Xmas gifts that rock!

Ice cream maker and Popsicle maker!

We're loving them!

My mom got Sam a  Cuisinart Ice Cream maker. We've made several batches so far and they've all been so much better than anything at the grocery/specialty stores. I'm really diggin' this!

You just put the drums in the freezer for at least 24 hrs and then make sure your mix you make has been chilled for at least 3hrs. Once you put it all on the machine (which is so easy my 2yr old can figure it out!) it only takes ~20 minutes to churn up fresh ice-cream!!

My mom also picked up this Zoku popsicle maker. Its so neat!

You put that green part there in the freezer for at least 24 hrs and then basically you just pour your juice/mix in and it makes the popsicle in 7-9 minutes on the countertop. 

Max really enjoyed seeing the magic of how they're made. Total instant gratification. And talk about knowing what ingredients go into them!

We made OJ  pops while little man was sick this week. 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great holiday season and new year!

xoxo
Jennifer

Holiday 1st

Max helped make his first ever gingerbread man!

I went with the ready to make kit from Trader Joe's

Project: House Holiday Decor has begun!

To be continued...

Sweet!

It's about time someone did this. Sweetened condensed milk in a bottle. That way if you want some in your coffee or tea you don't have that whole awkward can thing.

EZ-PZ.

Trader Joe's you win my smart award!


Also, this Cookie Butter is SO good! Seriously it is going to be my new snack crack!

It's has the texture of peanut butter but the taste of gingersnaps or european cookies.

Anyways, try it! It's awesome!!!

Project #2 complete (well almost)

One of the major projects I've been slowly working on is 99% complete. I just need to go through and print out the photos.

But the major work here is done.

Frames complete and in place!

Cool toy!

So I got Maxwell this totally cool toy.

I saw it advertised a while back and have been checking on Amazon every few weeks to see if it was available. Last week it showed up here and it has been a hit!

 You can put your iPod Touch or iPhone inside it and turn on an app for your kiddo. The screen and the home button are protected behind plastic so that your child can't exit out or call people/delete apps etc.

Only negative so far is that opening the back to take it in/out each time you need to turn the app on/off or whatnot does get a tad old. But the plus side is, Max can't do any harm! :)

Also, I did some coupon shopping this week. I scored all this for barely over $11!

I saw a deal on these A&H refrigerator packs, and with our new fridge we needed some. What perfect timing. I spent a whopping $0.40 on these four. Actually the one on the top right, the store paid me $0.11 to take home! :)

I'm tardy

Maxwell on Halloween. He was a monkey. I know this post is WAYYY  late! 

I still have to track down and import his birthday pics. Yikes!!

Max

Incoming picture overload :)

A short (4 minute) drive away from us is this great Adventure Playground. Its HUGE and a LOT of fun now that Maxwell is big enough to play around a bit there.

Projects around the house

As I've been working on a few projects, I figure I'd post about what I've been up to.

First I hung a bunch of pictures in the bedroom and hallways. Mostly I've just been lazy or unsure about placement, so all I really needed to do was get off my tooshie.

 I finally got around to hanging the blinds in the bathroom. They've only been sitting in a box in the corner of my room for 1.5 years now. :( Shameful, I know, not to have some up before this.

 These are the shelves in our bathroom that I finally coaxed Sam into putting up for me.

I really wanted to get the cleaning supplies and medicines up and out of reach of kid-sized arms.

 Various pictures I finally got around to hanging. Well, once I decided where I finally wanted them to be.

The Seattle picture below was a gift from my office mates in Seattle to me as a going away present when I moved here. I put it in the hallway upstairs here and it looks great!

Another project was to install this lovely organizer I ordered from Pottery Barn. They've just been sitting in their boxes in the basement for a couple of months. I couldn't decide whether I wanted them in the office or downstairs here by the phone. Obviously, it isn't in the office.

I've really liked it because I've been posting up my meal planning on it which makes it super easy to see.

Max's Bathroom

The final project I've been working on was sort of spur of the moment, really. I've known I wanted to change around Maxwell's bathroom. Previously it was sort of feminine with purple/beige and flowers etc. Its been fine for the last 2 years but as he's getting older and will start using it himself, I wanted something that was more 'him'.  But I also wanted the bathroom to be not fully "kiddie" and I also wanted it to be sort of gender neutral.

While at Target this week, I saw the accessories and they were on sale. I knew as soon as I saw them that they were perfect for Max's bathroom.

The beige shower curtain was the same as what was there previously. However I changed out the hardware for new ones. Its hard to see, but the circles on the shower curtain hangers actually have A-B-C-D-E-F on them. I loved the striped towels. The Target(s) near us were sold out of the large bath towels, which is why I only have the one. I hung the 2 hand towels there for the moment until I can get another bath towel. I put in the links to Target so you can see the close-ups of all the cuteness!

