keepin’ it spicy

No one will be surprised to learn that we have an absurd amount of spices in our kitchen. Seriously an entire three shelf cabinet was full of nothing but. We have been desperate for more kitchen storage space and came up with this cute little solution.

A little bit of pegboard, some paint and an inexpensive adjustable storage system from Walmart. Et voila. Easy access to spices and a whole cabinet for other stuff.

1. Paint your pegboard. Use child labor if you’ve got it.

liam gregor

paint the pegboard

2. Hang your pegboard. B just screwed it right to the wall.
3. Hang the storage system. B used simple peg hooks.

pegboard spice rack

easy peasy installation

4. Cram it full of spices.

pegboard spice rack

spicy!

5. Kick it up a notch!


happy new year (and all that)

Man! The holidays are busy when you have kids. Who knew?

liam and kellan

the shot that almost cancelled christmas

Beginning with the joy that is taking Christmas card photos…

kellan robert

yay. more photos.

Trying to clean up for a minute or two…

liam and kellan

cleanliness lasts as long as the bath

Spending Christmas day playing…

moshing with the neighbors

moshing with the girls

liam gregor

rockin' and rollin' on the new blades

And ending with a really fun trip to PA…

aydan

fishing with the cousins

cousins

best group shot

We were a busy clan.

Managed to knit up a couple hats, but totally failed on the handmade stockings. Better luck next year, I guess. The blue hat is based on the Elf Hat from Handknit Holidays, but finished with the pointy top hat shaping. Here’s the Rav. The faux-hawk was knit similarly to the elf hat but with a rounded top. Someday I’ll write up the pattern. Someday.

liam and kellan

super bulky knit hats whip up fast!

Do forgive my spotty and brief posting. No use pretending it will change any time soon, but that ever elusive someday may eventually get here. Maybe some pics will make up for it a little bit. These two are my favorites.

liam gregor

kellan robert

Bonne année et bonne santé!


pillows galore

We’ve been in serious need of some throw pillows in the living room for quite some time now. I finally pulled my act together and made a few. Back in September, while the boys were on their vacation, I whipped up these simple little envelope pillow cases from a few fat quarters and a little piece of embroidery that I made ages ago. Honestly the embroidery has been sitting in my stash bin for almost two years, I bet.

pillows

simple envelope pillow cases

alphabet embroidery

the striped fabric reminded me of lined paper...

envelope pillows

envelope back

I bet the pair of cases took less than an hour start to finish. And that, my friends, is all I accomplished during a week home alone. Sad, right? Plus it took two months to post about it. Hm.

Now these little cuties are a great kids project. I saw the idea on pinksuedeshoe.

leaf pillows

placemat to pillow

Took a few seconds to open the seam, 10 minutes for the boys to get bored cramming fiberfill into a tiny opening and five minutes more for me finish stuffing and resew the seam by hand. Total cost: $9 ($3 for each placemat) + $4 for a bag of fiberfill = $13.

pillow

two inches of hand sewing and viola

There’s one more pillow in progress. Isn’t the smocking at 52crafts52weeks divine? This pillow top was made following learningtofly’s tutorial and using canvas and dark blue embroidery floss.

honeycomb smocking

honeycomb smocking...love

I made a marking guide with a length of grid lined poster board and a tiny hole punch. Then used a disappearing fabric pen to mark the dots on the canvas.

grid lined poster board

grid lined poster board guide

Even thought the smocking has been finished for months, the pillow still needs a back. Soon. Soon.

Wow. A kid-free post. Can you believe it?


and the winner is…

Viking Kellan!

mommy and the winner

mommy and the winner

Just received a call from the South Carolina Aquarium. Our viking won 3rd prize in the under 3 Halloween costume competition! Who’s the proud mommy?

As if my inclination to decorate the boys for public appearances needed any encouragement…


boo!

I mean Rooooaaaar…

liam gregor

the dragon unicorn in action

and arrrgh!

kellan robert

our viking on the move

Hope everyone had a super fun Halloween. You know we did. Liam was the boss of Halloween this year. We made lots and lots of “Halloween Projects”, such as:

cheese cloth ghost

ghosts

foam spider and cheesecloth web

spiders

foam pumpkin and grapevine wreath

pumpkins

and

scarecrow

mr. scarecrow

Liam also picked our costumes. He, obviously, was to be a dragon unicorn. Originally just a plain old dragon, but then he saw our neighbor in her unicorn costume and became obsessed with unicorns. No way mommy was making two costumes, so a dragon unicorn was conceived. The costume is a modified version of McCall’s 6185. My review is on PatternReview.com. It was a solid 11 or 12 hours of sewing, but well worth it i think. The boy really loves it.

liam gregor

check out my tail

liam gregor

grrrr

Kellan was originally slated to be a butterfly, but I made a last minute executive management decision. So, with only minutes of effort on my part, namely sewing a little fur vest, our viking was good to go.

kellan robert

my candy!

kellan robert

seriously! my candy!

