Crafting for Baby Girl, Pt. 2 and Deal of the Week

A few months ago, I saw this great idea for forward facing bookshelves. I knew with the vast amount of books sliding around the shelves in Cadie's room that I must do this for baby girl's room.  We went to Ikea a few weeks ago and picked up 2 of the Bekvam spice racks.

And here's my deal of the week.  Fed Ex showed up on our doorstep a few days ago with free paint!  I had forgotten I signed up for a free quart of Glidden paint in Cappucino White.  So after Cadence helped Matt and I assemble the shelves, I quickly painted them. 

The finished result is perfect!  Wow.  Look how dirty the carpet is in our hallway, and how much the paint needs to be touched up.  Oh well - we're moving soon.

Baby Name Game, pt. 7

Just in case you are new to this, the rules are here.

What is the brand of our family car?  (_) _ _ _ _

"That was fun - having an adventure."

I was telling another mom the other day that even though Cadence and I have the same amount of free time to fill in the summer, it feels a little bit harder to keep ourselves entertained.  Even though Matt is home to help keep us entertained.  Maybe because May and the beginning of June were so busy we feel bored now?  I don't know. 

Anyway, we needed an outing that did not involve the grocery store.  Matt had the brilliant idea to visit a waterfall we remembered visiting probably 7 years ago when we lived here before.  We got out our trusty guidebook The Hiking Trails of North Georgia and found the trail.  (It turned out to be a different one than we visited previously, but great.)  The title quote above?  That's what Cadence said when we were done.

The trail we chose was the Rabun Beach trail. 

Almost immediately, you reach this nice little cascade.  We sat on some flat rocks and ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches here.

Most of the trail is nice and wide like this, but there was one spot the trail was washed out and one spot we had to walk through a stream.  All the other stream crossings have little bridges, which Cadence thought was fantastic.

After walking half a mile, we reached Panther Falls. 

Note our excitement.

It's really pretty.  About a 40 foot cascade over these stair step-y rocks.

 There's lots of flat rocks to sit on and put your feet in the water.  If we had our swimsuits, we could have really splashed around at the base of the falls.

As you know, Cadie is squeamish about getting dirty and trying new things, but she LOVED putting her feet in the water and finding rocks to throw down the little falls below the big one.

It started raining pretty good as we were leaving so our walk back to the car was very wet.  We were so proud of how well Cadie hiked, even though her feet got really muddy.  We *think* we're going to try to visit a waterfall every week this summer when we are in town.  Should be fun.

Baby Name Game, pt. 6

If you are new to the game, the rules are here.

What is the epistle following 2 Corinthians?  (_) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Crafting for Baby Girl #2, pt. 1

Baby girl #2's due date is 10 weeks from today.  During those 10 weeks, we are going out of town some and, oh yeah, moving to the house next door once renovations are complete.  We probably should be packing more than we are.  I know that the unpacking is really the time consuming part of a move though, so I feel like I need to complete some projects for baby girl NOW.

I took a few hours on Monday and Tuesday to make a nursing cover.  (I used one borrowed from a friend in High Point with Cadence, so we needed one, and they cost like $25!  Crazy!)  I used this tutorial from Sew Much Ado.

I had this fabric in my stash.  When we first moved to NC I worked in downtown Greensboro and happened upon a vintage store that was closing or moving and got a big grocery sack of vintage fabric for only $5.  This was one of the pieces and it was the perfect size for this project.  I had the d-rings on hand too, so all I had to buy was boning for the neck area, which was all of $.62 and the blue thread, which was less than $2 at Wal-Mart.

I am pleased with the result and now need to get going with some knitting!

Pics from FL trip

I didn't take many; these are pretty much the cutest.

Loving the sea turtle art at a park in Vero Beach.

Cadence HAD to read a book to Lacey, my aunt and uncle's sweet little dog.

And, she had to read a book with Great Grandma (this was back at my parents' house) - she's actually clapping in excitement.

Deals of the Week (Impromptu Cooking Day)

When I went to Ingles on Wednesday I lucked up on a couple of great deals - a pound of reduced fat pork sausage for $1.69 and a dozen free range brown eggs for only $1 (pictured below).  The only problem?  They both needed to be used, like, immediately.

So I ended up spending a lot of yesterday afternoon in the kitchen.  I hardboiled a slew of the eggs for egg salad sandwiches and the rest went with some of the sausage for freezer breakfast burritos.  I was inspired by the recipe here at Money Saving Mom but did my own thing.  Then I made my sausage biscuit balls - you've probably seen this recipe before, with bisquik?  Seems like everyone knows it.  I do mine with 3 cups bisquik, about 12 oz. reduced fat sausage, 2 cups shredded cheddar, 1/4 cup parmesan, and around 1/2 cup milk.  Mix it up, roll into balls and bake at 350 for around 20-25 min. 

The finished product.  It's so easy and they freeze nicely - most of these ended up in the freezer.  I'm having a hard time focusing on meal planning since during the school year we eat so much in the dining hall, so it feels good to have some things in the freezer to pull out quickly for a hearty breakfast.



Baby Name Game, Pt. 5

Cadence and I got back yesterday from a busy week where we went to my parents' house, then FL to visit my aunt, uncle, and grandma, and then back to GA with Grandma in tow.  A few pictures to come later!

Here's clue number 5.  If you need a refresher on the rules, see this post.

What's the name of Mo's previous employer? _ _ _ _  _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _ _ (_) _ _ _ _ _

If you need a hint, my profile on facebook may be of help....

Baby Name Game, pt. 4

If you're new to the game, check out the introductory post from back in May here.

Musical Instrument that Matt plays?  (_) _ _ _ _

*I realize that there are several answers to this question, but with the letter blanks it's pretty obvious what we are going for!

Mountains House!

Mountains House!  We live in the mountains, and arguably have better mountain views from our house here than at my family's cabin, but it's different to get away like we did this weekend.  We headed out on Friday to the rustic but charming and very peaceful house my grandfather built before I was born.  And, some buddies from High Point met us there.  We ate really well at local restaurants and played Monopoly Deal (we are slowly making all our friends and family play this game with us - it's so fun and quick) and didn't turn on the TV all weekend.

 

We took the kiddos to play in the creek.  Cooper, being 3 and a boy, jumped in and started digging in the mud with no hesitation.

Cadence, being 2, generally fussy about gettting dirty and a girl, stood in the water like this.  See her little fingers splayed like "what is this business, people?  you are making me nervous!"  And this was after her pestering us for 2 days to play in the creek!

Then she got out of the water and stood in the woods like this!  Next time we're not going to hike as much and just go straight to the creek - maybe she'll be more into it.  The really fun part for her was getting to play with her friend Cooper.