Back to school!

It's been a while since I have had a chance to post. My summer has ended and I am now back in school, for my last two semesters of classes. After the spring I will only have student teaching, then I GRADUATE! I am beyond excited. 

However, then ending of summer also meant leaving my family, and most of all my fiance. It has been very lonely here with out him. I have been here almost a week and I am finally settled in and got a break from homework and playing with my baby. I have never lived alone and now I have an apartment all to myself. I love that nobody else is here to mess it up (besides Colton, who drags his toys into every room!), but I do miss everyone being around. 

Anyways, enough of that. Here's some pics of my new living space :) 

His new room! He finally gets to use the crib and crib set we got! It's so cute.

 Colton decided to dig through the closet and take out all of the toilet paper!

 My little boy is already eight months, so I of course had to take a few pictures. These are a few of the ones I really like. But he has started to go through a stage where he won't sit still, so it is getting really hard to take his picture.

My goal is to get some scrapbooking done, and to maybe make some more wedding plans, but this weekend is Labor Day weekend, and that means we are headed to the cabin. I think for the first time in years it may be nice enough to hit the lake :) Time for some rest and relaxation after a stressful first week of school. I will probably have to do some homework, but the rest of the time I am going to spend having a relaxing time with the family! :) Have a great weekend everyone!

Renaissance Festival

This weekend I had my first experience with the Renaissance Festival. I had only heard specific things about it from an old coworker, but I have very few ideas about what to expect. One of my best friends is doing an internship with them this year and got myself, my fiance, my little sister, and my mom in for free, which was so nice.

As always when traveling with a small child, it was a production. Getting his food packed, making sure he had the right clothing for the weather, diapers, snacks, toys, etc. Well I got it all ready and we left...leaving his lunchbox, with his sippy cup of water and other pre-made bottle, on the kitchen counter. 10 minutes into the drive we turned around.

After that it was smooth sailing. We got there and my first impression: It's big! Honestly I wasn't expecting it to be as big as it was! It was awesome. The street performers were pretty fun to watch, sometimes got a little long (especially since we were all starving), but they were fun!

My sister and I were saying how we would like to live in that time period or a year or two. It would be interesting. So different from the life we have now. No cell phone, no computers, no TV. My life would be so different! It would be kind of fun to learn stuff from that time period and what they did for fun.

We looked at many cool shops and handmade products. All very awesome. But my favorite thing, by far, was riding the elephant! My fiance was wondering why on earth you would want to ride an elephant. Why the heck not? How often do you get to do that? It is not an everyday occurrence, at least not for me. Well I talked both him and my sister into it (it was only $5!) and they both thought it was co cool too. I loved it!

Anyways, it was really fun. And for those of you who live somewhere that you can attend a Renaissance Festival, I recommend going. I plan on going every year now, and planning more time there! 

Also has many activities for both parents and kids :)

Make Your Own Kids Book

Now this is something I found on Pinterest that I changed a little to fit my needs. Here is the link for that post! It is idea number 5.

But basically it is just a way to make your own book for infant/toddlers. It is cheap and if you have to throw it away, no biggie.

I decided I was going to make an animal book for Colton, because he LOVES The Lion King. So I thought it would be cute if I did an African Animal book.
Here is what you need:

I printed off pictures of African animals from google images and cut them out. I grabbed scotch tape, 4x6 index cards, and markers. Pictured is sandwich bags, but i ended up using CONTACT PAPER.

I taped the pictures onto individual index cards, and the educator in me wrote some facts about the animal on the back of each card :)

I then used contact paper to make each card waterproof and drool proof. (This is where the original post used sandwich baggies. But my little guy has sharp teeth and he would be eating the plastic in minutes. So i decided on contact paper!)

Cut it down so there isn't too much extra contact paper hanging off each card. Decide what order you want the cards in. Then use tape or contact paper, I used contact paper, to bind the book. 

I first did the entire book, which really only held the first and last pages, then I put contact paper in between each pages individually. Putting it in between each of the pages helps to reinforce the binding of the book. It really keeps it together. 

This was my finished product:

I didn't really think it through how the pages would look, because as pictured about it says Lion and has a picture of a giraffe on the next page. I think if I made another I would plan it out better and have the picture correspond with the text. But I think it works for the purpose he will use it for.

The most important part: He seemed to enjoy it!

So that's that. Hope you enjoy! 

Bridesmaid Gifts

In my attempt to have a small wedding, I have decided to have a pretty large wedding party. Surely having 8 bridesmaids isn't that many right? Okay, I will stop kidding myself, it's a lot. But since the wedding is out of town we are making a weekend out of it. And hey, the more the merrier! So anyway I decided to have 3 maids of honor, and 5 bridesmaids and I wanted to ask them in a special way. I started looking around pinterest (obviously!) and I found a few cute ideas, but couldn't quite decide. I kind of knew I wanted to do a box of some sort with stuff inside. So I went to Joanne's and this is what I bought:

I got a cardboard chest looking box for each girl, paint in my wedding colors, paintbrushes, little flower embellishments in my colors and some scrapbooking paper. The total for all of this was around $100.

I guess I should mention I already decided that the MOHs would be wearing purple and the BMs would be wearing the aqua (Malibu). So I painted the outside of each box the color of the dress they would be wearing and the inside the other color.

Ex: of MOH box

After this I had to decide what I wanted to put in the box. On a random trip to target, I went in the travel section and decided that it would be a cute idea to put some travel sized items that they could use that weekend. Inside I put a shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, sunscreen, hairspray, toothbrush and toothpaste, and mouthwash. I also found mini bottles of flavored margarita mix that made one drink (non alcoholic). I put in one bottle per box. I also bought little plastic diamond rings that I put in there too, along with a little cards that said a little about the wedding and wedding party.

Here is what they looked like completed:

I used Modge Podge to attach the scrapbooking paper with their names onto the lid of the box, and the "Will you be my Maid of Honor?" sign to the inside. If I had unlimited resources I would have wanted to add some rhinestones, but I think they turned out pretty nice!

You can see that their are cards inside.
Card 1: Was just a little thing I wrote saying that we had been through so much together and that I wanted them to be up their with me.
Card 2: Explained that the wedding was out of town, it said the date, the name of the resort, and that we would be staying together in a townhome that weekend.
Card 3: was a picture of the dress wit the price.
Card 4: Told them the name of everyone in the wedding.

It was a little time consuming, but it was worth it!

Newbie :)

Well, I have been debating starting a blog for a while now. So after being awoken at 4:00am by my little energy ball, I decided today is the day. So I guess I should start by stating why I have decided to do this. 

It's not like I have a grand theme like many blogs I have seen. It will not be strictly food, or hair, or crafts. I love it all. I just wanted to share all of the things I find. Or ideas that I come up with on my own. Pinterest is an obsession for me. I pin all the time. My boards, especially the food one, has gotten a tad out of control. So this is a way for me to share what I have tried. 

I have a lot going on in my life right now, including getting ready to take my little boy to my last year of college. I cannot wait to graduate and to student teach, and of course have my very own classroom. The idea being able to decorate and organize my own classroom is beyond exciting. 

But before that happens, I have to get married. Well, I don't have to. But I am! It is very exciting, but also A LOT of work. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It has been fun and stressful. All i can say is thank god I have almost a whole year left to plan! 

That's it for now.