Ready to FALL

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Normally I would be posting photos from our Labor Day weekend fun. We did have fun - swimming, movies, friends, etc. - but I didn't get any awesome pictures, so instead I'm going to write about....FALL! Who else is ready for fall? Since it is September 3rd, and the day after Labor Day, I am officially over summer and ready for fall. (Also since my husband informed me today that he is done with the pool for this year....we shall see.)

You know who doesn't agree with me? The weather. It is still super hot here - pushing 100*. Yuck. But rather than complain I am going to share all the things I am looking forward to about fall! Starting with fall weather. I am ready to be able to walk outside past 10 AM and not sweat. I am ready for the leaves to change. I will gladly pretend that our daily walks will look like this, even if we may not get quite the same color scheme. I'm ready for the crispness of fall mornings and afternoons that make going outdoors comfortable enough for adventure.

 Photo Credit

Like many people, I am ready for my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season. I honestly prefer the frappuccino version of this drink, but whatever. I liked the burlap background and whipped topping in this photo. I think I will treat myself to my first one this weekend.

I am ready to shop for Eva's Halloween costume. I was thinking either a duck or a cow. I will most likely visit the new Kid to Kid in Grapevine and choose from their selection. I'm not too picky, I just want her to be some cute animal that she can make the sound to go along with her costume. I'm betting that she will really enjoy trick-or-treating this year :)

I'm looking forward to doing some fall learning activities with Eva. She likes things with felt so I'm planning on making these leaves and she can practice putting them on a string. Here are some other fun fall activities for toddlers. 

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I am looking forward to fall decorating! Bring on the orange, the yellow, the pumpkins, the burlap, the chevron, and the leaves! I'm making myself wait for the first cool day in September before I get the my decoration box out. I know it will happen.

I'm ready for fall fashion. I've been missing my boots all summer long! I love these two looks on my Pintrest board. I pretty much have the pieces for the look on the left and think I should be on the search for some yellow tights like the photo on the right. I'm even excited for some fall toddler fashion. Spoiler alert: I got Eva some brown boots for her birthday!!!! I can't wait for her to wear them when I wear mine.

Naturally the highlight of fall will be my 30th birthday. Only 2 1/2 more months. This is an old birthday photo but I like the joy in it. And the chocolate. 

And finally today we started our fall "school" activities. Eva was so happy to get to "do school." We read and sang about cows, did a cow nursery rhyme, and made a cow out of black and white squares. She loves to do "awwtt" as she calls it (art). We are putting everything for the week on our "school board" which is really just made from fabric pieces that I had leftover from making placemats.

Okay, that's my list. I'm ready. Come on fall!

Little Boy Baby Shower

Saturday some friends and I hosted a baby shower for our friend Rachel. Rachel and her husband Alex as having a little boy in October. I wish I could take credit for the amazing decorations but our friend Melissa did most of it. I loved the color scheme - so modern for a little boy shower. 

One of Rachel's other friends made the diaper cake. I love that she cut out cards to put the Bible verse on the front. 

Melissa made the banner with baby Grayson's name on it. I really like the card stock she used. 

M&M party favors all set our for the guests. 

Plenty of yummy good. I made white chocolate dipped rice crispy treats and pretzel sticks. Both are so delicious! I had never made "dipped" rice crispy treats and couldn't actually dip them, I had to spread the coating with a baker's knife. Regardless, they were tasty! Other cute ideas: pigs in a blanket with little faces drawn on them to look like "babies in a blanket" and a watermelon cut out into a baby carriage.

A friend from church made Rachel's cake. So cute with the elephants on it! 

Rachel's gift from the hostesses - a baby bag stuffed with goodies! You can't seem but our friend Elishia made super cute burp clothes from fabric and wash clothes. I can't believe I didn't get an up close photo of them!

Okay, check out this amazing gift. Our friend Kim gave Rachel a laundry basket that had baby hangers, some laundry soap, and this super creative clothesline full of baby gifts. Wow. This is the most creative shower gift I've ever seen! 

Happy Baby Shower, Rachel! We are all ready to give baby Grayson tons of kisses!

Sew What?

I recently found a dress for $1 at a thrift store. At first glance I wasn't so sure about it but decided to try it on anyway. It was a size too big and not exactly stylish but I thought it might make a great sewing project. "Oh, you sew?" I hear you asking. Umm, not exactly. I can hand stitch a pant's hem and I can reattach a button. But I have been wanting to learn to do so simple sewing jobs so I thought this might be fun. I figured that buying the dress for $1 was actually cheaper than buying fabric to practice on. I borrowed my mom's sewing machine a while back in hope that I could accomplish something. Then on Tuesday night I had a sewing night with a friend which mostly resulted in me learning how to be great at taking seams out as I kept struggling with the machine. Ah! It can be tedious to try the same thing over and over when it isn't working. Finally I figured out what the problem was and was able to complete this project in about an hour's time (minus the 2+ hours that I spent figuring out what the heck I was doing). 

