Weekly Pinterest Project: Week 8-Fall Rosette Wreath

Hello!  Welcome to my eighth installment of my weekly Pinterest project! If you follow me on Pinterest, you will find that I’m a little obsessed with pinning things! I was one of those people pre-Pintetest who had binders full of torn out magazine pages with pics of beautiful home decor and yummy recipes.  Ha!  Anyway, I thought I would attempt a craft this time and created a fall wreath.  There are so many out there on blogs and Pinterest, it was hard to decide what to make!  Check out these diy fall wreaths!  I have always wanted to make rosettes and came across several wreaths that included felt rosettes.  I followed the directions from this blog but adapted it slightly.  Here’s my step by step on how to make a rosette wreath:

1) Go to a craft store and purchase the following supplies (or gather them from your house, depending on how crafty you are, ha!):

Glue gun (how am I 33 years old and have not owned a glue gun?!! What?! We had one growing up but I never purchased one as an adult.)

Sheets of felt.  I used one sheet per color but that’s because I didn’t want many rosettes on my wreath.  If you want the entire wreath covered, you will need a bunch of sheets.  Sidenote: my husband and kiddos were with me in Michaels and helped me pick out the rosette colors.  I wanted to go with  navy and off white felt for the wreath (even though it wasn’t very fall-ish) but my husband convinced me to get some earthy, fall colors.  I thought about going with a yellow, navy, and off white, but that was too much like WVU football colors.  Then I suggested orange and burgundy, which was like VT.  Every color combo was shot down by my husband because of how much it looked like specific football teams! So, I ended up with orange, yellow, and off white (though that’s probably some football team’s colors, ha!).  As I am writing this, my husband informed me that the colors we selected were not that close to any specific teams.

A blank CD

Pins

Velcro adhesive

Fabric scissors

Grapevine wreath

Ribbon for hanging the wreath

2) Use the CD to trace felt circles.  Cut the felt circles into a spiral.  I pinned the rosettes together until  I finished the 12 rosettes.  One sheet of felt equaled four rosettes.

3) Glue the rosettes at the end (with a glue gun).

4) After thinking more about the colors I used for the wreath, I didn’t want the wreath to be so permanent.  I looked around Pinterest and found several ways to create an interchangeable wreath.  I glued velcro on the wreath and on the back of the rosettes so I can swap out rosettes depending on the season.  I really want those dark blue rosettes that I originally picked out, ha! Maybe I could make a navy blue and coral wreath for the spring or summer…hmm.

5) Attach a ribbon and hang on your door!  This project took me about an hour and fifteen minutes, which wasn’t too bad since it was the first time I made the rosettes.  I was able to complete this project while Harper and Will napped!

Fall Fun List!

Happy Fall! I found this cute fall fun list printable from Jenny Collier.  She has several cute and free printables, including a summer fun list.  I will definitely be pinning that one for next year!

Fall is one of my favorite seasons-so many fun activities to do outside!  I just made a free fall photo book from our adventures last fall (from Shutterfly)-say that five times fast!.  Since fall is here, we better get busy on our list! This weekend, we plan on going to the pumpkin patch. We’ve already done some hiking and went to the farmer’s market, though we hope to go hiking several more times this fall.  Next weekend, we are going with my parents to a local apple orchard.  We have plans every weekend in October.  So.much.fun!

Five on Friday!

Hello!  I’m linking up with Darci and friends for Five on Friday!

I went to a barn sale last weekend-so much fun! I had never been to a barn sale, but this past weekend, there were two barn sales in the area.  A friend of mine had a booth set up, selling her adorable headbands and accessories.  There were cute accessories and antique furnishings.  I bought some hair accessories and custom ordered a hairclip to match my daughter’s outfit for our fall pictures.  I wasn’t at the sale long…the kiddos were home with daddy and were super fussy.

A Panera Bread opened up near us recently, so we decided to eat dinner there the other evening.  It was delicious! I love Panera, but my husband isn’t that crazy about it. I convinced him to go, and luckily the kids loved it! I can have Will and Harper beg daddy to take us there, ha!  Will and Harper shared some mac and cheese and yogurt.  I had the broccoli cheese soup in a breadbowl (my husband also had soup/breadbowl).  Yum! It was chilly enough for soup that night:)  I thought it was a pretty good deal-dinner for a family of four for $17!

