Meet Tilly!

As Rachelle was celebrating the first birthday of the precious Sophia, our home at the opposite end of the West Coast was welcoming a new member to our family... meet Tilly!

 

She is 3 weeks old today and she came home with us last week. She is a mini Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig. About 2 pounds, 5"tall and 7" long and quite possibly the cutest critter on the planet! The last week have been full of bottle feeding and potty training her, so I have had no time to be on my computer. But life is settling down now and we have a rhythm  going so I'M BACK!!!!

**I think she has my eyes... what do you think?!**

Crafty Kids: Apple Edition

Fall is my favorite season of the year. I love the crispness in the air, crunchy leaves underfoot, hot coffee, cozy sweaters... and apples! There are so many things that you can do with apples {besides eat them of course}. I scoured the web and found some of my favorite kids crafts that are inspired by the almighty apple!

Apple365 shows off some adorable apple stamps.. such a cute idea!

Family Fun took the same apple stamp and put it onto a cute tote

Craftberry Bush used the apple stamp to make a darling wreath

Kindergarten Hoppenings has tons of apple book, poems, printables, and art ideas!

Kiboomu shows you how to make a Johnny Appleseed handprint apple tree

Totally Tot's makes a "a is for apple" 

Preschool Daze has some fun apple activities perfect for preschoolers

No Time for Flashcards made a cardboard apple with a fruit loop worm!!!!!

What are your favorite apple activities to do with your kids? I would love to hear em'!

Birthday Party: Zebra {with a touch of poodle}

 Sophia's party was so much fun and we were so fortunate to be able to celebrate her special day with our amazing family and friends. We are so blessed to have each and everyone of them in our lives. Our daughter does not lack in the love department... she has so many people who love her so much!

Remember those coffee filter pom-poms? Well they made an appearance at her party in the form or table decorations!

 I threw around the idea of putting her canvas on the front door, but decided instead to use it to decorate the gift table. I used a easel to stand it up and tossed a few pom-pom balls around it for good measure.

 I took the wire grate off of an old gate that was on our side yard and used it above the outdoor fireplace at my parent's house to hang all of Sophia's weekly pictures (not going to lie... so glad that little project is done and over with).

 Less than a week before her party I still had no idea what I was going to do for a smash cake. I wanted something to match her party, but I was not finding anything I liked. So I enlisted the help of my mother-in-law who enjoys cake decorating and she made this for her. Isn't it so cute?!?!

I did a sweets table outside also. I hung all the ruffled streamers and put up a zebra stripped "sweets" sign. On the sweets table I put out zebra cupcake liners that had ice cream scooped inside, chocolate dipped pretzel rods, as well as some cupcakes in {baby food} jars. Next to this table I had a decorating station where people could pop the lid off of their cupcake and decorate them with frosting and sprinkles!

I created lots of printables that matched her theme. I created cards for the food tables, stickers that I used on the cupcake jars, and note cards that said remember when for our guests to write their favorite Sophia memory. Of course there was also LOTS of pictures all over the place of her first year. 

We decided to wait to let her have any cake till her party. So her little mouth had never tasted the goodness that is frosting! It was so fun to watch her reaction and to see her dig in for the first time. As you can see by the bottom picture on the left she was not too happy when cake time was over!

Lastly, her birthday outfit is the one thing that I did not create myself (well, and the smash cake). I actually got the entire outfit custom made (the tu-tu, embroidered onesie and bows) on etsy from a shop called tutu2cute. She did an amazing job, got it to me quickly and customized perfectly everything I asked for. 

Letting the dust settle...

This weekend was a whirlwind of birthday mayhem... and I am still recovering... let me catch my breath!


I have so many cute details that I can't wait to share with you, but I haven't even looked through the pictures of the party yet (and as those who know me personally can attest that is CRAZY because I am almost as obsessed with looking at pictures of the party as I am with throwing the party).  I will be back on Wednesday to share lots of the crafty birthday details with you all (side note: the cupcakes in a jar turned out A-MA-ZING!)


So, be sure to check back on Wednesday to see how we celebrated our little peanut's first year!


Pssstttt... check out the video the hubs put together that we showed at her party on Saturday (I totally had to avert my attention to something else when we showed this to keep myself from folding up in the fetal position and full on doing the ugly cry) 

A year ago...

A year ago today... I was scared... anxious... excited... 

