. Good times. :)

baby love

2011-06-29T20:54:00.000-07:00

[me.carolee.sam]

So fun.

Went to a baby shower last weekend for my girlfriend. It was an adorable little shower, see photos here.

But the most fun part is that me and two of my best high school girlfriends are all pregnant at the same time. Each due about a month apart from each other or so.

Thought you'd love to see this mom, fun huh?

Happy Wednesday.

Milk Bubbles

2011-06-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Somehow, the other day, M learned about milk bubbles. On accident at first. And then it pretty much just spiraled out of control. I, remembering just how much fun it is/was to blow bubbles in my own milk, allowed it to happen.

She was so proud and happy and excited and joyful with this new discovery. She thought it was the funniest thing ever!

Don't worry, being the amazing mother I am I explained to her that there are many social situations in which it is not appropriate to blow bubbles in our milk. For example, when daddy is home and eating with us. :) Mostly I told her and practically threatened her that she is not to blow bubbles without my permission. And after cleaning up the table I also told her "only in the high chair" from now on! :)

I did teach her too though that she has to clean up after herself in silly situations like these.

And she did a pretty good job of it, for a 2 year old.

Watching her enjoy this new sensation was a trip down memory lane. I LOVEd blowing bubbles in my milk, it's addicting.

One of my favorite things about being a mother is remembering the things I enjoyed, seeing her discover joys similar to my own, and learning why my own mother said no to things I wanted. It makes you feel like such an adult to tell your own child no to something you yourself pined over. So interesting.

But I love it. I love experiencing it all.

Summer Play Day

2011-06-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

M and I have finally been enjoying the fun summer weather upon us. Especially since I know it will just get hotter and hotter and hotter for the rest of the summer. It's easy to enjoy it now when I can still stand it!

There have been plenty of lunch and dinner picnics. I love to eat outside on a quilt, even though I don't think it is quite as effective at getting a lot of food into M's tummy. She seems to get distracted easily. But it is still fun.

She enjoys getting in on mama's recent lemonade addiction!

Unfortunately I can't do much hooping this summer. Because I have trouble just standing or walking you can imagine what sort of sunshine experience it is to thrust a hoop around you waist while movin' it! It's fun to pick my hoop up for a quick turn or two now and then but any actual practicing or sweet move learning will have to wait until next summer.

Until then M seems to be enjoying her hoop enough for the both of us!

She still can't swing it around great but I am thinking by the end of the summer, or at least by next summer.

Such concentration in her face! Love it!

We have been tending to our tomatoes planted in the very back of our lot in the old irrigation ditch. (Thanks to our landlord's grandson for the brilliant idea!!)

And since our last IKEA trip M even has her own little watering can, she picked the color pink, of course!

She has even learned how to turn on the water faucet herself.

AND fill her lil bucket.

Which basically means that mom has to be extra diligent in checking to see that the water is off before we go inside or even periodically when we are outside!

So here they are...

There were 9 plants originally. One died before we transplanted, and then two have since keeled over. I am trying to revive one as it had a leaf growing below the breaking point, but the other is gone I am pretty sure. So that takes us down to 6. Still more than none so I am ecstatic.

And they really do seem to be doing okay, even with M and I watering them by hand instead of being on a drip line of some sorts which is what I would really like, oh well, don't have the energy to figure that one out right now!

Picnic blanket view.

M LOVEs her bike. And she is mad awesome on it! She can go super fast, so much so that I really worry she'll have a major wipe out, but not yet!

It's been nice to have bikes. I can't walk very far but with the support the bike seat gives me "down there" I can ride further than I can walk. And with M on her bike we can actually get places... the park, the library, my sister's house, and on ambitious days a few further places like JoAnns or Coldstone! :)

LOVin' the toothiness of this shot! She's such a ham these days, I love soaking it all in. Even when she's grumpy she can still be pretty funny sometimes. And thanks to Jordan's awesome parenting book find I feel in control even in the grumpy times.

Life is good.

And so is the weather. Happy Monday!

Happy Father's Day Love

2011-06-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

I am so glad I chose to spend my life and raise my babies with you.

Definitely one of my finest decisions ever.

Love you!

Father's week has been fun... thanks for putting up with my random craziness!

And to my Dad:

Thanks for raising me, thanks for being your wild crazy self, and thanks for teaching me to love, to create, to dream, and to live life. I LOVE you.

Even though the times are few, I am glad that my baby (soon to be babies) are getting to know and love you. We miss you guys and wish we were there celebrating this Father's day with you! :)

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there tonight!!!!

6.18.2011 - life as we live it

2011-06-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

My computer is on the fritz. As always. Thanks to my dear husband I think it may be on its way to a recovery, or more like a rebirth. I backed up everything last night and today it gets to start it's life over. Completely. Nice. :)

That is just one of the many excuses I have for not being around here. The others involve sunshine, an active 2 year old, and many not-so-fun pregnancy pains. All of which is limiting my computer time. I am barely getting the basic necessities of life and living under control, let alone getting around to fun things such as photo uploading and editing.

But here I am. On my hubby's computer, using his sweet newer-than-mine version of photoshop, how did he get so lucky? :)

Days have been busy, but fun around here. Lots of trying to keep lil M happy and enjoying life. She's always on my heals saying "mom, please play with me" so we're always on the lookout for new projects for her that allow mama to get stuff done.

We've had friends over for all sorts of summer fun, including painting rocks, a favorite past time in our house.

I think I need to get some new paints for this project though, the crayola ones we've been using aren't quite opaque enough, so the grey of the rock is always showing through, I'd like the paint to "punch" a little more.

Remember how M cut her dolls hair? Well here are the remnants. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the doll because it went straight into toy-time-out. Then when I finally got it out I spent twenty minutes trying to fix her hair and make it look better before realizing I never took a picture, oh well, I don't really want to remember it anyways!

I've been in a pretty steady phase lately of grilled cheese sandwiches. I didn't have cravings with my last pregnancy and I wouldn't exactly say I have cravings this time, but I am experiencing an aversion to most food. Not that food makes me sick or anything, it's just that nothing ever sounds good. Except for one or two things. At first it was toad-in-the-roads, then I moved on to salad wraps, each for a few weeks at a time. Now it has been grilled cheese sandwiches. Although I think I may be moving out of that one, so who knows what will come next!?

Oh, my other weird food thing right now is lemonade. YUM. Sweet and tart delicious homemade lemonade. It's doing a lot of good for me right now. Even lat eat night when I feel like I should be wanting ice cream or something, all I seem to crave is a big tall cup of ice-cold lemonade. We're on our third giant bottle of lemon juice, I suppose this is another grocery item I could move over to the Costco list for the summer!

We went to a fun concert the other night in Provo. My sister and my sister-in-law and I. There is a group of awesome people hosting some pretty fun concerts this summer for free! I was pretty stoked, I had heard one (Mindy Gledhill) of the two singers before and the other (Meaghan Smith) turned out to be pretty fun and quirky as well!

It was a fun venue, the top of a parking garage, and they even had a little open market thing before hand, everyone was walking around with the most delicious looking cupcakes, so funny how those are so popular these days!
Me and Megs:

Me and Liz (and Livvy even came along for the party, she was awake the whole time and din't cry once!):

Mindy, rocking it as usual. She's pregnant too and it made my body hurt just thinking of being on stage for an hour, she must have easy pregnancies!

I also went through a food phase for those delicious refrigerator date muffins, I think of you every time I eat one mom! We had a few rainy weeks there a while back and fresh warm muffins were perfect!

Jordan found some old stuff downstairs, including some stuff from his mission to Ecuador. He came across a huge long strip of banana stickers. NO idea where he got them or why but M sure loves them. Don't be surprised if the next time you come over our house is covered in banana stickers!

Thanks for the package mom! She sent me down some super adorable little baby clothes, some new, some used, some even used by me and my sisters as babies. Because we are having a girl and I don't really need anything new clothing wise it was the first time I have had fun going through a bunch of cute baby clothes! I remember how different that aspect of pregnancy was for me last time. I was obsessed about everything baby. Always wanting to collect, sort, organize all those precious little things. This time its not even on my mind!

But in that package was a fun little surprise for M as well. Pancake shapers! Anyone who knows me at all knows that I love cheesy kitchen gadgets like this. I love anything that makes food look more fun! We have a set of these in princess shapes and an ABC123 set. LOVE them.

Speaking of cheesy kitchen gadgets, I bought these things on clearance once that I have always loved and wanted to use but never get around to it. Maybe this triggered my memory for a reason. I should pull them out. They are little ice cream sandwich shape things. You can make little cow or pig face shaped ice cream sandwiches, awesome, right? :)

Anyways... :) We were also quite ecstatic when June hit us. For the month of May the library didn't have mother goose story time. But now it is back in session. Every Tuesday morning at 11am. It works perfect for us because M loves the library but its always easier to get there when we have something specific to go to, otherwise we just put it off and never go!

So we go every week now, and even though our books are good to have out for 3 weeks we usually return them every week so she can get a whole new set. Plus they have a little reading program directed towards families and/or toddlers and she is LOVing that!

We had the most ridiculous thing happen the other day. Our landlord is 92 years old and lives next door to us. VERY nice guy, we love him. But he always has his grandson and his friend work on our house repairs. Normally this is fine, no problem. But they decided to replace the roof on our forever old garage. I don't know what they were thinking but they just pulled off and threw onto the lawn all of the old shingles, all the way down to the old wood ones. That's all fine and dandy but when they cleaned up and left there were old rusty bent nails EVERYwhere! In our back lawn, all over our driveway, all over the floor of the garage.

The thing I was most worried about was our back lawn. M plays out there without shoes on all summer long, as do I! We fashioned a sweet magnet tool from a hockey stick, a bunch of little magnets, and some tape. That worked for awhile until the tape kept breaking. So then Mark went and bought this sweet 3" circular magnet on a stick thing. That worked okay, but we were finding hundreds and hundreds of nails and were so worried about missing any! Jordan found someone at church that works for a construction company and they lent us an awesome-tastic wheely things with a huge long magnet inside that we rolled over each of the areas. After spending several hours out there this morning I think we are in the clear, or at least close. If you come over and find a nail in our grass I will pay you a dollar. It's ridiculous, I was so irritated, but I think I am cooling off! :)

Our father's day week has been awesome. M made Jordo a card for every day and we gathered little treats that he enjoys to go with each card. We like to live it up big for simple holidays around here. He always requests a fun new pie as well. This time the request was for a strawberry banana cream pie. I finished it this morning and I think it's fabulous. I will share pics and the recipe next week, YUM!

