Nursery: Part 2

The crib is assembled, the changing table is up, and there are clothes in the closet...our nursery is almost ready for Baby Boy Forristall!  We decided to keep everything neutral, as we will want to use it again for another baby in either 2 years or 10, depending on how life with our first little guy goes.  We don't really have a 'theme' because, well, I'm just not a 'theme' person.  We are using blues and greens and putting up items we love.  Along with the DIY projects, we also hung a map and a Star Wars quote.  Both were Kevin's ideas and I have to say I really love one of them and the other, well, I don't love it as much, but I am living with it because I really love Kevin.  Kevin's idea to hang a map I LOVE.  We hung it without glass and are planning on putting push pins up on the places that Baby Boy Forristall visits.  For awhile, push pins will only adorn Ottumwa and Macedonia (which isn't on the map) and possibly some other Iowa stops, but as he grows so will the amount of push pins.
The other Kevin idea is a Star Wars' quote, something about a Jedi.  This item is partly my fault because I showed it to Kevin on Etsy as a (haha) joke.  I guess I should feel lucky we're having a boy, because Kevin wanted to hang it without taking gender into consideration.  Kevin loved Star Wars as a kid and I think he wants to relive some of those childhood memories with his son, starting with this quote on the wall.  Although I may not have picked it for the nursery, it makes Kevin happy and that's pretty worth it.
We still have some things to do including curtains and finding a little side table to put beside the chair, along with organizing day to day baby items.  We have a few months yet and I'm sure it will all get done as November nears.  The excitement is building and as I am definitely enjoying being pregnant and feeling our little guy move all the time, I am surely ready to meet him, hold him, and give him lots of hugs and kisses.

And they scream.....

I adore Rascal Flatts.  In college, Rascal was what my friends and I listened to all. the. time.  They adore them, too.  We all adore them so much, in college, we 'camped out all night on the sidewalk just to get tickets'...TWICE.  Once, it was in a storm: a big, scary, windy, rainy storm.   

Now that we're grown ups and do mind sleeping on pavement, we acquired tickets the responsible way, ordering them through Ticketmaster.  I know, definitely not as much fun, but definitely not as crazy as your blankets and coolers flying away in a storm...

The concert was this past week and some of my college girlfriends made the trip to the Trail to go see them perform for the ? time.  We had an incredible time together.  There is never a dull moment with this group and I think I laughed three-fourths of the time.  It was also Baby Boy Forristall's first concert, which Betsy pointed out, and we all thought that was fitting.  He seemed to enjoy the show; he was moving around like crazy during the entire thing.  I think he was dancing and singing (every single word) with the rest of us.  We definitely missed some of our friends that have gone with us in the past, but we thought of them and sang/screamed extra, extra loud for them.  Next year ladies?

bi, paula, br, me, kayla

Nursery Project #2: Alphabet Boards

My second nursery project was something I found on Pinterest and wanted to do badly.  It was a little out of my 'realm' of creativity and craftiness, but I gave it a go anyway, with the help of Kevin.  I knew I wanted the alphabet somewhere in the nursery and this little project was perfect (and inexpensive).


The items I used were:
-3 9.5 by 12.5 plywood boards
-paint
-alphabet cards
-push pins
-corner tool


First, I located three 9.5 by 12.5 plywood boards.  You wouldn't think this would be too difficult a task, but I was at Home Depot for about 2 hours waiting on a kind young man to cut them for me.  After leaving the store and texting Kevin, he said, "I could have cut them for you."  Now you tell me.  That's okay, it was one less part Kevin had to complete of the project.  When I got them home, Kevin painted them with some leftover blue paint from our living room.  (As a side note, I wish we would have stained them first and then painted so we could have used sandpaper to give the boards a more worn feel.)

I bought an alphabet download from Etsy to use for the alphabet cards.  I love the look of them and they were really easy to cut.  I used a corner rounding tool after I cut them out to make them look polished.  I found them here.  The pushpins I found at Wal-Mart for a few bucks.

The last step was laying out the cards and fastening them to the boards.  This was the easy and fun part!

