taking care of a little this and that...

There has been no time to blog lately. I have been too busy juggling all my hats!

Teagan turned 3 months last week. I can't believe how fast she is growing. Check out what she has been working on!

 

:)

Most maternity leaves end after 2-3 months. Well... up until a few weeks ago I had been telling Mark that I was on maternity leave. I have been working hard on getting the books up to date and I am proud to report my receipts folder JUST about empty!

I also worked on created two displays for items that we donated to a very special foundation's benefit auction a few weeks ago.

Sometimes I think I missed my calling by not going into graphic design. I absolutely love playing on Photoshop and creating. Luckily I get to play while making marketing material for our businesses.

I also did some fun work around the house. I finally decorated for summer a couple weeks ago. I got all my sand and shell vase fillers out for the first time in 2 years. Didn't seem right to display these while we were living in the mountains!

But lately most of my time has been spent doing this...

That is right, I am packing like crazy to prepare our family for our summer in Colorado. Did you see the Space Saver Bags. You pack them and the suck all the air out with your vacuum so they take up much less space. They are awesome! Gavin and I had fun seeing our bags shrink away! And yes, those are sweaters you may have spotted in my pile of chaos. I actually had to purchase a bunch of cold weather clothes for little Teagan. After searching in stores around here to no avail (it has been in the 90's here!) I hit the jackpot on the Carter's website. 70% off sale with free shipping! I know she needs it though. I heard from a friend that it snowed there last week! One of the ski areas, A-Basin, is going to be open for the Fourth!!

Speaking of the Fourth... We are taking the day off tomorrow. Our plan is to hang by the pool all day, dinner with the family and then fireworks on the beach with friends. Can't wait! I did drop the hat on preparing for the holiday though. This is the only decoration we have up in our house.

Just couldn't do it when we are leaving for Colorado in 6 days. Yikes!!! Can't do it all, but the day will go on and I will relax by the pool. :)

Hope you Independence Day is a blast!!!

after christmas posts...

Instead of after Christmas sales I have after Christmas posts! Things were just too hectic around the holidays to share these few things. I promise, this is the last post on Christmas. I also can't type much tonight. I cut my middle and thumb finger VERY badly on my awesome VERY sharp knife yesterday. I have been wearing band aids on my fingers that make me look like Michael Jackson. Today Gavin and I had a play date with some kids and girls that I am just getting to know. I wore a larger bandage on my worst cut. I wondered what these girls must think of my mangled finger. Oh well!

Today I have a craft and recipe to share. I know it is too late, but I will have this post labeled for the holidays and if you want you can refer to it next year.

For the past 2 years my family have made gifts for each other. Gavin gets into the fun too. This year he made reindeer for everyone. I saw a picture of something like this and came up with the way to make it. I would love to have him, and soon his little sister, make one each year as they grow. I think it would be fun to decorate a tree or maybe a wreath with all the different sized reindeer marking each year of their lives.

Hand and Foot Print Reindeer
You will need:
Colored cardstock for the antlers
Colored cardstock for the face
Pencil
Scissors
Paint, markers or crayons for eyes and nose (I used paint and added the eyes and nose with a Q-tip)
Hole puncher and ribbon if you want to be able to hang the reindeer.
Sweet little hands to make the prints!

1. Trace both right and left hand onto paper for antlers

2. Trace foot on paper for face

3. Cut out foot and hand prints. While I cut, Gavin drew on the feet paper. I let him because I used this side as the back and thought it made the reindeer even more memorable with his scribbles.

4. Glue hands to top of foot print to create antlers and face. Add eyes and nose with your choice of material.

5. If you like, add a ribbon to make this reindeer an ornament or other hanging decoration. Don't forget to write on the back the year and age of child!

The following recipe is an absolute must at our Christmas breakfast table. As long as I can remember I have eaten this while opening presents from Santa. The smell of this casserole cooking just smells like Christmas! I actually had enough ingredients this year that I made a second dish for New Years morning. How good is that!!

