One Step Forward, One Step Back

Second unfinished project finished!  Wow, this seems so simple in retrospect, makes me wonder why it took so long but I won't go there.  My house is filled with stuff like this.

I finally did Magnolia's four year old handprint and hung all four of them.  They had been sitting on her bookshelf for over 6 months! 

 

Last Friday I was invited to a Florence Eiseman sample sale.  Little did I know that Florence Eiseman is right here in Milwaukee!  I grew up wearing Florence Eiseman and now love to dress Magnolia in it.  So you can imagine my excitement when I was in one of the designer's house shopping for the current spring line at 60% off!  I ended up with a swimsuit for both kiddos and this darling dress for Magnolia.  It's a size four and too big for her.  On the one hand she'll get two years out of wearing it but taking it in is another thing added to the laundry list...

Oh, life is rough!  

I'll be back soon with pictures our January project completed, the basement!

Love!

There is nothing sweeter

than seeing these two together.

Giggling, conspiring, and

just loving.

Happy Valentine's Day Magnolia & George!

(Magnolia got her 1st charm bracelet and George a  frog!)

And Happy Valentine's Day to my one and only.  He got me one of my most favorite gifts to date...a Mason Pearson hairbrush.  What a treat!  Thank you George, I love you!

A side note:  To keep up my new year's resolution of finishing unfinished projects, here's my first!  These were aprons I was making at Christmastime.  Since they were red, I finished them for Valentine's Day instead.   George's is so cute piped in red but he wanted nothing to do with it.  Magnolia wore hers proudly as she and I made pink meringues!  One unfinished project down, a million more to go...

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

We had a fun Chinese New Year celebration with cousins and Nana & Papa this year!

Welcome February!

While January left me completely uninspired I have high hopes for February.  And what a way to kick it off!  That was some blizzard!  Today is also the Chinese New Year.  We will be celebrating this Saturday.  And, for the first time we will have a lot of family joining in the celebrations.  Aside from a whole lot of sicknesses and some pretty cold days, January was okay.   Okay that we worked on giving our basement a facelift.  Okay that I love my New Year's resolution of finishing every single project I have ever started.  Okay in that I started working out for the first time in a long time.  

I have a jar in the kitchen that is filled with ideas for snowy days.  Here are just two that I photographed.  While the idea was to do hopscotch I could only think of sidewalk chalk and since our kitchen is on it's last leg, I said what the heck.  Thank goodness the walls will be repainted too since I later found beautiful chalk handprints on the walls.  

The day before the big storm we made playdough.  Some neighbor girls came over just as it was finished and we all sat around the table and had some great fun!

This is one of my favorite projects Magnolia made at school.  It was was devoured in a day.  I have high hopes to make more...  On these same branches hung ice light catchers made from colored ice (food coloring) frozen in bundt pans...very pretty.

We cut a break with the blizzard on our front yard.  It was our back yard that was hit the hardest.  

This is pretty much what we did all morning...lounged in pjs.  I especially love this photograph because it reflects these two perfectly.  George wears that fire hat about 85% of the day.  It has a blinking red light that sounds like a real fire engine (it stumps me every time)  The "ball jammies" are the current favorite.  He can tell you which one is the soccer ball, which one is the basketball, and which one is the football.  He's holding "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" which is read at least 10 times a day.   I take a deep breath and tell myself that yes, I can read it one more time.  His monkey blankie, also in the photograph, is never out of sight which means it goes everywhere we go.  Magnolia, in the meantime, is my sweet little girl with hardly any demands.  She can sit and read books beautifully by herself and some to George now!

Magnolia cheerfully heads out to check the fresh 12 plus inches.

I finally get out of the house for the first time in two days and push the kids in the stroller to the grocery.   I treat them to chocolate and here they are seeing if the snow is taller than they are.

All in all it was a fun day filled with friends, homemade hot pretzels, and fresh air.

Welcome February!