Memorial Day Weekend

I hope you had a fabulous holiday weekend!  Memorial Day Weekend always (in my mind, at least) kicks off summer.  This year it really did since we were able to spend most of it outside and the hot weather made it feel like August.  We went to a cookout, played outside, finished up a bunch of little projects around the house (including painting the bathroom, which I decided to do on a whim a few days ago.  I need to be stopped), and celebrated a bunch of small but significant "firsts" for Charlotte.

She took her first dip in a pool--a Charlotte sized pool, thanks to her Grandpa.  My parents have a full size pool but it isn't ready for swimmers yet, so my dad picked up this baby pool to tide her over in the meantime.  It was money well spent:

Then she had her first encounter with a sprinkler.  Chad wanted to water the lawn and she thought this new sprinkler business was interesting, so he let her experiment:

Then yesterday she went to her first parade.  I suppose technically it was her second, since last year we took her to a 4th of July parade.  She was only 5 weeks old and slept the whole time, so I don't think it really counts.  We went the parade in Berea, the city we grew up in about a half hour away from where we live now.  It's a small college town (we went to college there too, at Baldwin-Wallace) and every year they have Memorial Day and Independence Day parades.  We've gone every year for as long as I can remember.  Our good friend Dylan (he was the best man in our wedding and we've known him forever) grew up on the street where the parade passes thru and his parents still live there.  We gather near their house, every year, and even if it's been almost a year since we've seen each other it never feels that way.  It just feels like home.

Charlotte and Dylan, having a picnic

Yay, one of the few photos with all 3 of us!

The parade route is right around the corner from the first house Chad and I lived in together.  We moved in several months after we got married, when we were seniors in college.  We lived there just shy of a year, and moved when we bought the home we live in now.  It feels like we lived in that house for much longer; we have fond memories of that time.  My dad nicknamed it Old Blue--it was a really old house, built in the 1850s by a quarry worker.  A professor we knew owned it and rented it out to us for practically nothing.  It was right in the middle of the two buildings almost all of our classes were in.  I took an art history class in the evenings one semester in Marting Hall, which was just one block away from Old Blue.  We had Henry for about a month at that point and he and Chad would walk up to Marting during my class break (it was a 3 hour class.  Art history for 3 hours tests one patience and ability to remain awake) and bring a snack and we would sit on the steps and talk for a few minutes while Henry explored.  They'd walk back when my class ended and we'd all walk home together.  I remember a few times getting to one of my sociology classes early and realizing I'd forgotten a book or notes.  We lived so close I was able to make a mad dash back home, grab what was missing, and fly back to class just in time.  

We spent our first Christmas as a married couple, adopted our first pet, graduated college, and started our first "real" jobs in the short time we lived there.  When we found the home we wanted to buy my childhood best friend, Rachael, and her new husband moved into Old Blue.  They lived there for awhile until they eventually bought a home and moved to Columbus.  Yesterday after the parade we walked by the house and it looks so cute:

When we bought our house, it was a creamy yellow color.  A few years later we decided to get to new siding and we both were thinking about changing the color.  We decided we wanted blue, and we knew the exact shade: Old Blue "Blue".  We ended up with an exact match:

Now we live in "Old Blue II."

Happy Memorial Day!  Please do me a favor this week and have a chat with the weather gods--the forecast for Saturday is rainy.  This does not bode well for an outdoor birthday party.  I am working on Plan B: Indoor Party but I really, really hope to go with Plan A.

~Stacy

I ♥ Cupcakes

I really love cupcakes.  I love baking them, but even more than that I love buying delicious ones that someone else made and eating them :)  Thankfully, I have Alyssa's Cupcakes for that.  I discovered Alyssa's Cupcakes several years ago at a craft show.  I think I bought 4 of them to take home, but only two of them actually made it there.  They were so good: moist cake, delicious frosting (sweet but not too sweet, creamy, and no strange food coloring taste), creative flavors, and adorable designs.  My mom, sister-in-law Sondra, and I have become loyal followers since then.  And by "loyal followers" I mean something closer to "crazed cupcake stalkers."  We've been known to check their website to see which events they'll be at and show up with all the flavors for that day memorized.  It's borderline obsessive, but these cupcakes are that good.  We served them at my baby shower, Sondra's ordered them for a friend's baby shower, and I ordered 2 dozen for Charlotte's birthday party next weekend (never mind that only 17 guests are expected and  1 1/2 dozen would have been adequate).  

This summer, Alyssa's Cupcakes will be at Frostville Farmer's Market every Saturday from 9A-1P.  Each week they'll have different delicious flavors (the flavors for each week are listed here on their website), such as Cotton Candy, Blueberry Pancake, Strawberry Milkshake, and Chocolate Chip Cookie to name just a few.  Yesterday I stopped by their booth and picked up a sampler pack of 4 flavors: Watermelon Wave, Lemonade, Blueberry, and S'Mores. 

The S'Mores cupcake is missing.  In the time it took for me to charge my camera battery, I ate it.  At 10AM.  Let's not talk about it.

There was a tiny piece of fuzz stuck to my camera lens, not the frosting.

There's a very good chance that I will be stopping by their booth every Saturday for the rest of the summer, and you should too.  Alyssa and her mom, Gina, are incredibly nice people--and it doesn't hurt that their cupcakes are absolutely fantastic.  It's 10AM.  I think I'll have another one for breakfast.

