Mirror mirror on the wall....

This is for you Tiffany:)

My little mirror display consists of 4 cheapo, white Target mirrors (clearance awhile back for I believe about $5 per) and a re-painted picture frame (originally from Home Goods or Marshalls) and Target folder cut into a "S".
I had the four white mirrors up alone for the longest time, but it always looked pretty blah. And I had randomly made the 'S' picture and had it sitting elsewhere in the room when one day I had Grant jimmy it to the wall (our problem being that with this old of a house any exterior wall is nearly impossible to nail into, so we end up using those sticky things for everything).
I obviously free formed the 'S'.....the impatient part of me opted not to take the extra 5 minutes to make an actual template. Bad Leslie. Bad.
If anything, it has made for the perfect spot to admire ones self.
Pre "S"

Halloween Extravaganza!

And when you say 'extravaganza' you must do so with the exaggerated flair Phoebe from Friends would have done so.

We started our early Halloween celebration this past weekend by throwing a little party Saturday morning in lieu of the usual 'bagel day' coffee outing.  Special guest appearance by this guy:
Christopher.....5 months old and sweeter than candy corn.
I did all finger foods to keep clean-up easy: donuts, pumpkin bread, mini-quiches, blueberry muffins, clementines, 'mummy wraps' (turkey dogs wrapped in bread sticks), coffee, apple cider (hot and cold) and orange juice. Oh and of course, Bloody Mary's. How could I forget the alcohol? We were gifted some delicious cupcakes and insanely addictive gooey butter cake to add to the mix.
The mini-quiches earned rave reviews and were devoured with requests for the recipe...here it is and I added about 7 crumbled up pieces of cooked bacon to the mix.
Costumes were encouraged but not required. And no Grant, my sister and I both wearing black and white was not an excuse to call us 'cows'.
Pumpkin carving.....and/or drawing with a black sharpie ensued.
Loves
Mild biting was practiced (and oddly enough, not by my children)
Some serious conversation was a happenin' ---- complete with stuffed monkey
The newly re-engineered ghost** was relocated to the backyard for the festivities
**apparently mother nature thought my use of duct tape was utterly absurd and she laughed in my face...so back to the drawing board we went and actually followed the tutorial this time, nails, glue, and hand sewing of the eyes and nose. Mother nature = 1. Mom = 0. For now anyway.
Moving on....
This picture makes me smile and my ovaries scream.
And winner of the 'sharpie pumpkin drawing' competition:
Attempted family pic, 'attempt' being the operative word
Random party shots
The weather was fantastic, the food was yummy, the alcohol was flowing......a winning combination for any extravaganza in my book!

Boo!

Creative, eh?
My most favorite-est time of year is fall and now with the extra time on my hands and a little thing called pinterest, we Stiff ladies are making the most of it.
Ghost courtesty of this slightly altered tutorial....I skipped nails and used duct tape, lots o'duct tape and Tarjay wasn't selling cheese cloth (at least as far as myself and two testy toddlers could see) so we just used a white sheet.
And the symbolism of the three tiny pumpkins?  Well, yeah, the third is the imaginery child I will apparently never be able to have because my husband is mean.  Sorry Grant.  The truth hurts.
In other news.....while Reese napped, Ryan and I made some super easy (2 ingredients!!!), super tasty pumpkin bread.....I only had Pumpkin Spice Cookie mix on hand so we used that instead of cake mix. And the glaze is delish. Don't skimp.
Granted, I won't ever be confused for a food stylist/photographer, but take my word for it. Yummers.

Three stitches and a pie.....

So Tuesday night was eventful......Reese, or shall we call her 'kamikaze' as she is now known, fell off a little step stool and sent us off to the ER.  Our first visit.  Of course it was Reese who did us the honors.  Ryan is a bit more calculated and controlled in her craziness.  She was great, hated the Doctor and nurses (whom we loved) but enjoyed a few hours eating ice and playing with mom's wallet.  Thankfully for her parents, we were lucky enough that the hour we waited for the numbing gel to kick in on Reese's forehead coincided with the season premiere of Parenthood.  A slight win in an unfortunate situation.
And if you're wondering.....she clearly hasn't learned a lesson because our little kamikaze is as crazy as ever.
And, and, if you're wondering....I was a little under impressed with the Parenthood opener - what is up with Maddie and Amber's hairdos?
In other news, prior to our hospital pit stop, the highlight of my day had been this:
A little background info here - I have NEVER made a pie myself, let alone completely homemade (crust and all) but have always wanted to make my own apple pie in the fall. Seems like a must in the stay-at-home-mom-and-it's-fall handbook. So I gave it a whirl and by golly, it was delish! One point for mom. And I suppose the ER visit for my baby takes away a few points but let's just gloss over that for now....

Pinterest

For those of you not familiar with this term, be prepared for your lives to change.  For those of you who are, you already know what I mean....

Basically, whenever you find a super cute idea, inspiration, recipe, whatever out on the internet and want to remember or file it away, Pinterest is an account that can categorize all such fun in one place.

