Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Checking In

Phew! I knew I had a lot to show, but this is almost ridiculous. Here we go, one more post to check in and be caught up!

  • Did you see my new bed on Facebook? Well, my David bought me a gorgeous bed for Valentine's Day. We always look in the "as-is" section at Ikea and this was a display bed for a ridiculous low price. It's been so nice to have our mattress off the floor as we've been without a bed frame for the length of our marriage.

  • We needed a sound buffer in our bedroom and so we ordered this area rug from Walmart online. We had it in the living room for the first few days while we waited for the underlay to come and now I want another for our living room. It's so fun and pretty and homey. The underlay came in yesterday and so it's now in our bedroom and I do love getting out of bed onto a carpet again.


  • So, Valentines weekend, we went to a family retreat. It was so much fun. I am part of a moms' group and we planned this weekend retreat. I got to do the fun work of the weekend which included the welcome gifts. You've probably seen the snowman kits from my last post. I also put in small jars of hot chocolate that I dressed up a little. There was a lot of goodies in that bag. It was super fun to put together.

  • David and I were also in charge of putting together a photo booth. We picked up these bare wood props at Michaels and I did a quick sharpie doodle on them to dress them up. We will have to do this again sometime. The weekend was plenty busy and there wasn't enough time or space to leave it up longer.



  • Our fourth little Gingras baby has been such a blessing to our family. The boys have loved her so much that she's caught her first cold. Despite that, she's doing well. Her 2 month doctors appointment was yesterday and she weighs a healthy 11 pounds 12 ounces. She outgrew the bassinet that we have borrowed and have moved her into a cradle and into the other room. Micah only lasted about one week in our room, so it feels a bit strange to have waited this long and yet, knowing she is our last baby, I was almost sad. Here she is with her new woobie. Abby still has hers and I love that it's such a special thing for our girls.

  • My David brought home these pretty flowers for me last week. Abigail is convinced that I have to share with her and Hannah any flowers that I get. I let her think they are ours, sometimes.

  • Hannah is a bit young yet for me to leave her with a sitter for long yet, so David and I are dating at home these days. Friday night I ran to the grocery store and bought some fancy desserts and some Tazo chai latte syrup. We made our own cozy spot in the living room (on our rug) in front of our fake fireplace, with a fake rain storm for ambiance along with some jazz music in the background. David read to me while I cuddled Hannah and worked on my crochet project. It was perhaps my favourite date that we've had in a long time. We just finished Illusion by Frank Perretti. It was such an intriguing story and I love how imaginative it was.

  • It's been a cold winter, but not without a few days of warm play weather. We had a nice time on the Monday holiday.



Snowman Kits

Have you seen snowman kits? I've been itching for an excuse to make some and when I got to do the welcome gifts for family retreat, it seemed like the perfect idea. I scoured Pinterest for ideas and basically followed this tutorial. David helped me with the math again, so that I purchased only the fabric needed.


Since I needed to make 12 and I was working in a budget, I looked for the least inexpensive way to make them.


I glued pom~poms onto small craft sticks for eyes, mouth and buttons and painted wooden pegs orange for the "carrot" nose.


I sewed felt top hats...too cute and a desired item for mat hat~loving boy.




I whipped up some tags, though I would maybe use them better next time to show what the kit included (in case there was question as to what each item was for).


 This was such a fun project, though next time I would work out a few minor changes.


Catching Up

I was looking through some pictures on my computer and realized that I hadn't shared a few things, so we'll call this a catch up post and then I'll share some of my latest news in another post.


  • I showed you a project in progress awhile back, but never showed you the finished project. Malachi turned three in November and received a super hero doll with a matching cape, super hero cuffs and mask. He was super thrilled and the cape continues to be one of his favourites. I designed my own pattern for the doll with tips I'd found online. My Micah might get one for his birthday in June...we'll see.



  •  I went to a Christmas party at the beginning of December and we had a gift exchange. I brought our home made vanilla coffee syrup. I bottled it in a Jones soda bottle and used some shrink wine toppers that David had left over from his wine making days. We were to bring two gifts, so I brought two and was happy to see that they were a desired gift and were "stolen" several times. I whipped up a label (re-worked last year's Christmas gift labels).


  • I also whipped up a small jar of sugar scrub for each lady. The peppermint smell in my kitchen was lovely.

  • I am so close to finishing a really big project...

I think I caught up the missed things, stay tuned for the latest ones.