Cute Kids

Where have I been? Busy! Gosh!

Larry and I ran a Pinewood derby for grown-ups at church (ok, Larry ran it, and I held Creed and was coated in spit-up)

Then between house guests and babysitting this is what dinner looked like at our house Friday night . . .

Babies galore!!!!

And speaking of babies. Creed's still working on getting his tongue to allow him to swallow rice cereal.

And Creed seems to have perfected the art of flirting. I sold my first fairy door to my friend Nikki so Creed had a chance to play with Audrey, and they held hands completely on their own! Here they are shocked at being caught in the act. So cute!
I swear that this kid is getting cuter by the day!

Once Upon A Time Design

So do you remember that box on my porch that marked the beginning of a new project? Well, I'm finally ready to tell you about it!

First a little back-story. When I was little the Cleaning Fairy used to visit our home. She would leave treats if she found our house was clean, and she would leave notes telling us she was a little disappointed if she stopped by when the house was dirty and she said she would be back soon to give us a second chance to get some treats so we would hurry to clean things up.

I think those memories are part of why I was so enchanted when Candice showed me Jonathon Wright's Urban Fairy site. Jonathon lives in an old house in Michigan and as he was remodeling his home, he kept "discovering" fairy doors. Apparently fairy doors are an Irish tradition, but usually they are much more rustic and you find them in gardens. Jonathon discovered "urban" fairies in their home. He has two little girls who loved the tiny doors. He went all out and even designed some little rooms in his walls and fireplace with tiny armchairs and staircases inside. So cute! You have to check them out if you have time.

The old section of downtown Ann Arbor wasn't doing too well, and Jonathon wanted to help so he started installing fairy doors at businesses around town and now people go to visit all of them. His doors are so ornate and amazing so of course I wanted one, but he doesn't sell them, and I couldn't find cool fairy doors like his ANYWHERE. So what's a girl to do? Make her own of course and then make some extras to share the fun.

I just opened my own etsy shop. I still need to make a few adjustments to the shop, but I'm so happy with how the doors have turned out so far. Here are pictures of a few of the doors.

I think it would be so fun if different kinds of fairies lived in each home. You could have a library fairy who leaves books for different special occasions, or a travel fairy that lives you tickets and travel plans. A movie fairy that brings you different movies to watchor a junk food fairy that leaves behind treats. What kind of fairy would you want at your house?

Solid

Creed had a doctor's appointment today, which meant he got a lot of shots, but he also got permission from his doctor to try his first solid food! Here's Larry feeding him Rice Cereal for the first time.

He loved being in his high chair for the first time, and this picture pretty much sums up what he thought about the Rice Cereal.
And here's a video clip of Mr. Creed from this evening. If you played it over and over about fifty times, you might have an idea of how long he'll continue what he's doing.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Lovely weekend

We had a nice relaxed weekend, but we did manage to make it to a farmer's market on our way to visit the Erney family. I picked up these gorgeous sunflowers.And Larry found . . .
an onion. Uh . . . yum!

Potter Mania

What kind of children's literature expert would I be if we didn't celebrate the release of the last Harry Potter book? We decided Friday evening that we better at least go to a release party so I whipped a shirt for Larry that said, "Trust Snape", we drew a lightening bolt on Creed's forehead for good measure, and we met up with our friends Jason and Liz.

We figured Creed would fall asleep on the ride to Barnes and Noble and be out for the evening, but he was wide awake for all of the festivies and he seemed to enjoy them. The store was giving out glow in the dark Harry Potter glasses and they had a lot of fun things going on: decorate your own Hogwarts tie, a trivia scavenger hunt, take your picture with a cardboard Harry Potter, a costume contest, etc. The costumes were great. We got to meet Mad Eye Moody (who was a little creepy).

The store was crazy busy and it was just fun to be there with so many excited people.

Here we are the midst of the craziness with Jason and Liz.Everywhere we went, everyone loved Creed AKA Baby Harry and who could blame him when he looked this cute?

Larry's t-shirt helped him make some friends too.

We left before midnight and picked our books at Kroger, where there wasn't much of a line and we could also pick up some ice cream. I think we wore Jason out.

Is there a doctor in the house?

We seem to have two doctors in the house!

These baby scrubs are from a teddy bear that used to be in Larry's parents' house. We had to cut a slit so Creed's head could fit in them, but otherwise they fit perfectly. Larry picked Creed's fussiest time of the day to try them on Creed so we'll have to do another photoshoot later when he's in a better mood, but I couldn't resist posting these.
How cute does Creed look in scrubs?

