Baby Gifts

I just realized I didn’t have a post up yet for today, so I tore myself away from my sewing machine to hop on the computer for a bit.  Progress is actually being made on the puff quilt—yay!  I really should be cleaning my living room, but I decided to sew instead. 

Alex’s friends had a baby about a month ago and we finally got to go meet little Hannah week before last.  I whipped up a few cute outfits to take over as a baby gift.  My favorite baby gifts are definitely clothes—all kids need clothes.  Its super easy to personalize them too.  I usually do at least size six months, since it seems like most people get newborn sized stuff and that way if the baby is big, you don’t have to worry about the clothes being to small.

I made matching shirts for Hannah and her big brother Henry.  I thought they could be cute in pictures or something.  I used freezer paper stenciling and my Cricut to cut out the letters.

Henry got a shirt and some squishy dinosaurs.  Henry’s a funny little guy and was actually scared of the dinosaurs at first, but he warmed up to them after we played with them for a while.

Hannah got three little outfits.  I’ve posted about the one on the right before here, so if you’re curious, you can check them out.  I used my Forever Young Cricut cartridge for the middle one using freezer paper stenciling. 

Monday Musings

I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but it has finally cooled down here a little bit.  I cannot wait until fall.  I think that fall is my favorite season—it would be perfect if it had basketball instead of football.  We’ve been out and about enjoying the nice weather.  Last week we had dinner with friends one night and went to the T-Bones game another.  If you from Kansas City and have never been to a T-Bones game, I’d highly recommend it.  Its way cheaper than a Royals game and just as much fun.  Saturday night we went to Em Chamas, a Brazilian grill, to celebrate our anniversary.  Its kids of surreal that we have been dating for two years.  Our actual anniversary was yesterday.  We ran some errands and I got this:

It’s a Cannon Rebel T2i and I love it.  I don’t actually know how to use it yet, but I’m loving it so far.  I took it to softball last night and took a bunch of pictures.  I also took some pictures at home, including a photoshoot with Mr. Potato Head.

If anyone wants to teach me how to use it, let me know.  Other than errands, we had a pretty quiet day.  Dinner at Ihop (my choice lol):

And then softball.  Luckily it was a nice night and the boys won, so we hung out in the parking lot for a while afterwards.

On the project front, I got the birthday gift done for my friend.  Now I’m just waiting for her to come back into town so I can give it to her and show it to you all.  I didn’t work on the puff quilt (surprise surprise) but I did decide on a new hobby for football season—I’m going to teach myself to knit and/or crochet.  I just have to go get the stuff from my mom so I can get started.

Here’s what we are eating this week:

Sunday: IHop for our anniversary :)
Monday:  Enchiladas (We didn’t get around to it last week)
Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs (We didn’t get around to it last week)
Wednesday: Brunch Casserole
Thursday: BBQ Chicken Stuffed Potatoes
Friday: Chicken Spaghetti
Saturday: Pot luck at friends’ house

Projects for This Week

The puff quilt is still on the list and will be until its done—I’m feeling a little more motivated this week so maybe something good will happen.
I’ve got a while bunch of little piddly half done projects that I need to finish this week—hang some pictures, finish a couple of wreaths I started but got distracted, those kinds of things. 
I’m starting on baby gifts and baby shower projects for some good friends.  I have a lot of fun things planned, so be on the look out at the end of September when I’ll share them.

Some Inspiration for the Week

Source: etsy.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Saturday Scrapbook Page

 

I cut the flowers out of different patterned paper with a punch.  I like how they stand out against the yellow paper.  The little starts are stickers so are the letters.

Foodie Friday

I was supposed to post this last Friday and well, I failed.  Probably a good thing though because we’ve been eating out or boring this week.  Although after last night, my patience for restaurants is growing thin.  We went out with some friends to a place called Cheddars in Independence.  Its right be Bass Pro off 291.  Its ALWAYS packed, or at least the parking lot is.  So much so that Alex and I joke that they must have a deal with the car dealership across the street that Carmax parks its extra cars there to make it look busy.  I’d never been there, so I was kind of looking forward to it.  We had to wait for over an hour because they skipped over us and forgot to seat us.  Then the bartenders lost our drink tickets so we had to wait FOREVER.  When they finally came out one of them was wrong and the manager who brought them over spilled two of them all over one of our friends.  She hardly even got an apology.  They replaced the wrong drink with another wrong drink and brought all of the food but one person’s and then when they did finally bring his food out, they only brought half of the dish and he had to wait for the other half.  And they didn’t comp any of the bill until we asked if they were going to do anything for our troubles.  Honestly, it got to the point where the whole night was just so ridiculous that we had to laugh.  Needless to say, I don’t think we will be going back there again.

