An Adventure North

A Trip To Washington

My family and I recently made a spur of the moment trip up to Washington state.

We had lived there for about a year. We decided to come back down to California to live near family since we had another little one coming into the world.

Recently however my hubby has been thinking he misses it terribly and that we might just need to move back.

So…………….

We took an Adventure North to see how we felt about the whole idea!

Well…What do you think?

I forgot how beautiful it was there. The trees! The lakes! The cool weather! Not to mention that my Husband seemed more alive than he has in some time 🙂

Well I don’t know, we will see.

For now I thought I would share some of our adventure with you!

The little ladies enjoying a park over looking Lake Washington in Bellevue. One of the first things we did was drive around Bellevue wishing we could even start to dream about living there..haha.

So I had a little fun playing around with some of my new iPhone photo apps ♥

Next stop was the Bellevue Square Mall. The little ladies ran themselves into the ground playing in the kid zone.

We finally finished off the day in Downtown Kirkland. I can’t believe we never made it down here the year we actually lived in the area!

Downtown had an old world charm to it with just enough modern-day life mixed in…We enjoyed yet another park on Lake Washington.

We wandered around for a bit just seeing what shops and restaurants were available.

We had dinner at a Greek/Mediterranean Restaurant called George’s Place. The food was excellent and the service was outstanding! The wait staff listened patiently to all of my daughters rantings about her colored picture, It’s always a win when they pay attention to your children. 

After dinner we turned the corner for the most delicious gelato at a little shop called Sirena Gelato. OMG! It was so yummy! If I would have thought better of it, I would have taken a photo.

The best I could come up with at this point

I took this shot simply because it was beautiful.

And more photos of downtown…

A charming little path.

 I had an amazing weekend! Even if nothing comes of this little Adventure North I was so happy to spend a weekend away with my family..It feels like it’s been forever since we have done that.

♥♥♥

Samantha

Electrical Wire Spool Patio Table

As I mentioned in an early post DIY Compost Bin I had picked up an electrical wire spool off of the corner in front of the electric company while perusing for wood pallets. At the time I didn’t have any idea what I would use it for but it seemed too cool not to bring home. I’m not even sure I was permitted to take it but it was such a site to see me hoisting this thing on the back of my truck that anyone watching just let me be.

My husband gave me quite the odd look when I pulled up in front of the house with it sitting in back of the truck….I think he was nervous about some sort of underlying pack rat gene….. 

As soon as he helped me with it off of the truck we decided together that it was to become our patio table! It even already has a hole in the center for my sun umbrella….It gets hot in this California Sun! *note* acquire sun umbrella 😉

This look really appeals to me, ever since I was little I would collect broken items and imagine what their story was or rummage around abandoned properties seeing the potential for something amazing.

Now! Don’t go thinking I just hoard tons of unusual things…..I learned better than that from watching my father. But I do like to keep a few things around here and there that will someday be something beautiful, whether my husband actually believes I’ll turn them into that or not!!

Electrical Wire Spool Patio Table

I picked up a couple of pairs of bar stools to complete the look and as you can see they have since then been seasoned from the weather. Perfect ♥ I was thinking about eventually making a top out of fence boards to extend out a little but I don’t know…I’m a little attached to the holes and rusty bolts. What do you think?? I still do need to finish it in some way because it catches your clothing while you’re trying to eat 😛

Seats four perfectly!

Have a happy day!

♥♥♥

Samantha

Garden Party Baby Shower

A Garden Party/ Tea Party Baby Shower

I offered to throw a baby shower for a good friend of mine because frankly! I’ve been dying to throw a baby shower ever since my first child was born and I couldn’t plan my own because that’s obnoxious……Right?? Also this seems like the first peer of mine that I have had the pleasure of following along with during her pregnancy.

My second child brought forth a tea party inspired baby shower by my grandmother and my friend Olivia and it was such a beautiful idea that I wanted to recreate it. So I set to work with my co-host Julia on planning our tea party inspired baby shower.

Needless to say, we didn’t have hot tea because its like already summer here in Redding and I added in some food that just wasn’t so traditional for a tea party so  we ended up with  a beautiful Garden Party Baby Shower instead.

