Milkymilk

New Loves

Morning Sweets, Evening Treats, our new gift pack that includes a Bittersweet Bourbon Pumpkin mini Loaf, 1/2 dozen Cranberry Pistachio Cointreau Biscotti and 2 corresponding recipe cards.

 

Vintage Style Ribbon Vinyl Wall Chalkboard Sticker at Spell it Out Designs

Stella McCartney for Baby Gap, for real!  It is still more than we spend on clothes for Harper, but maybe for Christmas... or on sale.

Harper's new attitude.  Now that she is talking a little bit more, "NOOO!" has been replaced by a very very sassy, "No, tank-yoooooou."

 

Harper's Park

We spent the day at home, piddling, doing a little bit of this and that, but mostly nothing at all.  I try to schedule at least one day, preferably two, of nothing a week.  Nothing is just the thing sometimes, you know?

Like how nothing beats playing with your favorite cinder block on a pedestal.

Or just standing on an abandoned slab.  

Our yard is a vast strange collections of bits of nothing, along with a couple of steep cliffs and a babbling brook.  Not your typical playground, but fun none the less.

Amid all the relaxing I was never able to hold that girl down long enough to trim her bangs.  Poor thing, it is either a barrette or back to the baby salon.  She is not keen on barrettes, at all, and is less keen on getting her hair done.  Goodness, they don't make baby tranquilizers do they?  Like when the cats need their teeth cleaned?  Not that I would...  but her bangs are getting in her eyes.

Craft Corner! A makeover in 2 parts

It is chilly here.  Lovely chilly sweater weather that makes me regret ever being homesick for Los Angeles.  Chicken and waffles?  Please, we have fall. 

The time has come for us to pack up our screened in porch playroom, and bring the fun indoors.  This resulted in Harper drawing with crayons on the wall while I followed her around with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, trying to disciple her while not stifling her creativity or just breaking down in tears of frustration.  Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!  

Welcome to Craft Corner! ya'll:

  

  

Craft Corner! is part of our dinning room, nice and far away from the TV.

Umm, where is craft corner going?

  

Better light by the window, little girl?

Welcome to General Craft Area!

Don't draw on that wall baby girl, please.

Trick or Treating, Westchester Style

We went tick or treating at The Mall with some buddies.  That is right, The Mall.  At Tiffany's...

 

And Barney's CO-OP.  After all, we live in the burbs.  We might as well make the best of it, and that we did.  Harper gathered some pretty swanky treats, and we could not be more proud of our little tulip/strawberry fairy (who was going to be a pumpkin but refused to keep the costume on and began crying at the mere sight of it.)

We also did some trick or treating in town during the evening.  This town gets down on Halloween.  Suddenly it is wall to wall kids, neighbors with barrels of candy dishing it out by the handful, parents strolling down the sidewalk, baby in a sling and beer in hand.  It was an almost rad place to live.  

 

last minute Bat Garland, yo

I was looking though ohdeeoh the other day, for inspiration for Harper's & #2's new rooms.  I was so charmed with mer mag's security envelope cupcake/sandwich toppers!  So smart and cute and inspirational. 

 

We have not been saving the envelopes our bills come in, and I do not have any toothpicks.  But, we had enough to scrounge together a spooky-ish bat garland.   

You will need:  envelopes, a pencil, some tape, a needle & thread, and a sheet of card stock for the template.  (I found this bat template on Martha Stewart's website, and used 1/2 of the small bat from page 1.)

I was able to fit three bats onto one envelope.

I highly recommend apolhstery thread for garlands.  All purpose can break, and button is a bit clunky.  Fishing line always just looks like fishing line, and far from invisible, to me.  

I cut about 5 or 6 feet of thread before stringing the bats.

 

Thread the bats about where the body meets the wings.  This allows the wings to open up nicely.

For my finished garland, above the mantel, there are 5 stands of bats, with between 3-7 bats per strand.  I just taped it to the ceiling with scotch tape.  We only need it to last up there for a few days, and it is very light.  To keep some of the bats in place, and to keep their wings a little bit open, I put an itty bitty bit of tape on the top of one wing where it met the thread.  It is hidden that way.

Ah, pregnancy hormones hard at work.

A New Room and a New Love (of Motorcycles)

 

Harper's big girl room has stalled out before it started, to be honest.  Thankfully, we had not moved all her things in from the nursery before we hit a wall.  The hiccup is the dreaded big girl bed.  She loves it, really loves it.  Will she sleep it in?  Nope.  Not when she can get out of it and play. 

So, we could put her crib in there, too, as a nice transition and to keep her trapped for a bit longer.  The thing is that the crib is too big to fit thought the door.  We would have to take it apart, put it back together, and then take it apart and put it back together again before the baby arrives.  Preferably well before the baby arrives, so Harper is not mad at the baby for taking 'her' crib.

Or, we can wait a couple of months, and hope as she grows older and wiser she will listen to us when we ask her to stay in her bed.  I think the age of reasoning is not far off.  Every day she surprises me with how much she knows.  Today, it was that she knows the word, "motorcycle."  

In fact, she LOVES motorcycles...  Um, there is a bright big world of trouble ahead of us, but we'll have to take that one day at a time.

Any-who, this all gives us longer to put the room together and fuss over the little details of decorating.  That is the best part, any-way.  Let's just hope that we get around to preparing the nursery for the new baby sometime before March.