As for the rest of our days I am mostly just trying to keep things balanced. Trying to get as much done as possible, especially in the early day hours before my body craps out on me. Generally that means that nap time for M means nap time for me as well. Which is okay most of the time. (By the way Kam, speaking of nap time, the book you gave M has been read for nap time and bed time ever since we received it... definitely a HUGE winner in our house! Love you!)

Happy Saturday, and Happy Father's day. Love you all.

5.25.2011

2011-05-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

As of today I am officially tired of being sick. I was sick off and on all last fall with random colds, etc, and then I had a fabulous several month spell of healthiness this winter/spring. (I do wonder if that had anything to do with this wonder-discovery, which I am about to head to the kitchen and whip some more up of just in case!)

A week and a half ago or so M came down with a sad little stomach bug. She threw up every 20-40 minutes for 22 hours straight. NOT FUN. Not fun for anyone, but especially not for the little 2 year old who just didn't understand what was going on. That worked its way out completely in about a weeks time.

Then we were all better for about a week. This weekend I woke up with my eyes sealed shut with lovely crusty goop. You probably didn't want that descriptive detail, but it really was ridiculous. We thought for a day and a half that I had pink eye, especially since M's eyes were a little red as well. But with a little effort and guesswork I think we've ruled it allergies... which I hate probably just as much as any sickness. I never had allergies until I spent my first summer in Utah in 2006. And that is probably the only reason I hate Utah. Otherwise, it's a fabulous little place to live! :)

Then Monday night I acquired some sort of rockin awesome cough. Nice. I was up until 11:30 until my sweet hubby rolled out of bed half awake and said he was headed to the store to get something that his preggo wife could actually take. Then last night it seemed that even with the sweet medicine I couldn't stop coughing. Poor guy ended up sleeping on the couch he was so annoyed with my coughing! Although he was very sweet about it, but I don't blame him for wanting his sleep! :)

So basically I feel like we are always sick, me, or Jordo, or M, at least one of us. ALWAYS sick. What is wrong with us? We take our vitamins! I mean come on! Seriously. (Plus, let's not forget my awesome preggo pains, of which I will not share the details, but seriously, can't a girl get a break?)

Onto better things.

I am using a new camera these days. Okay, I say new, but what I mean is older and lamer than my sweet sweet canon 20D... and for those of you that know what the 20D is you know how old it is, so to say I have been using something even older, well, you probably wonder how the camera I AM using is even still in existence. But Jordo was always nervous with me leaving my 20D all over the place, on the table, on the couch, etc. So I busted out an old charmer... anyways, I have been learning to change my photo taking and uploading practices and once I find the right cord (that I don't have to steal from hubby's briefcase every time I want to use it) then I should be more organized. But until then I am uploading photos about every two weeks, nice. :)

Wow, I love it when I get all bloggy like this and share more details than anyone is willing to read. I'm not joking. Because even though no one is reading any of this and you all just skipped down to the pictures I love having it on record. My goal for this year is to print my blog so I have some sort of family journal/record sort of thing.

So, now for the good stuff, here is what we have been up to lately...

:: Plenty, and I mean plenty of art time, what else is new? ::

:: Growing tomatoes, thanks to my sis Megs who actually started them for me... and now as of last night they are officially in the backyard in dirt, so we will see how that goes, another post on that later! ::

:: Rainy mornings that bring with them warm mugs full of hot tea, or is M gets her way, hot chocolate, yum... I also love how cool rain makes me want to bake, so we had a batch of refrigerator date muffins going this week too, perfect with tea, yum ::

:: I am always up for some mini marshmallows, except for why do they disappear so quickly? Maybe someone needs to tell the cocoa company to start with bigger ones so they don't go so fast! ::

:: Lots of love for M and me, I love our days together, even when I'm not feeling amazing, she is always so cute. My favorite thing lately is that whenever I tell her I can't do something because I'm not feeling great she comes over to me, tilts her head, rubs my leg or back or head or whatever and says "it's okay mommy, it's okay" LOVE that girl! ::

:: Butterfly kisses are pretty popular, as are all sorts of kisses we're coming up with: eskimo kisses, cheek kisses, fishy kisses, finger kisses (think ET), toe kisses, etc ::

:: And here is something that this Bachelor of Arts mom is so uber duper proud of... is that bad? M is learning to draw people, oh my goodness, I love it! ::

:: Isn't she amazing? ::

:: In this one I asked her what was on his chin and she said "his belly" ::

:: We've been enjoying the nice weather here and there and run outside when it's sunny every chance we get. Grandma Lyn, this was the first and only time so far I've been able to get her to wear this dress. I hope it's not the last because it is SO cute!! ::

:: Here she is trying to show me a picture she drew (which is on the other side of the paper, but mostly I just wanted to show off the cute play dress I made her the other day. She loves dresses and I figured she needed a few new ones to start summer so I've been breakin' fabrics out of my scraps and stash to put a few fun things together... ::

:: Crepes. Enough said. No really, do you know how much I LOVE crepes? So much. I can't even describe it. We have crepes at least once a week in this house, sometimes two or three times, I am never surprised when that happens. ::

:: This day was particularly chilly so we broke out the tea as well. I love that M likes tea. She owns her own box of sugar cookie tea. Mostly because I bought it at Christmas to try for myself and that it tasted like melted butterscotch candies, not what I am looking for in a tea, but she gladly accepted it! ::

:: We've been painting rocks like mad, we had to buy M a little basket just for her colored rocks... I think it's funny how much I love painting rocks. Do any of you paint rocks? Or is it just me and my family that did it as kids? My SIL looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested we get our kiddos together to paint rocks the other day, oh well, we love it! ::

:: M received this little egg in her Easter basket, complete with a little round of dirt and seeds to grow flowers. Not just any flowers, but little purple flowers that are known to attract the worlds cutest fairies, hmmm... no flowers yet but we will keep at it! ::

:: And well this picture is random but I love it SO much! Look at the surprise and joy in her face, peeking around the couch from her little play corner! :) ::

On another note I do not have pictures of this but M has done a few "ugh" things as of late. On Monday she cut her doll's hair. Not just any doll. THIS doll. Yeah. Exactly.

Then on Tuesday she colored crayons all over her fairy dolls. She said she was writing her name on them. Sort of cute, in a not cute sort of way. :)

And then today, thank goodness she did not attack any of her mama-made things, but she sucked on a black marker for about 3 minutes, yeah, it was quite the pretty picture.

Life is good with a two-year old, and I guess I can't expect her to never hurt something I make her. You know what I think though? At least it means she likes to play with the toys that I make her, right? Right?

Well, Happy Wednesday... I think we're going to go get take out for dinner, because who doesn't love takeout at the end of a long sick headachey day?

Love ya.

A verry merry un-birthday to YOU!

2011-05-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

We have an announcement people.

Many of you know this already, but there are also a great many of you who do not. And so now it will be public knowledge, for all to enjoy. (so sorry if I didn't call you or tell you in person, we've been busy!)

We are havin' a baby. A little bit of sunshine to add onto our already sunshiney family.

And this just in...

It's a girl!

So not only are we introducin' our little munchkin #2 to the world, but we are also doing our best to dominate our household with all sorts of girliness.

Today we are officially 21 weeks and one day. Feels good to be half way baby!

*skip this part if you don't want painful preggo details...*

And on a more intensely personal note, no I have not been feeling great. Not only do I have the lame sciatic nerve pain that I had with munchkin #1, but I also have some awesome (please note the sarcasm here) varicosities of an also intensely personal nature... yes, well, anyhow, life is fine, life is good. I am getting used to the pain and mostly just working on making it through each day alive! :)

*back to the good stuff*

So anyways, life is awesome, we are super excited. We're due the end of September and cannot wait for this new phase of our life to begin! Love you all!

Handmade Wooden Toys... the start of something very very good. :)

2011-05-16T15:01:00.001-07:00

I love nice toys, especially wooden ones. LOVE them. I love this catalog which is full of fun wooden toys. And I have been inspired by these, these, these, these, and these.

One day while admiring all of this lovely wooden toy love I stumbled upon this gal, Amber Dusick...

Which then led me to this totally amazing tutorial of hers...

And that was it. I was inspired. So I asked for a scroll saw for Christmas. And somehow, in our meager little budget my husband found me a fabulous used scroll saw that I am now in love with.

It took me quite a few months, obviously, to get it out and running. But I have to admit that I was pretty nervous, since I am not exactly a "power-tool" using kind of girl. Can you blame me for not wanting to cut my fingers off?

But i finally did it. I bought myself a small piece of pine and some new blades and off I went. (oh and by the way, this below is not where I was placing my fingers while cutting, which looks very dangerous. I had the blade off and was showing my honey how off I was in my cutting line from my original drawing... although in the final toy you can't really tell how off I was!)

I was on fire. I was so pumped, I just kept cutting! When I started cutting I thought that maybe, just maybe I would cut out a simple shape such as a heart and that is all I would get done on this day, but no... I just kept on cutting... it was AWESOME!!

I actually cut out toys, can you believe it!? Underneath the fairies is a little stacked rainbow but I haven't sanded and painted that one yet, so we'll save that for another post later... plus I have other fun additions to this toy set in my mind... yay!

I also received a dremel sanding tool for Christmas from my in laws, so I used that to do all the corner rounding and shaping. It worked great and after I sanded the toys they were so soft! I then used my soldering iron pointed tip to burn designs into the toys.

This part didn't really work all that great. I think it was because I was using pine which had a ton of grain lines through it. But I also have a really cheap craft soldering iron that I just bought from Michaels years ago so it might help if I had a nicer wood burning tool? Anyways, I bought some poplar for my next toy ideas so I'll try my iron on that and if it is still really skippy and blotchy then I'll order a wood burning tool, so we will see. It just takes some testing and practice, right?