Garden Party Baby Shower

Honestly the yard made such a lovely backdrop to the party and the day was so beautiful I didn’t miss our traditional tea party idea at all 🙂

Julia picked up some awesome dollar store finds! Cute butterflies? Check! Cute Birdies? Check! Fun tissue paper garland? Check! We grabbed a nice flower garland from Joann Fabrics and I Cut some Roses from around the yard and a neighbor’s rose garden.

Rose bouquet

Petite Raspberry Vanilla Fairy Cakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I made my first ever diaper cake which was tons of fun. I chose pink and green ribbon, topped it with Johnson and Johnson bath products and attached toy clips for a simple but pretty display.

Diaper Cake

Little Birdie

For the menu we served some traditional tea party favorites like cucumber sandwiches and chocolate covered strawberries.  I added in some fun favorites of my own and a new idea I stole from another shower 😉 And of course! To add to the spirit of things I based as much of the food and drink as possible around fresh fruit…yum!

I served a Strawberry Blueberry Tea with lemon wedges on the side.

Strawberry Blueberry Iced Tea

Strawberry Blueberry Iced Tea with Lemon Wedges

 A delicious recipe for Jalapeno Poppers from a dear friend of mine

Jalapeno Poppers

Jalapeno Poppers

And the hit of the party! Cinnamon and Sugar Tortillas served with Berries and Cream.

Cinnamon and Sugar Tortillas with Berries and Cream

Cinnamon Tortillas with Berries and Cream

Also as if the cinnamon and sugar tortillas didn’t count as dessert I also served Raspberry Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting and Chocolate Covered Strawberries (complements of Julia). *note* I really didn’t mean to make that yellow so YELLOW, if you know what I mean.

Raspberry Lemon Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting

Petite Raspberry Vanilla Fairy Cakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Most of the games during the party didn’t take much focus to allow the guests to mingle and enjoy the day. Compliments of Julia once again, Every guest left with a thank you gift of professorial beauty samples in their own beauty bag because it’s always such a bummer not to win a prize. This way all the women felt special when they left 🙂 And of course the children enjoyed themselves too!!

♥The best part ♥

~Yum~

Have a Happy Day

♥♥♥

Samantha

Busy, Busy

Sorry folks! 😦

I seem to be having trouble juggling home life and all my endeavors….. I have posts… No really! I swear! I just haven’t posted them.  Dont give up on me yet 🙂

Monday I will be blogging about my first time hosting a baby shower and I should have some fun pics. It’s a tea party theme and if the weather permits we will have a lovely garden backdrop. So stay tuned……….

Samantha

Homemade Easter Egg Dying

So I have been sick for like a month! seriously…a month 😦 Easter just kinda jumped right out at me and I haven’t done a single thing to prepare. So no decorating, no crafting, no Easter egg dying, and not to mention I have a slew of guests showing up for Easter brunch and egg hunt.

Finally today (the day before) I felt well enough to make it into town to pick up my provisions for the Holiday. I managed to remember everything but the egg dying kit so I quickly found one on the internet and I thought I would share it with you lovely folks.

 ~*just in case you were under weather too*~

Honestly I think the homemade dye produced much more vibrant results than the tabs you get in a kit! 🙂

Here is the Recipe for homemade Easter egg dye:

Homemade Easter Egg Dye

Ingredients:

• ½ cup boiling water
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 10 drops food coloring
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)

Directions:

1. For each dye bath combine boiling water, vinegar, and food coloring drops. For color other than your basic, combine colors from the color wheel to make new ones ie. 5 red drops and 5 blue drops for purple and so forth.
2. Dip your hard-boiled eggs in preferred color and let sit for 3-5 minutes. For really vibrant color leave even longer.
3. Us tongs or a slotted spoon to remove your dyed eggs and place back into the carton or onto waxed paper, news paper, or a paper bag (whatever you have handy)
4. For tie dyed eggs. Use the optional olive oil in your dye recipe. After the eggs have sat in the dye for a period remove them with slotted spoon and wipe away the access oil. Then place them in a second color. Ta Da! you should now have tie dyed eggs!

