My baby girl is 2

We had a big birthday party this weekend for Monkey. Our parents, my brother and Scooby (my nephew) all came down to celebrate with us. We kept things pretty low key and as inexpensive as possible.

Monkey loves Elmo, so I decided to go with an Elmo themed party.

I kept decorations at a minimum - just enough to say. I got the streamers and balloons at Dollar Tree. It ran about $10, including the red napkins, 2 party hats and pack of party horns I picked up. The Elmo "Happy Birthday" banner was a "splurge" from IParty ($3.50ish). I had originally picked up some Elmo party horns and Elmo party hats, but I'll be returning them when I found fun red ones at the Dollar Tree. Red was enough Elmo themed for me for the price difference - and Monkey had fun either way.

I bought a Wilton Elmo cake pan at JoAnn's with a 40% off coupon. I picked up a tube of black frosting at the same time because I didn't think I'd be able to get frosting black enough on my own. I used Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Golden (what? I'm ready to pop a kid out - shortcuts shortcuts shortcuts!). It's your basic yellow cake but calls for butter instead of oil and for box cake, it's unbelievably tasty. I used a full batter and half of another (the remaining was made into cupcakes and tossed in the freezer - without frosting - for later consumption). I made buttercream frosting from scratch and used crayon candles on the edge of the base - and for her to blow out (because Elmo loves his crayons!).

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. And Monkey was thrilled! (I need to invest in a nice cake platter - I have a great round one, but this obviously didn't fit).

Lunch was a turkey that's been in our freezer since T received it for Christmas at work. Turkey isn't exactly a summer time food in my mind, so to keep it from feeling like a Thanksgiving dinner, my Mom made a potato and egg salad, I threw together a veggie packed pasta salad and T pulled some corn on the cob from last fall out of the freezer. Simple and quite a bit more summery than mashed potatoes and gravy.

A couple months ago, we found Elmo Live in the Target sales flyer for half price. At $30, we decided we couldn't pass it up (we never would have paid full price because that's just highway robbery). I will say this is the absolute most annoying toy in our house, but she loves it so it's worth it. I've never heard so many squeals as I did when she was opening it. T couldn't get him out of the box fast enough. hehe

And because filling the kids with cake wasn't enough, we went on an outing to Treworgy Orchards for ice cream and the petting zoo later in the day. Twigs is one of our absolute favorite places and I was very glad to finally get to share the fun with my parents, brother - and most importantly, Scooby!

Monkey's actual birthday was on Tuesday. We saved a small Elmo themed gift to give her on the actual day - a Beta fish named Dorothy (Elmo's goldfish is Dorothy - we went for a Beta because they're so low maintenance). T pulled a few of the extra cup cakes out of the freezer and I had saved a small amount of extra frosting so we blew out candles again last night. We then took another trip to Twigs for more ice cream and playing with the goats to have a special family celebration. (I paid for all that sugar when trying to get her to bed last night! haha).

It's so fun to watch her grow and learn, but she's not my itty bitty baby anymore.

What a very bitter sweet moment.

Short hiatus

I'm still alive and kicking - and very very pregnant.

Life has gotten a little nutty: Trying to get lots done before New Bean makes his arrival and planning a big birthday party for Monkey (party is tomorrow!).

I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things next week, but my postings will probably be a bit farther spaced out for a little while (hopefully not as long as this past one, though). Pregnancy is starting to wear me down, so just until I have New Bean and get into a new routine at least.

I hope to have party pictures to share this weekend.

Now it's back to housework and a cake is waiting for frosting!

Mother/Daughter Junking Trip - 2009

I took off for an overnight road trip with my Mom on Friday night. We saw in Country Living years ago an antiquing road trip on Route 1 in Maine, thought "Why have we never done that?" and have been talking about it ever since. It always got pushed aside because of life.

Last fall (around the time I found out I was pregnant, actually), I knew if we didn't just pick a date and DO IT, we'd never take the trip. A date was set and arrangements made. We were taking a girls' weekend, just the two of us. Ever since then, I've been saving my pennies.

We decided to take the I-95 South to Freeport and hop on Route 1, heading back north from there. After much debate, we opted to not follow the article we had read (because we had each ripped it out to mention to the other when we first saw it, of course!) but to just stop at whatever stores struck our fancy.

Our very first stop, however, was before Freeport. How could we possibly be driving South on the I-95 and NOT stop in Fairfield? The Fairfield Antiques Mall is less than 3 miles from the interstate. And we both absolutely loved it. We were there for nearly 3 hours!


My poor feet hurt by the time we left, but it was worth every minute. We both scored some great items, though I do believe the best one would be my "new" dresser. You'll be seeing it in a few weeks, after I refinish it and put it in it's new home.