Detail shots of two of the dolls. See how the lines skip all over the place and get blotchy in areas? It was really hard to control.

But overall, for my first toys I think it was a pretty good success!

And the final products - painted with certified AP non-toxic watercolors.

I am going to seal them as well eventually but I am waiting on some beeswax from a local bee farmer just down the road from me. I am going to make my own beeswax/oil polish.

So what do you think? I am in love! You should see all the plans and drawings I have been playing with in prep to cut some more toys. The pine cut very smoothly but I am going to try poplar next and then I'll move onto some hard woods to make some little baby teething toys. I am very excited!

I have so much to update you on, if only I could find a cord for the camera I've been using the past week or so. I will figure it out, one of these days.

Happy Monday!

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T20:01:00.000-07:00

My baby girl has been sick with some sort of stomach bug all week. Starting early Tuesday morning and going in one form or another for approximately 5 days. I am so very tired. But I had to get on the computer tonight to share with you this ADORABLE little video my husband and daughter made for me yesterday morning and this morning while they let me sleep in for Mother's day.

Jordo and M, I love you both so much. Thank you for making me the happiest, most fulfilled mother in the world. You mean everything to me.

Love you.

And to my mother, and all of you wonderful mothers out there, thank you for all you do. In your families and in the world in general. Where would we be without you?

Easter Eggs, 3 days late...

2011-04-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

I wasn't even sure we would dye eggs this year. Obviously. Seeing as how it is three days past Easter. And generally you dye eggs before Easter.

You know what I love about toddlers though? They have no concept of the alignment of days, holidays, etc. All M knows is that we had an awesome weekend and today we made sweet colored eggs that she even got to crack and eat, sunshine in her eyes.

We only had a handful of white eggs left so we had to throw in a few brown and now I wish I'd dyed even more after we ate nearly half for lunch with our egg salad sandwiches...

And of course I taught her the easiest awesome egg-dyeing technique, the white crayon. LOVE her cute chicken scratch on all the eggs, and yes, that pun was SO intended.

Scouting out the perfect egg for her lunch... it was consumed approximately 1 minute later, just as fast as mum could peel it.

Besides the fact that M threw a continual fit ALL DAY LONG in regards to cleaning up a pile of paper scraps she had cut, it was a pretty sweet day. Well, at least the egg dyeing was awesome, maybe we'll go all natural next year and do some sweet onion and tea dyeing or something. Or maybe we'll just dye the eggs on time. That may be the best plan.

Happy Easter. And happy Wednesday, as well. It is Wednesday, right? :)

The Final Graduation.... right?

2011-04-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Jordo, my sunshine of a husband, graduated this week. Technically he finished school in December, graduating with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering as well as a Masters in Business Administration. (Yes, I am VERY proud and like to toot his horn even if he doesn't!)

But this last week it was official. We attended 3 ceremonies, he walked in two, and at the end of that second day I knew we had made it. In all of the years Jordo and I have known each other, at least one of us has been a university student. We are now officially moving on from our "student" status and becoming real people, this feels huge!

Thank you P & G for all the love and support you've given Jordan over the years... and for all those random candy purchases you put up with on your bookstore card, I love how you would just smile and shake your heads whenever it came up! Oh, and you should know that I offered, quite often, to buy him special gift cards to the book store, or some sort of special cash allowance just for candy... but he seemed to enjoy using your card so much more. We LOVE you guys, and appreciate everything, you have made a huge difference in the progression of our lives.

My parents came down from Alaska, not only because of Jordan, but as luck would have it my baby brother Cartz and his beautiful new wife Tamanna were graduating as well! Those two smarties are headed to Europe and then to India to visit T's family, but then they are off to Seattle to start new jobs with Microsoft, so crazy!

It also happened to be earth day... so we had to throw a little tree-huggin' love in there to capture some of that spirit, even if all of our crazy celebrating and Ikea shopping and general merriment really had no earth love in it... oops! That's alright though I think, we do try pretty much every other day of the year to spread and grow some nice earth love. I think even the earth understands that the final final final graduation of one's schooling career only comes once. At least I hope it only comes once. Right? :)

It was a whirlwind of a week. Poor M was up at the crack of dawn and then also had to miss out on regular naps because of all the coming and going. But it was all well worth it. We enjoyed my parents company, and more than anything I LOVEd celebrating my husband and his awesomeness. And let me tell you, it takes some serious awesomeness to bust out all of those smart sounding degrees. :) I love you Jordo. More than anything in the world. I love you. And I know you will hate this but I want to shout it out... that I am so proud of you. You never cease to amaze me with how hard you work, how much you love to learn and grow, and how crazily smart you are.

Thank you for all you do for me, for M, and for our family. We love you.

Feeling the JOY of our new art easel...

2011-04-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

I bought this old art easel about 5 years ago, long before M came into our little family. How could I not? I knew I would want an easel for my kiddos and I found it at the local thrift store for $2.

I had grand plans to repaint it and make it all fresh and new but when I pulled it out last month to start my work on it I decided I loved it the way that it was, used and well loved looking. So I gave the chalkboard side a few fresh coats of chalkboard paint and the next day we were up and running.

I LOVE this girl.

M loves to be crafty and creative, just like me, and we are getting so antsy for warm summer weather so we can go be creative and uber messy outside... until then we will just paint and play inside with our new easel. Oh, and we painted rocks the other day, which apparently is not a normal thing here? Which of you mommas and friends out there think painting rocks as an activity is normal? Because man, I love it!

I have quite the stockpile of photos needing to be posted so hopefully we'll be around more this week. We have been so busy and it has been fun but I think it's time to get back down to business here! Love ya!

One Fabulous General Conference Saturday, so good.

2011-04-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Conference weekend. If you are LDS then you know to what I am referring. If you are not then let me enlighten you...

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church gathers twice a year to hear from our prophet and church leaders. IT IS AWESOME! My goodness, even if you aren't LDS it is awesome. So much goodness. So much positiveness. I can't imagine how someone wouldn't benefit from it. So if you missed it, or have no idea what I am talking about, go here to get some goodness.

Oh it was so good. And one thing I love about conference weekend is that unlike a normal weekend for me where I attend church on Sunday for just a few hours, these two weekends a year we listen to 5 two hour sessions total, spanning Saturday and Sunday. Although it takes up the entire weekend it also enlightens the entire weekend and you walk away on some sort of spiritual high. I LOVE it.

Now this may seem silly, but another fabulous thing about conference Saturday is that there is a two hour break between the morning and afternoon session. This means that you have time with family, unscheduled time, 2 hours with nothing to do but fill it with fun and wait for the next session.

So we flew a helicopter.

Daddy taught M how to have a steady hand.

We even continued a little bit during the hymns after the break.

We wore matching shoes.

We ventured outside to fly kites. M's new Barbie kite to be exact.

And then we ventured to the school park because our yard just wasn't big enough.

M got distracted by the big fancy play equipment, understandable if you ask me.

My man and his Barbie kite, abandoned by his daughter to fly the pink kite alone.

Can I just say this last one is my favorite. She started to go down the slide but got scared and caught herself on the edges. Then she couldn't go down because she was too scared but she also couldn't pull her self up because she wasn't strong enough. So basically she just hung there screaming for us to come help her. We eventually did. Of course. :)

It was a fabulous day. A fabulous weekend.

April Fools Day - two year old style...

2011-04-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

I can never think of anything to do for April Fools Day. And yet I am the kind of person that if I could think of something I would go all out with it. I actually really do love to be silly.

I haven't been feeling great lately and was desperate for some fun so I had to think hard. M helped me. I started with a dirty diaper trick. I was trying to think of something that would maybe be realistic enough and something that if it really happened would freak Jordo out. So I melted chocolate and poured it along with some yellow dyed water into a clean diaper. On the days he works from home he works at a small desk in our bedroom. He had gone out for a few minutes to run an errand so we were able to place the dirty diaper under the corner or the desk. Gross.

M quickly caught on that we were doing silly things for daddy. The dr. pepper can on the desk was her idea. She found it in the kitchen recycle bin and said we should fill it with something. I suggested water. I love two-year-olds.

I said we should fill his slipper shoes with something... the crackers were her idea. She loved filling them up, and kept wanting to come in and eat the crackers before daddy came home.

The above were fun, and we also coated the outside door handle with vaseline and took a cover off of a sports magazine and put it over one of mom's crafty magazines and put it in the bathroom, but this next was probably my favorite of the day.

M found this cleaner brush under the sink and was being so silly about it. I finally realized she wanted me to put it somewhere. I kept offering hiding suggestions for it and she kept refusing. Until I pointed to the curtain I had tucked up onto the dresser while I was cleaning. Yes. A winner. I LOVE how excited she was. She thought it was just so clever.

And daddy loved it, so I think it definitely was the cleverest silly-ness of the day.

Good times.

What did you guys do for April fools? Any good ideas for me for next year?

Samoas Cookie Pie Recipe

2011-03-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

Jordo's birthday was this last Tuesday and he requested a special pie for his celebration. We have a bit of a tradition for birthdays and fathers day that he can request any random or fun pie he finds online for me to make.

This time however he did not provide me with a recipe, but more an idea. He wanted a pie that tastes like a Samoas Girl Scout cookie. YUM! So I took on the challenge. We have this old recipe we use quite often for an Almond Joy flavored cream pie. I took out all of the special almond flavoring additions, replaced the crust with a butter shortbread, and added a layer of caramel to the mix. It was yummy.

Basic Recipe Idea:
Butter Shortbread Crust
Layer of Milk Chocolate Ganache (from cream and melted chocolate, LOVE)
Layer of Melted Caramel
Layer of Coconut Cream where I replaced a bit of the regular sugar with brown sugar to add a bit of extra caramel flavor, yum.
Layer of fresh whipped cream
Garnish with chopped/shaved chocolate and toasted coconut

Sometimes I think it's funny how the scene looks from a distance when I am shooting something. The close up of the pie looks lovely, but in reality the tablecloth isn't even laid out, the chairs are disheveled and the art projects haven't even been cleared from the room. When you go close up there's no sense in tidying up. Right?

