I really want to blog about our last couple of weeks and upload a boat-load of pictures, but that will have to wait. We left for Minneapolis last Wednesday morning, to Spokane, WA Thursday morning via airplane, drove an hour east to Coeur d' Alene, ID and spent the entire week in a crazy beautiful cabin on a lake, came back to Minneapolis at midnight Thursday, spent a couple of days with RJ's aunt, spent some time with my family and then went to my cousin's crazy beautiful wedding on Saturday in St. Paul, and FINALLY came home today. That was a l-o-n-g time to be gone. It was awesome! Yet I am so glad to be home. 

And since I don't have time to do much else, here are a couple of photos from my amazingly talented friend, Alisa. The rest are on their way to my house and I can not wait to see them. She seriously made my family picture dreams come true! And considering we don't get our family photos taken often (aka: every 3 years or so) my hopes were high and of course she went beyond what I was hoping for. 

And I've only seen about 4 pictures.

Craft show this weekend. Probably won't sleep much, but that's fun every now and then, right? 

Right!!

Button Hole

Another of my recent projects are some little girl dresses. They are apron knot dresses and I got the pattern off of Etsy from Little Lizard King. I made a dress for Harper last Spring so already had the pattern and have loads of scrap fabric and vintage dresses, so....

This first one has the bodice from an old table cloth of mine, the skirt is from a skirt of mine I got at a consignment store in Maine but I hated the way it fit me, and apron has an applique that is made up of old and new fabrics.

This dress:

bodice again from the table cloth, the skirt is from a vintage girls dress, and the pocket is from a vintage "house coat".

The straps will go through button holes in the front and then you tie a knot.

The problem I have is that I can not for the life of me figure out my button hole attachment, so if you have a sewing machine I'll probably be bugging you for help.

Hoping to make about 5 or 6 of these dresses for the craft show.

And if they don't sell......lucky Harper!

My kids have been eating grilled cheese sandwiches like crazy for lunch lately. Pretty much every day. Not because they love them, but because sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But finally! Yesterday was the day to go grocery shopping. Big time Costco grocery shopping, to be exact. I thought I'd try something fun and healthy for the kids for their lunch instead of "grilled cheese, again?!!?" sandwiches. Henry loved it...Harper...well, we'll work on it. 

A yogurt, flax seed, frozen berries, and spinach smoothie.

I had to add a little milk too, or you could add juice if you have some.

  

It was tasty!

I just started a "challenge" at Farrell's on Monday and it's 8 weeks long. It's similar to when I did my first 10 week challenge, but it's based on points. All different ways to get points throughout the 8 weeks and the winner gets money! And maybe a new pants size!!

You get 6 points per week for nutrition. If you mess up once, you get zero points. And you can't eat out. Ever. Not even at Subway. 

Brutal!

But I still will have my Fun Day. Oh, thank you, Fun Day.

Anyways, here is my latest project:

I got a little stack of these hoops at a garage sale so I'm going to make a few of these thingies for a craft show I'm doing in Nov.

Thoughts? Too weird? Not weird enough? Not cute enough? Too cutesy?

I still need to paint the frame. 

I need your help because my poor husband gets a little burned out when I force him to critique my work all the time.

Well regardless, it was fun to do and I can't wait to do a few more!

Hope you all have a great Tuesday!

What a wonderful weekend!

Friday we got a Hot N' Ready and went to Raccoon River park and ran around, played, gathered sticks and leaves, and enjoyed the crazy beautiful weather.

I'm not liking how old my children are looking....

I was so proud of my Henry-boy. My (overly) cautious first born is getting more and more brave and daring.

On Saturday after waiting for RJ to get home from working, we went over to the Art Center area and ran around and walked. Of course we had to dodge the 8 (kid you not) photographers and their subjects. It's that time of year, I suppose.

I always thought those were antlers on top of them there deer, but apparently they are small dogs. Who knew?

Our beauty of an art center. Folks, we may not live in a big city, but we've got some pretty great art!

Then there is this beauty:

I went to some garage sales on Friday and they were crazy Pinterest inspiring sales. I had to try really really hard not to go crazy, but I did walk away with this beautifully tacky owl for $1. She's about 10" tall and I can't decide if I should leave her gold (I have a strange love for tacky, tacky things) or spray paint it a solid color. What a tough decision, eh?

And bless my sweet husband...Henry has been talking about making a "paper oven" for a few days now and had this big idea of how to do it and what he wanted to do with it when he was done, so RJ helped him make his dreams come true.

 

It was just a lovely, family weekend. This weather is top-notch!

The kids have been so fun lately, and I seem to have snapped out of my 2 month long bad mood. Don't tell me you didn't notice. :)

Hope you all have a gorgeous Monday!

I haven't been taking many pictures lately and not a whole lot of exciting things are going on to blog about. School is still going really well for Henry and it's cute to see him interact with his little buddies and give them hugs when he leaves. Harper is having fun with me during the afternoons, but lately we've both been napping. Getting up at 5:15 every morning for Farrell's is starting to wipe me out and now that it's so dark in the morning it makes it harder for some reason.  The time change can't come soon enough!! 

