Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I have so much to be thankful for, especially my wonderful family and friends!  I hope you all know how much I love and appreciate you!

Today we went to my in-laws' house.  I made/brought two sides:

my yearly staple:

Cooking Light's Cranberry-Apple Relish

(so sweet and yummy!)

and a new one for me this year, a combination of two recipes:

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Apples

(what can I say, I like apples!)

with the pecan topping from this recipe:

Sweet Potato Casserole

the final result:

Pure deliciousness!  Not sugary (no marshmallows on top!),

but sweet and smooth, creamy, and yummy!  This combo's a keeper!

The girls created turkeys out of their handprints yesterday:

This was the first time we made these and I think they turned out great and they were so proud of them!  We even included them in our Thanksgiving photo:

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!



Book Club

Have I mentioned I'm in a Book Club?  I had been in another BC prior to having kids that was really just a wine-drinking club, which would have been fine if we had also read and discussed books, but we rarely (never) did, so once things with my girls settled down a little bit I decided I wanted to be part of an actual BC, where we actually read and discuss books (while drinking wine and chatting about non-book things).  So I contacted four of my good girlfriends and they contacted 1-2 of their good girlfriends and we came up with a game plan and our BC began!  That was back in March and we have been going strong and meeting monthly and reading and discussing lots of books ever since.  Since I formed the group, I hosted the first get together and that means I also got to pick the first book, which was Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand:

What an amazing story! 

Nine months later it's my turn to host and pick the book again and this time I chose The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley:

We have not met to discuss it yet, but I finished it last night and it was terrific!  Happy, sad, historical, romantic, sad, happy, romantic, and just great!  I hope everyone else likes it as much as I did.

Other books we have read include:

A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein
The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (which we followed up with the movie & loved as much as the book!)
The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain
Zeitoun (Vintage) by Dave Eggers
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

My friends and I are also starting a Craft Night, in which we all get together (probably just seasonally) and the host comes up with crafts for all of us to do together.  We are starting next week with 3 Christmas crafts, which I will be sure to post the results of next week.  Fun fun!  I hope you are also part of some groups you find enjoyable!

Big Girl Bedding!

In addition to converting our guest room into a playroom/office, we are also in the process of converting our girls' bedrooms into "big girl bedrooms" and have been going back and forth for months trying to decide what bedding, furniture, and accessories to get them.  Here are some of the top considerations:

Pottery Barn Kids Gabrielle Quilted Bedding

Pottery Barn Kids Lily Quilted Bedding

Pottery Barn Kids Daisy Garden Quilted Bedding

and a few others (not from PBK).  But one of my girls is obsessed with pink and for a long time the other one was obsessed with purple, but recently started being obsessed with green, and since pink and green are also their bedroom paint colors (but the opposite of the girl who is obsessed with the color, of course!) and we don't want to repaint their walls, we want bedding that will match their current paint colors.  We also have pretty (not overly) modern rooms, which we want to continue, and since the above choices are not very modern, we kept looking. 

Here are their current toddler rooms:

The Green Room:

 

The Pink Room:

And here are the big girl bedding sets we ended up purchasing:

For The Green Room:

Land of Nod Tea Time Bedding

(with plain white sheets from Target)

For The Pink Room:

Land of Nod Floral Bohemian Bedding (no longer available)

(with light green sheets from Target)

And I, for one, could not be happier with them!  They are girly, but not childish, modern, but not overtly so, include their favorite colors, and coordinate with their paint colors.  Perfect!

A few weeks ago we purchased this dresser for The Green Room:

IKEA MALM 6-drawer dresser

and moved the IKEA EXPEDIT unit from that room to the playroom/office closet for more storage in both rooms, so that is another reason why we wanted more modern bedding (we plan to keep this dresser in this room, obviously).  We will also keep the rug, curtains, and some of the accesories in this room.  Another new thing we purchased for this room is this print:

I Believe in Pink wall art print by elissahudson on etsy

(which could not be more perfect for her!)

