Traditions

Now that we are in a new city, with new things & new places, new traditions have begun. We all have those special things that we do throughout the year, magical things that occur year after year. What are your favorites? We, as a family, have a ton of them that we will continue, but now that we've moved some of them will have to change. I don't mean to say these things in negative connotation... in fact the opposite! 

These last two weekends we did some really fun things that would have never been an option in Indiana! I am excited about exploring the city and all the new opportunities it has to offer. While we are melancholy about our friends in the MidWest (pictured above), we hope to get them to Colorado to enjoy all our new favorite places!

Giving warms the heart

If you're like me, you want to give and give and give some more around Christmas. I give till I get myself in trouble. I like to shop anyway, and then I continue to see things that "remind me" of this person or that... I have to let them know that I was thinking about them, right?!

Well to keep myself out of trouble, in more than one way, I stay at home one weekend in December and bake & make candies. My munchkins and I have a blast, create memories, & mama spends less dough. {pun intended}

Creating these treats helps me to give baskets to people that I love and think about without breaking the bank. On this occasion, however, I found myself without enough actual baskets to pack in. So here was my innovative solution! Remember the boxes that cuties come in? Yes! I wrapped that sucker in some gift wrap and viola! Instant Christmas basket!

Tis the season.. for Baking

There is no time more than the holidays, that I love to bake! Unfortunately this year my mixer is in storage... I've been hunting recipes on Pinterest that do not require a mixer. If you have anything for me, please comment, I would love to know what "works" for you, & of course, what tastes delish.

In the mean time I found a site that shows how to cream butter and sugar, but I am now debating how the rest of the process would work?!

I may just look into some pre-made, do they make that in organic dough? :) I'll let you know what I decide, but in the mean time.. enjoy my trip down memory lane with these most adorable pictures.

No place like home for the holidays

Let me start off by saying, overall, we have been adjusting quite nicely here in CO. I have loved the weather thus far, one day it might be 27º F, but not to worry, the next is 72ºF... not lying. We are in an apartment at the moment, and as a mother and wife I can appreciate how little space I have to clean. I can in fact attest to the fact that we are "closer" by living in an apartment in fact. I kinda like it :)

In the midst of the Holiday season, I am starting to miss my house however. I miss my huge tree, my picture windows with snow outside, and most of all my mantle. So today, I am sharing this nostalgia with you. Is it not beautiful? *sigh*

Life is give and take right?! <3 font="">

Twinkle Twinkle my Christmas Stars

Before you get too excited by these lovely images, please note they are not my photos, and *sigh* not my living courters either. I am madly in love with this entire kitchen, but the only thing I can claim is that this beautiful star from IKEA. 

Now that I not longer have to drive two hours to visit IKEA, I love it all the more. It is nice to see something unique, not the same ole same ole at the other big box stores. Must be that European influence I love! wink, wink ;)

When we lived in the MidWest it was so unusual to pay a visit, it became almost an "event" to get to go. Now that I live close-ish, I run in and out often, and have even went there just to have breakfast... its taking some getting use to. 

Anyhow, back on subject... here are our spares Christmas decor this year, this also is taking some getting use to. They are quite lovely, but simple.. they will make a great addition to my others next year in a house. :)

Oh Christmas Tree...

I have been a busy lil elf lately, sorry for the lack of posting. Once Halloween comes and goes, this mama's brain goes into overdrive! Feasts, cookies, candy, decorations, & presents!

I found this beautiful terrarium over at Pinterest, and immediately fell in love <3 p="">

Considering that my 10 ft tree can not fit in our apartment, this might be a good option for us this year. What do you think? Do you like the Earthiness of this?

Full on Coffee Addict!

When I first met my husband, the only attachment to coffee I had was with my memories of mornings breakfasts on my grandmothers farm. I had vague memories of her giving me lots of milk with a touch of coffee when I was young... I did NOT like it, at all! As close I came is my Chantico. Coffee to me was so bitter... and not drinkable at all. At 19 I met my lovely husband as well as his family, and as we have covered in the past, they are Bosnian. This is a metaphor for *big time coffee drinkers*, not just any coffee, what most Americans would call Turkish coffee, or my hillbilly grandfather would've called cowboy coffee. I, at 19, turned my nose at this, coffee to me was so bitter. 

At about 25, we moved into our new apartment, and with it came a new town, and new places to explore! I found a wonderful place for a sugaraholic like me called South Bend Chocolate Company. I decided one day to try their mocha, verses their hot chocolate. I'll be honest, the chocolate spoon did me in. These mochas were extra extra sweet, so when I began to drink mochas from Starbucks they were very bitter in comparison. I had a few friends, however, that I met on a regular at Starbucks, so I drank them for awhile.

You may have already noticed where I am going with this story, now I am a full on coffee addict! Although I am now drinking Bosnian coffee, Turkish coffee, or Cowboy coffee (however you like to call it), I still drink it with tons of sugar and I LOVE cream in it as well. I get teased a bit from the Bosnians about this, apparently I drink coffee *like a child*, but I can tell you this: 

The child me, at grandma's farm, did not like that coffee taste at all!

