Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Last Night...

...as Jason and I were lounging in the den/garage/playroom, at some point, Cohen came out of his room to fall asleep on the couch.


Oh, how I love this baby so much. He never ceases to surprise us.

Monday, April 26, 2010

The Weekend in Photos

This weekend was just what I needed. Last week was rough with Cohen waking up at 5:00 just about every morning and off with all his naps. I really needed a fun weekend to get me going again. Most Saturday mornings Jason will play football with a group of guys from his work and church and just friends of friends. A little after Jason left, Cohen was asking where "Dada" went and I told him he went to play football. All he could say after that was "foot ball" over and over again. So, after an epic failure at trying to visit a new Thrift Store, I decided we should go watch Dada play football. That was a bad day to forget to bring the camera. Cohen wanted to play so badly with with big boys, but did a great job of staying on the lines and watching.

Later after lunch and a nap we went to go see a friend get married.

Then followed that up with going to Jason's co-workers annual Crawfish Boil. This is one of my favorite traditions we do every year. Her parents ship down pounds and pounds of live crawfish and cook them along with potatoes, corn on the cob, mushrooms, garlic, sausage, and all the spicy seasonings. They then poor it out on two large tables and you have at it. It is so tender and delicious. There is also jambalaya that is super spicy, gumbo, and alligator. The party goes on all day.


I hadn't noticed any other year, but Cohen was sure to show me something new. But they have the live crawfish out to play in large galvanized buckets. Cohen couldn't get enough of them. I think that's where we spent 90% of our time. I wish I would have taken video of his reactions to them. It was beyond adorable.


Sunday we celebrated one of best friend's Birthdays. We headed out to All Fired up, which is one of those pottery painting places. It was fun to watch everyone's creative juices run. Everyone except Jason. He claims trying to be creative or artsy would just cause him frustration. That's okay, he can be our picture taker and baby watcher.


We let Cohen paint something for Avery. I chose a small snail dish and thought we could use it on her dresser for all her earrings she will be wearing. After choosing the colors that go along with her scheme in her room, we let Cohen have at it. He was excited to paint, for we hadn't tried it yet before.


And I was excited to see how he would react and feel about it all. At first I think he was more interested in touching the paint and eating it. No worries though, the paint is non toxic. But he enjoyed it. He would paint some then get bored and come back to it. Just what I figured an almost 2 year olds attention span would allow. It was a lot of fun

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Happy Earth Day!!


Happy 40th Anniversary Earth Day!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Avery's Room - Paint Color

Saturday morning we (my friend Jasmyn and I, but mostly Jasmyn) painted Avery's room. I went with Sherwin Williams Rainwashed and had it color matched at Lowe's using their Olympic Paint. I learned recently that Olympic has no VOC's in their paint. It's more affordable than a lot of the other options out there and if I needed to jump in and help with painting all I needed to do was put on a mask for safety and join in on the fun. Like most paints, it came out a little different, but I am pretty pleased with the outcome.


Next, I need to figure out what color to paint the dresser. I've narrowed it down to Bella Pink and Hopeful...with a slight lean towards Hopeful.

Monday, April 19, 2010

The Weekend in Photos

This weekend was a productive and fun weekend. Saturday, my talented friend Jasmyn came over to help paint Avery's room.



Then later that evening we had some friends over for yummy dinner and dessert. Then on Sunday we had some more friends over from Jason's work for lunch.

It just happened to be a bad weekend too...because I didn't even think to take any pictures. But just imagine herb roasted chicken, root beer pulled pork sandwiches, and brownies!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Ideas for Avery's Room

Even before we found out that we are having a girl I was always getting ideas from the web with what I wanted to do with her room. We really didn't have money to decorate Cohen's room besides the must haves, so with Avery, I wanted to be able to do a little more.

This time instead of buying a pre-made crib set, I decided I wanted to make my own. I found this great pattern at Old Time Pottery and immediately knew I wanted to use it as her crib skirt. I love the more transitional feel of it and all the colors it includes. And also that it doesn't scream "BABY"! I haven't decided if I want to make or even use a crib bumper though. We barely used it for Cohen, so I can't imagine it lasting long in the crib with Avery either.

