Entertainment Center

Hubs finally finished the entertainment center. It's...um... a bit big.. I will have to get used to it! Just happy to have it out of the garage! We used plans from Ana White (here) and tweaked to our needs. Or hubs needs anyway. It was definitely a learning experience along the way. The cabinet doors have this metal mesh stuff (technical term!) rather than being solid doors. My genius idea, thank you :) We have our internet stuff, gaming stuff, sound stuff and cable stuff all in the cabinets and it all gets hot hot hot. So the mesh as well as a fan hubs installed in the back of a couple cabinets help it from heating up quite as much.

Advent Calendar

Just wanted to share a cute advent calendar I found for Z baby. I'd been looking for awhile now. I had one growing up and loved it. We always got a small a gift each day and its something I will continue with my kids. And we started with Z this year! It also was nice to spread her gifts out. We have awesome relatives that didn't mind me giving her some of her smaller gifts as her advent gifts. Z gets a bit overwhelmed opening a bunch of gifts all at the same time so this was a great way to spread it out. The calendar I found at fisherprice.com. Z loves playing with it as well and an added bonus you can use it as a matching game to help learn to match up numbers as each little piece has the number on the back :)

Fuzzy Polar Bears

Another Pinterest idea I found somewhere and can't find again otherwise I'd link it since I can't take any credit for it being my idea. I cut some basic heads on my cricut on white cardstock. I just did a large circle and two smaller ones for ears, welded. Then I washed out some little fruit cups. The small plastic individual ones. Z baby gladly ate the fruit first for me. She's my fruit monster! Then I painted the inside of the cups white and glued them onto the head cutout for the nose. Then I gathered cotton balls for the fur and found a bunch of colored puff ball things I had intending to use those for just the eyes and top of the nose. Z baby and her BFF had other ideas though! We ended up with some mighty colorful polar bears! Love the creativity :)

I just smeared a bunch of white glue all over the head and then let the girls go to town with the cotton balls and puff balls. In hindsight I should have used more glue, many were falling off. Or I could have let them dip each ball in glue and stick them on that way. Next time!

Gobble gobble!

Turkey time! We always brine our turkey and then smoke it on Thanksgiving. This year we had a helper making sure the brine was up to snuff :)

She didn't actually try it, just pretended. Our lil chef Z! We use Alton Brown's recipe for Roast Turkey but just smoke it instead of roasting. Love me some Alton recipes!! We brine it in one of those igloo coolers. The tall tube ones with the spout at the bottom. Just have to be careful not to get too big of a turkey so it fits in! One year we did two turkeys and used one of the regular igloo ice chest things.

Spider hands and ghost feet, oh my!

Quick, easy, craft! We did this at Z's playgroup. We did the ghost feet the year before as well and it was a lot of fun to see how much bigger all their little tootsies are!

Super simple instructions. Use non toxic paint and paint their hands or feet and gently push down on cardstock. Add smiley faces and a name and date and voila! I used a white gel pen on the black spiders. Totally cute craft that fits in a scrapbook album :)

Jessie Costume

Z baby is obsessed with Toy Story so I decided she will be Jessie for Halloween. I wanted to make her costume so I found her a boys plain white button up shirt, a jean skirt and some boots. We dint go with traditional cowboy boots only because I couldn't get her feet into any :) so I found some cowboy-ish looking ones at Children's Place that will have to do. The beginnings:

Finished outfit:

I found a hat at the dollar store. It was a bit big but oh well! I used a hole punch and punched around the brim and added ribbon. Added a ribbon around the base too. Hat done! The shirt I found a picture of Jessie online and used Z's Jessie doll as a guide and free handed the design using fabric paint. My only issue with doing that was the paint made the shirt really stiff. Zoey didn't mind thankfully. For the skirt I found some cow print fuzzy fabric at the fabric store. I sewed a simple tube basically. And then I just used stick on Velcro to stick it to her skirt. Initially I was just nervous about sewing it right onto the skirt, figured i would screw it up as my sewing skills are seriously lacking! But then decided I liked the idea of being able to take it off after and retain the plain skirt so I went with that and it worked perfectly. I also made her a belt using ribbon. For the belt buckle I used those foam sheets you can but at Michaels and free handed the design onto it with a marker. The buckle is my least favorite part of the outfit. Wish it looked a bit better but oh well. Z still rocked her outfit!

Pumpkin plates

Simple Pinterest craft I found somewhere along the way :) I took paper plates, flipped them over and let Zoey paint them orange. Shes always a serious painter!

