For Sale!

We are the crazy kids selling our house....AGAIN.   This marks the third house for sale in three years.  First one, - 2007, Second - 2009, and now this one - 2010.  Our sweet realtor LOOOVVEES us, and it certainly doesn't hurt that we love her back!  We've become great friends over the years and, honestly, I'm excited to have a reason to talk to her almost every day again.  Love Renee!!

And the funny part is - we love our house.  We haven't outgrown it, actually just got it looking like we always wanted it to, and it suits our needs perfectly.  I guess we're just THOSE people (the ones who "enjoy" moving every two years) and we should embrace it.  We just love houses.  We love searching for the perfect "right now" fit and all the planning to make it ours and beautiful.  Then, just as we're finishing up  to make it perfection, we get antsy again and want to repeat.  So funny - I swore I would never pay capital gains again...oh well.  It'll be minimal at most. ;)

Last week was hardcore finish up the tedious project time.  IE: painting almost ALL the trim in the house.  And painting the kitchen and storage closet.  And installing indoor/outdoor carpet over the unsightly linoleum.  I was a busy busy bee.  I literally JUST finished all the painting and carpet install.  Sam is so lucky to have me.  I have become a pro trim painter and will no longer be able to get away with doing just the rolling - boo to that.  Anyhow.  The house is now spick & span and ready for hundreds of people to pass through - I can hope atleast!  

So here's the final product of (almost) all the rooms in the house, we left out the storage closet and the laundry room....gotta leave something a surprise!!  (plus, they don't photograph well...)

Our Cute House

Living Room - much bigger than it looks from exterior!

Love Love Love the French Doors

Especially because THIS porch is on the other side of them!

Dining Room - too bad I never bought the fabric for the draperies...or is it?! ha!

French doors in this room too!!

Hallway - we love the overall flow of the house

Master Bedroom

Bathroom

Second Bedroom - aka William's Nursery

Kitchen - and the retro stove/oven works PERFECTLY!

Kitchen

Kitchen - buffet/kitty dinner area ;)

Third Bedroom = Our office/sewing room

That's the quick and dirty home tour.  It was fun while it lasted - we enjoyed making it pretty again - it sure was rough when we got it.  Hopefully the next owners will love it as much as we have!!

The Birthday Party

Pepito is about to wake up from his nap - but real quick - the party decor from William's Pepito Burrito Birthday Party.

the whole room, burrito bar, chips, fruit, and cupcakes - yum!

Sweet Buffet - entirely too many cupcakes and rainbow twizzlers!

Happy Birthday Pepito Burrito Pennant Banner 

using the stripes from the invitation

Found a good use for Pepito's Month Number pictures, 

complete with his "crowning achievement" of that month

Seriously - 48 cupcakes might've been a little overkill...ha!

There were an exorbitant amount of pink and purple helium balloons  

so they all went on the twizzler favors

I will be more on the ball in a little bit and show y'all the invitations - which if I'm going to brag a little big - were AWESOME.  And it was the only thing I had to go off of for the party colors, etc.  That's what I get for not having a real theme, only colors and the idea of a burrito bar...  And to be perfectly honest, I was almost in tears having a serious meltdown a week before the party because I hadn't done anything to prep, except for making the tablecloth.  haha!  It all ended well, so that was a relief.  But I won't leave it for last minute next year, that's for sure!  (best laid plans...right?!)

Nothing like a birthday party to motivate

It has been a busy couple of weeks - hence no new posts.  Sorry about that.  There was a week to prep for an interview (I didn't get the job - boo to them), a week to prep for the beach, a week at the beach, a week to celebrate Sam & William's birthday and that brings us to now.  I made a booboo on William's party invitation and accidentally bought myself an extra week in getting ready for it!  Yay!!  My subconscious must've know I'd need the extra time...

Anyhow - so in honor of Pepito's birthday party this coming weekend - we decided it was high time we made our screen porch look pretty enough to put some people out there.  Our house isn't THAT big and we are going to have A LOT of people/kids running around, so we need all the space we can squeeze out!!

It has been on the to-do list all along to fix up the porch.  We had already painted the furniture blue for our anniversary but the floor was still ugly.  Super ugly.  And we could've painted it, but yuck.  We hate painting.  Plus, it would still be concrete which is a hassle to clean up pollen, dirt, etc, and it would be less than comfy for the very mobile little boy.  So, we decided on indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Brilliant.  It was super easy to put in, even though we cut the template wrong and had to "make it work".  Luckily we had gotten extra carpet so it's all good.  We just used double sided carpet tape and tacked it down.  Easy cheesey.  And it may not last forever, but since it was way under $100, that's absolutely number one a-ok.  We love it.  William loves it.  And I love that now I can open the doors (when it's not murderously hot/humid) and he can wander out and play and I don't have to worry about anything.  Fall is going to be lovely.

Then Sam woke me up this morning all motivated to plant new plants, and I will never argue with him if it's HIS decision to buy pretty green things, so off we went Lowe's bright and early.  We have a wonderful history of killing flowers, so we thought we'd try greenery this time around.  So far, after 5 hours, they're still alive.  I'm taking it as a good sign.  Ha!  We did get one big flower pot thing for the center of the table, but it's an annual - so it's going to die eventually anyway.

So - if you are coming to the birthday party - I hope you go to the screen porch - we worked hard on it!!  Well, not too hard, but you get the point...!!

My Bestie's House

Hads is buying a new house and you know what that means!!!  I get to play and make it beautiful!!

I will post more in depth coverage of what we have going on so far - but in the mean time - here is the color story.

I am so excited to be working with my bestest to make her brand new old house exactly what her and her hubs have always wanted!!!

