Playing with Fire!

 Fire and Water

 The fire skirt.

 Fire crown

My son got this awesome firefighter costume for his birthday so we did costumes around his for Halloween.  My husband also had a fire hydrant costume. 

Halloween Rock Art

I saw this done here.  We had fun gathering rocks and painting them.  My son painted his with washable paints and unfortunately a rainstorm washed his Frankenstein and pumpkin right off of the rocks.  The Frankenstein was super cute. 

The end of its season

This spring we planted a garden.  We expanded the space of our garden and planted tomatoes, carrots, green beans, lettuce, basil, strawberries, cilantro and Cosmos. 

Mike built a fence for the garden.  Rabbits like to get into our garden so we put chicken coop around our garden. 

We had a horrible drought this summer. 

We received beautiful, beautiful rain late in the summer into fall.  The cosmos grew and grew. 

Our tomatoes did well.  Our green beans failed.  Our carrots were fun to pick but puny.  We ate some of the lettuce.  Mike liked it but it was a bit biter for my taste.  Whenever I find a strawberry I give it to Matt.  The basil did great and the cilantro was wonderful for early summer.  My favorite though was the cosmos.  They were beautiful. 

Also Mike's little wooden gate is charming.  There is something else he wanted to do to the fence.  Maybe we will do it next spring.  It will add a nice touch but I think it looks great right now. 

Three Year Old Truck Party

This happened this summer for my son's third birthday.  We skipped some of the fancy decorating and spent more time on some activities one involving the consumption of food.  The theme was all types of trucks.  We did the following activities:

Route 66 obstacle course.  We made road signs and put them on the fence to coordinate with the obstacle.  (Tunnel, bump, slippery when wet, etc). 

We had a "Car Wash" with bubble toys and squirt toys.  We were limited with our activities here because of our strict watering restrictions this summer. 

Construction Site.  We put play construction trucks and blocks by the the play set. 

Matt's Diner.  By far my favorite creation.  We turned our screened patio into a dinner.  Complete with menu's and salt and pepper shakers for the kids to shake.  They loved ordering off their menus.  It was a hit. 

Truck Scavenger Hunt. We placed laminated pictures of trucks and cars around the yard.  They collected them and stuck them on a big road we created in the house. 

Ice Cream!  Instead of cupcakes or cake I took the easy route and went for something simple yet fun.  We did ice cream and lots of yummy toppings.  They loved the toppings and so did the adults. 

Goodie Bags.  They decorated their bags at the start of the party with stickers.  I filled the goodie bags with candy, crackers, Teddy Grahams, Chips Ahoy cookies, an eraser truck, a dollar store truck, and a crazy straw. 

My sons favorite part had to be the presents.  Go figure.  :)

Spider Web in a frame

This little frame is sitting on my mantel.  My mantel is pretty empty right now.  I like creating individual things but putting many things together to decorate is challenging for me.  I love looking at how people decorate their homes and I can identify things I like but I'm not really good at recreating it myself.  We'll see what my mantel looks like by Halloween-cohesive theme or hodge podge of things?  I don't know.

Tutorial on one of my favorite blogs Made.  Find it here.  The spider I made out of felt. 

Baby Shower Gifts

There was a baby shower for two moms at my preschool.  One is having a girl and the other is having a boy.  I decided to make a little something for each of them. 

For the boy...

A taggie stegosaurus.  I was given one at my baby girl's baby shower and loved the idea so I had to try it out for myself. 

For the girl...

I think making hair clips is just so much fun.  

It was good activity while listening to the debates. 

Something Old made into something New (that looks old)

Before my son was born we bought an antique desk at a garage sale.  I wasn't in love with it but Mike liked it.  One day online I saw a desk that was almost identical to mine with an antiqued makeover.  I loved it!  I knew my desk was destined to similar greatness.  When we first moved into the house we had the movers leave the desk in the garage.  Mike sanded it and we primed and painted it white.  We carried the desk up to our guest room but didn't get back to work on it.  I found out that my friend Savannah is great at refinishing old furniture so she came over and helped me finish the job on the desk.  I never took a before picture so here is the picture of the desk that looks very similar to mine on the website Sweet Pickins Furniture.

Picture from Sweet Pickins Furniture.  Find her project makeover here.

 

This is my desk.

This desk sits in our guest room which is also my craft/sewing room.  I love having this room and having this desk all gussied up now makes it even better.