Kid Tested.

Mother Approved.

SO delicious. I wish we made more excuses to make pie.

Anyways, happy birthday to Jordo. Happy birthday to me.

Happy Monday.

Baby Slings and Toddler Slingin'...

2011-03-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

We have been slinging our babies around here as of late. M is LOVing her babies, we even made them little flannel cloth diapers last week, I'll try to shoot those some time, we're still perfecting our pattern...

M has her very own sling, but it's funny because she will only use it with her "doll with the big hair". That is why I am the one slinging the baby in the first shot. All the babes have to be cared for and carried, right? It's a tough job but someone's gotta do it.

And speaking of babes needing to be carried, sometimes apparently toddlers need a little bit of that too. I am surprised I was able to not only squish her in there but carry this little (big) sunshine around without pulling my back out!

She LOVEd it!

And it was a sweet moment for me too, even if I get tired of carrying my little girl, it's sad to think she's no longer my "little baby" any more. But it's fun to pretend for a moment or two. Love it.

Happy Birthday to me tomorrow! And happy birthday to my sunshine Jordo on Tuesday!

Right Now and Sunshine Linkage

2011-03-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

*This is definitely going to be a random post. I have been away and out of it for so long I just need to express everything in my head and thoughts. So here goes.

I've been inspired by Soulemama's right now posts. Basically a list of thoughts and emotions happening right here and now with a few photos to document.

right now I am...

:: irritated with a cold that has hung on to me for over a week now (this is where you laugh and say serves you right if you remember this post at all, although I will explain later what happened there, because I am still a firm believer in this awesome stuff)

:: grateful for a toddler that still takes regular naps

:: frustrated, and yet sort loving at the same time, that the aforementioned toddler seems to think tights are an every day accessory... any ideas on where to buy cheap solid color dresses to coordinate?

:: happy to be on my own new schedule for a sunshine life... simple to-do schedules help me get all those random things done!

:: fighting between sleeping more to kick this cold and staying up with hubby watching old tv shows

:: feeling tired

:: drinking one of Jordo's diet dr. peppers because it looked SO good just sitting all alone in the fridge

:: frustrated that M has been waking up so early... but grateful that she will let me get her a snack and set a timer and then I get to rest another 30 minutes or so while she plays, so far so good!

:: happy to be me and happy to be married to such an incredible man. He SO gets me. :)

....

Also, on another note, I have been uber inspired as of late by all sorts of crafty peeps out there in this cyber world, so I really just need to share some of the love.

- i love the funky random styling of these homemade hats, they would so cute in sweet little girl M style!

- i made some of these cute shaped crayons for Simply Handmade last year and I think I will bust out a few more for sweet sunshine M for her Easter basket

- have been uber intrigued/inspired by this sweet post this week and not sure what I am going to do with this information, but loving it none-the-less

- also thinking this embroidery kit, especially the hoop, would be fun for M for Easter...

- LOVing these sweet summer apron wraps, definitely need to make on of these, and soon

- and one last link... I saw this little tutorial and am itching to turn an old j.crew sweater into a funky hooded sweatshirt sort of thing... for me, not for M... yes I know it's a tutorial for a kids project, but hey, same steps for some mama love!

Alright, that is all... so like I said, a lot of randomness today, but after a week long cold some random posting is deserved and understood, right? right.

happy friday.

and happy weekend.

see you on Monday (which just happens to be my BIRTHDAY!!!!!)

Coupon Commotion at JoAnns

2011-03-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

I LOVE coupon commotion week at JoAnns. It makes my year, I swear! But you really have to plan your projects out because often they have all sorts of stuff on sale already that you can't use your coupons on, eek! Not that sales aren't good as well but you have to find just the right thing for those sweet coupons, and I plan on workin' it this week!

Check out my post on the subject PLUS a super sweet and SUPER easy peasy diaper/wipes to-go bag tutorial over at Todays Mama.

I love you guys, Happy Monday. We have a crazy busy week this week so I may or may not be back on here until later in the week. We will see. Happy weeks to all of you!

{this moment}

2011-03-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by Soulemama. Feel free to play along and link to your Friday moment in the comments.

Elderberry Syrup and all of it's healing love.

2011-03-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

A month or more ago my sis was talking to me one day about ideas of using more natural home remedy type things in her life and one thing in particular caught my attention.
Elderberry Syrup. So I did a little research and I was sold. Apparently the elderberry has been used as a folk remedy for forever practically. It has great antioxidant properties, lowers cholesterol, improves vision, boosts the immune system, improves heart health, and basically is just awesome for your body.
So Megs and I went in together and purchased some dried elderberries from here and using this recipe, approximately, we each made our very own elderberry syrup.

And when I say we followed the recipe approximately I mean we dropped the ginger and cinnamon and I don't remember what else. Basically, my concoction is all berry and honey and nothing else.

M and I take the syrup by the small or large spoonful daily. And when we get a sniffle or cough we take it multiple times a day.

We have not been sick since we started taking it. Now this may seem silly and just coincidental to most of you. But to me and M, who have both been sick with every stupid cold and fever and whatever else this winter, it is practically a miracle.

I was at my breaking point when Megs told me about the syrup and I was willing to try just about anything to stop being sick. I was sick over the holiday break when my parents were visiting from Alaska. It was ridiculous. M ended up sick by the end of the week as well.

Now we're better. We're good. And now that I have told you all this I will probably get sick this weekend and it will be lame.

But I suppose I have that coming.

I better take an extra spoonful tonight just in case.

Come Create with Me!

2011-03-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

My first post over at Today's Mama is up! Nothing too exciting, just a basic introduction to me and my craziness, but I am excited for my future posts there.

Come check it out!

Best Scones EVER - the official recipe

2011-02-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

When I was in high school my sister Jes took a summer job on an island as a cook in a little tourism lodge. Very fun, but more importantly she came home with an amazing new set of recipes, yummy and delicious recipes. One of them being baked scones. YUM! I have been craving them lately and knew I needed to get on it and make them. I called her on Friday and got the down low on the recipe. And then between that and the two scone recipes in my Better Homes in Gardens cookbook I figured out a sweet and perfect little combination that has the best of everything.

The BEST Scones Ever - Recipe

2-1/2 C. flour
2 Tbsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
Pinch of Salt
3/4 stick butter
2 eggs
1/2 C. whipping cream - to start, then add as you go
1/2 C. dried sweetened cherries
1/2 C. peeled/sliced orange sections

Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients in separate bowl. Mix together, add extra dashes of whipping cream if needed.
Knead 10 times or so on a floured surface until nearly smooth. Roll or push with your hands into an 8" circle, or bigger, whatever. :)
Cut into wedges.
Bake at 400 for 12-14 minutes or until golden.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before drizzling orange glaze.

Orange Glaze Recipe

1 C. Powdered Sugar
1 Tbsp Oramge Juice, I just squeezed juice from the oranges I was using anyways
Dash Vanilla
1 Tbsp Melted Butter

Mix together. Continue to add extra orange juice until nice drizzling consistency, this is not exact science here folks.
Drizzle. Should make just enough for the 8 scones. Yum.

I've got the two recipes here side by side trying to find the perfect combination. I think I found it. No, I know I found it.

Check out those munchkin muscles!

Ready to go in...

All done. And SO divine. So sorry Megs that you were here when they came out because I know I almost made you break down and eat some gluten. They were SO good, hard to resist, even for a gluten-free girl!

I love how a little bit of sugary glaze on top can make anything pure perfection. These scones do a pretty good job of achieving that without the glaze, but it really just tops it off. Divine.

I am having a hard time resisting them actually so maybe it's not a good thing that I came up with the perfect recipe, right?

Once upon a time, back before I was married I had a scone on a trip in California. It was at a farmers market in Davis and it had some sort of spinach and cheese in it. Now THAT was also divine, I think I will conquer that version next. Right on.

Happy Monday.

a little bit of Costco premade hors d'oeuvres LOVE...

2011-02-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

Oh. My. Goodness.

I bought something the other day at Costco, that I maybe shouldn't have bought, but do not regret it in any way shape or form.

This premade bruschetta is in a word, DIVINE. NOT JOKING HERE! It is so incredibly delicious, and the thing is this: I could make delicious bruschetta myself any day of the week, but do I? No. And having this premade jar of delicious sunshine sitting on my refrigerator shelf, I am losing control.

Okay, so let's discuss in general how most of us do not just buy Costco premade hors d'oeuvres (and yes I googled how to spell that!) any day of the week. It is almost never in the budget, it almost never makes sense, but this time I was a slave to the moment and I bent.

And I highly recommend that you do too. Because it will be very worth it.

Happy Saturday.

My music has found a home.

2011-02-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

We bought a new (used) armoire for the living room last weekend. Goodbye to our old orange sunshine cabinet, it ran a good run.

And with a new entertainment cabinet comes a sweet-tastic new home for my record player. I was going to take it down to my craft room so it would actually get used. But now I can get it going and close the door and M doesn't bug it. SO AWESOME! So I had me a little afternoon o' record playin'. A little bit of Joni, Carole, and James to keep the good times rollin'.

And when accompanied by a plate of chips and salsa I cannot imagine a better afternoon nap time. :)
And about those chips... yeah... we were out of pretty much every grocery in the house until I made a Costco run yesterday and so those chips... they are tortillas that were about to expire, rubbed with butter and broiled for just a little bit. Nice and crunchy and yummy. Meals were a bit of a stretch in our house for a day or two while I tried to coordinate a Costco trip. Nice.

Today in our home...

2011-02-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

A slow start this morning, but a joyful day overall.

: Wednesdays are laundry days, every Wednesday, every week, I like a little consistency.

: Feeling tired, but feeling good at the same time.

: We clean M's room every night right before prayer and scriptures. But within 30 minutes of waking up it looks like this. How is that even possible? I love this girl.

: Aprons and the morning sunshine.

: More morning sunshine.