I can’t get over how big Miss H is! She is talking like crazy lately…it seems like as soon as she turned a year and a half, her vocabulary exploded!  She’s repeating everything we say and responding well to our questions.  It’s so amazing to watch!  Love her!

I love watching Will and Harper play together.  As she gets older, she plays more and more with WIll.  It’s so much fun having kiddos close in age.  I hope they will stay close as they grow up.  My husband and I always knew that we wanted to have our kids close in age (around 2 years apart).  Will and Harper are 22 months apart.  I recently realized that when WIll was Harper’s current age (18 months), I was already five months pregnant with her! Yikes!   No, I’m not pregnant, and we don’t plan on having any more kiddos (I would like to but my husband doesn’t).  But it’s hard to remember Will being so young when I was pregnant with Harper.

I saw these play scarves the other day at our favorite local toy store.  Miss H played with some similar scarves the other day in music class and loved them.  They might need to go on our Christmas list, ha! Speaking of Christmas, I like to get my shopping done early.  I haven’t started shopping yet, but I need to start soon.

Have a wonderful Friday!

Weekly Pinterest Project: Week 7-Easy Banana Bread

Hello! I’m back with another installment of my Weekly Pinterest Project!  This week, I decided to make some easy banana bread with some super ripe bananas that we didn’t end up eating.  Miss H. loves bananas and will eat them for every meal if we let her! Anyway, I thought I would try some banana bread. I LOVE banana bread but my husband doesn’t, so I’m glad that my kiddos like it:)  I especially liked this recipe from Thrifty Decor Chic.  I made it in one bowl, which made clean up really easy! I decreased the amount of sugar and added one teaspoon of cinnamon.  The best banana bread is made with super ripe (overripe) bananas. Yum!! Delicious! Harper and Will each had a piece after lunch, hot out of the oven! Wouldn’t it be yummy to spread some Nutella on it?

Maybe next week I will actually create one of the tons of fall crafts I’ve pinned on Pinterest.  We’ll see, though…it’s just so much easier to cook or bake something! Ha!

Five on Friday!

Hello, Friday:) I’m linking up once again with Darci and friends for 5 on Friday, one of my fave link-ups!

Pumpkin spice latte has been all the rage lately. I love pumpkin but I’m not a huge coffee fan, so I decided to try a new chocolate chai latte at Starbucks. It sounded quite interesting, and it was. It was like drinking spicy hot chocolate…interesting tasting, but I don’t think I will be getting it again. I’ll stick with my regular chai tea latte with a shot of vanilla. Speaking of chai tea, some of the best is from Trader Joe’s. Last year, I found salted carmael (one of my favorite flavor combos) chai tea at Trader Joe’s! Yum-o! I need to see if they have it this fall:)

Here’s one of my completed free books from Shutterfly! There have been several free photo book coupons recently (just pay shipping) and I’ve made a few books so far. This one documents our fun summer. I also made one from Instagram pictures from our spring and summer, as well as a a fall 2012 book. I’m still working on a Christmas 2012 book as well as one documenting Miss H’s first year.

Miss H. and Will are both in Musikgarten class. We started Musikgarten back in the spring for five weeks with Will, and he enjoyed it! I signed him up for a 12 week Cycles of Seasons class this fall. I decided to sign up Miss H. for a ten week music class as well, and she had a blast at the first class. She’s the youngest in her group of 18 month to three year olds, but loves to dance and play with the instruments. It’s going to be a busy fall-Will has class each Monday and Harper has class on Tuesdays. It’s lots of running around for mommy (the class is in a local town about 20 minutes away) driving from work to the babysitter, and back into town, but they have so much fun!

I love seeing how Will creates forts and plays independently! This was a recent creation that he made while I was cooking dinner the other evening. He took his toys and put them in the hallway, creating a blockade against his sister with some stools. Too cute!

