The Pinkerton Projects

Aaaaand they're off!

2011-08-29T13:02:00.004-05:00

Today we finally sent the last kid off to start school! Yay, school! That means that 3 days a week, I'll get a whole 2.5 hours to myself!

Sarah on her first day of first grade:

Ellen on her first day of pre-K in her favorite color, black. (Phoebe had to miss it for a dr appt.)

And last, but not least, Phoebe on her first day:

Even at their young ages, they have most definitely figured out that going back to school requires LOTS of shopping and pretty much an entirely new wardrobe, much to daddy's chagrin. :)

tap, tap...anybody out there?

2011-08-29T08:26:00.003-05:00

So, it has been almost a YEAR since I last blogged here. Yowza! A lot has happened over the past year, most of it in my head, and I am ready for some changes and new things to come my way. One of those changes I'm looking forward to is recommitting to some of my personal works, such as this blog. The past year I've been so busy doing things for other people, some of it was rewarding, some of it not so much, but all of it has kept me from documenting my own projects and kids. I think it's time to change that.

To start things off, I have finally come up with my word for 2011! There's only a few months left in this year, but it took this long for my word to come to me. You can see my word and thoughts from 2010 here, but basically it's a focus word for the year. In 2010, my word was "focus" - something I still use as a focus word in my life. Just the other day, it hit me that my 2011 word should be "genuine." A lot of things I've struggled with this year have revolved around trying to be my true self, determining what *I* want and enjoy. A lot of my energy has been focused on my relationships and trying to identify genuine connections so that I can tend to them better. I've reflected a lot on many different things and have realized just how much we let outside entities and third parties influence our relationships with people and it really bothers me. I want to be true to myself and true to others, be genuine through and through. I won't lie, it's not always an easy task, especially for us people-pleasers. As I've sought clarity on my emotional baggage, there have definitely been some upsets along the way.

Genuine: authentic, sincere.

trick or treat!

2010-10-28T21:43:00.003-05:00

Hello, long lost blog friends! I've been enjoying a super busy fall, which started over the summer. :) I love it, but I'm trying to wind things down soon so that I can fully immerse myself in the holidays this year. Hopefully, that will lead to more blogging, which I've been terrible about lately! You can see what's been keeping me hoppin' over at my photography blog, which is linked up on the right there. >>

Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays and I have always tried to make it more memorable for the kids by getting them involved in making costumes. Even as young as they are, they plan waaaaay ahead and actually stick to the plan. In fact, they are already planning for next year!

We went with an Alice in Wonderland theme this year. The twins were Alice and the White Rabbit, while Sarah chose the Cheshire Cat. Halloween portraits are always so fun because you can push the colors and stuff just a little more than you usually would. Here they are!

Happy Halloween!!

vacation part 4: the beach!

2010-08-14T21:05:00.007-05:00

Our ultimate destination during the epic vacation of 2010 was Topsail, NC. We met up with 5 other couples that I met in an online group for twin moms due at the same time. We met last year, just the moms, in Hot Springs, AR, but this was the first time the husbands got to meet. We had a blast! Did a whole lot of nothing and ate and drank lots and lots. It was so nice! And did I mention there were NO KIDS?!

We stayed in this little house right on the beach.

Lots of chatting, lots of sun!

The guys decided to treat us with wonderful dinners! I'm not sure if it was out of boredom or what, but it was good!

Here we all are!

Of course, we had TONS of fun and, of course, I took pics of everyone! You can see more over HERE at the Jennifer Pinkerton Photography blog.

vacation part 3: Charleston, SC

2010-07-27T21:52:00.006-05:00

I've been to Charleston several times and just knew that we needed to make a stop there during our epic vacation. It's so charming and full of history, I knew Scott would love it.

We got there kinda late, so we headed for the bar around the corner, which just happens to be one of my family's favorite spots in Charleston! Tommy Condon's is an Irish pub and we got there just as the live music started. We made several visits to Tommy Condon's while we were there. :)

Charleston was our little splurge spot and we had a sweet little boutique hotel room at the Andrew Pinckney Inn, which is set up in some historic buildings. It occupied several buildings and our room was on the second floor of the building in the foreground on the left. Fabulous 12 ft ceilings with crown mouldings and amazing old wood floors and plantation shutters on the huge windows.

On the full day we were there, we headed out to Ft. Sumter, which is where the first shots of the Civil war were fired. My father calls it "the war of Northern aggression."

It was so hot and humid that after doing some walking around town and cooling off at our pub, we pretty much stayed in our cute room until the sun went down.

Charleston is well known for it's colorful houses. The famous section of homes is called Rainbow Row.

There was so much more to do in Charleston, but we really just enjoyed soaking in the atmosphere. Ahhhhhh....

vacation part 2: making our way through the Carolinas

2010-07-27T20:07:00.006-05:00

Part two of our journey involved lots of driving, but it was good driving! We went up, over and through the Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge Parkway. Such pretty mountain scenery! Our destination at this point was Charleston, SC, but along the way we stopped to meet my longtime online friend Hope and her husband before doing a little drive-by of my old house in Columbia.

We were up in the clouds!

When we stopped to visit with Hope and her hubby Carl, they took us out on their pontoon boat. It was so nice to take a moment to do something fun! We also managed to find some good Mexican food.

I took Scott by my old house in Columbia, which we lived in from about 1989-1993. I have to say, it's become kinda ghetto! It did not look good at all, but I guess that 20 years can change a place. Oh, well. The entire area had grown so much, I hardly knew where I was!

I'll leave you with a little video of the husbands going across the floating dock. Haha, I was hoping one of them would fall in! Dangit.

I've been on vacation!! yay!! part 1: the bourbon trail

2010-07-27T18:57:00.006-05:00

Sunday night, my husband and I got home from a long, wonderful, much needed vacation withOUT kids! We were gone for about 10 days and the purpose of our trip was to meet up with 5 friends that I met online when we were all pregnant with our twins. Scott and I decided to take our vacation road-trip style, stopping along the way to soak up some new places.

The first leg of our journey led us down the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. We participated in program where you have a passport stamped at several different distilleries, earning a t-shirt if you get to all of them. It was fun to do and the countryside was just gorgeous! Scott even had to drive through a washed out road/river at one point! Gotta love back-roads.

We started out at Jim Beam. We don't drink Jim Beam, but it was a nice place!

Second stop was Heaven Hill. We hadn't even heard of it! Might have something to do with the fact that it all burned down in the 90's. lol Bourbon and fire don't get along well!

Next up was Maker's Mark. I remember visiting this distillery with my family as a child when we lived in Kentucky. The smells and heat from the huge vats of fermenting alcohol have always stayed with me. They weren't as intense as I had remembered, but it was fun to take Scott there so he could experience it too.

If you aren't familiar with bourbon, it's made from grains and corn, fermented until it's basically moonshine. Then they place it in wooden barrels that are charred on the inside, where they are aged for 6-8 years or so.

While on our trip, we became Maker's Mark ambassadors, which means we get our names on a barrel and when it's ready, we get a bottle from that barrel! You can sign up for free on their website and they send you Christmas presents and invites to events and stuff. It sounds pretty cool and we're excited!

We picked up a couple of bottles of the brand new "46" which is pretty darn good!

Next stop was Four Roses. By this time of day, the distilleries were getting pretty crowded, so we didn't stay long, but this was definitely a beautiful place!

Wild Turkey. The only whiskey/bourbon I've ever had a baaaaad experience with. lol

We saved the best for last. Woodford Reserve's distillery is the oldest and by far the best and most interesting place we visited. If you had to just pick one of these distilleries to tour, this would be the one we'd recommend. It was in a gorgeous spot too!

They use these cool copper things that no one else does, or so they told us.

We saw and sampled our way through all of these fun places and would definitely do it again! You can learn more about bourbon and the bourbon trail HERE.

God bless America!

2010-07-06T23:11:00.008-05:00

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! We spent Saturday with my in-laws and the kiddos participated in their annual neighborhood "parade." It's becoming a tradition for us and I know it's making memories for the kiddos. Living down in Texas most of my life, we never did a whole lot for this holiday because it's always too dang hot and dry!

The kids in the neighborhood decorate their bikes, wagons and strollers, walk around the neighborhood lake and end the parade at the water with popsicles for everyone!

Once evening set in, the family pyromaniacs started in on their stash of explosives! I parked myself in the back of the mini-van. :)

We ended the night with a real fireworks show and full bellies, happy to live in the greatest country on earth!

ahem....

2010-07-02T13:34:00.004-05:00

Hi.

Remember me?

Ummm, ya. It's been a little crazy around here! It's not getting any less crazy, so I figured I'd take some time today to update my blogs a little. I haven't blogged since April, so there's lots to catch up on!

During our spring trip to Texas, we visited a strawberry farm near Marble Falls. It was our first time out there and it was a lot of fun! We went on a gorgeous, cool day and found tons of berries!

swingin'

2010-04-27T13:54:00.001-05:00

my babies in the bluebonnets

2010-04-19T15:58:00.004-05:00

These also count as the twins' 3 year old pictures - happy birthday to them! xo They are in their Easter dresses, which I made for them.

texas in the spring = heaven on earth!

2010-04-19T15:40:00.006-05:00

After the cold, hard winter we had here, I was determined to spend some time in my home state of Texas this spring. The last time I was down there for spring was when my eldest child was 4 months old, which was 5 years ago! Too long!

I loaded up the kiddos and headed south. After all the winter rain they've had, everything is blooming and fresh and green and gorgeous! Quite a change from the brown and dry look we get used to seeing down there.

Of course, one of my main objectives was to take tons of pictures of the bluebonnets. I had several shoots with friends and family, and also got some pics of my kiddos, which I'll post next.

Happy spring!

the cutest freaking thing on the planet!!!!!

2010-03-25T14:48:00.005-05:00

All I can say is...HOLY CUTE!

Several months ago, I stumbled upon the work of (my now blogger friend) Venus. I think I first saw her crafting genius on flickr and later found her etsy shop Happy Find and her blog.

From the moment I saw these little necklaces, I knew I had to have one! They are tiny little pin cushions hanging from a silver heart. !!!!!LOVE!!!!! I managed to maintain my self control until they went on sale last week, but I would have paid the full price, especially now that I've seen one in person! I love, love, love it! Seriously!

And to make it even better, Venus is a packaging genius as well! She has created some tutorials on her blog for folks who might be interested. She definitely puts the PinkPooka to shame in the packaging department!

Look how cute this is...she stamps and stitches this stuff herself!

Thank you Venus! This necklace is probably my most favorite gift to myself ever! xoxo

Happy Find has the cutest pincushions and aprons as well, so be sure to check it out! You can also check out her blog for info on a giveaway that's going on!

spring is in the air!!! finally!!

2010-03-18T15:57:00.004-05:00

I am *so* excited to report that spring is finally starting to show up here in Nebraska! The snow is almost completely gone and we have had temps that don't require you to wear 10 layers of clothes...we are happy folks right now!

Sarah has started preschool at a church just about a 1/3 mile from home, so we have been walking her to school, which has been wonderful! Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of these flowers...a sure sign of spring! I was so excited!

This week, I finally got started on the girls' Easter outfits. I have some great Nicey Jane fabric from Heather Bailey that I mixed into stuff from my stash. I planned to have them wear ruffled pants underneath, since it's usually cold on Easter in the midwest, but the dresses turned out a little long for it, so now I'm not so sure.

I am planning to make a few extra dresses, so if you are interested in getting one, let me know!

Today I took the girls shopping for Easter shoes, and guess what? They all picked pink ones! Shocking, I know. They are so cute though, I can't wait to get them out for some "real" pics later (like when I make my pilgrimage to Texas next month for bluebonnet pics!)

If only I could find these in my size!

try your luck with our St. Patty's day photo contest!

2010-03-15T13:17:00.003-05:00

pic by Shannon

Sorry, I know I'm a blog slacker! Just wanted to pop in and let you know that we are having a fun little contest over at my most favorite blog... The Maternal Lens!

Send in those green and festive pics for a chance to win one of my camera strap covers, which can be found in my etsy shop.