All in all, it was a pretty forgiving project and not as difficult as I first imagined.  Although it might not have turned out perfect, I think our little guy will enjoy looking at them just the same.

A mouse, tapas, pedicures and lots of shopping

This past weekend Kevin was away in Vegas for a bachelor party, so it was a perfect opportunity to have a girl's weekend.  My mom, sister (Rachael), brother's girlfriend (Shamica) and her daughter, Mae, all came to have an all-inclusive girl's weekend.  We had so much fun, we decided it has to be an annual event.  
The fun started as we were getting ready to go into town for some shopping and tapas.  We were all dressed up and walking out the door when I stopped dead in my tracks.  There was a real mouse, dead as a doornail, lying by the basement door.  Being the 'country girl' that I am, I scooted up the stairs as fast as my pregnant body could go and tried to get the little mouse's image out of my mind.  I believe I might have been shouting, "Ewwwwwwww!!!"  Meanwhile, my younger sister, Rachael, calmly disposed of the mouse in the dumpster.  My mom would say, 'bless her pea picking little heart.'  Yes, bless her heart because I thought I was going to have to call Kevin's dad, Gary, to come down and save us girls from the big, bad, dead mouse.  

After chatting about the mouse all the way into town and through shopping, we headed to Espana's for some Spanish tapas.  The girls had never had tapas before, so I was excited to introduce them to these yummy little dishes.  We had spicy potatoes, sizzling shrimp, mussels, and chicken empanadas to name a few.  Mae loved the spicy potatoes, good thing we ordered two of them.  I think she ate one dish all by herself. 

mom and daughter...mae wore her brand new sunglasses

yummy!!!!

The rest of the weekend was spent shopping, shopping, shopping, along with an amazing hour of pedicures.  My mom spoiled all of us, especially her soon-to-be-grandson.  It was an incredible weekend spent with incredible people and I can't wait until next year when we can do it all over again.  Everything, except the mouse part.

Nursery Project #1 (kind of): Closet Organizers

My first nursery project didn't go as planned.  Let's just say I wanted to make this cute yarn ball mobile and it literally deflated before my eyes.  After wrapping balloons in glue soaked yarn and letting the balls dry overnight, I popped the balloons the next day and the yarn ball, along with the balloon, deflated, leaving a flat, non-round mess of yarn.  This is not supposed to happen.  The balloon is supposed to pop and leave a nice, round yarn ball, perfect for a nursery mobile.  Kevin thinks I didn't use enough glue, but he didn't see the glue I cleaned off the counter, floor, my clothes, hands, etc.  Whatever the problem, I think it was with the crafter, not the craft.  I still need some practice with this crafting stuff.  After Kevin and I had a good laugh about my Pinterest fail, I decided I needed a painless project to raise my confidence a little.  

these are what they were supposed to look like
i didn't take a picture of mine...too embarrassing

I got this cute idea from my friend, Shelby, who is due with her first baby any day now.  (Thanks Shelbs!)  These are super easy tags that I made to organize Baby Boy Forristall's clothes.  I am in that nesting stage and I can't organize enough.  


The materials needed are:
-scrapbook paper
-glue
-number/letter stickers or stamps
-ribbon


I chose two different kinds of scrapbook paper and simply cute them into squares and glued.  I put stickers on for each of the designated sizes.  

Finally, I punched some holes at the top, squeezed some ribbon through and tied them on in the closet.

  
This is a straightforward project and it's exactly what I needed after the previous laughable one.
P.S. If anyone has a (simple) DIY mobile, please comment or email me!  

done!

There's something about a tractor...