Pumpkin dessert success! These pumpkin chocolate chip bars from Two Peas and Their Pod turned out yummy! Thank goodness! I was disappointed after my chocolate pumpkin brownie disaster and wanted to find a delicious pumpkin dessert. I still want to try some new pumpkin dessert recipes this fall, but this was a start.

Happy Friday!

The Sweet Potato Story

My son, Will, came home the other day from his babysitter’s with some sweet potatoes that he had dug that day with great grandaddy. It got me thinking about how blessed we are to have such a wonderful support system of a third set of “grandparents” who take care of Will and Harper. Both my parents and my husband’s parents live a little over two hours away from us in West Virginia (and no, I don’t bring up the fact that I’m from WV very often due to the large number of bad jokes about this state; I always claim that I’m from Pennsylvania since I was born in Lancaster and lived there until I was three. My husband is from Florida and moved to WV when he was nine months old, so he tells everyone he’s from Florida, ha!). Anyway, Will and Harper’s babysitter and her family are just like family, which is nice since our family is not close by. Our babysitter, Nana, is a retired kindergarten teacher. Her husband, Pops, is a truck driver. Nana’s parents, Maw and Grandaddy, live right across the driveway from Nana. They live on a family farm where they have horses, chickens, and sheep (plus lots of barn cats, and right now they also have a bottle fed calf named Laci). Their farm is about seven minutes up the road.

You’re probably thinking, how did I meet them? Well, when I first started teaching, I was a special education teacher at a local middle school. I met Jennifer, another fellow sped teacher, and we became friends. Several years later, my husband and I built a house next to Jennifer and her family in the county. We met Jennifer’s parents years ago, and way before we had kids, Nana told us that she would gladly take care of our children. So blessed, not having to worry about finding a sitter once Will was born:) We have quite the set-up: Nana and her friend, Aunt Kathy, both take care of our kiddos. If Aunt Kathy is unable to help watch the kiddos, Nana’s mom comes over and helps out. Nana also takes Will to and from preschool twice a week, and she will do the same for Miss H. and the other little boy (Jennifer’s son) when they are old enough.

Will and Harper are so excited to go to Nana’s each morning. Though it was difficult to drop them off on the first day back to work, it was so easy knowing how loved they are and how much they enjoy being with Nana and Pops. Their days are filled with playing outside, exploring in the barn (feeding the calf, petting the lambs, chasing the barn cats, watching the horses), painting, drawing, playing with Jennifer’s three kids (two are in school, so Will sees them when they get off the bus in the afternoons), making forts outside, and spending time with Maw and Grandaddy. I love that they spend time with people of various ages.

 

Nana and Will playing ball!

 

Weekly Pinterest Project: Week 6-Garlic Bread

The other evening I didn’t really feel like cooking, so I just made spaghetti and lima beans. To jazz up this plain meal, I decided to look for a garlic bread using biscuits (something easy!). I came across this recipe for an easy garlic parmesan pull apart bread. It was super easy-just chop up a bunch of garlic, melt some butter, mix in some parmesan cheese, and cut up the biscuits into pieces. I dipped the biscuits into the butter mixture and baked in a bundt pan. Super easy and yummy! I couldn’t bring myself to use an entire stick of butter, though…I cut that amount in half. It still turned out delicious! Will helped me make the bread (you can see his toys in the background on the counter). He loves helping me cook and bake, and I love having a little helper:)

Five on Friday!

Happy Friday! I’m linking up again with Darci and friends at The Good LIfe Blog for Five on Friday! I’m looking forward to a low key weekend with the family:)

{1} I’ve been seeing reviews of Stitch Fix all over the blogosphere and am going to give it a try! My friend ordered her first Stitch Fix box the other day, and I’m curious to see what she gets! I filled out my style profile but haven’t ordered my box yet. It’s such a cool concept-a box full of stylish clothes and accessories shipped to you, buy what you want, return the rest. It seems like there’s boxes for everything nowadays: kids’ crafts, make-up, clothes, baby products, snacks, etc. So fun because I love to get packages:)

{2} The blue/green color combo has been one of my favorites lately, especially on Miss H. This was one of her birthday outfits that her granddaddy picked out for her–good taste! Miss H. is so petite that her capris end up being pants on her, ha! I also pair these pants with a navy blue and white striped shirt. And the crocs-she wears them every day! They are so tiny! Size three (the smallest size that Crocs makes).