So since I don't have any pictures I thought I'd share some recipes I used a few weeks ago. Mostly so I can use them again. They were super yummy! And one is kind of my first official recipe I sort of made up. Follow?

Sweet Potato, Sausage, and Kale Soup

*Recipe from Cooking Light

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cups chopped onion (about 2 large)
• 1 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 pound sweet turkey Italian sausage
• 8 cups coarsely chopped peeled sweet potato (about 2 1/4 pounds)
• 5 cups water
• 4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 1 (16-ounce) package prewashed torn kale
• 1 (16-ounce) can cannellini beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 5 minutes. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, pepper, and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Remove casings from sausage; add sausage to pan. Cook 5 minutes or until sausage is lightly browned, stirring to crumble. Add potato, 5 cups water, and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 8 minutes. Gradually add kale; cook 10 minutes or until tender. Stir in remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and beans; cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. * I also added a touch of cream at the end. Cuz it never hurts.This soup was so yummy and really hit the spot when it was chilly a few weeks ago. Before it got hot again. And then got cold again. And then hot.

Angel Food Cake with peaches and basil

I kind of made this recipe up with some inspiration from here. I made my angel food cake via Alton Brown's recipe, and I have to say...now that I've done it quite a few times it's gotten easy and I don't have a problem with them "falling" anymore. It was worth the perseverance! Especially since it is my husband's favorite dessert.
Then for the topping:

1 cup red fruity wine (I just used a Merlot that was on sale)
1 cup orange juice
1-2 tbl sugar

*let that come to a boil and simmer for about 15-20 minutes until it's nice and reduced to about 1/2 cup.
In the meantime, peel and cut 6 peaches and cook in a saute pan with a couple of tbl of sugar and let it get all yummy. Yummy. Yummy.
Once you liquid is reduced, add it to the peaches and let it all blend together for a few minutes at a simmer. Slice your angel food cake, pour on some of the topping (or a lot! Cuz it's yummy) and top with basil. I know. It sounds weird, but it's really good and refreshing. I had heard a lot about combining strawberries and basil so thought this would work too. In fact, I made it for 2 different sets of company in the same weekend because RJ and I liked it so much.


Hope you are all having a good week! And hopefully I'll remember to take some more pictures so I can document Fall 2011 for my little family before it's gone. I love fall!! But it goes so fast.

Kitchen Remodel 2011

 Okay, I already put these on facebook, but now I need to document it in thee ol' blog. 

So here is a before of the wall:

 The "middle" phase with the wall gone:

And the after:

 I think the stools are one of my favorite pieces in the kitchen. They are vintage and we found them on Craigslist for a really good price.

I used the tutorial of turning mini blinds into roman shades (it's all over pinterest) for all the windows. It was super easy and so, so, so, much cheaper than if I had bought them in a store. 

We also took out our old chandelier (which I loved) but there was just too much light going on. So I got that lamp shade at Target (for under $4!) and a lamp base and hung it up. So if it looks like we have a lamp hanging upside down on the ceiling....we do.

 

Here is a close up of the pictures I found at a thrift store. I was pumped when I found them!...until I saw the price was $40 for the set. Without me even asking, the lady said she would sell them to me for $20 total. SOLD.

This island. You can see my $1 vintage aprons and the "Attention" bulletin board I got at a garage sale for a whole quarter. And my lovely pot hanging rack my awesome friend Julie made.

Notice all the trim work? It took RJ about 800 nails, but he did such a great job and I love it.

Just another view and you can see the clock I got at a garage sale for just $10. I was going to paint it, but I'm resisting the urge. For now.

Shelving:

Another view from the dining room:

Here's a close up of the back splash. These are the tops to little metal shelves from IKEA. We just screwed them into the wall. When we got to the check out the lady asked what in the world we were going to do with all those shelves and when we told her she was sure to mention that we can always return it. Guess she didn't see our vision.

RJ's shiny "coffee station":

And this sign is from a coffee shop over in Urbandale. They had one hanging up and I asked if they had any more and she just let me have one. For free.

Combine that with a frame I got for nine CENTS at the Goodwill outlet and here ya go:

Okay, enough already, I know! I will try to not utter another word about our kitchen and get back to the much more important things in life. Phew. Glad that remodel is over and done with!

Have a good week!

An early morning with my boy.

 So thankful he has Fridays off! He is loving school, but it is wearing him out....

so naturally, he wakes up at 6 am...

I woke up to go to Farrell's, but my stomach was giving me some pains so I stayed home and watched "The Littles" with this guy. 

With the lamp on because it was still dark outside...

I am really enjoying my afternoons with Harper. When the two of them are together it's lots of yelling, screaming, and fighting. But when she is by herself, she's pure sweetness. She stopped napping (what?! She's only 2 1/2) but it doesn't seem to affect her at all so she gets to hang out with me while Henry is away. Perfect. 

So our first week of preschool went great! Henry is tired, but loves it. 

And I am loving it too.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!