Botanical Gardens in the Fall (and an Intro to Instagram)

I just started using Instagram yesterday and am liking it so far. While the vintage-y photo look isn't what I normally do with my photo editing, it's a great effect for some pictures and I'm having fun playing around with it:

You can follow me on Instagram by clicking here!

Aside from playing around on Instagram, we went to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens today. It was fun to go again, especially since we've never been there in the fall. We ate lunch there, and it's worth going just to eat there. Seriously, the food is amazing. After eating we walked around in the outdoor gardens for awhile and enjoyed the 65 degree weather and sunshine.

Thank You, November, for giving us a warm and beautiful day :) 

Have a wonderful weekend.

~Stacy

And So It Goes...

Fall is very much still here, but the change into winter has become more apparent the past couple days. The leaves that were vibrant reds and oranges just a few weeks ago and now mostly on the ground, leaving behind bare branches and cold looking trees. The days are getting chillier and the nights are almost always in the 30s. The heat is always on--the option of leaving it off hasn't been a real one in weeks. And there is just a change in the air. Kind of how August nights start to feel different somehow, how you know the summer is coming to a close and fall is making its way in. Now the air is colder, crisper, drier--winter air. Brrr.

Charlotte and I went to the park today to try and soak up as much time there as we can before winter shuts us out for awhile. Even if you ignore everything else, you can tell there's a change just by looking at the lake. The water just looks cold.

Take advantage of days like this! Happy Fall.

~Stacy

Thanksgiving Table Decor

Thanksgiving is two weeks away! I mentioned in my last post that Chad and I are hosting this year, which I'm excited about. I've been working on my grocery list and thinking of ways to dress up my table. Normally our table is dressed up with fingerprints, crumbs, random pieces of mail and at least two or three sewing projects. Aside from cleaning it up, clearing it off, and polishing it to a beautiful shine I'm not sure what to do.

I like simple designs and preferably ones that use natural elements or things I already have. And a tablecloth is preferable, but not a must. Ideas for holiday table arrangements can be found everywhere, but the hard part is finding a design that A) I like and B) is doable (read: very inexpensive or free) and C) isn't atrocious. Some are waaaay overboard for my taste, with dozens of candles, vases, flowers, gourds and other stuff that looks cluttered and leaves hardly any space for food or elbows. And some go a bit overboard in the creativity department--for example: I saw an idea for a Christmas table that used an old wooden toboggan as a large buffet. Cute idea for say, a magazine photo spread, but not necessarily a practical choice for the average hostess.

Here are a few ideas I've found that might work:

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I love this one, but I'd have to get my hands on some sort of wooden box structure that is rustic looking and not too big. Definitely a contender:

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I'm ignoring the super ornate background decor in this photo and just focusing on the centerpiece. I have vases and I have a toddler who will happily collect sticks for me. This could be the winner :)

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This one looks more wintery than the others, but I really like the cream colored candles and pinecones:

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Simple and cute, but would require buying flowers:

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This one is very pretty and wouldn't take up much space--bonus!

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I'm still not sure what I'll end up doing, but it'll likely be a combination of some of these ideas. And let's face it, all anyone really cares about is the food and the pie. Pie is non-negotiable. Specifically, pumpkin pie.

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Mmmm.

~Stacy

Once a Dress, Now a Skirt: Holiday Edition

Chances are if you've gone online, turned on the TV or radio, seen a newspaper or overheard anyone talking today you have heard little more than election coverage. You will find absolutely no election coverage here, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this post :)

I know it's a little early to be talking about Christmas, but I've been thinking about what to dress Charlotte in for the holidays. All the cute, fancy Christmasy dresses in the stores are adorable but I've been struggling with the idea of shelling out money for something she will only wear for one day (and most likely only part of one day). Yeah, yeah, I could dress her in a cute pair of pants and a sweet little top but let's be honest: part of the fun of having a baby girl is dressing her up for special events. Last year's dresses are obviously way too small and the least expensive store bought option that I liked was $34 on sale! If only her dress from last year fit. I loved that dress, I thought. Hmm...

This is the dress she wore last year for her Christmas photos:

This dress holds a special place in my heart, and not just because she wore it for her first Christmas. On December 23rd, 2010, Chad and I went to my 18 week ultrasound appointment and found out that we were having a girl. Immediately after we went to lunch and stopped at Carter's (a baby/kid's clothing store, for those of you who don't know) and bought the first thing we ever bought for our baby--this dress. We had held out on buying anything up to that point, which took a lot of self control. I had gone into this store many times before buying gifts for friends' babies and always hoping that the next time I walked through the doors would be my turn. When it finally was, I was overwhelmed by the choices of baby girl clothes all packed in to one fairly small store. I walked around in a daze for awhile until I spotted this sweet dress and snatched it up in a size that I hoped would fit when the time came. It did, thankfully, and when last Christmas was over I packed it up in a box in the attic, unable to even think about giving it away.

