Category: Random Stuff From My Life

Yes, you read that right. I have a home pregnancy plant. It’s quite a crazy thing.

The plant is a peace lily. I didn’t realize the special powers of this plant when I first received it.

A friend of mine gave it to me when we had our first miscarriage. I though it was really sweet of Teresa and I enjoyed the bloom on the plant. After a bit of time, the plant stopped blooming. I had 2 more miscarriages. No blooms.

Early in the morning, on a cold New Year’s Eve, I found out I was pregnant again. Little Katelyn was baking. About a month later I realized that plant bloomed again. This was a bit odd. It didn’t bloom for two years. I figured it must like the new house or something. We moved from our apartment and bought our first home. So maybe it loved it’s new location. I didn’t think much more about it after that.

After Katelyn was born, the plant stopped blooming again. The leaves remained healthy and continued to grow and do well, but no white blooms ever appeared.

Fast forward about a year later. I was pregnant with Emily and as I was watering the plant, I noticed a bloom! It continued to bloom until I delivered her.

Then the blooms stopped again. It was strange. Each time the plant chose to bloom, nothing else changed. I watered it the same. It stayed in the same lighting. It was also different seasons when it bloomed, so it’s not like it only bloomed in the summer or the winter or something like that.

I had one more miscarriage between Emily and Madison. The plant didn’t bloom.

When I was newly pregnant with Madison, you guessed it, the plant began to bloom. It was the darnedest thing. It stopped blooming just before I had her.

Madison is now 4 years old.

It hasn’t bloomed again.

I was looking for a rug to go under the table in the kitchen. I saw this one at Anthropologie and figured I could stalk the site until it went on some crazy discount so I could get it. Then I read the reviews. Not for high traffic areas, more of a throw rug, difficult to clean without tearing it up and shows dirt easily was what I got out of the reviews. Too bad. I liked it. Now I’m going to hunt for something that’s pretty and fits into our life. I’m thinking it will take me a bit of time since fitting into our life also means fitting into our budget.

In the morning, I’m taking Madison for her 4 year checkup. She’s getting several shots. I’ll do my best to not cry right along with her.

Then we are going out for ice cream. We won’t care that it’s only 9 am.

After ice cream, we will get comfy on the sofa with a quilt and a stack of library books.

Cuddle days are the best.

I saw this idea in a catalog or magazine years ago and made this plate for our neighbors. I recently remembered a photobucket account and found some fun pictures in it from when the girls were young. This picture was in there too. So I figured I’d share the idea.

I purchased a box of clear dinner plates. I printed the poem out and placed it on the top of the plate. I flipped the plate over and painted on the bottom of the plate with glass paint. I didn’t want the paint to touch the food. This was years ago and they may have paint out now that is safe for use with food. I used the printed poem as a guide and carefully painted the words. I used a toothpick for better control. Then I painted the flowers along the border.

After painting the plate, I filled the plate with cookies and passed it to our neighbors.

The poem reads:

This plate shall have no owner

for its journey never ends.

It travels in the circle

of our family and our friends.

It carries love from home to home

for everyone to share.

The food that’s placed upon it

is filled with love and care.

So please enjoy what’s on this plate,

then fill it up again,

and pass along the love it holds

to family and your friends.

What a great sale the Disney Store has going on right now! I stocked up on some fun stuff for the girls. I’m going to have to put some of it away for Christmas. I also got some for gifts. I like having some toys on hand for those birthday parties that you get invited to on short notice.

They are having their Twice Upon a Year Sale.

Also, right now Get FREE Shipping on your entire order at DisneyStore.com with Promo Code: FREESHIP

I’m going to go back and look at the pins again too. I think it would be fun to get some for the girls to trade with other people when we go to WDW. Jon doesn’t think that sounds like much fun, but I do and hopefully the girls will!

I’m not exactly sure how it all works though. I didn’t buy the pins yet because I don’t know what kind to get. Do I get them ones they don’t necessarily like so that they will be happy about trading them? Or do I just stick with what they love and so they will be happy even if they don’t trade? I don’t want them to have ones the love, want to trade, but not want to give any of them up.

So…advice?

I’m moving my linky party to Friday and I’m changing the name. I’m assuming that doesn’t bother anyone since it’s not like it was the happenin’ party to begin with. Maybe moving to Friday will help participation and maybe it won’t, but it’s my party and I can move it if I want to.