My before and after! What a  difference. Before: frumpsville. After: stylish. Basically I took off the sleeves and reseamed the shoulders, hemmed the dress by 2 inches, and fixed up the belt so that it ties at the front instead of in a huge bow right about my bottom. Much better! I really enjoyed working on this and may have found a new hobby for myself. Although I've promised Ryan that I won't start trying to make all of his clothes quite yet :)

Easter Decor

The sun is peeking out...spring is right around the corner....and a couple of weeks ago I started decorating our home for Easter. My first step was to change up the chalkboards from Valentine's Day to Easter. The one above is hanging at the top of the stairs.  I found an idea on Pinterst that had a chalk board with a rainbow of colored eggs hanging from it. Well mine aren't exactly eggs - I picked up some free paint samples at Home Depot and used my 2" circle punch to create an egg-type look. Either way it is bright and celebrates the greatest TRUTH about Easter. Eva loves to look at all the colors and I taught her that when I say, "He is risen. JESUS is ALIVE!" to say, "Hooray!" and put her hands in the air. Super sweet.

 This chalkboard is in the playroom. I do like a good pun.

I kept my burlap table runner out and added some Easter color. I like the chocolate bunny figures that my mom got me. Chocolate is a pretty important part of Easter....I originally had fake yellow daisies in the vase but a friend came over for dinner last week and brought me reall yellow daisies! I guess she knows my taste pretty well.

My bookshelf decorations are pretty condensed. The silver bunny piggy bank was mine growing up and when my mom brought it to me from her house it still had $2.71 inside (all in pennies.....). The striped frame was also one that my mom found in a box of my old stuff so I just added a photo of Eva from last year. The rolled paper egg art is my own creation that I made this year! I'm pretty proud of how egg-cellent this project turned out. First, I took an old diaper box and cut the perfect size piece of cardboard. Then, I covered it in fun scrapbook paper. Finally, I cut strips of coordinating scrapbook paper, rolled them up on a pencil, and glued them into place.

Alright, here comes the fireplace wall. That tricky wall that we actually don't use as a fireplace, can't nail anything in to, is super reflective and hard to photograph. My iPhone actually took better photos of this wall than my DSLR camera. Go figure. I hung a sparkly Easter sign up top. Below I cut out eggs from the same coordinating scrapbook paper as the egg craft and strung them up with some pink yarn. I kind of wish this all looked fancier but it's all above Eva's bookshelf and stuffed animals so I figure fun and simple works too.

Another proud piece of art - Eva actually made this! I put down tape for the cross and let her smear paint across the paper. I think it is beautiful. 

Then there is this Picasso inspired egg art. I like it because it was all Eva's creation and her first time to get to dip stuff in a bunch of glue and put it on paper. (I did reinforce a few pieces with hot glue during her nap time but left everything exactly where she put it). The point was to make something that had different shapes, colors and textures. I hung it down low in the playroom so she can touch it and we can talk about it. 

And finally Eva made this! Hahaha, just kidding. Some of our fabulous youth students painted this for us and I think it is awesome. They just gave it to us the other day so I haven't hung it yet. It seemed spring/Easterish to me so I'm including it just to brag on their awesome artistic skills. I'm thinking of putting it either in the playroom or our bedroom. I really, really like it.

Over the next few weeks I have a few more fun Easter ideas. We definitely need to have a practice egg hunt. I want to put Eva's lunch into colored eggs and let her hunt for them and then eat it outside.  I can't decide if I think the Easter bunny is creepy? I don't think I will make a big deal out of it. I like Santa for Christmas, but a giant bunny that hides eggs? Did I ever believe in the Easter bunny? I can't even remember so it must not have been too big of a deal. I have a couple of small things I am putting together for her Easter basket but I'm just going to tell her that they are from us because we are so happy to celebrate Jesus!!! 

What a {LOVE}ly week

 

As we wrap up this week of love I wanted to share a few photos, starting with the ones above which are the "Behind the Scenes," of our Valentine's Day photo shoot. Behind every sweet photo of a child, like the one I posted yesterday, is the hard work of a mama (or professional) who is trying to get that child to look cute. When I took the photo for the Valentine's card we sent Eva's grandparents I snuck outside while Ryan kept her entertained. I find that it's best to have everything ready to go before trying to take a photo. We got her to ignore the bright sun and smile big, and then I rewarded her with some sidewalk chalk fun! In the photo above on the left, she is actually running away and hiding from me behind a wall, and her face ended completely covered in pink and purple chalk.