: A different kind of morning sunshine. The kind where last night I found two boxes of expired chocolate muffin mix and was forced to make chocolate sunshine for breakfast, oh darn, my life is tough. :)

: Oh My Goodness. Will I EVER send these packages, one is for you Jes full of sweet baby O stuff, and the other...? The other envelope is for my Aunt Teresa, are you reading this Teresa? Yup, that's your Christmas jewelry swap package, am I lame or what? I should make a plan to finish packaging these tonight. The maybe make another plan to get down to the post office on Friday or something, this is just ridiculous.

: Cracking paint. Enough said. We live in a rental, and he keeps promising to fix this soon. We will see, we will see. Until then I try to think of it as some sort of funky modern wall texture.

: Mmm, Bob. So good.

A little Wednesday sunshine to you all. I am off to eat some peanut butter m&ms while I mop the kitchen floor, which is only done about once a year so you should totally praise me!

Lata.

Richard Scarry and our deep love for him, since Christmas and childhood...

2011-02-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

M was gifted (by her lovely grandparents, thank you guys!) a Richard Scarry book for Christmas this year. Jordo and I both had his books when we were kids so it was a fun and sentimental gift to receive.

At the same time, I had actually thrifted a RS book a few months earlier and had been hiding it in my closet (yes that is where I hide my presents, shh don't tell!) for the perfect gift giving occasion. Although it was not exactly a gift-giving occasion, I pulled it out the second week in January to accompany her new book from the grandparents.

SHE LOVES THESE BOOKS! It's adorable and really sort of crazy how much she loves them. Even more than her little critter books, which is a whole different post, remind me of that sometime...

Anyways, the point is, his books are full of all sorts of information that really is kind of cool to learn. Good things to know in life. One of M's favorite stories from the new book is one about mailing letters. And because we were still in need of some serious thank you cards (yes, still from Christmas, we are a little late around here... on that note, are you on my Christmas letter mailing list, because uh, yeah... those just went out last week too, oops!) we got our "letter-mailing" groove on.

We followed the steps that Scarry so perfectly laid out for us and we sent off our letters. And then, with some awesome postal magic we were talking on Skype with G&G in Alaska on Sunday and there it was... the thank you letter, covered in glitter glue and stickers, that M and I had so carefully prepared.

It was fun. She loved it, I loved it. That Richard Scarry man knows his stuff.

Good times.

Happy day.

Kitchen Dancing - a daily deed

2011-02-19T09:33:00.000-08:00

I think I have mentioned this before but for Christmas Jordo gifted me an ipod. It was his old one, and his mother's before that, but still, I am not picky, and didn't even know I needed one before that! But I do need one, I do.

M and I listen to pandora in the kitchen pretty much all day, every day. Sometimes one of my stations, I have several - one big mix oldie station, one neil diamond based, one Lenka based, and my favorite go-to station is Toto based. LOVE that 80s/90s rock stuff, so great - and then sometimes her ONE station, based on Raffi. I have thumbs up and downed so many random fun tunes on her Raffi that I love her station now too. It plays a great mix of kids tunes that I actually like listen to and then for some reason a bunch of fun paul simon, bob marley, and other sweet singers.

This day in particular I was makin' crepes and on came a new song, a song that probably shouldn't have been on our kids station but that immediately made my body move. And I danced like crazy through the whole thing.

And then, of course, like a good blogger, I jotted down the name of the song and singer so I could share my new dancing love with all of you.

So here it is... whether you like the song or not, I dare you not to dance, even just a little. Don't smile either, I mean come on guys! :)

Alright, nice. Now that we've all gotten our dance on. On to other things. Have I mentioned that I love my darn tootin little sunshine. Caught her the other day unloading the art box all over the living room floor.

This girl loves her art. Paint, pencils, stickers, glitter glue, clay, playdough, you name it we do it. I have to work really hard to keep it under control so there's not dried glitter glue spots on the carpet and stickers stuck to random household surfaces. Normally her art box is up high where she can't reach it. Obviously that was not the case on this day. oops.

But I love her anyways, and I love that she loves to be creative. Because I do too. And that pretty much makes up for everything crazy or sunshiney that she does.

The best mail day EVER. (strider bike love)

2011-02-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we received the best package in the mail. A gigantic box direct from ours truly, Amazon. I have been saving since fall, little bits of cash here and there, and I finally was able to purchase M a new bike for summer.

After about a million hours of research and review reading and pricing I chose the Strider PreBike by Strider Sports. Of course I have to admit that I like the "look" of those cute wooden balance bikes much better, but I went with this one based on reviews and long term durability mixed with price.

And, well, because I was just too darn excited to wait for Jordo to get home to help me put it together... yeah, I did it myself.

Which proved to be tricky. But just for a moment. I am woman, hear me roar. I can totally put a toddler bike together on my own. At least now I can anyways. :)

Her reaction to the new bike was epic. When she woke up from her nap I asked her if she knew what had come in the mail while she was sleeping... she said with a huge growing grin... "my bike!??"
SO cute. The light was poor because it was late but she was so happy.

We tried a re shoot when she woke up the next morning asking to ride "my new bike". She got the hang of it pretty quick. She mostly just walks around from room to room with it between her legs. I think after some time, when she gets used to having to hold it up herself, she will slowly lift those toes and glide a little. At least I hope so.

By the end of the summer we should be gliding, sliding, and rolling right along.

I can't remember why she was grumpy in those two first shots, but I do recall that I had to bribe her to get her to smile... which she eventually did, with a promise of something fabulous afterward I am sure. This is a constant occurrence so it slips my mind exactly what the bribe was this time. And no, I am not a pushover of a mom, or at least I hope I am not. :)

But this is probably my favorite shot of the day. First of all, the helmet was on her head for quite a large portion of the day. Secondly, I love how she gets distracted when she finds something she loves... in this case I had accidentally left open the front door closet, which houses her art box. There was a coloring book and colored pencils on the floor inside and she sat quietly in the closet doorway coloring for nearly 15 minutes. LOVE.

We've been a little busy around here as of late. I wish I was posting more. I have plenty of photos and videos of our days, I just don't have plenty of time to sit and write. That being said, this is what our days have been made up of:

Sunshine
Wind
Snow
Crepes
Art
Bike Riding
Water Make Believe Games
Dresses and Tights, EVERY day. :)
Constant Requests to "watch dorie" (Dora)
Constant Denials to "watch dorie"
Thrifting
Errands, errands, and more errands
Pandora Listening
and
Crib Escaping

Here's to a restful and joy filled weekend!

Kodak Zi8 Rocks On Sunshine...

2011-02-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

So... We got a new camera for Christmas. Jordo surprised me with a Kodak Zi8. It's basically Kodak's totally rad and awesome version of the Flip camera. But it's way better. First of all it shoots 1080 video and all sorts of other cool stuff... Okay, I can't tell you details, I'm just not that way, go here to check it out.

I have been wanting a super sweet video camera that a. could fit in my purse, and b. didn't take ten hours or a crazy process to upload the video. And yes, we have a slam dunk in both those areas.

The ONLY problem is that it does take stills, but not great ones. The photos people show online that actually look good are all taken outside and I swear must be taken on a tripod.

But I am learning. You need bright light and a super duper steady hand, or set the camera on a counter or something, that usually works.

So we have been practicing because it would be totally sweet to just have this in my purse all the time and never be without my camera.

Okay, that's all... here is some of our daily practice results:

On a side note: It COMPLETELY rocks on the macro awesomeness. In both stills and video. VERY cool. Yeah, so cool, I am totally geekin out in my head right now. Just you wait until I start showing you my mad sewing skills that close, you'll go crazy. :)

And this one, well as you can see it's slightly blurry and it was handheld, no counter to stabilize. So it's not perfect, but maybe good enough that I would post it here. Right? I guess you can't have everything. :)

Morning tea. Oh my goodness, is there anything better than starting the day with warm sunshine down your throat... yeah, I didn't think so. Plus M and I have been sick all winter so I am pretty much drinking echinacea (sp?) tea every other morning at least. Oh my goodness, plus I forgot to tell you I made Elderberry syrup the other day. Did I take pictures? Hmmm, I don't remember, but that is another post all together, it is amazing, I will fill you in lata.

Although, since M has officially broken our small Canon powershot I do wish we could have everything in this camera. Now it's either this or my honkin Canon DSLR, no middle ground. Oh well, life is so good it almost doesn't matter.

Happy Sunday.

And happy week ahead to all of us... I am feeling like we might be in need of some Cold Stone by Wednesday. You guys in Megs? :)

Love ya.

Another side note, did I ramble too much in this post. This always happens when I don't post for a few days, it's like my thoughts are just spewin out onto the page, craziness I say. And now to bed, there is much work ahead of us tomorrow.

Night.

You say it's your birthday!?

2011-01-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

na-na-na-na-na-na, well it's my birthday too man!...

Anyways, Saturday was my SIL's birthday. I made her a cute little pot holder and paired it with some delicious spaghetti sauce and noodles, you know, the kind you would never buy on any old grocery trip, but sounds divine to have as a birthday present? YUM.

And then on Sunday before we headed over to her party I got a bit of a bee in my bonnet and I made a reusable gift bag for the little set. I just had to share it because it was so fun I wish I could have kept it all.

: LOVE the card pocket, that was a moment of pure brilliance. So convenient and fun. By the way, doesn't my M make the cutest cards?

: SUPER easy casing. My mom showed me a bag like this and I think it's brilliant. So easy and adds a touch of design too. Double bonus.

: Oh, and I think my sis Megs showed me how to do these super easy bottom corners. You just tuck the bottom up when you stitch down the sides. BRIlliant and super quick.

This is the style I have had in my mind that I would like to make for our Christmas bags some day. We'll see if I ever get there. :)

Painting, Coloring, and Fort Building.

2011-01-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

These are our daily tasks around here.

As I uploaded these photos just now I had a strange sense of familiarity with these photos. I am pretty sure that at least once a month this last year I have uploaded a photo of M painting, coloring, or doing some sort of art. All pretty much with her standing on that same chair, at that same end of the table. Sometimes naked, sometimes in jammers, sometimes all dolled up.

It must be an epidemic. Either that or it's just ALL we do around here, make art. And sometimes it really does feel like that.

But I like it. Very much.