Check out the post HERE for all the details!

it's our birthday over at {the maternal lens}

2010-03-10T09:08:00.004-06:00

One year ago, I began a new adventure with an awesome group of mommy-photog-bloggers.

I met Megan, Meg, Shannon and Sarah on cafemom.com and we have become such wonderful friends! The Maternal Lens has been such a great opportunity for all of us to grow as bloggers and we have just begun to explore all we can do with it. The downside to being a mommy-photog-blogger is that there isn't always a lot of time for the blogging part, but I know we are all looking forward to really sinking our teeth into some juicy blogging as it becomes more and more a part of our lives.

This week we are having a HUGE giveaway to celebrate our first year! Be sure to stop by and check it out!

The Maternal Lens

Happy birthday to us! xoxo

back in the saddle! sorta.

2010-03-02T18:11:00.004-06:00

Although we are still stuck in the dead of winter, things are starting to look up! We are going to get really busy around here really quickly, but only good things are in sight.

I have been pretty overwhelmed with the great response I got to the super hero capes I made a friend for Christmas. I got tons of requests for them, which is great, but they are pretty much all I've gotten to sew for months now. I'm glad to be caught up so that I can take a break and work on things that are a little more fun for me. My sewing machines are glad too - they definitely did not appreciate all the cape making.

Last week while we were visiting Grandma, we made a stop at one of our favorite boutique fabric shops and the girls each got to pick out some fabric. Over the weekend, I made the time to sew them up some new goodies.

{E} is a monkey junkie and insists on owning every monkey adorned thing we come across! She asked for a dress, so that's what she got. I love these little dresses b/c they really grow with the girls and can be worn alone in summer or layered in winter.

{P} went for this awesome retro mushroom print. I had some coordinating fabrics in my stash, so it worked out great. I used THIS tutorial to make it, which is super easy to do! The only thing I have trouble with is visualizing the sizes so I had an issue with hers being almost a little snug across the shoulders, but it works!

And here's {S} in her roller-skating fairy print top! I used the same tutorial but made the sleeves longer as she requested. Hers wound up a little on the big side, but that just means she can wear it even longer!

{S} chose to wear her top for her first day of SCHOOL, which was Monday!! Yes, that's right, she is now a student again! She's been a preschooler since she was 2 years old, but when we moved we planned to just keep her home for her last year before kindergarten b/c we didn't think we could afford to pay tuition. WELL, as I was pursuing the idea of getting the twins into a nearby church school in the fall, we were offered an opening in the pre-K class for her! Since there are only a few months left in the school year, the cost is much more manageable for us. She is super excited to be back in school and we're hoping she'll make some new friends.

Did I mention we got the twins enrolled in preschool??? YES!!!! They will start in the fall and I am counting down the days!

This week I've been playing catch-up, as usual, and I finally have some new camera strap covers in my etsy shop. I plan to add a few more in the next week or so, so be sure to check it out! My current fave is this one, which looks like free flowing grassy stripes. I tried to get some neutral straps in the shop this time around for all those with hubbies who complain about the girlie ones.

I'm still working on my office space while trying to juggle my sewing projects. Hopefully we can manage a productive weekend and get it finished up. I can't wait to get started on spring dresses and Easter clothes! I've also got grown up camera love bags on my list.

On top of everything, I've even started to ... *gasp* ... exercise! I've been trying Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred video, and it's been good to get those workouts in. We are slowly seeing the snow and ice melt outside, so hopefully I'll be walking and jogging soon, but this is keeping me occupied in the meantime. I have a hot date with 5 twin mommies at the beach in July so I need to get less jiggly and fast!

my future Olympians

2010-02-26T12:30:00.003-06:00

These little ladies are athletes in the making! They have been so inspired by the winter Olympic games, they have been hard at work training!

Our kitchen has been transformed into an ice rink (works best with sock feet) where they practice their "finger skating." It's most entertaining when they work on their couple skating, attempting big lifts and tossing each other into the air. They even wear skirted leotards to bed, on top of their pajamas, so that they might be inspired during the night.

The stairs have become a bobsled/luge track and any available bench or piece of furniture turns into a ski jump.

Luckily, practicing for the hockey team (and beating each other with sticks) hasn't quite occurred to them yet, but I'm sure it won't be long!

a hairy situation

2010-02-25T20:24:00.004-06:00

Yesterday, I took the kids down to see Grandma and Grandma took us all to get our hair cut! My girls have never been scared of the idea and actually beg to have theirs done, whether it needs it or not.

I think this was only the twins' second time getting trimmed by a professional, so I made sure to take a few pics since I missed documenting the first time. Of course, no "before" and "after" pics - just take what I give you! haha Maybe over the weekend I'll get some pics of the kids with their new 'dos.

The twins were so excited - they even got their hair curled!

booooring!

2010-02-19T10:34:00.003-06:00

I admit it, things are pretty boring around here at The Pinkerton Projects right now. I think I've been hit with a bad case of the winter blahs, which at best, makes me totally unmotivated and uninterested in pretty much everything.

I haven't updated on the office project b/c it hasn't changed much yet. The walls are half painted and there are still boxes everywhere. I'm working on it though and today I'm focused on painting the window area on the other side of the room, which is technically our formal living room. I'll show you the "before" shot the realtor took - it's kinda the same now, but a whole lot messier!

*sigh* Look at all that green stuff outside the window! Certainly looks nothing like that now! Anyway, all that trim is getting painted and the walls are becoming yellow-ish. I've got some white curtains hung already, but will be improving those over the next few days before I share them with you.

One exciting thing that's taken place recently was the purchase of new bedroom dressers for the master bedroom. We got a great deal on them and I'm so excited to have purchased *new* furniture that doesn't require me to rebuild it or repaint it first! We decided not to purchase the matching mirror, so I'm on a mirror hunt right now. Once everything is in place, I'll be sharing better pictures. I've been using a point-n-shoot camera recently for snapshots and I apparently need to read the manual b/c nothing is ever in focus!

Anyway, just wanted to pop on here with something so you'd know I was still alive! Once I get all the hard work done, I'll have lots to share!

office update

2010-02-06T13:56:00.003-06:00

Just wanted to pop in and let you know the desk is in! Looks pretty good! Now we need to do some serious filing, cleaning and organizing. Here's a little sneak peek...

Have a great weekend!

Operation: Rainbow Bright {studio/office BEFORE}

2010-02-01T19:52:00.005-06:00

Operation: Rainbow Bright has been on hold with all the holiday hullabaloo going on, but we're gearing up to get things moving again. The next big space to be overhauled is the formal dining room which we will be using as an office and studio (for sewing.) We are severely lacking in storage for this space and of course, the budget is pretty much nothing, so we have a lot of work to do!

I have been super busy with my sewing lately, so it has been even messier than usual and it is driving me bonkers! I absolutely can't stand it anymore, but I don't really have a well thought out plan. We have some basic ideas, but for the most part, we'll be winging it.

Here is what the space looks like now. As I mentioned, it is technically our formal dining room, so we have a chandelier that needs to be replaced with something more appropriate. The biggest challenge with that and with painting is going to be the vaulted ceilings.

Oy! It's embarrassing!

There is an entrance into the kitchen back there to the left near where {E} is standing, and the formal living room is behind me. You can also see my ghetto window-shade aka a piece of paper taped to the window to block the sun. It shines directly into my eyes when I sit down to sew in the mornings. I *need* a window treatment now that the house next door has sold. Don't want the new neighbors peeking in at my mess!

This is where I've been working. It's our old dining table, but I think I'm going to switch it out for a different one we have sitting out on the porch that's a little more country (I intend to paint it a fun color.) The major change will be along the back wall. We are planning to create a semi-built-in desk using closet doors we've removed in other rooms. The desk will run almost the entire length of the wall and Scott wants to create an "L" shape in the corner to the right. Above the desk, I plan to hang wooden shelves that we brought with us from our previous house. Soooo, total cost of this project is pretty minimal so far! I do plan to purchase file cabinets to place under the desk. Here's a little visual I drew up for you. :)

This is Scott's side of the room. See how much crap needs to find a home? A lot! It has pretty much looked like this since we moved in almost 6 months ago. You can see here where he wants to create the "L" shape which would extend the desk to that window (my sewing table would have to move back a little.)

Next to his desk, we have an old microwave stand that is currently acting as storage for all our "home school" stuff. The plan is to get new dressers for our bedroom so that we can move our pine armoire down to use it for fabric storage and home school storage.

Since this space is so open to the rest of the house, I want to really make it special. I want to find cute storage boxes and baskets for all the junk. Here are the few little things I have gotten/made for the space so far. I've covered a chair in one of my favorite fabrics from Heather Bailey.. I love, LOVE it! It's so fun with greens, reds, yellows and pinks. I also made some pillows for the sofa, which I intend to slipcover in white. White curtains have also been in the works. I found these damask print hat boxes on clearance for about $2 each! They make great fabric storage!

Right now the walls are the cappuccino color that the entire house was when we moved in and the trim is dark wood. We have a nice neutral yellow-y color for the walls and the trim will be painted white.

Across from the work area, I have my ironing board, which is crucial to the sewing that I do, but is an eye-sore and clutter magnet. I think I'd like to find an old long credenza, buffet or dresser to put along that wall with some nice prints above. I'm planning to swap out the old ironing board for a table top board.

That darn chandelier is always in the way, can you tell? I'm surprised none of us have whacked our heads on it. lol

If you have any good decor suggestions for this space, please share! I have a good idea of the type of look I want, but I'm not settled on the specific elements just yet. I keep thinking that making the back wall a focal wall by using a bold color or pattern would be fun, but I'm ready to get started and don't have a plan for it, so it might have to wait until later. To get an idea of the shabby chic/vintage/whimsical look I love and will be working towards, you can check out Heather Bailey's studio HERE. I love her fabrics and pretty much everything she does! HB, you are my hero!

Hopefully I'll be posting "after" shots soon!

my first TGFFF sale!!!

2010-01-29T12:03:00.005-06:00

If you haven't already, be sure to become a fan of the PinkPooka etsy shop over on facebook. Today I am having a TGFFF sale (that's thank-goodness-for-fabulous-fans.) All camera strap covers are $5 today only and I have also listed some of my "camera love" bags, which are perfect for your little one for valentines day!

One of my favorite camera strap covers is this one...it's done with a fabulous Heather Bailey fabric. If it doesn't get snatched up, I might have to put it on my camera strap!

I promise, you won't find them cheaper anywhere else, so now's the time to snatch one up! I've had them on sale for a while now, so Monday I'll be returning to regular prices.

You can see what's in the store HERE.

Thanks for all the support! I have the best friends and fans!

peace in the pasture

2010-01-21T09:49:00.003-06:00

Last night, I finally went through some of the pics from this past fall when I took the kids down to Texas for a visit with Nonna and Boppa. We went for a walk in the pasture with Nonna and the dogs and, somehow, everyone under 3ft tall wound up swimming in the stock tank, even after they had received clear instructions not to do so.

deep thoughts with Jen: part 1

2010-01-19T14:52:00.004-06:00

I have so busy lately, I haven't had much time for blogging, but there's so much I want to blog! As 2009 turned into 2010, I did a lot of reflecting over the past year and thinking about the new year. Quite frankly, 2009 sucked for me. We were in an unemployment situation for almost a year, and along with that came real estate woes. We dealt with things one day at a time, and made it through those hard times relatively unscathed. As you probably know, we made a big move, got a new job and a new house, but the feelings of being displaced, caused by a year of house showings and having your things packed away, is still wearing on me, as I'm sure it is the entire family. We've been in our house for several months now, but I'd say we're still only about halfway settled into it. All I can say is that it's overwhelming and I'm very ready to move past this phase.

Last year, my friend Lisa blogged about choosing a single word to represent what you want to achieve for the (new) year. The words she's chosen for the past few years have been happiness, change, and acceptance. I was so inspired after reading her post last January, I desperately tried to come up with a word for myself, but just couldn't do it. All year long I thought about it. In hindsight, the word that would describe 2009 best would be chaos. How sad is that? Really, truly, that is what 2009 was. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping up the facade that everything was normal and fine, but it was hard. Even as it happened, we thought we were doing ok dealing with everything, but looking back, it's obvious that the stress of that chaos chipped away at us and some of our relationships. The word that best describes how I felt would be distracted. Even today, I struggle with being distracted by things that keep me from having and doing what I want and love.

