Nursery Update

I added a print to Scarlett's nursery and wanted to share it here, so I took a couple of other pictures of the room as well. Check out this label to see other posts about the nursery. I know I still haven't shared the tree that I painted BUT it is painted and the white flowers are painted on as well. I didn't end up using a stencil bc that was just too time consuming/didn't turn out well, looks wise. I need to paint on the magenta flowers and I also plan on putting some 3-d elements on as well (depending on how they look when a couple are put up).

I saw this pin on pinterest and yes, it's taken me a while but I finally got around to designing my own. It incorporates Scarlett's room colors and mini theme of butterflies. I really like it, and this actually is the third draft. :)

Tad disappointed that my paper is whiter than the frame but oh well!

There are a couple other pieces I have in mind for this wall.

My awesome consignment find! And handmade mobile.

Trinket shelf. The black bear is from the Smoky Mtns, and the tea set is from Alex's cousin Rachel (and her husband Ewan) from Scotland. The tiny beach themed box contains a tiny bracelet from my mom from a cruise, I believe.

Made that thingy from paper towel, toilet paper rolls.

 Next project coming up is creating an alphabet book for Scarlett with her favorite things! Al la this pin!

If anyone is interested in a print like the one above for their own babe, I'd love to make you one. It's not hard and you could pick the colors too. :)

Playtime with the Hix Family!

Harper & Scarlett

Love Harper's watermelon outfit!

They definitely like to trade toys.. sharing is going to be a fun concept!

The Hix Family!

The Brubaker Family!

Bethany Beach 2012

Included below are some pictures from our Bethany Beach trip from the beginning of August. We had a great time as we always do and it was extra special sharing Scarlett with her Aunts, Uncles and cousins who she doesn't get to see as much as we would like because they live a state or two away. I'm not going to lie though, taking a baby on vacation is hard work. It really wears on sleep schedules and just the amount of sand she could get on her in such a short amount of time plus the clean up afterward was a lot. We're figuring it will be easier next year when she's a bit older and walking. Just keepin' it real!

South Bethany Beach on Dwellable

Scarlett :: 7 months

Stats (approx)
Weight- 20-21 lbs
Height- 28.5"

Eats
She eats two meals a day, for breakfast she has cereal and a fruit and for dinner she has a veggie and a fruit. The cereal is organic and from Target, Earths Best?. They have 3 different kinds that we switch between. Her fruits and veggies have been a mix of Plum Organic squeezies and homemade baby food. I plan to freeze a lot over the next couple of weeks to get some of summers best all frozen for her for the fall. This includes Spaghetti Squash, Broccoli, Spinach, Peaches, Pears and Apples. Usually I pick a couple and mix them together like Plum does with the squeezies, then she gets lots of flavors all together!

She also nurses about every 3 hours and drinks bottles while I'm at work about every 3-4 depending on activities happening around her.

Sleeps
She has been teething hardcore the last couple weeks so sleeping has been difficult for her. We got her an amber teething necklace and put it on the other day and this has definitely improved her mood and sleep. She wakes twice a night to eat generally now, around midnight and around 3am and then 6 am where sometimes I can get her back to sleep and sometimes I can't. I am okay with this schedule and I'm in no rush to sleep train, despite what I may have said a couple weeks ago (not on the blog). We did move her to her own room a couple weeks ago and she has been doing well! Alex and I have been sleeping upstairs in the other bedroom so that we're close by but my sleep has definitely improved now that i'm not checking her every second (exaggeration).

Activities
She crawls like a pro now and pulls herself up on furniture. She is very brave and lets go of the furniture a lot to try to balance. Her balance is not the best but it's getting better little by little. It is bittersweet that she is so mobile. I know it's awesome and all but she's growing up way too fast. She still loves swimming in pools, though she prefers private homes vs public pools. She has been very vocal the last couple weeks and has resorted to happy yelling a lot. Sometimes we hear a "Ba.." or a "Da.." or even a "Ma..". I know these sounds barely mean anything at this point but we hear a lot more sounds unrelated to the ba, ma, da which is great!

Other
She enjoyed the beach a couple weeks ago, ate some sand, yes and was scared of the waves when her feet were on the ground and the were splashing on her.

She is very loving. I put my head to her head and she just smiles so wide. It's also pretty easy to make her laugh, I kiss attack her like you can see below and she just laughs her face off. It's awesome! She loves hair. She pulls and tugs at my hair all day long and likes to tug at other people's hair too if they're holding her. I'm not sure what her obsession with it is but her hair is growing faster now so soon she'll have her own to pull.

Enjoy some pictures below :) 

 

 

 

Squash Tots

This summer, Alex grew some spaghetti squash and much less zucchini than previous years. We may have to up the ante next year due to this recipe bc oh my goodness I could eat a ton of these little buggers.

