Valentine's Day Cards

When I was in elementary school, we would always have a class Valentine's Day party. In the days leading up the the party, we would decorate shoe boxes or brown paper bags and everyone would get to leave notes or cards for each other. My favorite part of the party was getting to decorate the bags and then as I got older, I loved checking to see if my crush sent me a valentine.

And yes, I even made my fair share of the "check yes or no" red, heart shaped cards.

Now, I have 2 girls that will someday be making their own pink, glittery, heart shaped v-day cards. I can hardly wait until my kitchen table is covered in paper remnants, little glittery glue fingerprints and cupid stickers. But, until I can trust them with scissors and glue, I will be ordering their Valentine's Day cards from Tiny Prints.

Aren't these adorable? Now comes the hard part - getting both girls to sit still long enough to get a picture of them both smiling.

Follow Tiny Prints on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest if you want to see other cute cards.

**This is a sponsored post. These thoughts are my own, yet Tiny Prints hooked me up with some V-day cards for my girls. **

Cafe Brazil - Holiday Menu

Yesterday, Miss A and I were invited by Hopsy to attend a lunch at Cafe Brazil to preview their holiday menu. I love all things pumpkin, so when I saw that the menu had pumpkin pancakes AND pumpkin cheesecake I could not wait to sample their new dishes.


We were all given sample size portions of their new holiday dishes - pumpkin pancakes, bananas foster french toast, creme brule french toast and s'mores latte or cocoa.


Miss A's favorite dish was the pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon butter.... and I have to say, I agree with her. They were delish.


Pumpkin Pancakes with Cinnamon Butter

Bananas Foster French Toast

S'mores Hot Cocoa

Pumpkin Cheesecake

So, if you are in the Dallas area and in the mood for some holiday type breakfast food, head on over to Cafe Brazil and try their new holiday menu!

Easter 2011

Did you have a nice Easter weekend? We did. We had Easter festivities for almost an entire week and Miss A loved all of the egg hunts.


Do you have an Easter tree? Growing up we always had one, so I have continued the tradition. This year Miss A was old enough to help decorate.... she took her job very seriously.
We had a church Easter Egg Hunt and the Easter Bunny was walking around, but Miss A was not too sure of him. She much preferred him when he was like this.

There was an egg hunt and an Easter party at her school.

We took her to see the Easter Bunny, but while we were waiting in line she passed the time by riding the elevator up and down (and up and down and up and down) with her Poppa.

We dyed eggs.

Went to another egg hunt.

And then finally Easter Sunday! Miss A was refusing to smile, so this was the best family shot we were able to get.

Family Card - 2010

I know this is one day late, but Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

I ordered our cards from Shutterfly this year and absolutely loved them. The quality was great, the turnaround time was fast and they were a great price. I don't think I will every again try to pretend I am Martha and craft our cards ... this was super fast and easy.

The pictures we used were from our family pictures we had taken back in October with ee Photography. I am in love with every single picture she took. Can you believe this field of straw is in the middle of Dallas?

Hey Punkin'

Hello there... I am still here, just had zero desire to blog last week. I mean, how interesting are car wrecks, doctor appointments, trips to the ER and gall bladder sonograms? Yeah, sounds like a real snoozer of a week - don't you think?


Anyway, now that it is officially fall, this means it is time to start seasonal decorating! I love to decorate, but when you try to cram in Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decor all in 3 months, it is enough to make me insane. Seriously - I would just get the ghosts and goblins put away and it would be time to get out the tinsel. So, to make things easier, I stick to pumpkins for October and November. Nothing too specific for Halloween, just little things that are easy to fill with peanut butter M & M's or Reese's Pieces. And I don't think I have any Thanksgiving specific decor.


Last night I decorated some pumpkins for our dining room table.

I love how they turned out! Aside from the hot glue gun burns, these were fun to make. I just made up of the patterns as I went, but these would also be great with ric rac or pom pom trim.

**New pictures on Baby M**

XOXO

Valentine's Day had never been one of my favorite holidays. Heck, I don't even think it is a holiday. But, it is a great reason to buy pretty cards and bake cookies.

Miss A has decided that she wants to send out some pretty cards to her friends and family. She will be sending out some classy letterpress cards by Carrot & Stick Press. Yes, I know these are not very "babyish" or "kiddish", but just like her clothes... as long as I am paying and she cannot speak up, I get to pick. We are going to include some recent pics of the girl.

And for the nursery workers at our church, Miss A is going to make them a heart cookie cake. I like to spoil these ladies with treats for every special occasion. They do a wonderful job taking care of our little ones, plus it will helps keep her as one of their favorite babies. :) And for a sneak peak of those pictures, head over to Baby M.

Pumpkins

Oh Martha… you never cease to amaze me. Yes, I know you probably don’t come up with all of these ideas yourself… and you might be a slave driver, but I still love you. Your monogram pumpkin was the inspiration for MY monogram pumpkin.

Yes, yours has pretty scrolls and even lines, but mine is real. And was carved after one too many glasses of wine. (The pumpkin looks like it is radioactive and about to blow up here… do not look directly into the light…)


And it proceeded to rot after only a couple of days. I heard that if you spray Lysol inside the pumpkin it does not rot as quickly. We did not have Lysol, so I used some organic counter cleaner…And it did not work.

Next year I need to do a pumpkin like this:

*Images from Martha Stewart or Better Homes and Gardens or MrsPreppy

Savy shopper

Did you know that The Land of Nod and Crate & Barrel are owned by the same people? Therefore, you would think if both places had the same Christmas item, then it would be the same price. Wrong.

I have had my eye on these 12 days of Christmas ornaments for a long time now, but was waiting for them to go on sale.

I just checked them at Crate & Barrel and they are $39.95 + $8.95 shipping = $48.90

And at The Land of Nod they are on sale for $29.99 + $0 shipping = $29.99

Looks like I just purchased 12 new ball ornaments for the collection! Now, I just need to find something to display these on all by themselves. Something like the thing below, but I am not going to pay $50. If you have seen a cheaper version, please let me know.

The stockings were hung...

I have collected ornaments for years.... But not just any ornament, they have to be balls. Any size, color, material - as long as it is a ball, I will put it on this tree. The tree topper was just purchased, so we don't have a topless tree anymore!

My inner Martha came out with this project --I covered wooden clothes pins with cute paper and we use these to attach our Christmas cards to the garland on the banister.

Last year when I purchased our stockings, I went back after Christmas and purchased 2 more... for "future babies" ... little did I know that one would be put to use sooner than later! As soon as I get this, the other stocking will be hung. (and of course, a ball ornament will be placed inside it!)

I got this tree on Black Friday. We call it the Charlie Brown tree -- it looked pretty sad until I put the ornaments on it. Even now, it could use about 2X the number of branches and lights. We put all of the 'non ball' ornaments on this tree.