Shaving with Daddy

My little girl seriously loves her daddy!  She wants to do pretty much anything he is doing, and be with him while he's doing it.  Which brings me to the following pictures.  What was she doing, you may rightly ask?  Why shaving her face of course, I would reply!  Obviously!

 I think she may have missed a few spots...


And speaking of things on her face... the other day while mommy was in the bathroom, Emma got a hold of a navy blue fabric marker.   And I did what any good mother would do, I grabbed a camera and snapped a few pictures! 

Serves me right for thinking I could go to the bathroom alone. But seriously, she kind of did a really good job on her face.  I was a little impressed.  I think they look kind of tribal?  Maybe she has a future as a tatoo artist!

Toddler Talk Thursday

 

This week's topic is food.  If you would like to join in the conversation, and you are more than welcome to!! Head on over to family and life in lv  or   crazy about my baybah and link up. :)

    So luckily, Emma isn't that picky of an eater, although she has been getting picky about certain textures lately. Anything that is slimy or too squishy seems to be out of the question.   This is because I had major texture issues as a child (still do, seafood= gross) so I'm just getting what's coming to me, I guess.   Also she doesn't like potatoes in any form but french fries.  I don't understand that one at all because we sure do love our mashed potatoes around here.

  But some of her favorite foods include:

 * corn chips and red pepper hummus

 * green beans, peas, corn and brocolli

 * cheese of any kind! (and sprinkled on everything!)

 *any kind of noodle

 * french toast made by daddy on Saturday mornings

 * hotdogs (we get turkey ones)

 * chocolate whole milk

 * peanut butter on a whole grain mini bagel (super easy lunch!) 

                                                           
 and her favorite fruits of the moment are:  grapes, blueberries, and clementines

For dinner, I always just give her a little bit of whatever we happen to be eating, and for the most part that works really well.  I don't want to have to make her a seperate dinner, and food that's on our plates always looks so much more attractive anyways.  :)

Front Door Bling

This was my morning naptime project!  It was inspired by This Tutorial  over at V &Co and the fact that I have several yards of that orange plaid flannel and I had no clue what to do with it.  My husband may or may not have worn it as a kilt to a college event back in his "glory days"... But I think it paired nicely with some jean scraps, and the cream and brown fabric.  The frame we had laying around, so that makes this a 100% free mini project.  (Took an hour and a half start to finish, including picking out fabric)

Obviously my wreath isn't as gorgeous or classy as the tutorial but I think I love it all the same.  I also added the jean initial because I thought it needed a little something.

What do you think? Cute or cheesy?

Last night I stayed up until 12:20am.  That's right, AM PEOPLE!  I am kicking myself today.  It seemed really important last night to work on the dress I'm making for Emma, but I didn't even finish it!  And then I laid there wide awake for a really long time.   So I was desperately hoping to sleep in this morning...not so much.   Both hubby (who zombie-dragged himself to bed at 11:30 last night)  and Bella were up at the buttcrack of dawn this morning.  Awesome. 

  I dragged myself out of bed at 6:15ish and stood in the cold shower for awhile willing myself to wake up. After the shower (which sort of worked?) I promptly threw on some clothes (a tankini bathing suit and shorts- they were clean, don't judge) and walked to Dunkin Donuts where I ordered the new iced mocha coffe.  On the way home I went into a sugar coma from the amount of chocolate they put in those things!  I have a sweet tooth but holy crap DD! I'd like to save some teeth.  Then I got home only to find that I'd been locked out.  Spent ten minutes calling Adam's name, ringing doorbell, calling cell-phone.  No answer.  I figured he had to miss me sooner or later, so I decided to fill up the kiddie pool, I was already wearing the bathing suit, so why not?  It was disgustingly humid anyways...

Eventually, my lovely husband heard the hose running and came to the door to let me in.  I went inside, made lunch for him to take to work, fed the munchkin, changed the munchkin, fed the cat, answered some email and then realized it was only 8:00 am!!!! It's going to be a long freaking day. 

So we went outside and played in the pool, and I took a lot of pictures, which made me happy :)   Of course she wouldn't pose for any of them, but they're more fun that way.  So here's a photo dump of this morning for you:

Also welcome to any Tag Along Tuesday visitors!  Please feel free to make yourself comfortable, and if you decide you'd like to stay for a bit leave me a comment with your blog name so I can find you and visit with you.

Check out my new Knobs!

So I don't know about you guys out there, but every apartment that I've ever lived in has had the same bathroom faucet. You know the cheap Delta one with the see-through knobs?  They look like this:

Which is fine probably for the first two months you own it, and then they tend to start to grow stuff inside those pretty plastic knobs! And then it's not so pretty...  I've always assumed that there was no way you could actually clean inside them, and cursed whoever decided that was a practical design for a bathroom faucet!  Seriously?? Who thought this was a good idea?