So There you have it 🙂 Super easy to do and you most likely already have all the ingredients in your pantry.

ingredients

Mixing my ingredients

I could have definitely gotten way more creative with all of this egg dying stuff but…I figured the kids are all so young and my patience is not exactly grand so I kept it simple.

The little ladies and myself

Sarah's husband and son

The kids showing off their handy work ♥

If you wanted to use glitter or stickers that would be great. You would just need to coat your egg with craft glue and sprinkle glitter on. When using stickers you could put them on before hand and peel off when done or let the eggs dry and put them on afterwards. Also you can draw pictures with a white crayon which is what we did. It will show through when you dye your eggs. Super Fun! 🙂

Finished eggs

Happy Easter!

♥♥♥♥

Samantha

A Hike for Piece of Mind

A Day at The Creek

Sarah and I decided to get out of the house rain or shine! Sick or not! Its been a rough wet spring and kids are becoming quite antsy in the house 😦 On top of that I haven’t shown poor Sarah half of the wonderful things Redding has to offer since her and her family moved here. So I rounded the kids up while Sarah made lunch for a little ” hike ” along Brandy Creek.

Brandy Creek at Whiskey Town

Brandy Creek

I love this creek and the lake that it meets up with. Can you believe I have lived with my husband in the Redding area for about five years now and he just showed me this only two years ago??!! How I adore my husband ♥

When we first got there we parked and followed the paved path along the creek on our way down to the Lake for a picnic lunch. The kids were so stoked at being out of the house and on an adventure.

My youngest trekking along 🙂

My eldest looking serious...as usual ♥

Sarah and her Boy on a little bridge over the creek. This leads into a more serious trail.

The beach was chilly but manageable so we picked a table close to the water and had fun throwing rocks into the lake and chasing the geese away from our food.

Whiskey Town Lake, where Brandy Creek runs out

Sarah's youngest eating it on her way down to the lake

Sarah and her kids

When everyone had their fill we headed back up along the creek again but this time we decided to let the kids sorta lead us along the many paths through the trees and rocks.

This is when the fun starts, when you step aside to let them lead and see through their eyes everything turns into some sort of fantasy and your transported into a world full of magic and wonder.

My absolutely favorite part about this area

The Picnic Area down by Whiskey Town Lake

So Peaceful ☼

A small bridge built over a runoff meeting up with the creek. I like to imagine that bridges like these built-in with nature, were add by some magical creatures of the forest ♥

Watching all the older children hike through the tree and climb over rocks made me feel so blessed to have them in my life. Life is sometimes trying…. Parenting is sometimes trying but…..when you stop to watch these small wonders everything sort of fades away and you realize its worth the effort.

I’m amazed lately at how far we have all come and the fact that my sister and I are both Mothers with children that are growing up. GROWING! Can you imagine? I still feel like we are children sometimes.

So back to the kids. They are so, SO big! The two oldest need no help at all climbing over rocks and my youngest kindly yelled at me ” Mommy I can do it myself!! ” when asked if she needed my help climbing up the rocks with her sister and cousin. All I could do was step back and watch her and except what she said 😦 I’m not going to lie, my heart broke a little….only a little though.

The kids blowing my mind a little with how big they are climbing on the rocks!!

So cute ♥

The kids and I striking a pose on the rocks 🙂

A successful trip to the creek ♥ Mommies and Kids worn out and everyone a little more at peace with themselves and the world!

♥♥♥

Samantha

Fates Design

So yesterday was a funny day. I sat in my bathroom “hiding” for a minute and reading an article in Women’s Day about creating your own luck. The jist was that although there are many instances in life that we can not control ie. plane crash, accidents, natural disaster, etc… there are also many that we do have control over. The theory is that we create our own luck by having a more positive state of mine. If we expect good things, good things will happen. If your always looking for the negative well….your always going to see the negative 🙂 I didn’t realize until the moment I was reading it how much I had always looked for the positive in life and how lately I have seen only negative. NO wonder I can’t seem to find my happy place!  So I concluded that I need to start focusing on the good in life to bring myself my own good luck and then two things happened:

A close friend calls to tell me that his wife’s father had been murdered the night before. How unlucky was he, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not even necessarily in the wrong place..just some asshole happened along his path.

