Curb Trash to Play Kitchen Treasure #2

This beauty was a pick from the curb right next door to me! :-) It was an old desk and when I spotted it late one night, I knew it would be Play Kitchen #2. I rounded up the boys to help me carry it to our garage.

(Click here to check out the first play kitchen I did, made from an old entertainment center: Curb Trash to Play Kitchen Treasure This blog post remains my most viewed post. Can you believe I did that *before* I was on Pinterest? :-P)

This desk was perfect (sadly, I forgot to take a before picture).  The first play kitchen I did, which we still use in our home, fell apart a bit when Nick plopped it down in our yard (though it was easily repaired!). I also had to rearrange some of the wood on it. But this one...this one! We only cut about 18 inches off the bottom, cut a couple inches off the oven door, and a hole for the sink.

The sink is a stainless steel bowl. The faucet, is a wooden letter "J" from JoAnn's painted silver (silver paint = grrrrrr. It does not stick very well). And the faucet knobs and stove/oven knobs are wooden candlestick holders.

I've had a hard time convincing the boys that we cannot keep this one and that I did this one specifically to sell! :-P They want TWO play kitchens, of course.

These are really fun to put together. My husband does not think it's fun that his garage becomes my workshop. :-P

Sooooo...Play Kitchen #2 is for sale!  It measures about 4' x 2' and is about 43" high.

If you are interested in buying it for $60, leave me a comment on this blog post. If you are unable to leave a comment inside the blog, please leave a comment where I shared the link on Facebook. I will do a random number drawing if there is more than one person interested in purchasing it.

Oh, and make sure you're local to me. I hope someone wants it! :-P
Update - play kitchen is sold to the first neighbor who knocked on my door! Ha

Day at the Museum

Dum Dum did you bring me gum gum? ;-)

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to take Evander to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He has wanted to go to a museum for sooooo long, and we really meant to go this past summer but it didn't happen...until now!

I don't know if you've heard of Museum Day from Smithsonian Magazine?  No?  Well, here!: Museum Day 1,500 museums across the country opened their doors for FREE on Saturday, September 29...as long as you brought your ticket printed off the web site. :-)

Evander was so cute when I told him what we were doing for the day. He said, "I want to bring my notebook," so that he could draw pictures and take notes. When I asked him during the car ride there what he thought he would see at the museum, he said, "Ornithomimus." He said they were a small and fast dinosaur.  I just took his word for it. :-)

We arrived right when the museum opened at 10 a.m. and stayed until it closed at 5 p.m. I could not get my little boy to leave. :-) He was absolutely in his element as we looked at and read about all sorts of things including animals, habitats, artifacts, dinosaurs, rocks, gems, Ohio animals and trees and so much more. He ran from exhibit to exhibit at first because he was so excited...I really had to slow him down!

Here is some of what we did and some of what we saw:

Triceratops

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Snowshoe Hares in the live animal exhibit.

Playing at the discovery center. He promptly organized the plant eaters from the meat eaters and made the sharp-toothed dinos live far away in the mountains.

Digging for fossils.

Who can forget the giant rotating globe from their school days field trip to the museum? It's still there.

No adventure is complete without some climbing.

Giant quartz!

These polished stones are so pretty.

Mommy's emeralds.

So many stones were shaped and polished like eggs. This one looks like the earth, I think!

Mommy's favorite part was looking at all of the pretty gems and stones! These are opals.

We were addicted to...okay, and fought over who got to play...this game--Perplexus!

Watching the zoo keeper feed the raccoons.  Yes, they have raccoons. :-P

Picture isn't of great quality...but I love how this otter startled Evander!

A canoe from the 1500's! 

Having fun together.

The pendulum. 

Climbing on top of the stegosaur after a long, fun day at the museum!

Fashion Week Follow Up

*Snicker snicker*

I still laugh at the fact that I participated in something with the word "fashion" in it. :-P

My friend Lexi (check her out at Vessel Unto Honour!) has participated in fashion-y blog things in the past and invited me to play along in this year's Fall Fashion Week in blog land.  I figured....I spent seven blog posts on this event...I should really do a follow-up post.  Plus, I get one more blog post in the month of September!  Exciting, huh?

