Friday, October 31, 2014

Confessions...

It's time for another round of confessions.
Cringe. Ouch. Ewwwww. Awkward.

1. Olive and I were running errands last week.  A stranger said, Cute shoes!  I said thank you while glancing down at my leopard flats.  It was then that I realized they were admiring my DAUGHTERS gold moccasins.  Get over myself!   Cringe.

2. I have been excited about Taylor Swift's new album all week long!  1989 will be mine :)  I've heard it's really great so I'll have to keep you posted on what I think.  In general, I'm a big fan so I have high hopes of another great album.  Thank you, Target, for having it on sale for $9.99.  I love it.

3. We were in the check out at Old Navy and it was our turn to pay.  I was returning an item and purchasing a few.  I explained my situation to the cashier and looked down at Olive in her stroller.  She was playing with something and had it all tangled in her hands.  I thought it was a white STRING so I reached down to grab it.  Much to my surprise, I quickly realized she was playing with CHEWING GUM!!  I panicked because I knew I didn't give her chewing gum so I quickly searched for the source of the gum.  To my horror, I realized that she'd discovered some ABC (already been chewed) gum stuck under the check out counter and was playing with it.  I was trying to pay the cashier, get out wet wipes and rid her hands of gum ASAP.  I told the cashier someone needed to come and clean up the gum under the counter.  She seemed uninterested and acted like I was crazy.  I finished checking out and parked Olive's stroller out of the way.  I thoroughly cleaned off her hands and she wouldn't quit licking them.  She thought it was hilarious and I was gagging.  Disgusting.

4. While standing in line at the grocery store, a manager struck up a conversation with me.  They were asking questions about Olive and giving her compliments.  She was playing right along and really hamming it up.  The lady goes on to tell me, You know she's not birth control, right?  Excuse me?  She's adorable and you should give her a sibling.  Thank you for that family planning advice.  Awkward. 

5. I was hot gluing headbands for Olive one evening and was on a roll.  I was proud that I was keeping Olive farrrrrrrrrr away from the HOT hot glue gun and getting a lot done.  She was cooperating with the head measuring and all was going well.... until... I was pressing together two ends of elastic and stuck my pointer finger directly into the HOT glue.  I screamed, shouted a curse word or two and pried the quickly drying glue off my finger.  Olive was studying my every move and I just know she learned a new word or two.  It'll be 100% my fault when her teachers call to say that Olive is saying naughty words in class.  Bad parenting 101.

6. I confess that every night I quietly sneak into Olive's room to tuck her in one last time.  I make sure she's comfy and the temperature is good for her.  I also snap a picture or two when she's looking extra snuggly.  Thankfully the flash has never woken her up.

7. I spent the whole morning yesterday making sugar cookies.  The labor intensive, cut out kind.  It took me hours to cut out and ice them.  My little pumpkin patch turned out just like I'd hoped... except for one thing.  They were basically inedible.  They were super dry and had a really off taste.  I was sick over it.  I confess that I used my mom's recipe that I have baked with so many times before.  I have never ruined a batch of cookies in my 10+ years making them.  I feel bad for my neighbors who did not get their edible pumpkin patches.  Worst thing was that I had promised my hubby cookies for his co-workers.  I made a quick grocery store run after Olive's nap and had a cookie redo.  I whipped up a big batch of monster cookies and they were delicious.  I also confess that I couldn't find fall colored mini m&ms, ended up buying the regular ones and picked out all the fall colors.  It may be a while before I'm in the cookie making mode...

8. Courtesy of my husband:
Kevin had a week long training on getting people to quit smoking.  He said it was extremely boring and almost painful to sit through.  At one point he'd fallen asleep and jolted awake only to realize that he was in the middle of a dream.  Guess he'd been asleep for a while.  Life lesson learned: you should always go to trainings with a buddy so they can make sure you stay away :)  He got some coffee to try to perk up.  He picked up his cup and took a big swig.  The coffee was cold which was really odd because he'd just gotten it.  He quickly realized he'd taken a big swig out of his neighbors old coffee.  My hubby is a big of a germ-a-phobe so he was horrified.  He confessed what he'd done to the stranger and then had to convince himself that he hadn't just contracted ebola.  Unlikely.

Happy Halloween 2014

Happy Halloween!!
Hope you have a fun-filled day with 
family, friends and sweet treats.

Olive is BERRY excited about her costume this year.






 Love, Kevin, Whitney & Olive

Save the Best... for Friday!

