I Bought a House!

A bird house that is!  But after stumbling across this sweet little blue bird house at a church yard sale for just $3, who could blame me for pulling the trigger?  I just love the happy, summery colors and I thought it would be the perfect addition to our back yard wilderness!

You see, we’re literally surrounded by nature here in Kingsport.  Our neighborhood is bordered by a mountain on one side and a river on the other, so it’s not unusual to have deer, rabbits, ducks, or even the occasional skunk or bear in the back yard.  So I’ve been gradually trying to capitalize on our one-ness with nature by turning our gardens and yard into a sanctuary of sorts for all of the little critters that come to visit. 

My new blue bird house is the next step in my master plan!  Not to mention the fact that it’s just plain adorable!

I mean, come on… what little bird wouldn’t want to call this place home?

Baby Boy Leonberg… 4-D!

Craig and I were very excited to have a 4-D ultrasound of our little guy last Friday (at 27 weeks and 1 day) and then a repeat 4-D again today (at 27 weeks 5 days).  Just as with Bailey, we got a lot of hand-in-face shots (see her 4-D pics here and here).

But thankfully, with a bit of patience we were able to get a few clear pictures of his sweet little face!

Can’t wait to see that adorable face in person!

12 Years Ago…

…Craig and I were just a couple of crazy high school kids flirting in class.  Then he asked me out!

And who could have imagined where that first date would lead?

Nursery-Turned-Shared-Bedroom

Craig and I are in the process of turning Bailey’s current nursery into a shared bedroom for her and her future brother. 

I’m sure some of you out there are thinking we’re totally crazy for doing this, but let me explain our thinking a bit.  First, kids share rooms all of the time.  My sister and I shared a room for years when we were little, so we figure until our kids get older sharing a room won’t be too big of an issue.  Second, we live in a 3-bedroom house and all of our family and a lot of our friends live out-of-state.  So, when we have people come to visit (which happens every couple of months and a few times a year at the holidays) we need a place for them to stay.  Even with our current guest bedroom available we’ve still had occasions where family and friends end up on couches, air mattresses, or at hotels.  So, keeping our guest bedroom free is a must! 

Now, as fun as it is to play around with planning a new space… converting Bailey’s current bedroom into a shared bedroom has presented us with a few different challenges: 

1. Fitting all of the necessities into a room that’s roughly 150 square feet
2. Working around the room’s architectural challenges features (the windows, the wall of closets, and the door)
3. Creating a space that works for both a toddler and an infant
4. Creating a space that will fit both a boy and a girl

Here’s a drawing of what Bailey’s room currently looks like…

…and here’s our plan for the shared bedroom.

You’ll notice a few big differences in the shared space.  Primarily, we plan to add a twin-sized bed for Bailey, so that the crib will be freed up for our new little guy when he arrives.  The second major furniture change is the addition of a smaller dresser in place of the humongous dresser that’s currently in the room.  We don’t really expect the down-sized drawer space to be a problem given the entire wall of closets in the room and the vacant dresser in the guest room that can be used for extra clothing storage.  You probably also noticed that the hamper and book case are missing from the drawing.  We don’t plan on eliminating these items entirely.  We just plan to tuck them away in one of the closets (probably the closet that’s closest to the rocker). 

So, that’s the plan for the nursery-turned-shared-bedroom.  As we all know, things don’t always work out according to plan… but we’re pretty sure that this room design will address the first couple of challenges on our list above.  Now, the last couple of challenges on the list we’re praying Pinterest and Google can help us figure out!

Flogging Molly!

Last Sunday, Craig and I saw Flogging Molly at The Fillmore Charlotte!  We had never been to this particular venue and we were really curious to check it out. 

(picture above found here)

The music hall was simply amazing!  Small.  Cozy. And beautiful! 

The show opened with The Devil Makes Three who we had never before heard, but were certainly impressed with.

“Black Irish”

We were a little underwhelmed by the second act, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears.  They performed a little longer than we would have liked, but it was worth the wait to see the headliners make their way to the stage!

I was beyond excited to see Flogging Molly!  I have been a fan of this Celtic-punk group for many years… and their performances most definitely did not disappoint!

