Favorites and Fashion

A few random pics today.  I'm in a random sort of mood.  :)

K.  These are too cool.  First of all, if you have a baby are you tossing GoGo Squeez snacks in your purse?  These are all the rage around here and while I didn't use them with any of my three (what rock was I living under?) I know I would have loved them.  Healthy snacks for baby on the go!  The only complaint is the not so baby friendly pouch cap.  Pouch pops to the rescue!  They simply attach to the top of the pouch cap.  Wa-la!  Now your baby can feed him/herself.  In the car!  On the go!  Perfect for that transition period from bottle to solid food.  I had to share them for all infant mom's because my friends have raved about the pouch pops (babies love them) and I know I would have loved them too.  Almost makes me want to have another baby to try them out.  Almost.  :)

Another favorite.  Tried and true and I've shared this one before.  I just bought a new MAC eye lash curler (my original one has gone missing - no doubt Kole has it stashed in a couch cushion somewhere...).  One of my all time favorite beauty products!  Makes my eye lashes so long.  

This amazing necklace is from Banana Republic.  One of the things Kenny gave me for my birthday.  He picked it out himself.  Well.  With help from me that is.  :)  Isn't it beautiful!?  

I love it so much and I haven't even worn it yet!  Same with this other BP necklace my mom gave me a while ago.  I need to figure out what to wear with them and just haven't yet.  So for now I just keep admiring them in this box on my dresser.  

Two different friends gave me this scarf and earrings (also b-day gifts) but don't they go well together?  

I have loved wearing this combo.  

And a fun yellow skirt for Spring I bought at Down East in Utah months ago.  

I love the thick band at the top.  

I just paired it with a white tank and my navy sweater and some wedges.  Yellow and Navy is such a fun combo, don't you think?

And one of my all time favorite accessories.  

Hanging with Miss Addie after a recent and remarkable 1st grade performance.  

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Top three pics this week

Three pics from this week that make me smile:    

The feeling's mutual buddy.  

Do you ever wonder why Kole is always running around pantless?  (This isn't a knock knock joke by the way).  He's too fast for me.  It takes every ounce of will and strength I have to hold him down long enough to change his diaper.  By the time the diaper is securely fastened, the two of us are equally over it.

Kenny will give me a hard time for posting the ironing picture because it may give off a false impression that I iron his shirts often so let me clear that little misunderstanding up real quick.  I don't iron.  His work clothes go to the dry cleaners and if my clothes or the kids' clothes wrinkle often I get rid of them or we wear them wrinkled.  We have a "buy clothes that won't need to be ironed" policy in this house.  But that husband of mine has been so busy.  Meetings in San Francisco last week, working round the clock on an IPO (initial public offering) this week.  Plus in his spare time he's building me a house.  So I decided to iron a few new shirts he bought while Kole was napping.  El was swimming at a friends house and I told Addie she could either iron with me or we could invite one of her friends over.  She chose ironing and a movie with mom.  Love that girl.  We popped popcorn and called it an "ironing movie popcorn party" (I know - major originality points for that title are in order).

Speaking of popcorn.  Kenny came home late tonight and I decided to pop some more.  I must have set the microwave to 2 hours and 20 minutes instead of 2 minutes and 20 seconds.  Oops.  Didn't notice until smoke was coming out of the microwave and the smell was so bad we could hardly breathe.  We've been airing the house out all night.  I really shouldn't be trusted in the kitchen.  Or with an iron.  Today was a dangerous day for me.  

Short post tonight because I spent most of my blogging time scrapbooking!  WHAT!?  Crazy right.  I have so much stuff on my to-do list right now that I should have been doing instead.  But designing my scrapbook room has made me miss my hobby that I never have time for anymore.  So I made some time for it.  Simple Project Life layouts for Kole's book - nothing fancy at all and it felt so good!

K - I'm off to bed.  As soon as I close the 15 windows that are open and turn off all the ceiling fans.

Clock just turned 12:01 so I guess I can officially say Happy Wednesday everyone!

:)

Fun weekend and fruit dip

FUN weekend.  Lots of play and little work.  I'll pay for it tomorrow (the laundry alone!), but it was worth it.  I got to spend Friday afternoon at the park with a friend I danced with in college and haven't seen since.  She was in town visiting and called and I'm SO glad she did!  I loved catching up with her and meeting her cute kids.  Two girls close in age and a two year old little boy.  We are living parallel lives.  :)  It was SO fun to see her again.  I didn't take a picture (I have been awful at taking pictures this summer!) but we had a great afternoon.  