I saw this recipe originally on Pinterest, which actually directs you to this blog post (cutting out the middle man, sorry Pinterest), using zucchini. That is the first squash we tried it with and they were yummy! Then we had spaghetti squash, as I mentioned, on hand so we decided to try it with that and they turned out even better! I'm also thinking this will be a killer kids side dish in a year or so. Maybe with a little less onion though!

I will go over the details of the recipe below because it's so easy and also because I took the recipe from above and times it by 4 because I had 4 cups of squash to use.

First, this is pretty time consuming if you're using spaghetti squash and far less time consuming if you're using zucchini. Spaghetti squash you have to cut and then roast and then scoop out. Zucchini you just have to shred. I roasted a lot of squash one night so that I could puree a bunch for baby food for Miss Scarlett and I put the extra in the fridge because I planned to freeze it to make tots in the near future. Later in the week, I just decided to make the tots and then freeze them so I could pop them in the microwave for an easy breakfast, which by the way, these are awesome for breakfast!

Recipe//
Makes approx. 50 tots
Oven Temp: 400 F
Oven Cook Time: 18 minutes +/-

Ingredients//
4 cups of squash (if this is zucchini, you need to shred it with a box grater and then squeeze out as much water as humanly possible, if it's pre-cooked spag squash then no need to do that)
4 eggs
1 cup of breadcrumbs (we used Panko)
1+ cup of sharp cheddar cheese, I just eye balled it
1 onion finely diced (these are quite oniony with this amt, put as much as you see fit)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions//
Mix it all together
Put it into a greased (or ungreased if you use Pampered Chef's, I found this out by accident!) mini muffin tin and push down on them with a spoon to really press it in so they don't fall apart when taking them out.
Put it in your pre-heated oven for between 16-20 minutes. 18 minutes is my oven's sweet spot.
If you plan to eat them immediately, let them cool for a couple minutes and then jab them with a fork to pull them out.
If you plan to freeze them, let them cool down to room temp and then put them on a tray in the freezer for an hour or so until they're solid, then transfer to a freezer safe bag or container. I put ours in a container bc they will not be lasting long!

To heat them after they're frozen, put them in the microwave for 1 minute.

Wham, Bam, check out the pictures below!
{ps. is this font hard to read??}

All fits in one nice bowl for easy cleanup!

Don't forget the cheese.. mmmm

What Scarlett was up to while I was making these!

Ready for the oven and completely out of focus :)

Missing a couple bc my husband couldn't resist :)

Ready for the freezer!

RSVPing in the 21st Century

I'm gonna flip the switch and talk about something unrelated to my baby and talk about something that really grinds my gears about this here (my) generation of peoples.

Now I've been thinking about this for a long time and it comes to a head each time there is a party to throw and invitations to send. Remember back when you were little and your mom wanted to throw you a birthday party (or for some of you, like my mom, who did this for their children) and so she bought some invitations and sent them out. She wrote RSVP on there so that she would know how many kids were coming and how much pizza to buy or how many gift baggies to make up. And the beauty of this was that people actually called to say they were or were not coming. The whole point of the RSVP! That model worked for so long, for obvious reasons.. people were more decent back then I guess.

This brings me to now. Or really, 5 years ago when people really started using Facebook to send invitations etc and the whole RSVP world collapsed in on itself (for my generation). Here's the thing about using FB to track your event.. you don't really know how often people check their facebook. It's not like a text message,which you know the person received, even if they don't have the decency to respond promptly or sometimes at all. It's not like mailing an invite because obviously they have a mailbox and they check their mail. See this is where I failed for the first time. I tried to throw my husband a surprise 25th birthday party and thought, "ok, FB is perfect for this" .. it turned out that maybe 6 people out of -i don't know- 25 actually said they were coming, some said maybe, some said no. Maybe??!! Really? Are you waiting until the day of to see what the plans are for that day before deciding to come. Maybe should be removed from that scenario. It's yes or no, plan in advance and then stick to it. I've also sent numerous actual mailed invitations only to hear nothing back and then I have to go forth and contact those people to find out if they're coming or not, when most of the time it's no, they aren't coming. They were probably scared to call (or text, again, really?) with the word no, even though it's just a word and it's necessary a lot more then people admit these days.

I try to be as honest as possible with these events on FB now since I am so utterly peeved with my own experiences. Same with mailed invitations, I try to RSVP the day I get the invitation to get it out of the way after I've checked my calendar. Call me crazy, but it's just considerate.

Just as a sidebar, I am not hating on the use of FB as a means to send an invitation. It honestly is the easiest way to get it done, track who's coming and who's not (when people are honest), give information to them that can be easily found if forgotten, etc. I'm hating on people here, okay? People in general in a digital world who can't take 5 seconds to RSVP.

The Great Smoky Mountains

Okay, so it took like a month to get pictures up of our trip, but here they are. I did not get a chance to edit these (ahh!) but they are up here none the less! Enjoy!