snow baby

my little P got to spend a wintery weekend up with her grandma and grandpa in clear lake....and she loved the snow! i finally figured out she was saying "snow", because it comes out  as "no":) and since "no" is such a common word around here lately, i tend to not hear it after the 12th time in two minutes.
luckily, she lives in iowa, so there will be lots of "no" to look at out the window this winter!

looking through old pictures...

and found one taken exactly a year ago:

november 2010

 and one a year before that:

november 2009

sigh......no more tiny child for me:(

feeling nostalgic and baby feverish? yes and yes. 

but i love, love, love my big girl:) she amazes me every day with all her new words and ideas. i am one blessed mama!


xoxo,
maggie

happy halloween!

Halloween was especially fun this year. peyton is at a great age to dress up and parade around...and she did a great job trick or treating last night. she walked up to each door and would knock and then wait patiently for someone to come out and gush at how cute she was:) she learned the drill pretty quick and we came home with lots of candy  for me to eat for breakfast. 

this is the costume she wore last night, but this picture was taken last week before brandon's work halloween party.

please don't judge the face paint. you try making a two year old sit still....and then make them promise not to touch their face. yeah, right. she definitely turned out more like a tiger in a lion costume. but still cute nonetheless. we toned down the face paint for last night, for the sake of all our clothes. 

over the weekend, we went up to north iowa to visit brandon's family and have some more halloween fun. here is grandma GiGi wrangling peyton. the girl is impossible to get a good picture of these days....this is the best one i got. these were also her first pig tails, courtesy of auntie blair.

sweet, little bumble bee

and while we're in the spirit of fall and all things cute, here are some pictures i shot last week while we were outside playing under the beautiful, orange tree. since we moved in during the winter, we had no idea that this tree would transform into such a gorgeous color. a great backdrop for a fall photo shoot!

soaking this up while i can. soon this tree will be naked!

fall mums from our backyard

my sweet girl in her element: the great outdoors.

stoked.

mama loves

 i can't believe tomorrow is november. where did october go?? 

xo, 

maggie

time warp

we took my in-laws to Center Grove Orchard last weekend and the whole time, i kept thinking about how fast the time has flown by and how much has changed in the past year. last year, brandon, peyton and i drove from ames to the orchard on my birthday. this year, we drove up from west des moines on the day before my birthday. in 2010, peyton had only been walking on her own about three weeks. we had a lot of fun, but kept telling each other, " next year will be SO much fun for peyton!". and it was:) 

center grove orchard is located northeast of ankeny and is a fabulous place to go as a family in the fall (haha...like my alliteration??). they have so many activities for children of all ages. we did as many as we could and little P was a trooper, even with a much delayed nap. brandon and i decided that this may have turned into a family tradition!

here are a few 2010 versus 2011 pictures. 

before i know it, there will be three of each of these up here. time is flying:(

2010.  yep...cute little piggies in corn:)

2011.  slightly bigger pigs:)

2010. hesitant about walking through the tunnel...

2011. she RAN through the tunnel!

2010.  her feet are no where near the pedals:(

2011. tearin' up the track!

 thanks, center grove, for make such sweet memories for my family:)

xoxo,
maggie

nifty, thrifty birthday party

my little person turned two last month. it still feels like yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital:( isn't that every parent's feeling about their kids?? time flies when you become a mama. i definitely miss my little baby, but i LOVE the sweet, little girl that she has turned into. she makes me laugh every day with her new words and ideas.

a few months before the big birthday, i started getting ideas on how we should celebrate peyton on her special day. i headed over to pinterest to get some ideas. i'm telling you...if you don't have a pinterest account, get one! it's where 100% of my party planning came from. from the color scheme and the DIY decorations to the food!

other than a color scheme, i really didn't have a theme. i figured i would just do a little thrifting and see what i could find. i hit up a few goodwill and salvation army stores and found some great finds!. i always love a good bargain, especially when there's a party to plan! on the day of the party, after putting on the finishing touches, the end result could be described as 'thrifty chic'. a little vintage inspired, mixed with some bold, fun colors and patterns. and tons of DIY projects. it turned out super cute, and i was happy that i could re-use all the decorations. 

