The end of the birthday celebrating.

Iris is officially four now, hurray! We had a super fun weekend celebrating her birthday. When she woke up on Saturday, she got to walk through her birthday streamers. After her special birthday breakfast (she requested hard-boiled eggs and a smoothie, ha), she opened her presents. 

The box of plastic dinosaurs and animals (a few of which are pictured above) were a big hit and she liked the little felt strawberries I made her, but she is cah-razy about her new digital camera. She's taken hundreds of pictures already. It's so fun to see what she wants to photograph! (Literally everything.)

After a soggy Saturday, we got two beautiful days here in Minnesota to wrap up the holiday weekend. We packed in a lot of summery stuff: backyard kiddie pool time, adult Pimm's Cup time, lunch at the Sea Salt, dinner out on the patio, grilled everything and lots of outdoor idling. 

Look for more stuff to hit the shop this week!

Turning four & a shop sale!

May is my birthday month, so of course it's always been my favorite month. But then four years ago, my first baby was born in May, too, and suddenly the month got even more fun! Iris is loving all this birthday attention. We already had her party last week and she just had another one at daycare yesterday, but that won't stop us from celebrating her official birthday all weekend long.

I'm going to start using this fun birthday tradition of having Iris jump through some streamers into her new year. We're also hoping to squeeze in a picnic and, assuming the forecast is right about all the rain, we'll probably hit up the Children's Museum. I've thrifted her a few new plastic animals for her immense collection, plus she's going to get a kid-proof digital camera! I hope she likes it—I'm excited to see what she photographs.

This kiddo is truly a delight. I'm so proud of who she is and honored to be a part of her life. Lately when she gets mad at me, she says stuff like, "Mama, if you don't listen to me I'm never going to snuggle with you again! Never—not for two, four, THREE days!" Oh, my sweet, you know just how to get to me.

In honor of my little big girl's big day, I'm having a sale in the shop! From now through the end of May, save 10% off any order of two or more items with the code TWOCUTE.

Instagram weekend.

A few Instagram photos from our weekend. Two shots of my kids being cute up top and two shots of the fun stuff I found at an estate sale on Friday on the bottom. The patio chairs aren't really anything to write home about, but there were sorely needed and the price was right. It feels so good to have a place to sit and watch the kiddos play outside!

Almost four.

We had a fun 4th birthday party for Iris on Saturday—it was pretty much perfect. Six kids total, beautiful weather, lots of food, one tenacious pinata, some confetti eggs and two dads who spent quite a while chasing the kids around the yard with a hose.

For her birthday cake, I used a recipe from Food & Wine. The cake part was crazy delicious—moist, light and super chocolatey. The frosting, however, tasted like a giant cup of coffee. (I suppose the use of instant coffee had something to do with that...) So at the last minute, I tucked that batch of frosting into a Tupperware container for later grown-up use and quickly made a new batch of chocolate frosting, which was amazing and fast and totally saved the day.

Her actual birthday is this Saturday, but because holiday weekends aren't the easiest time to catch people in town we'll be spending it mostly with our little family. We have no plans beyond eating outside, getting some balloons and probably making one more cake. :)

In shop news, I have a fresh batch of baby clothes to add this week. I started putting some items up last night, but there are several more pieces still to come! This dress in particular is just gorgeous. The details are so sweet and whole dress itself is spotless and ready to wear.

Friday!

It's Friday! At last. Do you have anything fun planned this weekend? I hit an estate sale this morning and found some much-needed patio furniture and a great thick Mexican blanket.

Iris is turning four at the end of the month. We threw her a big birthday party last year and, to be honest, it was a little overwhelming for me. It rained that day so everyone was stuck inside and having all those (awesome and truly lovely) kids running and cartwheeling all over the place made me feel a little nutso.

So this year we've just invited one other family over for a casual brunch. We'll probably have another small party with her grandparents and uncles later, too. Simple simple simple, that's what we're aiming for. Iris doesn't mind a bit as long as there is cake!

