a happy front door.

I got sad in the stupidest place yesterday.
I was in the grocery store.
Not my usual grocery store, but the one by our old, old house.
It's the store that I used to go to when Riley and Colin were babies.

I have memories of running to the store bathroom with Riley
when he was potty training.
And carrying Colin in that super-uncomfortable Baby Bjorn
while doing the bounce-walk thing so he doesn't start crying
in the produce section.

Then yesterday I was walking through the baking aisle all by myself trying to find yeast
and I had a memory of being in that same aisle looking for a cake mix
to use for Riley's first birthday cake.

And I just thought...it's going so fast.
The kids being little is going by SO fast.
I used to shop in that store with my baby boys
nine years ago.
In that same amount of time Avery will be a freshman, Colin will be a senior
and Riley will be in college.
And I got sad.  Sigh.
{also...hormones are lame.}

Okay, enough Debbie Downer.

I've been working on something happy.
If you are looking for a super quick wreath project...



this is not it.

Yarn pompoms are super easy to make,
but they take time.
Lots of time.
But they're the perfect thing to work on while you're sitting on your couch
watching Homeland.
{seriously...WHY are you not watching homeland yet??!}



I think it looks happy.



Christmas lights on houses during the day are not the prettiest thing, are they?

And for the rest of Tuesday...
I have leftover roast and potatoes to feed everyone for dinner tonight
and then I'm going to make fudge.
I've been listening to the Indie Holidays station on Pandora
and my Christmas cards are all ready to drop off at the post office.
Today is good.

shiny happy pumpkins.

Okay, first things first:
do you watch Homeland?
It is SO GOOD.
It's in the second season right now,
but the first season is on Netflix.
Watch it...but beware of the f word.
Lots and lots of f words.
I guess when you're hunting terrorists and dealing with matters of national security
you need to drop an f bomb or 27.

********************

Second: my crazy Costco story:
the other day I was pushing my cart through Costco,
minding my own business.
I had veggies...fruit...milk...and a bunch of flannel sheets in my cart.
A random girl came up to me and said,
"i notice you have a lot of organic items in your cart.
but you should know...that milk that your'e buying is PUMPED FULL of antibiotics.
it's really bad."
And she raised her eyebrows as if to say..."what do you think about THAT?"

Hmmm.
Well...
a few things come to mind.
I know organic is better.
I've read In Defense of Food
and seen Food, Inc. and Forks Over Knives and feel pretty educated about food issues.
I do my best to buy and make "real food" for my family instead of processed stuff.
BUT.
We do have a food budget.
And while I do buy organic milk some of the time...
sometimes I don't.
It's hard to pay $5.79 for one gallon of milk,
when one gallon of milk goes pretty quickly with three kids.

While I'm sure her intention was good,
I'll say that I wouldn't ever dream of telling someone what they should be buying.
The closest I've come here is suggesting you shred your own cheese instead of buying it pre-shredded.
And if that was bossy...I'm sorry.
People need to make their own choices that are best for their family and their budget.
And if her budget dictates organic milk 100% of the time,
well then that's great.
But if, when her one baby gets older and is joined by two more,
then I hope she'll be okay with the fact that there may be times she'll buy non-organic milk.
{which does say on the box that it's not from cows treated with the hormone RBST, but whatever.}
And then perhaps she'll be too busy to stop random strangers at Costco
to give them recommendations as to what they should be buying.

********************

Okay!  Rant over.
On to fun things.

I recently saw on Pinterest
Meg's pretty pumpkins she painted last year.
I wanted happy pumpkins on my porch, too.
I used 40% off coupons at Michaels to pick up the styrofoam pumpkins
so I can keep them year after year.



The acryllic craft paint from Michaels or Joann's or wherever works fine on them.

Avery painted her own pumpkin.
She chooses rainbow colors these days, every time.





I love them.
The front of the house looks so cheery.







I smile when I see them.
And...it's a little cathartic painting pumpkins, I have to say.
You should try it.

new every morning.

I'm so thankful that nine times out of ten,
a crummy day that has me in a super bad mood
will be followed by a great day.
Yesterday was a great day.
God is so good like that.