With the new year, I am only looking forward. I want to leave the chaos behind. I have even chosen my word for the year, and we're only a few weeks into it! Just being able to find that special word when I could not do it, as hard as I tried, last year speaks volumes to me about where I was in my mind last year and where I'm headed this year. My word for 2010 is.........focus.

Focus is what I want for myself this year. I want to wade through the chaos; get rid of the bad stuff and get control of the good stuff, so that it doesn't overwhelm me. I want to focus on my house and make it into a loving and creative home for my family. Not being able to really "live" in our house all those months it was on the market was really depressing for me. All those months, my kids couldn't have special spaces for themselves and we couldn't do a lot of things together because that energy was redirected into cleaning and showing the house. The twins went from cribs to toddler beds, babies to toddlers, in that time, but we just didn't have the money or energy to put into making that transition special. It was so hard to deal with the idea that my children had been robbed of a year of their childhood. It might seem a little overly dramatic, but really, that's what I feel happened. It could have been so much more special for them if we hadn't been in that situation. That's why house projects are so important for me right now. My children deserve those special places. All of us do.

Obviously, I want to put more focus on my family. The kids are growing so fast and I don't have much time left with them before they go off to school. The challenge I've faced since our move, aside from all the distractions, is that I'm unfamiliar with the area, so it's just plain hard to find things to go do. Not to mention that the first 3 months it rained non-stop and now we are dealing with a never-ending supply of snow. I'm excited about getting out and exploring together and I know it will happen more and more as the weather improves. Quality time at home will also improve as the house projects get finished up, eliminating a lot of chaos. Of course, I also want to focus on my marriage and strengthening it. We will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary this summer and have plans for lots of traveling *alone*, which we are both looking forward to very much. One of the greatest things about moving to where we are now is that we are close to family so that we can do things like that. Hopefully we can squeeze in a bunch of dates this year, which are a rarity for us. I also want to put more emphasis on us parenting together and spending time together as a family, not just me with the kids.

2010 is going to be the year that I focus on me! With everything that's transpired, I've lost a little bit of myself and I've recently realized I haven't felt good about myself in quite a while. As always, I want to focus on losing weight and being healthy and active. I am feeling like this year might be the year that I actually stick to it and complete my 100lb loss that I began over 6 years ago. I want to focus and finish it!

I have also been thinking a lot about my photography. Before we went through those tough times, I was so immersed in my photography, shooting constantly and improving because of it. I've lost some of my enthusiasm for it and I WANT IT BACK! Over the past few (like 10+!) years, I've been trying to get myself focused on building a business with it, but after some serious thought, I am going to redirect that focus onto the photography itself this year. I want to learn and love it again the way I did before. I've gotten sloppy with the little bit of shooting I do now, and I want that to stop. Of course, I will jump at any opportunity that comes my way to shoot for other folks, but I am going to put the focus on rediscovering myself as a photographer first this year. I've put off building my photography business for soooo long, it can wait a little longer. I feel a little bit guilty about this decision, but I know it is the best one. I also know that when I *do* put the focus on my business, it will be much better because of this.

Since I won't be putting much focus on my photography business this year, I can put some focus on building a business with the my sewing! I really just do it to make a little spending money and spoil my friends, but I feel that my etsy shop has been successful enough to warrant more of my time and attention. With all 3 of my young children at home, sewing is much easier for me to manage than editing photos for clients, so it really is something I want to focus on growing this year. Really, the only thing holding me back right now are the distractions that I want to get rid of anyway. And time.

I am hoping that putting all this focus on things in my life will help me to clear my head and find focus in my life, in general. Something that I started last year, that was good, was a mission to become a giver. I'm not sure why I started it and I don't think it was an intentional thing, but I've been very aware that I've been doing it and I think I've done a good job with it. This year I want to push myself to become an even better giver. I want to put focus on becoming totally selfless about it. There are lots of reasons for giving, but I want to get to a point where I'm doing it just for the sake of giving. It sounds easy, but when you are honest with yourself, you realize it is actually very difficult. Giving is something I will be discussing more in-depth in future posts. It is something that I am becoming very passionate about and that makes me feel good.

Part of the reason I want to explore giving is because I want to focus on my thoughts about spirituality and all that other, good, deep stuff. I don't consider myself a very spiritual person, but I am very inspired by those who are, especially when they are moms just like myself. Again, Lisa is at the top of my list of spiritual, inspirational people. She always has been. She takes the time to think about deep things (and blog them), sharing her thoughts as inspiration for others. Recently, she did a post where she covered some really profound thoughts. You can read more of it here, but here are some highlights:

- Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is about.
- Make peace with your past so it doesn't screw up the present.
- What other people think of you is none of your business. (!!! wow!)
- However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
- If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

Even just the name of her blog...happiness is never stopping to think if you are... is so thought provoking. Another very spiritual person that I've recently gotten to know is Aimee aka HomeSpun Threads. She shares her struggles as a mom and the way that she manages the hard times with prayer. Even if you aren't one who prays, the thought behind it is quite profound and very inspiring. If you read her post here, you'll see what I mean. Have joy instead of searching for it. Please, please, go read it! Although I don't consider myself very spiritual, I very much would like to be and I know that people like Aimee and Lisa are in my life to help me find that side of myself.

Phew, that's a lot of deep thinking! I even peppered it with random photos to make it easier to get through for you. (You are welcome!) Until next time...

the Pink Pooka is on Facebook!

2010-01-18T16:11:00.006-06:00

The Pink Pooka is now on Facebook! You can become a fan HERE. I'll be doing a special giveaway this week just for facebook fans, so be sure to check it out!

I've got some great strap covers in my shop right now and they are all on SALE! Stop by and pick up a few. :)

Etsy
Buy Handmade
pinkpooka

While you are over at etsy.com be sure to check out the Craft Hope store. All of these items have been donated by etsians and proceeds go to help Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. Really, how great is it to get an awesome handmade item while donating to charity?? You can read more about it at the Craft Hope blog.

walk, walk, plop!

2010-01-12T14:30:00.008-06:00

Today we took a walk (and a few plops) in the snow since the temps are finally becoming survivable. We've been stuck in negative temps for over a week, but this week we will be up in the 20's and 30's, which is very exciting! With it being so cold, all the snow we've gotten over the last month has hung around. Hard frozen stuff, about 6-7 inches deep on the bottom, and light fluffy dry snow, about 18 inches deep, on top.

Today was to be an adventure, so we figured we'd check out the walking trail. The sidewalk was nice and clear and the trail seemed clear as well.

The creek is frozen, of course, with tons of snow on top of the ice, so you almost don't even know it's there.

About halfway down one side of the trail, we discovered it wasn't as clear as we thought! It didn't *look* that bad, so we pushed through.

It was at this point that the twins started to "plop" in the snow as much as walk in the snow.

It happened a lot! They are lightweights, so they didn't sink into it much, but I was about knee deep, trying to keep them and myself upright while not getting the camera stuck in the snow. It was a workout!

Not sure why I only got pics of {P} plopping - {E} did it just as much!

The bridge was nice and clear b/c the snow just falls right though. With 2 ft of snow on the ground, it didn't seem nearly as high up!

Walk, walk...

PLOP!

Towards the end of our "walk" the kids sort of gave up and began plopping on purpose when one would fall. lol

I pointed out that they might as well make snow angels since they were already down.

{E} didn't quite get the concept and just thrashed around in the snow, which was pretty amusing!

Here's Miss Snaggletooth...her bottom two teeth are loose and ready to go at any moment. Not a great pic, but I figured we'd better document her before the big loss happens!

The last leg of the walk was the trickiest. We hit the really deep stuff! Of course, on the other side of the creek, where we began our walk, the city workers suddenly appeared to clear the path. Someone must have called to tell them there were crazy girls out there getting stuck in the snow! While they cleared, I got stuck...over and over again...up to the thigh! Almost lost my shoe! Poor Sarah doesn't have snow pants that fit, so she was crying about being frozen. We eventually made our way home and defrosted just fine. There's more snow in the forecast though! Fun, fun!

Let me introduce you to my ornaments...

2010-01-08T19:54:00.009-06:00

If there's one thing you could say I'm obsessed with, it would be ornaments! Goodness gracious, I love them so!!! Before I even moved away from home, I started collecting them b/c I didn't want my first Christmas tree to be a sad one. Doesn't everyone start ornament collecting in high school?

From the beginning, I've had a soft spot for the old fashioned blown glass ornaments. Over the years, I've collected a few hundred (!!!) of them and I love them all! I've even got some real collectibles in the mix: Christopher Radko, Gorham, Old World Christmas, and Waterford. They are some of my most prized possessions.

As we undecorated the tree last week, I took some snapshots of some of my favorites. This was the collection that was taken off the tree. There is more that didn't make the cut this year! Crazy, I know. I can't help myself.

We've got traditional Santas, Santas in bathtubs, Santas in hot air balloons, Santas with kitties, kitties with utensils.

I've got tin men, an octopus, tons of pigs, birds in cages, Alice, the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, Raggedy Ann and Andy, as well as some vintage family ornaments. The china doll was given to me by the family of my first best friend.

I am currently obsessing over vintage flocked Santas like the ones on the little ladder there. I am waiting for some that I've purchased to arrive from England any day! So excited!

There are angels in every size and shape, snowmen of all sorts, and momentos from our honeymoon. The gold dipped aspen leaf is one of my favorites! I also LOVE my vintage turquoise balls. You can't buy that kind of patina brand new!

Scott's grandma gave me this one soon after we got married. I think it's my absolute fave! It's a simple silk ball turned Santa flying through the air w/ dangling hearts.

Here's our tree topper. It's a silver star that is the same pattern as our sterling silver flatware. Literally. Colonial something-or-other, I think. You know, you get bonus points for coordinating with your silverware during the holidays!

Many of you know I've purchased a white tree for next year and I've found the cutest hot pink feathered vintage angel for the topper! I can hardly stand it!! When it gets here, I'll be sure to show it off. :)

After Christmas, the girls and I hit up the clearance sales and stocked up on some new stuff for next year. I was so excited to find these boxes of Radko Shiny Brites (reproductions of the vintage originals) at the hardware store of all places! I'm in love with the mushrooms and the little squirrel, which I found online at Crate & Barrel (after ogling the ones a flickr contact had!)

Of course, the girls got some just for them and their special trees. I'm hoping to find some cute pink tinsel trees next year to go in their bedrooms.

There you have it! I truly believe your tree/ornaments say a lot about your personality. I guess mine say I'm a crazy, eclectic mess! haha! But I wouldn't have it any other way!

Speaking of ornaments, I made up these cute little felt camera ornaments for some of my photog friends this Christmas. I have a few available in my etsy shop too!

You can never have too many!

Christmas: part 2

2010-01-08T19:03:00.004-06:00

Obviously, I'm a little behind on blogging, so hang in there with me!

Originally, our plan was to visit with my husband's family on Christmas eve, go to church, and open presents with all of them. Because of the blizzard that blew through, we weren't able to go until the following Sunday. We went to a service at the family's German Lutheran church and then had a nice lunch with Scott's step-dad's mom and family. :)

Sarah and Phoebe both wore the snowman skirts I made for them, but Ellen insisted on wearing the monkey dress I made for her the night before (which she also insisted on sleeping in.) So much for matching! I'll try to get some better pics of them in their skirts soon.

Afterward, we headed back over to my in-laws' and proceeded to eat more good food and open more presents. Goofy grandpa put wrapping paper on his head and the kiddos found all the candy and goodies that Santa had left there for them.

Lots of grandmas, lots of goodies! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

eating for good luck

2009-12-31T12:20:00.004-06:00

Down south, we have these silly ideas about what you MUST eat on New Year's day to bring you good luck for the coming year. Collard greens and black-eyed peas are the main things, as unappealing as they are to most folks (including me!) But, if you grew up with the tradition, you eat them anyway...sometimes while pinching your nose. The luck has something to do with the greens representing greenbacks and the peas coins.

