things i'm obsessed with

here are a few things that i'm currently in love with...

tervis tumblers...serious love here, they are just so convenient and fun to use. i think that they make a great gift that's fairly inexpensive (especially if you use a 20% coupon at bed, bath & beyond) or you could use the cup as a "gift bag" of sorts like i recently did. i actually totally stole this idea from Amy and then used it on her later :) but i don't think she will care. i don't really know how i carried a drink with me before i had one...and i'm pretty sure that tervs saved grad school!

toms...i got my first pari of toms over 3 years ago. they are off-white with black (and minor pink) writing on them so naturally i was worried about them getting dirty & didn't really start wearing frequently until last year (guess there was just something about spending all day in the library that called for comfy shoes). anyways for christmas the twins gave me a brown pair and i'm definitely getting more use out of these. i'm excited for TOMS flats, which are coming out this spring!

mug from Anthropologie...i saw these all over twitter and two days later i was gifted one...the mug is just so cute and i really enjoy drinking my coffee out of it each morning...but that might have something to do with coffee time occurring during morning nap-time. this would also make a cute gift for the coffee lover friend...or really just a friend who likes cute things.

pick your plum...so if have even a minor crafty side, you should definitely check out pick your plum. it's a daily deal site (well daily weekday deal site) that has a different crafting supply each morning. i always like to check each morning and see how much i really need whatever is offered. it's not like i buy something every morning but i think that this is a good way to stock up on some fun and unique items. plus it's not like you can ever have too much crafty goodness (reason #72 why i'll need a 2 bedroom apt for just me) 

buying baby clothes...confession: i've always liked wondering through the baby section at stores and looking at all the cute clothes. but, i never had a reason to actually buy the clothes...well that all changed last year. with the arrival of the twins, i now have an excuse to buy baby clothes. and i get to buy boy and girl clothing...i don't even have to stick to just one! i think it's a pretty good thing that the twins came along because now i can buy clothes and give them to the babies as opposed to just buying the clothes and storing them in a closet for my future kids...cause that wouldn't be weird or anything. i just really, really hope that my kids are not complete opposite seasons of the twins...and that i have a girl or else i don't know what i'll do with the smocked dresses

chevron and stripes...i was a little hesitant to jump on the chevron bandwagon at first but consider me there now. i got notepads from erin condren with a chevron print at the top and i'm really pleased with how they turned out. i also keep seeing cute chevron ideas on pinterest and i think that i will have to incorporate it somehow to the apartment i hope i'm decorating soon.

{these adorable plates can be found here}

another craft day

almost 2 weeks ago (thursday, january 5 to be exact) the babies had their second arts and crafts day. we finger-painted again but i set things up a little differently this time and i think it went better. also we had bath-time following craft-time so it was a busy afternoon.

so excited!

and to show that bath-time really did happen...here's our afternoon (plus i'm slightly in love with R's outfit)

pinterest love!

it's been a while since i've blogged about pinterest. don't worry i'm still horribly addicted and i can't imagine how i functioned without it. a few days ago i was thinking how could you have possibly planned an awesome party before pinterest. then i realized that i threw a pretty great baby shower before i got on pinterest. (missed it by about a month i think) so obviously life functioned before this website came into my life. for a while i wondered if i would actually ever do anything that i have pinned. sure some stuff will be handy when i'm planning my wedding, dressing my kids or decorating my apartment. other boards are totally applicable now, like all the *hopefully* yummy recipes i've pinned. so, in order to show that pinterest is actually a good use of my time, here are some of my pins that i've actually tried. i know, i'm shocked too.

(via)

made this Sin Dip for an evening snack on Christmas day while we played dominos. it was really good but honestly what isn't when cheese and bread are involved.

(via)

i gave a variation of this to my dad for one of his Christmas presents. i bought 2 strands of purple lights and tied orange and white tulle randomly along the strands. i think it will be perfect for tailgating next fall and trust me, my dad is serious about some Clemson tailgating so naturally he was pretty excited.

(via)

i have made these chicken and cheese lasagna roll-ups a few times and each time, i have been quite pleased with the results. they are really easy to make and taste delicious. plus they heat up really well the next day.