You’ll note that mommy and daddy seem a bit random alongside our dragon/viking combo…

mommy, liam and kellan

had to catch more than just butterflies

It was decreed that mommy would be the butterfly catcher to Kellan’s overruled butterfly.

feather butterflies

who doesn't love butterflies?

And daddy would be a giant chipmunk, natch.

daddy

what a glam chippie

It was a big time. And we’ll be eating candy for months.


once upon a time

Once upon a time, I had two sweet baby boys. Now I have a two year old teenager wannabe and the world’s littlest dictator.

The big one has taken to putting himself to bed at night. It starts with, “No, mommy, I do it myself.” and ends with little feet stomping up the stairs and the sound of the acrobat launching himself into his crib. He’s begun rolling his eyes when asked to do something he considers unappealing. That’s surprisingly annoying and, thankfully, still pretty infrequent. And, interestingly, he routinely calls me Jennifer. Jennifer? Seriously? The bed thing is pretty awesome, but I really wasn’t expecting to be on a first name basis so soon. Certainly not while he’s still in diapers.

On the plus side, he is finally using the potty, if only when prompted. And he’s still wicked cute. And hilariously creative. And super excited about Halloween. And takes the cheesiest photos ever.

liam gregor

i'm soooo cute

Not to be outdone, the new guy has shown himself to be a real bully. He wants what he when he wants it. No negotiating. No concessions. No discussion. Just do it, mamamamama.

Perhaps relatedly, the K-monster is using words such as cat, ca-ca (cracker), uh-huh (yes), ffff (fish), mamamama (mommy), dadada (daddy) and teddy and signs including more, all done, fish, and milk. He understands so much more than he can communicate, so I’m guessing that’s a significant contributing factor to his screaming at me when he wants a cookie.

kellan robert

i'm not bad, just misunderstood

Some days, it’s like a modern version of Lord of the Flies in our living room. Other days, Leave It to Beaver has nothing on us. We’re living the dream.


Mahalo Y’all

A good time was had by all at the Blackwater Ukulele Festival in Cypress Gardens. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon. The boys enjoyed the butterfly garden and the tropical birds and the little aquarium and especially the alligators.

The swamp was very cool.

cypress gardens

cypress garden swamp

But the real fun was chasing the wild boys around.

There was dancing…

ukulele festival

groupies

and bird watching…

liam gregor

i see you

and alligators too.

liam gregor

liam-gator

kellan robert

kellan-gator

What more could you hope for?


formal dining

Super easy (and cheap) jack o’lantern chair covers. Four orange pillow cases ($5/pair at Walmart), an 8″x10″ piece of black craft felt, a washable glue stick, four rubber bands and some stash green tulle, et voila. Best part is that these turn back into normal pillow cases in November. Provided the glue stick is as washable as its label indicates…

liam and the pumpkins

Here’s the play-by-play.

drape pillowcase over chair back

tuck in the corners

gather the top at the center and wrap with a rubber band

tie some green tulle to look like a stem

cut out felt eyes, nose and mouth

glue on felt eyes, nose and mouth

take a bow


family art project

I simply adore Alisa Burke’s large canvas text. Alas, I am not nearly cool enough to pull that off. So, we softened it a bit and came up with this.

text art

oh, the places you'll go!

B and I dipped the boys feet in paint and he held them over the canvas while I stamped their footprints across it. Then we did the same with Thor. I’ll give you a minute to run the mental movie. Done laughing? K, moving on. Pan got a pass as his claws were in need of a trim.

The canvas is 36″x48″ and I used a 1″ foam paint “brush” for the printing. It was a really quick project, except…

text art

!@#$%

Yeah.

I totally misspelled “frequently.”

Once I ran out of curse words, I whited out the mistake and repainted the word with all the necessary letters. The patch isn’t terrible when you look head on at the canvas. Certain angles though, argh.

text art

pan is glad he wasn't involved in this mess

The kids still like it.


duct tape hero

Daddy has been rocking the duct tape. How awesome is duct tape these days? The colors that are available make it so much fun to work with.

liam gregor

viking liam

The shield is based on Hiccup’s shield from HTTYD. B whipped it up from cardboard and duct tape and a little bit of white glue.

supplies

the supplies

He stacked and glued some graduated cardboard circles to make the bump on the front, then covered the whole thing in duct tape.

shield construction

the bump

shield construction

add the red

shield construction

and the shiny trim

shield construction

clip to mold to the curve

shield construction

press into place

B then used half-width strips of shiny silver to make the lightning bolts on the front and added a handle to the back.

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don't forget a handle

It is totally awesome!

liam gregor

i love it!

Daddy also made a viking hat, but mommy got distracted and didn’t take construction pics. Oops. Anyway, the crown was shaped on my hat block, starting with the duct tape sticky side up and then covered with a second layer of tape sticky side down. He shaped the horns using a funky cardboard spine that was then wrapped in tape and filled with expanding foam filler. The bumps are little balls of tape covered with shiny tape.

daddy constructing

forming the duct tape on mommy's hat block

The boys love it.

liam and kellan

the boys


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