Some thoughts:

-First off...I've never considered myself "fashionable." I typically just wear what I can get my hands on (which was evidenced by how many times I credited my sister and neighbor for the clothing!) and try to look decent.

-I don't believe I have ever thought so much about my clothing...ever.  This was exhausting for me because usually I spend all of less than three minutes picking out what to wear and putting it on.  Being the mom to three young children, I do not believe it is a good expenditure of my time fussing over belts and shoes every day. I'm sure deciding what to wear is not so much of a burden to other fashionable moms...but for me it is!

-It was fun to do photo shoots every day...but it also was time-consuming. I felt like I was neglecting my kids a bit and felt like my priorities were out of whack when I would say, "Get out of the picture!"

-I attempted and succeeded at using each piece of clothing that was featured only once throughout the week. I think this made it more challenging for me because I couldn't just use my go-to black leggings every other day...or my go-to black belt or my go-to black shoes every day. But, this was my goal and it worked out. :-)

-I haven't bought or worn necklaces regularly in years. YEARS!  I stopped bothering after our first baby was born seven years ago. I felt bad when his head would press up against the hard beads or whatnot...and then of course, was the phase of necklace pulling and necklace chewing. And then came another baby....and another baby...and another year or two or three or four or five or six or seven of not wearing necklaces.

-It was weird, but felt so nice, receiving all of the comments from the other ladies from fall fashion week. Someone telling me I look gorgeous? Woah.

-It was weird giving comments to everyone. I found myself using cutesy words that I really don't use every day. Ha.

I guess my overall feeling from the week is that I am very thankful that my sister and my neighbor have given me many lovely clothes to wear. It's just like sixth grade when I would get into my sister's closet, after she took the early bus to school, and wear her clothes for the day...and then put them back in her closet before she got home from band practice. Ha!  Only this time...I get to keep the clothes...and the clothes get washed after being worn by me. :-P

Oh and a second overall thought...it's really just not my life right now to be thinking that hard about what I am wearing. :-)

Here is my favorite picture from the week:

:-)

Fall Fashion Week: Day 7

Phew! Day seven.

I've thought about what to wear this week more than I've thought about it the entire year. It was fun...and a little tiring. :-)

We had another day of rain today...so outside pictures were not to be had today :-( Sooooo....

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!  Would you like to come in?

Tank - K&G; Sweater - From my neighbor; Skirt - From my sis; Shoes - Payless; Necklace - Made by me!

You can't really tell, but the skirt is nice and bubbly at the bottom which looks cool in real life.

I normally wear this tank with a short-sleeved cranberry cardigan...but it was definitely a day worthy of the long-sleeved sweater! Here is the cranberry:

Would you like to hear a song? Yeahhhh...it's definitely the last day and I am definitely tired of looking at myself. Ha.

Here is an up close of the necklace by my acorn cap wreath:

How I feel when I wear an outfit like this:
I feel pretty normal...although, I think the pictures by the front door make me feel like I should be hosting a dinner party soon...

This day's fall weather:

DaySep 27

Today's High was 62^°F at 12:05am when conditions were Cloudy

Did you see that? A high at 12:05 at night?  It did not warm up at all today!  Definitely a sweater day. :-)

Thanks to Deanna at delirious-rhapsody for hosting us this week!

Fall Fashion Week: Day 6

Oh, goodness, busy day. I guess life continues even though it's Fall Fashion Week in blog land. :-)

And it rained...and rained....and rained...ALLLLLLLL day long. I just wanted to stay in bed. The kids did, too. We uhhhhh kind of slept in and kind of had to run like crazy banshees to get my oldest son out the door on the school bus. On a normal day, I allot myself 25 minutes to get dressed, get the kids breakfast, pack Evander's lunch, get the kids dressed, and get Evander outside to get on the bus. It's really not enough time...but that's how we roll in the a.m.