{3} Recipe fail:( Last year, I saw a two ingredient pumpkin brownie recipe on PInterest but decided to pass. I thought it sounded kind of weird, even though I really like chocolate and pumpkin (separately). Well, this year, I decided to try it. Let me just say we ended up eating one brownie and throwing the rest away. I was warned by the comments that it is a very dense brownie with a strong pumpkin flavor, so I thought I was prepared. However, the combination was not very tasty to me. It was a super dense, heavy brownie with a strange taste. Anyway, this is my second pumpkin recipe that was not good. I made a pumpkin pasta dish several years ago that we had to toss-it was disgusting. After that, I decided never to make any savory pumpkin recipes again. However, I thought I would be safe with the chocolate and pumpkin combo. After all, I love pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips, ha! This weekend I hope to do better by making a tried and true pumpkin recipe-maybe bread or whoopie pies:)

{4} I love how my kiddos’ favorite toys are simple, household objects like boxes and spoons, instead of the toys they get for their birthdays and Christmas:) Here’s Miss H. playing in a box that we’ve had for several months. Harper and Will love to color and decorate it, then get in the box and push each other around the house!

Here’s Will playing with my twist ties and clothespins as I put dishes away. He loves playing with any kitchen tools and utensils that I will give him.

{5} Does anyone else have too many pictures saved on their computer? I have WAY TOO many and need to go through and delete more. My computer recently popped up with a message that my hard drive is almost full, yikes! I really need to just slowly go through a few pictures each night and delete not so great pics. I’ve been too busy working on my Shutterfly photo books in the evenings and haven’t had time to delete pics. Maybe next week…

Have a super weekend:)

Summer Fun List-What We Accomplished!

Now that it’s time to create a fall fun list, here’s a recap of our summer fun! I created a summer fun list back in June of activities I wanted to do this summer with Will and Harper. Below is a photographic recap of some of the tons of fun we had this summer:)

P.S. In going over my summer fun list, we accomplished everything (plus more!) except for bowling. Our local bowling alley participates in the kids bowl free program and I had wanted to take Will. Maybe next summer.

Strawberry picking

Water table fun!

Bike riding

Story time/play time at the library

Playing at the park

More fun at the park! We went to the park at least once a week (rotated through three local parks).

Craft projects: pudding fingerpaint

Eating fro yo

Walking to visit Shadow and Isaac, our neighbor’s horse and donkey.

Buying fresh vegetables at the farmer’s market

Popsicles!

Pool/water fun!

Visiting Auntie M. and Uncle E. in North Carolina

Fireworks and swimming with the Aunt and Uncle

More storytime/library time (we went to story time 1-2 a week)

Trip to the safari park with our neigbors

Berry picking

Free evening at a local museum:

Bubbles!

Feeding the ducks at the park

Playing outside TONS!

Splash park!

Homemade frosty nights with the neighbors

Homemade jello play-dough (orange of course)-it smelled so yummy!

Walks down the road

Catching lightning bugs with Aunt M.

Playing with the cousins

State Fair of WV

Weekly Pinterest Project-Week 5: Two ingredient chocolate croissants

Yum…chocolate crossiants! My friend mentioned the other week that she had made chocolate croissants, so I decided to search Pinterest for a recipe. Actually, these are so easy that no recipe is really required. Just two ingredients-crescent rolls and chocolate chips (notice the HUGE bag of chocolate chips-a Costco deal!). I found a recipe from Boxwood Clippings for this yummy treat and made them for breakfast along with scrambled eggs. Healthy, I know! All you do is sprinkle chocolate chips on the crescent rolls and bake as directed on the can. Easy, peasy! I saw a recipe that called for Nutella instead of chocolate chips, which sounds so delicious! Hmm…I wonder how it would taste with cookie butter?! While these were simple and tasted good, nothing compares to the pain au chocolate my college friends and I picked up daily on our way to class when we studied abroad in Strasbourg, France. Oh, the memories!