Little Green Tree!

I love having little trees all over. They're simple and festive. And absurdly expensive! I stumbled upon this website and decided to try a couple!

One was an absolute disaster. I mean, threw the whole thing out absolute disaster. I'm pretty happy with how the other one turned out, though! Here it is!

I dug some boxes out of our fire pile (newspapers, boxes and the like for when the weather's nice for fires outside. Suffice it to say that pile is pretty big come July!), stapled them into a cone shape and cut the edge.

(As you can see, I had planned on both of them working out. Sigh.)

Next, I took an old sweater I was planning to throw out (the sides were all pilled, it wasn't worth donating) and cut it into strips (3-4 inches each).

Fold them in half and iron them so they keep their form on the tree (and are easier to put together).

Now my favorite part! Watching it all come together! I used a hot glue gun because it's easy to apply accurately and it dries quickly. Watch those fingers through the fabric, though! 

(Don't worry, this is the back and the glue will be covered by by the next layer.)

I decided to use the ribbed portion of the sweater for the bottom two layers, and the smooth fabric for the rest to give it some texture.

TA DA! (Don't worry - I fixed that little bit of cardboard peeking through). A cute little whimsical Christmas tree! And all it cost me was a few sticks of hot glue. I can't wait to try more of them next year! 

A Little Holiday Lift

I love, LOVE the holidays! I mean it. LOVE. I think it's because it's the only time Mark lets me decorate with SO MUCH GLITTER! 

I wanted to put little holiday touches around the house, but with a limited budget the past couple of years, we really didn't have a lot of new or extra things. So my husband and I came up with a great idea for about $25, and you can reuse $20 of it!

First, we bought some curtains at IKEA. They're $9.99 for two panels, and we were able to cut one panel and make it into two curtains for one window. 

We bought two sets and made curtains for 2 windows and our sliding back door for $20! This is the part you can reuse - they're just white curtains!

Next, we got some pretty (glittery!) ball Christmas decorations at the dollar store - 4 containers for $1 each (20 decorations total). We took half of them and just put a safety pin at the top of the attached string. The other half we tied white thread to the attached string, and then to a safety pin, allowing about 8 inches of room between. Then, we pinned them to the backsides of the curtains in alternating lengths, and voila! 

A pretty, sparkly winter update to your curtains for less than $5. This covered the two windows and the door. We used some silk red and gold leaves (also from the dollar store - 2 packages) for the fall, but I never got a picture of them. 

I have a couple of other fun projects going on, I can't wait to share them with you when they're done! 

A funny thing happened on the way to the future...

I had a baby, Mark became a stay at home dad, and we got bored and moved to Seattle! We bought a sewing machine, I started making simple art, and fell in hate with running, though I try to do it most days.

We got to welcome this little gem:

She arrived right on time: 8 days late after 8 hours of pitocin on May 13, 2010 at 3:13 PM, 13 days before Gage's birthday. Cool, huh? We liked her, so named her Vesper Olivia and took her home!

She was still forming an opinion on us. We were off to a rough start.

My little man turned the big oh-5...

...and started kindergarten! (Setting himself up for a disobedient life already, since I explicitly forbid the growing of up...)

Mama went back to work after 4 months, begrudgingly at first, but eventually became ever so grateful to work in a somewhat stable industry (that doesn't involve sick people - don't hate. We all have our strengths.) when Daddy was laid off after yet another company went out of business, and became a wonderful stay at home daddy/husband/mechanic/butler/housekeeper/chef. I don't know how he does them all so well. I think he may have a secret butler robot. A butler/chef/housekeeping robot. Yep...

Fast forward, Vesper turned 1 and Gage turned 6!

One day, I was sitting at work. In June. In Southern Arizona. With no makeup on because my allergies were sooo bad, and I couldn't take allergy medicine because I was getting allergy shots - there's a brilliant system (and, yes, you can call it "off meds" and giggle). Our pipes had frozen and burst the previous February. And dealing with 108 degrees and frozen pipes was so confusing, we decided it was time for a change. That's how we found ourselves in the Emerald City that October looking for a house! 

We rolled out of Tucson on Monday, December 5, 2011... and stopped in Phoenix 2 hours later. Do you know how exhausting moving is? We did, however, escape Arizona the next day, and two days later, after 14 hour days, getting stuck a couple of times with that behemoth pictured below, so much fast food, even more coffee, two hotels (one nice, one with strange loud noises all night...) and more than a little wine, we were there!

Home sweet home!

And that brings us to the end of 2011. More later. Carry on, pretending like you have better things to do.

Bowl Me Over!

Mark and I took Gage bowling a while ago for the first time. Gage, an avid Wii Sports bowler, was very excited to go to the "real bowling." Mommy, experiencing pregnancy cravings, was very excited to get nachos and root beer.

The nachos were delicious, as was the massive amount of root beer I consumed. Gage had a ton of fun bowling. They didn't have the metal slide thing for kids to use, so he had to place it on the ground and roll it. We would go sit down and wait for it to reach the end. It seriously would take a good 30 seconds to get there! It only got stuck 6 or 7 times...

We did keep the bumpers up so he didn't get gutter balls. He still managed to bowl some. Mark and I barely broke 100 with the bumpers, and boy did we need them!

It was a very fun outing, and now every time we drive past a bowling alley, Gage asks when we are going to do the real bowling again. For now, we'll stick to Wii bowling. It's much better for our self esteem.

Belly Belly!

Um... Okay, so I know I PROMISED I would blog more often, but you didn't believe that, really?

So, I will blame it on the baby. I have been entirely too exhausted for the past 5 months to do anything. Including sitting and staring.

So, nothing witty here, because tonight is no exception. Here is my progression so far:

I will put up more stuff soon, but for now, good night. Got a big day of registering tomorrow!

Sock it to Me

I recently got Gage this awesome collection of stories, activities, and recipes based on the If You Give series. In If You Give a Moose a Muffin, the moose decides to make sock puppets. (After, of course, he ate all the muffins, was going to the store, put on a sweater with a missing button, was sewing it back on, and was reminded of the sock puppets his grandmother used to make, naturally.)

Gage though these seemed pretty cool, so I got some craft stuff (and new socks, because, as you'll understand if you've met me, or just put your feet within 14 miles of me, the thought of decorating and putting my hand into old socks made me throw up in my throat a little.). Moomah came over and we each made a sock puppet. Mark made Mario (as in Brothers), and Gage made a goofy thing with big ears.

My mom's was an alien.

And mine was a hairy spider.

The next night, we created a puppet show with them. As with all little boys, Gage went into destroyer mode, and they are again lonely socks with no eyes to see and no eyebrows to wiggle. Don't worry, Mom. Yours made it through. :)

Mama Bear Goes Shopping

OK, so clearly inspiration is not hitting me as often as perspiration. In over three months to say the least. So, instead of adorable stories about life, I will just write about the things I see and do everyday. I hope you enjoy it. :)

This weekend, I enjoyed a relaxing stay in Peoria with the in-laws. This, as usual, included a LOT of shopping. I went to Arizona Mills (not so exciting) and to the Outlets at Anthem (VERY exciting). Here is the awesomeness I found for Gage.

I got this adorable stuff at Osh Kosh, including a blue jean jacket and those ridiculous bear slippers. The proceeds from the little monkey go to leukemia research, and my Monkey can never have too many monkeys, so I couldn't resist.

I got this stuff at an awesome store I just discovered, Naartjie. Two new summer outfits for next year and cute flip flops.

And here is Gage in his new slippers. He's been playing Bear all night! I knew they were a good buy!