This year, I've invited my husband's family up for dinner and since they are mid-westerners who don't fully appreciate this tradition, I'm going to try some new things to make these must-haves yummier. Basically, we're going to cover everything in bacon!

Here's what we're having:

roasted bacon-wrapped pork loin
twice baked potatoes
green bean bundles
collard green wontons
black-eyed peas (cooked w/ ham or bacon)
rolls and
sugar cream pie with blueberry sauce

Do you have any traditional New Year's foods? Please share!

We wish you all a happy and healthy 2010!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T16:30:00.006-06:00

We enjoyed a nice Christmas at home this year. We've been in the midst of a blizzard, so we couldn't leave the house even if we wanted to. We hung all the stockings and cozied up by the fire all day Christmas eve.

Here's Scott's stocking I made for him several years ago. It's Santa watching football on tv. Perfect, huh? :)

After the kiddos went to bed, Santa paid us a visit. Sarah asked for a sewing machine, Phoebe wanted a swimming baby and a Wonder Pets flyboat, and Ellen wanted a baby with a high chair. They made sure to leave out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.

In addition to their requested items, they got movies, barbies, and new stick ponies. They were all very excited that Santa had come!

During naptime today, Sarah got to try out her new sewing machine. She is doing great with it! Sews a straighter line than I do. I have a feeling we'll be upgrading her pretty quickly.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! It's still snowing and blowin' like crazy here as we wait on Christmas dinner to finish making itself. Merry Christmas!

christmas = cookies

2009-12-24T13:03:00.004-06:00

Mmmmmm, one of my favorite parts of Christmas is the cookies! I try to keep things fairly simple, but we still make a variety of goodies.

I got pretty flustered with the kids "helping" me, so we nixed pics during a few of the cookie making sessions. I'm planning on some New Years cookies, so I'll be sure to get pics of us making those!

We started out with some of our staple cookies: molasses crinkles, peanut butter blossoms, sugar spritz cookies (cookie presses HATE me, btw), and oreo balls.

(I had a few "limp" kisses b/c I put my kisses on and then stick them back in the oven for a few minutes to get them to set into the cookies.)

Oreo balls are a fairly new item on our cookie list, but they are so easy and SO good! My husband LOVES them! You can also change them up by using mint or peanut butter oreos and white chocolate bark instead of regular chocolate.

You just crush up one package of oreos (we put them in ziplocs and hammer away, then pulse them in the food processor) and combine with one package of cream cheese, then shape into small balls. (I understand some people stick them in the fridge to harden them up a little at this point, but I just keep going.) You dip/roll your balls in one package of melted chocolate candy bark and place on wax paper to dry and harden. So good!

The girls and I also made sugar cookies and gingerbread people. We even tried out a new recipe for Linzor cookie bars w/ ground almonds and raspberry preserves. YUM!

For New Year's, I'm planning to try out a fancy orange/poppy seed sandwich cookie recipe and maybe some meringues. You can never have enough cookies, you know! Why stop at Christmas? :)

the halls are decked!

2009-12-24T11:21:00.006-06:00

I feel sooo bad I haven't been blogging this holiday season! I have just been sooo busy and also a little frustrated that my house isn't further along than it is. Despite the mess and boxes, and things being half painted, we decorated just as we normally would. Our new house is a little different from our last house, so we've had to change things up some, but it's been fun. I'm looking forward to next year, when the house will be DONE and beautiful, and we'll have gorgeous handmade decorations for every nook and cranny!

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of our holiday decor. I will take "real" pics tonight, after I find all the pieces to my tripod. lol Our neighborhood also puts out candlelit luminarias on Christmas eve, which I'm very anxious to experience and photograph!

Here is our lovely tree! I promise, I'll get better pics of it tonight, after Santa drops off the presents! It is only about 6 ft tall, so I wasn't able to get *all* my ornaments on it. The other problem with real trees is that the branches don't hold as much. We've also had about half our lights go out on it, so it's a good thing I really pack them on there! I always do white lights and then one string of colored lights, just to keep it fun.

I let the girls have trees in their rooms, and let them decorate them themselves. I sent them to their rooms with a basket of ornaments and they did the rest themselves. I was so impressed with how they did! I think next year we might get some fun pink tinsel trees for them and make coordinating ornaments for their rooms. :)

In the kitchen, I strung snowflakes in the window and lined up our gingerbread houses over the sink. I am hoping to really elaborate on these ideas next year!

Of course, the stockings are hung by the fireplace, waiting for Santa to fill them. (No picture b/c Scott's is missing - it needs fixing and fast!) On the buffet, I have our little village set up. The kids have enjoyed playing with it, after I tell them repeatedly not to, and making a huge mess of the fake snow.

And on the outside of the house, we've hung wreaths on the upstairs windows and lights along the garage. This pic is from a couple weeks ago - we are expecting about 18 more inches of snow over Christmas! Our Christmas tree is in that big window, which is our formal living room.

I have to say, this year has been SOOOOO much better than last Christmas, when we were struggling through our first few months of an 10 month unemployment. I am so thankful that things are better this year and I am very much looking forward to next year. As I was preparing for this Christmas, I came up with tons of ideas for vintage and handmade decorations for next year! I am hoping to hit some after Christmas clearance sales to get supplies. Fun, fun!

Merry Christmas to you all! I am planning to post again with fancier pics! Gotta find the mount for my tripod first! lol :) xoxo

tree hunting

2009-12-23T23:17:00.006-06:00

Every few years, we like to go out and get a real tree. This was one of those years!

I always have these grand delusions that it will be a wonderful memory-making experience for the kids, but they just fought over who was in the wagon and who was pulling the wagon the entire time. *sigh*

Despite the grumbling, we enjoyed ourselves and the gorgeous weather we were having (long gone now!) The tree farm we chose was a little different from most I've been to. They give you a long pole to measure with, and when you find your special tree, you turn the pole around so that the colored end is pointing up and a "spotter" will send "cutters" out to you and they do all the hard work for you! It actually was kinda nice. All the fun, none of the work. A hubby's dream!

We were a little late getting a tree, so they seemed sorta picked over, but we managed to find a pretty frasier fir that had a beautiful shape to it. By the time we decided on one, the leopard print princess was getting grumpy about the lack of hot chocolate.

While the "cutters" work on your tree and wrap it up for you, you can take a stroll through the enchanted forest where they have little signs and decorations up everywhere. Here were a few of my faves...(seriously, if you stumble upon the Santa sign, I need one!)

After walking in the forest, we had some cookies and hot chocolate while the fellas tied our tree to the car.

Tree hunting success!

sew, I've been a little busy...

2009-12-16T10:03:00.005-06:00

I have a good excuse for not blogging - I have been sooooooo busy sewing! It's been great b/c I can certainly use the extra cash for decorating the house, but I haven't had time for much else lately. I've done 12 skirts and 10 aprons in the past month, plus 3 super hero capes and a zillion camera strap covers. I kept thinking I'd put some of these items in my shop, but my wonderful online friends kept me busy enough so that I didn't have to do that. :)

I'll be posting a tutorial for the skirts soon!

we have a winner!

2009-12-09T09:05:00.002-06:00

Since I only had 14 entries, we picked a winner the old fashioned way by drawing numbers from a cup. The winner was #1 - Summer!!! Yay, Summer! I'll get with you on which pic you want.

Thank you again for all the support, friends and followers!

fifty followers (pssst....it's a giveaway!!) TIMES UP!

2009-12-02T09:51:00.006-06:00

Really?! I have 50 followers???!! Awesome! When I started this blog, it was just to keep my family (most of whom never even check the blog) up to date on the kids and our goings-on. Early on, I posted to a group about blogging saying that one day I'd like to get to where I had 20 or so people regularly checking the blog, and that I'd like to branch out and blog about crafty stuff, tips, and cooking, etc. I've gone through periods of neglecting my blog and periods of blogging mania, but in the end, I am happy with what I've accomplished! Of course, I think I could be doing so much more, but for now it works for me!

One thing I pride myself on is never, ever, not even once, have I asked anyone to be a follower. And now I have 50! I am so humbled and grateful and promised myself that once I hit 50, I'd do something special to celebrate. Soooooooo......

I would like to GIVE AWAY one of my photographs! I've had a few for sale in my etsy shop, but no takers yet. They would make a wonderful gift or a nice little decoration for your bathroom. :)

You can choose any photo you like and I'll print it in an 8x10 for you. You can choose from the pics listed in my etsy shop or you can go browse my flickr for other shots. I have a folder of nature shots which would be a good place to start.

The GIVEAWAY will end on Sunday night, Dec. 6th at 10pm and I'll announce a winner Monday morning. Just leave me a comment...maybe mention which pic you'd like!

Thank you all so much for your support! I love blogging and sharing all the crazy things I do with you!!!

homemade gifts: aprons

2009-11-30T12:21:00.002-06:00

This year, my mom and I are giving the girls their very own aprons for Christmas. I was inspired to make the twins' aprons from vintage materials after finding a vintage embroidered dish towel with the letter "E" on it at a local antiques store. I knew right away that it would be adorable as an apron for Ellen.

None of these aprons are perfect, but I love all the charm they have because of the vintage fabrics and embellishments. I have been hanging onto some of these fabrics for almost 15 years! lol

Phoebe's apron is funky with a retro pear pocket.

Since I only used half of the dish towel for E's apron, I decided to make another apron to sell in my etsy shop. It was a good excuse for me to try out this ruffle technique before we attempt to ruffle some towels for the purple bathroom.

And while I was at it, I made another one of the pear aprons to sell. I know there's someone out there that will love these as much as I do!

I will also be restocking my shop with camera strap covers throughout the week. I'm having a sale, so they are only $8 right now! More on that later...

You can always get to my shop by clicking on the etsy widget on the right side of my blog.

"look at mommy and smile!!!!!"

2009-11-28T19:25:00.008-06:00

Today was Christmas picture day and I think I said "look at mommy and smile" about 800 times. The kids only heard it about 3. Every year I get so flustered, I promise myself I'm not going to try it again for a whole 'nother year. I've learned over time not to expect much when trying to photograph all 3 together, but I *really* wanted a decent shot this year. Here's the best shot:

Not too shabby! I feel like my colors are a little wonky, but I'm working it out. The headbands are the ones I blogged about last post, and the background is wrapping paper taped to the garage door. I found some Christmas cards on clearance last year that have that same damask print, so everything will be perfectly matched. :)

Since I couldn't get the girls to look at me, I tried a different approach and told them to kiss Sissy and cuddle up to her. Here's how that translated...lol.

I was hoping it would get them all giggling so I could get some great smiles, but this is about as happy looking as they got.

To make it even more "fun" for mommy, there were dogs romping around across the street, so I had some serious competition for their attention. Phoebe thought her eyes needed to be closed to make "cheeeeese!!!" as cheesy as possible, and Ellen lost all control of her facial expressions. 98% of the pics looked like these:

I guarantee you I said "look at mommy and smile" before I snapped every one of these shots!

Here are some of the girls individually. They were just as difficult during these. lol

This afternoon, grandma and grandpa came to visit with cousin {R}, so I stuck her in a headband and took her picture too.

Now I just need to find the time to do the Christmas cards and I'm all set!

cheap and easy holiday headbands

2009-11-27T13:55:00.009-06:00

I'm hoping to get the girls' Christmas pictures taken over the weekend and the only particular thing I had in mind for them to wear were cute headbands with a big flower or something on the side. Because I'm cheap and crafty, I decided to tackle the headbands myself. These are so easy, anyone could make them!

I started with headbands already wrapped in grosgrain ribbon (3 for $1 at Target in the dollar spot), felt poinsettias with adhesive backs (intended for scrapbooking. $2/pkg of 6 in the holiday section at Hobby Lobby), felt and fabric scraps.

I thought the poinsettias were a little small, so to give them more presence, I decided to stack them on top of some other things. Directly underneath each flower is a fabric yo-yo. They are super simple to make and you don't need anything other than a needle and thread. I cut my original circles a little small (pictured above) but you should cut yours about twice as big as you want your final yo-yo to be. Trace a large cup or small coffee can to help you get the shape.

