Father's Day

Allright, I know this is really late but I'm finally getting around to posting what we did to celebrate Father's Day.

I came up with four gifts, three of them cute and handmade and one of them just awesome.

The candy jar is pretty self-explanatory, I bought a jar and filled it with Brad's favourite candy (Peanut M&M's) and then added some black vinyl that I cut with my Silhouette that says, "We're Nuts about Daddy".  He took the jar to work and now he has yummy treats to snack on and offer to clients.

The card is also pretty simple and it's all over Pinterest.  I traced Catie's hand and cut out two copies.  In between them I made an accordion of paper and then using some alphabet stickers I wrote "I Love You" on the hand and on the accordion it says "this much!".  We put it in an envelope and I had Catie colour it.

The third gift is my favourite though.

I found a cute idea with a printable on Pinterest from this site.  She made this into a book that her kids filled in with reasons why Daddy is awesome but Catie is too little for that part.  Instead I turned her printable into a pin.

I folder some paper accordion style and glued it into a circle, added some ribbon and a few other embellishments and then I glued the printable on top.  I added a pin to the back and it was done.

Brad wore his pin to church and then again later to a family gathering.  I loved this one so much that I'm pretty sure we'll be making him a new pin next year.

The fourth gift I didn't take a picture of because it's not crafty, I'll just tell you about it.
Brad goes in to work early and is super considerate and doesn't turn on any lights while getting dressed, he uses his cell phone as a light to find which tie to wear.  I've known for months I was going to get a tap light for the closet and found a far cooler option when I went to the store.  I bought a light that attaches to the wall by a magnet (the track for our closet door happens to be magnetic so the light fits on the wall without any hardware).  The light turns itself on via a sensor and stays on just long enough for him to find a tie and close the doors, it's awesome.

To wrap up our day we celebrated with family and ate cupcakes and tried to extra appreciate Brad all day.

Re-Covered Pillows

A friend of mine had some old pillows from an old couch and she had some great outdoor fabric and asked if I could combine the two to make something beautiful.

I think I was successful. 

The pillows started out like this.  You can see that there are four from a couch and two others that she had hanging around.  

I started with the couch pillows, sliced open the fabric and groaned, already dreading where I was going to go from her since inside I didn't find a pillow form but a messy semi square of old batting.

I knew I'd need to first cover the batting so I got some broadcloth.  I made a large rectangle (the size of the pillow only twice as long), folded it in half and sewed up the two sides.  I flipped the now square fabric inside out, inserted the batting and sewed the third side shut.  To prevent fraying I used my pinking shears on the one exposed seam and called them good.  

These covers were crazy quick and made a huge difference when inserting into the final pillow cover.


Next up was the piping.  Let me tell you something, I HATE making piping.  I really wanted to just buy some but I couldn't find any pre-made that matched and I did need 12 meters.  I found some green fabric that matched perfectly and was really cheap, I used 1/2 a meter and had a little left.  While I love the way the piping turned out it was easily the worst part of this project, took longer than I wanted and I was annoyed the entire time.


Once I made the piping I made covers using the new fabric, I hand stitched the opening closed and ended up with some really great looking pillows.  I took a lot of care joining my piping and I was really pleased with how it turned out, I think it's the best I've done.  Look at that beautiful join.

One last after photo, a huge improvement and they'll look great on her patio furniture.

What Catie Sang/Said Friday

Allrighty, it's only one day late but as promised on Wednesday here is a post full of adorable Catie videos.  Now it's possible this post is going to be really boring for everyone but Grandma and I should probably split them up into multiple posts but I'm not going to.  I also won't be offended if you're bored.

These first couple are all her singing different songs, first up is Popcorn Popping.  Keep in mind this was first thing in the morning and I'm wearing zero make-up and have done nothing to my hair.


The Wise Man and the Foolish Man


Ba Ba Black Sheep - this is one of my favourites that she sings


When Daddy Comes Home - She's usually better at this one but I kind of had to talk her into it.  I had this great idea that I would secretly teach her this song a few weeks before Father's Day and then she could surprise him on the actual day but she loved the song so much she kept asking to sing the, "Daddy Song".  Brad kept asking what she was saying so we gave in and sang it really early.  We've been singing it nonstop since.



Okay, if you're still with me I have three more videos.