“Drunken Lullabies”

“If I Ever Leave This World Alive”

“Whistles The Wind”

“The Sun Never Shines (On Closed Doors)”

What a fun way to spend a Sunday night!  Wish we could do something like this every weekend!

Valentine’s Day Crayon Hearts

No doubt you’ve seen crayon hearts flying all over the internet in recent weeks (here, here, here, or here just to name a few of the sites).  But nevertheless, I thought they would be a fun alternative to the typical candy given out at Valentine’s Day… especially considering Bailey’s classmates Valentines are all still under 2 1/2 years old.

This was a super cheap and easy project.  The total cost was about $1.  I found a pair of silicone heart-shaped ice trays in the $1 section at Target.  Since they were designed to be ice trays I wasn’t sure if they would work, but I figured for only $1 it was worth a shot.  Then I dug through the crayon box at home and at work and gathered a small bag of old, broken crayons.  And that was it.  No other real supplies needed other than a baking sheet and a small piece of aluminum foil. 

Next I removed the paper from the outside of the crayons and snapped them into small pieces.  I piled a mixture of colors into each heart and then placed the silicone ice tray on a baking sheet.  As an afterthought I added a small piece of aluminum foil under the silicone tray, just in case it wouldn’t hold up to the temperature of the oven. 

I stuck the crayons into the oven at 250 degrees for about 10-12 minutes.  I just kept a close watch on them and took them out once it appeared that all of the crayon pieces had melted.

I set the tray aside for about 10 minutes until the wax was able to “set up” just a bit.  At that point I stuck the entire tray into the freezer to speed up the cooling process.  Once the tray was completely cool I popped the new heart-shaped crayons out and voila!

 

I enlisted the help of Bailey to bag up all of the crayons in treat bags I bought on clearance after Valentine’s Day last year.  She had fun counting the crayons and the bags as we did this!

Next I opened Microsoft Publisher and whipped up an adorable Valentine’s Day card to attach to each bag of crayons.  The card read “Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Crayons Make Me Happy, And So Do You!” on one side and had a cute little elephant coloring page on the other.

I printed the cards out on cardstock and cut them to size.  I punched a hole in one corner and used ribbon to tie one to each bag of crayons.  Wouldn’t you know it… I forgot to snap a picture of the end product. 

Bailey took them into school today for her class’ Valentine swap and I’m pretty sure the kiddos loved them!

Valentine’s Day Lovin’ From the Oven!

I decided to do a little Valentine’s Day baking for Bailey and her pre-school class.  After scouring Google and Pinterest for various treats I decided to try to make these (originally from here):

I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but the basic concept is the same.  First things first, I gathered all of the necessary supplies:

• Wax paper
• Aluminum foil
• Baking sheet
• Rolling Pin
• Heart-shaped cookie cutters in various sizes (I bought the entire pack of 6 cookie cutters at Wal-Mart for under $2)
• Pillsbury sugar cookie dough (I decided to cheat a bit and buy the pre-made dough)
• Hard candies (I had Life Savers lying around, so I decided to work with what I had)

Then I placed the cookie dough between two sheets of wax paper and used a rolling pin to spread the dough to approximately 1/4 inch thick.

Of course, as with any baking job, this step is so much easier if you enlist the aid of an eager, apron-wearing helper.  Thankfully Bailey was more than happy to lend a freshly-washed hand!

Once the dough was rolled out we removed the top layer of waxed paper and began cutting out our hearts.

After cutting out the large hearts I used a spatula to place the cookie dough on a foil-lined baking sheet.  Then I used a smaller cookie cutter to cut out the center heart.  I removed the dough at the center and set it aside to be rolled-out and reused.

The next step involved breaking the Life Saver candies into small pieces and then pouring them into the center of each heart cookie.  I used about 1 1/2 Life Savers per cookie.

After this was done I baked the cookies as the directions on the tube of dough instructed… 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes (or until the edges of the cookies are slightly golden-brown and the candies are melted).  Once the cookies were done I removed the baking sheet and let it cool for about 5 minutes before removing the cookies and placing them on wire racks. 

And in the end we were left with a lovely plate of heart-shaped windowpane cookies!  Talk about yummy!

What a sweet Valentine’s Day treat for the kiddos (and the adults) in Bailey’s classroom!