Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...

Jingle all the waaaay!

 

When Zoe was just a cute tiny little newborn, I had no lullabies in my singing repertoire. What I did have, however, was a bunch of Christmas songs tucked away somewhere in my brain ready to be sung anytime anywhere. I am dead serious, Zoe was born in April and trust me when I say that she probably had to endure hours of dreadful renditions of All I Want for Christmas is You complete with all the Mariah Carey craziness.

 

Anyway what I am getting at is that I LOVE Christmas. I love the music, the trees, the snow, the stupid expensive ornaments. EVERYTHING. Thanksgiving to me is just the pregame, like it's not even it's own holiday, it's just the beginning of the big show. The big bummer though is that we live in a tiny, um "garden level apartment" as it's called in some circles (spoiler alert: It's my In-law's basement.) So I can't really go crazy with decorations but I do try my best. What I am left with is the most basic of Christmassy cheer which is the yearly Christmas cards! I am trying to get some ideas now for this year's card, and I think I have narrowed it down. I get really into it I'm sure it's probably borderline unhealthy. Most of our family and friends aren't too big on Xmas cards though, which is kinda sad. Nothing makes me happier than opening my mail and seeing loved ones and their big cheesy awkward smiles.

 

I was Going through Zo's pictures from last year and Oh My God...Why is she so cute?

 

We wrapped up one of those big plastic tubs from target and used it as our prop.

Genius right? I''ll just pretend like you agree.

 

 

This is the best shot we could get with both our babies.

These two are hard to photograph together!!

 

So excited to see what we come up with this year.

I'll be sure to share as soon as we figure it all out!

 

Zoe in Wonderland

A few weeks ago I stepped into a Goodwill store for the first time and it changed my life. I had attempted thrifting before, but I always ended up breaking out in heaves the moment I stepped foot inside. All the second hand stores I had ever been to were dusty, dingy and gave me the heebie-jeebies. Goodwill was clean, well organized, and had an amazing selection of Halloween costumes. I found an old vintage gown that I thought would be great for an Alice in Wonderland costume, and get this, it was only $3!! I snatched it up even though it was a few sizes too big. I enlisted my Mother-in-law's help and had her alter the dress to fit Zo. She even sewed a little apron on the front to give it that classic alice look. I ended up finding a cute little tea set, and just knew I had to have a mini photo-shoot. Off to the forest preserve we went, and we actually managed to get a pretty cute background going. We spray painted a few frames, hung them on trees along with a clock and a mad hatter inspired hat. The whole thing, costume included, cost us no more than $25! I am getting pretty good at this being thrifty thing, and I like it! Here are some of my faves:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monthly-ish baby pictures

I don't know if you noticed yet, but inconsistency is kinda my thing.

 When Zoe was an itsy bitsy baby I thought of doing monthly pictures to see how much she changed from month to month. My idea was to do the same pose in the same place every month. Well that first month postpartum was a blur for me. I was basically a walking zombie. Obviously I totally spaced and forgot to take her first month pictures. I did remember to take her 2nd, 3rd and 4th but then totally spaced out again and forgot the fifth and so on and so on. I got 6 out of 12, enough to get the idea of where this was going I guess. Somewhere along the way I forgot what my vision for these pictures was and just went all over the place. They don't really flow, but they are actually pretty cute. Please forgive my VERY crappy editing. My husband and I fancy ourselves pro photographers, but really we have no idea how to work our camera. We got our Cannon T3i when I was preggo, and never really bothered to learn how to use it. We just point, shoot and hope for the best haha. Anyway here are some of my faves.

Zoe turned one y'all!

I realize its been almost a year since I last posted, and well, I'm a little embarrassed to say the least. When I first created this blog I imagined myself blogging everyday, and amazing all of you with my awesome wittiness and such. That obviously didn't happen, but anyway I'm back!

Zoe turned one on April 1st (yes, she was an April fool's baby and yes her birth story is actually pretty funny but that shall be another post on another day..maybe.) I decided pretty early on that she would be having a western themed party. The only trouble with that was the whole lack of actual western themed decorations sold in stores. Lucky for me and you, the internet exists! Amazon and Oriental Trading were my life savers! I wont go into all the details on all the hours I spent on Pinterest and scouring ALL THE STORES for something, anything to make my, I mean Zoe's (haha), party a western wonderland. I'll just show you perty pictures to hopefully inspire you, so you can come up with your own awesome version!

Here is the picture we used for her invites.

 

Isn't she a cutie?

 

 

Our kick-ass DIY "photo booth"

 

 

The Cake!

 

 

 

The centerpieces

 

...and last but not least The Piñata

 

Please share your western party ideas with us, especially if you used any of these pictures as inspiration! I would love to share more details, so just shoot me a question!!

 

 

DIY Halloween!

This will be Zoe's first Halloween and I am so excited!

I had this whole idea in my head of a ridiculously elaborate costume for her, but when we went costume hunting the prices were the ridiculous ones. It's not so much that I am cheap (I am, ha ha), but i just couldn't justify paying $50+ on something of poor quality, and generic. So I went over to pinterest and saw a bunch of awesome DIY octopus costumes, it was love at first sight! I headed over to Target and found perfect knee high socks on clearance for $1.75 (Score)!! I used 3 pairs for the legs(arms? tentacles?) and one pair to put on Zo. On Pinterest most of the octopus costumes are pretty much just stuffed socks, and I wasn't too much of a fan. I decided to go just a teensy step further and cut the ends into points, sew them together and stuff a few pipe cleaners in there to shape them a bit. I stuffed them with shredded foam (on sale $2.50 at Joan's). I attached the legs unto a ribbon I had on hand, in hindsight I kinda wish I would have used a matching ribbon. I tried my best to find a matching hat but failed. I improvised and cut off the top part of Zo's socks, and sewed them together to make a pretty cute hat. I glued on some googly eyes and pipe cleaner eyelashes and BAM an adorable octopus. I spent around $10 on the whole thing.

Not gunna lie I am pretty impressed with myself haha.




Update:

So although I loved the Octopus costume, I decided to go with something a little warmer for the actual trick or treating part. It was a last minute thing so I scrambled to find something for my husband and I. Zoe and I went as ladybugs and my hubby went as a spider.

Even our Pug got in on the action!

 We spent around $10 on all three costumes. Obviously my costume and my husband's were a bit um, shall we say underwhelming? But seriously I had about a day to make them. I found the ladybug costume at Once Upon a Child for $4.50! Her cute socks were from H&M, aren't they adorable? For my husband's costume I sewed some socks unto an old sweatshirt and attached them to each other with fishing wire. I glued some googly eyes unto a mask and done! For mine, I just cut out circles out of black felt sewed them unto a red sweater, threw some antennae on my head and voila.