Making my girly look a little more girly

Here's one of my pet peeves... Emerson can be wearing a pink outfit and is wrapped in a girly pink blanket and people still ask if my baby is a boy or girl.  I decided that it was time to add yet another girly item to her attire-- headbands!  I looked at ALL the options on Etsy-- there's some really cute ones out there-- but I wasn't about to pay 10 to 15 bucks plus shipping.  So... why not figure out how to make them myself?  The cutest ones had little fabric rosettes, so one day this week while the kids were napping I decided have a rosette making party until I figured out how to make them.  After much trial and error, I finally mastered the technique!

Guess what I made them out of... a couple of my old T shirts that I had been planning on shipping off to MCC.  I used the sleeves to make the headband, and then cut a bunch of different sized circles to make the rosette.  After attaching it to the headband and a bit of hand sewing you have the cutest little headband.  A FREE headband!  This one took me about 15 minute to make from start to finish.  I plan on making many more in the near future.

 Thanks for the cute headband mom!  You're the best... wink wink :)

On to another topic.  Snow.  Or should I say "snow"-- the stuff we got this morning was pretty wussy.  But Caleb thought it was the real deal-- I've got a city boy on my hands!

 Watching it snow this morning got me excited to set up my tree... is it too early?

When do you all take the plunge and decorate for Christmas?

So far, all I've got up is my wreath :)

And yes, my front door is purple.

The week thus far...

I have so many pictures of Caleb helping me in the kitchen... it happens regularly around here.  Anything to keep the kids occupied until nap time... eh?

This week one of Caleb and Emerson's little friends joined us for the day.  It was a busy day... but they all had fun.  I hope.

We decided to bake cupcakes.

This lovely little lady "helped" from a distance :)  She's sure a cutie... much of Emerson's stylish wardrobe can be credited to her. 

Then it was craft time.

Here Caleb was trying to find her a "cool" picture to color.

This was my kitchen floor after lunch time.  It was quite the affair.  Caleb and the little lady ate and ate... and threw food on the floor.  I did my best to keep up with them... Emerson lay on the floor nearby and pooped her pants.

Then I put this kid to work.

And amazingly enough, all three kids napped AT THE SAME TIME for an hour.

I was looking for Caleb this evening.  I couldn't seem to find him.  Suddenly I discovered him sitting in the living room like this.  He was playing a racing game on my ipod.  Caleb remained like this for about 10 minute before emerging from the baskets-- he didn't seem to think that his behaviour was out of the ordinary in the least.

And Emerson helped me with the laundry tonight.  She mainly helped me carry it up the stairs.

As you can see, I like to put my kids to work-- laundry, vacuuming... start them young.

Just Another Weekend Recap

The weekend was a busy one in our house.  There was much time spent with family and friends... here's a few pictures!

I decided to start teaching Caleb how to use scissors.  This is something I've been dreading for a while now.  He was VERY excited... me... not so much.  It took a bit of practice for him to get his hand positioned in the scissors correctly, but once he had it, he had a blast.

Yes, my son is a lefty.  Like me!

 All weekend he kept saying... "Mommy, I want to cut.  I NEED to cut."  Oh boy.

What have I started?

Look Mom!  I'm so good at this I don't even have to watch what I'm doing!!

On Saturday we had family over for breakfast at our place.  

Waffles were a huge success with the kids.

We also had dinner at our house on Saturday.  I made soup.  It was not so exciting for the kids.  Picture four kids sitting around the table looking at their soup saying... Nah uh.  Not going to eat it.  And three moms standing around the table behind them saying... uh huh... you're gonna eat it.

Let the games begin!

There was negotiating.

There was gagging.

There was denial.

A couple of the kids decided to pretend the soup didn't exist.

Some selectively ate one or two items out of the soup.

In the end, each child consumed a small amount. 
And then the moms gave up.

Then we put on a movie and popped a huge bowl of popcorn for them so we could eat in peace.

And here's Emerson in her cute Sunday dress.  

The flower headband was so cute.

I had to adjust it probably 50 times during the morning, but it was still worth it.

Three Year Olds and Vegetables?

Caleb wanted to help me make dinner tonight.

I gave him a butter knife and let him cut up some peppers.

Suddenly I hear crunching.  I look over and see him munching away.

He told me he liked them.

Hmmm.

Then I remembered this pepper incident-- it occurred a few months ago.  I got home from work, Doug was making dinner, Caleb was in his high chair... munching away on a red pepper.  Not just a piece.  An ENTIRE red pepper.  He was eating it like an apple.

I was dumbfounded.  He ate half of it.

Apparently I shouldn't be so concerned about his vegetable consumption.

Weekend Recap

Hope you're all enjoying a great weekend!  Here's a glimpse of what's been going on in our house over the past few days...

