Top 5

I have decided to participate in Heather's Top 5 Tuesday post, but with a different topic and that would be cooking! I am going to share my top 5 favorite websites or cooking blogs.

1. The Pioneer Woman

Probably my favorite of them all. This woman has great recipes, she photographs every step of the recipe and she has great humor along the way.

2. Martha Stewart

How could you not love Martha? Okay it gets a little annoying that everything she has her name on is pretty much perfection, but it's fun to attempt some of the things she does. Not only does she have great recipes, but she has cute crafts and ideas for pretty much anything. I love Martha :)

3. Sunday Baker

I have recently found this blog but I love the recipes she has on here and can't wait to try a few.

4. Bakerella

I discovered this blog when she was featured on The Martha Stewart Show for her "cupcake pops". They were a huge hit and she has quickly become popular in the blogging world. I have only seen dessert recipes on this blog but the things she makes are so cute! I tried the cupcake pops and failed miserably, so hopefully one day I can re try them.

5. The Food Network

Of course if all else fails, I can always go to The Food Network for great recipes from a hand full of cooks. Paula Deen is my favorite though and I have tried many of her recipes.

Weekend.

Beautiful weather. Laughs. Pictures. Cooking. Friends. Playing. Children. Love. Wine. Laughs. Wii. Dissapointing race. Shopping. Party Planning. Invitations. Pumpkins. Glitter. Dora. Taco Soup. Homemade Cookies. Laughs. Desperate Housewives.

Picture Day!

Today is Campbell's Kindergarten picture day and oh how excited she is. Last night we went through her closet to choose her out fit and she told me, "I just have way too many clothes!" oops :)

I had picked out this longer blue shirt dress with some flowered leggings and her strappy purple sandals. She tried it all on and looked darling. She wanted me to do her hair so I told her to come over at 8:00 today. At first she wanted it braided but lets face it, with the shortness of her hair and my lacking talent for braiding, it wasn't looking good. She then decided she wanted it curled. No problem..well, except for that her hair is so fine that it wont hold a curl! She was bummed, but we just straightened it back out, clipped back her bangs, and she was good to go. She always looks cute to me no matter what :)

as you can tell, she changed her mind on her out fit :)

Before we did her hair though, it was garbage man time. Every Friday is garbage day and Cooper loves to watch and shout "LOOK", his favorite word lately :) He had just taken a shower and was freezing so Grandma threw a towel over him and he was parked at the window. Campbell likes to watch too, it's their Friday tradition.

I ♥ Etsy.

About a year ago, I discovered a site called Etsy through one of my favorite bloggers. It is a place, sort of like Ebay, except it is all handmade things. Anything you can think of, you can find on Etsy. I've always loved handmade things, especially when they are made well and there are many talented people on Etsy.

Recently I purchased this:


From this Etsy seller. This is a picture that I have seen on many blogs and I just loved it and wanted one for myself. Several bloggers had recommended this Etsy shop so I went straight there and within a few days, I had one of my very own.

I also ordered this for my bathroom -



From this Etsy seller. She has several different colors of this poster and it was hard to choose just one :)


My latest find on Etsy, is the shop of Kathryn Riechert, who makes hand stamped custom jewelry.


I ordered a ring from her and I am so impressed with the quality and it was very reasonably priced. I wear it every day and I have my eye on several other things from her shop :)

Sweet Baby ♥

It had been a few weeks since I had seen Cadence, so I decided to head up there yesterday afternoon and I'm glad I did. Even in just a few weeks, she has changed so much. Her hair has gotten much lighter and she is just growing like a weed :)

Shae and I went to the craft store for awhile and then took her to dinner at The Olive Garden. The last time we took her there, she was only a couple weeks old and she slept the whole time. This time, she was wide awake and she loved all the people and the lights and the noise. She was great the whole time and everyone that walked by had to stop and look at her.

