Julian's TMNT 6th Birthday Party

Having a brand new tiny human being to care for and planning a birthday party can be stressful.  So, this year we were thinking of skipping the birthday party trend and just heading to an amusement park for JD's 6th birthday... but JD had other plans!  After having a blast at one of his classmates birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's earlier this year, JD ask if he could have a party there too, and daddy and I thought why the heck not.  When it came to the theme JD decided on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (he loves Leonardo), a fitting choice since they love pizza.  Chuck E. Cheese's made party planning super easy, they did all the hard work, and we had our very own party coordinator to keep the party running smoothly.  This was one of the easiest parties to plan, and JD and his friends had so much fun!

Styling, centerpieces, masks and favors by: Quaintly Garcia
TMNT Digital files: TwoPeanutz & Amanda K Printables
TMNT Paper Lanterns: Target
Cake: VLuna's Cakes
Cookies: available at The Cookie Outlet

Pinterest!

As if I didn't already have way too much on my plate; I now have a new addiction, Pinterest! For those of you who have not already been sucked into this very addictive website, here's the scoop.

What is Pinterest?
Think of Pinterest as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can create collections of things you love and "follow" collections created by people with great taste.

People use Pinterest to collect and share all sorts of things -- wedding inspiration, favorite T-shirts, DJ equipment. You name it, people are pinning it.

We know you have great taste in something. Our mission is to make Pinterest the best place for you to share your taste with the world.

So there it is in a nutshell; no more saving pictures to my computer, my favorites, my jump drive or even my iPhone (oh yes there's an app for that), I just save everything to Pinterest!

To join Pinterest you need to submit your information for an invitation or you can be invited by someone already using Pinterest (like me, hint-hint!). I do warn this website is very addicting, personally I spend more time looking at other people's awesome pins than pinning things myself, but here is a sneak peek of two of my pin-boards, you can see the rest of my boards here!

Party Ideas I Love

Ideas I Love for Our Home

Revolving Robots and Gears Box

Have you ever become totally obsessed with something and no matter how much you try not to think about it, you can't! Well, when I started planning JD's robot room I came across this really awesome wood Revolving Robots & Gears Box and I fell completely in love with it, I not only wanted for his room but I also thought it would be a great décor piece for his Robots & Rockets birthday party. I searched everywhere for it but it was either sold out or extremely expensive. This week I received an email from Ebay letting me know about items I might be interested in (based on my recent searches and purchases) and there it was again, that Robot Box (still expensive too)! I decided to Google it again while crossing my fingers and I found it at Amazon.com, it was the last one available and it was on sale for $48.99, yippee; so I bought it and I've been giddy ever since; I can't wait until JD sees it, he just loves “Wobots”!

 Midwest Revolving Robots and Gears Box

Seven colorful gears and two robots simultaneously spin in this masterful Rocket Factory. Hit the switch on the rocket’s back and this all wooden factory goes into action. A special and beautiful Space Age toy for your Rocket Fan or Robot Factory worker. The rocket is blue with yellow, red, and yellow moving gears on a space base.

Wooden Robots and Rockets - Handpainted

Wood Robot and Rockets - Requires 3 AAA

Size: 12" Tall (12 x 7 x 5 inches)

IKEA Hackers

Now that we have our very own home we've literally become obsessed with home improvement (hubby) and home décor (me). I can't begin to tell you how many times a week we visit Home Depot, or how many hours we spend watching home improvement tutorials. Well, hubby and I are huge IKEA fans, when people ask us where did you get that, we usually answer “IKEA”! I recently stumbled onto a website called IKEA Hackers, this website is a place where people can post their IKEA hacks, creative people who have taken a simple piece or pieces of IKEA furniture and turned them into something useful, interesting or just plain awesome! I've been so inspired by IKEA Hackers that I have started my own little project which I hope to reveal in a few weeks; but for now here are a few of my favorite IKEA Hacks!

Pottery Barn inspired desk transformation by: Nicole

A heightened headboard by: Meghan Posner

Child's Play Kitchen Set by: GTown

Workspace Plus Storage by: E.S.

Hemnes dresser revamp by: Kate

I love my new buffet!

Tuesday night hubby and I picked up our (my) new buffet from Walmart (Site to Store = Free Shipping) and we spent the evening putting it together. I haven't had a chance to fill it yet but I couldn't help taking a few pictures!

Ameriwood Buffet with Sliding Doors

Let me start off by saying I have a weird fascination with buffets (not food but tables); I think it may have something to do with growing up in a home where the china cabinet was always my mother's pride and joy, she displayed all the china, glasses and trinkets so neatly in it, I was always so intrigued by that. When the hubby and I moved into our apartment a few years ago, the first thing I requested was a buffet table (a smaller version of a china cabinet) and just like my mother I neatly placed all our china and glasses in it and it was my little pride and joy too, the buffet was mine and all the things in it were especially collected by me! Well, when we moved into our new home the buffet moved into the garage because it really didn’t fit well in our new dining area, this lack of a buffet table has been bothering me for over a month now. Finding a reasonably priced buffet that would fit perfectly in our dining area has been to say the least, challenging; but a few days ago I found one and although I have to wait a week to receive it, I'm already in love with it! I picked this buffet because the dimensions are perfect, it's skinny, tall and long and the shelves are adjustable. I picked a white finish (it also comes in espresso) because I was noticing a pattern of espresso furniture throughout or home, so I wanted to change things up a bit. What do you think?

Ameriwood Buffet with Sliding Doors

Walmart.com 

• Buffet with Sliding Doors 
• High Gloss White finish 
• Sliding glass doors provide concealed and displayed storage that stays out of your way 
• Adjustable shelves provide storage flexibility 
• Easy to assemble 
• Overall Dimensions: 36'' H x 47'' W x 15.8'' D

Hard-wiring a pendant lamp...

When I purchased the Eden Pendant Lamp from CB2 I already knew that it was going to take some adjusting to make it work in our space. The Eden lamp is actually a plug-in lamp and we needed to hard-wire it as a permanent fixture. After reading a few tutorials hubby and I decided we would hard-wire the lamp ourselves, so on Saturday we crossed our fingers and got to work!

Our ceiling outlet box was already installed when we bought the house, which made this process super easy!

I cut the lamp cord leaving more than enough to practice (then we trimmed it to size)!

I stripped the coating off the cord to expose the wires

at this point we cut all power to the dining area.

Hubby installed the canopy mount.

Before installing the canopy plate and fixture we checked to make sure the fixture worked!

Hubby installed the canopy and fixture.

I installed the drum shade

and in less than an hour we hard-wired a pendant lamp.

Our Christmas Tree

This weekend we were extremely busy and I have so much to post about, but I had to start with our Christmas tree. We finally settled in enough to buy and put up our tree and JD was a very big help; well after he realized the ornaments did not bounce (thank God they are plastic) and actually started placing them on the tree!