This first one is a conversation that I wanted to go a bit better but you'll get the idea.  We go to Calaway Park a lot, you know this because I mention it a lot and I had the brilliant idea that we should go in the haunted house.  I thought she'd like it because of the Backyardigans episode with the spooky ghosts.  I knew it was a really tame house, nothing jumps out at you, it's just really dark and they play spooky music.

It didn't take long to figure out I was wrong that she would like the house and we carried her out in tears.  Since then she's been on a loop and cannot stop talking about the spooky house, with it's spooky music and how it was really dark and she was really crying.  Let's get out of here she tells us and is very certain she doesn't want to go back.



A video of one of Catie and Daddy's favourite games.


And lastly, Catie's first ride on the Bumper Cars.  Initially she was stuck but once I got her going she did better than I thought she would.

What Catie Wore Wednesday #75

I know it's been forever since I posted but the thought of getting all the photos together was overwhelming.  I actually have a couple projects and a couple days of posts to share with you, we'll just have to see if I get them together.  Today I have lots of photos and as long as I make time for it tomorrow should be a whole post of just Catie videos (possibly boring if you're not a Grandma).

Catie loves Magnadoodle's but the only one we've ever had was a tiny cheap one from the dollar store.  We'd dread when she'd bring it too us to play because the eraser was really difficult to slide but she'd draw such cute things like faces and we'd draw shapes together.  I finally decided enough was enough and bought her a real, full sized one.  She loves it, especially the shapes.

My cousin's daughter Alice had a 1 year birthday party that I went to and while there my super generous Aunt gave me $20 to buy a toy for Catie.  Clearly this shopping cart cost more than $20 but we made up the difference and she loves her cart.  She instantly put Mr. Brown in the basket and it's now full of all sorts of treasures.  After each nap she gets up and asks, "Where my cart?" (She didn't want me to take a photo, hence the unhappy look)

Another shopping cart photo, this one more true to real life since it's full of stuff.  She gets mad when the hot dogs fall out :)

While at that same birthday party my cousin gave me her old maternity pillow.  I cannot say enough good things about how this pillow has changed my sleeping.  I went from using 4 pillows to 1 and it's really improved my quality of sleep.  Sunday after church Catie crawled up into it and then called us in to see, she thought she was really clever.

We finally brought these chairs over from my in-laws and every day Catie loads them up with a toy on each (usually just like the picture below), always leaving one empty for herself.

This is what happens when I ask her to smile

Playing on the couch with Mr. Brown

Watching TV

We went to Calaway Park again and the girls rode the bouncy trucks

Brad's Brother and Sister-in-law invited us to a friends farm where they pulled out a sweet little pony and let all the little girls take a ride.  They got to brush Princess and ride her and they all adored it.  I'll share a cute video tomorrow.

She really did love it, despite the look on her face.

And lastly, fun with Mommy's phone.

Body Pillow

I'm sure this is an incredibly boring post but it's all you get.

As I get more and more pregnant, my sleeping has become worse and worse.  I wake up just about every morning exhausted and my pillow count recently climbed to four.  I was relying heavily on my body pillow when I actually took the time to look at it the other day.

This is a pillow I bought when I was pregnant with Catie three years ago and I was cheap then too so I bought the most inexpensive one I could find.  It was finally time to get a new one and I can hardly believe the difference, check it out.

My old one is super saggy and flat in the centre and the new one is puffy and awesome.

What Catie Wore Wednesday #74

Last week I didn't take a single photo, this week wasn't a whole lot better, sorry.  Hopefully the cute video will make up for it.

I was finally sick of Catie's hair always looking terrible so I gave her a haircut.  It's only the third she's ever had and each time I've done the same thing, trimmed off the scraggely long bits from the back.  This time I trimmed some  "bangs" as well.  I thought she looked really cute in the cape and she was thrilled with the sucker.

She was helping me clean up by sweeping the patio.

We went to the zoo and this is where the girls sat to eat lunch.  They got a really funny scare when a peacock loudly turned up right behind them.

Catie's favourite game with a very awesome and willing Daddy, spraying him with a water bottle.  She thinks it's the best game.

And the aforementioned video, Catie riding her tricycle the best she's done yet.  It may have been short lived but it's such progress that we're thrilled.