Caleb insisted on "helping" me as I made my favorite brownies.  He really likes to help in the kitchen... this has led me to do most of my baking and cooking during his nap time as of late.  Funny how baking brownies suddenly takes twice as long with his help...

I let him spray the pan with pam.  It was thoroughly greased.  So was the rest of my kitchen.

 Today I attempted to take some pictures of Emerson wearing her Sunday best.  She has so many dresses to wear, and not enough occasions to show them off... so I've started taking pictures of her as she wears them.  She was not very cooperative today.

This...

Turned into this...

 Which turned into this.  Then I gave up.  Turns out she just wanted to take a nap.

 And another momentous thing I did this weekend was make my bed... with the new pillows I whipped up.  As you may recall from this post I found the duvet cover (at the foot of the bed) in the clearance section of the Bay.  For some reason, the pillow shams were still in the regular priced section of the store (I'm thinking an employee error must have occurred :)  I was NOT about to pay full price for those matching pillow shams.  Eventually they made it into the clearance bin... still not cheap enough.  Finally, after weeks of checking to see if they were "on sale" enough for me, all clearance items were 40% off.  And there was only one left.

So I bought the one remaining pillow sham, ripped it apart, and turned it into two throw pillows.

There wasn't quite enough material to do both both the front and backs, so I picked up a solid color coordinating fabric at Fabricland for really cheap... I had the pillow forms already kicking around at home (they're from Ikea-- the BEST pillow forms out there for the best price) so it was an inexpensive little project.

Love them.  Makes me want to go take a nap.

And that's it!

Ridin' in Style

A beautiful and relaxing morning at the park...

Was made possible by this wonderful invention.

The first time I tried to take both kids for a walk around the lake with my single stroller was disastrous.  Caleb refused to walk.  Emerson started crying in the sling.  By the time we were back home I was tired, sore and sweating.  As soon as the kids were down for a nap I hit up Craigslist and found this beauty.   It was a steal of a deal-- and the kids both love it. 

Emerson stays snug as a bug in her seat.

Caleb is hilarious in the stroller.  He sometimes pretends he's flying an airplane.  Picture me pushing the stroller down the path with Caleb at the front-- arms spread wide, leaning side to side, making airplane noises.  We attract a lot of attention at the park.

And sometimes Caleb just likes to relax as we go for a stroll.  He's also been known to chill out in the stroller, legs crossed, looking bored as ever as if he sits there all day long.

Crazy kid.  You're going to have to learn to walk one of these days.

All Pizza-ed out...

Last night we had pita pizzas for dinner.  Caleb was just too distracted to eat his dinner since his good friend Isaiah was sitting next to him.  I put the leftovers in the fridge for breakfast, thinking that he would have to learn his lesson and eat his dinner the first time around.  My plan backfired on me.

Apparently Caleb finds pizza for breakfast to be quite enjoyable.

Then it was time for lunch.  Caleb wanted hotdogs.  I didn't feel like making hotdogs.  But I did have leftover pizza pepperoni in the fridge.  So I let him make hotdog pizzas (pepperoni pizza in a hotdog bun... not too creative, I know, but I had to think fast).  Once again, a bit hit.

 At this point I don't think he really cared what he ate for lunch.  It was just fun to make it himself.

We had dinner tonight with our care group.  Guess what we had for dinner. Yup, Caleb has eaten pizza for the last four meals in a row.  The pizza train stops right here, right now.

My not so renovated bathroom...

y bathroom... needs work.  Yup, this is where the tour of my house begins to get a bit less interesting since this is where we started to run out of money and energy :)  Actually we never had money, just energy.  And then we lost all energy.  Anyways... bathrooms are the most difficult room of the house to renovate for many reasons.  First of all, they are expensive to renovate-- you're not just dealing with paint and flooring, but tile, lighting, plumbing, and more!  Secondly, changing your bathroom requires commitment.  You have to really REALLY like the tile you choose since you'll be stuck with it for a while.  And lastly, the bathroom is the most inconvenient room to have out of order-- you can always wash your dishes in the bathroom but you can't... I'm not going to finish that sentence.  You get the picture.  So I've made a few cosmetic changes in our upstairs bathroom to make it a little bit prettier, but it still needs some work!

Here's the bathroom when we moved in.  Not too bad-- actually painted a normal color!  With one exception-- stenciling around the window.  You can't really see it in this picture, but it's there.

And here's the bathroom now.  Let me show you what I've added and what I still want to change!!

As you can see we painted it a bit of a lighter shade of blue to brighten it up a little.  We also added crown moulding-- we had a few left over pieces sitting around in our garage.  They were too small for any other room in the house except the bathroom.  A few months ago, Doug and I were sitting around the house one Saturday afternoon when Caleb was napping and were feeling a little bored-- suddenly I came up with the idea to put up the crown in the bathroom.  Within an hour or two Doug had it up and we were starting with the painting.  We tend to be spontaneous renovators.