The little things.

Our bathroom reno has been a good kick in the pants to take care of a few of the nagging details around our house. Our house was built in 1958 but was remodeled in the 1990s for both the good and bad. Some of the bad stuff includes cheap shiny brass doorhandles and cabinet hardware all over the house, beige light switches and outlets, and cheap golden oak trim.

Other bad stuff includes our poorly built "master" bath, soffits everywhere, orange peel ceilings, CARPET in the downstairs BATHROOM (naaaaaaasty), the ugliest kitchen floor tile ever and a shoddy conversion of a bedroom into a den.

But mostly it's little cosmetic stuff. OK, for example, this is what our kids' bedroom looked like before we moved in:

Yikes, right? But also pretty manageable. Once we painted the walls and replaced the window treatments, things looked a lot better. This is a shot of the same corner from a different angle a month after we moved in:

We've since painted the trim, but we haven't pared down that stuffed animal collection. :)

Anyway, back to the present. While we had the electrician out for the bathroom last month (naturally all the wiring in the old bathroom was suspect, shoddy and dangerous, requiring an extra day of substantial rewiring), he hung our new Schoolhouse Electric light in the hallway. I love it! It looks like this:

It replaced this fixture from the previous homeowners, which made me crazy.

And last summer, my father-in-law sweetly changed out all of the interior doorknobs on the main floor for us, going from shiny cheap brass levers to simple satin chrome Orbit doorknobs. A small but incredibly satisfying change.

The door hinges are still brass, though, so I've been picking up a few packs of hinges every time I'm at Home Depot so we can gradually update all the doors. This week, my husband replaced the hinges in the main floor bathroom. I'm pretty sure nobody but us will ever notice the change, but it makes me so happy!

We also had the plumber switch out the old, corroded faucet in that bathroom with this cheap but fun one from Home Depot.

Hurray for the little things! They make me happy.

Weekend recap.

 

Happy Monday! How was your Mother's Day? We had a super fun weekend filled with good friends, delicious food, late-night campfires, "The Muppets," a super sweet button pillow made for me by my daughter, a visit with my parents and one close-call kid injury with a happy ending (and my daughter now knows that running with sticks is dangerous!).

Look for a few new things to hit the shop this week, including a few pieces for older girls!

Etsy love

Happy Friday! We're having some out-of-town friends visit this weekend so I need to do some serious housecleaning this afternoon. Before I hunker down, here are some pretty things I'm loving on Etsy these days.

 Tribal child's shirt from The Little Llama.

Vintage wallpaper from Thriftypyg.

 

Vintage colorblock skirt from Bad Grammar.

Orla-esque wall stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. We are planning to stencil a wall in our basement soon and this is a contender!

Wooden bear wall hanging from Herman Marie.

Winter poster from Osborn Woods. This was a recent birthday present from a friend and I love it!!

Scenes from the weekend.

(1) Balloons for my birthday party that were swiftly severed from their strings by the kids.

(2) My friend reunited the balloons with their strings, and the kids went crazy with joy.

(3) Our cat likes to climb trees to stalk birds.

(4) Our daycare provider is raising three little mallard ducklings! (In addition to her backyard chickens.) When I picked the kids up today, we got to watch the ducklings swim in a tub and run around the backyard.

(5) New items in the shop tonight!

Birthday!

Happy birthday to ME today! I've had a lovely long birthday weekend so far filled with good food, good thrifts and adventures with my kids.

This morning my husband is shooing me out the door for a manicure and breakfast at a nearby diner while he holds down the fort at home. And tonight we're having friends over for a Cinco de Mayo/30-Something Birthday Mexican dinner. I always, always have tacos and margaritas on my birthday! It's the best.

I am hugely devoted to special music mixes for special days. Our "Holiday/Special Day" folder in iTunes has more than a dozen mixes. This is our birthday mix, which I will be listening to all day!

Wayback machine.

My daughter at 13 months in a sweet vintage apple dress, which was a gift from a dear friend.