So, for my first Magic Friday party, I’m going to talk about my kitchen. I’m about to start on a bit of a redo in there. When we bought our house I knew exactly how I wanted it to look. I went bold in the kitchen and I loved it. It’s been 7 years and I’m over it. I need a change. I painted them to match my polish pottery dishes. I still love the dishes, but the walls need to go.

This is the color of the walls in the kitchen right now.

I spent the last month or so convincing Jon that he will like a turquoise kitchen. He’s not sold on the idea yet. I’m going for a coastal flair to our house and I want to lighten it up. We will still have ugly floors, but I will have to ignore them for a bit longer. The budget only calls for a can of paint so far! This is going to by my new color palette. Jon hasn’t said yes, but he hasn’t said no either, so I’m going with it.

If he comes home from work and the kitchen is completely different, it won’t be the first time something like that has happened to him! Once he left for work and the dining room was, well, a dining room. When he came home that evening for dinner, the dining room furniture was in the breakfast room and the dining room was a playroom. It would be nice if that’s the only time it’s happened to him, but it’s not.

So I’m excited about my new wall color and I have plans to paint the light in the dining room red and put it in the kitchen too. Let me tell you that Jon’s quite excited about that too…well, one day he will be. Probably.

So my change in paint for the kitchen is what is making my Friday magical. How about you?

Have any new projects completed? Want to show off some new shoes? Whatever adds magic to your day, let me see it!

When you are done linking here, head over to Minky{Moo} and show her your stuff! We are hosting this blog party together. So go strut your stuff with Minky too.

My niece, Sofie, loves to chalk. When she’s here she grabs some chalk and wants to use it all over the house. My sister said she will hide chalk at home to have access to it whenever she wants. We gave her a lap size chalk desk for Christmas and it just wasn’t quite big enough for the ultimate chalking experience.

I found this cute chalkboard when out junkin’ one day. I just knew I had to have it. After I got it, I realized it was a PB Kids easel! Score! It was in rough shape and needed a bit of TLC, so I set out to refinish it for Sofie’s birthday. Her party was this weekend and she was quite happy with her new chalkboard!

Here’s how it looked when I found it.

I wanted to make it more girly looking. My sister loves Amy Butler fabric, so I figured I’d spiff it up with some Amy Butler scrapbook paper decoupaged to the tray. It was my first time using Mod Podge and I hope I did it correctly and it doesn’t fall off later. I also got chalkboard paint and repainted the chalkboard. I made it pink!

I forgot to snap a picture of it before we left for the birthday party, so here it is after Sofie got started chalking. It’s the first thing she opened and she wanted to chalk between opening gifts. She was cute!

I took some fabric and fleece (felt may have worked better) and layered it to make an eraser. Then I attached it to a ribbon with a magnet on the back of the chalkboard so my sister can remove it to wash it.

To coordinate the eraser and the tray, I made some paper flowers to go at the top.

Here’s the birthday girl trying it out for the first time. I can’t believe she’s 2 already!

Yesterday, I took all three girls to TJMaxx. I love shopping around that store. I about cried the day I realized they closed here in town. Seriously. I pulled up one day to shop and it was gone. Locked up and everything was gone. I called Jon in Iraq to whine about it! So, you see I love TJMaxx, HomeGoods, etc.

While we were there yesterday, the girls just couldn’t behave. I haven’t seen them this unruly in a store in a long time. I was ready to lasso them with some discount ties and attach them to the shopping cart. I had two in the cart, but they kept trying to stand up and get out and the child left loose was too busy touching everything in the store at least 3 times to be able to listen to me.

I had a return and wanted to spend the store credit while we were there since I don’t get there often. Apparently, that was too much to ask. I picked out what I wanted and headed to the checkout. As we stood there waiting for our turn, the older woman at the register directly in front of us turned around and said she understood what I was going through. She had 3 girls and 2 boys!

Then this woman reminded me that children are a blessing. It’s amazing how you receive that message just when you need it most.

I was telling this story to a friend of mine later that day and we decided that when my children are driving me up the wall, I’ll call her and she will remind me that these little beings are blessings. Their time in my home is fleeting. They are precious gifts to treasure.

When hers are driving her crazy, she will call me and I will remind her.

