Ten on Tuesday

{1}

Its January 31st already?!

Yowsa!

Guess we'd better get crackin' on those taxes.

{2}

After nearly three months of 'flying by the seat of our pants' cooking, I have got us back on a meal plan.

{sigh of relief}

Life is so much easier when organized, no?


{3}
Speaking of organized...

Kendry has demonstrated a few distinct Type A personality characteristics lately.

I asked him to put some of his laundry away; when I found him a few minutes later he was ever so carefully laying his underwear in a neat stack in his drawer.

Then, while waiting for his clock to turn green one morning, he made the most of his free time and laid out his clothes for the day.

I couldn't be more proud.

Justin couldn't be more freaked.



{4}
Aren't those toddler Wranglers the cutest?!

Kendry picked them out to wear again yesterday; when I asked him to turn around so Mommy could take a picture he refused.

Party pooper.

{5}
GO GIANTS!

I'm a sucker for those Manning boys.



{6}

The kiddo has retaliated against his alarm clock a bit lately and, as I've mentioned before, he always comes to my side of the bed when he does this.

After one of these rough nights last week, Justin and I were feeling clever and switched sides of the bed so:

a) I could get a good night's rest without kiddo interruption; and

b) Justin could do some bad cop parenting.

Stupid plan.

I slept for nine hours but it wasn't good sleep; I was a grump all day long as a result.

And the kiddo? He never even came into our room! In fact, he overslept that morning.

Typical.

So yes, I'm here to tell you that waking up (and sleeping) on the wrong side of the bed does indeed have its consequences. No wonder they have a saying for it!

 

{7}
Said at the dinner table last night:
"I want to make you happy, Mom."

My precious child, you make me happier than you will ever know.



{8}
I fell in love with this printable on Pinterest this week and already shipped it off to be printed for me at Costco Photo:

(source)
The funny thing is, I have pretty much given up Diet Coke.

Are you shocked? Cuz I am.



{9}
Poor kiddo got his fingers bitten while feeding the neighborhood horses this weekend. He was doing a great job of keeping his hand flat but the horse got excited and thought Kendry's finger was the carrot. I'm not sure which hurt worse, his fingers or his pride. He loves those horses.


{10}
This Week's Blessing:
After keeping Kendry occupied outside for most of the morning on Saturday, Justin took him to a basketball game that afternoon. I cannot remember the last time I had so much time to myself in my own house.

My hubby is the greatest!

 

Whats in a Guitar?

Remember the guitar we made out of recycled materials a few months back?

Priceless, I tell you.

Kendry has enjoyed this guitar more than I ever dreamed.

Although its merely cardboard, duct tape, rubberbands and twine, this guitar has withstood toddler destruction better than some commercially manufactured toys - mostly thanks to the half roll of duct tape we have used for repair jobs once every two weeks.

Lately Kendry has upped his rock star antics to include jumping with the beat and finishing the song with a floor dive.

And you wonder why the guitar needs to be repaired so often?

This song is one of his favorites, and one of mine as well.

This is the chorus he is singing:

"Oh, happy day! Happy day!

You washed our sins away.

Oh, happy day! Happy day!

I'll never be the same.

Forever I am changed."

What a joy to explain to Kendry this song is about Jesus washing our sins away.

Kendry is practically devastated whenever part of the guitar breaks. He will hover over my shoulder while I repair it, watching with such a serious face you would think I was performing an actual surgery.

I dread the day the guitar is destroyed beyond repair - more for myself than for Kendry.

You see, what Kendry doesn't know is that his grandparents got him a real guitar for Christmas. 'Real' as in not made out of cardboard. I'm sure his cardboard guitar will be forgotten mere seconds after he gets the real one in his hot little hands. Such is the way it goes.

Sentimentalist that I am, it breaks my heart to even think of throwing the cardboard guitar away at the end of its life.

Am I silly for wanting to save it in Kendry's keepsake box?

Pull Up A Seat, Kiddo

One of my very favorite projects to date is the kiddo kitchen nook. Not only has the table been the perfect place for Kendry to sit for a quick snack or complete a craft, but we love the chalkboard. Kendry practices his budding artistic skills now and then, and at other times I use it to write something fun.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, this is my current message:

 

Best kiddo book ever, right?

 

The table has also worked perfectly as a kiddo seating area when we have dinner guests.

The only drawback is that we only had the little bucket seat.

 

I'll be the first to admit that as cute as this bucket seat might be, its not the easiest for kiddos to sit on. Its just a wee bit tall for kiddos, and if you don’t sit on it just right it can get a little tipsy.

So even before I finished the nook I was searching for more seating.

I found this little cutie at my neighbor's yard sale last June for just a couple bucks. It was just the right height for our kiddo table.

Can you say ‘meant to be’?

 

But the roses weren't really doing it for me. And Kendry is a boy, after all.

So I slapped a little paint on her.