(via)

i made this craft with the twins right before thanksgiving. it was a lot of fun and i blogged about it here.

i also feel the need to mention that it really bothers me when someone's pinterest boards are not properly labeled/categorized...and not properly refers to my standards, not something official from pinterest. i might be slightly obsessive with my boards...shocker i know. however i would enjoy it if pinterest made everyone uphold my standards...one can dream right?!?

first (of many) craft adventures

last monday the twins and i decided it was time for their first craft adventure. okay so i decided that we needed craft time. i found this on pinterest (link here) and decided that it would be the perfect craft for two 7 month olds to try. i mean really, how hard could it be? 

so jackson and riggs got all set up in their high chairs and then we started with the handprints. it actually went a lot better than i was expecting, it was just a little more difficult to make them open their hands and not just leave fist prints instead. after the turkeys were made, i decided to just let them smear paint over a new piece of paper. 

well jackson decided to eat the paper and riggs got more paint on herself and the high chair than the actual paper. i wish i had gotten some pictures of the twins as we were painting but someone had to make sure they didn't eat the paint...well anymore than they had already eaten. overall, this craft project was super successful. 

i've always been super picky about how my craft projects look and i can be a little over-critical. so it has been suggested to me that i should probably change this before i have kids or else they will never want to have craft time with me. so doing this craft activity with the twins taught me that i can totally do this with my own kids one day...as long as they are about this age. i mean it's not like i seriously expected that a 7 month old would make a perfect handprint turkey...but obviously a 3 year old could (at least mine better be able too)

[Jackson's turkey is on the left, Riggs' is on the right]

just some bullets...

• at dinner tonight there was a mariachi band (?) that walked around the restaurant. my mom made the comment that my brother and his girlfriend should go to dinner somewhere that they can be serenaded at. i voiced my opinion (that it is a lame idea) and my mom commented that if i had a boy who did that i would love it. my dad interjected with an idea that i would think it was even sweeter if he (the boy) grabbed my hand or something during all of this. i, naturally, responded that i don't want to be dating someone who grabs my hand while i'm trying to eat. i mean personal space anyone. of course my brother jumps in at this time to say something to the effect of, you are never going to meet someone with that kind of an attitude. thanks little brother for the wise advice. i don't need you help and i certainly don't want the boy to be all touchy-feely all the time. i'm not a hugger and i really don't like being touched in general. so okay maybe i'll be okay with like an arm around me or something...but i'm pretty sure i'm the last person you'd have to be worried about with too much PDA.
• with everyone blogging about things they are thankful for and it being so close to Thanksgiving and everything, i was reminded of a story from like 5th or 6th grade. and just so you know, it's not a great thanksgiving story and i definitely come across as a bratty little girl (so i think it's safe to say i was in 6th grade when this happened). at church one wednesday night before Thanksgiving our teacher had us get into small groups and make a list of things we were thankful for. i, of course, ended up in a group with Kari and Lacey (2 of the star girls) and that's probably where we went wrong. this particular teacher had a habit of keeping us well past time for class to end and i think our parents were kind of scared of her because they wouldn't come and interrupt class. so by the time this list idea came up, it was well past time for class to be over. this particular teacher also had pretty strong beliefs about harry potter, basically that if you read the book you might end up in hell. (okay that might be an exaggeration) so, at first, we were really serious with our list. when we realized that she wasn't going to let us go after listing 5 things, we moved onto the more sillier items. like being thankful for toilet paper (for some reason it really sticks out to me that we wrote this one down) and then we mentioned that we were thankful for harry potter. okay so i wasn't into harry potter so i definitely was not reading the books. but i'm pretty sure to say this was my idea. our teacher saw red (i think) and started lecturing us in a really loud tone that we were not taking this exercise seriously (which we were not). at this point it's like 20 minutes past the end of class so the 3 of us just get up and walk out, mid-sentence. she starts to come after us so naturally we take off running and hide in an empty classroom under a table until we are sure she is gone. i know, 6th grade was a pretty rough year for me. 
• i realized this afternoon that i didn't bring my journal home with me...and i really wish i had
• this past monday was craft-time with the twins. this event is definitely worthy of its own blog post, so that will be coming soon. i'll be sure to include some cute pictures...and why the artwork of my own children may or may not make it on the fridge one day.
• so i have to take Reg again (third time is the charm right?!?) i have not told anyone this yet but i'm not like super depressed about it or anything. honestly i kind of saw this one coming. i definitely will be watching all of the videos again but i think i'll be able to take it much more seriously this time...so we'll see how that goes
• i have some sewing/crafty projects i need to post soon...i also have made a few recipes from pinterest that i'll also blog about
• speaking of sewing, i ended up at home without all the different feet to my sewing machine. i was so sure that they were in my bag that i didn't even double check. thank goodness that my embroidery foot was on my machine or else i'm pretty sure my brother would have KILLED me...also good that my mom has a sewing machine i can use...and using it makes me appreciate mine even more!
• last saturday night, i caught the last hour or so of the the first twilight movie on f/x. i may or may not now be obsessed with this phenomenon. i've been reading about the books online (so maybe like a cliff notes thing) and i'm thinking i might borrow the books from someone...since pretty much everyone else has already jumped on this bandwagon. i will say that i think a big reason i'm kind of interested in this right now is that the new movie is about their wedding/honeymoon/baby and that is pretty intriguing to me. 
• and fyi, my sewing machine doesn't like to embroider on fleece blankets. i spent a good 45 minutes taking my sewing machine apart and having a mild panic attack that i had broken it...i think i'll just be sticking to appliques in the future.