Using a thread and needle (knotted at the end), stitch along the outer edge of the circle. After you've gone the entire way around, pull the thread so that the outer edge gathers in the center. Make a stitch or two to keep everything in place and close with a knot. Super easy! Normally, you'd press the edge over before stitching so that the raw edges don't show, but since they won't show or get any wear on these headbands, I just left them.

I used the sticky backs of the flowers to adhere them to the yo-yo's and also added a few stitches, just in case. For the bottom layer, I cut a circle of felt just slightly larger than the flower and yo-yo. Fold it in half and cut small notches, then fold in half the other way to notch the rest of the way around. This helps to keep your notches fairly even (I am not very good at this part! haha)

Using a hot glue gun, I glued the yo-yo flowers onto the felt circles and then glued them onto the headbands. SUPER EASY!!!

The entire project cost me about $1 per headband! Yay for cheap and easy!!!

Official Christmas pictures coming soon!

pumpkin heaven

2009-11-27T09:59:00.002-06:00

When pumpkins think about what they want to be when they grow up, they all want to become one of these glorious muffins. Seriously, one of the yummiest things on earth!

What makes them so special is the brown sugar frosting. They are more like decadent cupcakes. Of course, they are even better when they are warm and slathered with butter!

My mom is the one who first made these for me, so I'm not sure where the recipe originated. The ingredients are pretty rich, so I've taken steps to lighten it up slightly and don't miss the extra fat and sugar at all.

I know I'm too late with this for you to have them on Thanksgiving morning like we did, but they are perfect any morning and would make a wonderful breakfast for Christmas morning!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins
3 c. sugar (I only use 1 cup)
1 c. shortening (I substitute with 1/2 c. shortening + 1/2 c. applesauce or extra pumpkin)
3 eggs
1 can (15oz) pumpkin
3 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
2 t. baking powder
1 t. ground cloves
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. allspice
1 t. vanilla

Brown Sugar Glaze
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 T. melted butter, cooled
1 T. milk
1 c. powdered sugar
pecan halves for garnish

Cream sugar and shortening; add eggs and pumpkin. Stir in dry ingredients. Add vanilla. Bake in greased and floured muffin pans (or use paper liners) for 15-20 minutes at 350.

For the glaze, cream brown sugar and butter. Add powdered sugar, then milk. Spread over top of each muffin, then place pecan half on each.

Yields 24 muffins

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Have a seat in our Purple Paradise!

2009-11-16T15:39:00.007-06:00

Last week we had exciting things happen at the Pinkerton house! The guys we hired to help with the scary hall bath, RW Handyman Services, finished up their work and it was transformed into a Purple Paradise! Like everything else, we aren't completely finished yet, but it is soooooooo much better than it was!

You can check out all the before pics in THIS post, but here's a shot to refresh your memories:

That huge toilet paper holder was hiding a huge hole in the wall, by the way. lol And here's what it looks like now:

MUCH better!

One of the major things that RW Handyman Services did was install a shower in the tub with a new surround. I was thinking we'd get something a little fancier for the surround, but I made the mistake of walking away while the order was placed and my dear husband picked this one after finding out the one I picked was a special order. Oh, well. It's nice and new and clean! The shower is great - I've already tried it out, even though this is the kids' bathroom. I will be shaving my legs in here for the rest of our stay in this house so that I don't feel like I'm bent in half in an upright coffin in our master bath shower stall. haha! Really, what were they thinking when they came up with those stand up shower designs? There definitely was zero thought given to shaving legs in them.

The shower curtain is something I'm excited about. I found these gingham curtain panels on clearance at Lowe's for less than $1 each, so I stocked up on them knowing we could find uses for them. For the shower curtain, I just sewed two of them together, side by side and added little button holes at the top to put the hooks through. Not perfect, but definitely good enough, and at $2, who is going to complain??? Not me! Since we saved money on the curtain, I let the girls get these fancy glass knob hooks to dress it up.

When I find the time, I'll make some fabric yo-yo's in blues, purples and greens to add as polka dots to the shower curtain. The girls LOVE anything with yo-yo's and I think it will add to the girly/shabby chic look we have going on, while incorporating some of the other colors in the room.

We found this super cute rug at TJMaxx today. LOVE it! The purples don't match exactly, but we'll tie it in with those yo-yo's. You can see our pretty new (vinyl) floor that the guys put in for us. The floor is not level (like, by a lot!) so vinyl really was the best option for us.

Remember how the old vanity was covered in the oatmeal texture??? bleh!! Well, now we have a new one! I LOVE it!!! Nice and white and clean, except for the blue marker Phoebe wiped on there after coloring clothes onto her naked self. I missed it before I took the pic. lol We went from having a vanity that was 22" deep to one that's only 19" deep. I thought I wouldn't like the narrower version, but I actually love the way it gives more space to the room and it seems much more streamlined and modern.

The faucet is new and doesn't flood the counter top now! The kids have been playing in the sink every chance they get. Apparently, they've never seen a sink stopper that works because it's the greatest thing ever to them!

In this pic, you can see the now un-scary linen closet. It's full of tools and junk right now, but I can't wait to put my linens in there! You can also see that we need to re-hang the doors and finish painting the trim. It will all happen this week. Promise!

Today Sarah and I hung some pictures and things on the walls. I have this great faucet *thing* that I've never had a place for, but it's very cute in the bathroom. I also let her use some of my favorite paintings. In this collage, you can also see the knobs we got for the cabinet. I wanted to get glass knobs like the shower curtain hooks, but those suckers are almost $5 each! We got these for $1.75 each and they will fit in fine.

Aside from making the yo-yo's for the shower curtain, we are planning to embellish some towels with ruffles like these awesome Shabby Chic towels at Target. They are pricey, but I know I could easily make something similar and we can use whatever colors and fabrics we want.

So that's the new bathroom!!! I need to finish painting and touching up, but I'm so happy with the way it turned out! Seriously, we wouldn't even go in there before! Now we have to tackle the rest of the house, which looks like this right now:

It will be done by the end of the week. Promise!

Camera Strap Cover GIVEAWAY!!!

2009-11-11T14:13:00.008-06:00

TIME's UP!

I've just restocked my etsy shop with new camera strap covers (click on the widget to the right>>>) and am having a GIVEAWAY over at HomeSpun Threads!

While you are over there, be sure to check out her other posts. Aimee's full of great ideas! She has also started a new blog devoted to reading to children, which is truly a labor of love for her. Readers are Made on the Lap of a Parent.

Hop on over to HomeSpun Threads and enter to win! The contest ends Friday, Nov. 13th.

fine dining with feathered friends

2009-11-10T11:29:00.010-06:00

Operation: Rainbow Bright is moving along. Our bathroom project is just a day away from being finished! This week I also got some things finished up in our eat-in kitchen dining area, which is our only dedicated dining space for now (the formal dining room is our office space.)

I admit, I am not very inspired by kitchen and dining spaces. It's hard for me to come up with creative ideas that will work together, but I came across this wonderful idea to make fabric birds and mount them on a branch, and I knew it would be perfect for our space. The bird pattern is by Spool and can be found here. I made a bird to represent each person in our family. The girls had a blast playing with them before they went up.

Oh, and I have made the executive decision that the ceiling beams are getting painted (white.) We have someone to do it, we just need the cash. I keep trying to work around them and make them less noticeable, so we are gonna paint those suckers! It will give the kitchen a very cottage-y look (we've seen it done in other houses.)

We have a very large window and I wasn't sure what type of window treatment to do, so we went with an inexpensive patio shade (which I'm not sure I love, but it will work until I decide.) We don't need a ton of privacy from it, but it would be nice to have something to cover the window at night when it's easy to see in.

I also hung up some decorative plates that I've been collecting. I LOVE them and am so glad I have a place to display them now. I intend to keep collecting and continue them down the wall.

The plates compliment my teapot collection, which is now over the sink. I'm still working on unpacking, so there may be more to add to the display. It's all just sort of thrown up there for now to get it out of the way. LOVE my new Alice in Wonderland teapot!

When we moved from our old house, I made the decision to replace our dining chairs. The table was in ok condition, but the upholstered parsons chairs had been trashed by the kids. Originally, I wanted to go with some sleek, modern chairs from Ikea to contrast with my cottage-y/shabby things, but they discontinued the ones I wanted! Plan B was put into place, which was to collect old chairs and paint them all a fun color. Unfortunately, finding chairs is not easy! Tables = easy. Chairs = not easy. I scoured craigslist.com for a while until I found someone selling a collection of 6 chairs + a table for $60. We wound up using 4 of the chairs and the table will probably go out on our covered porch. Scott's mom found this great table with 2 leaves for $5, so I had her get it and I freshened it up with some 3-in1 stain. (Our old table is now my sewing table since it doesn't have the leaves.) She also found the two end chairs for us for $3 each! I love a bargain!

In the plate picture, you can sort of see into our family room, which is a few steps down. Just wanted to prove it's a mess!!! lol It's next on the list - I've been working on it. It's a super dark room because of the covered porch, but we're making progress with brightening it up.

cue the 'Jaws' music....

2009-11-06T16:01:00.005-06:00

This is our "scary bathroom." And boy, is it ever! At some point in the recent past, this house suffered some damage from a (rumored) busted pipe and it was fixed up by one of those restoration companies. Somehow, the fixer-uppers (who didn't really do that great of a job) forgot about the main hall bath! Many of the supplies were sitting in there, but nothing had been done to it. Anyway, today we started renovating it! We've hired some help since there's serious plumbing involved, and today they came and gutted everything. We are very excited b/c it's basically been unusable since we moved in and we've all been sharing our small master bathroom.

All of these pics are clickable if you dare to view them larger! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here are the realtor's pics of what it looked like when we moved in. Yup, that toilet was that gross. I thought it was stained from hard water (the house had been vacant for quite a while) but turned out to just be scum! GROSS. Hey realtors...you will sell a house faster if you make sure the toilets aren't scummy! Can you imagine how many people just turned around and left after seeing that? It definitely wasn't a selling point for us! Somehow, the toilet wound up being the only thing we didn't have a major problem with. LOL

The biggest problem for me was that the sink faucet leaked like crazy when you turned it on. The inspector didn't quite convey the severity of the drippy-ness in his reports. You turn it on and water goes everywhere! An easy problem to fix IF we could have replaced the faucet. However, there were no shut-off valves under the sink! We kinda need those, so that's where it became a project beyond our abilities.

I talked Scott into just replacing the whole vanity after I had the chance to inspect it a little closer. The cabinet was in poor condition and some not-very-savvy person put some sort of gross texture, the color of oatmeal, all over the entire thing INCLUDING the hardware/pulls. Ummm. Don't ever do that!! I might have been able to save it if I could have replaced the pulls, but after looking it over, I decided it was worth it to just get a whole new vanity cabinet and counter.

Next up is the tub. It has no shower, which we didn't realize when we bought the place...but an easy fix for someone in the know. The grout/caulk was cracked along the top of the tub, but the biggest issue was that the hot/cold was backwards on the faucet. You turned on the water, thinking you were getting cold, but you got hot instead! Big problem for a kids' bathroom! And apparently, it has been that way since the house was built 30 some odd years ago. Crazy. Needless to say, I haven't been using it for fear of the kids burning themselves somehow, so it's been the cat carrier storage area.

Also, the flooring around the tub was pulling up and discolored.

Again, the flooring was pulling up in the linen closet that's at the end of the tub. VERY gross and creepy, so our linens have been living in my bedroom closet. I will be very happy for them to move out.

And now the bathroom looks like this:

Much better already!!! We've purchased all the new stuff and our contractors expect to be done by the middle of next week. I will, of course, share the after shots with you when it's done. Goodbye "scary bathroom," hello purple paradise!

from the field to the front porch

2009-10-31T22:57:00.007-05:00

One of the best parts of living in the midwest is that you can go out into a *real* pumpkin patch to pick your pumpkins in the fall. Most areas have at least one large pumpkin farm, some are fancier than others. The last 2 years, we've gone out to Roca Berry Farm near Lincoln to get pumpkins with Scott's family. They are pretty elaborate with their offerings - not only do they have pumpkins and other goodies, they have various haunted houses, a petting zoo, food, pony rides, etc.

