Travel Bug Strikes Again!

We have the itch again! Well mainly me, but I'm the driving force in our travels. We have been talking about hitting up Chicago because it's close, right by the Great Lakes, and a BIG city. We have never been to city this big before--I don't really count Las Vegas because that's mainly one street with a bunch of casinos and that's it. So I've been doing my homework and we are very close to booking it!

We are aiming for early October. According to my calculations the weather should average in the 60s. We aren't planning on staying too long just because we will have Brad with us and it can get hard to find affordable family-friendly places to eat in a strange city. Here are the hotels that we are deciding between:

Tremont Suites
Hotel Indigo Gold Coast

Inn of Chicago

Club Quarters Central Loop

The Seneca Hotel

I am going over reviews, size, distance, and of course price. The main thing is that they are in very close walking distance to the things we are aiming on seeing. We aren't going to rent a car because I do NOT want to drive in downtown Chicago. We will take a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, then just walk or whatever to where we want to go. With our interests, I would like to see Navy Pier, ride the Ferris Wheel, see the beaches, and go up to John Hancock Observatory. I was going to look into the Sears Tower, but there were a lot of bad reviews (in terms of family travel) because of long lines and long wait times. And with a 1 year old tagging along, our tension level will already be elevated so we don't need any further stressors that can be avoided!

I am pretty excited though! I think it will be amazing just to walk around the city streets and watch everything going on; to see the vendors and performers, store fronts and neon signs. And of course we are going to try Chicago-style pizza and hot dogs! I'm already thinking of how to scrapbook everything....

One Year Ago...

Crafting Away

That's my newest pile of fabric scraps from my fave store ever--Hancocks! I am so happy that there is one in Norman. I mean, I heart Hobby Lobby too, but I don't always want to take the time to have them cut so much of a fabric. I love to just be able to browse thru their throw-aways and let the inspiration fly for only a buck or two a bundle!

I am trying my hand at some dish soap aprons. Thinking about selling them at my upcoming craft fair in October. Kinda cute and whimsical, you don't really see too many of these now adays! I am going to make one for myself too.

I was finally able to finish my front door plaque (after I payed FULL price for another sheet of the stickers for ONE letter that I was short...). I like it! It is currently hanging on my porch to greet visitors. Now we just need some visitors...

Mother and I got busy Monday evening with another project for our craft show--decoupaged coasters! We got the idea on the internet. Well, hers are stenciled monograms, and mine are decoupaged tissue paper. Mine go alot quicker than hers but they are both cute I think.

And after making my own pattern to fit Brad's tiny toes, I finally got around to making him his very own pair! They fit him great, and they seem to be comfy cause he doesn't try to pull them off right way. Now I just need to paint the "tread" on the bottom so he doesn't slide on our wood floors.

A Cobbler in the Making

I found a new fun craft that I love! Baby shoes! I have had a couple of patterns for awhile, but never made myself sit down and do it because I thought it would be more difficult. So the other night I made a prototype pair with some scraps and I was pleasantly surprised at their ease! It only took about an hour to figure out the pattern and put them all together:

Well that got me inspired, so I dug through my scraps and over the last couple of days I have made all of these too:

^Made from my old private school skirt that I wore when I was about 9.

^Made from an old pair of jeans.

Adorable, no? I love them! The only bad thing is that the size pattern I have is a bit too small for Brad and I really wanted to make him some. It's partly my fault that I waited so long to get around to making them! So what I did today is measure his little footsies and made my OWN pattern just for his size! In a bit I am going in my craft room to see how they work out. I will be listing these on my craft blog Kandy's Krafts as soon as I can pretty up the pictures.

Bibs and Bradley 2

I broke out the embroidery attachment on my sewing machine tonight and whipped out a few more terry cloth bibs for the little feller. I looked up cute sayings on the internet and used my favorites:

^This one is a phrase that Nick and his best friend made up for laughs. "BG" is bubble guts...you get the picture.

The appliques added on to the embroidery were my idea. I think they turned out well! Can't wait to use them. The others that I have used already work great and keep all of his food off of his shirt. Yay!

I have a few other crafts I'm working on right now. One is a plaque for our front porch. It is almost completely done, except the alphabet stickers I picked only have ONE of each letter on it! So I have to go back and buy a whole other one just for an E. I also made my first pair of baby shoes tonight, and they turned out well! I used some ghetto scrap fabric just for the prototype, but maybe tomorrow I will try them on B and make him a real pair.

Speaking of my angel, here are some pics of him dragging his blankie around the house. He is a mess! He will pull it off of his crib and cram his face into it, then pull it around with him doing an occasional face plant into it on the ground.

Bibs and Bradley

I have been needing to make some new (and bigger) bibs for Brad now that he is making bigger messes. There was a cute and easy idea I saw to use hand towels for bibs. So I kinda did my own spin on it and used a washcloth instead. I bought a pack of 9 green cloths and proceeded to cut out the neck swoop from each one. So far I have finished 4 and I think they turned out adorable! I added an applique on each one so that it wouldn't just look like a plain washcloth strapped around his neck. I tried out different ways to bind the cut edge, and different materials for ties. I have more ideas for the 5 that are left!