You have to ask for an invitation to the website and when you finally are granted an account (it's like the popular kids inviting you to a slumber party), you take off and categorize all the creativity you can find on the internet.

This came about today as my sister couldn't remember where she had seen a cute DIY bean bag tutorial for her little nugget.  Lucky for her, I had filed it away on my 'sewing' board.

Check it out for yourself....
http://pinterest.com/lesliestiff/ 

The secret to it all....

Prepare to be enlightened....I have recently discovered the fountain-of-getting-sh*t-done. Ready? Take notes and get ready to be productive! Come closer as I whisper to you the secret of life.
Get out your tennis shoes and put them on
That's it. Simple. Easy peasey. If you get out of bed and immediately put on your tennis shoes, you will be AMAZED at what you can accomplish. You don't get tempted to nap on the couch, or crawl back into bed, once you have those shoes on you'll even venture into the unfinished portion of the basement that gives you the heebie geebies (you know, the part you would NEVER go barefoot) to do some cleaning or organizing.
So go forth and wear rubber.

Free falling....

One of the perks of mom being home full time now?  Cleaning and reorganizing!  I am embarrassed to say I have already done a few things that didn't make the cut in the busy mom/dad working all day era.  Yesterday the girls and I decided to tackle 3 of the upstairs closet.  I have to say, while bedrooms may be small, the builder of this home didn't skimp when it came to storage closets.  My trusty partner in crime took to the air to help better assess the inventory:
I don't know how you clean in your house, but here we do it sans pants.
I got a little inspiration for Reese's room when I uncovered the sheet set my mom and I had found on clearance a year ago at Home Goods. I am thinking curtains, pillows, accessories....Gotta love a free project.
Stay tuned....

Ryan's room

Creative title.  Long post.
After three years, I finally got around to doing a bit of 'decorating' (as Ryan would say) for the little chica's room.  When we first moved in, it was an ode to Jamaican yellow:

I'm sure our Ryan hated it, and us, for forcing her to sleep in obnoxious sunshine (much like cheese ball Ryan from the Bachelorette....not that I'm watching) for over a year. Perhaps this explains the attitude nowadays.
We swapped out the paint color a while back and were gifted some adorable new furniture but I never really did much with the room:
Until finally a month or so ago I got the itch and the inspiration to get this sh*t done! I never wanted to go the traditional uber-pink room for Ryan (b/c she is so not an uber-pink kind of girl) - but I never really knew what color I did want until I stumbled upon one of those Target clearance end-caps and saw a lone lampshade that was a simple white with a teal border. On a whim I bought it, brought it home and then discovered that it matched the cover of one of our Dr. Seuss books perfectly. I tucked Dr. Seuss under my arm and skipped off to Lowe's to have the paint matched so I could tackle my first project stolen from the Young House Love creative masterminds: http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/03/nursery-progress-closet-quick-change/
The girls bedrooms are both tiny and have lots of windows (which is actually a curse as it leaves us with hardly any wall space for furniture placement) so after seeing how we could create a little more room by taking off the closet door, we did so in both rooms (more on Reese's room at a later date - aka, when I get off my rear and fully redo her room as well).
Ryan's closet before:
During
And with the help of my JV-grade sewing skills, the after:
Side note on the curtain fabric - who would have guessed how hard it would be to find a fabric I loved that had a hint of teal in it. I must have gone to about 8 different shops looking for a budget-friendly find (finally scored at Hobby Lobby, go figure). To girl it up a bit, I did buy some hot pink fabric to add as a trim.
Another bonus to doorless closets - no more slamming of fingers and hours of endless fun playing peak-a-boo
Once that was done, the next project was simple - redoing Ryan's letters in the same fabric with a little help from my favorite guns: staple and glue
I used my leftover paint to coordinate a few items, first being a little box to hold her hair bows, brush, cigarettes, whatever. Ryan and I busted out the painting supplies and went to town on a box that used to house some adorable toy of some sort that had long since abandoned it's container:
This project made possible by my new BFF the $1.08 McDonald's coffee
And voila
Moving along....I also repainted the mattes from the 3 pictures I originally had hanging (and swapped out the photos) to match the new teal theme we were rocking. Note the inspiration lampshade.
Switching gears...again...I attempted to make some corresponding pillows with my leftover fabric. Beginner note: regular pillows are cake but it's those effing decorative pillows and my attempt to add some contrast piping that sucked.....just don't look close, it's not pretty. Or also the fact that I got ahead of myself and thought I could 'wing it' - next time, I will get a tutorial and follow it - better yet, I need to start practicing with zippers.
And I suppose I could have tidied up and staged the room, but let's just keep it real here. This is what it looks like 99% of the time:
Disclaimer: we are not DIY-ers, at all, but that brown dresser is actually one item we did steal from my parent's basement (it was my dresser as a newborn, precious right?) and we painted it and gave it some new hardware and it now is tortured and beat to hell by two little misfits
Aaaaaannnnddddd....done.
Thanks for playing!