Emskyrooney

When we first bought our house it was lacking somewhat in curb appeal. And in general outside appeal overall.  We've been in the house for almost three years now and while there's still a ton more left to do (and a ton more crap left to remove from the yard thanks to the generous previous owners who LEFT IT ALL BEHIND) I thought I'd share a little update on our outdoor spaces as we've put a lot of work into them this year. So here's the front of the house before.  Please note the lovely pink color and the overgrown bushes with zero other landscaping except for some rocks: And here's the front of the house now: Much better!  Future plans include replacing the two spindly little holly bushes on either side of the front stairs with something taller (you can't even see them in these pictures), and doing something with the front stairs in general- railings are a must and I'd love to widen the stairs if we could so that they're wider than the door + sideli...

Does anyone remember the nursery rhyme about the girl with a curl in the middle of her head?  The poem went like this: There was a little girl who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead; When she was good, she was very, very good, And when she was bad she was horrid. I've rewritten it to apply to LP.  Here's my version: There was a little boy who had a big ol' bruise Right in the middle of his forehead; When he was good, he was very, very good, And when he was bad he was horrid (and drove his Mommy nuts). LP has either hit the "Terrible Twos" early or is giving us a preview of defiant adolescent behavior (or perhaps both).  The last few weeks have found me biting me tongue, stifling my impulse to scream and/or cry, and generally feeling very frustrated. For the most part, I know I shouldn't really complain.  LP is still a very good little bo...

I found some time recently to finish up a few projects I'd been working on.  I'd been wanting to recover the throw pillows on our couch for a while in more springy/summery colors to jazz things up.  Here's how things turned out: New quilted pillows for the smaller couch that look like this: New quilted pillows for the larger couch that look like this (I was originally planning to recover the brown pillows too but I think I like the contrast of them and will leave them as is): And a new lap-sized quilt for the back of the couch: Here's more of the quilt: In other sewing news, LP has been playing a lot lately with zippers- on his sweatshirt, on pants, wherever he can find them.  We've also been working on counting and he's obsessed with Sesame Street so I thought I could combine all 3 things and came up with this (somewhat wonky) Cookie Monster doll: Cookie's mouth unzips so that you can feed him cookies! And here's LP loving his Cookie! Just a few more se...