I'm cleaning up my act

OK, so it's no secret that I make a lot of creative messes, and if you stop by you can count on my house being a big mess (and there is a difference between messy and dirty!). I usually tell myself it's ok, but since the arrival of Creed it's really becoming out of control. So what's a girl to do? That's what I was wondering when my friend Stephanie, interior designer and organizer extraordinaire, volunteered to come over and help me get organized. I owe her a huge thank you because she spent ALL DAY with me, and I finally feel like I can function again when I'm upstairs!

Culinary discoveries

Today I checked another one of the things I wanted to do before we move off of my list, I visited Pistachio, and dessert shop in the Short North that's supposed to be amazing. I was coming home from dropping off a friend at the airport and figured why not stop by while I had some free time. Pistachio is a tiny shop in an alley and I wouldn't have discovered it if a friend hadn't told me about it. The desserts were gorgeous and the owner Anne is so nice!

They display samples of everything up front. They show you what a whole cake looks like next to what the individual portion looks like.

And all of the cookies are amazing so I had to pick some of those up too.

Who can resist a sweet package like this?

Or dessert that looks like this?
It was enough to inspire Creed to try his hand at cooking dinner.

Honey, I think we shrunk!

So Larry and I have started a list of things that we want to see in the area before we move to Utah next year and one of the things I listed was that I wanted to spend more time exploring the local metro parks. We decided that we would explore some of them for Family Home Evening on Monday nights for the next few months. Tonight we went to Inniswood Gardens because they just started displaying David Rogers' Big Bug sculptures. It was so much fun and the weather was perfect. Larry kept saying that we have to go back to spend more time exploring the gardens soon. If you're planning a trip there soon I would skip the pictures posted here because I think it's more fun to be surprised, but that's because I love surprises (I won't even read the descriptions on the backs of books because I don't want to know what's going to happen ahead of time, but Larry often reads the last page ahead of time, which drives me nuts!)

This spider really gave me the heebie jeebies! I hate spiders and I couldn't even look at this without shivering!Creed really enjoyed reading about the bugs.I highly recommend checking it out if you have a chance!

Friday in the park with Creed

We went to Shakespeare in the park Friday night with Donny and Jessica.

I'm thinking Creed didn't enjoy it too much, but I can't blame him. Let's just say it wasn't the best version of King Lear that I've seen. At least the weather was beautiful and it was nice just to spend an evening outside.

Austen anyone?

This definately seems to be the year of Jane Austen with all the movies and books coming out this year, and yet I couldn't be happier to read this today. Who couldn't use a little more Jane Austen in their life?

Oh what could it be?

Something is brewing at our house!

I got a delivery that I'm very excited about because it marks the beginning of a new project. More details to come later when I have something to show you.

Party Planners

In my family we love holidays and festivities of all kinds. I love being from a family of party planners and I've been missing out on some big time fun while my sister Candice stays with my parents for the summer.

In the last week they threw a baby shower for Marissa that looked like this

And my mom threw a Harry Potter preview party for the company she works for (to thank doctors for their referrals). The employees from her company had to dress up as Harry Potter characters and she went as Madame Hooch, the flying instructor. How awesome does she look?
Hopefully Candice doesn't mind that I stole both of these pictures from her blog candicestringham.typepad.com

I think this year's Halloween party theme is going to have to be Harry Potter. My awesome friend Heather is already on board to help me plan it. Now I just have to come up with a costume as good as my mom's. Who should I be?

Cincinnati

We've started a list of things we want to do and places that we want to visit before we move back west, and one of the top things on our list was visit the Freedom Center in Cincinnati to learn more about the Underground Railroad. Larry had Wednesday off so we packed up and headed south for the day. You how Larry loves to read historical signs and watch the history channel so he was in heaven.

And you know how I love shoes so it was fun to see this exhibit for kids there too.

So what were we up to during the blogging break?

We were busy hanging out with Creed, celebrating the 4th, and having fun with friends.

I was also working on a lot of crafty goodness. I painted a big letter "C" for Creed's room a long time ago, and I wanted a star to go on the wall behind it so I finally got around to putting that together.

I made another hooded monster towel for a friend that we've owed a baby gift to for quite awhile.

I also made some more monogram onesies. I can't show you the fronts of them because I want them to be a surprise, but isn't this ruffle bum cute? (I promise the ruffles are straight in real life)And I also played around with some ideas for more baby hairclips.

Any ideas for more?