The rest of the weekend included get togethers with two other families we love to hang out with.  First a little pool time!  I finally learned the secret to getting Kole to stay put in the pool instead of just running around it.  

Good old Thomas to the rescue.  This boy of mine loves his trains.  

I love his trains too.  They allow me at least five minutes of down time.  

I'll take it!

Best friends and their dads.  

Our other fun get-together was a BBQ at a friends house.  They made the most delicious meal I think I've ever had!  Seriously!  Great food.  Great company.  We didn't want to leave.  So we didn't!  We all hung out so late.  I think it was the latest my kids have ever stayed up!

My contribution to the amazing meal?  Not much.  My cute friend insisted on making everything aside from a fruit salad.  So I made my fruit salad and I also made some fruit dip.  I thought I'd share this SIMPLE fruit dip because it is seriously so good.  And so simple.  Did I mention that already?  That it's simple and good?  Because it is.  

Whip together:

8 oz cream cheese (softened)
7 oz jar of marshmallow creme
2 teaspoons of Maraschino cherry juice

You can see the dip in the purple bowl on the kids' table next to my fruit salad.  It's light pink and it's delicious!  Not the healthiest, but a summertime hit nonetheless.  

Table for the kids.    

 Table for the adults.  I loved the fresh sun flowers!  

A few more pics from the evening -- 

What kid doesn't love a slip-n-slide? 

Kole was in absolute heaven.  

I think his trains have met their match.

Makes me so excited to have a yard!  This boy and his mom are more than ready for one.  

p.s.  Is anyone else a nervous wreak watching the Olympics!?  I get so stressed during the events (especially girls gymnastics).  My hands start to sweat just watching them!  I can only imagine what their parents must feel like!

p.p.s.  Happy Monday.  :)

Six years old today

My Addison turned 6 today!  

She loves to pose.

Wonder why?  :)

We have been celebrating for a week now.  

Last weekend we took all of her friends to Build-A-Bear.  

My girls were excited to say the least.  

The girls chose their bears and then stuffed their bears.  

They washed their bears.

And dressed and accessorized their bears.

Then they paraded around the store with their bears.

And their smurfs.  

(Ellie decided to buck the trend.)

One happy birthday girl.

She must have turned and whispered to me over five times that 

"this is the best birthday ever!"

I almost bought this bear for myself.  

Birthday girl and her dad who is such a softie when it comes to his daughters.

Mr. budget who saw 11 darling Kindergarteners accessorizing their bears with huge grins on their faces and said "forget the budget and let everybody get what they want."  (Addie - you have got your dad wrapped!  Any pointers you can send my way would be much appreciated.)  

The partying didn't stop there. 

We have been traveling and celebrating for lots of reasons.

And busy with end of school year stuff.

And knee deep in house decisions.

Appliances, cabinets, and fixtures.

Oh my.

Lots going on that I will blog about when I have time to catch my breath.  

And I'm itching to organize something.

It has been a while.

Still need to write my sweet six year old's birthday letter.  

But for now I just want to say that I love my spunky little Addison so much.

Every night when we tuck Addison in bed we follow the same routine.  It started several years ago with her daddy and now Addison won't go to sleep until Kenny and I have both given her our "goodnight kiss."

 I kiss her, she wipes the kisses off, and I say "hey!  you wiped off my kisses!" 

 Then we laugh.  And I kiss her again.  And she kisses me back.

And then we hug and I whisper in her ear "you make me melt."

Addison - you make us melt every single day.  

Happy Birthday beautiful girl!

xoxo,

         mommy

More Spring Decor!

Sharing more of my Spring decor today!  Yes I recognize that it's the beginning of May and almost summer.  My current schedule doesn't allow for much "me time" to play with my decor (and by not much me time I mean no me time) so it took me longer than usual to pull everything together.  The good news is that all of my decor works great for summer too so I'm good to go until Fall!  I'll share pics of all things "Spring" soon, but for now, here are a few updates...

I was looking at my Pinterest boards a couple of weeks ago and I noticed that I was pinning A LOT of pictures of clear jars and bottles inside of baskets.  I love that about Pinterest.  You can get a real sense of your style and things you are drawn to without even trying.  So after viewing some of my favorite inspiration pictures (I'll have to share those in another post!) I created my own little Spring centerpiece with clear bottles in a basket.  I already had the basket, the skinny bottle, the flowers, and the mason jar. I found the larger bottle holding the flowers at Home Goods and knew it would be perfect to complete the look!    