First off, the biggest change is that I painted the cabinet under the sink!! It was originally a blah craptastic oak cabinet. I hate oak! SO, I decided to paint it a dark chocolate. I still need to attach the hardware (simple silver nobs for the 2 doors). It looks SOOOO much better to me!

 The rug (with the circles) is new. Its sorta hard to tell from this distance but the cup and tooth brush holder both have letters on them (Circo Alphabet Dots). The toothbrush holder has A-B-C-D and the cup has the entire alphabet printed on it.

All the vinyl artwork I ordered on Amazon. I initially ordered them for the basement but I actually thought they'd be perfect for here. I'm so pleased with them.

 I loved the vinyl stickers so much, I but a "b" on the bathroom door and an "m" on Max's bedroom door. Looks pretty cute to me!

Getting Organized, Part 2: The Basement turned Playroom

Ok, so the playroom is pretty much done.

You can see the embarrassing pictures of the basement before I worked on it here.

In the pictures below, its quite dark (since I used my iPhone and took the pics at night) so the lighting is pretty awful. Overall I'm happy with the space. There are some minor things to do in there still.

For instance, to the left of the beige chair, I want to turn that wall there into a storage wall. We want to install something like this there.

Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Here is what the basement looks like now after I got things organized a bit and moved around:

 This is right as you come down the stairs into the basement.

 Obviously I'm standing on the stairs looking in. Currently, to the left of the easel is a large table/desk against the wall so that the small kids table on the rug is more in the middle of the room.

 The empty wall space on the right actually has a new chalkboard that I made from an old picture. The frame was nice so I just used chalkboard paint over the glass (covering up the picture) and then put it up. Very simple project and it really brings things together there a bit.

I've got to finish this part, the photo wall. I just need to sit down and select all the photos to print and get them into the frames and rearrange things.

Still here

Just been pinning too many things on Pinterest, reading books via the Kindle and trying to do a bunch of projects around the house.

While my mom was here for Max's birthday, I did a bunch of stuff around the house. Some small, some large projects. Felt good to get them done. Well, ever since, I've been sorta in the mood to keep it up. So I've been working on a few here and there.

I cleaned out the fridge/freezer - though that was mostly out of necessity when our old one completely died. But I've been trying to just cook only with what we have in the freezer/pantry, so I'm furthering that clean out!

I got the shelves up in our bathroom that I've been wanting to do forever. I've had the shelves since the beginning of summer and have been pestering Sam to hang them. I finally guilted him into helping me...took 15 minutes! hah

I re-did Max's bathroom. Pics to come later.

I finally finished the basement playroom!

The garage is almost cleaned out - need to haul off some stuff and it should be finished!

Hung various pictures around the house - like the master bedroom, the hallway and stairwell, etc.

Been busy! Once I've sat down later for the night tonight, I'll upload pics of the various projects!

Shiny new love!

This beauty arrived yesterday morning!

My lovely new refrigerator! Its a Samsung, we got it from  Sears. I got a pretty screaming good deal on it, $1200 off due to the holiday sale. Quadruple thanks to Veterans! <3

Shiny <3!! Love!!

Its sorta hard to see from this shot, but there really is a TON of room. Upper left corner you can see the compact ice maker - makes something like 36 glasses of ice. That way you still get room in the door. Other models have the full ice maker in the door, but that means you don't get any door storage. I like this setup. There are the 2 crisper drawers on the bottom. They're a smudge small, but really its not bad.

The shelf the eggs are on is a split shelf. The horizontal line you see in front there, well that front part of the shelf slides under the back part so you can store taller items if needed. Where the creamer is, you can sorta see that shelf is flipped up to rest on the ice maker to make room for taller items.  Love it!

This right here makes up for the smallish crisper drawers. This is the upper outside drawer you see in the first shot. There's an LCD there with 4 different temperatures (wine, drinks, meats, party trays etc). This is where I keep the sammich meats/bacon, cheeses, and some cold snack items. I liked that this will be easily accessible to the kiddo as he gets older without having to get into the upper fridge.

It is sorta hard to see but there is a slider/grid for the drawer where you can set 'sections' from 1-4 to help keep things in there organized/contained to compartments. Nice feature!

This is a shot looking down at the bottom freezer drawer. This pic is technically upside down. I can't get Blogger to rotate it the right way and I'm too lazy to go into Aperture to force it.

At the top of the pic you see some small baggies, well that's technically right in front of the handle against your leg when you open the drawer. If you take those baggies out, you'd see that there is a slot you can lift up and place a pizza box in vertically.  

You see on the bottom of the pic the drawer? That's technically the 'upper' drawer for the freezer. It slides back and forth and is oh, 5-6" deep or so. Perfect for small items or frequently used things.

The very bottom (in the middle on the pic) is the deep section of the freezer. It has a moveable divider- in my case it separates meats from veggies/fruits. 

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