A new (to her) bike

Lorelai got a new (to her) "big girl" bike for her birthday, and I'd say she's pretty excited about it. :)





The best part to me was that all I spent was $3 on a roll of pretty duck tape to turn Logan's old bike and helmet into something fit for a girl. Woooo to the hooooo!




Logan got this bike on his 3rd birthday (almost 4 years ago, whoa!), so we figured it would be a great gift for Lorelai's 3rd birthday as well. Aidan has moved up to a bigger bike, so we had an extra smaller one laying around. No point in spending money on something new if we can use what we've got, right? A little decal peeling and some good cleaning left us with a perfectly unisex red and black bike, but the boys and I wanted to do more. So I hit up Michael's where I found the most perfect coordinating duck tape.



With Aidan and Logan's help (they were SO into this project for their sister!) I just put some of the tape on wax paper and used my heart-shaped cutter to create some pretty little heart stickers. I free-handed the points on the long strips so they're not perfect, but the boys and I love how it turned out. I even used my exacto knife to cut out some flowers for her helmet to match! Once Adam put the training wheels back on, we were good to go.



We unveiled the gift on Sunday morning before her party and she couldn't WAIT to jump on and ride. With daddy's help getting started, she got the hang of it really quickly. A few hours later, she was an old pro, showing off for the grandparents at her party.



I love that this was a personalized gift created by us with love. I love that we were able to upcycle something to give it a new life for almost free. And I love that she loves it and feels like such a big girl when she rides. A definite win-win-win in my book! :)

2nd annual Easter Egg Treasure Hunt

Happy Easter! We had a fabulous day of fun, family and food. I have yet to sort through all of my pictures, so hopefully I'll have a post with some of them tomorrow. In the meantime, I wanted to share our egg hunt fun from Sunday morning.

Since it was such a big hit last year, the Easter Bunny was back with another treasure hunt. This year she left a note on the back of the boys' bedroom door in the hopes that they would see it when they woke up and turned the lights on to play. Note to the Easter Bunny: move the note back to a way more obvious place. Apparently Aidan and Logan pay no attention to the back of their door. It took them a good 30 minutes to notice it, and they each went in and out of their room TWICE before that. Geez!

Once they finally found it, here's what they saw:

Good Morning, AIDAN and LOGAN!

Are you ready for an Easter Egg Treasure Hunt? Well get to hoppin'!

Yay, it’s rhyme time!

“Where's the treasure?” you may ask.
You must find it, that’s the task!
Is it here? Is it there?
You must look everywhere!

Look for your first clue in the place where we put all the dishes to make them clean. Don't go alone, work as a team ☺

Here are the clues the Easter Bunny came up with all on her own, hidden in plastic eggs throughout the house (the first was in the dishwasher):

Clue #1: When you sit here for shows, don’t be a grouch. Your next clue is on the __ __ __ __ __.

Clue #2: Scrub-a-dub-dub, find your next clue in the __ __ __.

Clue #3: Don’t fall off while you’re sleeping and bump your head, find your next clue under Aidan’s __ __ __.

Clue #4: Look for Lego Star Wars and what do you see? Find your next clue beside the __ __ __.

Clue #5: Where do you eat, if you’re hungry and able? Look for your next clue on the dining room __ __ __ __ __.

Clue #6: I hope this hunt has put you in a good mood! Your next clue is where we store our cold __ __ __ __.

Clue #7: Dirty shirts can be blue, red or green. Find your next clue in the washing __ __ __ __ __ __ __.

Clue #8: Look around and you won’t find a Woset, you’ll find your treasure in Mommy and Daddy’s __ __ __ __ __ __.


The boys loved it! They were so excited about each clue that instead of going straight from one location to another, they brought each clue back up to show us. I loved being able to witness their excitement as they figured out each clue. They figured out most clues without any trouble. But they were both stumped for a while on clue 6, when they couldn't figure out that food rhymed with mood, which meant the fridge. I think they were just trying to think of a place in the house that rhymed with mood, so Adam and I had to help a bit. Aidan also got oddly stumped by clue 4, but Logan knew right away to look next to the Wii. Logan magically appeared with the egg while Aidan was still trying to figure it out.

