Back to School!

Liam started the fall session of Mother's Day Out today! He'll be going on Wed & Fri and Jack will go on Fri. 

It's hard to believe how much he's gown up since the first day of school last year! I tried to get Liam to sit and take pics in the same spots we did last year, but he kept saying, "Don't want to!" and trying to run away. I still managed to get a few shots.

{a bumped head & a happier moment}

My cousin Mary Allison recently ordered a smocked bishop dress from Zulily, but they accidentally sent her the jon-jon instead. When she contacted them, they told her to just keep the jon-jon and they'd send the dress... it just happened to be in Liam's size so she passed it on to us. They both wore them to school today. (They're in the same class!)

 (No little sister? No problem! Just borrow a cousin.)

We made some Back-to-School Teacher Gifts to bribe thank his new teachers!

Personalized Apple Tumblers (printable vinyl!) filled with Starbucks Via Iced Coffee Packs.

And the gift tags:

Looking forward to Jack's first day on Friday-- he'll be in the classroom that Liam was in last year with one of the same teachers!  More pictures to come of his first day! 

I'll also post pics of our family beach trip once I finish sorting through the several thousand shots we took. (Nope, not kidding. My dad & I love our cameras.)

Caramel Apple Cookies

I'm not a baker. 

I like to make cute cake pops and I make a mean sour cream banana nut coffee cake, but my pretty apple green Kitchenaid mixer often goes months without being used. Every once in a while, I'll see a recipe that makes me want to pretend, just for the day, that I'm awesome at baking. And every once in a while, the results are pure perfection.

I love fall recipes. Apples, cinnamon, caramel... and don't even get me started on pumpkin. I was thumbing through the latest (September 2012) issue of Parents magazine, when I saw a recipe for Caramel Apple Cookies. I HAD to try them. I already had almost everything I needed, so I picked up the last few ingredients and when the boys went down for a nap, I started mixing & measuring & chopping & baking.

Oh. My. Goodness. 

These are the most moist, sweet, delicious cookies EVER. They're like a caramel apple, apple cobbler and a cinnamon sugar cookie all-in-one. When you take a yummy bite and you taste a piece of green apple, it's like you've hit the jackpot. Really, I've died and gone to heaven.

Here's the recipe:

2 stick of salted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup graham-cracker crumbs

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 small apple, peeled, cored & finely chopped (3/4 cup)

1 cup vanilla caramels

3 Tbsp. whipping cream

1) Preheat oven to 350. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a bowl, beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Beat in sugars until fluffy. Then, add eggs & vanilla.

2) In a medium bowl, stir together flour, crumbs, baking powder, salt & cinnamon. Add to butter mixture and beat until combined. Stir in apple.

3) Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls. Arrange balls 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Bake for 12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove and let cool on wire racks.

4) In a bowl, mix caramels and cream. Microwave on high for 30 to 60 seconds or until nearly melted, stirring once. Stir until smooth. Drizzle over cookies; serve when hardened.

YUMMY!!!

Traditions

When I was a little girl, I'd spend a week each summer with my grandparents here in Birmingham. We lived in Nashville and it always felt like such an adventure to leave my parents behind and spend all week tagging along with my grandmother to playdates with my cousins, her job at a mother's day out program (where Liam goes to school now!) and trips to the zoo. There were two things that my grandma always let me have during those visits: happy meals & lipstick. It became our tradition & she always made me feel beautiful, strolling around the zoo at eight years old with hot pink lipstick on.

I've mentioned here before how unbelievably lucky I am, that my parents live in town and keep the boys several days a week when I work, when I have appointments, or when I just need some time to myself. My boys are lucky too, that they are growing up with grandparents who love them so much & are so involved in their lives.

Just as we have our routine at home, the guys have their routine at "Marmi & Poppy's House." On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I meet my parents in a Starbucks parking lot close to work & we do the "trade off." There's an office park down the streets with several man-made lakes that are full of geese.

It's become a tradition for them to look for the "ducks" each morning & occasionally, my parents will bring some old bread so that Liam can get out of the car & see them up close. A few weeks ago, my parents were keeping the boys for a few hours on an off day so that I could run some errands without the little ones slowing me down.

I had my camera in the car, so when they mentioned they were going to "feed the ducks" I decided to tag along and take some pictures.

I thought that Liam would be terrified when they came closer, but he was intrigued.

They smelled the bread and swarmed around him!

He couldn't have been more proud of himself, feeding these geese.

 And he had a great time with Marmi & Poppy.

I love that my parents have started their own traditions with my boys-- ones that they'll look back on when they are older be thankful for! I love the memories they're making.

P.S. Because they were matchy-matchy that day, a pic of the boys together!