Some of my inspiration pics had silverware inside of jars so I tossed some forks in the mason jar.  I just think it looks so cool.  And my girls think it's so cool to grab a fork for dinner out of the basket.  (It's the little things.)  My lemon tree was bursting as usual and I LOVE to have lemons in my house this time of year.  I tossed some in a clear jar I've had for years and also added some to the bottom of my fruit basket.  They smell so good!   

I especially love the way the yellow flowers and lemons coordinate so well with all of the other yellow throughout my house.  There is a lot of yellow going on around here.  It's making me happy.  :)

Oh what's that?  More lemons?  Don't mind if I do.  :)  When we met with our landscape architect  the first thing I told him was that I wanted lemon trees.  I will miss the little tree in our current backyard that we planted when we first moved here.  It has grown so much.  Kind of like us.  (And now I hear Kenny singing "A Whole New World" in the background - his standby whenever I get sappy.)  But I can't help it.  Aside from looking and smelling so good, lemons are perfect for life metaphors.  

When life gives you lemons...  

K.  I'll stop now.  

So I've mentioned before how OVER my couches I am.  I'm holding out to buy new couches for the new house.  Since I'm stuck with these for another year I bought some new pillows that work with the green but also tie in the yellow.

Every time I look at these couches I think of that song from Sesame Street "One of these things is doing its own thing..."  Anyone else remember that song?  They definitely don't match everything else going on in my house right now.  I tried slipcovers but they didn't look good with our carpet so I'm stuck being patient.  I don't like being patient.  But while they aren't the look I'm going for, these couches are comfortable.  VERY comfortable.  Perfect for blogging.  :)  Guess I can be patient a bit longer.

I was mid photo shoot taking these decor pics when a certain someone woke up from his nap.  

Addie loves getting him out of his crib.  

She also loves all of my lemons.  Especially the really big ones. 

I love that her shirt matches the decor (not planned, but I'll take it!).    

Two of my best accessories.  

:)

A Valentines Box

Last weekend Ellie had a friend's birthday party to attend.  That's always hard around our house.  My girls are glued at the hip so when one of them is invited to a party and the other one isn't, I usually have one pretty bummed out daughter.  So to cheer Miss Addison up, I told her that we would have a special party.  Just the two of us.  A party to make her Valentine box for school.  Addison decided we would wear our house shoes and call it our "Valentine box house shoe decorating party."  So last Saturday afternoon Kenny took El to the birthday party.  Kole took a nap.  And Addie and I took up some serious Valentine box decorating.  In our house shoes of course.

This child of mine is so different from her sister.  I remember helping Ellie with her Valentine box for Kindergarten.  Ellie was so happy to have my help.  She would have let me do the whole thing if I would have wanted to.  Not Addison.  This girl wants NO help.  She wants to do everything herself.  She always has.  She has a pretty hard working, determined, stubborn little spirit.  That sometimes drives me straight up a wall.  And other times I love and admire like crazy.

Ta da!  Her Valentine box in all its glory.  And don't forget to notice the house shoes.  You can't have a "Valentine box house shoe decorating party" without the house shoes.  

  I was allowed to help cover the box in paper and to make the little hearts on the side, but that was it!  Bummer for me.  I love this kind of thing.  I should have made my own box just for fun. 

Aren't these little elephants on the side adorable!?  Target!  A pack of them for $5.00!  And easy for Addison to put together.  Love it! 

I love them a ton.  :)  

Elephants on two sides and stickers on the other two sides, exactly the way my girl wanted it.  

I also picked up these adorable matching sacks for my girls to carry their Valentines in.  Target!  $2.00 each!  Love them.  And I love Target.  A fact that's worth repeating.

Here is the fun little friend I made for Ellie's box two years ago.  SO easy to make.  

And so fun that Ellie let her mom participate!  Although I have to say that when it comes to regular homework - math, reading, spelling - I'm starting to appreciate Addie's "do it myself" personality more and more.  

I know it's a bit early to be turning in Valentine boxes at school, but in Kindergarten at our school they do the cutest mail unit.  They turn in their boxes and cards early and learn all about sorting and delivering the mail.  Addison has the same teacher Ellie did and it has been so fun re-living everything again this year.  

When Ellie was in Kindergarten my dad made this fun mail truck for the class to deliver their mail in and Addison can't wait to use it!  I know.  Coolest grandpa ever, right?  We think so.  :)

Happy Valentine box making everyone!  Wear your house shoes if you work on one with your kids this year.  It just seemed to make something good even better.