I didn't go anywhere all morning,
except here:



Our washer wasn't working for a few days last week,
and I was so behind on laundry.
I stood in here and washed and dryed and folded and watched Sleepless in Seattle
for almost two hours.
And it made me happy.
I know...weird.  But it did.

And once the laundry was nearly done
I went upstairs and worked in my craft room until Avery came home from school.
I'm participating in Hannah's Handmade Holiday Market in a couple of weeks
so I've been working on getting a few more things in my shop.



Cute stocking stuffers, right?

And that's about all I've got to say.
Yesterday was a good day.
And so is today.

fun paint.

First, I feel the need to tell you that I have a twitch in my cheek that isn't going away.
I'm just sure that everyone I talk to is staring at that twitch.
I hate that.

I had some time by myself today, which was awesome.
I went to Target alone.  Bliss.
I also ran errands alone.  Bliss again.
There's this fun shop in our town that sells Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.
Have you heard of it?
My sister-in-law told me about it several months ago
and I've been wanting to try it ever since.



Isn't it pretty?
I'll show you soon what I'm working on,
but I'm loving the paint so far.
I'm trying to get our guest room done before next week.
Did I tell you one of my closest friends will be visiting from Portugal?
I'm so excited.
She has requested eating at In-n-Out and going to sushi while she's here.
It'll be rough, but we'll get it done.

Also in the guest room: a little something for over the bed.
My dad made me this wooden slat board quite awhile ago,
and I just recently got around to painting it white.



I printed out the letters I wanted to paint on it in the size I wanted,
and then taped them to the board.



I traced over them as hard as I could with a pencil,
and the trace marks left a faint imprint on the board.



Then I just painted.



Blessed.  It's true.

I might actually repaint the letters in the slightly darker Annie Sloan paint.
We'll see.



I've been making pillows, and I think the bed needs one more...
maybe a bolster?

Back to painting tomorrow.
I have two Project Runways to watch while I paint.
Perfect combo.
And my cheek twitch is gone now.
Happy day!

summer list...check check check.

We are still working on checking off things from the summer list.

We've done a lot of stuff,
but I'm not sure Santa Cruz is in the cards for us this summer,
so that one may remain unchecked.
Why has summer gone so fast?!
How is it already August?
I don't think we're going to make it to Waterworld either.
Honestly...I'm just not in the mood for that one!

The other day Avery was at a friend's house
and I pulled out the shoeboxes for the boys to make dioramas.
They were the ones that wanted that one on the list.
We've made several dioramas over the years just for fun,
and they always surprise me with how much they love it.



They were very quiet.





Riley made a beach scene.







Colin picked leaves from the backyard for his camping scene.





I just noticed he used real rocks, too.
Very authentic.



He made a paper tent.



I like it.
Definitely reminiscent of our camping trip...minus all the DIRT.



Riley made a beach scene.



Did you notice the shark fin in the foreground?
And the sunbather?  I die!



I love those crafty times with the kids.
I cannot believe there are only three weeks till school starts.
And then...QUIET.
And quiet makes me a little sad.
Even though their bickering can drive me batty,
I think a totally quiet house is worse.
Is that weird?

Anyway...if you need something to do this week make a diorama.
Or make sidewalk chalk paint.
Or whip up a batch of mini Mexican bites and fall in love.
Or ponder what kind of Jamaican spiritual awakening it takes to
change oneself from Snoop Dogg to Snoop Lion.

Haha - that story really cracks me up.
I'm pretty sure I know EXACTLY what kind of "spiritual awakening" he had in Jamaica.
Oh, silly Snoop Lion.

red white and blue garland.

I'm such a bad 4th of July decorator.

Every year we put the flag out front...and that's about it.

When we lived at our old house and our street had our parade I tried to do better,

but now I'm pretty lame.

This year I decided to add one item to my flag.

I took a cue from Julie

and bought some red, white, and blue fabric.

She has a step-by-step on her blog,

so I won't be redundant.

But I will say...it's simple.

Cut strips.

