ROAR!!

Ok, well getting one blog post per week hasn't been quite as easy as I had hoped. However, as most of you know, my Grandpa passed away last week, which has kind of disrupted my little schedule around here. I will definitely write about him and my favorite memories with him, but am not quite ready for that yet. So in the meantime I thought that I would write about our trip to the Zoo last weekend. Living in San Diego, we have access to an amazing zoo as well as the Wild Animal Park, but Molly hasn't really been old enough to get into it until now. We had such a great time with Suzi and Mike and can't wait to go back! Get ready for a little picture overload...

 

She might have peed through her diaper onto Jeremy's shirt shortly after this pic...oops!!

I love this picture because Molly is so into it and poor Jeremy look miserable because there were SO MANY people in this exhibit...

This picture was taken at the polar bear exhibit in a play igloo. Molly had so much fun - she was squealing at the top of her lungs and my sweet sister got all the way in there with her! 

Her first time on my shoulders! She kept saying "up high"!

These are my favorite pictures from that day. Gracie could not have cared less that we were at the zoo, but she sure had fun with her Aunt Susu! 

Not much else has been going on around here, just a lot of trips to Manhattan Beach to start settling everything for my Grandparents. We are however getting VERY excited for Jeremy's parents to visit next week and will definitely have a lot more pictures after their trip. Until then...

Welcome Back and Valentine's Day

Ok, here I am again! One of my New Year's Resolutions was to start blogging again and it's now the middle of February and I've just started. True to form for me really... Anyway, I've gone back and forth on what to do with this blog, but realistically I've settled on making this a place to post about our little life to update our family and friends. And seriously, my kids are too dang cute to not have a site dedicated to bragging about them!
There is just way too much to update since my last post, so lets just start with the first of the year. I went back to work the second week of January and was transferred to our clinic in Ramona. I really miss my staff in San Marcos, but have actually enjoyed working in a little country town. I also can still keep my eye on everyone in San Marcos because Jeremy took over there when I went on Maternity leave. Otherwise, we are still adjusting to a family of FOUR! Our little Gracie is such a sweet, happy little girl and Molly has become the sweetest big sister - she loves to give Gracie kisses! This weekend we decided to try some rice cereal with Gracie. She has had some little health problems - she's always been super congested, she has eczema and gets rashes at the drop of a hat and recently had a little stomach bug. So, I think the sooner she gets something in her little stomach other than milk, the better. I think she liked it...

We also tried putting Molly in the booster seat as her highchair was being occupied, I think it's still a little early for this!

Also, Friday was Valentine's Day and because I had to work late (and because we have two small kiddos) we just had a quiet evening at home with some take-out from Cheesecake Factory - not too shabby! Happy Valentines from the Hansen's!!

I'm Baaaack...

Well hello there little blog! Oh, how I've missed you!! No joke, it's been 8 MONTHS since I've posted. Literally, I have been thinking about blog posts this whole time, but actually getting on here to post, that's a different story. What have I been working on?? Well, for starters, this:

And while our little bundle of joy grows, so do I...

Ok, you can't really see my belly here, but I was only a few weeks pregnant and already I was being discriminated against at the sledding hill...

17 weeks

This was obviously on St. Patricks Day with Julie - the belly really started to pop that week, I think just for Julie's arrival. 

21 weeks

23 weeks

28 weeks

(PS, I've been trying to find to quick, easy ways to do my hair for when this little babe comes our way - apparently I'll be a little busy. What do you think? I feel like I may have worn my hair like this for Halloween one year which doesn't really help me wanting to do this one too much, but it's super easy. Suggestions??)

This past Tuesday, I hit my 3rd trimester!! Yahoo! We are on the downhill slope now! I've actually had a great pregnancy so far. I got a little queasy in my first trimester, mostly at night, but I can proudly say that I have yet to throw up! Is it sad that not throwing up is my big accomplishment?? I think I am headed into the uncomfortable 3rd trimester territory, but it's so worth it! As many of you know, Jeremy and I have been trying to start our family for quite a while now and we couldn't be happier or more grateful for this little miracle. Anyway, we are having a sweet baby girl that is due on August 28th. The cat is well out of the bag now and I can tell you with a good amount of certainty that we are going to name her Molly.