Here's the treasure they found:

The boys got Angry Birds shirts, Little Debbie cakes, gummies and Cadbury mini eggs. Lorelai got shoes, a skirt, bows and clips, and they all got Jelly Bellies galore in their plastic eggs.

Obviously they loved the treats, and between three egg hunts they now have enough candy to feed an elephant (or me and my huge sweet tooth, whichever). Logan even went through all of Lorelai's eggs (and put them all back like no one would notice) before she woke up. Of course the one day she picks to sleep in just happens to be the day we want her awake, so we actually had to go in a wake her up at 8 to join in the fun.

She was groggy and confused at first, but before I knew it, she had shoved a handful of Jelly Bellies in her mouth which perked her right up (that's my girl)! And BTW, the boys totally agree with me that Cadbury mini eggs are the bomb diggity.

The rest of the day was spent dying eggs, folding bunny napkins, lounging, cleaning up, making messes, having fun with Easter grass, more cleaning, getting ready to host dinner for 13 people, doing more egg hiding and hunting, eating, hanging out, and just generally having a blast. Yay Easter!

Christmas craft: Advent calendar

The Christmas stuff is coming down tomorrow, but before I put it all away I wanted to finally share this post on my DIY advent calendar.

I've really wanted an advent calendar for a few years now, so when I saw this PB inspired knock off last year, I drooled and mentally tucked it away then completely forgot about it until it started showing up on Pinterest a few months ago. I was totally inspired, so I created my own and I'm super happy with how it turned out!



The photo might not really do it justice--it was hard to get a good picture because it's sitting on the window sill in our living room--but hopefully you get the point.

I started with an old dry erase board I got for free from work (don't worry, I didn't steal it, it wasn't being used any more so they gave it to me) and stuck some 12x12 cork board tiles on it. Conveniently, the board is exactly 24x36, so the tiles fit perfectly (I just had to trim the corners a bit to round them).



I picked up a $10 drop cloth, cut it down to size and ironed it to use as my fabric. I considered some linen fabric, but the drop cloth was far cheaper considering I have plenty left over to use for other projects (one of which I've actually completed! Post to come soon!)

Then I just wrapped the board with the drop cloth. I used some tacky spray to stick the fabric to the cork. I worked in sections spraying directly on the board, and smoothed it out as I went. Once the fabric was stuck to the front, I flipped the board over and just used duct tape to wrap it like a present (which I suck at, btw).



Looks totally janky from the back (good thing it's sitting on our back window!), but it worked. One thing that didn't work was the ribbon I used to try to hang it. I knew I didn't want to do anything permanent on the wall to hang it, so I thought I'd try to run a ribbon through the metal channel on the back of the board so I could hang it on an existing hook. The thing is, the dry erase board is heavy! Ideally I would have loved to have a lighter board (an actual bulletin board would have been fabulous), but I didn't want to buy anything so I just worked with what I could get for free. So the ribbon worked for a week, but it somehow slipped out of the channel (maybe the board got bumped?) and became "unhangable." Onto the window sill it went, because that's the only other place I could have put it where the boys would be able to reach it to put the ornaments on it.

The tags are just blank 3x5 index cards I cut the corners off of. They're stuck to the board with straight pins (the short ones). The numbers are on card stock I spray painted silver because I couldn't find any paper I like at Michaels. I ran it through my printer but the ink wasn't dark enough so I used a pen to outline the numbers. It's much more subtle than what I had in mind, but it works. Eventually I may get some number stickers.



The boys loved picking an ornament to put on it each day. That's how we did it this year--I've got a bowl full of ornaments and they counted down by adding an ornament each day. Originally I wanted to load the board up with ornaments so we could move one to the tree each day and then replace that with a photo (so the board didn't end up empty/uninteresting), but I didn't have 24 ornaments when we first put the board up.