I haven't used one yet, but I'm sure they will work out perfect. His other ones are just way too small!

Today the three of us attended a memorial service for my friend Merrie's father. He passed away last month so we paid our respects to his remaining family. Merrie recently moved and has been busy but we are catching up once again and planning another family date night together. Her and her husband also have a one year old so it works out well.

While I was at the service, my mother informed me that our dear friend Sybil (88) passed away this morning unexpectedly. She lives down the street from where I grew up, and I have known her basically my whole life. She was one of my mom's best friends, and she went over there every single morning for coffee and chit chat (two of our favorite things). I used to stop by every morning after work, but after having Bradley I could only come when time would allow. She got to meet Brad a few times and enjoyed holding him. I was planning on bringing him back over after the weather cooled off. She will be very missed but we know that she is in a better place and lived a long and happy life. Her service will be Wednesday.

On a happier note, I will leave you with some kissable pics of my baby from today:

My "Summer" is Coming to a Close

I am very happy about this! Hubby goes back to school next week and will be in class from 8-5 Monday-Friday for at least a couple of months. So that means that I will be unable to work extra shifts for awhile. Aw, I know--poor me! Believe me, I got my fill of it this summer. Tonight I am blogging from work and when I clock out at 7am, I will have pulled in about 65 hours JUST this week!!! Woot!

All night I have been dreaming of how nice it is going to be to have a ROUTINE again--sending Nick off to class in the morning...drinking coffee while feeding Brad breakfast with cartoons in the background...chatting with friends and family on the phone while making lunch for Nick's break...working on crafts while Brad takes his afternoon nap...giving him nibbles while I cook dinner for Nick to get home in the evening....aaahhhhh! Of course I'll be giving up my whole weekend because that is the only time I can work, but it is so worth it to have consecutive time to get things done during the week. I really don't have people that I hang out with anyways except for mumsy and she is available most everyday! And now she can sneak in some morning visits for coffee time.

Tomorrow after sleeping for a bit, I am having an impromptu cookout for my family at our house. It is sort of an "unveiling" of our new floors. But hey, who needs a reason to grill burgers and hotdogs? Since the weather continues to be above 100 degrees, I told my brother that if HE grills the food outside then I will supply everything else. It's just too hot for me! But don't get me going on the weather here....anywho, the cookout is starting around 4pm and my mom is bringing her famous baked beans and pasta salad.

After the cookout, I am going to relax for a bit and get back to making out dinner menus! I haven't been able to for awhile because I don't have time to cook on days that I work consecutively. Now that I will be home, I can plan my meals out so everyone will know what to expect. Also I am going to order Angel Food again this month. Their menu looks really good and you can't beat being able to have someone put your food in your car for you!

Monday is a memorial service for my friend's father who passed away a few weeks ago. After that it's laundry night and coupon clipping with my mom. We have a few craft shows we are getting signed up for this fall and we must get to work on our supply! We are trying a few new ideas, so I will put pics up when we get going on them.

If the weather would only cool down...I have so many other plans and things to do! Lots of landscaping and rennovating in the backyard, sewing and crocheting crafts to get started on....can't wait!

Day 6 AND 7 Floor Redo

I had to put two days together because I can't wait to show you what we did today! Day 5 was yesterday. Hubby surprised me while I was doing laundry and got the rest of the wood laid! Of course with my perfectionism I was nervous about how well he did it. After a couple of adjustments it looked great! I was happy that we didn't have to work on it more that night because I was pooped from working and lack of sleep.

This is the rest that he did:

But it was a little depressing to see all of the crap that we had to put back in place soon after we got the trim on:

DAY 7

Today we put almost all of the trim back on. I measured for how much quarter-round we had to buy and how much length of T-moulding we needed. The moulding turned out PERFECT because we had exactly 19.69 ft of it bought, and we needed 19.67!! While I was nailing in the trim and wrestling with Brad, Nick had the fabulous idea to go around and restain the scratches/dings in all the wood trim and door jambs. It made them look BRAND NEW. Here are some before/after pics:

Told you!!!!!!!!! It looks so beautimous. Don't worry, I've got lots more pics! So we went to Lowe's to get the final things to finish. I had a coupon for $25 off a purchase of $250 so we decided to go ahead and get a rug for the living room. We also got these decorative Victorian floor vents, but we have to return them for a different size because they aren't wide enough.

Here is our new living room rug!! It is huge-- 7 1/2ft by almost 11 ft!! I love the colors and design. Plus it's soft!

We also picked up a rug for the dining room. I checked out the indoor/outdoor rugs since there will be food spillage, but those rugs blew. So I just went ahead and got a simple solid cream colored rug. I wanted to get solid so that I am not limited in fabric designs for when I REUPHOLSTER the chairs!!!!!!

My piano made it safely back to it's rightful place. I thought about getting another small accent rug to put under the piano bench.

And here is the breakfast area (with all of our empty boxes that have nowhere to go).

So what do you think?? Tell me your thoughts on the color and difference compared to the carpet that was there. Does it look like we did a good job for our first time ever doing something like this--much less by ourselves!??