~Stacy

Strawberries, Anyone?

I have a strawberry obsession going on right now.  I didn't mean for it to happen and I never even used to like strawberries.  I started liking them when I was pregnant and it became a permanent thing (unlike Domino's Pizza, which I used to love and now, for reasons I won't detail, I will never ever be able to eat again).  Anyhow, awhile back I posted about joining a CSA with a local greenhouse, Dean's Greenhouse. Since the weather was so unseasonably warm this spring, their first crop was ready a couple weeks early for pickup so I was able to get our first box of goods on Tuesday.  Inside was a box of strawberries, a bunch of Swiss chard, and a big bag of sugar snap peas.  I had already bought a box of strawberries over the weekend that still wasn't finished so I found myself on strawberry overload.

We ate a bunch of them, then I made strawberry bars using this recipe.  The only adjustment I made to the recipe was adding about a tablespoon of cornstarch to the strawberry mixture to thicken it up a bit.  They were delicious--maybe even better than the blueberry bars.  They were gone in a day.  Don't judge.

I still had some strawberries left, plus some heavy whipping cream from another recipe (why is it impossible to find heavy whipping cream in a small size?  I needed 1/4 cup but had to buy a quart).  The only solution I could see was to make pancakes with strawberry and whipped cream topping.  I'd actually never made whipped cream before, and now that I have I might make it all the time.  I added a little powdered sugar (2 tablespoons or so), a splash of vanilla extract, and a teaspoon of sweetener.  I ended up with a giant bowl of whipped cream, but that's a good problem to have.  I found that putting a dollop of whipped cream on a graham cracker makes for a tasty dessert.  Also, eating it straight from the bowl isn't out of the question.

To add to the strawberry theme going on, Charlotte and I went to a garage sale yesterday morning.  I have some berry decorations for her party (mostly strawberries) and I found these:

I kind of love them.

Enjoy your long Memorial Day weekend!

~Stacy

A Girl and Her Wagon

Over the weekend my parents stopped over and my dad had something extra in the van for Charlotte.  He discovered a wagon, like new, at a flea market and picked it up, cleaned and personalized it.  She started clapping as soon as she saw him (just saying the word "grandpa" usually leads to clapping) and when she got into her brand new wagon she was extra delighted.

What a life.

~Stacy

Just About

We're not 100% finished with all the landscaping, but we are very, very close.  So close that I'm calling it done and more than ready to move on to something else!  Let's take a brief trip down memory lane to see what everything looked like before:

After 46 bags of mulch (not a typo, ask my dad), 19 brick pavers, 5 buckets of rocks, at least 5 trips to Lowe's/Home Depot/various garden & hardware stores, 4 pairs of gardening gloves, 1 bee sting, and too many hours to want to think about, here are the "afters":

There's one spot that isn't completely done, but will be within the next day or two.  This is what the madness looked like at the beginning:

And here's progress:

I'm too sore to move, but if I could I would be this excited too:

Happy Monday.

~Stacy

Happy

This post is about nothing other than things I am happy about right now, starting with this little beauty:

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

 This should be arriving on my doorstep any day now and I am SO excited!  Chad wanted to get me something extra special for my first Mother's Day and he knew I liked (and wanted) one of these cute beach cruiser bikes.  I knew I wanted a fun color and a white seat, and thankfully I found this one on Amazon that was A) in stock and B) highly rated and C) seriously on sale, as in over 60% off its original price.  Score.  This bike just looks like it belongs in a vintage photo with flowers in a front basket, propped up on a dilapidated fence on a beach in Nantucket.  Love it.

The best part about this is that Chad told his mom about it so she decided to get a baby bike seat and helmet for Charlotte's birthday.  She's sending them early, and I am so excited to be able to ride around town with my little lady.  We're going to paint the town red this summer!

 Unrelated, but just as fun, I have to show some sneak peeks of Charlotte's birthday gifts.  I am in no danger of her checking out my blog or speaking with anyone about her presents, so here they are.  I mentioned several posts back that I have been working on a photo book using Shutterfly that documents the highlights of her first year.  I ended up ordering it two weeks ago because they were 50% off and it arrived last week.  I love it!  It just needs a few pictures & captions at the end (I ordered several blank pages to account for the photos from this month) and it will be done!  I am planning on doing a book every year for her birthday that she'll have as a keepsake.  I don't normally print photos besides the ones I frame, so this will be a one-stop way have all the highlights from the year in one place.  Here's a peek at the book:

We also wanted to get her some kind of keepsake like a locket or charm.  I searched all over Etsy and found this great shop called Bittybits that sells adorable little bracelets and jewelry and customizes them with engraved charms.  I ordered one, and it arrived a few days later and I could not be happier with how it turned out:

It came with an extender so that it will fit her as she grows.  It's so tiny and sweet; I highly recommend this shop!

Remember these scraps of fabric from a month or two ago?

Well, I turned them into a pillowcase dress for Charlotte.  I used this tutorial, which was excellent and super simple to follow.  There's even a sizing guide for sizes as tiny as 3 months, all the way up to a 6T.  Here's the finished product (excuse the poor lighting):

Also making me happy?  Flowers.  The hard work is (mostly) done and it's on to the fun stuff.  I'm going out this weekend to get all my flowers and finish this project for good.  "For good" meaning for the season.

And last, but most certainly not least:

S'mores.  Heck yes.

It's the little things.

Enjoy your weekend!

~Stacy