: This shot was to show off our new paints. I finally went and got her the watercolor tubes. This way she can choose a few colors and we mix them up in a tray. I get a little crazy when she mixes the colors in the trays where the paint just lives there, it's impossible to keep clean. So here is our solution. Now she can mix them up all she likes. Sigh of relief inserted here.

: Fort building. This is an almost daily activity. I need to get some bigger heavy duty clips instead of these cheapo ones, but she loves it anyways, so we still do building quite often. Today she moved her table inside for a picnic.

: We were sorting out some clothes to send to baby O, our new cousin/nephew, and M was convinced this hoodie was hers. I think it is a size 6mo, and I continued to tell her it was too small for her and that it wouldn't fit her. Well, she just had to prove me wrong.

: We have been lovin' us some muffins these days. I think I could eat muffins at every meal, is that so wrong?

: We do something sort of fun, and sort of ridiculous, when we color. I sit in one chair coloring in one book, M sits in the other chair coloring in another book. Then she sees my awesome coloring skills, decides she needs to color in my book because it must be my book that makes my awesome skills totally rock, and she yells SWITCH as she jumps down and pushes me out of my chair. This continues for three or four turns until I get tired of her hijacking my awesome coloring and then I quit and she has to color by herself. I keep saying I need to buy my OWN coloring book so she can't push me out of it. I am such a kid. :)

: Here is a perfect example. I was coloring this gorgeous little Strawberry Shortcake character, she IS gorgeous, right? Right? Anyways, and then munchkin comes over and...

: Takes over my page. She just can't handle her mom's awesomeness. I am sure that is it. :) I might need to ask for my own coloring book for my birthday, I am so addicted.

And that, my friends, is how it is done. Life at home with me and my 2 year old.

Sunshine.

Mug Rug Anyone?

2011-01-22T16:12:00.000-08:00

Ever hear of a mug rug? Some how the other day I was surfin' through flickr and stumbled across one. I asked myself, what the heck? I did a little search and oh. my. goodness. SO Cute! And of course all I needed was a little push and I was off to the basement during M's nap to create one. (I tried not to think about the fact that I was going to work during this nap, nope, didn't even let that phase me.)

Inspiration: here, here, here, and here.

And my finished product:

And, can I just say, I LOVE it! Who thought of this? It's like a coaster on steroids. Now I don't have to use a coaster AND a cloth napkin for a tea snack. Plus, even if I am just having tea and no snack, the larger size is totally awesome. You don't have to set your cup down with precision. Very cool. Weird, in a way, but very cool.

Oh, and the "calm" is perfect for me right now. I actually sat and thought really hard about what word I wanted to have sitting in front of me when I sat down to drink my tea. It would need to be something just right. I thought JOY at first, but then realized I didn't want to feel like I needed to jump up and sing and dance when I read it. So calm is perfect. Reminds me to rest, regroup, breathe, and prepare myself for what lies ahead. Almost a reminder to just center and regroup.

I am definitely a convert to the whole mug rug idea, so don't be surprised if you get one for your next birthday. :) It might just be my new go-to gift.

Happy day!

baby wearing on the way to the library

2011-01-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

Uploaded some video from my new Christmas camera and loved this little set of us on one of our daily ventures... probably boring to most of you, but I thought you'd like it Megs!

There has been...

2011-01-16T16:19:00.001-08:00

There has been so much of everything going on as of late.

My body finally healed itself, and I didn't even have to go to the doctor like I had decided to do last Monday.

I received a new calling/position at church. I am now 2nd counselor in the Primary Presidency, holy darn tootin cow. SO nervous. I haven't been in Primary since I was a kid. I was pretty much a deer in headlights today at church.

I quit my job. WOH! Can you believe it? I still have another month or so to see through but I decided it was one stress in my life that could actually afford to go, unfortunately. I LOVE my job but because M takes up so much time, plus everything else I am doing, something had to go.

There has also been much...

Doing of Art. From glitter glue to watercolor to crayons to stickers to cut-cut to pretty much anything else mum can come up with, we do it all.

Creating in the kitchen. From orange smoothies (including brief smoothie kisses to the blender) to brownie covered oreos to bran muffins to banana splits. Man, we sure do like sweets don't we? There has, of course, been plenty of healthy cooking as well, and dish doing to follow each time.

Fabric arriving in the mail, so bright and beautiful, I LOVE new fabric.

And lots of general silliness all around. M and I do like to have a good time. And with our new ipod speakers from my bro Cartz we seem to be doing a lot of silly dancing all over the place!

Do you like her dress? That was made for my niece in my hippy days... I love it though and M LOVEs wearing dresses so we have been breaking out every dress we own these days. Thanks goodness she got tights for her birthday last November, they have been saving her cold little legs!

Anyways, happy Sunday, and happy week ahead of us. May it be golden.

An all-too-ordinary Post

2011-01-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

About an all-too-ordinary life.

I am STILL sick. Is this ridiculous or what? It's been a record-breaking 3 weeks now and really on top of a record breaking fall and winter packed full of sickness this is ridiculous. I have figured it out though. It's stress. Yup, that is what did it. And I am officially done with stress. So don't ask me to do anything for you that involves a tight deadline, I am stress free this year. K, that felt good.

It's been slow around here, lots of herbal tea, bottles of cold water, and staying in Jammers all day, that's the life.

Oh, and Little Women. Who doesn't love watching Little Women when they're sick? Actually, who doesn't love watching Little Women all the time, sick or healthy!? No one I know, or would care to. :)

I sent M to her bedroom to get socks for her cold toes and she came back with mismatched socks, mismatched baby legs, and some sweet-tastic slipper socks that used to be my dad's, so classic, this girl definitely gets her fashion from her mum.

Have I showed you my new Christmas hat yet? I love this hat. But even though I consider myself quite awesome I can't seem to find the right time to wear it outside the house. I could wear it to church but then I'd have to just take it off as soon as I get there. The only time I could think of that I could wear it the whole time I am out is while running errands, which sounds fun, but it looks sorta funny next to my big green down coat that I wear pretty much every day.

So, it is resigned to be my sick hat. What, you don't have a sick hat? I do. And this is it. When I am just sitting at home in our house that doesn't hold heat very well it keeps my head safe and warm and makes me feel like I am wrapped up in a blanket all day. Since I have been sick for nearly three weeks now I think I have the correct experience to say having a sick hat is the bomb. So go get yourself one.

I have to admit that sometimes I find it hard to be a patient parent when I am sick. But that is probably how we all feel, right? I did control myself long enough to let her do the dishes with me this morning even though it makes for a larger mess in the end, she just loves to help mumma so much how can I turn that down?

And of course who doesn't love trying a new muffin recipe on a slow head spinning morning? I love muffins, I wish they were the healthiest thing in the world and I could just eat 25 every morning and then eat them all day too. Mmm, slathered in melting butter, yup, it was a good morning despite the pounding headache.

And that is the all-too-ordinary post that for some reason is taking priority to me laying down on the couch watching Dora with my daughter and downing tea like it was, well, tea.

Off I go to hopefully soothe this ridiculous head of mine. Oh, and to find my red hat.

Happy Monday.

Handmade Holidays Part Two: Play Cloth Making

2011-01-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

You have now seen the doll, which I am in love with. The other large project I made for M was a set of play cloths. I made a set of 6 for her and a set of 6 for her cousins E & G.

What are play cloths? Well here are a few links for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about. Here, here, here, and here.

Play cloths are traditionally silk because it is so soft and sheer, but when I received a recent copy of the Nova toy catalog, and saw they had what they call "building cloths" made out of 100% cotton I was inspired. Why do play cloths need to be silk? Kids can make just as many fun things with them if they are cotton, and they're still nice and soft. So that is what I did.

For basic play cloths that are used for dress ups and all sorts of imaginary play, they are usually 36" square or something like that. I chose to make mine longer, like the building cloths from Nova so M could use them for fort building. Now I just need some play stands to go with them, you interested in helping me with that George?

The first step was cutting down my 24 yards of fabric into 2 yard pieces, finishing the edges with a nice rolled hem, and washing the heck out of them to prep for dyeing. Even after just this first set of steps I felt like a champion!

Note to self(and to all of you interested in the project): DO NOT buy $ store clips for this project, they break apart with absolutely no effort. I, fortunately, did receive a much desired scroll saw for Christmas so as soon as I get up the guts I am going to try my hand at hand cutting some of these to help in our fort building...

This is what the bathroom and hallways looked like all day on this happy dyeing day! It was a complete mess. Thank goodness I did most of the messy part while M was napping, that always helps. Although I have to admit, when she is excited just to be a part of my projects she usually does a pretty good job of listening to my instructions!

The dyeing, in process. I tried to do that "low immersion" dyeing technique, if that's what it's called. Basically I wanted the cloths to look sort of mottled with more dye in some areas and less in others. Maybe that sounds silly but I wanted them to look really soft and handmade and homey. I think it worked!

Dharma dye. I LOVE this dye, I have been using it for years, remember this tie-dye love? That was dharma too, I love that dye!

The finished colorful clips, so fun and bright!

The finished stack in her room... I think i need to look out at local thrift shops for the perfect sized basket.

See what i mean about that mottled look? Now the bright pink itty bitty spots aren't supposed to be there, but what can I say, I am such an amateur dyer! Oh well, I still think they are fun!

The gift, in action. Late on Christmas Eve, I was one of those parents, staying up late building a fun fort for M out of her play cloths. It really turned out great I think! She got a few new floor cushions as well so we tossed those inside and put her full stocking in there too.

I think this will be a great long term gift. I just need to get some nicer/bigger clips so she can clip it to more stuff. If you can tell, in that photo where it's a fort, the cloths are not actually clipped to the shelf but wrapped around the shelf and clipped to themselves. That's what I had to do a lot because the clips aren't big enough to clip to most things and then even if they do fit they're still not very strong.

So, next thing is I need clips and a basket to hold it all when it is not in use. And then I need to build some play stands, right? Right! I love it how every project just adds another project to the list! :)

Thanks for following along, let me know if you decide to make some of your own, I'll give you and hints or tricks you need!

