Stick A Fork In It

This is NOT a recipe post.  Our dishwasher has been hungry for the past month...I am pretty sure it is on its last temper tantrum before it leaves us for dishwasher retirement home.  Unfortunately our forks have been the target its bad behavior!

So I know find myself on the search for new everyday flatware, or maybe an excuse to purchase new flatware.  If something sits still lon enough I will find a way to monogram it and my target is flatware.

I have found a few options and now I must decide.  If you have a set you love, and are willing to share, I would love some more choices.  Remember I have 2 minnies and am not looking for a service that I will need to hand wash!

This set from Ballard Designs has a vintage feel but is still casual, and there is always a coupon code for Ballard in Coastal or Southern Living.

I found this set on Ebay, a place I never would have thought to look for a set of new flatware.  I like the clean lines and classic block initial.

Believe it or not this 46 piece set is less than $60 with engraving!

Decisions, decisions....

Fabric Frenzy

Yesterday they started predicting MAJOR snow for today.  8-12" they warned over and over and over. It was going to be so bad they closed schools and city governments for today before 6p.m. last night.  Mini K was actually looking forward to art today so she wasn't exactly happy about school being cancelled but she still woke up excited and came running in and informed us that it was raining.  Surely it couldn't just be raining.  We are in the middle of a sequester in D.C. which means only essential employees are at work....this would mean an ESSENTIAL, read senior level, NOAA forecaster would have been the one to originally sound the alarms for 8-12" of snow in D.C.  I will let you decide how essential the weather men and NOAA "experts" were from the photo below.  Can you believe we survived a snow storm with this rare form of brown snow called rain and mud unharmed?

So while Baby C slept and Mini K read I cranked out a few conference calls, more emails than I can count and then turned my attention to my to do list.  It is shrinking in size, but not fast enough for my taste.

We put the finishing touches on Mini K's reading nook & installed her tooth fairy door in her room before her tooth falls out.

I finalized my lucite drapery rod order for the den panels.  These have been a process, but I am so excited to see them installed.  I love the plaid silk with the heavy fringe and look forward to seeing it all together.

Mini K help me put eye screws in 20 drapery rings so we can hang these lovely panels after our contractor installs the rod tomorrow.

We went over the last minute trim details for our sectional to join these panels early next week.

Our stack of pillows and fabrics have been sorted by what needs to be monogrammed and what can go to E so she can work her magic stitching them up.

I still think there is magic in crossing something off of your list with a Le Pen or Sharpie.  I did add my need to purchase this lovely to my list, but it will have to wait until I after I survive a field trip to the museum with Mini K's class tomorrow.

Crib Jumping

What a week it has been in the Grove! I had so many posts planned in my head and then orders and the minnies took over and now I find myslef wondering how it is already Sunday! It has been so much fun seeing everyone take advantage of our sale and I love to see what color combos and designs people select.

Our big news is that Baby C at 22 months accomplished the feat of crib jumping...6 months after Mini K achieved it. My goal was to make it his second birthday before we moved him into a bed, but that may be a dream now. Mini K went straight from her crib to a twin bed at 16 months.

I wish I could figure out a way to take the video from our monitor and post it, because these kids could make crib jumping an Olympic sport. What is truly funny is that Baby C gets out the EXACT SAME way his big sister did. They both do this strange looking jump to get their chests on the crib rail and then swing their legs back and forth to get momentum and then launch themsleves over. It seems simply getting over is not enough excitement for them. The first time Mini K did it we ended up in the ER as she landed on her head. Thankfully all was fine and the bed was ordered the next day. Baby C is packing a few more pounds than his sister so he lands on his bottom.

Since we cannot send these two to London to come home with Olympic gold we tried another approach last night: the sleep sack. We never really used sleep sacks with Baby C so when we pulled one out last night he started shaking his head and saying no dress, no dress. A little chase and wrestle later and the sleep sack was on! I so thought we had won the battle, but it seems crib jumping has a companion sport and it is potato sack racing.

NOT JOKING!!!!

Around 6am he decided to eject himself from the crib and then proceeded to jump to the kitchen and ask for eggs.

If Mini K would have done this I would have had a heart attack, but Baby C is my second child and I am a more laid back mom. I know a lot of you have posted on feeling like you don't give as much attention to one child over the other, but for me I am thankful I don't stress when Baby C acts like, well a boy. Both Mini K and Baby C are fearless and I can see what an advantage that is as I watch Mini K get older. At times this trait has left me fearful, stressed and nervous, but I think that ever parent feels that way at times.

