Thirft store super find!

There is a thrift store down the street form us that I pop in every once in a while. They give away day old bread from the local grocery store. I like to pick up a loaf or two and since it is free I always like to buy something so I don't feel like I am completely mooching. Well, the last time I went I scored this awesome find. A handmade Scotty Dog baby blanket!!! For $1!!! You can see the hand stitching and the little patches of vintage fabric are so adorable! I could not believe it. They also had this super sweet step stool that flips into a little seat. Just too cute!

Replanting Succulents

So I think I am going to just stick with succulents as houseplants. While I usually mange to kill everything else, this little bad boy has been super resilient. I have had it for years now and at one point he was completely ignored on the back porch in a broken pot. But he managed to not only stay alive but just grow and grow from one little bloom to sprout off four or five other clusters. Now I have started to repot the other clusters. Keep your fingers crossed that his brothers and sisters survive in their own little pots.

(Kinda)New Kitchen Table Area

I have really been inspired to make little changes around the house lately. After first moving in almost two years ago and all of the painting and cleaning we did and then having a baby, I was kind of over doing anything for the house. But now it feels like we should really be making it our home. I have been finding some cute fun ways to really make it our style.

In the kitchen, I had this fabirc that I had bought forever ago not really knowing what to do with it. The print looks like vintage hankies and the "valance"is made of actual vintage hankies. We turned the table around to bump it right underneath the window and now we have a retro looking diner thing going on. I love it becasue with the new curtains, so much light comes through the window and we get a perfect view of the Florida clouds while keeping our privacy.

Millyana's First Birthday (Better Late than Never)

I am finally posting pictures from Millyana's Birthday Extravanganza! We had so much fun. I think her favorite part of the day was in the morning when we were blowing up all the balloons. We would pile them all together and she would crawl through them screaming! We ended up just leaving them on the floor becasue she was having so much fun.

Millyana's Birthday Extravaganza

What is that saying?..."the best laid plans of mice and men..." Well, that was pretty much what happened with Millyana's birthday Extravaganza. I start really early with the planning and then BLAMO! Life happens. I won't even go into to detail all the crazy things that have happened in the past couple of months but it has truely been a doozy. I joked that Millyana's Birthday was slowly turning into a Birthday Extrav... And on the actual day of the party, setting up the decorations and food table, I felt like I was in one of those reality shows where you have certain amount of time and when they call "time's up!" it's hands off and it is what it is. But it was still perfect and wonderful and so much fun. I still cannot believe she is a year old. Holey mackeral.

Here are a ton of pictures to show how bright and fun her birthday was. I did pretty much all of the baking a decorating and while it did not save on time (or my insanity) it did save on money and I was able to have the exact look I wanted. Enjoy!

Test Run: Orange Dreamsicle Cupcakes

I found the yummiest looking recipe at Cake. a super cute blog dedicated to parties. It has fun ideas and great recipes. One of the recipes was for Orange Creamsicle cupcakes. MmmmMMMM... I thought they would be the perfect fit for Millyana's birthday Extravaganza. I have never made a cake or cupcakes form scratch, so I did a test run the other night. It was also the first time I have attemepted to pipe any kind of icing of any kind. The icing kind of came out wonky but boy do they taste good. And I got a huge thumbs up from Dave who especially appreciated the fluff and butter filling. The original recipe can be found at Homemade by Holman

First Steps

I have already started to prepare a few things for Millyana's Birthday. I know, I know, it is still over a month away. I just want to enjoy the experience and not have to rush at the last minute to get things done. Plus we have company coming in a couple of week. Hooray! My brother, Cody and his fiance, Ombretta are coming to town. It will be the first time I meet his super cutie Italian fiance. I just cannot wait.

Anyhoo, back to the party. Here is the color palette I am going with. Sunny yellows, orange, pinks with a splash of aqua. And another fun thing I found was a mold for little starfish candies. So sweet! So I have started to make an army of fun, orange starfish candies to put on cupcakes and around her smash cake. The mold only has two so I can only make two at a time. See why I started early?