Mt. St. Helens

Peanut Buttah Cookie Time

Quinn and I had a hankering for some cookies. And since we didn't have any chocolate chips around I made this delicious peanut butter cookie recipe from Cookie Madness.

Yes, these are my cookies. Jealous? :)

 I added a handful or two of oats and almost twice the amount of peanut butter called for. I also used crunchy pb instead of smooth. We bake on the edge here hahaha

They turned out pretty delicious, but pretty crumbly. It's sure hard keeping a 2 year old from getting crumbly cookie mess everywhere. Speaking of my sweet princess...

Here she is, fresh from her nap, wondering why I'm being so cruel by taking pictures of her instead of hugging her.

(not so) Extreme Kitchen Makeover!

Before
We moved into our house about 6 months ago. This is what the kitchen looked like...

After

 We got rid of all the old appliances and replaced them with brand new stainless steel beauties. I also painted the kitchen a lovely blue green...

 Okay...so it's not such a lovely shade for the kitchen.

After painting the kitchen I thought "hey, lets paint the cabinets!" So we went to Home Depot and bought the Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations kit in "linen." It didn't look so hard - take off the cabinets, remove the gloss with their special de-glosser, prime twice, stain and wipe off, top coat and voila! Brand new beautiful cabinets - so easy!? No, not so easy. It took forever and the results are just eh. I guess it doesn't help that the cabinets are totally boring and flat.

This was the kitchen half-way finished.

After After

Well, here it is. Finished for now (ignore the missing cabinet above the fridge)...

 Marshall put on the new hardware.

I like the paint color so much better now. It's made me want to keep the kitchen cleaner hahahaha I'm not crazy about the cabinets, but if I hadn't redone them I wouldn't know now that it's more trouble than it's worth and I should just wait until we become millionaires so we can get brand new cabinets and have someone else do all the work. Oh well, c'est la vie...

We've still got some work to do like replacing the hideous lights and getting a new counter top, but this will do for now. Next up - the master bedroom. Stay tuned...

Happy birthday dear baby, happy birthday to you

Quinn turned 2 on Wednesday! Can you believe it?! Last year this time she was just 1, still just a little baby not even walking yet, and now she's 2! Amazing right? Hahahaha not really. I think the amazing thing is that she's still alive with parents like us (I kid)...

Anyway...we had a little party for her. First stop Munchkin Playland.

Hahahaha I think this might be my favorite picture of the day.

Then it was time to go home and have lunch and cake.

Mari photo bombing

Cute huh? I guess they weren't very good though. They ended up uneaten on the patio. Not pictured: delicious curried chicken salad for the grown-ups.

Quinn blew out her candles all by herself.

Eating cake oh so neatly.

Going for her 3rd cone.

Denied.

Time for some backyard fun...

Logie eating chocolate chips off the ground.

Quinn and Sadie having too much fun in the pool. They filled it with grass and cheddar bunnies...

Goodie bags!

Ahhh! How cute are these kids?! Thanks for celebrating with us!

Birthday shirt: Take two

This shirt is for sweet Coral. 

Quinn and Coral

Another lover of all things Elmo (who isn't though?)...

I made Elmo by printing a picture of Elmo. I cut Elmo out, pinned Elmo to the felt, cut out the outline first, then the red. I sewed the red to the black. Then I cut out Elmo's eyes and nose and sewed them on. It was going to be just Elmo's head, but Elmo looked lonely without Elmo's body, so I found another picture and did the same as with the head.

Note to self: do not attempt to "embroider" small letters ever again. They might be a little wonky, but once I started there was no going back. So hopefully no one looks too close at the letters :/

For the name I found a pretty font, printed it and laid it under the shirt. I traced the letters with hot glue and added the sequin chain as I went.

Of course I had extra fabric so I made a bag and...

a bow clip.

Quinn had a hard time giving this shirt up :) I'll make her one shortly, but in the mean time I've made a cute outfit for her birthday tomorrow!