This leads me to my question...did you move your little ones into a toddler bed or a big kid bed from the crib? I am considering the toddler bed transition for Baby C, but admit it is mainly because I am in LOVE with this toddler bed from Restoration Hardware! Can't you just see it with some seersucker or oxford bedding? I already have the mattress and that gives us time to finish the addition and then move him in to his new room.

Valentine's Day Wreath

Since it is already 10pm and I still need to take a shower and tackle the battle that is drying my hair straight tonight, I am going to only post about new door decor.

I wouldn't let Mini K touch the hot glue for our Christmas ornament wreath so she insisted on a Valentine's Day wreath she could help make. It had to be pink, pink and poufy....so we settled on a pom pom wreath for our front door.

We printed off a coupon to Michael's and headed off to purchase a styrofoam wreath mold and then headed to Wal-Mart to purchase yarn. After looking at far too many colors, Mini K decided on pale pink, hot pink and white.

The wreath itself is pretty easy to make. You need to make all of the individual pom poms first, then tie them around the wreath form, and then hang with ribbon.

To make each pom pom simply wrap the yarn around your 4 fingers approximately 70 times, the more you wrap the poufier (is that a word) it gets. Then cute the yarn, cut another piece and tie the wrapped yarn in the center. Our wreath has 48 pom poms on it so we did 19 of each color, I think.

Once you have all of your pom pom's, simply cut the loops at each end. (Don't you LOVE all of my technical terms in this post?) Then tie each pouf to the wreath form. Once we finished, we looped a piece of pink and white striped grosgrain ribbon around the wreath and tied another in a bow.

Mini K had so much fun doing this project and our front door is already ready for Valentine's Day, but I refuse to allow any Valentine's Day candy through our front door quite yet!

Speedy, Speedy, Speedy

I had a little shock today. I had forgotten I had ordered new counter stools for the kitchen. Well, I remembered, but for some reason I thought they wouldn't arrive until Christmas/new Year's time frame.

So when my fabulous Fed Ex man knocked and said he had 3 huge boxes I was surprised. Some of you, Hopsy, know that I spent an insane amount of time looking for bamboo style counter stools. The search + MAJOR FAIL. So I channeled my inner Lilly, or half Lilly and went green and a little wild too! The best part is that both the pillow fabric and the chair fabric are outdoor fabrics, so they repel water...I am hoping Mini K doesn't put them to the test tomorrow!

As I was unpacking them, I realized tomorrow our fabulous housekeeper comes. This translates to total panic attack of what to do with the old stools so there wouldn't be clutter. So at 4pm today up they went on Craig's List and and by 7:45pm they were gone.

I love it when things work out. There is always that little scare when you order something and wonder if it will work out, but this time I think it did.

It's Project Time

Maybe it is just me, but when it comes to home decorating projects I do them one at a time. So after 2 1/2 years, I am finally tackling my master bedroom. Now don't get me wrong, I have my running list of items I am looking for...(a unique large white bowl or urn for the dining room table, matching green and white urns, the perfect shade of lavender for the front guest bedroom).

When we added on to the house, the only thing we touched in the master bedroom was one wall. We turned a blank wall into a wall of built-in high glass white shelves and drawers. It provides us with some storage in our old house, and has inspired me to do a somewhat nautical theme for the room

I have been debating between Leontine Linens and Matouk, monogrammed of course, and have finally settled on Matouk.

The Mirisol pattern for the pique blanket cover and european shams..both will be in Ocean blue and monogrammed of course.

The Ocean Blue Bamboo pattern for one set of sheets.

I fell in love with their ocean blue color and am going to mix traditional monogrammed pique with the Lulu DK for Matouk River patten.

The River Duvet and I will also do River for boudoir pillow shams.

I still cannot decide between these 2 monograms.

I will be doing a separate post on my dear friend Elizabeth, who has a fabulous home design company later, but Miss Elizabeth is making from natural linen panels with double trim: a cream tassle and what else, but a striped blue wide grosgrain ribbon. I am still shopping for some high glass white rods, brackets and rings, but you can get the picture.

And last but not least is the paint color. I have narrowed it down to two choices: Northern Air and Glass Slipper. The Glass Slipper is more blue than gray in person. Both are from Benjamin Moore and I found both at one of my favorite sites: My Perfect Color. I ordered the samples and they should arrive on my doorstep next week. Mr. Grove laughs but I literally paint a 3ft by 3ft section on opposing walls of my choices and make myself live with them for a month, then I decide.

Northern Air

Glass Slipper...