There's lots of fun stuff to see and do and the girls had a blast with their cousin and their beloved (16 yr old) Aunt Abby.

Each of the kiddos got to venture out into the patch to pick their pumpkin.

Ellen picked a pumpkin that weighed twice as much as she did and Sarah picked a white one. We were kinda late getting them carved and it became a halloween day activity this year. While Phoebe was napping, Sarah and Ellie worked on their gourds.

Sarah decided to name hers "PumCute Dot" after we made the decision to carve polka dots into it (with a drill.) She wrote this herself - kinda cute, huh? Love, Sarah. :)

Poor little Phoebe suffered from one of her bouts of vertigo today. She woke up vomiting and was basically too dizzy to move much, so she slept most the day. Once she was up, I took her outside so she could help me get her pumpkin carved. Poor thing couldn't even hold her head up off the table. I want to document these episodes she has, but it's hard to do with still pictures. Eventually we'll have to find a way to video her. You can see in these pics how out of character she is when she has this happen to her. She is completely awake in these pictures, just dizzy.

Not surprisingly, she wanted a happy pumpkin while Ellen wanted a scary one. They were pretty simple this year, but they turned out well.

By the time trick or treating commenced, Phoebe was feeling much better and they all had a blast! She only had trouble going up and down steps, but it didn't slow her down. The weather was perfect - about 50' and clear with a full moon. It was a great halloween evening!

Hope you all had a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

mmmm, cookies!

2009-10-30T19:30:00.004-05:00

The girls and I made some halloween cookies today. It's taken me a while to give up control and let them do what they want with things like this, and the way that I deal with my OCD is to do my own plate of cookies. lol Looking over some pictures from last year, I realized I've gotten kinda sloppy with my crafts this year. I've just rushed through projects without much attention to detail, so I made an extra effort today to make my cookies pretty. And just for the record, I am NOT good with decorating baked goods! Sitting still and working with messy stuff on tiny canvases is not something I have much patience for, but it's fun every once in a while.

I'm especially pleased with my little owls and masked hippos...

While the twins were napping, Sarah and I spent a quiet afternoon together decorating our cookies, knowing that once they joined us, it would quickly become cookie chaos. As we suspected, they went into sprinkle overload!

{p} the pumpkin witch...errr...princess...witch...

2009-10-30T11:27:00.006-05:00

It's the day before halloween and we still haven't quite decided if little {p} will be a pumpkin witch or a princess. lol Originally, I thought maybe I could put her super cool tiara onto a witch's hat so that she could sorta be both, but after trying it, I thought it was a little too much. I think we'll go with the witch version for trick or treat, but I know she's enjoyed have 2 costumes in one.

The witch's hat is from the $1 spot at Target, the tiara was about $1.50 on clearance last year from Claire's. The boa and babylegs were gifted to us, so they were free. The tutu was her big sis's from last year and her skirt and top were made from fabric we got on clearance a couple years ago for just a few dollars. I wanted the skirt to have a bustled look, but it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted. The tutu underneath sorta distorts the shape of it, but I'll keep tweaking it until I'm happy with it. The top was super easy to make - I used this TUTORIAL.

Aside from skirt tweaking, the costumes are finished! Yay! One of the trickiest parts of costume design for midwesterners is that you have to be able to layer clothes underneath to keep the kiddos warm. We're hoping for clear skies and the temp is expected to be around 45' during trick or treat time. Not too bad!

purrrr-fectly sweet for trick-or-treat!

2009-10-28T14:35:00.004-05:00

This year, little {E} is going to be a kitty for halloween. Her costume was definitely the easiest - no sewing! Actually, a little sewing, but not enough to count - after sewing feathers onto her shirt, I decided to switch to hot glue. I bought her some black knit pants and a striped (BabyGap) top from a resale shop for less than $5 and simply added black feather boa ($2) around the wrists and pant legs. We also embellished an old kitty ear headband and tail from the dress up box with the feather boa to make them "fluffy" and ultimately cuter. Topped off with pink bows, you have the perfect little kitty costume! She's very excited!

fun links

2009-10-26T22:13:00.007-05:00

Just thought I'd share a couple of fun things I saw today...

Over at HomeSpun Threads Aimee made mini caramel/candied apples. They are like little caramel apple lollipops! How fun is that? I am so impressed with the idea b/c the regular sized ones take me like a week to eat, so I never make them or eat them. These are much more fun and manageable! Go check them out HERE.

One of my crafty idols, Heather Bailey is doing a fun halloween blog-a-thon with other bloggers. At the end of her posts, you can click to go to other participating blogs and they have links from their blogs to more blogs - it goes on and on! So fun! And a great way to discover new blogs. I think these are mostly food related, but I came across a great giveaway in the process. Definitely worth checking it out! Lots of yummy seasonal food goodies! You can find Heather's blog HERE.

And if you need something fun to do with the kiddos, I have a tutorial for haunted gingerbread (graham cracker) houses HERE

bat girl, vlah!

2009-10-24T17:10:00.009-05:00

This year, Sarah wanted to be a bat for halloween. We, of course, like any true halloween LOVErs do, started shopping for supplies right after halloween last year. I found these horns/ears at the grocery store for about $1 and the felt/sequin mask at WalMart for about the same. They set the tone and we finished up with some bat fabric (probably less than $3 worth) for the wing cape. I tried to talk her into doing wire/mesh fairy style bat wings after she insisted on throwing in the tutu, but she wanted to be "scary" and "scary" bat girls have capes. (And "scary" bat girls wear tutus??) I used purple feather boa ($2) around the collar and cuffs to hold the cape on. All in all, a super easy costume and we were able to layer extra clothes underneath the black stuff.

The way I got her interested in cooperating was to have her say "I vant to suck your blood! vlah!" Haha! She has been insisting on vampire teeth to go with the costume, but we haven't found any yet that don't come in a big set without makeup. ?? We'll see! Stay tuned for the terrible twosome!

cowgirl dresses for my cowgirls

2009-10-17T16:09:00.004-05:00

Not surprisingly (to most of you) we made special dresses to take with us to TX. Each kiddo got to pick her fabric and we whipped them up! I made sure to get extra fabric so that I can make some for sale in my shop soon. The blue tops are repurposed blue jeans and I kept the style really simple so they are easy to wear. Anyway, here are some pics! It rained almost the entire time we were there, so these weren't taken until just hours before we headed for home.

we've been at the homestead

2009-10-17T13:06:00.007-05:00

Being an army kid, we never really had a "hometown" but after I graduated high school, my folks moved out to the country in central TX. Since then, it's pretty much become the family homestead. They live in a community called Naruna, TX, which is about an hour NW of Austin. It's 10 miles or more to the nearest small town and they are basically its only residents besides the wildlife.

On the property they have the house, a detached garage with an "apartment" which is where we stay, and the old general store.

Across the road is Naruna Baptist Church, which is still thriving after 100+ years. It's the church where Scott and I got married. My mom plays the piano and my dad leads the singing, the same way it's probably been done since the church's beginning.

When we arrived, I was excited to see that the mowing had been neglected. The grass was so tall and pretty. Little white flowers gave it a dreamy look. I couldn't wait to take some pictures and even lined up a bridal shoot, which never came to fruition because of the rain.

Wildflowers were blooming everywhere because of all the recent rains. The Hill Country was looking good!

If you are interested, you can read more about Naruna on my father's
BLOG. You will also learn where I inherited my sense of humor while
you're over there!

It's GIVEAWAY time!

2009-10-12T15:09:00.003-05:00

Hello! The girls and I are visiting down in TX, but I wanted to let you all know about some great GIVEAWAYS that are going on!

Over at HomeSpun Threads she is hosting a giveaway until Tuesday for a gorgeous ring of your choice from Tungsten Wedding Rings.

The winner can pick any Titanium ring, any Ceramic without an inlay, or Tungsten ring with a value up to $120!

Head over to HomeSpun Threads and check it out before it ends!

AND

Over at The Maternal Lens we are giving away some super cute custom bottlecap magnets! They are all the rage on fashionable fridges these days! They also make great gifts for family and teachers!

happy birthday, meow!

2009-10-01T18:16:00.002-05:00

At our house, October 1st is "kitty birthday." Before we had kids, it was a much bigger deal, but we still try to remember to celebrate. We got our first cat, Zoe, the dilute calico, as a small kitten and later got Lucy, who was believed to be the same age. So, we picked a day to designate as "kitty birthday" and today is it! Hard to believe they are 9 years old! We got them a new toy and a new scratching pad with cat nip, which they love! Happy birthday kitties!

new stuff in the pink palace!

2009-09-29T14:31:00.004-05:00

Sarah and I have added a few things to her pink palace, which you read about HERE.

We found these great Chinese lanterns at Target in the dollar spot (they came in a package of 2 for $2.50) so we grabbed a few to hang in her room. She has been determined to get a chandelier, but until we find the perfect one, this is an inexpensive alternative with big visual impact!

After hanging them, I thought we needed to fill in the bare spots some, so I made pom-pom flowers using tissue paper. I used Martha Stewart's tutorial, which was super easy, and it can be found HERE. I almost wish we had just done all flowers! To finish it off, we glued some butterflies cut from scrapbook paper onto the lanterns. The entire thing costs less than $10!

Over the bed, we've added this little plaque that says "always kiss me goodnight." It was made from a blank craft (paper mache?) board and a sticker decal. Sarah painted the board, I added the sticker, and then we both embellished it with buttons. She loves it!

And to finish it all off, I had her do some little paintings which we framed. They are arranged at her eye level so that she can admire her work, and it's easy to change out. I also finally dry-brushed the dresser w/ pink to bring out some of the detail and give it a little bit of a distressed look.

I think that aside from a window treatment, her room is D.O.N.E!

room to play

2009-09-24T13:29:00.006-05:00

High on my priority list while on the house hunt, was a playroom for the kids. Now that they are out of the baby stage and playing together with the same toys, I wanted them to have a space where all the toys were together where they could play (that wasn't my living room!)

My vision of the playroom was modern and clean lined. Very Ikea-meets-Pottery Barn. The reality is that it's a hodge-podge of stuff that looks nothing like what I had planned! I'm ok with it though b/c the kids like it more than they would have if it was done "my way." haha!

I originally thought a fresh green w/ lots of white would be great for the playroom, but then I found multiple cans of yellow paint in the garage, left by the previous owners. To save some cash, I mixed them all up and used them! I let the girls put sticker decals on the walls along with their beloved mesh butterflies from the nursery in the old house. Stickers are a girl's best friend, you know!

We wound up with an extra crib mattress, so we stuck in there for them to use while watching t.v. or playing house. I found some velour curtain panels on clearance for less $1, so that's what I used to make the mattress cover and pillowcases. Above the bed are hooks for all of their dress up hats.

All of the furniture is stuff we already had, but I think we will need to get more storage furniture so that the toys aren't just sitting out, piled into buckets! It's tough with the twins only being 2 b/c they aren't tall enough to reach very high and don't understand how to be very organized, so we are limited in what would work well for us.

Any ideas for covering the breaker box? I assume we'll hang something over it, but I'm not really sure what. I thought a chalkboard would be cool, but the kids couldn't reach it. And those are cable wires for the t.v. that's in the corner. We'll be feeding them through something to hide them a little.

Daddy told the girls that if they kept the playroom picked up, they could get a fish tank. Well, the girls haven't exactly followed through with keeping the room clean, but Daddy got them the tank anyway! They picked out Dora and Spongebob statues and pink/blue gravel. We're still working out the cloudy water, but the fish seem to be doing great. We have an albino mini-catfish named Snowball, a mini-catfish named Fluffy, Patty Platty, Gabby Guppy, and Gary & Pearl who are mini-platties.