I may do it the other way next year, but I also like looking at all the pretty ornaments on the board. Plus, we have plenty of other ornaments on the tree already--don't want it to look too crowded.

Of all my Christmas decorations, I'll probably be the most sad to put this away. Only like 329 days until I get to put it out again!




PS: No idea what's going on with photobucket, but some of my pictures aren't showing up for some reason :( Hopefully they'll show up soon...

Happy New Year!

Well hello there, 2012. We started off the year on a fun note at my friends' annual New Year's Eve party while my mom had a slumber party at our house with the kids. I tried (and failed) to stay on my feet all night in my new party shoes. There may or may not have been some adult beverages involved, but the real culprit is the fact that I have no experience in 5-inch platform heels (I swear, and you can't convince me otherwise!). But they were only 15 bucks and go with my navy dress, so I just couldn't pass them up, walking be damned.

My heel got caught in the back deck and down I went. Hoping for better luck when I wear
them to my company party in a few weeks!

After a lazy morning on the couch recovering from a fun night (me and Adam) and trying to recover from a mysterious case of the hives (Aidan), the kids and I went to watch Adam play in an alumni soccer game at our high school. We enjoyed the nice 60 degree weather (before the cold blows in) and Adam started of the new year with some exercise, good for him!

Having fun on the bleachers, but check out those hives! My poor Aidan :(

Let's just hope that me falling on my butt and Aidan having hives aren't a sign of the year to come. (Oh, and my possible case of pink eye. Yeah, awesome.) Seems like all the best stuff happens for me during the even years: my birth (obvs), getting married, kids being born...so I have high hopes for 2012. (Though there will be no more marriages or kids for me, ha!) A trip to London is in the works, so that should be a real highlight!

So I don't usually declare any official resolutions, but I do have some goals I want to achieve. I guess they're technically resolutions, whatever.

• Start running again. I got lazy after the 10k in October, and with the shorter days, colder weather, holidays and sickness I've been dealing with, I pretty much quit running. I'm hoping I haven't lost all of my endurance, but I'm definitely going to try my hardest to make time for exercise starting soon. Maybe I'll start with yoga while it's really cold, but I really do want to run in another race in 2012, so I've got to start training again.
• Take better photos. Adam and the boys got me a nice new camera lens for Christmas and I'd love to learn how to use it, and my camera better. 
• Get better about sharing/maintaining my photos. I'm so bad about leaving pictures on my camera, building up a huge backlog of unedited and more importantly, unshared photos. I should also really catch up with my photo albums, but I've got almost 2 years of unprinted photos that need to be in an album, and that's just plain daunting, so I'll just start by posting them more often (on the blog and Facebook). What good is a photo if no one ever sees it? Which leads me to my next one...
• Blog more regularly. Even if it's just a few words and couple of pictures. I started this blog with the best of intentions, and I disappointed myself that I didn't keep up with it like I had planned. 
• Do more Pinterest projects. I've spent so much time pinning tons of cool things, I really need to follow through. There's a sunburst mirror I'm dying to DIY (even though sunburst mirrors are SO 2011, lol).
• Organize my house. The boys' closet is piled high with toys, the linen closet is bursting at the seams, half of the garage is almost unusable, and the desk in the middle of our kitchen/living room is a total eyesore. I will organize at LEAST one of those spaces this year.
• Paint the kitchen cabinets. I've got to put this one on here. Adam and I are know to be all talk, little action, so I don't want that huge portion of our kitchen renovation to go undone. Since we're planning on tackling it ourselves, it's a time-consuming project that has procrastination written all over it!

Of course I'd also like to eat more healthy, but I've already tried and failed miserably, so I won't set myself up for failure yet again. But these goals seem manageable to me, so we'll see how well I do. I've got a whole 12 months, that's plenty of time! (Famous last words, right?!)

Happy New Year!

Lorelai's first birthday party

Yep, over two weeks later and I'm just now getting around to blogging about Lorelai's first birthday party. Laziness and craziness strikes again.