Chewing on everything and wearing her new Gracelet :)

Cadence at dinner sitting on mommy's lap and looking like a big girl!

All snuggly in her jammies.

Shae has started her on food and yesterday morning she gave her green beans. She said that Cadence didn't like them and made the funniest faces when she fed them to her. She wanted to try them again just to see if she would like them at night rather than first thing in the morning. Shae was busy for a few minutes, so she had me feed her. It was great at first. She was eating it right up and kicking in an excited way and she didn't seem to be having a problem. That is until a few minutes later, when she threw it all up and started choking. I panicked and I'm pretty sure my heart stopped for a few seconds, because she was literally choking and her face was bright red. I picked her up and took her bib off and patted her back and I was calmly saying "She's choking" so Shae came running out and started patting her back. She was okay, but man was that a scary moment. Shae said she didn't know anything was wrong because I said it so calmly. She must have not swallowed any of it because it all came back out! I made a deal with Cadence that she didn't have to eat green beans anymore if she promises not to choke anymore :)

She is such a sweet, sweet baby. I love her coo's and her smiles and her chatters and I'm so glad I get to spend time with her :)

We ended our night by watching the movie "Baby Mama". All I can say is, hilarious! I think I will definitely be buying that one.

Around the house..

Nothing too exciting, but just wanted to share a few things I have purchased lately.

First, a new shower curtain and rug. I had just a plain white one before, and I washed it..and dried it. Big mistake! It shrunk haha. So I went and bought another one that I wasn't crazy about but I figured it would work until I found something I loved. Well last week, I found one that I loved. I went to Ikea to pick up a picture frame, and saw this shower curtain and decided I needed a new rug too. I love them both and they brighten my bathroom :)


While on one of my numerous trips to Ben Franklin last week, I saw this paper. I bought every piece they had and I hope they get more in because I will need much more of this for my Christmas cards :) Making Christmas cards has got to be one of my favorite things to do all year. Last year they were quite the production so I need to be more prepared this year.


Last week I was also at the Northgate Mall and went into Forever XXII which is a new store for that mall. I walked in, saw this little tote and went to the register..I know when I love something, and I love this. It's just simple, cute and small so I can't cram a bunch of crap into it :)


I love magazines, but the problem is they are always sitting in a stack on my desk and then I start to feel crowded. So I picked up this little crate, also at Ben Franklin. It holds them well and is cute too.


And last but not least, I love words. I love sayings. I love anything that has words and sayings on them. Becca got me one of these for my birthday that says "Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave and impossible to forget" I have it on my desk at work and I look at it every day :) I see these cute little plaques everywhere and decided to get this one last week. It is something I really believe in and like to remind myself of.

It's here!

Fall that is, and I welcome it with open arms! On my way to work, I stopped at Starbucks and got my favorite drink, Caramel Apple Cider. If you haven't tried it, you must.


I had a wonderful weekend filled with crafts, children and laughs and I feel so refreshed and excited for the change of seasons :)

Seattle.

"Outings are so much more fun when we can savor them through the children's eyes."

♥♥

Yesterday was a typical 'fall' day in Seattle. It was cloudy and raining when we woke up and it didn't change all day except that it just rained harder. We had big plans yesterday and I intended to do them rain or shine :)

Campbell, Cooper and I headed to the Aquarium and Lacey met us there. I took Campbell there a couple years ago, but Cooper has never been and they were both pretty excited. Cooper was pretty funny. He loved looking at the fishes and all he kept saying was, LOOK! LOOK!...BIG! over & over & over. :) It was so cute because he would get so excited. Campbell just looked at everything quietly and stayed right by my side :) They have redone it since we were last there and it is all covered now so we didn't get wet while we were there. The coolest thing to me was watching the kids and the expressions on their faces when they saw things, especially the seals. They were pretty big and dove in and out of the water.