Anyway, you may remember from last week that one of the recipes we were going to have for dinner was Pizza Pancakes.  I had found this idea on Pinterest, but don’t seem to have pinned it so I can’t share the link.  I’d never really thought about doing a savory pancake before, but after this we are hooked. 

They were super easy too.  I used Bisquick (actually the reduced fat store brand Bisquick) and mixed some Italian seasoning and meatball chunks in the batter.  You could do any pizza topping—pepperoni, sausage, veggies, whatever.  You could do pancakes from scratch, maybe just reduce the amount of sugar.  Instead of syrup, we topped them with spaghetti sauces and parmesan cheese.  You can bet we will be making these again!

Puff Quilt #1 Again

You might remember the first puff quilt I made for my cousin’s baby—if not, you can find it here.  I gave it to them at Easter and just recently got some super cute pictures from that day.  The little guy was super tiny and one of my aunts had a giant Easter basket.  So of course, we had to take some pictures:

You can tell he wasn’t all that impressed, but he didn’t fuss either—what a good sport!

Isn’t his outfit cute?

What a cutie! 

Worldly Wednesday

Morgan, Emily & Emily looking across the river at the Papal Place, Avignon, France.
I love to travel and have been lucky enough to have visited a lot of amazing places.  Every Wednesday I share one picture of the places I’ve been.

S’mores!

It has been brought to my attention (thanks Mom) that tomorrow is National S’mores Day. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is more like Talk Like A Pirate Day than Christmas, but I for one will be celebrating.  If you follow me on Pinterest, you may have noticed I have a think for s’mores right now.  You might think s’mores are only for camping, but man you are wrong.

You can put them in a jar:

Source: thekitchn.com via Courtney on Pinterest

 

You can make them into a cupcake:

Source: glorioustreats.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

 

Maybe you prefer your s’mores a bit more on the ice cream side:

Source: divinepartyconcepts.com via Courtney on Pinterest

 

Would you like a cookie?

Source: picky-palate.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Or maybe a cookie bar (note: these are my new favorite desserts—they are heaven in a pan—seriously)

Source: lovintheoven.com via Courtney on Pinterest

 

You can have s’mores for breakfast

Source: bedifferentactnormal.com via Courtney on Pinterest

 

Pie?

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Source: justataste.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Nachos?

Source: eatathomecooks.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I’ve got more on there, so head on over to check it out.  As you can probably tell, I slightly obsessed with s’mores.  My Mom caught on to this and while I was studying for the Bar she surprised me with a pretty awesome s’mores treat.  She put mini Hershey’s Kisses, Teddy Grahams, mini marshmallows and brownies in jars.  I apologize in advance for the TERRIBLE pictures—apparently my brain was having a really off day that day.

Yummy!  (And blurry)

Doesn’t that look tasty.  It gest even better:

That’s right, we microwaved them for a little while, just to get everything soft and gooey.  If you leave the brownies out, it makes a great s’mores trail mix.  Just don’t take it to a baseball game in a million degree heat—take my word for it.

Monday Musings

You know how a lot of people swear by having a routine for their kids and sticking to it?  I do that to myself.  I am way more productive and way less stressed when I have a routine to follow.  The last few weeks have been pretty routine-less because of everything going on, but I think I am finally back to a point where I can figure something out.  It seems like lately when I set out to have a very productive day, well, as John Steinbeck said, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.  I’m trying though and one of these days its going to work out for me.  I did okay on my list from last week—I got the baby gifts done and the apartment is starting to look nice again.  I didn’t work on the puff quilt at all because I ended up going back to work last week.  I’m not licensed yet (won’t get the Bar results until mid-September), so I’m doing the same thing as before, working part time.  I’m so thankful for it though, even if it did cut my vacation short. 