You would think that with a little girl on the way, I would be going crazy buying her clothes, right? Nope (my mom is doing the work in that department for the both of us haha). Actually, I have been obsessed with creating the perfect nursery for our baby Molly. We've done a lot of work so far, mostly because I'd like to do as much as I can now while I still feel pretty good. I didn't want to go too crazy on the pink in her room. After all, I really don't think she cares that much what her room looks like now, but Jeremy and I are going to be spending a lot of time in there. I also wanted something that will grow with her and can be easily changed as she starts getting her own opinion about her room. So I decided on whites and creams with touches of pink. The starting point of the room came from a toile fabric I found on-line. Anyway, this is where we started:

I'll be the first to admit that I went a little color crazy when we first bought this house and while I loved the yellow and blue colors, it was a little much and I love the color that we went with for the nursery.

(don't mind the cords and blinds in this last one - we are still a work in progress...)

What exactly have we done so far? Well, here's a little list:
* Cleared out the room and sold most of the old stuff on craisglist
* Painted
* Put up wainscoting WALLPAPER
* Installed the chair rail (thanks Uncle Mike for your help!!)
* Made curtains
* Assembled the crib
* Made crib skirt and matching pillow (which by the way will not stay in the crib, but will go on the glider as soon as we get it - for as little as I know about babies, I am well aware of the SIDS risk that pillows pose)

I will definitely be separating out the big projects and creating posts for each so that you can see how we put everything together. It's really coming together exactly how I imagined it and I am so excited for the day when we bring her home to her little spot in the world. As for this weekend, we will be putting together the dresser that we got from ikea. If you were wondering, the instruction manual for that thing is almost 50 PAGES LONG!! Wish us (or mostly Jeremy) luck!! I promise to continue posting - especially as this little one gets closer and closer to getting here I will be sure to update you all with what's going on in our lives and definitely with some (or a million) baby pics when she does make her arrival.

Button Pillowcase Tutorial & a Little Bit of Fall

Hello friends! Guess what? It’s fall. My favorite time of year! However, if you live in southern California you sure wouldn’t know it. It is currently 99 degrees here.

Not ok.

But, you know what? I am forever an optimist and will pretend that it’s appropriate to wear sweaters and boots and scarves all day long. Do you know what helps my California-fall-fantasy? You guessed it – decorating. (Ok, maybe you didn’t guess that, but I’ll still give you credit for it). It’s no secret; I miss Colorado in the fall. Actually, I miss it incredibly from September (the start of fall in my book) right up until December 26^th. Then, I’m happy as a clam to be here. But it’s hard to ignore that there are no leaves changing, no crisp morning air and no sign of snow in sight (especially not when it’s 99 DEGREES outside). So, for the past 3 years, I have made every effort imaginable to make fall as real as possible in our little house – that I can control, the weather…not so much. So, here’s a little tour around our house right now.

Did you like those last pictures? I hope so, because I have been working my little tail off to create those pillowcases. Since I now have a sewing machine, there is a whole new world of creative decorating possibilities opening up. They were actually pretty easy. I used a template for the pillow covers similar to this one. Basically, I just measured the fabric about an inch wider than the existing couch pillows and sewed them together with a finishing stitch. Then I added the embellishments on top of it.  Not a big seamstress? That’s even easier – just purchase a pillow, or pillow case that goes with what ever theme you are using, then dress it up yourself. Anyway, we have 6 throw pillows on our couch, I made 3 pillowcases using the red gingham, and then the other 3 I made pillow cases with a muslin-like fabric that I found in the “utility fabric” section at Joann’s. From those 3, I made one with an H made out of buttons, one with 2 orange ruffles on the side and the last with fabric rosettes made with all 3 fabrics. Wanna know how to do it? Ok, you asked…

For the fabric rosette pillow, all I did was make a bunch of rosettes out of the 3 different fabrics – muslin, red gingham and orange. I made all different sizes. Actually, this was the last pillowcase that I made and I just used up the rest of the fabric that I had. Then I arranged them on the pillowcase (without the pillow in it) and I hot-glued them on. Done.