The fish tank is currently sitting on a table that the kids can use for coloring or puzzles. (I still need to touch up some of the furniture and paint the doors and door trim.) The girls have a Rose Petal Cottage, which I highly recommend, but Daddy has to fix it. (Someone got a little rambunctious while playing!) Originally, I tried making a "hammock" for all the stuffed animals with some of the velour from the curtain panels, but the kids promptly pulled it out of the wall, so I go them this bucket instead. I think when garage sale time hits, we will be parting with some of our collection!

The best part about the playroom is that you can shut the door! It's down in the basement, so no one even has to know the mess exists! Here's the before shot, taken by our realtor:

a walk in the woods

2009-09-22T18:52:00.005-05:00

Today we went for a walk in the woods near our house. The kids had a great time running and exploring, while I had a great time imagining all the great portraits I could take there! I can't wait to get the girls' Halloween costumes done so we can do their portraits in the woods! We were out mid-day, so the light was a little harsh, causing a lot of dappling, but I took some shots anyway just to share with you how pretty it is! I'm sure it will be gorgeous when the leaves change color.

(Have you noticed that little {P} makes a face in every picture lately??? That's only when I can actually get her to be in the picture! Her P.C.S. has become quite severe!)

Get those boys and ghouls gussied up!

2009-09-21T21:54:00.001-05:00

Capture your little goblin as his or her alter-ego with a Halloween Mini-Session! This limited time offer includes your 20 minute session PLUS your professionally enhanced images on CD for the special price of $50!

I have spots available Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the weekends of October 2-4 and October 16-18. All shoots to take place in Bellevue, Nebraska at a special outdoor location. Contact me for details! Grown-up spooks are welcome too!

blue -oo-ooooh!

2009-09-21T14:17:00.006-05:00

Welcome to the master bedroom! For over 15 years, my bedroom has been pink and cream, mixed with various other colors (mostly green), so I decided it was time for a change when we moved to the new house. Our room still has a long way to go before it's "finished" but I am LOVING it! The walls are a medium blue, leaning towards a robin's egg blue. We (I), of course, painted out the trim with a creamy white and have gotten new white bedding. The only other thing we've done to make the change is recover the headboard with this great fabric from Anna Maria Horner's Drawing Room line. It's modern with birds, butterflies and flowers - what's not to love!?

This fabric wasn't my first choice, and I actually chose the wall color based on a different fabric. I had never even seen this particular colorway in person, so when I ordered it, I had my fingers crossed that it wouldn't clash with the wall. When it came in the mail, we were so tickled that it's almost the exact same color! We couldn't have been any luckier!

My vision of the room is to keep it very simple and clean. I wanted to keep the bedding simple and light (we never make the bed anyway!) with a pop of pattern and color in the headboard and on the wall. It's all very beachy and dreamy and I love it! The pictures really don't do it justice and it's obviously not finished - it will just get better and better and I'll share the finished room with you when it's done. I have a long piece of wood that I plan on "creatively painting" to hang over the bed, and we will hopefully replace the tv tables as nightstands with built in shelves that act as nightstands.

This room is being done on a tight budget - same as the rest of the house. The headboard fabric was less than $30 delivered to my door, and the new quilt on the bed (with the great mod quilting) was only $40 at TJMaxx. I plan waaay ahead sometimes (a lot) so I put the sheets on our Christmas list for last year - they were a gift!

Across from the bed are the windows. We opted for cheap and simple window shades for now, instead of mini-blinds. I had intended for some nice roman shades or long flowy drapes in white, but now I'm not certain what I'm going to do. The shades are simple and clean, so I can live with them for a while. To one side of the window, I have a photo that my friend Lexy took - love it! And on the other side, we have our armoire, which houses Scott's clothes and normally, the tv. No tv in there yet and it's kinda deep for the space, so we are thinking we might replace it with a slimmer dresser.

Here's the view out the window...

We really, really need dressers! Along this long wall, we are planning to put a long dresser with a mirror. I kind of like the contrast of the wood tones against the blue, but we are also looking at black finishes. We gave our hand-me-down dresser to the twins, so we definitely need something!

Yesterday, Sarah was complaining that we needed more "stuff" in our room. She obviously doesn't get the minimalist thing! She does love the mirrored closet doors though, which will be going bye-bye sooner or later!

And just for reference, here is the before picture, taken by our realtor...

And here's what we had in the old house and for the last 10+ years!

our Sunday breakfast

2009-09-20T20:40:00.003-05:00

We are slowly getting ourselves unpacked, and yesterday, the bulk of the books finally found their way to the bookshelves. The cookbooks were some of the first things to get boxed up when we put our house on the market over a year ago, so I've been without them for quite a while. Not that I use them much, but I've missed them.

One of my contacts on flickr, mainemomma, has shared some shots of the yummiest looking dish she calls a German pancake. I've wanted to try it myself for quite some time. I'm not sure how similar they really are, but my recipe (from Pampered Chef) is called and "apple oven pancake." The kids and I thought it was great, so I thought I'd share. My pictures turned out terribly, but you can see hers HERE or HERE. (Actually, she gives her recipe in the comments of the second pic - just fyi. A little too late for me!)

Preheat to 450'. Combine:
1 cup milk
6 eggs
2 T melted butter
1 tsp vanilla

Slowly add:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
(I added a little sugar too.)

Pour batter into a deep dish baking pan. (I used a round cake pan plus a small 6" spring form pan.) Bake 10 minutes. Reduce temp to 350' and bake an additional 15 minutes. The sides should be crisp and golden brown.

After the pancake is baked, you fill it with cinnamon apples. The recipe calls for two 12oz packages of escalloped apples, but I used a few pears cooked with some applesauce and cinnamon. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar or add some whipped cream.

The pancake poufs up huge, so don't be alarmed! And 6 eggs sounds like a lot, but split between 5 people (we still have the smaller one left to eat) it's not too bad. I think next time we are going to try a blueberry filling. Yum!

Holy orange, Batman!

2009-09-17T22:44:00.006-05:00

Operation Rainbow Bright was in full swing this week as I tackled the master bathroom. I was hoping to have it be a nice extension of what we have going on in the bedroom (blues with warm orange and pear green accents), so I debated between green and orange for a while before settling on the color. (I didn't even think I could talk Scott into letting me do orange!) My intention was a nice warm orange, but after going over colors with the hubs and Sarah, we came up with a brighter, lighter orange.

In the early stages of the painting part, I had a twinge or two of panic. haha! It was a little (lot) brighter than I had planned. I continued on though, knowing we could make it work. Now that it's finished (aside from some touching up) I think it looks great! Scott even seems to like it!

Here are the before pics that our realtor took. It was the same cappuccino color that the rest of the house is (darker in real life than pictures.)

And here's the way it looks now! Ellen, as usual, was my little model.

I don't have a picture of it, but the old light fixture looked like boobs! Haha! It was a brassy tone and basically just two globes stuck to each other! We replaced it, as well as the sink fixture and knobs on the cabinet.

We've got some blinds for the window and I had this fabric in my stash that I'm going to make a window treatment with. I LOVE it, but never really had a purpose for it, other than a camera strap cover or two. It doesn't have the blues of the bedroom, but the pattern is similar in style to what we are using on our headboard (with modern florals and sketchbook drawings) so I think it will work fine.

And I finally printed one of my flower shots to hang over the throne! Mine is the one on the bottom and the top pic is one my friend Haley took and was kind enough to share with me! (I featured it on the Maternal Lens yesterday.) They are both sorta macro-y and kind of abstract, so I think they work well together. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep the frames wood-tone, but they match the cabinet perfectly ($8 at Walmart!) so I kept them unpainted and I think it looks great.

So, YAY!, a finished room!!! "Tangerine Cream" was a success!

a day at the park

2009-09-10T14:34:00.005-05:00

Today we decided to take a break from {operation: rainbow bright} to have some play time at the park. There's a school with a park just around the corner from us, but since school is in session, it's a no-go for weekdays. Instead, we trekked about 1/2 mile, up and down hills, each way, to a playground in a nearby neighborhood. The kids are totally fascinated by this curvy climbing thing, which sometimes makes me nervous! Anyway, here are some pics from today. Phoebe was not interested in posing for me at all, so no closeups for her!

Operation: Rainbow Bright

2009-09-03T23:11:00.006-05:00

We are on a mission to overhaul our house, making it lighter, brighter, cheery and colorful! I think we should call this mission OPERATION: Rainbow Bright! Color + light is the goal!

For about the past week, I've been trying to tackle our kitchen. I have painted 4-5 coats of white paint on everything (OMG!!!) and I'm pretty much throwing in the towel! Let's just say the kitchen is like a Monet - looks great from afar, but a mess up close! LOL Oh, well. I know I'm the most critical because I'm the one who did it.

We are painting the walls yellow, although the color we wound up with is a little lighter than what I had intended. I think it will still work fine once we have colorful accessories in there. Here's a few of our kitchen things that show off the colors I'm wanting in there...yellow, green, blues and red. A little vintage, a little quirky with a touch of mod.

This is one of my favorite things - a platter with Alice in Wonderland. LOVE it! And it's the perfect inspiration for the kitchen! I plan to hang it on the wall somewhere with some other dishes I've collected.

Here are some "before" pics from our realtor. Everything was very dark wood. We've replaced the fridge and you can see in the lower pic the view from the family room. There is an eat-in area on the left there.

And here is the current kitchen. Sorry I didn't have a wider angle so that you can see it all at once!

Lighter and brighter? I think so!

I still need to paint the walls up high where the vaulted part is. You can see here the taupe color that it was before. There are also dark beams on the ceiling (and also in the formal living/dining area.) What are your thoughts on those? We intend to paint them white, which we've seen done in other houses. It creates a very cottage-y look. I haven't painted them yet because they are waaay up high!

Over the dining area is this light fixture, which has a hobnail glass cover on it. I have a small collection of hobnail glass, so I'm drawn to it, but it's obviously outdated. I've thought about painting the metal a fun color like turquoise or red, maybe white, but I'm not sure. What do you think? Should we change it up or toss it?? At this point in time, it only sometimes works. Haha!

So you've seen my new kitchen! When it's all finished, I'll post more pictures. Up next: the master bedroom!

Take a tour of the Pink Palace...

2009-08-27T20:16:00.005-05:00

aka Sarah's room.

Sarah's new room is one of the few that is close to being "done" at our new house. Here is the "before shot" taken by our realtor. Basically, the entire inside of our house looks just like this.

And here is her room in the old house. It was mostly blue and white and started out as our guest room, not changing much after she moved in.

Sarah requested pink & red, so I have worked for months for ways to make it work. The color on her walls is "Pink Destiny" and we've painted her dresser deep red (I'll be doing some dry-brushing of hot pink to bring out the details.)

And you might remember me blogging about her duvet cover. It's almost done! I just need to make a way to close it up after you stuff the comforter in. Minor detail...

At the end of her bed is a little spot for her to keep a few books.

The closet is down there too. We still need to paint doors. I'm hoping that daddy will take them outside for me so I can do them all at once. The wood tone is the color of all our trim in its current state. bleh.

Probably our favorite part of the room is the "vanity" spot. It was actually an idea Sarah came up with (maybe I planted the seed at some point??) and it turned out so cute! We got an inexpensive shelf and added scrapbooking stickers to it that coordinate with her room. She has one of the chairs that we refurbished a few blogs back, and my old mirror updated with a red polka dot ribbon.

We still need to hang stuff on the walls and unpack a few more boxes, but it's definitely the pink palace she dreamed of!

Hello Nebraska!

2009-08-19T21:53:00.004-05:00

It's been a long time coming, but we are now officially Nebraska residents! We've been dealing with unemployment for almost a year, and are glad to have it come to an end. The house selling and buying process has also been a royal pain, and pretty much anything that could go wrong did!

It took us almost a year to sell our house, and when we finally did, we had to spend a fortune taking care mold and radon issues. Lemme tell ya, when you've been unemployed forever, it is an even bigger pain than it would be otherwise!

Thinking the buying process would be easier, we were frustrated to find out it was not! We looked at approx 40-50 houses and offered on 4 before we one was accepted. As we waited to hear back on our offers, our "backup houses" sold left and right, leaving us with fewer and fewer to choose from. The one we wound up with was probably #9 on our list, but it's in a great neighborhood and was priced well below its worth, and should turn out to be a great place for us in time.