Handmade Holidays Part One: Waldorf Doll Making

2011-01-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

We tried to do M's Christmas as handmade as possible, but I got a little distracted when I found a sweet Melissa and Doug sale on Amazon! :) I did though want to share just a few of the projects I did make for her. Mostly because I am so proud of them I want everyone to see!

Remember this post?

Well, those dolls finally did get finished, and in time for Christmas, yay!

The doll. Ohhh, the doll. I have always loved Waldorf dolls, especially the hippy/fairy ones with the gorgeous colorful hair. So when my sis Megs decided to buy some skin fabric a few months ago I jumped on board, and I am so glad I did!

So before we reveal the finished product, here is the lovely process... (with a small recap in case you missed that first post)

:: stuffing the head ::

:: shaping the head ::

:: adding the cute lil button nose ::

:: embroidering the eyes and mouth, love this style mouth ::

:: the body pieces, mostly stuffed and laid out together ::

(I know some of these pics aren't great, but I was shooting at 1am so can you blame me!?)

:: M's doll and G's doll that Megs was making, siblings! or cousins? Here they are with the bodies fully put together, I forgot to shoot any steps of putting it together, lots and lots of hand stitching. And here is the first layer of M's doll's hair ::

:: The hair in it's beginning stages, before it is sewn down ::

:: I didn't shoot the steps of attaching the hair but there were lots of layers and tons of thickness and the hair was down below her toes and all over the place before I trimmed it up! The cute lil purple sweater in these photos was handmade by Grandma as a surprise, SO fun!!! It's perfect mom, I love it! ::

:: Details of the stitched hair in the back. Her hair is so wild and big I have been keeping it in pony tails to control it ::

:: Showing off the cute shirt underneath ::

:: a happy girl, happy with her doll, you know what I love? She refers to her doll as her doll with the hair. SO true. ::

:: The doll's pajamas. The flannel is from Mama's stash and just happens to match the doll's hair perfectly, amazing right? Oh and I forgot the mention this but the hair is three different wool yarns, all from my stash as well! I love her hair but I didn't think about the fact that it would make making clothes for her so hard because they have to at least sort of look good with the wild hair coloring! ::

:: Aunt Megan surprised her Christmas afternoon with a baby sling for her new doll. They chose the perfect fabric for her, not only is it Dora, who (thanks to the local library only one block away) she loves, but it is also purple, her FAVorite color. ::

:: our little ham and star of the show. I was trying to shoot the doll and M thought she needed to be the star, as always. And yes, we often spend our days with wild unwashed crazy hair and day-long pajama wearing, it's the good life here ::

Now, here's one last little thing I MUST share. The doll has been a huge success, she loves it. She wants to sleep with it, take it to bed with her, take it in the car with her, etc. But it was not always this way. Now I realize she has only had the doll for so long but I have to share with you just how disinterested she was when she opened the doll, making mumma oh so sad. :)

It was awesome, and SO classic for those of us mamas that spend hours and hours making our babies gifts not knowing if they are going to love the gift or not.

Happy Three Kings Day

2011-01-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

It is a tradition in our family to celebrate 3 Kings Day. January 6th, every year since I can remember. You set out your shoe the night before (M chose her own, in case you couldn't tell!) and the 3 Kings come and fill it with goodies before you wake.

I loved explaining this to M this year because the concept was simplified to an amazing level. The Christ child was born on Christmas day and the wise men were headed in that direction, following the star, but they couldn't be there immediately. It took time to travel and when they arrived they celebrated the birth of the Holy child. What I love about this is that it teaches us that the birth of Jesus Christ is not only celebrated on Christmas day, but it is celebrated every day, all over the world, in different ways, by different people, for different reasons.

It is beautiful.

I suppose the extra little presents don't hurt either, right? M got an orange, a tangled coloring book from Grandma (which she loves already mom, thank you!) and a set of lacing beads by Melissa and Doug, which she is already in love with. She wanted to play with them again right as we were climbing in to bed, I had to pry the box from her hands. :)

Thank you Mom and Grandma Jeanne for starting a lovely tradition.

Miss you Dad and Mom already! Jordo and I said today how weird it feels to be home again without you guys here, we feel like we should just be getting ready to head somewhere to meet up with you.

A Toast... to a new year!

2011-01-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

We have been out of town partying with family. And can I just say, it has been SO fun! I have had a cold all week but these last few days haven't been too wicked. We even went skiing yesterday and Jordan and I remembered just how out of shape we are! We each fell once, my lovely face plant was when I followed my brother through the trees in the super deep powder. In my defense though I made it through pretty much the entire trail and I face planted into the powder right as I was leaving the trees. I guess that's not in my defense, that just makes me sound even more lame!!

The point is, it was fun. Lots of fun, thank you mom and dad!! We love you guys!

On Wednesday my parents leave and it is back to real life, back to a normal schedule. That always comes too soon but then feels good and comfortable when it does. With this return to normal life comes a bit of New Year evaluation of life. When we get home I plan on evaluating last years goals and setting a few new ones, but I need some down time to think them through.

Yes, I am one of those people that likes New Years resolutions. I know a lot of people that don't like this tradition because they feel one should set goals every month rather than once a year. I completely agree with this but I love that there is a time every year that it is tradition to evaluate where you have been and where you are going and change or alter your course if desired.

I love it. I think I thrive on it. I love to set new goals and try for new things. I think this year will be a good one, like all ones past. But I feel especially hopeful for even more joy this year. More joy through less stress.

Sound good?

Happy New Year. Oh, AND I got a new camera (video camera) for Christmas so just wait til I get home to edit them and you are going to get an eye and ear full from me! eek! I was so stoked I shot so much footage I filled up my computer and need to do a dump to our backup drive at home when we get there. But it was so worth it.

Happy Monday, love you all!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-20T22:00:00.001-08:00

Remember how just last week practically we had the stomach flu, well sunshine daydream what is wrong with our immune systems over here!? M had a lovely romp with Croupe this weekend, is that even how you spell that? Basically just an amped up cold with a barking seal cough all. night. long. :) Do I sound tired?

But on to the good stuff. Christmas is here, snow is here, and life is so good. SO good.

Grandma and Grandpa, we CANNot hardly contain ourselves, we are SO excited to see you guys this weekend. Now if only we can pump ourselves full of good food and vitamins and keep our little family of bodies healthy, it can't be that hard, can it!? What are your winter season secrets for healthiness?

a favorite gingerbread tradition

2010-12-14T13:06:00.000-08:00

:: the kids, hard at work ::

:: this year we broke down and bought premade kits, and let me just say it was the best decision ever. I had so much going on with work, church, and random other committments. I'm not saying we'll go this way every year, but for now it was perfect. And Costco's even come PUT TOGETHER! nice! ::

:: searching for inspiration ::

:: the ultimate gingerbread candy assortment. growing up it was mostly left over Halloween candy, but since starting this tradition with Jordan's family we have moved up in the world, thank you George! ::

:: and what is a gingerbread extravaganza without some delicious snacks. this year it was cheese fondue, does life get any better? again, thank you George! ::

:: as you can imagine this was not the only mouthful of icing of the day. and can I just say YUCK!? It's not even butter cream frosting or anything, it's royal icing for gingerbread houses, made to solidify within 10 minutes or something, ridiculous! ::

:: story time with Grandma ::

:: made by yours truly ::

:: Liz's house ::

:: George and Peggy's house, in all of it's awesome glory! ::

:: an assortment of the kids' houses, so small! ::

:: Megan's house, with no roof. She tried and tried to get her roof to stay on but the combination of the heavy shredded wheat roof and the kit frosting made it slide, slide, and slide some more. Finally, she decided to finish the roof separately and hopefully attach it later... Megs, did that work?? ::

:: almost done. the trail end of a wonderful day ::

:: M's final product, isn't she amazing? a true natural ::

thank you for the most perfect of Holiday traditions everyone, it was a fantastic day, even with the mess and tiredness of it all.

Happy Holidays.

What have we been up to...

2010-12-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

Well, besides the crazy busy week of stomach flu, work photoshoots, and a Christmas church dinner that I was in charge of...

Santa's elves are hard at work... some more than others, some are more interested refining their point and click skills through the wonderful help of Amazon and Melissa and Doug toy sales, but really, do we need to discuss how the elves make the magic? No.

Please just see below to witness the small amount of Christmas progress we are making in this Santa's workshop... can you tell what they are!!?? :D

So what top secret awesome-tastic projects are going down in YOUR neck of the woods?

**more progress photos of these bad boys to come at a later date... you know, once more progress is actually made! :)**

It's been slow going around here.

2010-12-01T21:26:00.000-08:00

ETA** WELCOME BABY OLIVER TO THE WORLD, I HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN A PICTURE YET, YOU WERE BORN THIS VERY HOUR, AND I LOVE YOU ALREADY!!!!!***

We've been moving slowly from event to event, holiday to holiday, party to party, and illness to illness. I continue to feel that if we could just "get through this week" or just "get past Thanksgiving" then we'll be more relaxed and able to enjoy the festivities of this time of year. But alas, we have been sick, busy, and running from place to place.

I was talking to mom today, Happy Birthday Mom!!!, and forgot that I hadn't shared with her a few of the videos we took on M's birthday... so here they are, in all of their random awesome glory.

Next week, after we are healed, and my work photo shoots are done, and my church activities are passed, then I plan to share with you my festive holiday craziness plans. We all have our crafty lists going, right? Trying our best to fit it all in.

Life is good. :) Even with all the craziness!

Behold: The Kitchen...

2010-11-22T15:33:00.000-08:00

The project that only took one weekend, required absolutely no sleep, and was finished the morning of M's 2nd birthday.

The BEFORE:

It all started with a nightstand that had been around the block one too many times... Thank you George and Peggy for letting this little guy float along with us for all of these years. But he was ready for a new life. And this month, he got it.

Step 1: Sand entire night stand, inside and out.