For the pink room, we will keep the curtains, rug, and most of the accessories.  But both girls are getting one of these:

(made by their grandpa (how cool is that?!)(will be painted white))

And to finish it all off, custom made headboard like these:

Target Circo Pink Dot Girl Headboard

(but in solid colors that match their new bedding sets)

I think it will all look great when finally put together!  I will post photos when that happens...

PS - I do intend to publish posts more than once a week!  Hopefully several this week since it's a short work week for my hubby, a holiday, and a long weekend!  Hope you all have a great week!

We ordered a rug!

We have been in the process of converting our under-used guest room into a playroom for a few months now and one major component that has been missing is a rug.  I have been searching and searching for one that goes with our black and white theme, but is kid-friendly, comfortable, and won't break the bank.  Some of my favorites have included:

IKEA Stockholm Rand Rug

Rugs USA Hip Hop Kids Zebra Black rug

Pottery Barn Teen Lattice rug

as well as a few others, but we finally ended up ordering this beauty:

Rugs USA Chevron Ivory rug

because we love the look, it would go in any room (not just a playroom - aka, although it's fun, it's not childish), it is plenty big (7'10" x 10'10") and at 50% off, we just could not beat the price!  It has been shipped, so hopefully it will arrive early this week.  Then we will be one step closer to turning this:

into a combination of these:

from Decor Pad

from Kids Stuff World

from Little Moth

from Young House Love

 

from Design Dazzle

from HGTV Canada

from Design Dazzle

from Real Simple

from Topit.me

from Pottery Barn Kids

Except that our playroom is also half office/sewing room/library/etc., so we didn't want to make it quite so childish, which is why we went with a black and white theme (and also because it matches our black and white furniture).  We already purchased these curtains to match:

IKEA EIVOR curtains

I will post a tour of the room with photos when it is completed!

The Queen's Sewing Saturday

My in-laws babysat the girls at their house all weekend (thank you!), so I spent the majority of Saturday sewing - and it was great!  Except that I had planned to make many more things than I actually had time to make because apparently I am the Queen of Silly Sewing Mistakes!  I don't know what the equivalent to having a green thumb is in sewing, but whatever it is, I definitely don't have it!  More like a black thumb.  Sewing definitely does not come naturally to me.  But I love it anyway.  It's about the process as much as the product, so thankfully I don't get too upset with myself, but it is rather annoying that I make such silly mistakes so often!  I just keep hoping my practice will help improve my skills with time.  And with all the projects I have planned and all the new ones I keep finding on pinterest and in the sewing books I keep looking at, there will definitely be plenty of practice!  Here's what I accomplished on my Sewing Saturday:

I'm really happy with the way my girls' library book bags turned out (I especially love the fabrics!) - they are reversible, which I think is really cool, but they were supposed to be even cooler with pockets, square bottoms, and interface lining.  The pockets were just a silly mistake, but the bottoms and the lining I completely did not understand how to do despite looking at several different explanations.  I think my mom will have to have a sit-down with me to explain this!  Again, none of this comes naturally to me!  It's like trying to build a skyscraper from scratch - I just can't see how it's supposed to be and need really detailed instructions.

This is the tutorial I used:

child's tote bag

As you can see, hers looks a little sturdier than mine!  But for my first bag, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  I just wish it had taken me the 30-45 minutes it should have taken, rather than the 5 hours the two bags took altogether!  Then maybe I could have worked on my living room pillows, camera lens cap pouch for my mom, pj pants for my girls, etc...  Oh well - maybe I will be more successful next time!

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Baby Shower Day!

I began this blog by talking about a baby shower I was going to for my hubby's cousin and today was the day!  I was (thankfully) able to complete everything I had hoped to and although none of it was perfect, I thought it was all pretty good and definitely good enough for my first baby shower gift set...actually, first sewing gift of any kind!  Here are the results:

What do you think?

My girls decided we should name the monkey Max, and while I didn't take any photos of the gifts being opened at the shower, I did take a photo of Max hanging out with Lindsey while she opened her other gifts:

He was definitely a hit!

And I can't wait to meet his new owner when Baby Williams arrives!  :)  Congratulations, Lindsey & Matt! 

(For more info on these projects, see my previous posts below.)