 

Earlier this week Eva did some finger painting with purple, pink, and red paints. This was my first time to open the Crayola finger paints that we have and I liked how they painted and dried, but they have a funny odor. Has anyone else noticed that? I'm just thankful that they are washable because when we do finger painting the paint ends up all over the place.

 

On Valentine's Day we had a few friends over to decorate cookies. Eva's friend Ellie helped her put gobs of frosting and sprinkles on the cookies. The more sugar the better, right? I was hoping Eva would use her hand to spread the pink icing on the cookies, but after dipping her hand in it she put all that icing right into her mouth (we set aside her cookies just for her). I don't give Eva sugar very much but it's fun to bend the rule on holidays :) While the girls played I got to hold baby Reese for a minute. I love this little guy so much! And then we took some cookies down to the people at the office (share the love, share the calories).

 

After a much needed nap time Eva and I went to the park to burn off some of those cookies we ate. She decided to try going down the slide on her tummy and had a blast. Also while we were there another little girl and boy were playing with her. The four year old boy went up and gave her a hug and said, "You're so cute. I love you." And so it begins....

 

Finally Ryan came home just in time for dinner. I surprised him by picking up pizza from Italian Bistro, his favorite pizza place. I called ahead a few hours early and asked them to place the pepperoni's in a heart shape. They laughed but it turned out great! And last, our family Valentine's: Ryan got me the movie The Blindside, Eva made Ryan a card at the library this week, Eva ended up getting 3 new animals for her Little People Zoo; and I surprised Ryan with these cards and notes of encouragement. Check out my friend Rebekah's blog for the Free Printable of these fun cards. I used all 8 and hid them places for Ryan to find throughout the day, including while he was at a conference.

Easy Diaper Cake & A Baby Shower

Saturday night I helped with a baby shower for our church's wonderful Children's Director, Stephanie. I decided that I would tackle my first diaper cake to make for Stephanie. If you look on Pinterest there are tons of amazing diaper cakes. I mean, woah, people really go all out. Mine may not be as snazzy as some of them, but I was pretty proud of how it turned out. I did some pre-cake-making research to find some of the best methods and documented below how I did it. It was really so easy, anybody could do it!

 

Here are the steps:

1. I bought a pack of 65 Pampers Swaddlers (size 1). For each individual layer I lined them all up, slightly overlapping, design side up (so the outside would be white). I miss those sweet tiny diapers and I love the smell and softness of Pampers Swaddlers. Definitely the best diapers ever. 

2. Start at the end that has the diaper the most wedged under the others (since you slightly stacked and staggered them) and begin rolling inward. Use your other hand to keep the roll tight and in line. This would be easier with a helper but I managed to make it work by myself.

3. When your diapers are all rolled up put a rubber band around it to keep them in place.

4. For the bottom 2 layers, I rolled up 15-20 diapers and then went back around the outside layer and inserted more diapers. I found it impossible to roll up the amount of diapers need in the bottom layer, so I think I did like 20 and then added 10-15 more around the outside, keeping the layered look going.

5. Make sure the rubber band is aligned. This helps keep the diapers straight looking when you stack the layer. The good thing about using Swaddlers is that they have a yellow line in the middle (the wetness indicator) that you can use to line everything up.

6. This photo is of my 3 layers before they are completely assembled. I think I used 9 in the top layer, 15-20 in the middle, and the rest (maybe 30?) on the bottom.

7. Use an empty paper towel roll to keep the rolls centered and together.

8. I used a hot glue gun to attach a ribbon to each layer. I glued the ribbon so that it would stay tight. I did not want to glue anything to the diapers so that they could actually be used. 

9. Repeat with other layers. Then the best step - decorate with cute baby things off the registry!

I also made Stephanie this banner using her vintage baseball theme. I found a link that has easy printable banner letters for sports themed parties. I love how it looked hung over this fabulous mirror (the party was not held at my home).

Stephanie (in the middle) and some of the ladies from the best small group ever.

I did not make anything else pictured but I want to share some of the other great decor! Stephanie's mom made it and I like how she layered felt for a textured effect. 

Another friend made the cake. We had cupcakes too so it was decided that we should send this home with Stephanie for the rest of her family (husband and kiddos) to enjoy the next day. I bet it tasted good. (Ooh - I did make those yummy zucchini squares on the left using my grandmother's recipe. Yay.)

 To make the flowers go more with a boy themed shower they put them in baseball gift bags. How creative is that?