(Not the best pic of them, but I'm convinced it's impossible to catch them both smiling at the same time. I surrender.)
 

...And He's Off! (The Sequel)

He's been rocking back & forth on his hands and knees for months...
But today, Jack crawled!

Now, we're really in trouble.

What I Made Wednesday: Babies in Buckets

Yep, more party stuff!

I had a 10 gallon galvanized bucket along with some Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric (that I bought years ago & haven't done anything with) & I decided to cover the bucket in the fabric, so that I could use it as a centerpiece for Liam's party. (So easy-- make a template from a roll of wrapping paper by tracing the bucket, trace template onto your fabric, cut, brush some mod podge onto the bucket and adhere the fabric, then brush a coat of mod podge over the top of the fabric to seal it. I like to line up my top rim perfectly, but make my fabric hang off the bottom edge a little-- then, when the mod podge is dry, go around the bottom rim with an x-acto knife to trim off the excess. Tada!) Likely, it'll be filled with drinks in the center of the table with balloons coming out of the middle-- haven't decided yet.

Then, I decided to get started on the boys' shirts for L's party. I bought an embroidery design of the Very Hungry Caterpillar and wanted to test it out on Jack's shirt before tackling Liam's. (Liam's will have a large 2 in the same fabric as the bucket, with the caterpillar crawling across the bottom along with his name.) I do a lot of applique and monogramming, but nothing with stitching this dense. Overall, the shirt is wearable, but do you see how the fabric puckers a bit around the design? Yeah, it's not supposed to do that. It's tough to add so many stitches to a tiny thin onesie and have it come out perfect. I'll probably give it another shot with a different stabilizer-- just because I'm so anal that imperfections like that kill me. But if it's not any better the next time, then Jack, enjoy your party shirt, puckers & all!

Here's another shot:

That baby? Yeah, he's one of the best things I've made. :)

I’m sharing my idea on The Celebration Shoppe’s What I Made Wednesday link party!

It's Party Time!

Can you believe that in less than two months, I'll have a TWO YEAR OLD?!

Time to dive into the 2nd Birthday Party Planning Zone. This year's theme (drumroll, please) is:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Last year, I had so many ideas but I waited too long to get started and things just weren't planned as well as they should have been-- the food was my biggest problem. Almost everything was homemade and I waited until the morning of our 4pm party to start preparing everything. Big Mistake. Things weren't ready when guests started showing up, my mom missed half of the party & when it was all said & done, I was really upset because I didn't have a good time...and I stressed out those around me who had offered to help.

Not this year!

Because it's not in my nature to cut back on the details, there are a couple of things I'm doing to help this year's party be a smashing success.

1. I'm starting early-- like, now. I have a lot done already & what I don't have done yet is organized into a list that I'm quickly checking off.  
2. The food will be simple this year. A tray of turkey roll-ups ordered from Publix, bags of chips, juice boxes, etc. Everything will be easily transportable to the park where we're having the party.
3. I've asked my parents to keep the kids the night before the party, so that Rob & I have plenty of time to get everything set up the morning of the party before the guests arrive at 11am. (The party is 11am-1pm.) All my parents have to do is bring the guest of honor, dressed in his birthday outfit, along with his baby brother.

 On to the details!

The Invite:

Closeup of the water bottle labels:

One of the circles of the banner:

Thank You Notes for after the party:

The design for the large vinyl banner I'm having printed for behind the food table (Tip: If you access Vista Print through Retail Me Not, 6' x 2.5" custom vinyl banners are 50% off-- $21!!! ):

I've made labels for all of the food-- they look like this:

I've been very busy in Photoshop, but I've also made a lot of progress beyond printables.

We're having the party at the new pavilion and playground at the church where Liam goes to Mother's Day Out. I reserved it this week!

I wasn't looking forward to having to cut a cake and serve it at the park-- kind of a mess, plus we'd need extra plates, napkins, etc. So, I ordered these push pop containers this week! I'm not sure what kind cake we'll do (probably chocolate, like the book) but I'm really excited that I can prepare these at home, put the caps on & easily transported to the park. I think I'm going to order the acrylic stand that goes with them as well-- I plan on reusing them for Jack's party. They'll look similar to these:

I made some stickers to put on them:

I've seen so many cute VHC cake ideas, so I didn't want to skip having a cake all together-- I decided to order a small 4" decorative cake for Liam.

Thanks to a DIY Cake Stand tutorial, I'm making my own from a wooden candle stick, circle plaque (both from Hobby Lobby-- $4), some wood glue & spray paint. So easy. I haven't put together the larger cake stand yet, but I did make some smaller stands-- perfect for cupcakes or small nut/candy cups.

(I don't have any cupcakes, so how about an apple? Better for you anyway.) 

