Birthday season!

My babies are now TWO and FOUR!

Of course I had to make G a birthday crown since L already had one. :)

G had a joint birthday swim party with one of his bestie's from school. I made their cake. I wasn't fancy or anything, but it captured their personalities well, and they both G and KR loved it. (And KR's mom, too, whew!).

As soon as I saw these, I knew I had to make little fish soaps for G's little friends to take home after the party. I picked up the goldfish at US Toy, the soap base and fragrance at a local craft store, and used Wilton clear treat bags and a piece of ribbon to tie it all off. The soap sets in an ice bath pretty quickly, and you just sit the finished product out to harden completely overnight.

What an aweful pic! So yellow! But you get the idea ;) 

I love this next pic. What little one wouldn't want to be surrounded by balloons?!

And my silly little L on his birthday. 

What a crazy that boy he is. I didn't have an "official" party for him this year, but he did celebrate at home, with his classmates, and spent the afternoon/evening at the State Fair. 

Poor Gunnar got nervous at the start. Logan had no fear whatsoever, of course!
But G loved it and was all smiles soon after the first circle round. :)

Happy birthday to my favorite little men in the whole world. I love my boys so much! 

Reading Nook

  I decided to turn fairly wasted space under the stairs into a reading nook for the boys. Both G and L love to read, and I also figured it would be a nice 'quiet time' space for G to rest when he didn't want to nap, rather than inadvertently waking his brother. ;-)

The before space. 

  I saw this DIY pillow sleeping bag on Pinterest and altered the idea a bit to make the cushion. I bought a twin flat sheet and cheap pillows, folded the sheet in half (sides together) and sewed straight lines through it to act as "pillow cases" for each segment. The case opening is one one end, rather than nicely hidden in the center as the original tuturial. Now, if the cushion was going to function more as a mobile sleeping bag, then I would follow her tutorial closely, but mine will always be up against that wall, so I really didnt care if the opening was more 'finished.' Either way though, sooooo easy! Seriously took maybe 30 minutes to pull the whole nook together. G and L added some stuffed friends and filled a long basket tucked under the first stair with books of their choosing and voila, the reading nook was complete.

I also added some of those soft floor mats underneath for extra cushioning.

The boys were quite surprised and very happy with their new space. I'm thinking about also adding a little curtain in the future to give it more of a "fort" kid feel. :)

 I dont know why the pics are coming out wonky? Like they look smooshed? Ah well!

Lunch Sacks!

 Made the boys some new lunch sacks for school! I had been considering different patterns, and even drafting my own pattern altogether, but this one pretty much had everything I was looking for. I wanted something that the boys could each carry easily, that was insulated, that could actually hold containers flat (most have depths so narrow) and that the boys could open but not necessarily easily ;).

I used cotton for the interior and exterior (the solid is medium weight canvas) and an Insul-Bright layer to keep contents hot/cold. I even got a chance to use a few specialty stitches from my machine to add a little personalization.

So far the bags have held up great! And they are super cute, IMO. I think when I get around to it, Ill make a few in adult size as well.

You can link to the lunch sack pattern through here.  :)

Summer T's

The boys had a friend stay the day with us, so we wanted to do something fun and decided on making t-shirts. I already have blank shirts in their sizes and paints/brushes and freezer paper stashed away, so it was an easy go-to activity. Freezer paper is so easy to work with, and super nice for little ones because you can leave the rest of the shirt mostly covered since its harder for them to stay within the 'stencil' area. ;-) I used the same method as here. They all had a blast, it was a gorgeous day for painting outside, and their friend had something tangible to take home as well. :)

Moving up to sous chef.

I'm ready! Lets get baking!

Mixing? You need mixing?! I got ya covered mama!

Mmm mmmm, worth all that hard work. Definitely.

Third year birthday canvas.

Okay okay, I promise this will me my last third birthday related post. ;) But I had to share G's third canvas, of course! This year Gunnar was a bit more purposeful with his art.

I secretly cringed a little when he began mixing and muddling the paint colors together. But it's his painting, so I bit my tongue and let him have his way. I'm glad I did, though, because I think he makes beautiful art. 

He calls it "Lots of fish, and a bird." The bird is the purple-ish creation on the bottom right side.

I am so glad he wanted to smash his hands in paint. Those little hand prints are so special to me and really mark him as such a big boy, and still so little, at the same time.

Not a great picture, but here they are together, clockwise from first birthday, hanging on my bedroom wall above my dresser.  Logan's first birthday canvas will fill that fourth spot in less than a month (yikes!).