Its a love/hate relationship with this progression of needing that coffee *bitter* taste :)

Autumn Crafting for kids

There is about two whole things that I love about Autumn, #1 Boots! and #2 the falling leaves/changing colors. That being said, when fall starts to fall I start to stay "in" more often... drink hot cocoa, and have movie nights as well as crafting time.

I am very blessed to have two kids that love to do crafts with me. My oldest is so in tune with crafts, as you saw last week, so I know she is going to enjoy this one once she sees it!

I found it over at Pinterest, of course.

I'm so in love with these and can not trace back the link :/

However, I found this one too, and it is just as adorable! This blog is where this links too.

Can't wait! When we are done you shall be sure we will share our end result ;)

Pho sure!

Okay guys, I am from the MidWest so please forgive me that I am a little late to the party. I didn't try sushi right away, and now I am guilty of just trying Pho for the first time. BUT... can you say flippin' DELISH?! 

Oh the love. I call myself a foodie very loosely because I am a little skittish to try things, but the heavens opened up for me on this one. I love beef overall anyway, so I tried the rare steak & well done brisket. Lucky for me I had someone with me that was a pro. They explained the Thai basil & bean sprouts, well the saracha too, but I don't do spicy too well so I skipped that.

Now to the point! I wanted to attempt to make this at home.  We all know that it is costly to go out to eat often, however this wonderful dish begs to be eaten often. I first found a lovely recipe on Pinterest for the pressure cooker, but the yield was astronomical. Just when I was about to pull out the grocery list and add freezer bags to the ingredient list, I came across this:

What?! AND its organic??? Yes please! I will be on the hunt for this asap, just add noodles and tender lovely beef. Now how hard is it to find bean sprouts and Thai basil?

Be still my heart... and stomach.

Thanksgiving Visitors

Now I don't know about you all out there, but when we do Halloween, we just do some trick or treating and call it a day. We load our kids buckets FULL, then the parents sneak the "good candy", and then let the kids go crazy for one night a year. We are not the family that has an elaborate Halloween costume party, although I'd like to do that once. 

We ARE however the family that does more traditional Thanksgiving family gatherings. That all being said, I stumbled across this on Pinterest. I'm in love with how fricken adorable these are. 

I traced it back to tadkapasta and it seems they are calling these to be for Halloween...

I, as you've guessed, would do them for my Thanksgiving gathering. Now all I need to do is get a gathering of people to visit Colorado for Thanksgiving. ;)

Baby Shower for my newest lil niece

As you can imagine we wanted to spend as much time possible with family before going West. Luckily for us, we had loads of things to do to accomplish this feat. Amongst all the fun last minute things we did, I got to plan a shower for my newest arrival to my extended family. I was getting (now have) a little niece. My sister and I landed on an owl themed shower, and being the good sibling I am I got to "pinning". Like everyone on Pinterest, we found more than we could accomplish, but over all I think it turned out great given the shoestring budget.

If you have been around my blog much, you know that I use to work for a label company, thus always including water bottle designs into every party I plan.

I found something very similar to this on Pinterest, and had to "steal" the idea to make it my own. I like to give credit where credit is due, but when I opened the link to find it, the image was just cache. I put animal crackers inside these and made them our table centerpieces. They did double duty, make the place look pretty, and keep the kids calm and quite while we played games.

Ultrasound pictures were provided by the mother to be, and I made the banner to match our overall color scheme. The lights were a Target dollar spot find! I got them for a dollar and they matched perfectly!

I created this sign in to be very much like the wedding ones I've seen around a lot, but I decided to make the tree more like a storybook theme so that we could hang it in baby's room. I really like how it turned out with the fingerprints as the leaves.

This I can not take credit for, however I wish I could, it turned out perfect! I found one similar on (you guessed it) Pinterest and handed the project over to the mother in law. She did such an awesome job. Definitely competes with the one I found over here.

One more thing that I can not claim as my own, but was amazing! One of the guests brought this awesome diaper cake that just put the final touch on our decor. Is it not lovely?

Over all we had a nice time, delicious food/cake, and great conversation. 

That is what showers are for right?!

Wait! It's October?!

EEkkk.. I'm not scared over here, I am freaking out! I am not ready for this Halloween thing at all! I need to get the girls their costumes, but more importantly, we had traditions in the Midwest... I know where Nothing is here. I don't have a clue where we will be going and trick or treating. I guess I need to get to Google-ing some stuff. I need to go shopping!

While I go get some crap done, here are some cute images from Halloween's past:

My eldest is a crafty one, I may have even shared this one before, but I am just so proud of it/her.

Here is one of the "Chipmunk girls" with her Halloween costume, Yeap you guessed it: ghost!

Cute huh?!

Onward & Upward

In this past year and a half, a. lot. of things have been going on! Now that all the pieces are falling back together, we are in a new state:

"Onward & Upward" is the new motto for my family! 

We are sad to leave our friends and family of the Midwest, but we welcome all the new fun & culture Colorado has. I am sure there will be many exciting things for the my family to "put our stamp" on, and I will select the best places to share with you, my favorite blog friends.  

Here's to our new motto "onward and upward" 

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