To stack my cake stand on, I bought these green suitcases to give the cake some height. I'll probably use the smaller two, then use the largest one to hold party favors.

I'll order a plain white buttercream cake and decorate it with fondant food decorations. This etsy seller has agreed to make the cheese, sausage, watermelon, lollipop & pickle for me for $11!

And I've fallen in love with this cake topper-- plan on ordering it as soon as the seller gets back from vacation!

 

To serve our feast (& by feast, I mean the fruit mentioned in the book) I bought these leaf serving trays:

I bought polka dot balloons (my fav)-- I bought lime green & red, but after thinking about it (and how Christmas-y they'll look together), I think I'm going to combine two shades of green (and save the red for Jack's party):

And BTW, our plan for the balloons this year: Hobby Lobby has small helium tanks for sale for $34.95 and you can use a 40% coupon on them. Instead of getting our balloons filled at Party City, fighting to get them in the car, then dragging them to the party, we're going to fill the balloons on site. The tank says it will fill 50 balloons, so one tank should be enough to cover both boys' birthday parties.

We have some older kids (ages 7-8) invited to the party, so I ordered the tubes to make these favors-- I will alternate light green and dark green gumballs for the body and red for the head (Party City sells gumballs by color!).

I plan on ordering these straw cups and personalizing the insert with a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme & each kid's name:

I still have a list of things to do:

Applique a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday shirt kind of like this:

Order paper lanterns (3 lime, 3 chartreuse & one red) to hang at the party:

Make some decorative blocks for the table that spell "Liam" similar to these:

Order the plates/napkins/etc for the party:

I'd also like to make some other favors, like bubbles with a cute label & these:

And that's the line-up for the party!! I'll post pics of outstanding projects as I finish them.

I'm hopeful that with all of these things done in advance, the party will be a blast this year.

Can't wait to enjoy my big boy's special day!

(And yes, I've already started on Jack's party-- Post for another time!)

What I Made Wednesday: Ruffled Camera Strap

There aren't enough hours in the day to care for the boys & eat & bathe & work at my consulting job & run my etsy shop & craft & blog & (very) occasionally cook a meal for my family or do some laundry. But I can do some of those things every day.

I try to make time for something crafty at least a few nights a week while the boys are in bed. It's my outlet. I don't get to interact with other people (except you, twitter), on the days that I'm home, so having a project becomes something to look forward to... Not as much as a cup of coffee with girlfriends, mind you, but a challenge that in the end, makes me feel good that I've completed.

I'd really like to start posting more pics here of the things I complete. I'm proud of them. In the past few years I've taught myself to sew, embroider, design in PhotoShop, use a vinyl cutter, etc! Since all of my posts are generally pictures or stories about the boys, I might try to make Wednesdays a time to show off my projects instead of the kiddos! (I'm not saying I'm going to post every Wed-- HA! You're kidding, right?)

**********

I'm not really a girly-girl, but since my house is full of boys it's nice to have some things that are mine, all mine! I've been drooling over pretty camera straps for a while now-- I was going to put one on my birthday wish list. (I reason that just because I *can* make these things, doesn't mean I should *have* to.)

I came across an awesome ruffled camera strap cover tutorial a few days ago & had to try it last night... couldn't help myself. The author of the tutorial encouraged her readers to really make this project their own. So, I did.

Aqua! Orange! Chevron! Ruffles! Monogram!

I didn't take a lot of pictures as I was making it, but here are a few:

Monogramming my strip of chevron fabric-- my fabric was 5" wide x 22.5" long. This will vary by camera strap.

This was the first time I've ever sewn a ruffle & it was much easier than I anticipated! I cut two strips of fabric off of an orange tshirt-- one was 1.5" wide & the other was 1" wide. Both were 44" long. I layered the two, then sewed a line down the middle using the longest stitch setting I had (5). Then I held one end, pulled on the bobbin thread & the fabric started gathering. I pulled until the ruffled strip was 22.5" long, then sewed it directly on top of my chevron fabric! Easy-peasy!

 Once the fabric was monogrammed & the ruffle was sewn on, I hemmed the ends (not pretty on the inside, but no one sees it so who cares?) then folded the fabric in half (right sides together) to stitch the open side closed (1/2" seam allowance). I trimmed the fabric & zig-zag stitched the ends since I don't have a serger.

Then, I turned it right-side out & slipped it over my camera strap!

And Ta-Da! My camera strap went from this (yuck!):

To this!

My house may be dripping in blue & baseballs (already!) but this is mine!

Note:  I found that I was constantly missing moments while taking the cap off & on my camera, so now I keep a polarizer on my camera all of the time to protect my lens. Because I don't use the cap, I omitted the cap pocket from the tutorial.