After finishing up the landscaping rocks/mulch, we moved on to the next project - sanding, priming and painting the backdoor! Alan painted our front door black last summer or the summer before.. So we decided to paint the back door black to match!
all sanded and ready to be primed
all primed and white trim painted
all done! We wanted some white trim to match the window panes
The next couple of weeks we will be preparing and having Madison's 5th Birthday and party and then September holds our 10th anniversary which includes a weekend trip plus Alan is taking Madison on her first tent camping trip, so I'm not sure how many house projects will get done in September.. Maybe some small things. October is just as busy! The Fall/winter we will focus on the inside and planting privacy trees and fruit bushes/trees. Love getting projects done!
Sorry it's taken me so long to post pictures. We have been adding things here and there and I waited on some items from Ikea forever and then I finally cancelled it and bought replacements elsewhere. The room isn't completely done but for the most part, it's done and we all love it! I will try to link as much as I can but bear with me. It's a lot of stuff!
We kept going back and forth on the color. I was scared pink would make it look like a Pepto-Bismal bottle. We finally decided to just do it and decided to paint the place at the windows(on the left) the darker shade on the paint swatch. We love it. It looks great!
I love these dry erase tags. I wanted to label the bins but needed something that I could switch out easily. I added numbers at the bottom to help Madison. So when I say "Go put your food back-Look for Number One" It teaches her her numbers and also what cubby is what and it makes it kind of fun for her to clean up.
The items I cancelled were the 3 buckets to hang on the rail.
These items got "lost" twice and IKEA was a pain in the rear to deal
with. Long story short, I waited over 2 months for these items and ended
up cancelling them and found these glass jars at Hobby Lobby. I don't
like them as much but they work and they are smaller than the
IKEA buckets which mean I can fit more on the rail. Moral of the story,
never order from IKEA. Only shop in the store.
I could not keep this water table clean outside. So I converted it into a sensory table. It came with a slide to be used as part of the water table and it had holes under it, so I found some fun scrapbook paper and covered it up. I found some fun spangles and poured them in. Throw in some measuring cups, whisks and scoops and Madison really likes playing with it. Using it as "tea" or "coffee". It can be a mess sometimes so the bigger spangles work better.
Alan loves Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha. I found a copycat recipe online and to our surprise, they were really good!
Ingredients:
2/3 - cup whole milk
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup freshly brewed strong coffee
Directions:
Add milk and chocolate chips to double boiler and heat until the white chocolate chips are melted. While the chips are melting start the coffee. Pour about 1/4 cup of the milk mixture into a large coffee mug. Add about 1/2 cup hot coffee and more of the milk mixture until it
reaches the top of the mug.
I make big batches and freeze them. I double or triple the coffee, milk and chocolate chips. For the coffee, I put 5 heaping tablespoons in with 4 1/2 cups of water. The closest ratio for a travel mug/foam cup is 1 cup coffee to 3/4 cup milk mixture. This big batch will usually make 3-4 containers to freeze. I freeze them in glass containers just big enough for one cup of coffee and sit it in the fridge the day before to thaw out for in the morning.
The original recipe makes enough for 2 small mugs or one large latte mug.
I found this recipe and decided to try it for Madison to snack on. I cut the dried cranberries up in hopes she could eat them. They are too chewy for her to eat so I guess next go round, I will leave them out :) I like them and they are a good snack and good for you. No added sugar and no flour. You can add nuts or chocolate chips(if you need it sweeter) or whatever you want to add.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup oats
1 tspn cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 cup flax meal
2 1/2 cups dried fruit(cranberries, raisins, etc) or nuts
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil(I used olive oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients until combined. Add wet ingredients then mix until evenly mixed.
Scoop a well rounded tablespoon, roll in a ball and place on lightly greased cookie sheet. Flatten to 1" or so(I didn't do this) They will not flatten during baking.
Bake 20 minutes or until brown
She seemed to like them but then spit out the cranberries after trying to eat them.
I got a lot of compliments on some things at the party so I thought I'd share where I got the ideas!
Cake/Cupcakes
I knew I wanted to serve cupcakes versus cake at the party. I craved cupcakes my entire pregnancy and we kept my favorite cupcake place in business! I also knew I wanted her smash cake to have her name on the side of it. I went searching for pink and green and stumbled on this picture.
It was perfect! I had the pink M's on strawberry/cream cheese cupcakes and green 1's on vanilla/buttercream. I told the baker to put pink and green dots on her cake with her name on the side and a pink '1' on the top. She did perfect! Even though the strawberry didn't taste like strawberry and they weren't pink, there were strawberries in the batter :)
I also made the cupcake holder. I bought 2 cardboard cake sheets from Party City-one smaller than the other- and spray painted them white. I also spray painted a Puff container white(the tower in between layers) and hot glued it to both layers. I then hot glue a thin silver ribbon around the bottom of the container. The pink edging is pink streamers. I noticed when I got home that one side of the bottom cardboard what straight, where the other edges were scalloped. Weird! I wanted to cover it so I did this. Total cost- less than $10 versus those store bought cupcake holders that run $13-$50 and typically hold 12-24 cupcakes. I wanted one to hold all 36 cupcakes so I didn't have to man the cupcake station and refill them if they ran out.