Then, to give it a little more character, I drafted my own subway art in Microsoft Publisher, printed it out and stenciled it onto the seat using this method.

Time consuming, yes. Particularly when you don’t have a fancy set of fine-tipped artist paintbrushes. But it was worth every painstaking minute because the words turned out just as I had envisioned.

 

Here she is at home in the nook.

 

Ten on Tuesday

{1}
For those of you still waiting to receive our Christmas card...
you will be waiting a long time...
as in next December.

What can I say?
December got busy and my super cool Christmas card idea was thwarted at the last minute.
THIS was as close as I got.

Sometimes you just have to know when to throw in the towel.

I'll do better next year, I promise.

 

{2}

I have this thing about reading the book before I see the movie.

Chalk it up to my Type A personality.

More often than not I am then disappointed by the movie ("The Notebook" anyone?), but thats fine.

Its a good thing "The Help" is already out on DVD because I finished the book this week and can't wait to see how the movie plays out.

Very, very good read.

{3}

And speaking of books...
I got myself a Kindle Fire!

I feel so hip.

This weekend I made a simple cover for it. It didn't turn out quite as I would have liked - I screwed up the elastic a bit - but it is still cute and will work for the time being. Plus, I already had all the supplies so it was free. Yeah, baby!

Did you notice the cute little pocket on the left side?

I followed this tutorial.

{4}

Picnik will be no more come April.
I am so bummed.


 

{5} and {6}

The cutest baking partner ever,

and my super-cute (albeit ancient) KitchenAid beautified by the decal my sister bought me.

Love you, Jaim!

 

{7}
Buttermilk is my new best friend.
 Not only does it rock my Red Velvet Cake recipe, but it makes the yummiest coffee cake and incredible homemade pancakes. I can't believe I am 31 and only now realizing one should always have buttermilk in their fridge.

{8}

I attended a baby shower this week and had so much fun trying out a new gift idea I found on Pinterest.

My inspiration:

(source)

Those are baby wash cloths rolled up like lollipops and stuck onto a baby spoon.

So. Very. Cute.

Mine:

{9}
I love my evening craft time but boy does it make for lousy lighting in my pictures.
Sorry, folks.

{10}

This Week's Blessing:
Our local library has gone digital!
This means they do ebooks.
Yippee!
{A little shout out to Cassie for notifying me of this development. Thanks, Cassie!}

Stubborn to the Core

THE SCENE:

Its just another relaxing Sunday afternoon when the kiddo gets a little attitude and is instructed to spend some time in his room until dinner is ready.

We shut the bedroom door behind him.

He opens the door.

We shut the door behind him again.

He opens the door again.

This act of defiance happens two more times before he finally grasps that Daddy means business when he says "Keep this door shut."

Five eerily quiet minutes later we notice this.

Do you see it?

How 'bout now?

He obeyed Daddy and kept his door shut alright, but I'll be darned if he wasn't going to find some way to defy us by getting at least part of his body on the other side of that bedroom door.

To top it off, he was tapping his little fingers as though impatiently counting down the seconds until freedom.


That kiddo has got some will.

The One With The Tin Foil

When I first saw this technique used I was a bit skeptical...

...and yet intrigued.

Could it really be that simple to create such a neat texture using tin foil?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Mandy over at Vintage Revivals did this to a nightstand of all things!

Miss Mustard Seed did it on a frame.

Me?

I chose this simple urn I found for a few dollars at my local thrift store.

My first instinct was to paint it a bright white and use it as a vase. I could see it stacked with beautiful tulips on my dining room table. But I was also feeling the itch to try something new.

First I gave the urn a coat of light gray paint I had from another project. I didn't want the ugly brown paint and flowers showing through if I ended up with any gaps in my layer of foil.
{no offense to the original artist}

After letting the paint dry, I proceeded to cut approximately 5x5 inch squares of my household tin foil.

I wrinkled up each square and then flattened them back out. Then I Mod-Podged each square individually onto the urn, painting another coat of Mod-Podge over the top of the squares once they were applied.

I applied only one layer of foil over the entire urn and lid, trying not to overlap the foil too much.

After this first layer dried I gave the entire urn one more coat of Mod-Podge to help truly secure the foil.

This was followed by a light coat of my Valspars Antiquing Glaze.


How amazing is that texture?

Much better than plain old white.

Since its only January I had to use some artificial foliage, but come April she is going to look stunning filled with tulips.

Christmas in Alaska

Happy New Year, everyone!

Now that we've been home two weeks and are somewhat back in to the swing of things, I can feel my blog mojo returning in full force. In case you didn't already know, 2012 is going to be fabulous!

A year ago I asked Justin if we could please make it work to spend our next Christmas with my family in Fairbanks, Alaska. The last time we were home for Christmas was right after we were married in 2005. My oh my, how six years passes quickly!