My husband arrives home to tell me that he was called off to go out-of-town for the day and that it’s a good thing he was because there was a huge pile up en route and several fatalities. How lucky is he? How lucky am I?

So all this leaves me with…is going to bed thinking that fates design is not within our control and we are all just floating along… wherever the wind may take us.  I still can’t shake the feeling when I wake..over the article and the fact that I read it, the death, coincidence, and the helplessness I feel over the shape of my destiny and I decide to get right out to my morning walk.

As my dog and I walk along we decide to take a less used path and come across an unused bike park, it reminds me of a secret glade among the tall weeds, and I look around at the beautiful earth and realize that although yes….some of our fate is left up to chance but a good part of how we interpret it is, do to our own state of minds. Life may throw hardship at us but it is up to us, how we process it.

My dear friends can slide down the hole that is grief or they can move forward anticipating what’s to come, a son who needs nourishment and love, a baby on the way, and wisdom to help those around them when tragedy strikes.

What do you think? Do we decide our destinies or are our lives in fate’s hands?

Samantha

 

To Do

Things to do this week:

1. Post a recipe
2. Post at all 😛
3. Make pajamas with my sister for our little ones and post
4. List some new merchandise for Midnite Hollow
5. Find time to walk my dog EVERYDAY and maybe squeeze some yoga in
6. And oh yeah! Have a calm, collected, and joyous week!

Does putting a recipe together and taking pictures for my post count?

This Too Shall Pass

I have wracked my brain over the last week or so on the perfect topic to post on to no avail…Then today I find myself once again overtired, overstressed, and overworked, and fighting for what seems like the millionth time with my 2 1/2 year old, realizing that I can’t find the perfect topic because my life is nothing like perfect.

Having two kids both in the pre-preschool age, a husband who is just now starting to discover who he wants to be (which so it happens might not be the person I planned a life out with), a dog who hasn’t seemed to notice what I needed out of a four-legged companion, and an entire other family of four, with their own expectations, needs, and wants trying to make life happen for themselves while living in the same house. Well lets just say this is not a recipe for relaxation and calm.

I find myself losing control too often 😦 and to top everything off the one thing that is bringing me some sense of self is draining my energy even more. Now, now…I don’t want to hear any crap on how I should feel blessed, and children are the joy of life or some other non-sense like that. I love my children. I love my Husband. I even love my needy, rat-like dog. I just wonder at what point in life do you stop feeling guilty over wanting a little of yourself back?? And when is it ok to admit that sometimes playing house just isn’t what you imagined when you were five? Because let’s face it “playing house” and playing house are two totally different things.

Honestly I love cooking, I love crafting, I even (use to) love doing laundry. I really like keeping house..Its just so hard to find that balance between responsibility and enjoyment. All these things I loved doing when I had a nine to five and dreamed of a life of homemaking. Boy did I not have any idea what I was asking for when I tried to force my 17  year old boyfriend into playing house with me!

That fact remains though that I can’t change this. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I must stay home with my girls, and I must have patience with my husband while he finds himself out there, and I must take care of the dog I so desperately thought I needed.  “This too shall pass,” as my Grammy always says to me ❤

All I’m asking for today is that maybe just maybe my youngest could trust me when I tell her that the baby dress is too small for her carebear and that’s why it won’t button…because I love her, not because I’m trying to ruin her life.

Tomorrow will be a better today 🙂

*quick edit*

As I sat here writing this post my eldest was busy in my studio cutting up a project I had underway to sell in my shop 😦

 

Under Construction

Hi! Welcome to A Less Than Perfect Homemaker 🙂 A blog about two sisters trying to make the best out of life. I am very new to the blogging world and this blog is currently under construction so don’t lose faith.  Hopefully we will soon be bringing you interesting posts on everyday life with toddlers, husbands, new recipes( and some old faithful ones), gardening tips, natural living, DIY projects, crafting, and well just some real honesty about being a modern day homemaker. So please come back to visit. In the mean time feel free to get to know me at http://www.facebook.com/samantha.sawtelle.