Today I remembered that it was up there and started wondering if I could repurpose it into something for her to wear this year. The thought made me nervous, because I could easily make one wrong cut and ruin it completely. But by now I've made enough skirts out of outgrown dresses to feel pretty confident in my ability to not mess it up. So out came the dress and the scissors.

I bit my lip as I cut into the dress, worried that I would rip it or measure something wrong or otherwise reduce it to a pretty pile of garbage.

I carefully removed the flower adornment to use later when I make a matching headband!

I cut according to the finished length of the skirt plus 1":

Then sewed the raw edge with a zig zag stitch to prevent fraying.

Made the casing for the elastic waistband and inserted the elastic and stitched closed.

And done! I'm thinking of adding some kind of detail to it, like a flower or some kind of trim on the bottom. But for now, here it is:

And the whole outfit (minus tights):

I'm so happy to have found a way to reuse this special little dress but I'm also thrilled that it didn't cost a dime! I'll take it, she'll look adorable and festive, everybody wins.

Try to keep your sanity during the rest of this Election Day, and let's all rejoice that no matter what the outcome, it will be a relief to live without political ads for awhile.

~Stacy

Halloween: That's a Wrap

Even though it's almost a week into November already, Halloween has just officially ended. Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, pretty much all of Northeast Ohio rescheduled trick-or-treating for Sunday the 4th. Halloween came and went without anyone taking much notice, in light of everything else going on last week, and it was a little challenging to get into the Halloween spirit last night but we did our best!

Charlotte went as a prairie girl (or, as many people commented when they saw her--a little Pilgrim). My mom made her costume and it was adorable. It also was roomy enough that she could wear two layers of fleece pajamas underneath instead of needing a bulky coat covering her whole outfit! It was in the low 40s, and due to the time change, pitch black by 6PM. Brrr.

Chad and I walked her to about 7 houses before she tired out and it was time for bed. She got the hang of it after 2 or 3 stops, but at first looked at us like we were crazy to walk up a bunch of driveways and get candy from people. Hopefully she'll forget and she won't be trotting up driveways expecting a Kit-Kat bar on tomorrow's walk.

I'm not thrilled with the quality of these pictures, but dark + wiggly baby = not so great photos. Oh well, enjoy!

It's weird to think that we just went trick-or-treating but Thanksgiving is in two and a half weeks! How did that happen?!? Speaking of which, I'd better start thinking about that since we're hosting it this year--only the second time I've ever cooked Thanksgiving dinner! But that's the best part about about hosting: everyone brings a dish and it leaves hardly anything for me to cook. I'll take it :)

~Stacy

Project Pinterest: Toddler Activities

With the colder weather coming and fewer warm and sunny days, I knew I needed to start thinking of things to occupy Little Miss indoors. She's at a challenging age in terms of toys--so many of them are made for young babies in the 6-12 month range while the rest seem more suited for 24 months and up. That, coupled with a very short attention span, can make it difficult to find things for her to play with for longer than 45 seconds. Books hold her attention the longest, but sometimes I need her to play for a little while by herself so I can get things done. Enter Pinterest.

Pinterest is loaded with ideas of things to entertain children and you can find dozens of pins with the same ideas that I based this Project Pinterest on. I just searched under the "Kids" category for toddler activities and hundreds of ideas popped up. Since there are so many versions of the same idea I'm not including any specific pin. Here are the two projects I started with:

Sensory Bin
If you search for "Sensory Bin" on Pinterest the results are overwhelming, but the basic idea is the same: fill a container with a bunch of different sized objects with different textures and let your kid play with it. Done.

I bought a shallow plastic box with an attached cover and filled it with a few bags of dry pinto beans, some acorns we collected, a few seashells, a small storage container and a measuring cup and spoon. Charlotte got a kick out of it (and not surprisingly, so did Howard. I learned today that Howard likes pinto beans.) It kept her occupied for a surprising amount of time and the whole project cost about $5. I might add some more things to it, like pinecones or large pebbles, to keep it interesting. Also, it doesn't make noise or play an irritating song over and over again so I consider it a win all around.

Just look at him licking his lips, itching to eat another bean:

Pom Pom Sorter
This is probably the simplest project Pinterest has to offer: buy a package of colored pom poms in various sizes and put them in a muffin tin. I can handle that!

The actual purpose of this activity is to learn how to sort according to shape or color. That's a little beyond Charlotte at this point, but she still has fun taking the pom poms out and putting them back in the little cups. She also likes to put them other places:

And there's also the matter of Howard not being able to control himself around these. If you look closely in the first picture, the section of red pom poms is noticeably smaller than the other colors. Howard has a fondness for the red ones and we've lost a few already.

And that's that. Happy November!

~Stacy