The ruffle pillowcase was the only one that I had to embellish while sewing the pillowcase together.  First, I made 2 strips of orange fabric that were twice as long as the length of the pillow. I hemmed the edges – you certainly don’t have to do this, especially if you don’t have a sewing machine, it will just look a little more “rustic” if you don’t. Then, I ran 2 gathering stiches down the center of the strip. Again, you can hand-stitch this if you don’t have a sewing machine – gathering stitches don’t have to be perfect, just make sure not to tie off either end. Then you take the threads from both stitches and pull on the fabric until it gathers. Do this until your fabric is the size of the length of the pillowcase. Pin it in place, and do the second strip. Pin that one in place, then run a regular stitch down the center of each ruffle. Once you put the two sides of the pillowcase together (right sides together) sew the entire thing together, and when you turn it right side out, there will be your perfectly finished ruffles. (I skipped over a bunch of sewing steps for this, but just follow the instructions for the pillowcase tutorial). Again, if you don’t have a sewing machine and just want to dress-up a purchased pillowcase, then fold the ends over just a little and hand-stitch the ends at the seams of the pillowcase that you bought. Again, they are pillows; no one looks that closely at them. ;)

Ok, so the button pillow is totally my favorite one. There is a bunch of button art circulating around pinterest right now that is adorable and I’m sure there is more button-ing in my future… Anyway, to make your very own button flare, go to Joann’s (or your nearest fabric/craft store) and in the button section, they are bags of like-colored buttons in all different sizes. I bout one bag of red buttons, but I wanted a little bit of orange in there too, so I bought some 3-packs of larger orange buttons. Anyway, I pulled up word on my computer and found a font that I liked, and then I made it really big and printed it out. It wasn’t quite as big as I wanted it to be, so I freehanded it onto another piece of paper. If your printer will print is as big as you want, then skip that step. Anyway, I put a piece of felt over the top of the paper and could easily trace the outline onto the felt with a marker. Then I started hot-gluing the buttons into place. There is no rhyme or reason to this, just start. I tried to do the outlines first, then fill it in, but some are going to overlap and I like that a little better because it gives it some depth (not emotional depth, just physical depth – I’m not that crazy about my arts and crafts…). Anyway, once everything is glued down, cut out the felt around the buttons as close as you can, then simply hot-glue your letter onto the pillowcase. Seriously, I never want to take this one off of the couch. Ever.

Here's a comparison of the couches before and after:

Yes, that's Jeremy's head behind the couch in the first picture - because he's a creep and wanted to be the pic.

Otherwise, most of my fall decorations are the same from last year, you can check out that post here. I did make something new for our dining room table, but you have to wait for my next post for that little treasure. Also, I just wanted to thank everyone who’s been reading my blog. I’m still not really sure where I want to go with this – just arts and crafts, our lives, to include tutorials or not – mostly I don’t know if I want to really try to blog “professionally” or just keep this for friends and family. So, I’ve decided to just keep putting whatever comes into my crafty little brain on here and see where it takes me. And at the end of the day, it turns out that whether I have one follower or a million followers, I’m glad that I put it out there and I’m happy for each and every one of you who do read it.  So, thanks friends!!

Cowboy Party and White Party Birthday Extravaganza

So, if you didn’t already know, August is a pretty big month for the Hansen family.  Both of our birthdays are in August, as well as my sister’s and mother-in-law’s birthdays and my parent’s anniversary. Not to mention, both Mike (my brother-in-law) and Melanie’s (Jeremy’s sister) birthdays are the first week in September. All of this craziness occurs in just one month. Usually, we combine my, Suzi and Jeremy’s birthdays together because they are within 2 weeks. However, this year was Jeremy’s 30^th birthday – it’s a big one, so he got his very own party. If you also didn’t already know, Suzi and I like to throw theme parties. Her birthday happens to be the day after mine and we have celebrated together for as long as I can remember. We used to hate it (i.e. – Suzi and Elizabeth as middle-schoolers), but now we LOVE it because we get to do it together and act like we are in middle school again because it’s our birthdays and we can do what we want, right? Anyway, this year, Suzi and I decided to do a Rollin’-in-the-hay party. I’ve got to admit, Suzi did most of the legwork on this one. She did some research online and purchased all of the decorations and I loved them all – especially the cowhide balloons, which inspired the cake I made. We had a FANTASTIC time listening to country music, drinking some cactus coolers and hanging out with our good friends. I couldn’t have asked for a better 29^th (yikes!!) birthday, or for a better friend to share my birthday with…

