Friday, October 26, 2012

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Pie

 
My sister saw this idea online early in October and decided my daughter, Havyn, had to try it out. Turned out pretty darn cute if we do say so!
 
 
 
 
The first trick was scraping out the darn thing...for someone who didn't grow up carving pumpkins, I found this pretty disgusting. The only upside was the cinnamon sugar pumpkin seeds we got to enjoy after all the mess was thrown away! Second trick: make large enough leg holes for our chubby monkey to fit in! :) My brother helped us with some old-school geometry formulas to figure that part out. A final little trick...start by making your back opening a little small since you can always increase it later. It took us three tries trying to squeeze the little lady in before we got it wide enough. The up side, though, is that we made sure the sides wrapped around as much as possible for the photos.
 

 

 
 
 


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Thursday, October 25, 2012

Memory Chests

I'm pretty nostalgic. Ok, very nostalgic when it comes to my children. I can hardly get through a day without thinking with sadness on the day that they'll move away from home...and they're not even 1 & 2 years old yet!! Some people call it crazy, I just call it in love! Haha...ok, and a little bit crazy! ;)>

Since all kids grow up, I came up with this little way of perserving a few more of the memories of their childhood years. When I go to clean out their closets each season of clothes they've outgrown, I pick one or two of my favorites to put in their memory chests. I write a little note about the outfit, i.e. "You wore this on March 18th when you first came from the hospital to your new home! Mommy & Daddy were so excited to show you all the things we had made and bought for you. And we were so excited that you were our new baby!" The outfit is folded neatly and tied up with a ribbon and the note.

 



Havyn's first 4th of July outfit & her going home outfit...how could I throw these out?!  


I use these tag sheets of paper from Joann Fabrics to write the notes on.

I admit I'm going to have to slow waaay down on what I'm keeping (or get much bigger chests!)


See this other post for more ideas on preserving your children's memories!

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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Red and Aqua Owl Birthday

Yes, I'm one of those moms. I started planning my son's first birthday about 6 months in advance.  But in my defense, I was also already 5 months pregnant with his little sister and due just 2 weeks before his big day. (And yes, she was a surprise!) So, I planned and planned, crafted, cut, stalked other blogs and finally came up with this theme: Aqua & Red Owl Birthday. My inspiration came in part from these adorable owl bookends.

I found this perfect aqua and red polka dot fabric on sale at Joann's and snatched a bunch of it up for a variety of projects, including a custom highchair cover (thanks, Mom!!), a custom "Ky is 1!" bib and a custom "1" party hat. These were all first time projects that I just made up as I went. Not perfect, but pretty darn cute!

Next came the food table...I wanted all the food to somehow fit the "nature" theme and also the color scheme, so we went with "mushroom" cupcakes (because of the look, not the contents!), red hot and white cheddar popcorn in homemade cones, strawberries & cream cheese dip, yogurt covered raisins, chocolate covered peanuts and chocolate peanut butter acorns (acorn inspiration thanks to the ladies over at sixinthesuburbs!). Here's the final display...





I saw some adorable mini pennant banners on Karaspartyideas and had to try one for Ky's birthday!

Owl lollipops in a basket embellished with a handmade felt owl served as the adult party favors. These felt owls were my first project for Ky's birthday. I got the pattern and tutorial here. His smash cake photo session was done by Shell's Photography...the photos turned out adorable and he was loving life with all that icing!


Party favors for all the kiddos...fabric flowers for the girls and tie embellished onesie for the boy.


Handmade front door wreath

Love this picture! He's in awe and can't wait to dig in!

Once the cupcake was gone, he resorted to his hat...
Goofy face, but here's his big boy outfit (tie by Bubaloo & Co.)

Happy 1st Birthday, Kyler!!!

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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Growing, Growing, Gone....

If you weren't crazy about crafting and celebrations before Pinterest, I'm not sure how you avoid the "bug"  now! Ideas are EVERYwhere and I can't help but bring one or two home a week to try (with the gracious help of my husband!), especially if it involves preserving the little years of our children. One of our more recent Pinterest success stories is this adorable wall ruler, which I'm very excited to utilize throughout Kyler & Havyn's lives (still haven't figured out exactly how I am going to mark their growth each year, so please message me if you have ideas!!).
 

Cute, right? My husband did a fabulous job bringing this Pinterest idea to life. (Thanks Jennifer for the idea inspiration!). We just started with a piece of scrap wood and some spare stain...literally didn't have to spend a dime on this one!



 One coat wasn't nearly enough...

We did lots of staining and lots of waiting to get the right shade.



The staining was definitely the worst part...a little messy and lots of coats! But once that was done, we just used a ruler and a Sharpie to draw the ruler lines up the side. We made sure to vary the line lengths to mimic those of an actual ruler and then with the help of my handy, dandy Cricut (what did we do before Cricut's?!), we cut out black numerals 1-6 and modge-podged them onto the ruler....



  

The hanging of our adorable oversized ruler was another slightly complicated step...so I left it compeltely up to my husband! He figured out some system of supporting the bottom with brackets screwed into the wall and then secured the top with two small screws. All I know is that it's up and it looks great!!



Can't wait to measure the little ones every year and see their growth!!



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