New backyard view

A month ago I posted this picture on Facebook.

The utilities company needed to fix a major line for our neighborhood and did the majority of the digging in our yard. This was halfway through the digging before I realized that they would have to take down a tree in the process (the one behind the tractor, not the one next to it).

The nice thing is that the city contracts with a landscaping company to put it all back together for you. They ended up having to tear through a portion of our existing garden plot as well, taking out two sections of railroad ties.

Once they took down the tree I saw how much more light gets back in that corner so I asked them to have the stump removed so that they could put a whole new garden in for me.

After a few weeks of me being out of town and snow preventing the work, they finished today! It turned out great and really improved the look of our yard.

Here is my new view from the kitchen window.

And here it is a little bit closer.

Isn’t it great? I now have two garden spots and a path to the shed. I looked through my computer for any “before” pictures I might have, but I didn’t have any. Just picture an overgrown garden area, patchy rock covering and a section of broken fence. I would say we got the better end of this situation. *grin*

We’re also going to put a bench in the path area between the two gardens. The sad thing is this is what the rest of our yard looks like.

I think we are going to save up some money so that next spring we can finish off the look. But for now, I’m starting to think about what I’m going to plant in all my new garden space!

I went to a book signing and all I got was a spatula

Yesterday afternoon I decided I had a free evening and I probably could go to Denver for the book signing of the Pioneer Woman’s newly released cook book.

Fortunately through the magic that is facebook, my friend B was going with her mom (hi Bijou!) and offered to let me tag along!

We headed on our journey and made it to the store with some time to spare. Or did we? If we had chewed our Chipotle burritos a little faster this may have been a totally different story. We’re slow eaters.

B and Bijou had ordered their books but were still waiting for them to come so the three of us came to the store without our own copies. We headed to the cash register where they were selling copies. Turns out we got in line 4 people too late and the store had ran out of copies. So, we made our way to the signing line to figure out what we wanted to do.

Here is where we were

This is my view for the next 45 minutes. See that light on the right side of the picture? That’s the stairs leading to the room where the signing was happening. We thought we were in line for the signing and instead we were in line to get into the room so we could get in line for the signing. What were we thinking…

I finally decided I needed to go to the bathroom. I squeezed my way through the crowd and actually managed to take this picture (with my hand raised in the air at the back of the crowd).

All these lucky people were participating in a Q & A. Yes, they could see and hear Ree plus, they could actually ask her questions! All the upstairs people were still holding on to some hope that they may get a cookbook signed before midnight!

We got this close to the stairs when we decided we probably should have a copy of the book.

We called around and found three copies available at another nearby bookstore. I stayed in line and B went to go buy them. Remember where I was standing when they left? I was near that lamp when they got back. Yep, they left, got the car, drove to a store and got back during the time it took me to move five feet.

I now had my very own copy. And, I can actually say that this cookbook is gorgeous. On her blog she takes a picture of every step of the recipe and they have incorporated that idea into the book. I have never wanted to make so many recipes out of one cookbook before.

Hey look! We made it to the top of the stairs!

And this is the view I had for the rest of the evening. Yep, we made it four steps down before we realized that there was no order in the main room and the bookstore didn’t have any system for how people were in line (something you should think about if you have two points of access to a room). We think that we actually were moving forward because people were giving up and leaving, not because the line was actually progressing.

It was then that B’s sister-in-law offered to get our books signed for us since she was going to stay. Hooray! So after two hours of waiting we decided to head back home empty-handed. Well, not quite empty-handed. At hour 1 and a 1/2 some Chefs Catalog people showed up and handed out free spatulas.

So what did we learn? If you want to meet Pioneer Woman before midnight at a book signing, show up four hours early with your own copy of the book. Hopefully I’ll actually have my copy later this week.

Here are a couple more pics for the fun of it.

Before we left I went down to the room to get a picture of her. I had the zoom on and this was as close as I got.

The next three pictures is the aerial view of where we spent our evening (think of it as one big panoramic).

B and Bijou are standing where we started.
where we stood most of the evening
we finished right under here on the stairs.

So even though we didn’t get very far I had a fun time, thanks B and Bijou for letting me tag along! And thanks A for getting the autograph for us!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Abby Cadabby!

Halloween craft

I had one last piece of Isabelle’s halloween costume that I needed to get finished today. I wasn’t sure how it’d work out- but I had a pretty good idea in my head.

After a $5 trip to Hobby Lobby this morning, I came home with this.

Then I gathered up all my supplies.

Didn’t you know that chocolate chips are a very important part of crafting? Well, they are.
I didn’t get a pic of my first step because I don’t mix saws and cameras. My cheapest option was to buy a long dowel, so I cut it down to size when I got home.

I started out by making the top of the wand. I used pre-cut rug yarn for this step so I wouldn’t have to buy a whole skeen and cut it. I piled the two colors together and then added the rubber band around the middle.

Then I made it poof.