So, since it was Jeremy’s 30^th birthday, I knew I wanted to something extraordinary for him because well, he’s an amazing husband, a great friend/son/brother/son-in-law/brother-in-law/therapist…and dang-it he deserves it! So while we were in Montana over Christmas, his mom and I began conspiring about a surprise visit for Jeremy’s birthday. This became a little tricky because we were leaving for the cruise the week after his birthday, but in the end, it worked out perfectly. There are positives from working for the same company, for instance, when you want to surprise your husband with an extra week off of work, it’s quite easy to call the business office to get him coverage, call the owner to get him up-to-date, call his secretary and bribe her to keep things under-wrap at the office yada yada yada…I totally thought that he knew what was going on, probably because I’m a terrible liar and when he straight-faced asked me (ON MY BIRTHDAY) when his parents were coming in I almost had a stroke right there at the dinner table. Anyway, apparently he had no clue because when he came home from work and his dad yelled from the backyard “Hey, what’s a guy got to do to get a cold beer around here”, he almost fell down the stairs. He also was completely shocked to hear that I got him and extra week off of work, meaning that he not only had one week, but TWO weeks off of work (the cruise, remember?).  The surprises continued when the next day we went out to dinner (and I have no idea how he didn’t notice that we were all wearing white), then headed to O’Sullivan’s in Carlsbad for a few drinks and all of our friends were there to surprise him for a P-Diddy-Inspired White Party.

Ok, so I am in no way an expert on throwing parties, but I (or we, if you include Suzi) have a great time doing it. So I thought that I would include a few tips on throwing a theme-party:

·      Plan Ahead. 

      Not gonna lie, I’m terrible at this. I’m good at coming up with ideas for these parties, but Suzi totally got my butt in gear this year to get things done. Come up with your idea early, because it’s a lot harder to find everything that you need the day before a party.  Also, if your theme requires that people dress up, they are going to need some time to prepare, or in Jeremy’s case, to make a trip to goodwill.

·      Go to goodwill. 

      This place is awesome for costume ideas!

·      Google is your best friend. 

      Suzi found all of the decorations at one place, which is awesome. But, it doesn’t always happen that way. I googled “cowboy party” to find inspirations for food and extra decorations. Unfortunately, most of what I found was for a little boy’s party, but still, I got ideas.

·      Tell your friends they are not allowed to come in unless they are dressed up. 

      It’s really true that you have more fun while dressed like an idiot, I don’t know why, but I know it’s true.

·      It goes beyond just decorations. 

      It’s a lot about the decorations, but it’s the food, the music, the costumes. It just adds to it. Of course, the best part is the people there, but we are talking logistics here, right?

·     

    Make your own cake. 

      Cupcakes also go over really well and are crazy-easy to decorate. Again, google will provide you with tons of easy cake or cupcake decorating ideas.

·      This sounds expensive, but it’s not really. 

      We certainly cannot afford to supply dinner and drinks for everyone. So, we make it a BYOB event -even though we really don’t have to even say it, our friends are awesome and there’s always a TON of “adult beverages” left over- but we still make sure to have some staples and what we want on-hand. We also did a “signature drink” for the cowboy party (Cactuc Coolers, get it?) that got everyone started. I also usually specify in the evite to eat dinner before hand because while there will be appetizers, we all need a full stomach before getting too crazy. Appetizers are easy, and again, usually our friends bring a ton of stuff over because, you guessed it, they rock. Anyway, Suzi made buffalo chicken dip, I did pigs-in-a-blanket, we did the usual chips and dip, but it all was relatable to the theme. My favorite go-to for a party is Subway foot longs cut into individual slices – co cheap, so easy, and soooo good.

·      It’s not essential, but it’s definitely fun to have an activity that relates. 

      This year we played horseshoes in the backyard. We didn’t buy a set (though it might have been easier that way haha), Suzi got some actual horseshoes from a friend at work and Jeremy got stakes from home depot and make a backstop.  We did the Golf Pros and Tennis Hoes party last year and played table tennis. Again, not essential, but still fun.

Anyway, that’s pretty much how we prepare. Hope that helps you plan your next shindig!