We have been victims of Murphy's Law during the house selling/buying and it still hasn't ended! We were fortunate to have movers load our stuff and truck it to our new house, but the morning we closed on our house in Peoria, we quickly realized we couldn't fit all the leftover stuff into our minivan. In a slight panic, we carted all our crap over to the neighbor's garage (thank you Val!!) so that the house would be empty when we left for the closing. We decided the best course of action was to rent a car to haul the extra junk, so we were running all over town collecting the extra automobile while trying to get all our last minute banking done (which was ridiculous in its own ways.) We wound up with a huge 12 passenger van, which was quite comical to those not involved. LOL Scott drove it while I hauled the cats and our fish Sushi across Iowa for the umpteenth time.

We arrived at our new house shortly before midnight, only to find that there was not a single fully functioning bathroom. The house has been empty for quite some time and there has been "work" done to it, which is really just CRAP work. Scott has since been busy fixing all the "work" that was done so that we can live here. Lots of plumbing and electrical kinks to work out. Anyway, the movers showed up bright and early the morning after we got here, so we didn't have time to do anything before our house became crowded. I've been trying to paint and unpack, but it's been slow-going with all the kids and stuff in the way.

I know many of you are dying to see....here is our new house! It's a tri-level with 3 bedrooms, 2 three quarter baths, one full bath, and one half bath (if only they all worked!) There's a family room, formal living and dining room, kitchen and eat-in dining area on the main floor, and the laundry and "playroom" are in the basement. There is tons of yardwork to be done. The tree in front needs to go and we are removing tons of overgrowth from everywhere. We hired a cheap and eager handy-guy to help us out with the yardwork and gutters (hence the ladder.)

(The arrow is to show you the tree that is on the eviction list!)

The neighborhood sits on a creek and is very wooded, which is nice, but it makes for a dark house! We are making plans to brighten things up and make lots of play space for the kids. In the backyard, there's a cute little shed/playhouse that will get some love and attention one of these days. It's kinda scary in its current state.

On the back of the house, there's a huge screened in porch, which is kind of unusual in these parts. There's a porch swing and tons of room, but it too needs work. I have plans for it to make it cheerful and cute (of course!)

I found this page in my "idea file" that I had pulled from a magazine. I'm hoping to get our porch looking this good by next spring!

And I think we'll pull up the astroturf and paint the concrete like this awesome floor that was blogged at Design Sponge. Seriously, I'm obsessed with this floor! Can't you just see it in my new porch!?

Scott started work at his new job this week, and needless to say, I'm quite overwhelmed by the amount of work before me at the house! It will take me forever, but I will keep at it.

I will be sharing more of the house, room by room, with the inspirations from my idea file so you can go through the process with me (and help me out with a few decisions along the way!)

Thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes! Hopefully we are at the end of our long journey so we can begin a new one.

saying goodbye

2009-08-19T21:14:00.005-05:00

FYI - we've moved!! We made it to Nebraska, alive and well.

Last week we said our good-byes to our friends in Peoria. The kids had play-dates will all of their little friends and we made the most of those last few days with them.

The church was our surrogate family and, conveniently, vacation Bible school took place during our final week in town so we were able to spend quality time with our loved ones there. It's always an exciting time for the kids, and the twins were especially excited to participate for the first time.

The last night of VBS, the kids put on a program for the parents. Ellen was the "good one" as usual, but Phoebe stole the show in true drama queen fashion. Sarah was the old pro, belting those songs out!(you can click the pics to see them larger)

Despite crummy weather, we spent lots of time at the park with our friends. (Sorry I didn't get pics of everyone!) This is Tommy, one of Sarah's BFF's. It's funny to think they've known each other almost all their lives...

The twins think he is the coolest thing since Sponge-Bob!

{T} has new baby twin siblings and Ellen thinks they belong to her! I think she's still convinced she's moving to their house instead of Nebraska.

Here are the girls with their other BFF's, {K} & {E}.

I'm still tickled that when I used to babysit {E}, people would ask if Sarah and {E} were twins. It's even funnier now that I really have twins!

Before we left, we even had a nice grown up's night out playing miniature golf with our friends Freda and Chad. We love all of you guys and will miss you tons!

And finally, we said good-bye to our first house. We moved in when I was pregnant with Sarah, not knowing anyone within an 8 hour drive. We built our life there and brought our babies home to it, which will always make it a special place. We loved it, but are excited to move onto bigger and better things. :)

It's a SALE!

2009-08-03T16:06:00.002-05:00

Hi guys! Just wanted to let you know that all of my camera strap covers are on sale in my etsy shop, which you can find HERE.

They are only $6 right now, which is HALF PRICE, so stock up and save!

playing catch-up

2009-07-29T22:23:00.009-05:00

This week I decided to try to play some catch up on my projects. I have a few dozen sewing projects that have been put off during past few months with all the house selling/showing going on. Now that our house is under contract (yay!) I've decided to try to knock some of them out so that I don't get too backlogged when once we're moved. Hopefully I'll be somewhat caught up by the end of this weekend so that I can start packing next week.

This is Ellen and her "monkey dress." The sock monkey fabric was a remnant that Scott's mom gave us. Ellie has a monkey fetish and snapped it up the second she saw it. It was the first project I took care of b/c she would walk around the house, day after day, with her monkey fabric, pleading for me to make her a "monkey dress." Needless to say, she loves it, and I love that it cost me $0 to make!

Since {E} got a monkey dress, Phoebe got a cupcake dress. It turned out a little big, but she doesn't seem to mind.

When we were in Nebraska last, Sarah and I got to check out a cool
fabric store. I let her pick out whatever fabric she wanted, and she
picked this cute mermaid fabric. I am supposed to make her a purse
out of it too, but that will have to wait. She's very good about
reminding me though. Every day.

This dress is for the daughter of an e-friend. I sorta made up the pattern on my own and love it! Once things settle down, I am hoping to make these to sell in my etsy shop. I've also made tops in the same style.

I've also been making tons of camera strap covers, which are on SALE
for $6 in my etsy shop! You can find them HERE and I'll be adding more!

If you are interested in girl's clothing, what would you like to see in my
shop? Are there styles that you love? What kind of sizes would you be
looking for?

Oh, Iowa!

2009-07-22T16:25:00.004-05:00

We have driven across Iowa 8 times in the last 2 months! We have been house hunting in Nebraska and Iowa is pretty much all that stands between it and Illinois. Let me just say that I won't miss driving across Iowa. Sarah finds it so boring, she resorts to catching flies...

The kids have little televisions that they use for watching movies in the car, but the twins think it's lots more fun to bug mommy. They love to play the "I dropped blankie and I'm gonna freak out if you don't give it back to me" game. They also love to continuously request food and drink or that the air conditioner be turned up or down. Do you see the mischief in their eyes??

I'm sure you'd be shocked to know that there really isn't much going on in Iowa except for corn fields, right? It's true! The highlight of this 7 hour drive is the stretch of road where they have created a wind farm. I swear there are a hundred of these wind turbines. I am totally mesmerized by them and have a few moments of deep thought about whether they are earth friendly sculpture or menacing obstacles on the natural landscape. I'm still undecided.

While I have deep thoughts about their impact on the landscape, Scott ponders (out loud) about what the cows think of them. :)

Now playing in Peoria...

2009-07-22T16:03:00.004-05:00

AFRICA! at the Peoria zoo!

One of the great things about Peoria is that it has its own little zoo, which is easily accessible for little morning outings and such. Anyway, the zoo recently opened a huge new section dedicated to African animals. There are giraffes, rhinos, lions and other assorted critters. They've built little shelters and boardwalks that lead you around the exhibits. It has doubled the size of the zoo! If you are ever in town, definitely check it out!

4th of July fun

2009-07-10T10:50:00.005-05:00

We spent the 4th with Scott's family in Nebraska (because he started his new job there that week!) We had unusually cool weather and lots of excitement while we were there.

(You can click the pics to see them larger.)

The kids and their cousin got to play at the Lincoln children's zoo. Poor {P} came down with a bout of vertigo that morning (something we've been dealing with since she was a baby) so she was dizzy and pukey, but managed to ride a pony for the first time anyway! She's such a (stubborn) little trouper! Even though she could barely keep herself upright, she loved it and so did {E}.

The kiddos celebrated the 4th in style, complete with tiaras of course! They got to see a big fireworks display (in the rain) and play with sparklers at the house. Grandma's neighborhood also has a little parade that they joined in on.

Scott's grandma (Oma) celebrated her 80th birthday while we were there. We had a nice party for her with lots of cake and friends from all over the place.

One of the last things we did was visit Lincoln's big rose garden and sunken garden with some of our Canadian cousins that were down for the party. Such a pretty place with tons of gorgeous flowers! I'm sure that once we're settled in Nebraska, I'll be using them for portrait locations. Anyone need some bridal portraits done??

More pics from the lake...finally.

2009-07-09T17:32:00.005-05:00

Hi! Remember me? I have slacked off on blogging with all the hectic traveling we've been doing. Anyway, today I caught up on some of the pics from our trip to the lake last month.

All the photos in this post are clickable so that you can see them larger if you like.

This is my parents with the kiddos. I swear, if the kids were looking at the camera, my father was making a goofy face! Impossible.

This is my mom, her mom, and me with the kids. 4 generations!

My grandma (Mama/Gigi) with the kiddos. We can never figure out who Ellen looks like, but here she looks just like Gigi! We may have figured it out! (She's the one on the far right.)

And of course, the big "family photo." This is almost my entire family from my mom's side minus my uncle's family and my youngest sister Angie. My Aunt Sandy and her friend Jayne are on the left there and are the ones who call the lake house home.

While I was going through the photos, I was reminded of how snap-happy my husband is. I think we have about 150 images of my brother in-law on the jet ski! Here are a few...

And those of you who know Scott (my husband) will find this amusing! Scott on the jet ski! He loved it and is convinced we need one now! haha!

And here's one of me, holding on for dear life! It was really choppy out that day.

Anyway, we are back and forth between Illinois and Nebraska quite a bit now. We are house hunting and still trying to sell our current home. Scott started his new job at Bellevue University last week, so at least we are officially employed now! Luckily, he doesn't have to be there full time for a few more weeks.

lake rats in the making

2009-06-19T15:13:00.008-05:00

Last week, we made our way to Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri to meet up with my Texas family at my aunt's summer lake house. I had to chuckle when one of my friends asked me about our "camping trip." Here is the house...

We weren't exactly "roughing it!" haha! The house is actually one of the smaller ones on the block. I think you could get lost in some of her neighbors' homes. Here's a few across the cove from her. Their boats cost about as much as our house!

Anyway, we spent a good chunk of time out on the boats. The kids loved it! Scott and I took the twins out on my Aunt Sandy's boat with grandma (Nonna) and great-grandma (Gigi.)

Btw, poor {E} had to make a trip to the ER the night before. She gashed her forehead open and had to get a CT scan and some superglue! Of course, all this happened in the middle of the night, so that's partly why she appears less than energetic. She's healing well though!

{P} loved the boat! She sat on Nonna's lap the entire time, waving at every boat that passed by us. {E} loved it too, but she tried really hard to convince us otherwise.

As much as the twins enjoyed boating, Sarah loved it more! She spent most of her time out on her Uncle Steven's speed boat, tooling around the lake at highway speeds! I wasn't sure we'd ever convince her to leave.

I was also unsure whether we'd ever get the twins to take off their life jackets. It was the funniest thing, they wore them the entire time we were there! They even tried to go to bed with them on.

My dad has more of the story and some pics from the trip if you are interested. His blog is HERE.

(All the pics are clickable if you want to check them out larger. I'll post some more later.)

the silhouettes are back and so are we!

2009-06-19T09:27:00.003-05:00

We've been off vacationing and house hunting, and while we were gone, Aimee at HomeSpun Threads sent me the silhouettes of the girls. They turned out great!

You can visit her site to find the link to her etsy shop where she sells custom silhouettes, or you can try it yourself (I might give it a whirl!) by following her tutorial HERE. Thanks Aimee!

Pics from our trip to follow soon!