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.