trunk or treat [simple] craft ideas

trunk or treat is saturday night...i obviously think it would be super cool to have the cutest little crafty area. however i'm also a realist and considering it's outside and i can't control the weather, not to mention whether to plan for 20 or 200 kids, i really need to keep it super simple. but super simple with the crafting i am not. i'm 99.9% sure it's just going to be a coloring table (unless it's really windy and then maybe just no craft area at all)

but here are a few simple halloween ideas that if you were doing crafts for a smaller group of kids could be really fun

(found here)

i think that instead of making it into a yard stake, i would just leave the pumpkin as is. or you could always just glue the sticks to a piece of paper...and have the sticks painted orange already if you were in a time crunch

(found here)

again this is pretty easy but really cute...and the circles could definitely be made ahead of time in order to hurry this project along

(found here)

this could take a little longer than the first two but i think that a wider age range of kids would enjoy this

(found here)

i think this is adorable and it would be so cute to make a couple of these and line them up somewhere...or fill a vase up with them

(found here)

faux stained glass candy corn...really cute and the tissue paper and pattern could be cut out before hand

(found here)

again you could have the tissue paper ready ahead of time and it would still be fun and pretty simple

i'm still looking for a cute halloween printable to use Saturday night. if all else fails, i think an orange circle with a green stem (both construction paper) would be pretty obvious as a blank pumpkin to create however each kid desires

i'll be sure to let you know what i end up doing!

oh your THAT mom...

I like to joke that I'm totally going to be THAT mom one day. I'm probably unreasonably excited about planning birthday parties, being a homeroom mom and running kids in 15 directions so they can make it to dance, soccer and baseball practice.
I have a pinterest board focused on this general idea and maybe these pictures will give you a better idea of what I mean by the whole "oh your THAT mom" statement.

so many ideas...all i need are the kids...

today at Kelly's Korner, the link up is all about ideas for preserving kids artwork and photos. I don't have any kids yet but I have seen some awesome ideas via pinterest. I, of course, aspire to do all of these things with my kids artwork and photos, once I have said kids and they have artwork to treasure. {full disclosure: some of these ideas I like simply because I'm not sure if I'm going to be that mom who puts art work all over her fridge...in fact I'm pretty sure that won't be me...that's why I need something like this in my house somewhere!) I figure if I start planning now then actually following through with these plans will be a piece of cake. So here are some of my favorite ideas:

This is a great gift idea. You frame your child's artwork along with a photo of them creating the art. Grandparents would love this (i mean i'm assuming they would...mine might not be so impressed with my drawings as a 22 year old...trust me they are NOT frame-worthy!)

(via this blog)

This idea is simply to create a gallery of your kid's art. I love the simplicity of the white frames. Obviously it would be key to date and have the child sign their art, just so you know which art belongs to which child.

