Posts from — December 2011

Sorry I haven’t been blogging. . . the holiday’s are still going strong for our little family as we spend time with family and friends. I did want to stop by and give you a peek at some of the festivities. We attended an Ugly Sweater Party hosted by some dear friends a few days before Christmas. I have to say. . . with these parties being so popular ugly sweaters are hard to come by- but we did our best and all ended up in ugly Christmas-y sweatshirts.

Genevieve is very fond of our friend Stephen’s deer.

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Today I am thankful for fun friends!

Jonathan and I have been working on a play kitchen for Genevieve for Christmas. They are all over Pinterest and blog land.  I found inspiration for our play kitchen here and here and here. We already had everything used to make our kitchen in our house except for a piece of MDF used to make the back of the kitchen and the faucet and tile (both purchased uber cheap at Habitat for Humanity Restore). We had an old bedside table in the basement and used odds and ends from other projects. This was a lot of fun to make!

Genevieve got her Christmas present from her Mom & Dad this morning before we head to spend some time with family- this present isn’t exactly travel sized!

I forgot to take a before picture of the side table. . . Jonathan switched the drawer and cupboard so the drawer was on bottom and the cupboard could be the oven. He cut a hole for a metal bowl to be the sink, installed the faucet, cut and attached the MDF to the back, made the shelf, and put on the drawer pulls and ‘knobs’. I was the brains behind the operation and the painter. Oh, I put on the tile with hot glue. Functional this kitchen is not. The black paint is actually calk board paint- we think it will be fun for her to draw what she is ‘cooking’ in the oven.  Here is an in-progress photo:

It bears mentioning that this is a “she’ll grow into it” kind of toy. She is actually barley taller than the counter right now. . . but the way she grows it won’t be long!

For those who are new around here. . . we have a very drawn out real-kitchen reno going on. . .so thanks for bearing with the no baseboards unfinished randomness in the background :)

And for the big reveal:

I think she approves :)

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Today I am thankful to be able to give to my daughter.

I finally made stockings for my family. My Gramma made stockings for my family growing up. I wanted ours to be the same size/shape as the ones I grew up with so I borrowed a stocking my Gramma made from my Mom and used it as my pattern. From there I pretty much winged it.

I am okay with how they turned out. . . the whole process was a learning experience for me. I had never used ric-rac trim before and could have done a much better job with it. These stockings are far from perfect. . . and honestly I will probably decide to redo them in a few years. . . but for now they are fun :)

Jonathan’s is on the left, mine in the middle, and Genevieve’s on the right.

And I used different fabric on the back so they are technically reversible. I used another fabric for the lining but forgot to take a picture of that.

Are you excited for Christmas? I am. I am mostly excited for Genevieve :) She is going to have a blast.

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Today I am thankful for Jonathan’s time off coming up :)

We took Genevieve on a carriage ride on Friday night. The shopping center I used to work at gives free carriage rides on Fri/Sat nights from Thanksgiving-Christmas. Jonathan and I had never gone before and we were excited to take Genevieve because she loves horses. Actually- she loves all four legged creatures and calls them all dogs :) Anywhoo. . . we got their a few minutes after the rides had started so we had to wait in line. The 35 minute wait went surprisingly fast though.

This is our horse. Most of the pictures with the horse feature the side/back of Genevieve’s head- she just wanted to look at the ‘dog’.

On the ride. The flash got turned off somehow- whoops! Our carriage mates also had an Evie. . .which was unusual. Evie is a popular nickname right now- but not the way we pronounce it.  Most people are shortening from Evelyn so they say Evie with a soft E- like at the beginning of Evelyn. We however are shortening GeneviEVE- so we say Evie with a hard E- like Eve. Anywhoo. . . it was the first time we have meet an Evie pronounced the same way. :)

On the way home she drank her whole sippy with out stopping for a breath. “Hi. My name is Evie. . . the one eyed milk guzzler”. 

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Today I am thankful we got to hang out with my brother.

Sometime this summer via the wonderful world of Pinterest I stumbled upon a couple of recipes for making your own laundry detergent.  Honestly, my first reaction was something like ‘there is no way that stuff really cleans clothes’. So I went on to read the blog posts with the recipes and they all swore it worked. . . and it is pretty darn cheap. So I decided to try it (still totally a skeptic) because if it failed I wouldn’t be out much. . . but if it worked I would be saving tons of money.

