$10 DIY Sandbox

Spring is in the air and the weather has certainly warmed up around here.  Despite the insane amount of pollen, we have been hanging out on the deck at home and enjoying stretching out our toes and wearing short sleeves.

We don’t have much in the way of “outdoor toys” for the little one since she was immobile this time last year, but this post from Prudent Mama seemed ingenious.

So off we went and got some play sand from Lowe’s and a plastic storage bin from Target. Add a couple of plastic beach toys and buckets from CVS and we spent a total of just about $10 for infinite fun.

She loves the texture of the sand and picking it up and tossing it. Then I turned around for a second and found this:

Little stinker hopped right in!  Whee!  And when all is done, we just pop the lid back on and wait for another sunny day.  Can’t beat that!

Oh Hai

So it wasn’t exactly intentional to celebrate this blog’s 7th anniversary by going on hiatus for 2 months.  But hey, we’ve been busy!

• We celebrated baby’s 1st Thanksgiving and Christmas
• Survived a trip to Florida with one cranky baby + a husband with a nasty cold and pinkeye
• Celebrated her 1st birthday
• Had a yucky and thankfully short bout of eczema
• Got snowed in for an entire week
• Celebrated Chinese New Year
• She said her first word (“Doggy!”) and started walking

It’s been an exciting couple of months here at the homestead, and we’re so happy and grateful for every crazy ass minute of it.  I love my family, what can I say?

She’s Crafty: Halloween!

Holy hell it’s been a long time since I made something!  Guess having a baby takes time and all…

Something about Halloween this year really got me back in a crafty mood.  It definitely helps that I have a little human to dress up and entertain now, too (sorry Mr., she’s way more cooperative when I dress her up!).

I definitely wanted to decorate our porch despite our serious lack of trick-or-treaters.  I saw some really cool wreaths online and in stores, but they were pretty pricey – $30 and up!  I read this post on how to make your own and was inspired,  so I went the DIY route and made this for $9 total:

All I needed was a wreath, spray paint, and some little icky creatures.  I picked up the creatures from Target and hot glued them.  The bats glued on just fine, but the mice and spiders are made of this stretchy material which just didn’t adhere to the glue at all, so I wired them with some fine gauge floral wire and hung a couple spiders with fishing line for that extra web effect.

The best part is that because the spiders and mice are squishy, they also wiggle when the door moves – awesome.

Etsy Love: Rumpelstreet Boutique

I really wanted to get a door sign for the baby’s room – something cute to signify that it’s her lair. Unfortunately everything I saw was just too damn cutesy, where “whimsy” equates to “really curly fonts,” shabby chic, and other nonsense.

Thankfully, Etsy came to the rescue again with Rumpelstreet Boutique. They have a ton of vintage-looking signs that you can personalize with colors and interesting fonts to your taste.

I was super pleased when we got the little one’s sign. I chose a pretty tarnished looking script initial with a nice skinny type for her name, both in black, and offset it with a bubblegum pink. It’s also totally sturdy and heavy duty, and very well made. She actually loves seeing it on her door now – when we carry her by she always reaches for it. I hope she enjoys it for years to come!

Deck The Halls

House. Originally uploaded by bobafred

Doesn’t the Mr. do a good job?

Some Kind of Torture

I only had two absolutes going into this pregnancy:  1. Avoid getting sick at all costs and 2. Avoid getting induced at all costs.  Well, #1 went to shit this past week.  I was doing so well avoiding germy people (yes, I am one of those hand sanitizing wipes carrying freaks), but right after Thanksgiving I managed to catch a stupid cold.

Note: When you’re 35 weeks pregnant, NOTHING you are allowed to take helps. I’m sorry, but benadryl and cough drops aren’t going to cut it (holy hell would I have killed for a box of Mucinex).  I could hardly breathe and my face filled up with snot (pretty, no?).  A compromised immune system + little bitty cold = completely debilitating.  And to add insult to injury, the little that I was allowed to take kept me up so there was no napping in bed to be done. So there I was at home for FOUR miserable days, wide awake to enjoy it all.  Folks at work even had to reschedule my baby shower (I guess they actually want me to be there).

I am somewhat alive today.  Still a little snotty, now with an added bonus of a phlegmy cough.  But I showered and got out of the house – a huge achievement based on the last few days.  The Mr. put up the christmas lights on the house and we got a tree.  Having ourselves a little merry-ness with takeout and Elf is definitely cheering me up.

But I’m still bitter and disappointed in getting sick.  I really tried my best to avoid it at all costs.  FAIL.

New addition

Our old friend kicked the bucket after several small episodes and a long, agonizing illness.  At first I thought one of the dogs had assassinated it, but it just seems like it was time to let go.  It was a good 4+ years, friend.

Magnets rule

I have purchased about 3 of these easy magnetic strips (from Paper Source) for the office, work, and home. They have short and longer versions, and they basically have double-sided tape and stick to any surface, anywhere. So much nicer than a bunch of post-it notes!

This week I finally realized that I needed one for the kitchen. We have a very nice fancy cookbook stand that folds up for storage, but this is the perfect solution for holding up recipes that I’ve clipped or printed out. And no more food splatters on my recipes!

Dear Anthropologie

Dear Anthropologie,

Damn you for all your finery and cuter-than-cuteness. Thanks for making me salivate over the faux pas known as shabby chic, which I eschewed until we met.

Screw you for adding awesome home goods in addition to clothes I can’t afford or shoes that are too small. And your “sales” – discounts on things I should already know are still way overpriced – are a joke.

Fine. Take all my money.

Signed,
Your Bitch

Baby Molls and the Great Fence

Since we bought the house, we’ve been intending to put in a fence. Unfortunately, the desire to have said fence was overcome by the actual cost of the fence. If you haven’t seen our yard, it’s huge. Seriously-gigantic-for-an-intown-yard huge.

But this past week was THE week for the Mr. to be a rock start dad and give Molls her fence (not to mention how freaking excited I am to not walk her in the freezing early hours of the morning anymore!).

Do you think she is happy about it?

She was running from bobafred on Vimeo.

And this is just a little note to everyone who told us we could “totally” do this ourselves:

Hell. No. 263 feet of fencing is ridonkulous.

Not to mention the trees and bamboo needing to be cleared.

I’ve seen your fences.