First Cookie Baking Experience

 So Aubrey and I (ok really just me) decided to make cookies for Kyle to take on his road trip down to Austin. I had some leftover sugar cookie mixes so I gave Aubrey a little spatula and she helped stir up some cookies. Then I put her in the highchair and she helped me roll out dough and use cookie cutters. She was doing great cutting the cookies and leaving the dough alone until she decided hmmm I wonder if this stuff tastes good and then out the door went the helping and in with the eating. As soon as I would get a flat sheet of rolled dough, Aubrey would start peeling away the dough and eating it. It was a losing battle so I just ate some with her and finished cutting the cookies by myself. Then started the icing part, again she did great sticking her little play kitchen knife in and icing the cookie until she got one taste of that heavenly goodness (water+powdered sugar, yummm). Then it got a little messy from there and by a little I mean a lot!! We had fun and Dad and Aubrey loved eating the cookies, I'd say our first baking experience was a success.

Neighbor Cutiepies

All the kiddos were playing outside on Sunday, even baby Jack was hanging with the toddlers.  It was such a beautiful fall day and I'm looooving the weather right now and I hope it sticks around for a little while.  I know we won't be sticking around and be heading to hot 109 degree weather in Texas but I definitely think true fall weather will be waiting for us when we get back from Texas (boots and all, yay boot weather!!!  I could happy squell over wearing some good pair of boots).  So while the kids were outside I decided to take a few pictures, especially since Aidan and Aubrey both backed up against the brick wall (gotta love me some brick background) and they actually both stayed there until I ran inside, got my camera and came back out.  I keep taking these pictures and editing them trying to make them look like I'm taking them with a better camera.  Some day, some day I will own a fancy schmancy camera (probably 15 years from now after loans are all paid off, HA who am I kidding 15 seems more like it will be 50).  So enough rambling here are the cute kids I promised.  Seriously cuteness!!
Baby Jack smiles are too stinkin cute!

 Yay, it was cold enough to wear cardigans to church :)  The simple things in life that make me happy, ha.

 So Aubrey was having a picnic outside and decided she didn't want to eat anything until Alarie brought out Aidan's plate and then she ate about every carrot off his plate.  This is the kid that never wants carrots when they're on her plate but oh somebody else has them, yes please.  So in most of these pictures she's chewing up a massive mouthful of carrots.

 The Aidan tongue that he has out oh so often, love it.

Ok, so Aubrey was in this picture but the way she had her face she looked drunk (no she doesn't drink, don't worry), so I photo shopped my own kid out to catch this cutie, look at those eyes!  Aubrey loves her bf Aidan.

Now, here's my cutie pa-tootie.

Afternoon Park Date

We often go to the park to play and we always bring some old bread to feed to the ducks. On this particular day Aubrey and I were all ready to go and then Kyle pulled up the driveway so he was able to go with us for our afternoon park date. He also treated us to frozen yogurt at our favorite place 32 degrees. We love our park, just wish it was a little closer (it's only 10 min or so but it's the only place to go for a walk).

Ok, my favorite picture to take is of these two.  Something about the way she looks at her daddy, holds her daddy, it just melts my heart. 

Kyle is in Austin right now for a couple of weeks and we'll be joining him down in Texas at the end of the month.  We miss you so much Kyle and we love you, we can't wait to see you!

Cardigan Love

I can't wait for Aubrey to wear these little cardigans this fall. Since our week of chilly weather last week I decided to go shopping in her closet for her fall clothes and boy do I love getting out new clothes.  I told Kyle look I went shopping and it cost nothing!  He said yeah, but how much did you spend putting it all there.  I'm happy to say that her clothes are either Josalyn's hand me downs, garage sale or thrift store finds, or clearance rack, so really not much $s have been spent.  Too bad fall just played a trick on us and lasted for about 4 days and now we're back up in the 80s and 90s.  Don't think she'll be getting much use out of these either in the 109 crazy temp in Texas.  Oh well, maybe in a month or two....

Gotta Love Skype

I don't know what we would do without technology and living far away from family.  We love sending picture texts and video messages of Aubs to our family so they can still see her.  Aubrey also likes to talk on the phone and she especially likes to skype.  What we would do without skype, I don't know.  We often times have skype dates with my mom and baby Zach in the mornings.  We just skyped Grandma TT and the girls the other day too.  Aubrey always thinks she's calling Papa when she's skyping but I think it's because it's her favorite name to say right now.  She was giggling when Kyle and I were asking her what our names were and she would laugh and say Papa.  But of course when we pointed to Bailey and asked what her name was she instantly said Baiwee.  Kimberly even had us skype the other day to practice for her first patient encounter and all I can say is Kyle is the FUNNIEST patient model.  Oh, the med students are so lucky he never took that gig.  So we love our skype and are so thankful it keeps us closer and it has allowed Aubrey to know her Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts, and Uncles. 

Here's a picture from our morning skype date with Mimi the other day.  Aubrey had finished a bowl of cereal (we usually share a bowl of mini-wheats in the morning).  She was trying to feed my mom, no there wasn't any milk or cereal left in there.  She has a great imagination and can pretend play at the drop of the hat.  If you look too, you'll notice her beautiful bed head.

 Say, Ahhhhh Mimi!

Funfest

The past two weekends have been a blast, we've had so much fun spending time outside and at fairs or in this case an annual funfest.  The funfest was PBS kids themed and each tent had a theme whether it was Dinosaur Train, Super Why, they had everything.  Aubrey loves seeing people, listening to music and dancing, walking around, and just being outside.  The most exciting part of this funfest was Aubrey got to meet ELMO!!  Yep, THE ELMO!!  I think I was more excited than she was, but surprisingly she ran right up to him.  She didn't want to sit on his lap but still was very excited to see Elmo in person instead of just on tv.