I followed that with wrapping the ribbon around the dowel. I found out when I got home that my white ribbon was see through so I wrapped that twice. I added hot glue in various spots so the ribbon would stay put. The actual wand has colored ribbon crisscrossing around the stick so I added a purple ribbon. I hot glued my puff on the top and came up with this!

This wand is the final step to my Abby Cadabby costume for Isabelle. Check out the original wand (and Abby):

Stay tuned tomorrow for our version of Abby Cadabby. I had fun making her costume this year.

Catching Up

Isabelle is turning 2 next month. It’s not hard to believe because, well, we all have birthdays and it has been two years. What’s hard to believe or just fun is to see how much of a little girl she is turning into.

She walks around the house talking, loves reading books, and takes very good care of her stuffed animals. I don’t know if I’m encouraging imagination or in serious need of some new toys, but apparently stuffed elephants can drink from lotion, toothpaste, and little containers (I guess it’s time for doll bottles in the play room, or dolls for that matter).

Our upcoming holidays are going to be a blast with Bue-bo and Buela coming for Thanksgiving AND Christmas (thank goodness for work conferences!). Plus all her aunts and uncles are coming too. She doesn’t know it, but she can hardly wait.

It’s always in my mind to blog a little more. I noticed that I got dropped from one of my friends blogroll- so I’m making my year end goal to get back on it! I’m not just going to ask for it, I’m going to earn it back! If I don’t, feel free to pester me.

new bed

Our little baby has achieved another big girl milestone- a new toddler bed. She’s been in it for almost a month now and is doing great.

Except for the afternoons where I find her like this in the middle of her nap:

Yes, she did take all the pants out of the drawer before she fell asleep. And, she is using a bear as a pillow.

First Hair Cut

Despite my last post making it seem like we never got out of DC, we did and have had a pretty busy summer. I may come back and update about everything we did, but I’ll with Isabelle’s first official haircut, which was a couple of weeks ago.

Her hair was starting to get a little out of control. Since I really have no idea how to cut hair and her’s has a slight curl, I am one of those moms who spend too much for a little hair trim. But- you only have your first hair cut once!

Here we are getting ready for the trim. You can see what I mean by out of control.

Once the cape came on, the crying began.

It was a good thing that there were extra workers around. The only way we got through the haircut was having one lady blow bubbles while the other cut the hair.

And finally, we finished and Isabelle has a nice new look!

Long day traveling

Day one of our vacation.

Hey! We made it on all our flights today. Isabelle hasn’t flown in almost a year so we weren’t sure how she’d do.

Thankfully she did great- got a little bored a couple of times and was real wiggly.

So that’s what layovers are for.

She got all her running out in Atlanta and we were on our way again.

Tomorrow is our busiest day so we’ll see how we do with the time change and less sleep.

Good night!

The weekend recap

We actually had a weekend worth documenting this week! Tim has been busy finishing his grad school courses this semester so we haven’t been able to do very much (for the last three years…).  But, he’s done with classes and now just has to finish his thesis! Yay!

We decided to take advantage of the three day weekend (like everyone else) and head up to see our good friends in the mountains. On our way up we stopped at the outlet mall to pick up some things for the wedding we are going to this weekend and scored some major sales. Good thing we were headed somewhere or Tim would’ve had to endure a day’s worth of shopping.

Once we got to Winter Park we headed out for a hike to test out the backpack carrier we borrowed for our trip. What we thought would be a short fun hike turned into a long fun hike. We had to ford some swamps that are still melting from the the winter, but it was a great day to be out. When we got to the road to get back to the car we let Isabelle out to walk and she had a good time running down the road. That was the part I wish I had my camera for. She looked real cute in the middle of the forest walking down a country road.

Sunday was pretty low key and then on Monday we hung out with some friends of ours from our small group. And we ate chinese take-out. On Memorial Day. The national day of BBQ’s and grilling. We also played Rock Band for the first time. Which was a blast. That game may be making an appearance in our house someday, we’ll have to start saving up.

We’re getting ready to leave on our family vacation this week. I’m taking my computer with me so I’ll keep you guessing as to where we are going and then I’ll post our fun trip.

Time to get dressed! Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Fingerpainting

Look!

A post!

With pictures!

I’m emerging from the land of I’m-too-busy-to-blog-so-I’ll-just-post-facebook-status-updates to bring you a real, live post.

According to my memory card, I let Isabelle finger paint for the first time about a month ago. She had a great time doing it.

At first she didn’t know what to do. After a couple of times pulling her hands out of her mouth she finally started to get the hang of it. I was extra careful not to get her clothes messy and then she ran over to me and planted two perfect handprints on my shirt! Yikes. Fortunately, stain stick and Oxy Clean get out fingerpaint!

Her favorite part of the whole day was clapping her hands together:

Yay! Mommy let me get dirty!

We have some fun things planned for the summer, including something real fun next week (our first family vacation!). So hopefully I’ll be better about updating things around here- if not, harass me or something!