Each night when I see them sleeping, I can still see that tiny baby face I once spent hours gazing at when they were itty bitty. They make me want to pick them up and snuggle. Some nights I can’t resist.

I have had lots of traffic here looking for Father’s Day gift ideas or poem to use for good ol’ dad. Here’s a link to the poems I gathered and the gift we made.

I thought it may inspire some who didn’t even know they were looking for an idea. Click the link below for more ideas.

Father’s Day Poem Gifts

I swear I thought I posted pictures of Katelyn’s new desk, but I guess I was wrong. I found this desk at the Salvation Army and got them to give me a discount on it. The following day I went in search of a cute chair to go with it. I peeked into the back room at Goodwill and saw this cutie sitting there waiting for me. I convinced a worker that I really needed it and they drug it out for me and priced it at $4. Score!

Desk before:

Chair before:

Katelyn wanted the desk red, but we compromised with painting the chair red instead. I just love how it turned out.

After:

Now I just need to get the rest of her room finished. I have plans for the little table next to her bed, different window treatments and I need to finish painting the details on the walls. She’s been patiently waiting for an owl in that tree.

Yesterday I found some milk glass bud vases at the bargain center. I left them there when I first saw them and I convinced Jon to go back later so I could get them. I’m glad I went back. I got all 4 for $5. I think these will look perfect in my new kitchen. Right now they are making their home on the mantle until I have a better place for them. After I got them all cleaned up (they were in pretty funky condition!), I grabbed some flowers from our yard and put them to good use.

Now I’m going to be on the lookout for some more. I usually like odd numbers of things and so having 4 of these vases isn’t cutting it for me. I would like another one with a wider base at the bottom and a few that are shorter to round out the collection. When I mentioned this to Jon he wanted to know why I didn’t just buy some off eBay or Amazon.com and I had to explain the thrill of the hunt to him. He just doesn’t get it…

I don’t think I shared Katelyn’s birthday party cake from Aug. She had a “Hula by the Pool-a” birthday party. So the theme was hula dancers and she wanted a pool cake. She drew a sketch of what she wanted and it was my job to turn that into a cake! Here’s the final result:

Madison’s birthday was in May and she wanted Snoopy. We took the girls to Chuck E Cheese-its (as Madison happens to call it) and had fun with them there. We came home and had cake and ice cream. Since school got out a couple of weeks before her birthday, I did a party for her class too. It’s hard to find Snoopy stuff for parties. I called all over town and nobody had plates or anything. I ended up ordering some off of Amazon along with these rings:

I put them on top of the cupcakes I took to school. They were a hit with the preschool crowd. Then for her birthday cake, she wanted chocolate icing. I was having a hard time figuring out how to do Snoopy with chocolate. I ended up doing chocolate between the layers and on the side of the cake. The top was vanilla. I added some pink where they met on top of the cake. She was thrilled with the cake…even the lopsided writing.

Yesterday I was writing an article about abnormal bleeding during pregnancy. Katelyn, who is 6, was sitting next to me and saw drawings of a baby in the womb. She looked at the picture and started asking questions. I’m used to this from her and she’s aware of how babies get out of the mommy’s tummy and all, so I wasn’t sure where this new line of questioning was going to go. I had suspicions, but I was way off. I would have never guessed this question.

“When the baby comes out of the mommy, how do the parents know if the baby wants to celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas?”

I have slowly changed our kitchen from what it is to what I want. I started with spray painting the light hanging over the table and the cabinet knobs. Two cans of spray paint later, they went from brass to brushed nickel. I’m planning on painting the walls, but I’m still talking Jon into the color I want.

I have always had a thing for beadboard. I wanted it around our bar and at the end of the cabinets. I found out that there is beadboard looking wallpaper. It’s textured to resemble the grooves in beadboard. I headed out to Lowe’s and pick up a roll. I’m really happy with the results. It’s paintable too so you could make it any color you want. I wanted it white. I painted some, but haven’t finished it yet. The wallpaper comes prepasted and goes up really easy. It’s hard to see it in these pictures, but here are my before and after pictures.

Now I just need some new paint, floors, appliances, sink, counters and cabinet fronts. I’m slowly getting there!

I’m making changes to the look of my blog. Please pardon the mess and changing look. I’ll get it right in a bit.