A Shower for Adalay

Last weekend, my sister Allison, my mom and I hosted a baby shower for our friend Crissy and her baby on the way, Adalay.  She has two boys already and has always wanted a girl, so we decided there was no such thing as too much pink.  We made the decorations pink and as much of the food as we could we used shades of pink or red.

Here is my pregnant sister Allison pouring ginger ale in the punch bowl with the raspberry sherbert.  The punch only had those two ingredients but it was delicious.

I had made Matty a tall cake for his birthday with 6" pans I bought at Walmart and decided to try and make an ombre cake for Adalay using the same pans.  I bought icing coloring in these small plastic containers and used them to tint the cake batter.  Apparently it doesn't take much to make a bright color.  I guess I was used to mixing paint which requires much more of the darker color.  Anyway, it still turned out pretty well in my opinion.  I also made a mini banner for the cake out of scrap book paper, skewers, and string.

We decided to make a clothes line to display the clothes we'd bought for baby Adalay.  Used some brown chording and clothes pins I had on hand.

I had seen on A Cup of Jo where she made ombre ballons for a party and decided I wanted to give it a try for this shower.  It was a bit harder to track down different shades of pink than I thought it would be, but I still think it turned out pretty cute.

 As far as food, we had mini fruit pizzas, strawberries stuffed with cheesecake, cucumber sandwiches, pink popcorn, cake, peanuts, white cheddar cheezits, and raspberry punch.  A few of the ideas were from pinterest.  Here is the board I made for the shower.  My family is kind of known for their fruit pizzas.  I think I ate at least 5 of them, if not more.

It was a lot of fun pulling all this together.  Glad I get to do another one in a few months for my sister, and help with one in July for my friend Amanda from the Montessori school and the farm.

My morning on the farm

This morning I worked at Native Son Farm.  Matt and I have been doing their work-share program for over a month.  We work about 4 hours a week and get a box of produce.  It is always more than enought to last us till the next week.  This week we got red leaf lettuce, cabbage, red potatos, basil, kale, carrots and tomatoes.  I've been illustrating what's in the shares on the farm's chalkboard.

Fresh picked strawberries and tomatoes.

This is some of the produce, getting set up to be packed into the CSA (community supported agriculture) shares.  

Picking strawberries is back-breaking work, but it's soo worth it.

These are two lone sunflowers that grew from last years crop.

Tomato and basil planted side by side.  One of my favorite combinations.

The structure in the background is called the hoop house.  The tomatoes and basil are housed in there.  It stays really warm and humid all the time.



Purple peppers growing.

Ombre Hydrangea

Wood you, or woodn't you?

After having worked at a Montessori school for almost a year, I see the significance in having toys or works that are made of substantial natural materials.  Toys made of wood are much lovelier than their plastic counter parts, and also last much, much longer.  I gathered some fun wood toy ideas from around the web.

applenamos - $40

These are beautiful wood produce pieces to be used in a play kitchen.  I love the pear and the peach with their subtle color changes. 

The Enchanted Cupboard - $38

This wood wave puzzle would look cute on any shelf and is hand made by a craftsman on etsy.

This fun pull toy has a tutorial on how to make it.  Only problem is it's in another language, but it's pretty easy to guess what the few steps would be.

Bella Luna Toys - $299.95 (just the dollhouse)

This is a Waldorf doll house.  They make beautiful toys, and from natural materials but are usually on the pricier side of toys.

OohLookItsARabbit - $8.00

These hippopatmi remind me of the Waldorf style, but handmade by a person on etsy and much better prices.  They have all kinds of animals and toys to choose from.

Here is an example of snails the shop also has.

Bella Luna Toys - $269.95

This Maine Dory rocking toy is also from the Bella Luna store online.  It looks so cool and fun to play on.  I would have wanted this as a kid.

I add toys as I see them to my pinterest page.  If you are interested you could follow it and would see as new things come up.

Secret goal: Matt and I to someday start a toy store of our own, making only top-notch pieces from wood and other natural materials.

Hallway Update

This is what our hallway looked like when we bought the house.  Lovely peel and stick tile, moldy ceiling, and less than desirable paint colors.  Since then we have moved one bedroom door down and to the side, put in an A/C unit where there was once a tiny empty closet space, painted, wallpapered, put up a new ceiling, new light, and all new doors and trim.

Here is the same angle of the hallway the way it looks right now.  We still need to put the door knob on the linen closet, caulk all the trim, and put up crown molding.  Then the hallway will be complete!

For an idea of lay-out: the bathroom is the first door on the left, then the linen closet, then the master bedroom is the last door on the left.  Across from the master is another bedroom, and across from the hall bath is the third bedroom.

Here is a close-up of the grass cloth wallpaper.

Before I painted the hallway tan, I had it the green color of the entry room.  I felt like it looked too jungle themed with the green and grass cloth.  It works much better with tan.