The Story Of Us

This was D's fourth Halloween.. he was just a wee little thing on his first, his second was cancelled due to a freak snow storm knocking out all power, his third was celebrated sometime in November thanks to Superstorm Sandy and no one exactly dressed up.. but it was the day he discovered candy! I wanted to make this year special.. not sure if he really understood the question of 'What do you want to be for Halloween?' I decided to keep it simple and go with his favorite cartoon character.. MICKEY MOUSE! I didn't want to spend a lot of money in case Mother Nature started pms-ing again. So we hit the Dollar Store. It cost me under $15 to put the three costumes together. Bear ears and tail turned into Mickey ears and tail with black fabric bought at Hobby Lobby. He already had a black shirt and red pants.. I added big felt circles to his pants to make the buttons. It was cold outside so he wore his mittens and his tuxedo jacket..  I am the worst with a nee

When people ask if we have a backyard our answer is no.. but we're lying! But then again so would you if your yard looked like this. In all honesty is didn't always look like this.. it was more of a 3 foot tall jungle of weeds that M pretty much tackled single handed when we moved in. We went through bottles of weed killer, vinegar solutions, hot water suggestions we found online but nothing stopped the mutant weeds from coming back.. so every other weekend M wasted away hours trying to control our backyard. We may not have hated doing it so much and may have found a better solution for the space if we ever used it, but we didn't. There was no way to get to the space without leaving the house and going around the house to get to it, it lacked privacy and most importantly we didn't/don't see ourselves living here for a long time.. So we cut it all down and lay down some tarp.. and placed a few rocks to keep the tarp down.. when we ran out of rocks we filled ou

D has been a slow talker so I am always looking for fun  new ways to help him learn new words and grow his vocabulary. I decided to make a picture game. I gather various clip art of letters, number, fruit, vegetables  animals, clothes, furniture.. just about everything and anything I could think of.. and printed them out. I cut them out and backed them with some cardboard to make them more sturdy. Instead of going out and buying cardboard I simply recycled cereal boxes, tissues boxes, waffle boxes etc. Sweet M even surprised me with a box or two he brought home from work. Oh so romantic we are.  And so the games begin.. these are just a few of them.. I have almost 100 so we work.. i mean play in batches. I know not all of them are the same size and shape.. but I wasn't going with perfection.. I didn't want to be in a situation when I put in so much time and he decided he doesn't want to play with them.. or spills something on them.. or looses them.. the impor

When D allows, which is not very often I like to have my breakfast while watching Good Morning America and maybe even squeeze in a little Kelly Ripa. Luckily, I was able to catch GMA the day Lara Spencer shared with us her passion for interior design and she even gave a few tips she uses in her home. One of them, upholstering dining table chairs with shower curtains. Yes, shower curtains! If I was a cartoon character you would have seen a light bulb go on outside my head! It is child resistant which is exactly what we needed. Our old chairs were very gross and only getting more questionable with D's every meal. Now we were on the search for the perfect shower curtain. Our living area is divided by our sofa and behind it is our dining area. The dominant colors in the area are dark gray and black, white and red. We were looking preferably for a pattern and we wanted to keep the budget low. Our choice of shower curtain: I am a bit disappointed with the pictures I took..our littl

As of lately I have been seeing a lot of posts on bringing new life to clothes and accessories with the magical properties of dye. And I was intrigued. But I didn't want to have the issue of accidentally dyeing my hands or my sink though I did manage to get a little of the dye on the inner drum of my dryer :( I also wanted this to be a zero cost project. I thought natural might be the way to go. So I started my search of everything I could use to dye my old white skirt. There was a lot of mention of plants that I hadn't heard of and was in no mood to go hunting.. I thought a purplish pink might be nice but I didn't want to waste berries. And then I stumbled upon Itty Bitty Impact Tonia suggested turmeric for a bright yellow and I couldn't think of a better color and an easier source of dye. Turmeric is something always found in my kitchen, perfect for my no cost project. Supplies: White Vinegar - for plant dyes or salt - for berry dyes. Turmeric

D is almost two years old now and making a growth chart for him has been on my to do list since before he was even born.. yes, that is how far behind I am on my list of things to do.. hey.. don't judge! I started with cardboard from the white corrugated display boards you can get at any Micheal's or Staples. Cut it in to pieces.   I attached the two pieces with colorful stripes of felt. I used a pliable material mainly so that it could be easily folded. Else I'd have D pulling at it and most probably doodling on it.. I also used the same colored felt as an edging. The back being brown and covered with writing I decided to glue on some colorful gift wrap, so that it looks nice folded. I marked D's height at 6 month intervals and glued a button at the end of every marking. Then I marked M and my height too.. yes that is me under the 5feet mark.. I added a jute loop to both sides of the chart to I could fold it and hang in D's room. and in other n