Here’s what we are eating this week:

Sunday: Tacos
Monday:  Skillet Chicken with Tomatoes
Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs
Wednesday: Chicken BLTs
Thursday: T-Bones game
Friday: Enchiladas
Saturday: Date Night for our anniversary (crazy to think we’ve been dating for 2 years now)
 

Projects for This Week

One of my law school friends had a birthday right before the Bar.  Due to time constraints (aka studying for 12 hours a day), I had to give her an IOU.  I've come up with something that I think is going to be pretty cute but you guys won’t get to see it until I have a chance to give it to her.
Maybe I’ll actually get a chance to work on the puff quilt this week.  Don’t hold your breath—the last one took me forever to do too.  I seriously am the world’s slowest sewer. 
I’ve got to come up with a  new hobby/craft that I can do during football games.  I really don’t like football but Alex loves it.  I’m thinking of taking up knitting (again).  I know how to do it, I’m just not patient enough.  If anyone has any ideas for a portable hobby, let me know.

A Little Inspiration to Get You Though the Week

(I’m feeling a little sappy, with the whole anniversary thing this week).  Have a great week everyone!

I almost forgot to mention the most exciting thing--my Mod Podge Shoes were featured over at Keepin it Thifty!  Its a great blog, so go check it out:

Worldly Wednesday

Disturbingly Large Pink Pelican, Mykonos, Greece

I love to travel and have been lucky enough to have visited a lot of amazing places.  Every Wednesday I share one picture of the places I’ve been.

Mod Podge Shoes

I’ve seen posts about using Mod Podge to attach fabric to shoes all over the place and decided to give it a try.  I had a pair of black ballet flats that had a hole where my big toe nail is.  I’m too cheap to buy new shoes at the moment (other than some clearance flip flops at Target that I love) so I decided to see if I could give the flats a second life.  I figured that the worst thing that happened was that I ruined a pair of already ruined shoes.

You can see the hole on the one on the right.  Its not a big hole, but its noticeable and since I wear these shoes to work, I wanted them to look nice.  Since the only problem was the hole, I decided just to cover the toes and not the whole thing.  That way if it didn’t work out, I hadn’t wasted too much fabric.  Plus, it seemed easier.  I used a heavier weight fabric (duck cloth I think) and outdoor Mod Podge so they would be a little more weather proof.  No step-by-step pictures, because like most of my projects, I just kind of winged it.  All I did was cut a square of fabric, glued it on then trimmed it along the bottom.  A few more coats of Mod Podge to seal it up and you have:

Tada!  No more hole.  They aren’t perfect, but no one spends a lot of time staring at my feet.  And they are somewhat waterproof—the first day I wore them it rained cats and dogs.  I’ve worn them several times now and they still look great.  I was a little concerned that the white fabric would get dingy or dirty quickly, but so far, with normal wear (I’m not jumping in any mud puddles), they still look nice.  Not a bad (free) fix for a pair of shoes that would have otherwise gone in the trash.

Sunday Summary (On Monday)

This was the post I was originally going to do yesterday, but we spent the day with Alex’s parents finishing the last four (of nine) loads of laundry that needed to get done to catch up from bar prep.  Then Alex had the first of three 10:00 softball games this session.  We have a terrible schedule and no one is happy about it.  The only good thing about it was that by then it had cooled off a little.

I try to plan out our menu for the week in advance.  This way we have a plan when we go grocery shopping, which saves us money.  I also find that it takes away a lot of stress too because I hate when 5:00 rolls around and I have no idea what we are going to have for dinner.  I like when other people pose things like this on their blogs because it gives me new ideas for our dinners. 

Here’s what we are eating this week:

Sunday: Dinner with Alex’s family

Monday: Pizza pancakes with salad

Tuesday: Drunken Pork Chops with Rice

Wednesday: Cornbread Taco Casserole

Thursday: Soft Pretzel Dogs

Friday: Tortellini with Trader Joe’s Bruschetta topping

Saturday: Sporting Kansas City game

Projects for This Week

I’ve got another puff quilt in the works.  This one is for Alex’s cousin’s baby.  They are in town this week so I’m hoping to get it done so I don’t have to mail it to them.  I’ve had most of the pieces cut out since before graduation, so I’m ready to get it out the door.  I’m only cautiously optimistic about this one.

We got caught up on laundry but the rest of our apartment has been sorely neglected over the last month.  My goal is always to keep it neat enough so that I’m no embarrassed if we have company show up unexpectedly.

One of Alex’s buddies had a baby at the height of last month’s insanity, so we haven’t met her yet.  We’re taking dinner over there this week, which means I have to cook and finish her gifts. 

A Little Inspiration to Get You Though the Week

Source: etsy.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Hope everyone has a great week!

Worldly Wednesday

Inside the Catacombs, Paris, France

I love to travel and have been lucky enough to have visited a lot of amazing places. Every Wednesday I share one picture of the places I’ve been.