The invitation that never was...
As per usual, I procrastinated and didn't have enough time to get these invites I made printed and
sent, so I ended up sending an evite instead. Oh well.

We had her party at our house on July 30, and I don't know about everyone else, but I thought it was a perfect 1st birthday party!



It was a pretty low-key event, as far as 1st birthdays can go, I'm sure. Pretty much just family, plus a couple of friends who I don't see often enough, so it was nice that they were able to come. We all just hung out and chatted, watched the birthday girl crawl around (and hang out in my arms), ate and opened presents. Wow, when I say it like that, it sounds totally boring. I hope none of my guests were bored!



Although I have it on good authority that the cousins had fun, if the level of noise is any indication :)

Shaun, Raina and Isaiah

For such an informal gathering, I've got to admit, I did a lot of work behind the scenes on some little things that probably didn't matter in the grand scheme of things (or to Adam—he said "wow, you sure are putting a lot of effort into this party" like that was a bad thing. Silly man. He did say everything turned out really pretty though.) I tried not to stress myself out, but I really wanted to personalize this party and make it special for Lorelai.

Over the course of many nights in front of the tv, I made a crap ton of tissue paper flowers that I used as mantle decoration and hanging decorations. Thank you, Pinterest and Martha Stewart! I love how they turned out and added pops of color (for not a lot of money—I think I used 6 packs of tissue paper for $1 each at Walmart).



I also made a personalized name banner and party hat out of scrapbook paper (on sale for $.25 per sheet, yay!).



Of course, Lorelai only wore the hat for like a minute, but it was worth it for those couple of pictures :)



I think my favorite decorative element though is the flowers. I picked up some fresh flowers from Harris Teeter (I didn't know what I was getting before I went, but ended up with hot pink gerbera daisies, lime green spider mums and soft pink carnations for $16 total) and put them in some recycled mason jars that I dyed blue with glass paint. I love how all the colors came together so perfectly.



I made cupcakes, and for the first time ever, made my own frosting. Usually I just buy boxed cake and frosting, but I wanted pink frosting, so I figured I'd give some homemade raspberry buttercream frosting a try. They were pretty darn tasty, if I do say so myself!



And I think the birthday girl agreed. This was her first time having anything sweet like this, and I dare say it looks like she's got her mommy's sweet tooth!



Love Logan's face in the background.

I think she loved it so much she wanted to share with me. That's my girl.



As for food, I knew I wanted it to be easy, so the only thing I made was some yummy skinny artichoke dip (Seriously, SO yum, it's my go-to appetizer now. I'll have to do a separate post with the recipe I got from my friend since I can't seem to find it online). We also put out chips and salsa, and got a couple of trays of pita sandwiches from Kroger. Easy peasy!

After all of the eating and cupcake smashing, Lorelai got down to business opening presents.



Rather, the rest of the kids and I opened presents, and Lorelai tried to eat them. Of course.



A look at the aftermath shows you that this is one very loved and lucky little girl!



All that present-opening was hard work, so she just wanted to sit back and relax with cold beer. Seriously, for some reason she kept making a beeline to beer bottles that were left within her reach. She kept grabbing at the one I was holding while I was holding her, and when I put it down, she pitched a fit and started pulling my hair. True story.



What do you think you're doing, young lady? It's your 1st birthday, not your 21st! :)



I'm just so glad we could have so many of the people that matter most to Lorelai there for her party. Like I said, she's a very loved little girl!





Grandpa Houston and Grandma Cheryl

Grandma Ellie

Aunt Anna and Aunt Jillian







Grandma Blair



Happy 1st birthday, sweet girl! Can't wait till next year!




 

PS: Two weeks later, and all of the decorations are still up and surprisingly, the spider mums and carnations are still looking pretty good (and the daisies lasted until the other day)! After all that effort, maybe I'll just leave them all up until next year :)

PPS: (what, am I in middle school again with all these post scripts?!) I hit post too soon and forgot to add a couple of photos including the invite that would never have seen the light of day if not for this blog.

PPPS: haha, nope, that's it for real this time!