But then, some friends of ours were nice enough to give us their old bathroom faucet to use for Emma's playkitchen, and I decided that it was not ok for Emma to play with something that had mold growing on the inside of it.  So I googled.  (Thank God for google, I honestly don't know how I would get anything done without it)

And it turns out there a tiny plastic cap at the top of each knob that COMES OFF!  How did I not know this????? All you have to do is to take a phillips head screwdriver, and gently pry the small plastic piece off the top of the knob.  There are even small indentations that make this task easier.  Then once that small plastic piece is off, you can take another screwdriver and unscrew the whole knob from the faucet.  That way you can submerge it in the cleaning liquid of your choice (I just use plain old white vinegar and a little baking soda)

Then the only problem that I was left with, was the fact that another genius over at the Delta bathroom faucet factory decided that putting a tiny mirrored piece of cardboard (?) in the plastic lid would be a good idea and there's no way to clean under that, without wrecking it.  (Mine just crumbled away actually, they were that old and gross)

It looks like this:

Please excuse the blurry pictures, we've got really crappy lighting to work with here on the NorthShore today

 You can't really see it in the picture, but there's all kinds of crud stuck in front of that mirrored piece, being magnified at the top of my now otherwise pristine faucet! 

This is where magic late night inspiration struck!  I could take those mirrored pieces off and replace them with small circles of fabric that matched her playkitchen!  Then put the new shiny faucet back together and call it a day.   So here's how it looks now:

Isn't that super cute?? I felt like a genius when this idea actually worked :)  Don't you love that feeling?

So of course I also had to clean my bathroom sink and replace the mirrored piece there as well.  Hope the landlord doesn't mind too much!   For my bathroom sink, I used a simple blue curtain material with a little bit of shine.  I didn't take a picture of the knobs assembled in my bathroom, but here's a blurry late night picture of my new knobs!  (oh man, there's a sentence I never thought I'd type!)

note the hubby working hard at cleaning grime in the background!

So there's my cleaning tip for the year! This could really help lengthen the lifetime of your bathroom hardware, and the best part is that you could change the fabric anytime you choose!  So if you are re-decorating your bathroom, you could change the fabric in there as well.  Or you could get really fancy and cut a piece of your own glass to put in there, and that would look pretty darn classy!  And for a kid's bathroom, you could go crazy and put really bold fabric choices in there like I did for Emma's new faucet. 

So what do you think?  And tell me honestly, did everyone know about this except me?  Or is this taking you guys by surprise as well?

 Happy Cleaning!

 Today's Topic: Fun and Educational Activites Outside the Home:  Well, during the weekday we are pretty limited due to the fact that we are currently a one car family,  so activites need to be within walking distance.  Luckily for me, there are actually three or four playgrounds within a mile and a half of our apartment.  So we go to the playground quite a bit!  There is also the library, which I mentioned last week.  Another thing Peanut absolutely loves right now, is to go and run around at a field near our house.   She takes her little bucket and spends hours each week looking for little "treasures".   These treasures mostly take the form of rocks, sticks, pinecones and interesting looking weeds.   This activity takes a lot of patience on mommy's part because we walk soooo slow! (wouldn't want to miss a single pebble!)  But it is ridiculously cute to see her get so excited over such simple objects!  There are lots of oooohs and aaaahhhhs and "oh boy!s.  On the weekend, we try to be very active and do something outdoors (especially during the summer).  Luckily for us, we live on the North Shore of Massachusetts and there are a million little parks to visit.  We usually just pick one and go.  A recent favorite was Halibut Point state park in Rockport, Ma.   Mommy and daddy got a great hike in while Peanut really enjoyed playing in the rocky tidal pools!  If it is a rainy weekend, a few of our favorite places to visit are Ikea, (she loves playing on all the beds, and sitting in all of the kid sized chairs)  Jordan's furniture in Reading, Ma (they have an awesome liquid fireworks show every half an hour and they have these cute car shaped strollers with moveable sterring wheels that Peanut loves- they also have a Richards ice cream place, a jelly-belly store and a Fuddruckers)  and the North Shore Mall.  The North Shore Mall recently put in a cute little indoor playground that is perfect for toddlers and still in really good condition because it's less than a year old.  Also, a wonderful resource to check out if you haven't is the library's musuem pass program.  They have passes/discount coupons for many places in your local area.  We have been able to go to the Children's Musuem in Boston, the Peabody Essex Musuem in Salem, the Museum of Science and the MFA in Boston, as well as Stone Zoo and various MA state parks on the library's dime (or really steeply discounted)  It is a great way to visit places that are normally ridiculously expensive ( I refuse to spend $15 a person to spend two hours in a museum!)  Sorry there are no pictures of Peanut enjoying any of these activities, but we have company coming in an hour and a half and I still have to shower, get dressed and tidy the apartment!  You know how it is...

A year later...

I'm having a hard tmie coming to grips with the fact that it is August already and that in a week she will be 21 months old! And in a few months she will be two!  I know it sounds cliche but time really does fly by when they're so little.  Part of me can't wait to see her next phase of development, and part of me wants to freeze her just as she is so she can't get any bigger!  That way she will love me forever and never reach adolesence and realize she hates me.  But today I was feeling nostalgic for last year when she was almost nine months old (such a fun age!!)  So I thought I would share some pictures from last July with all of you so you can see for yourself how much growing she did in just a year!

A Year ago she was:

Smiling socially!! That one took awhile, she was a very serious infant.

Eating solid food, still can't get her to eat eggs!

Discovering the camera

 

<>

<><><><>

Sitting up on her own

And getting stuck in boxes?
(this one is just funny..or maybe we're just really bad parents )

I love you Emma-Jean, even though each age has it's difficulties. I know that someday I will look back at the terrible twos and wish that I had just a few minutes with your 21 month old self.  I will miss the spontaneous hugs and the big gooey kisses and the silly way you say "pwease!" and reading you the same books over and over while you cuddle in my lap.  I love you Peanut!