Today, those emotions about wrap up what I am still feeling.

I am scared that I will let these little moments that I have with my daughter pass, because she will never be this age again. 

I am anxious that I won't do the right thing, say the right thing, raise her the right way.

I am excited to see who she grows into, what she does next. 

One year ago today, I was praying that everything would turn out alright. That she would be healthy, happy, full of life and that I would have the strength to make it through the day. And today my prayer is still the same!

Most days I fill with snuggles and love, playdates and crafting.... but today I will just focus on the snuggles and love part, because she deserves it! Today is her day! Today we celebrate her! Happy 1st Birthday Soph! I love you...

Crafting with the Stars

Have you heard of it? If not you need to check it out!
Rachelle entered her Fireplace Makeover in hopes to be part of this seasons "crafting with the stars"
Head on over and check out some of the other amazing entries. Click on our fireplace makeover while you are there (#98). Rumor has it the more that it is clicked on the better chance you have in getting noticed by the judges. 

how I saved my marriage {diy tiered tray}

I have a horrible habit of leaving all my makeup out on the bathroom counter... it drives my husband CRAZY! I don't know why it is so hard for me to simply put it back in the drawer when I am done, but it is. I have even tried getting some cute drawer organizers thinking that would motivate me, but not so much! It is a strange phenomenon that I don't really understand because I am straight up giddy about organization in every other room in our house, but I just can't get it together in the master bathroom.


So to keep my husband from full on killing me I came up with a plan, and it required some diy goodness! I made a tiered tray {bowl on top/plate on bottom} that now lives on our bathroom counter that my makeup goes in. It is a win/win for us because it gives the illusion of picked up {which makes my husband happy} while not having to actually put anything away {which makes me happy... man how lazy do I sound?}.

Supplies:
~ bowl {I used an old plastic picnic bowl}
~ plate {I used a plastic picnic plate}
~ salt shaker {I used the kind that had a screw on lid, so I screwed that off before I started}
~ E6000
~ gloss spray paint


What I did:
{one} clean your bowl, plate and shaker well before starting
{two} lightly coat the top and bottom of your salt shaker with the E6000 and stick the bottom to the center of your plate and the top to the center {bottom} of your bowl

{three} this is the hardest step of all: allow your creation to completely dry for 24-48 hours!!!! This is super important so that it is completely dry.
{four} paint your tray the desired color and let dry {make sure to do thin even coats... you do not want your paint to run}

Once it was completely dry I added it to the corner of my counter. I also took two glass votives {one small and one medium} and used the epoxy to hold them together as well. Once dry I filled the large votive with some dry split peas and used it to hold my makeup brushes and tweezers.

Melty bead fun with the kids!

**not super sure why my pics are sideways, and I have fiddled with it more than I am okay with so we are going to leave it up to the computer being crafty also and just ignoring the fact that you have to tilt your head**


I was supposed to post last Tuesday. I had a fabulous project all started that I planned on sharing with you guys. It's easy, it's cute, it's FREE! Well, that project came to a screeching halt when the kids found a giant bucket of Melty Beads that my son's teacher gave me at the end of last school year.

Baby #2 {aka Chelsey made these for my hubby}

We added magnetic strips to the back and viola! magnets for his desk at work!

{ruffled} streamers

We are in full on birthday mode in our house this week. My baby girl turns one on Friday and her party is on Saturday. One thing is for sure, when you have a mom who loves to get a little crafty, a birthday can not pass without some serious homemade decorations going on. I already showed you the pom-pom puffs and  the zebra platters that I made {by the way, I took your suggestions and will be adding a little monogram to them this week}, but I wanted to give you one other sneak peak into her party. 

A few weeks ago, I was at the dollar tree and I picked up a couple packages of streamers {black, white & hot pink}. I knew I would fancy em' up a bit before the party but was not really sure what I was going to do. So I went online and did a little browsing and found this tutorial and I was in heaven! If you have not checked out some of Dana's amazing creations over at Made get on over there and check it out... you will not be disappointed! 

I am not even going to leave you with a tutorial of how I did my streamers, because I seriously followed her directions exactly and it worked perfectly! I will just leave you with some pictures {because what's a post without pictures?}

What I love most about this project is you do not have to be an expert sewer.... I mean really, you don't even have to be able to sew a straight line. My lines on my streamers are not super straight, but I like it that way, it helps them curl a little more when hung, and gives it even more texture!