Cranberry-Apple Casserole
3 C. peeled, chopped apples
2 C. fresh cranberries
2 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1 C. sugar
3 (1 5/8 oz.) pkgs. instant oatmeal with cinnamon and spice
3/4 C. chopped pecans
1/2 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 C. butter melted
Pecan halves
Fresh Cranberries

     Combine apples, 2 cups cranberries, and 2 tablespoons flour, tossing to coat fruit; add 1 cup sugar, mixing well. Place in a 2-qt. casserole dish.
     Combine oatmeal, chopped pecans, 1/2 cup flour, and brown sugar; add butter, stir well. Spoon over fruit mixture. Bake uncovered, at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Garnish with pecan halves and cranberries.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

can't wait till next year!!



on to a new year...

Whew... I can't believe the holidays are already over! We had such a great Christmas this year. I promise to post more about the holidays, but I am in a bit more reflective mood with this post.

Growing up I always remember my mom talking about when she put up the Christmas decorations she would think back on where she was and what was life like when she put them away the past Christmas. When she put the decorations away she always would then say how she would think about next Christmas and what will life be like when she gets them back out again. Well I am defintiely my mother's daughter because I now do the same. Last Christmas we had our first white Christmas in the mountains of Colorado. I couldn't believe this year I was putting up decorations in our old house here in Florida, but the familiarity felt good. As I took everything down and packed everything up I thought about what next Christmas will be like. For one, we will have a little girl in the house! I told Mark how I was thinking about the Christmas to come and asked him to imagine what life will be. He says, just to make me crazy, "Well we won't be living here! I see us living in Tuscany maybe growing olives." Ah what a dream, but I can not pack and move anytime soon! Just to summer in Colorado!!

I thought I would share with you some pictures of our tree. I feel like it is the one thing that really gets center stage at Christmas. I love at night when it is all lit up how magical it makes the house feel. I wish I could have one of the trees you see in magazines. Arfully decorating with the most beautiful ornaments that compliment the rest of the home's decor. I was looking through my mom's Better Homes and Gardens and saw many examples like this, but I don't know how families do it! I mean I know how they do it, but where are all there special ornaments, hand-made by little hands, given as gifts, or marking special life moments. I try to make our tree beautiful. Here is an overall shot. (Notice the tree topper? I will explain later.)

I actually worked for Potterybarn for a few years and collected many ornaments at awesome after Christmas sales.

But I can't keep our sentimental ornaments off the tree! I do have beautifull ornaments that my grandmother made. They are priceless to me.

We have some from Mark and my childhood,

one for my high school Scottish band I was a dancer for,

a few sports ornaments for Mark,

special ornaments given by very special people in our lives,

this one that always makes me laugh...

I was supposed to be preganant the Christmas of 2008, but Gavin had othe plans!

And now Gavin has his own ornaments. I absolutely LOVE this ornament given on his first Christmas just 11 days after has birth.

I try to aesthtically place everything together and finish off the tree with small red balls that I also got from Potterybarn. But even with all the thought in design our tree can't be perfect. I use these branches I bought from Potterybarn as garland.

Mark of course teases me about this, but I like the look.
The problem was the whole month they kept on sliding down the tree! I also kept on losing ornaments that were strategically palced by dogs (included my canine nephew Griffin!) and little hands that wanted to play with certain ornaments. Gavin LOVED playing with 3 bears I had on the tree.

They would even run errands with us.
He also loved playing with this truck that was Mark's ornament after his black truck he had through high school.

I actually just found it stuck somewhere AFTER Christmas. But the funniest thing of all was that our tree was so darn crooked this year!

We couldn't get it on the stand straight! Mark and I tried for HOURS one night. Let me tell you... it was NOT fun!!! We finally gave up and decided, like Charlie Brown, to love our crooked tree. I guess our tree represented our family well. We like to make things special and nice, but we are sentimental, love tradition, won't sacrfice living a fun life for perfection, and yeah... we may be a little off centered too!

I have to share with you too what my house looked like on Sunday morning.