First Fishing Trip

Uncle Chris flew in to take G on his first fishing venture for his birthday. My brother travels all over the world to fish, hunt waterfalls, hike and the like. G's been asking to go fishing, but hubs held off from taking him because we knew this would be something really special for Uncle Chris to do with G. And then hubs could take over from there. ;)

 The first fish caught of many. :)

Logan and I tagged along to take pics and walk around the park.

Let me just say Gunnar had a BLAST. For those of you Dallas readers, we hit Sunnyvale Town Park. It is absolutely teeming with fish!  

And to close out, here's a fun video Uncle Chris took:

Three.

My little boy turned three a week ago.  

My sweet, smart, funny, curious, active little boy is growing up too fast.

Grandma and Grandpa flew in for the weekend and we headed out to Ft Worth to ride the miniature rails per Gunnar's request.

Round trip this train is almost a 45 minute ride!

I wasn't planning on making him an official cake for his birthday since he didn't have a formal party, and while he did have cupcakes with all his school friends, my mommy guilt still hit and I scrambled during nap time to throw something together. Worth everything to hear my now 3 year old offer up a huge "Thank you mommy, I love it!" with big wide excited and surprised eyes.

It's not amazing in terms of a cake, but I'm pretty darn proud of how it turned out considering it came to life in a pinch!

I had one car left over, so I let Gunnar decorate it the next night and we sang happy birthday all over again. 

This was so much fun for him, I think every year Ill let him decorate his own personal mini cake or cupcake to blow out the candles on. 

Happy birthday little man! Your dad and I are so proud of you and feel so lucky to call you our son. 

Pears a plenty.

We've been waiting a few years for the pear tree to give us a good fruiting. Last year most of the blossoms dropped after some heavy wind swept through, so we only got 3 or 4 pears.  Our peach tree consistently is an incredibly good producer; We had TONS of peaches throughout the early part of this summer. And now, finally, looks like the pear tree is beginning to follow suit!

Gunnar gathered a bunch of pears that blew off from a recent storm. These were the little guys, perfect for little hands to eat easily. Small, but really tasty! Still have double that amount growing on the tree, and those are full size.

Here's Gunnar with one of his neighbor friends eating pears they cut up themselves. They pretend the playhouse is their restaurant kitchen and cook us food to order. But even the cooks need a snack now and then!

Nothing like fresh picked, sweet and juicy pears grown at home. Even Logan loves them. :)

And some nice tomatoes and (overgrown, oops!) cucumbers we picked today, too!

Pigs. Really?

My 2 year old's favorite animal is a pig. Seriously.
Really? Yes. How odd is that?
We've asked him over and over again for a few months now, and we always expect him to say a dog, cat, lizard.. something "normal," but nope, its always a pig.
And you might be thinking, 'well pigs can be kinda cute, like Wilbur'. No, no, no.. He's not referring to the Charlotte's Web version of a pig.. nice and pink, with a perfect curly tail.. nope. The uglier the pig, the more fat and wirey and dirty, the more Gunnar likes it.
Like this Warthog above from the Dallas Zoo, that's one of his favorites. But any pig he likes. And he's never seen any tv or movie with pigs in it. Is my kid abnormally odd? Ay!

(I do also have to apologize for the lack of posts lately. We had an obnoxious worm virus on the computer and I've been scared to death to harm our pictures. So I kinda just went MIA. Not that I've had much time to post anyhow! Now that schools out, I've been working 6 days a week while hubby plays mama since he's home for the summer. The life of a teacher, nice for sure! Anywho, hopefully Ill be back up and posting regularly again soon. :) )

Zippered pouches and my Mother's Day gifts

My mom and grandma are both big fans of cutting coupons, but they carry them around in plastic sandwich baggies.  My mom has mentioned before that she'd like to pull something a little more "attractive" out of her purse.  Hopefully these will suffice.  I tucked in recent pics of the boys, and Gunnar drew a picture for each of them.

 I purposely chose a food related print for my grandma's pouch. I really didn't want her having to search all in her bag trying to remember where and what the heck she put her coupons in. 

And I think the strawberry print is cute, too, so that works.

My mom would never handle that strawberry print.  I chose a more refined, simple black based floral print for her, with a coordinating interior lining.
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 And look what my sweet boy made for me at school.  *love*

He was so excited to tell me about how he planted the flower and painted the pot and dots on the card. And how I need to water the plant and give it sun to make it grow really big. He was so proud of his gift!

 And squueeeeeel!  The husband gave me a pizza stone!! I think going over 6 months without buying a single bread product proved that I was serious about this bread baking thing, worthy enough for my very own stone. ;)  I LOVE IT!  I've made homemade pizza on it twice and a boule so far.  What a difference! 


One happy mama on Mother's Day.  Latin cafe brunch, Artfest, a nap!, Chinese takeout, and good Hawaiian beer.  Awesome husband and the best two little boys a mom could ask for. Great day. ♥