From here, we went on to Freeport. We stopped for lunch and a quick run in at LLBean. Then we were off on Route 1. With no concrete plan at this point, we just drove and stopped wherever caught our fancy. And after the stop in Fairfield, honestly, not much impressed us. Around 4, we decided to just drive on through to Camden/Rockport and call it a day.

The germophobe in me gets very "ICK" over hotel rooms, but this place was really nice. We got a Double Queen Bed Suite, so we each had a nice big bed to sprawl out it. There was a kitchenette type area (a fridge, sink and coffee maker) and a small sitting area with a pull out sofa. We even had a small balcony overlooking a little garden house made of stone. If we had realized ahead of time there was a pool, we may have brought bathing suits (though I don't know if I REALLY want to be seen in a bathing suit right now - HA).

We arrived at The Country Inn in time to check in, bring in our bags and take off to find some dinner. The man at the front desk was extremely helpful in guiding us to some good eats. We headed off to downtown Camden and decided to try the Village Restaurant. Being that we were on a mini-vacation, we decided to splurge/indulge and both got the Seafood Medley (shrimp, scallops and lobster with stir fried vegetables and garlic sauce over linguine). My Mom nearly had to roll me back to the vehicle.

We accidentally "slept in" on Saturday morning (6:45 AM is late for junking! HA) After quick showers and a leisurely (and delightful) breakfast downstairs, we checked out and were back on the road by 8:30. We spotted a few yard sales and stopped at each. We scored some more great finds (my favorite being a HUGE painting of sunflowers for a mere $15 - I believe it's going over my bed).

Much to our disappointment, not much was open. We didn't hit our first store until Belfast (and were very glad for the high we got from the yard sales because we would have been discouraged and ready to head home).

Then we hit Searsport. We found a town road map advertising 18 antique stores in an 8 mile stretch. There were also more yard sales to be seen. Many of the stores were nice, but much more high scale than we like. By the time we finished at the Searsport Antiques Mall, we were bushed. We decided we'd had enough fun for the weekend and it was time to just head on home after finding some lunch.

We barely had time to make our decision when we pulled out of the driveway to see THIS:

This is Treasures and Trash Barn. And this is the type of place that excites us. We didn't find a single thing there other than a massive junkers high (you junkers out there know what I'm talking about!), but what a fantastic stop to end our trip.

From there, we did finally head home. I'm a doof and forgot to take a picture of our treasures piled in the back of the vehicle. We could still see out the back window of the Trail Blazer - but barely.

Monkey was ecstatic to see me. She jumped from her Auntie's arms and ran down the driveway full throttle to jump into my arms with a gigantic smile on her face. (This was only my second night away from her ever in her 2 years!)

After all of that shopping, I only spent about $200 (I have a lot to show for it, too). I even have some of my saved pennies left over to keep playing with home decorating. Or maybe a pedicure for my poor poor feet.

And it has been decided we will be making this an annual affair.

Recipes of the week:

After a fun filled weekend, it's back to the grind today.

I've got two new recipes again this week. This first one is from Rachael Ray - 30 Minute Meals this time, though. Spicy Garlic Shrimp is supposed to take less than 10 minutes to prepare, according to the website. I have a feeling I might regret it (Heartburn, anyone? I did just buy a gallon of Maalox, though... haha), but it sounds yummy and shrimp was on sale this week.

I'll be pairing it with asparagus (also on sale this week) and homemade Onion Rings (vidalia onions are on sale, too!). They are baked, so much better for you than the traditional fried rings. A larger family may want to double (or triple) this recipe as it only calls for one onion. I can't imagine that making much.

I mention all these sale items. Check out your grocery flyers this week. There are usually great sales for Memorials Day weekend.

Enjoy your kitchens!

Image from Foodnetwork.com

Sew Fun Sunday

Welcome to Sew Fun Sunday!

My newest project:

This is an adorable pair of coverall shorts I bought for Monkey at a yard sale last summer for $2 or $3. They were too big last year, but this year they are just right.

She was wearing them one day during the beginning days of potty training. In an effort to make it easier to put her on the toilet more quickly, I had left them unsnapped. It had a skirt effect, and I realized I liked it better as a skirt!

I cut out the snaps and pinned up the open seams in the front and back (this required lining up of the decorative ribbon trim). I figured if I ruined them, I was only out a couple of dollars

Voila!

A new skirt!

I'm not a fancy seamstress by any means, but I doubt anyone will be looking closely at the stitchery when she's wearing it. Besides - practice makes perfect. If I want to be a better seamstress, there's only one way to get better. (To try, try again!)

What have you been working on? Feel free to leave a comment (with a link to a recent project perhaps?) and share!