So, today we went up to the preschool (in the rain), went to the store (in the rain), went to the bank (it of course had stopped raining, you know...the opportunity to stay dry by using the drive-through), went back to the preschool (in the rain), cuddled on the couch watching some Tinkerbell movie (raining), went to the elementary school to wait 35 minutes in a crazy car pick-up line (in the rain), went to get our flu shots (misty sprinkle by now), home for supper, back uptown to take the kids to AWANA (in the rain), back to the store (story of my life)...by 7 o'clock I realized, "I haven't taken my picture, yet, today!"

It's starting to feel a little awkward taking my picture...again...really self-indulgent. It did stop raining though!

Shirt - Target; Sweater - From my neighbor's closet; Jeans - $3 Wal Mart; Flip Flops - My sister's reject

So, here we are...7:15 at night....getting dark...

I see all of the pretty girls on Facebook posing for pictures with one of their arms on their hips...so I do it now, too!

I really don't wear this shirt too often...because I'm not sure it works for me. I love it, though. It's from Target's Liberty of London line and I just love, love, love their patterns. This shirt has peacock feathers all over it.

I've tried it with about every single skirt I own (was hoping to pair it with my long, flowy purple skirt), every skinny pant, every capri and Bermuda length pant...and it ends up with jeans. Once I put the sweater on, I felt comfortable with it.

Here it is without the sweater:

And, now that I look at it in the picture, it doesn't look *that* bad...but still, I see a struggle. :-P Maybe I should have tried it with a belt?

This flower doesn't really smell...

And here's some Liberty of London to drool over:

Bloomsbury Gardens collection

This day's fall weather:
Whoops! Forgot to cut and paste...but it was RAINY. High of 63 degrees?

Fall Fashion Week: Day 5

It's day five!  I'm tired. Ha.

Here is what I wore today:

Yellow shirt - Target; Purple shirt - $3 Wal Mart; Pants - I cannot recall  from whence they came!; Shoes - Target; Silver bangle - K&G

You don't have to like this outfit. It's okay. :-)

Inspired by all of the stripes I've been seeing during Fall Fashion Week...I got my stripes on today!

I started out the day with my coat though. I like how the bright blue matches up with the bright yellow and the purple.

Don't all of the bright colors remind you of cartoons? :-) Pigtails were inspired by Valkyrie on the Super Hero Squad Show. I guess you really can get inspired from unexpected places.

She's intense. I can only pretend.

How I feel when I wear an outfit like this:

Just like day one, I feel playful!  We were out front playing ball and riding bikes and it just felt right. Bright colors make me happy. :-)

I got bike photo-bombed quite a bit... :-P

This day's fall weather:

DaySep 25

Today's High was 71^°F at 2:45pm when conditions were Mostly Cloudy

Fall Fashion Week: Day 4

Dress - Target; Cardigan - Old Navy; Leggings - Charlotte Russe; Boots - Charlotte Russe; Necklace - K&G; Red Bangle - K&G; Heart Charm Bracelet - Made by my friend Rachel; Quilt - Made by me!

I am loving all of the outfits the girls are sharing for Fall Fashion week. I especially love the inspiration that comes from seeing what others have put together. After seeing some awesome splashes of red, I knew I had to get my red necklace and bangle in somewhere!

And thinking of my red necklace and bangle, it made me think of my recent quilt and all of the splashes of color that can be seen on it. It was fun to bring that piece into the photoshoot (ha...photoshoot? My kids were not feelin' it today!).

But yeahhhhhhh...can you say, bright outside today? :-)

I seriously have not worn this dress in four years. By my husband's calculations, it should have been out of the closet and out of the house two years ago!  Ha.  He is a believer in the philosophy that if you haven't worn it in two year's time, it needs to go. Guess this one's staying!  ;-)

The boys decided on the boots for me.

And this is the first outfit this week that *I* have bought all of the items for!  No hand-me-downs today.

How I feel when I wear an outfit like this:
I feel confident. I love all of the colors, especially the opposites of red and teal.

This day's fall weather:

DaySep 24

Today's High was 61^°F at 2:45pm when conditions were Partly Cloudy

Outlook for tomorrow:
I'm thinkin' I need to find some stripes and a hat!