There is just something about little boys and tractors.  Since moving to the farm, Kevin has become Mr. Popular with all the boys that come to visit and it is for one very important reason.  Kevin can drive a tractor.  He can give tractor rides.
Last week, one of my favorite little boys, Cooper, came to visit with his mommy, Paige.  The first afternoon they were in town we went down to the machine shed to show Coop the tractor and lawnmower.  He sat on the lawnmower for a solid 45 minutes pretending to drive and saying 'drive home and go to sleep'.
After coaxing Coop to get off the lawnmower so we could eat, Kevin got home.  Kevin stole him away for a tractor ride and that was it.  He was sold.  He went on an encore ride the following night and became Kevin's best friend.
Although the tractor rides were the highlight for Cooper, we also did some shopping and visited the Wildlife Safari in Ashland, Nebraska.  It was a great little visit and I know that next time Coop comes to the Trail he will run straight to Kevin...for a tractor ride.

the lawnmower

getting ready for s'mores

cooper's first s'more
interested in the chocolate and that's about it

pretty elk at the wildlife safari

tadaaaaaaaa

two cute boys

Nursery: Part 1

Last weekend I started getting a little antsy about the nursery.  I started having visions of our baby sleeping on the floor, in a dresser drawer, in Abel's bed, etc.  We still have 17 weeks to go until our little guy gets here, but some of you know me as the slightly anxious type and this nursery thing had me anxious.  So, we got busy...or should I say Kevin got busy.  I was more of the, um, supervisor.  Kevin did most of the work during part 1: moving out furniture and putting things together.  It's amazing what he can do when he has some tunes playing and a cold beer...the sky is the limit!  We aren't even close to being finished, yet, but I wanted to get some pictures up of what the nursery looks like before it's complete.

This room got a face lift during our remodel.  It was previously adorned with blue shag carpet.  The carpet was removed and the floors sanded.

The closet with  lots of stuff stuffed in there.

A little cubby hole where a desk used to be, which Kevin removed and stored.

Kevin working on the crib.

Kevin's 'tools'

Flag dessert pizza

Happy 4th of July, just a tad bit late.  Kevin and I spent the day at the Quarry and then with our friends, Kara and Todd and their little sweetheart, Amelia.  I made a flag dessert pizza to take over for dessert and after a little work, we finally got it out of the pan (next time I'll use a pizza pan instead of a cookie sheet, it stuck a little).  I know that the 4th of July is over and all that, but you can make this pizza in any shape you want with whatever toppings you want.  It's incredibly simple and tasty.

Here is the recipe:

Flag dessert pizza

2 16.5 ounce tubes of sugar cookie dough

2 8 ounce packages of cream cheese

1 cup of sugar

4 teaspoons of vanilla

Any fruit your heart desires

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Roll out cookie dough on un-greased pizza pan.  Bake in oven for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.  Let cool completely.

3.  Mix cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth.  Spread on sugar cookie.

4.  Top with your choice of fruit!  (This was the fun part!)

Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July with friends and family!  It's almost the weekend already...horray!

Hamburger patties

I never make hamburger patties.  Kevin usually makes them because mine always turn out pitiful and he ends up having to remake them.  Well, this past week I volunteered to bring hamburger patties to a BBQ where we were lucky enough to see some friends we haven't seen in way too long.  Kevin wasn't going to be home until right before we had to leave, so I, alone, was in charge of the hamburger patties.  Now, I know some of you are thinking: why didn't you just go buy hamburger patties at the store?  Well, let's just say that living down the road from lots of cattle means you don't buy hamburger patties at the store, which means it's one less thing for me to forget at the store.  I love this.
So, I set out to make hamburger patties.  As I googled and searched for the easiest way, I found someone who uses ordinary lids to shape the patties.  YES!  I actually have lids, lots of lids.  I got out my lids and after trying a few out, found that I liked my thinner Pyrex lids the best.  Thinner burgers means evenly cooked burgers (that's one of Kevin's mantras).

I first mixed the hamburger with a little salt and pepper.  Any old spice you want can go in, but I just stick to good, classic salt and pepper.  You can do this after the patties are formed, but I like to get it all mixed in.
Put some plastic wrap on your chosen lid and on top of that put a round ball of hamburger.  Make sure to squish the hamburger down really good, so the patty stays together.

Turn over the lid and...there you have your hamburger patty!

Despite the heat, our friend, Drew, and Kevin cooked the hamburgers on the grill.  I thought mine was quite delicious with a bit of cheddar cheese on top.  After the burgers were gone, we all sat and chatted and got caught up on everyone's summer.  It seems like it's going too fast already.  I can't wait until our next BBQ with these guys (we missed you Carrie and Bill)!