(the colors in the picture are a little off)

We bought a dresser off of craigslist. Which I was going to use as a console table in the living room. But when we found out we were pregnant, I knew if we had a girl that I would want to use it in her bedroom. I have visions of painting it pink! I haven't decided on which colors I would like to use, but the following three are top candidates.

(SW Loveable)


(SW Bella Pink)


(SW Hopeful)

So, with the dresser being pink, I didn't want pink walks or even purple, or yellow or orange. I wanted something cooler. I started thinking of a blue-ish color and after fanning through the color deck and matching it against the fabric. I'm planning on using this color.

(SW Rainwashed)

I just LOVE the color! It has a little bit of gray in it which really makes it not to baby of a color.

We also have a brown bookcase that I want to use in her bedroom. A place to store books, some toys, and other items. Since her crib is cherry and the dresser is going to be pink, I decided I wanted it to be white or off white. I really haven't decided yet. But it will definitely be in the white family. Something along the lines of this:

(SW Marshmallow)

I'm going to try and create a mood board to get all my thoughts on one page. One printable page I can hang over the desk. I just need to figure out how...then I will post later.

I'm so excited to decorate a little girl's room. I think it will be so much fun!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Compost Bin, Part 1

I've been wanting to make a more efficient composting system for a while now. We tried to make a small cost effective one, but it didn't really work for us. I either didn't put enough holes in the bucket or I puts too much stuff. I'm not sure. So, for a while there, our composting just kind of diminished. But ever since the new year came around I have had the urge to make our composting dreams happen.



We were given untreated pallets to us by a friend after posting something on FB. I was so excited because I didn't know where to start looking to get any. Plus, I wanted to do this as cost effective as possible. We were given four altogether. I'm planning on using them to form a three bin system. They will run parallel to each other and to connect them I'm just going to add some wooden planks.



But because the pallets had too large of gaps between the slats I needed to add more. I headed to the home improvement store to purchase more 1x4 cedar planks. I cut them all to length and just filled in the holes.



Now I'm waiting for a free weekend so that Jay and his muscles can help me put them together.

Monday, April 5, 2010

The Weekend in Photos

Happy Easter! We had a wonderful Easter Weekend. Friday evening we have a bible study group that we attend. We made is special this past Friday for the upcoming Easter holiday and had a traditional Easter dinner. It didn't include all of the traditional fixings, but we did have brisket, chicken, roasted asparagus, and potato kugel. Then for dessert we had a flour-less chocolate cake. I brought my camera, but failed to take any pictures.

Saturday morning we headed to our Church's Easter Egg Hunt. It was cute watching Cohen run around. Unfortunately there were a lot of older, faster children, so he only got 3 eggs. Two he got all by himself and one mommy snatched up for him. He was pretty eager to sit down and open the eggs to see what was inside. We then played on the playground and then we all left with Cohen and his very first lollipop in tow.



Then later that day after some grocery shopping and rest I decided I wanted to dye some eggs with Cohen. My mom came over and we tried two different versions. The first batch was dyed with food coloring (mixed in with 1 tsp of vinegar and boiling water). Then the second batch we did with natural food dyes. These were made from every day items in your pantry. We used turmeric, chili powder, and red wine. A hand full was brought to a boil with 1 cup of water then turned down to simmer for 15 minutes. They were then transferred to coffee cups and we added about 1 tsp of vinegar to the mixture. All the articles I red online said they take a long time to dye, so we left them in the mugs overnight and took them out the next day. Jay and I like the more muted tones the natural dyes made. I think next year we will do all natural dyed eggs and do a bunch more as well.



It was so fun watching Cohen as he helped me dye the eggs. He was so into it that when there were no more eggs to dye he got upset. After we pulled the food colored eggs out, he just wanted to stare at them. Well, he wanted to play with them, but we kept him from that. It's definitely a tradition we will keep.



Easter Sunday was nice. Cohen opened his Easter Basket before church and enjoyed every
minute of it. He got two books, two wooden trucks, two large bugs, and a shirt.




Then for lunch we had Jason's parents over. We tried to take a family picture. But Cohen wasn't having it. Still, it was a nice, relaxing evening. Though I was beyond exhausted.