I felt like this shepherd from our nativity scene who lost his head a couple years ago!

Ha ha... My friend Meredith helped me decorate for Christmas the year I was on bed rest. She dropped the poor guy as she was putting him on the shelf. I still keep him because he makes me laugh.

A tradition in my family was that after Christmas my sister and I could keep all of our new toys out unitl we went back to school in order to enjoy them. My parents always seemed excited to get the toys and decorations put away and I could never understand why! Now I know!!! Luckily, thanks to my mother-in-law for having a date day with my little guy I got everything put back.

What a differnce an afternoon without a toddler makes!! I got the last few things back in order today. Yay!

Like I said I promise to post more later! Happy New Year!!

collage fun...

Here is another very easy craft to do with your little ones. I wanted to make something fun with Gavin today and I thought this fit the bill!

Torn Paper Collage

For Thanksgiving I had Gavin make Indian corn, but you can use the same technique to make anything. Gavin made a pumpkin for Halloween and I remember having him and his buddy Henry make stars for the 4th of July. Tearing is great for little ones who are developing their fine motor skills. Once the paper is torn you can make anything you want.

For Indian corn you will need:

1 piece of yellow paper
1 piece of green paper
Small pieces of orange, brown, white and red paper
Scissors
Glue (I use a glue stick)



Cut the yellow paper and green paper to create the corn and husks. Tear the rest of the paper into little pieces. Gavin is still a bit young to do this. He can tear big pieces of paper, but has trouble with smaller pieces so I help him like this.

It helps to hold the paper yourself tightly on one side and let the child tear on the other or hold onto the child's hand to help give more strength in tearing.

Once you have a pile of pieces you are ready to add glue to the whole piece of corn. Gavin loves to use the glue stick to add the glue.

After the corn is covered in glue, add the small pieces of torn paper as corn kernels.

Finally add the corn husks and...

ta da you have a beautiful piece of Indian corn!

Have fun!

halloween hauntings...

What a week! I can't believe Halloween was a week ago! The weeks seems such like a blur! I will explain...

We had a wonderful Halloween. Halloween morning we of course carved our pumpkin. Gavin picked out his design from three choices and Mark carved it out. Gavin and I scooped all the gunk out and Mark prepared the seeds to roast. And I think the seeds were the best I ever made (if I can say so myself)! I tossed them with a little olive oil and kosher salt, roasted them at 300 degrees for 45 minutes and they were ready to eat. Yum!

Here is Gavin's completed costume. If you can't guess... he is the bear Corduroy from the classic children's book series. He loves those books and I wanted him to be something he liked.

We took him to the Children's Garden in downtown Sarasota. It was perfect for him because he could walk through the garden and trick-or-treat and got to enjoy seeing other kids in their costumes. There was a scary pirate though that Mark said got too into his part...



calmly running for his life...

He has been talking about this pirate ALL week. The guy was handing out candy eyeballs... so he would say, "do you want me eye". So all week Gavin has been talking about the man with the eye. Geez... poor little guy!
After the garden we returned home to have hot dogs with Mark's family (a tradition of his childhood). We also visited a few of our close neighbors which was fun.

Tuesday was my birthday and I had a great one. Gavin and I went to his class at Forty Carrots together, which I LOVE, Mark brought home my favorite-- Anna's sandwiches for lunch from their shop on Siesta, and Mark and I went to a very nice dinner on St. Armands to Crab and Fin. I had stone crab claws!! And then Cold Stone for dessert!!! Too fun!

After Tuesday things went kindda downhill in our house. Mark and I came down with very bad sinus infections. I know... Mark had to tell a customer he canceled an appointment with andf she said yuck! I have never felt so much pressure in my face. I thought I was going to go insane! All I wanted to do was scratch off my skin to relieve some pressure! It was pretty comical the two of us, so pathetic, going to the doctor together on Friday. Gavin had a sleep over with his Grandma this weekend. I know it was for the best, but I miss him desperately. He is headed home shortly!

Hoping today is the start to a much better... healthier week!!!