Step 2: Trace metal bowl for sink placement. Cut sink hole using jigsaw. To start my jigsaw cutting, I drilled a hole, big enough for the blade on the bowl cutting line. (The cut inside of the hole was just a test to see how the jigsaw would do on cutting the curve I needed... worked like a charm)

Step 3: Cut backboard for kitchen out of some sort of sweet board (no idea what it is...) and use jigsaw to cut sweet rounded corners from right and left corners of the top. Can you tell I am so darn proud of myself for using all these totally awesome tools? Jordo was so proud. :)

side step - SAND EVERYthing, all the time... it makes it look so good!

Step 4: Primer paint everything. :) Easy-peasy, oh and tip: buy more primer and top coat than you think you'll use, at 3am on a Saturday night you'll thank yourself for it! :)

Step 5: kay... now put it ALL together. I used a heck of a lot of nails using my honey's sweet-tastic nail gun. Also a bunch of screws.

Detail Shots...

The Oven: What the heck? How come hinges are so ridiculously hard? I chalk it up to the fact that I was using a million year old little dresser that just wasn't cooperating with me. I spent a good hour on this part and it still doesn't look how I wanted it to. I might have to replace it down the road, but I guess it works for now.

This Sweet Little Table: I LOVE this little prep table. So I drew a lot of inspiration from all over the web. Mostly flickr probably. But most of them had just the sink and stove top and no place to prep the food, how real is that!? Then I found this baby... originally from Target I believe and knew immediately that's what I needed to do.

Oh man... and these sweet little magnet guys? AMAZing. SO easy to use!

The Faucet: I LOVE the faucet... okay, so maybe I love everything about this kitchen... but still. The faucet: It is an upside down "J" from the craft store. And the knobs are little wooden people figures! The only problem was that the J was too skinny on the base to nail gun or screw through, so my honey built me this sweet base for it to rest in and it works like a charm, thanks Jordo!

Sew a curtain, attach some knobs, and...

You're done!!

**The stove top burners are vinyl cut using an electronic die cutting machine, cute, right?

And it's finally gettin' some use!

After the big reveal, at the little one's birthday party.

And let me just tell you... She still loves it. Plays with it every day at some point or another. I love having it in my kitchen, it's so cute!

Thanks for following along, if you decide to make a version of this let me know and I'll give you any help or tips you need! But it can be done, even if you don't use power tools! :)

And it was all inspired starting here, and here, and here.

And there you have it. Sunshine Daydream.

Happy Monday.

Thanksgiving Place Cards

2010-11-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

Last week I got the sweetest deal on some new gold and cranberry chargers for my china set. I went to the checkout thinking they would be 2.50 for a set of two, but walked away paying less than 5 dollars for an entire set of 12!! Can you believe it?

I'm so excited to use them next week for Thanksgiving dinner, the table setup is going to be beautiful! To finish it off I decided to start making some cute little place cards. I used inspiration from the latest October/November issue of the magazine I work for, Simply Handmade. My editor, Tammy Morrill, had created a sweet little card with the floral embellishment doubling as a hair clip!
**See my post and her original card HERE at the Northridge Media blog, Create.

I thought that would be so fun, to have the girl's place cards also double as a small gratitude gift!

Of course I had to come up with an accent for the guys too. I almost considered creating some sort of tie tack thing, but then opted for the simplicity of a cricut cut leaf shape.

Anyways, I love the resulting cute place cards and can't wait to use them!

Even if I don't get them all finished in time for Thanksgiving, they'll still be sweet little Thanksgiving cards to gift to those I love.

Life has been crazy busy here, as always, do I say this every time!? But i do hope to get up pictures of our sweet little M's kitchen soon, I am so proud of it and I can't wait to show you all the fun project details!

Love ya!

Just a Kitchen Teaser...

2010-11-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

For all of those of you that couldn't make it to M's birthday party. This was our main gift to her... which I finished at approximately 1am the night before... No, actually it's not really fully finished yet, but you know what I mean.

Detailed pictures of the process and final product, in color, to come soon! (hopefully! But I couldn't give you all the juicy details at once, right?)

Happy Weekend

Fall Decor Inspiration

2010-11-11T21:46:00.000-08:00

So I realized this week, after all of my Halloween decor went down, and after M's birthday party stuff went down, that I didn't own any Thanksgiving/Fall decorations! Can you believe it? Okay, well I guess that's not exactly true. I do own two fake orange pumpkins that were originally Halloween decor but I have adopted them as my only existing Thanksgiving decor.

So I went on a blog inspiration hunt tonight for some ideas to decorate with. And this is what I found...

To see what super talented and creative women made these cute things, check out my original post here at the Simply Handmade blog.

I think I also want to make some sort of Thankful banner like this. LOVE!

Oh, and speaking of banners, this isn't Thanksgiving decor related but I just found these cards and I am in love. Does anyone not love this cute trendy banner thing going on? If you don't love it, don't tell me, I don't want to know, I just want to enjoy the bliss of my love.

Happy Thursday Night. Late. :)

Happy Birthday to My Baby Girl...

2010-11-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

You make me smile. Just as much today as the day you were born. Thank you for giving your daddy and me the most amazing two years ever. I love you!

Princess Tutu Skirt Tutorial

2010-11-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!

I have been wanting to make a cute pettiskirt type dress up skirt for M for quite some time. I had been bouncing back and forth between just the typical and ever-popular pettiskirt that you see everywhere and other ideas. What I really wanted most was to be able to include some super cute cotton print fabric. So I came up with this pattern, the Tutu Skirt. Or the Princess Tutu Skirt as M calls it.

I actually couldn't get her to take it off, it was so cute. I told her she had to wear pants to Aunt L's house so this is what she came up with. I love this girl.

TUTORIAL CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

Remembering Alaska

2010-10-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

M and I have been looking through the pictures we brought back with us from Alaska and decided we should share a few more with you of our fun journey. Looking at these pictures is soothing, it fills my heart with such joy to see M enjoying time with Grandpa and Grandma. I just wish we could drive to see them for Sunday dinner or a simple weekend getaway.

Can't wait to see you guys again!

And we can't wait to see Alaska again too.

This place will always hold a special place in my heart.

Ella Enchanted

2010-10-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

We received a new movie a few weeks ago, thanks to a dear cousin (thanks Mel!), and we watched it yesterday for the first time. M had never seen it and while she usually doesn't enjoy movies with real people (vs cartoons) she actually enjoyed it. It might have been the fact she was sick and would probably have watched anything I would have let her! Either way, when it reached this part I remembered why I love this movie!

Leaves a smile on my face every time! :) So I thought I'd share that smile with you.

Happy Wednesday. And it actually is a happy Wednesday because M slept through the night, allowing mumma to sleep through the night as well. Nice!

our days as of late...

2010-10-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

Our days this week, okay the last few weeks, have been busy, to say the least. We have moved from event to event and hardly had time to stop and relax. Only to be added upon yesterday and today by a fever, an ear infection, and a baby that can't sleep.

Our days have been filled with

: naps in random places due to jetlag, sickness, and crazy schedules :

(please also note that we have been trying on our halloween costumes almost every day, why not spread out the joy for a few weeks instead of one night, right?)

: note taking and event planning in the CUTEST little notebook ever made, thank you thank you mom! It makes all the busy planning more enjoyable! :

: getting fun packages in the mail filled with crafty goodness. These packages make me jump for joy with excitement, until it reminds me that I now have another thing to add to the to-do list! :

: Making decorations for events... by the way if you are looking for an easy way to make a party banner this is it! Little triangles of double sided paper stapled to a piece of yarn, it went together so fast, thank goodness! :

We picked apples on Monday to make applesauce sometime this week or next and had a party at Grandma's house that night. It all culminated in M getting sick and having the worst sick day ever yesterday. There was literally nothing accomplished besides loving, movie watching, crying, and cuddling. In that sense it was nice to hold my baby all day.

Thank you to Megs for helping me out as she took a few things off my to-do list. Not only that, but when she was picking up one of my projects she dropped off dinner, soup and fresh bread (two kinds!), I just about cried I was so grateful, love you Megs!!

Then of course Jordo came home, our knight in shining armor, and took M to the doctor while I got some work done. We love our daddy, he is our cure-all.

Thanks love for helping this week happen with as little issues as possible, you rock my world, every day.

a little Halloween style never hurt anybody...

2010-10-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

So probably anyone who knows me knows I love to celebrate things, pretty much anything, but ESPEcially holidays. Like the awesome spooky one coming up. I have not decorated my house, can you believe it?, but I have been breaking out M's Halloween shirts and my orange and black striped socks. But I only have one pair and really felt that my style was lacking some sweet Halloween enthusiasm. So, I searched out some ideas online and in the latest Simply Handmade and found my answer... a sweet-tastic Halloween zipper flower headabnd. That is right my friends, I made a flower out of a zipper.

It's cool, right? Actually I think it looks quite sophisticated, thank you SF JoAnns for not carrying orange zippers so Megs was forced to get me a black one, it really did work out perfectly!

Now, for those of you whom I have discussed this with and know I have never cared for these zipper flowers, well this is true. I have not. Until I decided they are perfect for funky holiday seasonal wear. Maybe not every day, going to church, sort of wear. But definitely Halloween style appropriate. And who knows, maybe this will start something with me... making things that I didn't love and turning them into something I do love, or at least like.

Anyways, that's all. I know I haven't been keeping you updated but this week has been too busy to even keep myself updated, ack! Anyways, Happy Halloween, off to the store to get pumpkins, which the little one is obsessed with!

Fun Halloween Projects!

2010-10-14T01:19:00.000-07:00

I am super crazy busy but I thought I'd send you over to my work blog to show you some of the cute Halloween projects I have been inspired by as of late! I only wish I had time to dive into my craft room and make a few of these myself...

LINK to the original post... (which goes live today at 1pm I think!?)

Oh, and the gingerbread houses, that is going to happen for sure, but probably with graham crackers. Have you guys ever thought about this? I mean seriously sounds like fun right? I should start making gingerbread houses for every holiday, patriotic candy house, here I come!

just a little Alaskan teaser...

2010-10-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

We have been at the cabin without internet and we are headed home tomorrow night. I am walking back into crazy busy life at home so I have no idea when I'll be posting again, or even posting about the cabin... so here is a nice little teaser. My dad took this shot, shaky hand and all, isn't it gorgeous?

Happy Monday!