We stopped at the gift shop on our way out, and Cooper got a semi truck. It has a tube for the back part of the truck, and you fill it with water and then it has fish and things that float in it. He loves it and wouldn't set it down for anything.

LOOK, we even found Nemo :)

(LOOK! BIG!)

After the aquarium, we went to The Old Spaghetti Factory. I've always wanted to go to that one since I think it was the first one, and I've seen that big brick building since I was a kid. We had a fun lunch and Cooper kept entertaining us :)

Pike's Place Market was our next stop. I love going there. There is just so much going on and so many pretty things to see. Of course, buying fresh flowers is a must. We also managed to get some other things including a cute little bracelet that was made just for Campbell with her name on it. She loves it :)

This is how Cooper spent his time at the market. Yep from the time we left the car, until the time we got back to the car, he slept :)

By the end of the day, Campbell was one tired girl. At 11:00 last night she insisted she was not tired and she still wanted to paint. Then she wanted to read to me, but I looked over not even 5 minutes later, and this is what I saw. One tired girl :)

Friday night crafts..

I was so excited to go home last night and paint! I had been to Ben Franklin Thursday night and got some things and then I stopped there again last night to get some more things. I bought paper mac he` pumpkins on Thursday, so I went and got Campbell a little one to paint. I also had wooden Halloween face masks to paint, 2 pumpkins and 2 ghosts.

Campbell and I started out painting our pumpkins and then the neighbor girl came over so we let her paint 1 of the masks. Then Campbell's cousins came over so they painted the other two masks. We ended up with one big painty, gluey, glittery mess, but we sure had fun :)



My finished pumpkin with candy corn glitter on the top. I thought it turned out pretty well.



After the neighbor girl went home, Campbell and Cassie cuddled up in my bed and watched Shrek 3. Cassie looks so cute with her missing front teeth :)


Campbell, Cooper and I are headed to the Seattle Aquarium and then to Pike's Place Market with Lacey. After that, we are going to the races at Monroe to watch Travis! Definitely a different race day schedule for me as I'm used to be at the track all day, but I'm excited for our fun day in Seattle!

Two little monkeys..

In the past week I have not been home before 10 pm one time. That means that I haven't seen Campbell or Cooper in a week, well at least not for any real amount of time. So needless to say, I was happy to be home last night. I stopped by Ben Franklin after work, which I have decided is not a good place for me to go. When I go in there, my mind never stops. I start to think of a million different projects I could do. I had to tell myself, STOP. You have too many projects already :) I couldn't stop myself completely though, and besides getting the things I went in there to get in the first place, I picked up some things to make a Halloween craft. I hope to get to that soon..

When I got home, Campbell was SOO excited to see me :) She followed me right up stairs and stayed there until she had to go home and go to bed. Cooper also joined us and they jumped on the bed for awhile. I got some really cute pics of them and as they were jumping on the bed, we were doing the "two little monkeys" song. It fits them both perfectly, and they are pretty cute little monkeys! Campbell was doing "flips" on the bed and every time she would say "that's totally awesome", of course that line comes straight from Hannah Montana :) Once I finally got them off the bed, Campbell and I colored, Cooper watched a Little People Christmas movie and then Campbell did her water color book. I love spending time with them!

Wine & sweet words

Last night we celebrated Shelby's birthday by going to dinner at a little Italian place in Puyallup called Mama Stortini's, a place that I love. They have great food and it's a more intimate setting which is great for dinners with friends.

We had a nice time talking with everyone and seeing her friend Sarah's new born baby boy and also her sisters daughter Lily who is almost one.

Here she is with her new Jessica Simpson perfume, fancy, that I got her. It smells soo good! So good in fact, that I got myself a bottle too :) The guy at the store asked me if I was a huge Jessica Simpson fan haha


Jeff wrapped her present in Elmo paper since he couldn't find any birthday paper at the house :) He got Shelby a jacket and 2 tickets to the Olympics Gymnast event at the Tacoma Dome next weekend.