I used this tutorial. I made a few minor changes. First I used a little less water (other recipes I read used less water) because I wanted a more concentrated detergent. I also used Ivory soap (it’s easier to find & she said you could so I did).

I have been using this detergent for almost 6 months. I made one batch in July and am about half way through it. I wanted to give it time before I really said what I thought. . . because I was a skeptic. But here it is: I LOVE it! Honestly, I can not tell a difference from when I was using store bought detergent (we used Tide) in how clean our clothes are. And for why I LOVE it. . . I spent $6 on all the supplies for the detergent. My first batch was 4 gallons AND I have enough supplies left for 2 more batches. Yowza that’s cheap.

The only thing I miss is the sent. Our clothes smell clean, but do not have a fragrance like before using store bought- so going forward I am going to add essential oil like she talks about in the tutorial.  My only other tip if you make this would be to stir it every couple of weeks as I have found the water and the good stuff separate some over time. I just keep a paint stirrer next to the bucket my detergent is in and give it a quick stir.

So. . .I’m sold. And. . .not only do I feel very ‘Susie Homemaker’ (ha!) when I scoop out some of my homemade detergent when doing laundry- my husband is very proud of my money saving skills and that makes me a happy lady. :)

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Today I am thankful it’s Friday!

Genevieve has some serious bed head. More days than not she wakes up with this do:

Hope you smile :) I’m sure she will love me for sharing those pics when she’s a teenager.

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Today I am thankful for sunshine.

I have a wreath problem. To say I really like them is kind of an understatement. I have been wanting to make an ornament wreath for a long time. . . and then when I saw this post on Meg’s Whatever blog I told myself I would for sure do it for this Christmas.

I already had a lot of vintage ornaments I had collected over the years at thrift stores but I kept my eye open at garage/estate sales this year and picked up even more. I never paid more than 50 cents for a box (some were 10 cents)- this is not a crazy expensive wreath. When I dug out all my ornaments I couldn’t believe how many I had bought and was sure I had overdone it.  I wish I had taken a picture of the huge stack or ornament boxes I had- but I am sure it was about 15 plus I had a bag of mini silver and gold ornaments. Anywhoo. . . I share that tidbit because if you make one of these yourself- you need way more ornaments than you think. I used almost all (I have one box left over) and would have put on more mini ornaments if I had them.

So there is really no method to this madness. . . I covered a straw wreath in some linen I had and added a ribbon for hanging then started hot gluing ornaments onto the wreath. I working kind of in clumps. When I started running low on a color of ornaments I would take a step back and make sure they were evenly distributed around the wreath before I used up the last few and I recommend that so you don’t end up with clumps of one color. This is super easy and was fun to make.

I started this during Genevieve’s nap and wasn’t finished when she woke up so I let her do this:

She lives to play with ribbons. . . seriously folks. . . her dream come true.

Anyways. . . here is the wreath all finished and hanging:

Pretty pretty. . .makes me happy. . .and the best part. . . Jonathan  actually LIKES it! A real win for me- he isn’t too into my ‘style’ as he calls it. :)

And just for fun. . . here is a video of my bestie singing one of my favorite Christmas carols.

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Today I am thankful for getting to stay home and warm when it’s rainy/yucky and cold outside.

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Today I am thankful for time cuddling my baby.

I made my first turkey yesterday. Since we have always traveled to family for Thanksgiving & Christmas I have never had the occasion to make a turkey and I really wanted to do it.  So we had some friends over and I MADE A TURKEY! It was yummy :) AND the best part- since we are always at someone else’s house for Thanksgiving we don’t have left over turkey and now I get to have turkey sandwiches and make a couple of dishes with the leftovers. Fun stuff.

I also just want to say- I know making a turkey is not a big deal- but it makes me feel like a grown up and so I am excited about it.

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Another first. . . Genevieve’s room is being featured on Nest Design Studio today. Belinda is an Interior Designer who specializes in nurseries & children’s rooms and shares about them on her blog. I am honored she wanted to share Genevieve’s space. Go check out her post here.

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Today I am thankful for some good family time this weekend.

Jonathan and I took Genevieve to meet Santa. We didn’t expect her to react well to being put into a stranger’s lap. . . .and we were right :)

We kind of think a screaming-in-santa’s lap picture as classic so we are fine with this picture. It’s actually kind of funny. We made it up to her and let her run around like a crazy baby in the play ground afterwards. Hopefully the Santa visit goes over better next year.

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Today I am thankful for a laid back Saturday.