Adler's Pear My Way

Who doesn't love Jonathan Adler? I mean seriously. He's great. And I will admit that 

I don't know a whole lot about him, I've been busy changing diapers, but somewhere 

this pillow popped up and spoke to me. I love pears. I love pillows. Yum. And the 

best part - I knew I'd eventually be able to figure out a way to have it - even I had 

to make it myself.

So I did. :)

Have I mentioned how much I am in love with appliques? SO IN LOVE!  

I'm having the best time - pepito is slowly losing plain white onesies every day.  

I don't have wonder under so I'm using interfacing, but as long as I throw a couple 

pins in it to get started, it's working pretty well.

I love that the pear isn't solid - the trellis is one of my most favorite fabrics ever - but 
never made it into the living room officially in a big way, so it's nice having just 
a touch of it.  And the best part - it was totally free - made with scraps and remnants I 
had lying around!! Gotta love that! Much better than $98, even if JA's is wool and
perfect... It only took maybe 30-45 minutes start to finish - this is also making it on the 

Chrismtas Gift List of possibilities!! Oh the combinations!!!

The only problem is that I don't have any of the cream fabric left over to make a pair, 

I really wanted a lemon pillow for the other chair, so I guess it will have to eventually 

move to the sofa. No big deal - but I'm pretty sure that means I am one pillow short.  

Have to think that one over. In the mean time - I'm tickled pink with how easy and 

happy this one pear makes me!

I Heart Monograms

I mean, seriously, who doesn't love a pretty monogram?!  I would put initials on every single thing I own if I could afford it/my hubs would allow me too.  They're pretty and classic and just plain fun.  Makes me smile every time.

Enter stage right: our comfy large pillow in the living room.

On a whim (I was bored and had no sewing project for the day) I made a cover for a 16x24 pillow form I had hanging around out of our drapery fabric.  I thought it'd be nice to have the fabric pulled over to the sofa and it is a seriously comfy pillow - can't go wrong - right?!  Well, I knew it would need something to help jazz it up a bit, but in an effort to not make ANOTHER trip to the fabric store, I just left the trim off and decided we'd make do until hubsters would give me permission to buy some trim and then I'd remake it.  Easy cheesey.  No big deal.

see the pillow in question on the right? - yeah - it's naked

And the pillow did NEED something.  It was cute - but was definitely not statement making - and definitely felt a little naked.  Now, I don't know if I saw this somewhere on Etsy, a random blog, or maybe I made it up - but I came up with the idea to make a pillow "sleeve".  I figured it would break up the large floral and maybe that would be all it needed.

now it's dressed up and all pretty

But yesterday, I discovered that doing appliques really wasn't that difficult even though I don't have an embroidery machine and then the monogram was born.  I actually made the pillow sleeve twice, because the first time, like a dummy, I traced the letter with a red pen and you could see faint pinkness hanging out in the stitches. Not cool.  So instead of going to bed like a smart stay at home mommy, I wired myself up and made another one.  Much better.  I traced with yellow this time around.. ;)

And the best part - the first one was done when the hubs got home from work - and he QUOTE "that looks great - did YOU do that?"  SCORE!!!  He loved it and it looked good enough that he was IMPRESSED that I did it!! yay!!!  Gotta love that man!!  I don't think he is even aware of what he did for my self-esteem.

This might make it onto the Christmas Gift List Possibilities for everyone I know...so - if you are expecting a gift from me this year - let me know if this is the one you want - or feel free to ignore this post all together and be surprised in six months! ha!

Strawberry Banana Yumminess

A week or so ago we ate at the club with B&B so they could see William before we left for the long weekend.  Becky had this amazing strawberry banana soup from the salad bar and let William have some and he went absolutely nuts for it.  So when we were at my parent's house, I googled a recipe and tried to recreate it  The recipe I found wasn't quite the consistency I was hoping for - it was too thin - ie. difficult to feed to a busy body kid like mine.

Today became grocery shopping day somehow - probably because we needed food to be able to eat dinner tonight - and I thought I'd pick up the ingredients to try again, only this time with heavy whipping cream.  I just finished it - and from my taste test - it is a success.  It is much thicker, not overpoweringly sweet, and just plain yummy.  Can't wait for it to chill and have some tonight!

In case you want my very first custom recipe (yep, I'm tickled with myself) - and it is ridiculously simple to make so you should - here it is!

1 container of fresh strawberries, sliced
2 medium bananas sliced
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice, I like fresh - cut lemon in half and squeeze one side until you don't want to squeeze anymore :) how's that for instructions?! ha!
1/4 cup sugar - I might go up to 1/3 cup next time
1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 cup Fat Free Sour Cream (I'm sure you could use full fat if you weren't counting WW points and it would be even yummier)

I think next time I am going to throw in 1/4-1/2 cup of raspberries - so I will definitely be upping the sugar to 1/3 cup.  Updates on recipe as I make it.  Sam suggested maybe a strawberry extract (do they make that?) if losing 1 banana doesn't cut it (I made it with 3 bananas and we couldn't taste enough of the strawberry)  Sorry y'all - this is obviously a work in progress to perfection but it's too good not to try and so summery!

Combine Fruit, Lemon Juice, and Sugar in food processor.

Whip Heavy Cream until soft peaks form, very small peaks - really until it kind of stands by itself just a touch - we're not making meringue here... ;)

Fold in Sour Cream and then when that's mixed in, Fold in Fruit.

Chill. Garnish with strawberries if it makes you happy and you didn't use all of them before.  Serve.  I'm thinking it is going to be about 12 - 1/2 cup servings.  And in case you need to know - each serving (if 12) is 3 points each.

I think this would be adorable served in tea cups. Ones with flowers on them.  Just saying.