They had a cute little kids bags set up so we started her early and tried teaching her how to play bags.

They had a Bob the Builder set up where they were building little play houses so of course Aubrey went in to play.

They had a mist tent which the kid loves getting any water sprayed on her.  Last night I was even just sitting outside with the hose spraying Aidan and Aubrey with the hose, it was on the mist setting.  I'm not that mean.

She did some major dancing and wanted to get as close to the band as possible, so Kyle and I kept pulling her back to save her ears.  Little to say I think this girl is bound to be a band groupie one day.

They had a cute gymnastics stand set up and they were showing the kids how to do sumersaults, Aubrey loved this part.  This was also after we had been there for about 3 hours, the kid didn't stop moving the whole day.

Did some dunking with Dad.

Didn't get a great picture of the 3 of us, but we had a blast.  A good last weekend here before Kyle heads to Texas for a rotation in Austin and then we'll be heading down to Dallas in 2 weeks to meet up with him.

Labor Day Fair

Papa came to visit for Labor Day weekend and we had a great time visiting and playing.  Aubrey now says Papa and it's so cute it's almost in a whisper.  She'll say his name and then point to his picture in our living room so when she woke up Saturday morning and her Papa was in her living room it was a pretty big surprise.  We had a blast and was able to go to a labor day fair and enjoy some small town Tennessee fun, including a greased pig contest where kids tried to catch a greased up pig and with greased up hands.  The firefighters also hooked up a huge sprinkler basically and Aubrey had so much fun running through it and cooling off.  We ended the fair with listening to some good 'ol bluegrass music and Aubrey did a little dancing for everybody.  We had a great time with my dad and we were sad to see him go.  We're so blessed to have visitors and are thankful for the time they're here.  Until next time....

 Playing in the jail, better be the only time she's in jail!

 I can hear her saying vrooom, vrooom in this picture.

 All cooled off from the sprinkler.

 Fell asleep on Papa on the way back to the car, one tired little girl.

 This is how Aubrey looked when Kyle and I got back from church.  Papa stayed home and watched Aubrey so we could go to church childless.  You could say he wore her out.

 Watching Bailey outside.

 Surprises from Papa's lunchbox, which he brought down just so he could to this tradition.  I used to always look in his lunchbox when he got home from work as a kid and he'd have some kind of surprise or snack in there.  Aubrey got a snack pack and some crackers.

 Reading books, her favorite. 

Ok, sorry about the crazy amount of videos but I couldn't pick just one.
Aubrey playing in the sprinkler.

Bluegrass music dancing.

Oh, the pig race.

Papa and Aubrey playing.

Ok, last one I promise.  Aubrey just started to try and jump, so here is her and her baby jumping.

Ta-Da

Hi, my name is Amanda and I have an addiction with spray paint and thrift store items.
I was sick of the red in my kitchen , although a lot of my decorations were wedding items and I may use them again but I was just done and they needed a new home (i.e. the closet).  So I decided the gray and yellow blog re-do wasn't enough I wanted some gray and yellow in my house so I decided why not my kitchen.  I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg re-doing our rental we'll be moving out in 8 months anyway (I know, I know, moving again!)  So I decided to do it on the cheap, use what I already have and only buy things from my new fave thrift store or goodwill.  So here's my breakdown.

Yellow Cereal and snack bins- Target, $1 each. Total $2
3 No. tin cans- Thrift store, .10 each!!!. Total 30 whopping cents!!!
Glass bunny- Thrift store, $1
Glass tea kettle- Thrift store, $1
Soap container- Thrift store, .75
Vintage coffee jar- Thrift store, $1
Banana holder- Thrift store, .50
Cloth napkins- Goodwill, .25 each.  Total for 16- $4
Star, candle sticks, glass vases, cake stand, fram, knife block, cookie jar, soap dish, colander, silver tray, beautiful silver frames- already had them
Total: $10.55 oh yeah!!!

I like my kitchen so much better now and I've realized the more I like my house the more I like to keep it clean.  Seriously the house has looked pretty darn clean these days just because I love looking at what we've done (which really isn't much, a few new decorations and A LOT of organizing).  I even organized the inside of the cabinets and the freezer but I'm not going to show you pictures of that because come on I'm crazy, but not THAT crazy. Because I love some good before and afters, here you have it, my new kitchen!

Ok so these amzing tins, seriously can't get over how much I love, love, loooove them.  Just spray painted them and nope I didn't even prime them.  I'm kind of that impatient.  Then online I found the new easiest way to stencil.  I printed off my stencil on Microsoft Word.  Then I rubbed chalk on the back of the stencil, put it on the tins and did the same on my "T" tray.  Then I took a mechanical pencil (anything with a point) and trace the stencil.  Then you'll have your stencil show up on whatever your painting and then I free handed it with a toddler pulling at me wanting me to be done already, pretty impressive I must say.

The final part of my kitchen makeover and maybe a close second favorite to the No. tins is..........

Aubrey's new kitchen!!!  I grabbed this bad boy up for $7 at Goodwill, you heard right $7!  It worked out perfectly since it matched with my aqua, yellow kitchen them I had going on.  It didn't quite look like this when I picked it up, let's just say there were some bugs cooking in the overn and phone holder....literally bugs, yucko!  a 2 hour nap + a lot of soft scrub and scrubbing later.  Wa-laaaa.  Aubrey loves playing with it while I'm cooking too!  I also scored some play kitchen utensils all for under $2 total.

So everybody is happy with our new kitchen, Aubrey, me, and well as long as good food is coming out of it Kyle is pretty happy too.

I linked this up to Just A Girl, The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday and Primp Your Stuff Wednesday.