(via this blog)

such an organized way to keep track of photos. I really like the idea of labeling each section of photos and then having a box for each child...or a box for each year. I think this would be a good way to keep things organized and current, as opposed to having 50 million photos to arrange from the past 15 years. 

(via this blog)

I think this is my favorite idea for this project and one of the best things I've found on pinterest so far. I love love love the idea of putting artwork into a book. I love even more that there would be multiple books and that each child would (obviously) have their own set of books. I think this is something I can definitely see myself doing. 

(via)

[[to find me on pinterest go here (i might be slightly obsessed)]]

Craft Hope

I found this website a few months ago. I always wanted to make the current project but never actually made the time to do so. But when I saw the new project, making stockings for Christmas in Dixie, I knew that this was the project I wanted to participate in. I have a little more free time now and making stockings seem like a fairly basic project. I also have a lot of scrap fabric that I could use on a worthwhile project instead of just some random creation. I also really love the freedom that Craft Hope gives with their projects. I think that working on this project (even if I only make 3 stockings) will be a great use of my free time in these next few weeks. 
I just need to go through my fabric that's all packed up and decide what (if any) additional pieces I need to get. Good thing I'm going fabric shopping with my mom this afternoon :)

(via craft hope project 14)

THE Baby Shower

On March 5, I threw a baby shower for Cindy, Jackson & Riggs. It was a lot of fun and I love how everything turned out. I evidently need to consider a career change. This was the entry table with The Giving Tree for all the guests to sign.

This was the wish area where guests wrote advice, wishes and/or dreams for Jackson & Riggs. There were clothespins to attach the paper to the ribbon frame. I had a bunch of open-back frames that I spray painted over Christmas break. I then printed out directions for the wish area and attached them to the frame. I put ribbon in the frame by using a staple gun, which was lots of fun.

Banner at the gift area. I took a piece of navy twine and used clothespins to attach the letters. I just printed out the letters on my home printer and attached them to colored card stock. It was a very simple project but I really wanted to have their names displayed at the shower.

This was the candy area. I had bags for guests to make their own bags of candy that Cindy had been craving during her pregnancy. We had sour patch kids and sweet tarts. I sorted them by color prior to the shower. My grandmother had given me a box of mason jars so I used those to hold the candy. There are also pinwheels laying on the table to pull the candy table in with the food table.

This was the food table. While I know that Cindy doesn't really like the glass kitchen table, it is perfect for hosting events with. We had all sorts of yummy foods like hummus, fruit, cubed cheeses, raw veggies and dip, and raspberry preserves with cream cheese. All of the food was labeled with coordinating place cards. I made pinwheels using card stock, spray painted pencils and pushpins. I placed the pinwheels in IKEA glasses along with either purple rice, split peas or orange beans. 

The forks were in the green bucket. I had wrapped forks in yellow napkins and attached either a tissue paper pom-pom or a miniature pinwheel. 

We had mock champagne to drink. I used this recipe as a starting point but I didn't make a ginger ale ice ring and added frozen strawberries instead. 

An overhead stop of the shower, along with the pretty curtains that Cindy made. 

Gift time. This green basket is from me. I had a bunch of random baby items and books inside. It was only an introduction to my real gifts. These are onesies that say "I bite" and have alligators on them. I am  terrified of alligators/crocodiles and when I saw these onesies I knew I had to get them for Riggs and Jackson. 

And time for the real gifts from me. I made floor quilts for both Riggs and Jackson. Riggs' quilt is pictures above. I had never quilted anything before but I really, really loved doing it. I fell in love with both of the quilts and almost didn't want to give them up.

Jackson's quilt, which is really bright and super fun.

Cindy and I with the quilts. I really can't wait to see Jackson and Riggs' on their quilts (or really meet them in general). I used this tutorial for the quilts. I really loved every aspect of making the quilts, from picking out the fun, very non-traditional colors and patterns to actually doing the free-motion quilting. 

  Here is an up-close view of the free-motion quilting. 

I loved every minute of this baby shower, from planning all the little details to seeing Cindy open the quilts. Now, all I have to do with my free time is study, study, study. And anticipate the arrival of Riggs and Jackson!