For one of the shower activities we all decorated onesies for baby Brewer to wear. I thought mine was cute and funny, but it was early on and I didn't realize how funny some of the other ones would be. Also the paint got smeared on mine. Therefore, for my own pride, I am choosing not to show mine and instead feature this one that our pastor's wife, Kim, made. This was awesome! Stephanie, make sure to put Brewer in Kim's onesie and not mine, my feelings won't be hurt.

 The whole group -  I hope Stephanie (and Brewer) feel so loved!

Love is in the air

Flashback to the early days of January when I had just put the Christmas decorations away. I was looking at our home, observing how the lack of sparkle and fluffy decor made our house feel emptier when it hit. The urge the decorate for Valentine's Day. I've never really decorated for Valentines day much because when I was single I didn't need to - my home had enough pink in it everywhere, everyday! As a teacher I'm sure I put out a couple of heart knick-knacks or something and I really liked to decorate my classroom tables for the annual Valentine's Party. Other than that I didn't do much. I'm honestly not even a huge mushy Valentine's Day person. I want my husband to spend some time with me on some sort of a date but it doesn't have to be expensive or fancy and it doesn't have to be on Valentine's Day. I like it when my dad sends me a Valentine's Day card in the mail that is written in Spanish because it makes me laugh (he started this tradition years ago, neither of us really speak Spanish). And I think it's cute for kids to hand out cards and candy to their friends.

One of my first Valentine's projects this year was to update my canvas chalkboards. I made these from 2 super cheap canvases that I painted in chalk paint. I love that I can update them for the seasons or really whenever. I looked for some cute sayings online and chalked away! One of them is in the playroom (pictured below) and the other at the top of our staircase.

Other than the canvas this wall has nothing to do with Valentine's decor, but I love it! I recieved Hobby Lobby gift cards from all 3 of my best friends and my mother in-law so I've been able to add some new decor to the playroom.  I figure that if I'm going to spend hours a day in here I might as well love how it looks!

I also got this fun cork board from Hobby Lobby. I plan to use it to hang up Eva's crafts or artwork but for now I tacked up some of my favorite photos. I also created the Life's Most Important List using PicMonkey and my favorite Subway Art technique. I will probably frame it eventually but for now it's on the bulletin board. 

And since I had 4 Hobby Lobby gift cards that were begging to be used - I also picked up a couple of yards of burlap. I was inspired by the burlap wreath my sister in-law gifted me (photo below) to make a new table runner. I've heard that you can spend close to $50 on these at some stores and I was able to make mine for about $4. (Always use a coupon at Hobby Lobby!).  If you are wanting to create anything with burlap I'd recommend this link for reading up on how to prepare it. It is a bit messy at first but my runner has mostly stopped shedding.

To pair up with my new runner I used a dessert stand that my aunt passed along to me, 2 cup and saucer stands made from plates and candlesticks that I got years ago as a hostess gift, and the Anthropologie salt and pepper shakers we got for our wedding. I also added in some yellow and red flowers for a fun pop of color. These were our wedding colors and I really like how the look against the burlap and coffee beans. I also like how the glass and metal accents contrast the burlap texture.

Close up of the fringe - did you know that you can make your burlap as fringy as you want it to be? You just pull out threads until everything is the desired look. So easy! I started with less but as the days went by I decided to make it a bit fringier.

I saw a photo of a similar strand of paper hearts on Pinterest so I decided that my next project should be to make this for our fireplace. Unfortunately the photo I used didn't link to instructions so it took some trial and error. I ended up using a tiny stapler to hold everything in place. And be aware that if you want to use fun patterned paper you need to make it double sided otherwise part of the heart just looks white.

So I really like how the twine strand of hearts turned out, but I wish that you could see all of the patterned paper from further away. I guess the only way to get that to happen would be to use bigger paper to create bigger hearts. You can also see the burlap wreath that was pretty much the catalyst to my whole updated decor craze. Thanks, Melody! Also, it is really difficult to get a good photo of this wall. The fireplace tiles are shiny and super reflective so I took about twenty photos that totally show me and everything else in the room being reflected back in the photo. I guess I'm still working at my photography skills. 

Then I decided to make a second heart garland for the bar top overlook into the kitchen. This one was much easier. Just strips of paper and my hot glue gun. 

Eva really wants to touch it but I know that she would rip it so easily. I think next year I will make her one that we can use to countdown the days until Valentine's.

And finally a piece that I did not make. I wish I could have but I found this at Hobby Lobby (where else?) and knew that I was better off getting it premade. I like how it combines the paper, wood, and metal textures.

All this and it's not even February yet! I figured that February is a short month so it was best to decorate ahead of time! Never to early to spread the love.