Pumpkins!

Who doesn’t love carving pumpkins??? I can remember carving pumpkins as a kid and it took FOREVER! I had to keep adjusting and tweaking to make sure my pumpkin was “just right”. I can honestly say that some things never change… :) This year we waited until the last minute (the day before Halloween) to carve our pumpkins. Now we are all set for Trick or Treating tomorrow night!
I used a cookie cutter on mine (great idea from Pinterest) and the boys drew scary faces.

Happy Halloween!

DIY Tab Dividers

Over the past couple years I have transitioned from attempting to scrapbook (I couldn’t keep up) to making cards. Making cards has allowed me to continue paper crafting without feeling the stress of not being able to keep up with scrapbooks. I do still scrapbook some, mostly I designate 1 weekend a year to scrapbooking with the girls and crank out 1 album for the year for my son. Right now this works for me.
Anyways…the making of cards has led to the need for storage. Initially I was able to keep them in my old card box that had ready-made organization – printed dividers, folders, etc. As I continue to make more and more cards, I had to find a new storage box. As you can see, I was using a pretty fancy system for sorting my cards….Love those Post-It Notes!

I have been planning to make dividers for awhile, it’s all just a matter of time. This weekend I enjoyed a couple extra days off from work, so the time was now!
First I cut out a pattern and then I used some cardboard leftover from some packages we recently received. I made a total of 9 dividers.

Then I cut out some scrapbook paper and glued it on. The last step was to print some labels with my labeler (it’s a Brother - I’ve had it for years and it works GREAT!). I used the clear laminated labels so that the words would “pop” off the page.

I am pleased with my easy DIY tab dividers – it was the perfect upgrade to my card storage system!

I Love Pinterest!

Pinterest has become one of my favorite sites to go to for inspiration. There are so many great ideas for projects, home decor, DIY gifts, clothing, yummy food, etc. Here are some of my recent pins on Pinterest:

Repinned from Crafty by Shannon Emrich

You could make different sayings for the Holidays - Haunted, Thanks, Xmas, Easter, etc. and change them out for the different holidays/seasons.

Repinned from yum by Lana Katsaros

Seriously, these look sinfully delicious! I may have gained 5 lbs just looking at them!

Pinned to Yummy by Shawna

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to decorate for.
I love the vintage look of these decorations from West Elm.

Have you joined in on the Pinterest fun? Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest!

A New Bag!

My Mom retired a couple years ago and has been busy sewing non-stop ever since. She makes all kinds of things, mostly quilts, but has been having fun making some new things too. We recently visited my parents in Wisconsin, and I was fortunate enough to bring home some of her hand-made goodies. She made me a new scarf, an iPad case and this super cute bag!

The colors of this bag are crazy and bright!

Check out the flower she made to dress it up - cute, huh?

And look at all the space on the inside! The pockets add some much needed function.

I sure am lucky to have such a talented Mom!

Sweet Corn!

In late summer we are lucky enough to enjoy delicious fresh sweet corn. Several times each week we stop at a local farmer's stand to pick up some sweet corn that was picked fresh that morning. We always buy a dozen ears (usually it's 14-15 ears) and we cook it all, knowing that we will only eat about 1/2 of it. The leftovers are always cut off the cob and frozen, to be saved for the perfect side dish later in the fall. When we are freezing corn, we usually put about 3-4 ears worth of corn per bag. Each bag is squeezed to eliminate air, dated, and then the bags are double-bagged into another freezer bag to help keep it fresh.

One evening we decided to buy 4 bags (approx 70 ears!!) to freeze, to ensure we would have LOTS of corn for later. Here is about 25% of the corn that we froze that evening:

After 2+ hours of work, we had 17 more bags of fresh corn to put in our deep freezer.

So delicious!!!

Foto Frame Fun

We recently took on the task of giving our Master Bedroom an overhaul (more on that later - promise!) which inevitably led to additional projects. Painting the bedroom a cool blue required a new duvet cover, which required new curtains, updating the photo wall, etc. What started out as a painting project ballooned into a much bigger project, that still is not done, over a month later....

While thinking about re-doing the photo arrangement, I spent some quality time researching on Pinterest for ideas. If you have not explored Pinterest yet, I highly recommend you check it out. You do need an invitation to join, but lots of people are willing to share invites - check out Pinterest on Facebook for more info. Here are a few of the pics I found on Pinterest (sorry, I don't have the sources) that were inspiration for the changes to our photo wall -

I really liked the idea of adding our initial to the wall, so I put my hubby to work building/painting an "F" - thankfully he is SUPER handy! After laying out all of my frames on the floor in a new and improved arrangement, I decided that I should cut out magazine frames to tape on the wall to ensure the placement of the frames would be perfect on the first try. Young House Love had great success with this technique, so I had to give it a try.

Here are some pics of the process -

First I made a plan on the floor.

Then I cut the magazine pages to match the frames.

Once the magazine "frames" were on the wall I was able to adjust them until
they were right where I wanted them.

Most of the frames on the wall. Somehow I forgot to take a "final" picture...

All of the pics except the frame in the lower right are really our family, although the pics are all at least a year old. It's definitely time to update to some new photos! Plus, it's time to add some color to these walls - no more B&W photos for now! Doesn't the F look great?!?

Once the frames are all updated, I will be back with an update. We are having family pics taken in September, so I may just put this project on hold until after the new pics are taken. We'll see how impatient I get looking at the faces of some strangers on our walls!

Following the magazine frame idea used by Young House Love was definitely an excellent decision. I can say with confidence that it pays to watch and learn from others!

Time for K.... Already?!?

It seems like it has been an eternity since we began our journey to parenthood. After working with fertility specialists, we decided the best route for us was adoption. Once we made that decision is was like a dark cloud had lifted. Seriously, it was a freeing feeling to know that we would finally be parents, we just would have to work with someone else's timeframe. After completing all of the required paperwork and background checks that are a part of the home study process, we waiting 6 Short long months until our little guy arrived.

This was in the car the day we brought him home. Those eyes say it all!

At 8-months old, Anthony was nearly crawling, and we were clueless parents. We had been preparing for a newborn and suddenly we had an 8-month-old! What do we feed him? When does he sleep? He's almost crawling! We QUICKLY adjusted and fell in love with parenthood. He truly was an amazing little dude.

Now here we are, 4.5 years later and he's 5-years-old and off to Kindergarten!!! He is attending a public school that follows a year-round calendar. School started at the end of July, so here we find ourselves suddenly not just parents, but parents of a Kindergartener! How did this happen so fast?!?

1st Day of Kindergarten, July 2011

For those of you wondering how the year-round schedule works, it's really pretty slick. The year-round schedule is also called a 45/15 calendar. This means that the students have 45 days "on" and then 15 days "off". Basically they start school at the end of July, take a 3-week break in October, another 3 week break over Christmas/New Year's and the last 3-week break is "Spring Break". Summer break is still 6-7 weeks, which is plenty long for children who get bored. For our family, this schedule is going to work perfect. Not only will Anthony not have a super long summer break to forget what he learned, he's also have long breaks during the year which will help keep him ready to learn. Plus, his teacher will be nice and refreshed from her extended breaks during the school year. The extra bonus - we can take family vacations during non-peak travel times.

In addition to having a Kindergartener, we are waiting to adopt again. More about that later. Please send us your positive thoughts that it will be our turn again soon!