 

Eventually I would like to make a few changes.  First on the list, tile the shower.  The surround is okay, but there are a few cracks appearing here and there.  Tile would be so much nicer.

The bathroom floor definitely needs an update-- the lino is beginning to show its age.  I'm thinking that we'll tile the floor too.  I'm feeling excited to start a tile project-- in our condo I tiled both bathroom floors when I was 6 months pregnant with Caleb.  As can be imagined, I was sore for a few days after a weekend of laying tile, but it was a lot of fun :)

I've made a few simple (and cheap) changes to update the bathroom in the interim.  First of all, I swapped the pre-existing plain jane mirror for this one that was in the downstairs bathroom.  It was too big for the small downstairs bathroom and looked much better up here.

I put up a few fun pictures.  As some of you may remember I took these pictures a few weeks ago when Caleb wanted to show off his new toothbrush to Auntie Trish.  They were so cute... and I thought they would make fitting artwork for my bathroom.  Caleb approved.

I also put up this cute little picture of Caleb in the bathtub when he was just a wee little boy.  The frame used to be ugly.  I whipped out a can of spray paint one day and was transformed.  Spray paint makes me happy.

There are no towel bars in this bathroom except for one small one that only holds a hand towel.  To solve this problem I put up these cheapo Ikea hooks on the back of the bathroom door and also on the back of all three upstairs bedroom doors.  Problem solved!  Now there is no excuse for wet towels left on the floor... right?

One of my favorite bathroom updates is this fixed roman shade I made.  I ordered some cheap but cute fabric online and had my Mom help me figure out how to make it.  It was really easy.  The best part is that the panel is attached to the window with velcro.  If it gets dirty, all I have to do is rip it off the window, throw it in the wash and stick it back up.  Brilliant!

It doesn't exactly keep out a lot of light, but it sure looks pretty!

I also made a few of these cute little roman shades for my kitchen.  I'll show you those in a later post!

And this is my bathroom... for now.

[Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hirsche]

Halloween Fun at Our House

The kids are in bed and I'm sitting on the couch surrounded by candy... oh my.  I don't have much to say, but I do have some pictures to share!  Let's start with the pumpkin.  Last night we had a pumpkin carving night with the rest of the Toews gang.  It was complete and utter chaos-- crazy hyper toddlers, pumpkin seeds and guts everywhere, sharp knives-- yikes!  Don't worry, we didn't let the children wield the knives, but it was difficult to keep them at a safe distance.  I'm not much of a pumpkin carver-- Doug enjoys the excuse to pull out his knife collection so I let him take over.  This year he carved a goose in the shape of a C for Caleb...

My job was the toast the pumpkin seeds-- just a little sea salt, some fresh ground pepper, an hour in the oven and you have a delicious and healthy snack.  I really should be eating those pumpkin seeds right now rather than all this candy...

 

I didn't get Emerson a costume... there wasn't much point.  Instead I created one out of a few items found in her closet.  Emerson was a polar bear cub... a REALLY cute polar bear cub if I do say so myself...

Then we decided to take a few pictures of Emerson in her Sunday best.  So cute... how could I resist?

And once Daddy appears in her line of vision Emerson lights up.  

She saves her biggest toothless smiles for Daddy.

 

Tonight Caleb and Emerson met up with their cousins to do a little trick or treating.  It was quite a zoo out there tonight.  Ha ha ha.  Lame, I know.  As you may be able to tell, it was nearly impossible to get the kids to stand still for a picture prior to trick or treating.

Just for comparison's sake-- here are the kids at Halloween last year.  As you can see, these costumes have been put to good use.

This year Caleb was a giraffe.  He spent the afternoon practicing his tall neck.

 Keziah was a hula dancer.  What zoo wouldn't be complete was a hula dancer?

 Micah once again rocked the zebra.

 Emerson was a convincing polar bear cub.

 And Silas was a ridiculously cute elephant.  He toddled after the bigger kids for most of the night-- watching his feet more than where he was going.

This year the kids ran a tight act.  They would all approach the door together.  Micah would ring the doorbell (since he's the only one who could reach it) while the other two would knock on the door.  They would all shout "trick or treat" in perfect unison when it was opened and for the most part they remembered to say thank you.  Every so often I would hear some random comments from the kids-- such as Caleb asking a lady why her house was so dark.  Those "why" questions just don't stop.

A fun night was had by all.  In the end, the kids didn't really care too much about the candy, they just had a great time together.  And now I'm left with a ridculous amount of candy that neither Caleb or I should be eating.  Oh dear.