Squeaky Clean

While mindlessly wandering through Pinterest this evening I found an idea for a mason jar soap dispenser.  Like these:

But the vintage blue jars aren't cheap, and my kitchen is mostly red so it wouldn't quite match anyway.  So I quickly whipped up my own.  I used a smaller jam jar because who actually needs an entire quart of soap on their kitchen counter! 

I found a black soap pump from some icky smelling soap I got free from work.  Other colors of pumps would be fun too.  Suave makes silver pumps, Jergens makes aqua pumps, ect.  Any color would be great! 

So... Exhibit A:

Isn't it horrible?  I remember buying it when we first got married (okay only 2 1/2 years ago) because we needed any soap dispenser in the apartment, but still how gross!  It has all sorts of .... welll.... stuff on it.  Its been in the kitchen okay!

Exhibit B:

I know its simple (sorry about the white background).  And maybe I'll add colored soap, or even spray paint the lid to match the pump.  But for now at least its clean!

Wiggle Worm

Our little guy has been growing and wiggling like crazy!  I used to feel him every hour or so then He would settle down, but now he's moving all about, doing some kind of aerobics or something! 

It comforts me to know he is there.  That I have someone with me always, and some that is more important.  I need to be a better person for him.  Its going by really fast, almost too fast, but we are both so excited to hold him and have him in our arms!

To keep my mind busy I started his first quilt! 

Here we are at 22 weeks and 2 days.  Pretty sure everyday I get noticeably bigger!  I am trying to eat healthy and keep cravings under control, but I feel like I am growing fast!   

Spring Has Sprung

So I thought Spring was thinking about coming so I made a little spring art piece for the living room.  Then I wake up to 4 inches of snow.... hmm... I guess it'll just be spring inside! 

Thanks to Pinterest I found a fun easy craft to welcome Spring.

First, get a 14 x 14" piece of framed canvas from Hobby Lobby, which happens to be 30 % off right now. 

Then get some scrapbook paper for the birdies and modge podge (which can be spendy but I used my 40% off coupon).

Then cut out little leaves and two birds (or as many as you want!) I also cut out bits of yellow for their beaks. I traced with a pencil where I wanted to paint the branches.

Sorry its blurry, but after tracing the lines, paint the back of each leaf with a little modge podge, and then "modge podge" it on the canvas.  I bought matte modge podge so it didn't even show up when you paint over the sides. Perfect!  Then use a little brown acrylic craft paint and paint brown branches on.

I'm not loving the shells and starfish there right now.  I need a few spring-y things.  Ideas?

Anyway, this adds a little bright color to our apartment!

Our Love Day

I don't like that there is a set apart day to show your love to others.  Why should we only show our love one day a year and have to make it special and obvious?  We should show it everyday!  I don't want anyone to feel obligated to say I love you or something on a certain day.  Just express love daily.  Okay i'm off my soapbox.

Today Bryan and I both had the day off so we went to the aquarium, Hobby Lobby, and out to dinner. 

The aquarium pictures are below, and I will do another post soon of the Hobby Lobby goodness. 

 I know these pictures are a bit blurry but you couldn't use a flash because it "hurts the fishes eyes".  hee hee.  This sting ray was hilarious.  He was swimming sideways and splash against the edge and get everyone wet.  He liked Bryan and wanted him to pet him. 

 Mr. Blowfish

 blurry but really cool looking jelly fish.  They were clearish/white but they turned on lights to make them glow! And I kinda like that you can see me and Bryan in the background.

lion fish!

These were the fattest penguins ever.  They must be fed well!

 They may be fat, but they're fast!  I couldn't catch him

I laughed so hard when I was innocently looking at the otters and I turn to the left and Bryan is in the exhibit!

It was a fun afternoon just enjoying "us" time and having a happy day. 

 I hope you had a happy day too!

Nursery Design Part 1

Our Baby's nursery is done.  Yay.  haha.  I Wish!  But I am in love with this nursery.  I already have a design for the quilt I want to do, now I just need well... everything else.  But i'm excited!  I didn't want to do a specific theme, but this hit the spot.  Its perfect!!

Of course becuase we'll still be in an apartment the walls are white, so i'll have to go all out on fun additions and blankies to brighten the room. 

Spring Eggs

I tested my hand at making "spring eggs" to decorate our counter.  I didn't want them just for Easter so I tried to make them spring colors.  Here are my paint choices.  The whole project cost about 7 dollars.  The paint was about 1 $ each, the moss was 2$ (for a nest) and the eggs were pretty cheap (Hobby Lobby of course!)

I used big and small plastic eggs and dumped them into a jar to measure about how many I wanted to paint.

 I painted them 1/2 at a time so I could hold them and not get finger prints on everything.  This is where I got a little messy.  They stuck a little to my cutting board and some of the paint peeled off, but for a quick project I didn't care too much. 

 These are all the colors I used.  I painted each half, then when that was dry, painted over the whole thing to try to smooth it out.  using acrylic paint on cheap plastic eggs was a little tricky, but lots of coats of paint helped the process.

 

 After they dried I dipped an old toothbrush (Bryan asked if I was using his) in brown paint and splattered and spotted the eggs.  I think next time I will water down the paint a big and splatter it on over all of them, but this worked great. 

 Here are a few eggs snuggle in their nest.  I bought the moss/grass stuff at Hobby Lobby and molded it into the shape of a nest. 

 Ready for spring!  I have tomorrow off so I am going to be working on another spring craft tomorrow that i'm really excited about!!!

First Belly Picture

ok ok... I will post a "baby bump" picture.  I'm still feeling a little awkard about my belly since its just started poking out about a week ago.  Before that it looked like I had eaten too much at dinner.  I don't need maternity clothes yet but I am starting to show when I wear normal clothes (normal being anything other than boring nursing scrubs).

I would blame my belly on my latest craving  (see below), except the ultrasound tech told us baby weighed 11 ounces and was almost 7 inches long!  woo!  But this has been my latest obsession:

No I didn't have the entire dozen... only two :)  But lately this is the way to my heart.   FYI

Gender Reveal Party!!

We had a really fun gender reveal party this afternoon with good friends and family!  I wanted to take more pictures but got busy visiting and watching the funny babies! 

We had cupcakes for everyone and the cake was blue or pink.  We used foil baking cups so there was no cheating.  It was a fun way to tell people! 

Here is Kamden playing with the balloons. We had pink and blue so people couldn't guess just based off decorations  :)

 Sweet little Tess

 Kids playing with balloons

 Macy and Bennett having a mellow afternoon

 So what is it?  Pink or Blue?

We had everyone write their name on the list if they thought it was a boy or girl.  Most people were set on girl.  We only had 3 votes for boy (Macy used Bennett to vote twice) :)  So which is it?

Its a boy!!! We are having a little baby boy and could not be happier!  Bryan thought it would be a girl, and I had been leaning more towards boy during the majority of the pregnancy until a few weeks before then I was really unsure!  But we are sooo excited!

Bryan found Bennett under the table eating a cupcake... he loved it!  He'll have a little boy cousin in a few months!

Thank you everyone who came.  We had a fun day and were glad to share it with the ones we love!  And baby boy says thanks too!