We had a wonderful week full of pumpkins, nice weather and lots of fun.  Nothing super special; just memory making and family time.  We made pumpkins, ate pumpkins and watched shows about pumpkins on TV.  Holiday themed things are so much fun.  

The best parts of our week were...

1. Happy Halloween from my little strawberry!!
I wasn't sure what Olive would think of wearing her costume, but she adores it.  It's soft and she keeps finding the hat and shoes and brings them to me to put on her.  I hope she loves it tonight for the Halloween party/trick-or-treating we are planning on doing.

 2. Target shoes are 25% off for the whole family this week with your cartwheel app!!  I bought these boots for myself and Olive got some sparkly shoes for winter.  They

 3. We had fun doing some kitty footprints.  Olive thought it tickled to have her foot painted, but did a great job with it.  The cats turned out great!!  We sent a few cards out to family and saved one for our fridge art gallery.

4. I got my vest monogrammed this week and LOVE it!!
Can't wait for cooler temps this week to be able to wear it.
 I also got my very favorite BRIGHT RED lipstick on one of my new shirts this week.  Luckily, I remembered that toothpaste gets lipstick out of fabric.  It worked like a charm and saved my shirt. 

5.  We got a Halloween care package in the mail this week.  Olive is obsessed with necklaces and she loved playing with her new little toys.  We've been having fun reading her Halloween books.  She keeps bringing me the monster teeth to put in because they don't fit in her mouth.  Silly girl.
We also had fun making pumpkin cinnamon rolls and I'm hoping to make pumpkin play dough today.


Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!
Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Making Your Own Cards - Catprints


One way that I have found to save a bit of money for each holiday is to make my own cards.  I'm no pro, but throw in a hand print or foot print and my art skills are greatly improved.  Olive enjoys doing a little art project with me and our family enjoys getting a personalized card.

We did candy corn foot prints last year.
It was sweet to see a tiny foot print to commemorate Olive's 1st Halloween.

I knew I had to do something different this year, but still wanted to stick with a hand or foot print.  I've learned that it is SO MUCH easier to stamp a baby's foot versus stamping a baby's hand.  Inevitably, the baby will curl up their hand making it nearly impossible to stamp.

I decided that putting Olive in her high chair would make this whole process easier.  I fed her lunch and then got busy painting and stamping her foot.  She barely even noticed and it went really well.  I put a blanket down just in case I dripped any paint and had wet wipes flowing freely.
 You want to do what with my what??? says Olive


I painted her foot and then stamped it.
Repainted and stamped
until I was done.

Wet wipes cleaned up the mess with no problem.

I also had her help me draw and color some pumpkins for the envelopes.
I used a silver & black sharpie, glitter glue and pink glitter to turn the foot prints into cats.


Can't wait to hear what people think of their cats!!
I wrote
We hope you have a purrrrrrfect Halloween
on the back of each card.

Pumpkin Palooza

We are enjoying LOTS of pumpkins at our house this week.

and iced them like little pumpkins.
They were delish and really easy.

 Olive made a little pumpkin art at church this week.  

Her teachers put glue all over the plate, she pressed orange paper scraps on the plate and then they trimmed the edges.  I thought it needed a bit of green so I traced her hand when I got home.  She is getting better and better at relaxing when I trace her handprint.  She thinks it tickles so she normally gets a big wiggly and giggly.  That's part of the fun :)  So I traced her hand and then added a little pumpkin leaf to her pumpkin.

Yesterday was National Cat Day so we wore this cute cat t from Old Navy and ran some errands.  She was a dream baby and we had a fun day together.  Maybe she was extra good because she got two new pairs of shoes for winter??  Smart girl :)  She's 17  months old now and full of sugar and spice.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Fashion Finds

Are you an Old Navy frequenter?  
I used to love it, fell out of love and am back to loving it.  They have some great things this season and I thought you might want to know about them.  Their women's and baby department are really well stocked right now.  Their winter lines are right on trend and the sales make everything pretty enticing.  I tried on several different plaid shirts, but felt like I was kind of in between sizes.  So the hunt continues for the perfect plaid shirt.

Here's my haul:

Olive green quilted vest.
It's thin and has great details.
$34 but paid $28 with coupons
*I've seen these for 3 times this price at other stores so I felt like I hit the vest jackpot!

printed tshirts $4

Zippered wristlet $4

 Olive got several embellished graphic tees but none of them are on-line.

High to Low Peplum Gold Polka-Dotted top $8

basic cardigans $10
 

Winter coat
and by winter I mean SOUTHERN winter coat :)
$20