Indians, Pilgrims, Pumpkins and Kitchen Bidness

We have been busy exploring all sorts of foods for Tommy to try lately:  soy pudding, different flavored hummus, bean dips, and we ran across Amy's Organic Vegan Dairy-free chocolate cake.  We slathered a slice with some vanilla icing (also dairy-free), and put it in front of him while Khera inhaled about three.

He did try the icing, so it was a minor success.  Here he is cheering himself on.  Khera used to do this, I just can't help but giggle when it happens.


I don't know how they managed to do this, but Tommy's teachers have turned my hat-less wonder into a hat-loving fiend.  It's taken us 2 1/2 years to get here and I am loving every second of it.


He had his Thanksgiving feast at school this week and we brought the dessert.  My friend Andi donated eyeballs to the cause.  Thanks Andi!  Word is there wasn't a turkey left after snack time.


Elle took a turn wearing Tommy's headdress.


For their feast they sported these adorable pilgrim hats.

Elle came home one day as a pilgrim:


And a little trip down memory lane....
2008



2009
 
 

Some more goodies while we're on "the lane"...
2008

2009

2011

Looks like Tommy enjoys getting his photo taken just as much as Daddy!

And onto kitchen business.  Well we started the kitchen endeavor many, many months ago.  You probably don't even remember what I'm talking about.  But we've chipped away, shopped our home and are nearing completion!

The cafe curtains are finished by some miracle--a miracle named Grandma that took the girls for a sleepover and gave me time to finish them.  Thank you Grandma!


A new linen cork board replaced the ribbon board. It was a plain Walmart find, and I added the linen, extra trim and painted the frame.


Here's the clock that needs a makeover, I got it IKEA about 10 years ago.  I want to paint the frame a funky color.  Any ideas?   Army green?  Copper? I'm at a loss, please send ideas my way!


We finally put up the Ballard recessed light/pendants I bought with Amar last Christmas.  (yes, my Halloween balloons are still up, because i.love.them.)

We've been playing musical shades, I'm still not sold on these seeded glass ones from HD.  Should I try drum shades?  Or a Serena & Lily knock-off?  Since two of these babies cost $450, it would definitely need to be a DIY.

My friend Lisa, from Spotted Hen Designs, refinished a couple of hand-me-down bar stools from our Charlotte, NC house.  She does fantastic work, definitely check out her blog if you get a chance, did I mention her prices are extremely reasonable?  I have list a mile-long of things I want her to paint, in the meantime I'm saving up my pennies and prioritizing it.


I still have a couple of things to wrap up in the kitchen, a shade makeover for the kitchen table pendant and some artwork.  Hopefully this time it wont take me 7 months!

Train Ride, Costumes, Sweat Shop and the Tooth Fairy

Hey all!  We are still here, just catching up on some things that were on hold from all of the exciting October festivities.  We decided to wait until after the time change to use our glow sticks.
We picked up some yum-a-licious Chick-fil-A on family night and took the kids on a trolley train ride.  It's really the downtown looper, but Tommy delights in pretending we are taking a ride on Toby the tram engine.


Glow sticks rule.




Brandon LOVES when I take pictures of him.


We were the only people riding and got a personalized tour of our town and the driver even let us bring our snacks along.


For All Saints Day, Khera did a little project on Saint Katherine Drexel and dressed up as her at mass that day.  She makes a cute little nun, don't you think?


Elle had a field trip to the library this week and she picked out this little number.  She knew she was hot-to-trot that morning. 


I've finally gotten a second wind and have been spending some time with my sewing machine.  I've been dreaming of cafe curtains since we remodeled the kitchen 5 years ago, and finally got up the courage to tackle all 8 of them. 


They are 2-finger euro-pleated cafe curtains.  I haven't had the nerve to make them in 5 years because I didn't know how to make pinch-pleated curtains and couldn't figure out the corner window above the banquette. 

I finally got a plan together.  I used Coretto tension rods from Umbra, and so far they are working nicely.  I also learned how to make pinch pleaded curtains from "Skye Blue" on YouTube.  Check out her tutorial here, she rocks.


I started another project involving this polka dot fabric that makes me SO happy.  But I was interrupted by my little dearies, only to find that Kher-bear had a big kid tooth coming in behind her 2 front baby teeth.

So of course we put my project on hold and had a little design consultation on what she wanted out of a tooth fairy pillow.  She pulled a couple fabrics that she liked out the kitchen drawer, and we looked at pinterest and came up with this:


We made a tooth fairy pocket for her to put her tooth in. 


Being the wimp that I am, I was too queasy to pull the tooth myself, and the thought of pulling it scared Khera.  What a relief!  The next day during rest time in her class it came out.  Daddy is out of town, so she left the tooth fairy a note in her pillow to "leave my tooth to show my Dad?"

Congratulations on your first tooth Khera!  The tooth fairy left her $2, and she woke up at 3:30am yelling the news to Elle and Tommy.  At 5am she woke us again shrieking that the tooth fairy took her tooth, when in fact it was still in her pillow.  Mommy is tired today.  We have already "lost" the tooth several times and we are not halfway through the day yet.  All this tooth business and Daddy out of town is wearing down the patience bank, we are definitely looking forward to his return tomorrow.  Miss you Pops!

Ohio Round-up, A Pizza Box Slipcover and Sofa Makeover

Wow, so much happened in the last week of our stay and I am about a month behind on blogging, so buckle in...

Heather and Jenny headed up to Columbus for a day of fun chaos at Firefly.

Heather is a new mom, but you would never know it. She is so laid back, much more than I ever was, and her daughter Maggie is such a sweetheart.


Jenny's twins Elaine and Ethan took a snack break.


Tommy joined them.

Khera and Elle were too busy to stop playing and pose.

Maggie was excited to see all the kids and action.


The kids all played really well together aside from the usual meltdown or three. It was difficult to have a real conversation, so we didn't get too much time to catch up. We headed to Panera for lunch and after bumping heads on light fixtures, Tommy eating dirt off the floor, a lot of playing and not much eating, we headed our separate ways.

Khera and Elle spent a couple days riding Uncle Ryan's horsey.




GJ also taught them how to wash windows.


I celebrated a thirty-something birthday. Brandon and GJ treated me to a last-minute 24 hour trip to Chicago to visit my friend Sara, where I took no photos (sniff, sniff).


Aunt Brooke took me to see Keith Urban.


What a great show, I need to download some of his music, NOW.


Her tickets were AWESOME, thanks Brookie!


We finished up a couple of sewing projects. Brooke inherited a table and chairs from Bumpa and Kathy this spring and we decided they needed a little makeover, what do you think?

Great bones, just a little 80s.

We added a pizza box.

St. Pete NEEDS a Donatos Pizza.

Then made slipcovers out of Home Depot drop-cloths.

TA-DA!


GJ's sofa also got a little bit of a makeover. Here are Nana and Tommy having some QT on the "old" version.

The cushions were over 20 years old and needed a little freshening up.

We replaced the 2 bottom cushions with one large one, and 2 back with 4 loose pillows.


Whew! What a whirlwind, we packed it up on Friday night and got on the road Saturday morning. We were so sad to leave, we had such a fabulous time catching up with family and friends. It always seems like no matter how long we stay (this time was for 4 weeks) it isn't enough time. We are so thankful that GJ opened her home again to us for the entirety of our trip, she helped us immensely with the kids, and gave us some freedom to go out with friends, on dates and sleep in! I think next summer she will probably wise-up and lock her bedroom door so the kids have no choice but to wake up Mom and Dad first thing.  Thank you again GJ for making our summer memories sparkle!

Stay tuned for part 2 of our road trip!