And we made it happen. On the evening of December 22nd we boarded the plane in Lewiston, officially Alaska bound. We had been counting down to this day for several weeks and Kendry was so unbelievably excited. We even bought him his own tiny backpack for the plane, but failed to take a picture of him wearing it. Doh!

Upon locating our seats on the plane Kendry promptly popped his head over the back of our seats and informed the nearby passengers "We're on the plane!"

"We're on the plane!"

"We're on the plane!"

He really said it three times like that.

In the span of twenty seconds.

The novelty wore off one hour into our Seattle to Fairbanks flight - when we still had another two and a half hours in the air - at which point I was kicking myself for forgetting the Children's Tylenol.

We arrived in Fairbanks around midnight and were met by my parents and temperatures hovering around zero degrees. And what do you think I did first? Well, after sleeping, of course. I was in my parents' hot tub by 8:30am, having an early morning coffee date with two of my sisters and my sister-in-law. Sub-zero temperatures or not, we were starting this trip off right.

If you know my family and how crazy busy we get when we're all together, particularly with thirteen grandchildren running loose, you know there is no possible way for me to capture all the details of this fun trip. So allow me to summarize the high points for you:

Our first day (December 23rd) was spent primarily with my sister Stephanie and her family since they left the following morning for a three week vacation in Chile. That evening the entire family congregated at my sister Jaimee's house for our main celebration: dinner, singing a few Christmas carols, a white elephant exchange, and the cousin gift exchange.

Here are the Binder women in attendance:

Here is our little man at the end of a very busy first day.

{Why does our kiddo wait until just days before prime photo opportunities (Christmas, birthday, etc.) to bruise that forehead of his into submission?}

A big thank you to the Coon Family for hosting! Everything was beautiful!

Christmas Eve involved a few last minute errands throughout the day, an easy dinner of various appetizers, and opening presents with the kiddos. With a church service on Christmas morning we knew it would be difficult for the kiddos to open their presents before church. And when I say kiddos I mean Kendry, my sister's three, and my brother's four.

It was a busy scene.

Kendry made out like a bandit and got four play guns for Christmas this year.

On Christmas morning Justin, Kendry and I opened our stockings together.

Kendry and his first train whistle.



The rest of Christmas day included church, dinner at my parents' house, presents for the adults and a fun time simply hanging out as a family.

Against my better judgment, I will give you one peek into my first DDR experience. I was the brave soul who volunteered to go first. We played it a few more times during our visit.

Even with Christmas over there were still good times to be had.

{Quick, name that movie!}

Justin took Kendry sledding in the driveway and for a quick ride on my parents' 4-wheeler. At this point it was at least -10 degrees; do their pink cheeks give it away? Kendry didn't last long.

There was a lot of time playing with cousins.



These two are 6 months apart and each is a spitfire in their own right.

Cocoa puffs at 9pm probably didn't help.

My brother's boys got dino jammies for Christmas, just like Kendry's.



Kendry copying Caden and going shirtless.

I met a dear friend from my high school days for lunch.

Our boys are only a few months apart in age.

The gals did some crafting at my sister Jaimee's house.

Said gals from left to right: my sister-in-law Kathy, sister Jaimee and sister Angel.

We did our traditional breakfast with my pops at Hilltop.

And we even attended a birthday party at McDonalds for my nephew Trevor.

On our last night we attempted to round up all the kiddos for a group shot.

We missed a few.

And that, in a nutshell, is our Christmas in Alaska adventure.

Despite all three of us catching a brief stomach bug, we had a great visit.

And this time we didn't get bumped from our 6am flight out of Fairbanks.

{You gotta count your blessings where you can.}

To our Alaska family:

Thank you for a wonderful trip.

We love and miss you all so much already!

Snow Day

Yesterday morning we woke to find four inches of snow on the ground, and it snowed at least another four  inches by noon. A few roads were closed. Schools closed around noon, as did Justin's office. My work released us early to drive home while the daylight remained.

It was as much of a snow day as we get around these parts.

Justin and I hurried home and took the kiddo outside for some fun.

The last time we frolicked in the snow in our back yard Kendry whined each time any snow found its way onto his skin, as in snow getting on his face or between his glove and jacket sleeve. After five or six whining incidents in the span of a half hour I was seriously thinking to myself "And this is why we need to move to Alaska, so my kiddo can toughen up a bit. Its just snow, for Pete's sake!"

Alright, so that thought probably won't win me Mother of the Year anytime soon, but at least I'm honest. 

You can't blame the kiddo though. Our valley gets maybe one really good snow a year.

But wouldn't you know it, Alaska appears to have toughened him up. Kendry didn't whine one bit about the snow when he went sledding (and flying out of his sled face first) in Alaska. Nor did he whine when we ventured out to my parents' hot tub in nothing but our bathing suits. 

Yesterday I saw Kendry get snow between his glove and jacket sleeve countless times; he simply paused to brush it off and then kept right on playing.

Atta' boy, Kendry!