i had my fellow blog BFF as my photographer for the day. hannah as always loved being behind the camera, so i took advantage of her talent and asked her to be in charge of capturing all the necessary birthday pictures. i learned the hard way during peyton's first birthday, while i was trying to juggle being a good hostess, wife, friend and mommy. remembering to take pictures does not fit well into that equation. so i delegated that task to han. and the pictures turned out better than if i had taken them! here are some she took of the decor that went throughout the house:

these are some old bottles i found at a hole in the wall antique store on the north east side. i added a few faux flowers and arranged them all on top of a tray i already had. so shabby birthday!

here's a wider shot of the console table.  i added a few other smaller DIY pieces (one, courtesy of my friend, Meg...thanks, lady!) and some fabric that was on sale at Hankcock. but my favorite part of this table is those old shutters. they were a last minute addition, but i L-O-V-E them. they add height to that corner of the room and are the perfect backdrop for any type of decoration.

in fact, this is how they look right now....

i am a freak about Fall, people. i eat this season up. literally.  i can't get enough pumpkin bars, chai lattes, and mulled apple cider. but i also love crunchy leaves and cooler temps. this time of year i always miss my high school days. friday night valley football games were the highlight of fall. i can't wait for the day when my own kids are old enough, so i can go back to the valley stadium. although i don't think it would be the same:( besides, i think i would embarrass the heck out of peyton if i showed up in my glittery, orange bandana and homemade puff paint shirt, shakin' my keys like crazy at kickoff. not cool, mom...not cool.

side tangent over. back to the birthday party....

this is another little DIY project of mine. i was inspired by young house love's creation with clothes pins and had pinned (haha, pun intended) a project like this on one of my pinterest boards. i hand painted all of these clothes pins one night, while watching project runway, and then hot glued them on a plain, cheap mirror from Michael's. i already owned the craft paint and ribbon to hang it with, so i only had to buy the mirror and an extra pack of clothes pins. it was a pretty inexpensive project and i can't wait to hang it in peyton's room!

yes! my chairs have made a comeback!

another free project (that i most likely completed in front of the t.v. one night) was my paint chip garland. i snagged a few paint chips from the hardware store in the palate of my color scheme and found some twine in my drawer. i used a circle cutter (that i had from a previous project) to save hours of cutting out circles, hole punched the top and then strung them on the twine. and voila, homemade garland!

 

many of you know that i have an affinity for wreaths. especially homemade wreaths! all of the supplies for this one i happened to have on hand. but if you don't have quite the ridiculously extensive craft closet that i do, yarn, felt and a wreath form are pretty cheap. and the possibilities are endless!

the frame wall was a summer project that happened to match the colors of the party (can you tell turquoise is my favorite family of colors?!).  i had dozens of frames sitting in boxes that weren't being used, so i gave them a coat of paint and a new home! that corner of the room seemed to be forgotten before, and now it's one of my favorite walls of the house. i found more sale fabric to dress the table and incorporated the color theme every chance i got. the candelabras, candle holders, glass dish and cafeteria trays were all thrift store finds. and the turquoise candles were one of my first thrifty finds. the color was meant to be!

double almond cupcakes. delish!

rainbow fruit kabobs

hubby makes some good homemade maid rites!

hannah's mom makes some killer punch. she gave me the recipe and i lovingly named it 'grannie annie's famous punch'...it was the perfect color and delicious, of course! this is a vintage punch bowl that i purchased at one of my very first estate sales. it came in it's original box and i knew i had to have it. having a punch bowl is an excuse to have a party!

the decor outside was simple. we set up tables and i taped some white, plastic table clothes over them. i sat some ball jars on top and lit some tea lights inside the jars. it was definitely minimalistic, but still cute. i do love me some ball jars:)

here we are. the rustic jade bloggers, in the flesh! if you look behind my shoulder, you'll see a key and a mirror that i scored (with hannah) at an estate sale back in june. two true gems from that day!

overall, the party was a success. i had so much fun planning, thrifting and decorating. and i know that our sweet P had a blast (not so much with the decorations, but definitely with her friends and her gazillion new toys).  although i am sad to know that my little baby is getting older, i am so excited for all the years to come that i get to plan a party. i better do it while i can, before she's totally embarrassed by her dorky mom:)

thanks so much for reading! hannah and i are so excited about our new blog adventure. we would love any feedback and comments from our readers.

xoxo, 

maggie