I cut out some eyes, noses and mouths from black cardstock and a stem out of brown cardstock. Stuck a little glue on and let her place them. I helped with one pumpkin, the other I just let her have at it with the face :)

Baking soda and vinegar experiment

Loved this craft/ experiment! Found it on Pinterest of course. I just took some flat-ish Tupperware and dumped in some baking soda. I then used some small plastic cups and put in vinegar with a little food coloring to make her a few different colors. I have some little squeeze dropper thingys and put one in each cup of vinegar. I showed Z how to use the droppers and put it in the vinegar. She got a huge kick out of the bubbles! It did take awhile for her to have the coordination/patience to use the droppers, all part of the learning experience. She loved it so much I had to give her another Tupperware of baking soda!

Sewing fun

My sewing skills are.... Let's be honest I suck at sewing! But I try :) and occasionally something isn't horrible! This one turned out decent enough to take on a cruise with me! Just wanted to share. Found the directions HERE and I changed it only slightly, I think I made a bit smaller and without the pocket. Found it on my favorite obsession, Pinterest :)

Little Painter

Nothing like some paint and paper :) she's very serious about painting and will continue until all the paint you have given her is gone. Learned that one that hard way! A little tip- I pick up plastic table cloths when I see them cheap. I've gotten quite a few for less than a buck at after holiday sales. They are amazing to throw on the table for craft time,

Felt board

Went old school on this craft for Zoey.

I took a big piece of cardboard that I had. Thank you baby gate box! Used some spray adhesive and then covered with a big piece of light blue felt I got from the fabric store. I then cut a bunch of basic shapes and things. Got all cute trying to make a rainbow :) Z baby liked playing with this a lot. The pieces don't always stick super well which frustrates her but then again she needs to learn patience! I do plead temporary insanity on this project..... I forgot for a moment that felt and dog hair don't mix. So the felt board only stuck around for a short while before all the pieces and the board were horribly covered in dog hair and I sadly chucked the whole thing.

Summer days

Unexpected trip back to hubs hometown. Very sad as his grandmother passed away but nice to spend time with family. Zoeys innocence is such a gift and I was selfishly glad she is too young to explain death to yet. All Z baby knows is she had fun playing with her aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents for a few days.

2nd birthday

Zoeys 2nd birthday! I had planned on doing Toy Story as that is what she loves but life butted its ugly head in. We had a rough couple months and I ended up planning her bday at the last minute. It was just easier for me to do Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She loves that too so it worked.

 I made a banner with my Cricut

Made Mickey ears. Used dollar store head bands and cut out ears from foam sheets and glued them on. Also made the little decorations with my Cricut.

Added a vinyl Mickey head to buckets and filled them as favors

Birthday shirt and skirt. Started with a plain (and cheap!) shirt and skirt. Used a freezer paper technique to make a stencil with my Cricut and then painted with fabric paint.

Made cupcakes! Lemon with strawberry frosting (didn't turn out great), gluten free chocolate with vanilla frosting and regular chocolate with Vanilla Kahlua frosting (love love love that frosting, total keeper recipe)

Birthday girl only likes the frosting, She doesn't eat bread/cake right now. And no she didn't get the Kahlua frosting.

Summer fun!

Made a trip back to SoCal to visit my family. Had tons of fun! Hit the beach, ran in the sprinklers went to the park a lot :)

Running in the sprinklers was a new experience! We have an all dirt backyard right now so even grass is kinda new to Z baby!


















Zoey's second trip to the beach and she still wasn't really a fan! She played with the sand after awhile and there was a smile or two but I didn't catch them of course. Isn't that the way it always works?? At least it is for me!

Ham

Ham anyone? We seem to have an excess :)

Dress up!

What happens when you take your toddler to AAA with you and the bored (and awesome!) young ladies at the front desk play with you toddler? This...

Pool

My little water bug had fun filling the pool with us. I had no idea how much fun was to be had. Heck I just thought we were going to throw the hose in and leave it be. Z baby had other ideas!

She even got grandpa in on the action :)

Stickers

When you give a toddler stickers... She will apparently put them all over her chair :)

Fine motor skills

Super simple little project for wee ones. All I used was old school clothespins and a small cup. I showed her how to put them on the edge of the cup and then she had at it. It kept her quite occupied for awhile. And then her creative side kicked in and she had to go off and find other things to do with them :)

Chalk paint

Love Pinterest! Found chalk paint on there and tried it out with Z baby today. She had a blast! And I'll admit, I had fun playing with it too :) I went light on the food coloring as I saw a few comments that it could stain the concrete a bit so it was super pale colored. Zoey didn't care though! I believe I did equal parts water and cornstarch and then a tiny bit of food coloring. I've also seen to use a bit more cornstarch than water but haven't tried that yet.  Was great weather for playing outside!