Each cardboard was less than $1 each. The streamers were $0.99 but I also used them as decorations. The spray paint was $4 and was also used on her M wreath(seen below) The Puff container was $2.99 when they were full of puffs so I won't count that cost into it since I bought them a while back and saved the container. I also glue canning jar rims on each corner to lift the bottom layer off the table just a tad :)
Puffs
I used this video to help because I had some trouble with the first couple I did. The 3 in the window, I didn't cut the ends after folding them. The big ones, 2 on the mantel and one above the stairs/gifts, I cut into a point, like the Dahlia in the picture below the video.
For the small ones I used 1 pack of tissue paper each. I laid out the paper and cut it in half. For the large ones, I just laid the tissue out and fold it long ways. If I had to do over, I would use 2 packs of tissue for each big puff.
Ice cream cups
I decided to do this so someone didn't have to worry about scooping ice cream the entire party. Plus we didn't wait for everyone to eat cake and ice cream until the end so people could eat their sweets with their food if they wanted. This actually turned into a melted ice cream disaster. I only sat out about 20 cups(we had 30 people) and only a few were ate. We looked over and ice cream was everywhere! If I had to redo, I would either get those little personal ice cream cups or put ice cream in a small plastic cups. It was a cute idea anyway.. To do this, you just scoop ice cream into cupcake liners and freeze
them. I only have one cupcake pan so I just put them all onto 3 baking
sheets, covered them in foil and froze them.
Mason Jar drinks
I got a lot of compliments on these! One comment was "It's so simple but the liner makes it look elegant". I decided to do Hawaiian Punch in Lemon Berry and Green Berry Rush to tie in the pink and green theme. I got the straws(the are actually plastic!) and cupcake liners from Hobby Lobby. I decided to only do 12 drinks(6 each color) because we also had water bottles and now I wish I'd done 24! People actually drank them :)
To get a good hole started, I put one liner on the jar to see where the straw would go. I then cut an X with scissors in the spot so when we put the straw in it, it wouldn't rip. The day of the party we filled the jars, put the liners on and stuck the straw in them.
Mason Jar cutlery holders
Since using mason jars for the drinks, I decided to use some to hold the forks and spoons. I got a roll of really cute ribbon from Hobby Lobby and taped them to the top. It turned out cute! The ribbon tied the colors together and using the jars tied in the drinks too.
Water bottle labels
I wanted to pretty up the water bottles by replacing the brand labels with something to match the party. I found this link which has 5 labels on a sheet. I tore off the labels, cut these and taped them on with 2 inch tape. The only thing was they couldn't go in ice. We filled our fridge with 50 water bottles and sat them out. I didn't get to drink any so I hope they stayed chilled throughout the party! People thought I bought the bottles that way and they really liked them!
Veggie cups
I thought this would be a great way to keep Ranch dressing from being all over someones plate and our buffet, so we decided to do these cups. While people did eat them, I wish we had done these and refrigerated them that morning so we weren't assembling them when people starting coming over :) We just didn't have the room in the fridge, with 3 dozen cupcakes and 50 water bottles and all...I had already cut carrots, peppers and celery. We should have added some red and yellow peppers to help fill them up more. Ah well. Live and learn :)
High chair tutu
I knew I wanted to add some frilly to her high chair and found this tutu at Hobby Lobby. Luckily her high chair tray has a top tray that lifts out so you can put in the dishwasher so we just taped the ribbon under that tray. She didn't play with it as much as I thought. People loved it!
Balloon walkway
I found this picture on Pinterest and knew I wanted to do it. I didn't get a picture but we only lined up 6 balloons on one side of our sidewalk but I would have loved to fill it up like this one. I'm glad we didn't because it turned out so windy that day that they ended up laying on the ground anyway. It also started raining before the party was over and they all deflated due to the temperature dropping and the rain beating them. To stake them in the ground, I used golf tees and tied the ribbon around the top part.
Salsa
I got rave reviews on my salsa. It's always been my go-to recipe for any function I've needed to bring food to. All of those garden tomatoes I got from my neighbors this year came in quite handy! I think I used roughly 20 cups of boiled and chopped tomatoes and we had a bit left over. I also used fresh jalepenos, lime and cannded whole chiles that I chopped up. Here's my normal, small batch recipe:
3 cans diced or petite diced tomatoes (I always used Hunts brand)
1 jar diced chiles
1 jalapeno, diced (or more to taste)
1 diced onion
juice of 1 lime
1-2 tspn minced garlic (I use the jar garlic)
Mix it all up, add salt and pepper to taste and refrigerate. It always taste better the next day or after being refrigerated a while. Everything is really to taste so add or take away what you don't like. :) One good thing about making it is testing it is taste testing along the way! I have also found that Ingles sells the hottest jalapenos.. Really weird but it's true.. I've bought from every grocery store and theirs have always been hotter.