{i kept mine a little longer than hers.}

Tie.

Hang.

Enjoy and eat cookies.

Wait...never mind.  

That's just what I'm doing tonight.

fudge and stitches and a giveaway.

So there are twelve more days till Christmas.
Yikes.

I still have some shopping to do.
I did the one month free trial for a prime membership to amazon
so I can get the $3 2-day shipping.

I've mailed out almost all of our Christmas cards.
This was the first year EVER that we've done a picture
with all five of us.
Usually we just do the kids.

A friend took our family pictures,
and I took hers.
When Gary and I were looking through our pictures
to see which ones we liked best he picked one and I said,
"but I look terrible".
He said something like,
"you look fine and it's a really good one of everyone else."

I then had to impart to him the life lesson that it really
only matters what mommy looks like in the Christmas photo.
And she can't look just 'fine'.  She has to look her most awesome.

Today I made one of my favorite Christmas treats.
Fudge, baby.

You should make a batch.
Don't be scared.
It's so easy.

It's my grandpa's recipe
{find it here}
and he used to make it every single Christmas season.
To me, it tastes like Christmas.

I'm also working on more for my little shop.
I haven't mentioned it much here,
but if you like you can like the shop on facebook and
I'll post updates there.

Here are a few things I've been working on
and just added.
{fyi - anything you order from the shop is ready to ship.}

I'm usually not one to do paper crafts,
but I'm loving these tags I made.

And these.

So how about a quick giveaway?
Leave me a comment and I'll pick someone Thursday to get the tags.
I'll send them out quickly.  Promise.
And...if you'd like an extra entry like my Facebook page.
Deal?

So tell me your favorite Christmas treat.
Me?
Fudge.
And cookie dough truffles.
I'll share that recipe again soon.

Yikes.
I'd better get on the elliptical tomorrow.

a pinterest take on advent.

We have always been a chocolate advent calendar kind of family.

There's nothing like eating a daily piece of cheap, waxy chocolate to get you

into the Christmas mood.

I mentioned a few days ago that we decided to forego

the traditional chocolate advent calendars this year.

The Legomaniacs in the house got the Lego advent calendar

and are waking up before six every morning to see what they get to build that day.

{help us.}

I had trouble finding a cute advent calendar 

for the non Lego lover in the house, though.

Except for the $75 My Little Pony version on Amazon.

Uh, no.

So off to Pinterest I went,

and I found this:

{tutorial here}

So cute.

It was a little time consuming to make 25 little pockets,

but the end result is worth it.

I strung up some red pompom trim

and clipped the pockets with clothespins.

I didn't bother to paint the clothespins,

and just wrote the numbers on with sharpie.

 We folded over the tops of the pockets she's yet to open,

because it's really really tempting to peek inside.

I like that we'll be able to use it for years to come.

I bet I'll be putting iTunes gift cards or make up in those pockets one of these days.

But for now?

Squinkies.

{called squishies in our house.}

And to get my chocolate fix,
I'm going to buy a bag of mint hershey kisses.

Love those things.

Linking up with Jess' Pintertest Kitchen.

deck the halls with sticks and spraypaint.

I'm one of those people that,
as soon as Thanksgiving is over,
I've got the Michael Buble/Vince Guaraldi station going on Pandora
and I'm dragging the Christmas bins out of the garage.
{or, really, asking my husband to drag them out.  he's much better at that.}

By Friday afternoon our tree was up and decorated
and he had the lights up on the house.

Hi, we're the Griswolds.
Nice to meet you.

One thing I dragged out again this year are my silver sticks.
I want to add a few new decorations to the house this year,
but I don't want to spend much.
If anything.

Last year I picked up a bunch of eucalyptus branches
that had fallen in a park,
spray painted them silver,
stuck them in an urn,
and added a few ornaments.

This year I did basically the same,
except I tied the ornaments with a little baker's twine.

{we are socked in with fog today - horrible lighting for pictures.  yuck.}

And I put them in a hurricane glass filled with jingle bells.

One silver stick tree.
Operation deck the halls on a dime part one: check.