Love, Birdie

Tania's Wedding & Bridesmaid Jewelry

Ok, I know that I just got back from a cruise and you all want me to post about that, right? Well, I want to post about that too, but we need to get caught up first. So, let’s re-wind back to June/July so we can talk about these bad boys for a minute:

Jeremy and I flew out to Durango the first week in July for Tania’s wedding. We also celebrated our anniversary while there. I haven’t been back to Durango in 6 YEARS! It was such a weird feeling to be back in the town that I went to college in. So many memories pretty much every place that I looked. I couldn’t help but spend the entire time reminiscing about all of my Durango friends. I also probably could have spent another week there just to eat at all of my favorite restaurants! Don’t worry, though we made it to Serious Texas not once, but twice! We also drove up to Silverton our last day there and I realized how much I did not appreciate how beautiful that little town was when I lived in Durango. One stop on my must-see list was the college and man, it’s a totally different place! They have completely remodeled the entire college union building – it’s beautiful! Why didn’t they have that when I went there?? Anyway, here is a little montage of our Durango trip (and apparently I was too busy reminiscing to take any pics, these are all from Silverton):

Now, not to mention the actual reason that we went to Durango, Tania’s wedding. For those of you who don’t know, Tania and I met while working together as lab aides/phlebotomists at the hospital.  

Tania has been one of my dearest friends for quite a few years now – you know, 

the kind of friend that you don’t have to talk to for months, 

then you’ll pick up right where you left off with just one phone call. 

The kind of friend that sends you encouraging cards in the mail that have writing not only on both pages inside, but on the back as well. 

She’s the kind of friend that when I met her, she brought me out of a kinda rough time in my life. 

Basically she’s the kind of friend everyone should have. 

So, needless to say, I was ecstatic when she called to tell me that she was getting married and I was even happier when she asked me to be a bridesmaid. So, check out how gorgeous her wedding was:

Anyway, now that you know how beautiful my friend is and what amazing taste she has, you can tell how honored I was when she asked me to make the jewelry for her and for the bridesmaids. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty new to this jewelry-making stuff, but I learned a lot from this whole experience. Tania asked for bracelets and earrings in yellow for the bridesmaids, and a set in ivory for her. 

Basically what I did was make rosettes from fabric. You can find a million tutorials out there on how to do this, but it’s pretty much just twisting and hot-gluing fabric. Then for the bracelets, I hot-glued the rosettes onto a ribbon. The hardware for all of the jewelry came from Michaels. The bracelet hooks, just clamped onto the ends of the ribbon. However, I didn’t clamp it down quite tight enough and the ends started to come out when we put them on, so I spent the morning of the wedding re-clamping. In hindsight, I should have added some glue inside of the clamp, but you live and learn, right? 

This is the only pic I have of anyone actually WEARING the jewelry

 and I took it after work just to send to Tania to get her approval, 

that's why it's super blurry...

Anyway, since this was for a wedding and she had such a beautiful theme (yellow with black and white damask), I figured that it needed some pretty packaging, so I bought some plain white jewelry boxes from Joann’s, then stamped a chandelier on it and tied it with the same yellow-colored ribbon.

I loved doing this and if you happen to be getting married, or would just like a set, let me know, I’d love to make one for you! Anyway, I’m working on some really fun fall-themed décor tutorials and may have a guest-blogger coming your way. Stay-tuned and as always, thanks so much for your comments, I get giddy every time I see a new one!

Love, Birdie

Love Stitched and Loxly Hollow

Good Morning friends! I should be at work right now, but I'm on the first official day of our vacation and what am I doing? Playing on the internet of course! Actually, we are about to go to the beach, but I thought that I would let you all know that one of my favorite blogs Love Stitched is having a giveaway right now for prints to Loxly Hollow. Which, if you haven't stumbled across this etsy shop - especially if you have babies - you need to right now.

Such adorable prints and I want some! You know, for the future. Anyway, check out the shop at love stitched as well, this is where a lot of the inspiration for Tania's wedding jewelry came from - more on that later, here's a little sneak peek.

She has a lot of similar stuff and is actually a professional at making this stuff, so if you want to buy some, check it out there. Anyway, since I'm on vacation and all, I'm going to go play at the beach, but I should have lots of time for another post this week.