Here in Our Corner: Fall is in the air!

I love this time of year. The weather is  starting to cool off after a long hot summer and it's time to decorate for Halloween!  Robbie has been busy decorating the yard, which made the perfect backdrop for taking pictures of Sophie and Audrey.

Sophie has definitely inherited her dad's love of decorating. She asked me to call him at work the other day to see if she could help him decorate that night. Then told Audrey that when she "gets bigger and bigger and bigger" she would teach her how to "decorate with my friend Daddy."  This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our Halloween decorations....  The big stuff doesn't go out until a couple days before the 31st.

My favorite part is our wreath, made by Robbie of course!

Our mantle is looking festive as well!

 

I'm up to my eyeballs with designing and sewing Halloween costumes. Why in earth can't I just go to a store and buy costumes like a normal person??? This year I've probably bitten off more than I can chew! I'm making costumes for all 4 of us....with no patterns! I can't tell you what we'll be yet but it's going to be amazing! Here's a sneak peak of part of my costume.....  Can anyone guess?

I'm excited about some major changes coming up for Night Owl Corner! I'm moving to Wordpress! I'm so grateful that I have a friend / neighbor who is a computer wiz, and he's graciously offered to help me because it's a bit  too much for me to tackle on my own. Choosing a theme has practically taken over my life for the past couple weeks so sorry I've been MIA around the blog. There are simply too many options. But I think that I've finally made up my mind and can now get the ball rolling. Stay tuned for the new look coming soon! 

Now back to the sewing machine...

Here in Our Corner: 4 months!

 
Baby Audrey (as Sophie calls her) is 4 months old! My, how times flies!

Audrey's little personality is really starting to come out. She coos all the time and has the cutest toothless grin. She's very active with her hands and feet always going. She's also very ticklish and will laugh out loud if you give her a playful poke in the tummy. 

I am very happy to report that she has pretty consistently been sleeping through the night for the past 2 weeks. She typically goes to bed between 8-9 pm and sleeps until 5-6 am.  She's usually cuddled up on her side when I check on her before I go to bed. Definitely a side sleeper!

She started going on walks at day care last week and has really been enjoying it. They have a big 4-seater stroller and the babies look so adorable cruising around in it. Here she is heading out for her first walk. 

I know 3 1/2 months is early to be teething but she's putting everything in her mouth so I think a tooth might be making its appearance sooner rather than later. 

Sophie has been helping me cook a lot recently. We made chocolate chip cookies, a Toll House Pie, strawberry muffins and she helped with dinner several times. 

Sophie has been riding her tricycle a lot recently and is doing great with it. We let her ride through the neighborhood with us last week while we pushed Audrey in the stroller. I love her little red Radio Flyer but she has requested a pink princess bike several times so we've told her Santa Claus might bring her one if she's really really good. 

Sophie's preschool class studied about weather this week and yesterday was snow day. I brought our snow cone machine to her class for a special treat for the kids. It was a big hit!

We enjoyed a girls movie night last weekend with a bedtime showing of Beast and the Beast. Snuggles with my girls are the best. 

 Hope everyone has a great weekend! 

Here in Our Corner

I tried to do a photo shoot of the girls in the backyard last week which didn't go as planned. I had to bribe Sophie with ice cream to get her to cooperate at all but once in the chair it was nearly impossible to get her to look at the camera. Audrey had moments of happiness mixed with moments of fussiness. If you click through all the pictures in succession it's almost comical to see. But at least I got a few good shots. 

I made these dresses and will share the details in an upcoming post. 

The girls are doing very well in school. Audrey seems really happy, takes good naps and has been drinking all her bottles. Here is a sweet picture of her looking at the family pictures that decorate her crib at school.

Sophie is enjoying being back with her favorite teacher Ms. Ashlee and has a cozy class of only 8 students. They are practicing learning to write by tracing letters and I have been incredibly impressed with what she can do. Here is an "A" she did all by herself.

I've been busy (as always) editing mounds of pictures that have been piling up for the last 3 months. I take pictures almost every day but simply never had the time to get to editing everything before now. Audrey's already changed so much and is getting so big! Here she is at 3 months.

She has discovered her feet and they are FASCINATING! I swear she can hold onto them and play with her toes for 30 minutes straight!

Sophie is such a great big sister and loves to hold Audrey!  

  

Sophie has expressed some interest in learning to sew which I am really excited about. I found her sitting at my sewing machine the other day and she said, "Mama, I want to help you!" I need to find a simple project I can get her to help me with. 

Hope everyone is having a good week! 

Play Kitchen Renovation

I've received several questions about the play kitchen which was seen in the post about Sophie's Sesame Street Party.

My dad built this play kitchen for my sister and I when we were kids. But at that time, it looked like this:

We remodeled it a little over a year ago and it's been getting heavy use from Sophie ever since. See how we did it after the break!

Quite a difference, huh? But boy did we love playing with it. We spent many happy hours "cooking" in that kitchen.

Here is me and my dad on Christmas morning when he first gave it to us:

 

And my sister playing with it:

It's been up in the attic collecting dust for the past 2 decades until I decided to freshen it up for Sophie. I told my Dad he did a great job building it but it needed a woman's touch in terms of color! First I sanded it down really well.

 Then removed all the hinges, sink and faucet and took the doors off to sand those as well.

Painted it with a primer to cover the dark stain:

I selected some bright and cheerful paint colors. 

And Robbie cut a hole in the oven door and covered it with plexiglass so it would look more like a real oven.

Then we spruced it up with new hardware, stove burners, and sink/faucet. My husband got the "sink" from a restaurant supply store. It's actually one of those warming trays that caterers use. I found the faucet on eBay. To make the stove burners, I spray painted cork mats silver and cut strips to look like burners from glitter foam sheets. 

 

These great bins for holding food and dishes came from Dollar Tree.

Sophie has lots of fun food items to stock with kitchen with (you can click any link below to go directly to the product page at Amazon): 

Green Toys Dish Set 

Made from recycled materials, Sophie loves to serve what she cooks these.

Green Toys Tea Set 
What little girl doesn't love tea parties? Enough said.

Kidcraft Deluxe Cookware Set  

Melissa & Doug Slice and Bake Cookie Set
I would highly recommend any of the Melissa & Doug toys, and this one is my personal favorite. You can remove the icing and stack the cookies together in the canister, then cut them apart with the knife. The icing attaches with velcrow so you can "decorate" them yourself..

Melissa & Doug Ice Cream Scoop Set
This one is a close second favorite. The ice cream easily attaches to the scoop with a magnet.

Melissa & Doug Bake and Decorate Cupcake Set
This one comes with markers (aka icing) that you can use the decorate the cupcakes, then easily wipe off when done. Just don't leave a 2 year old unattended with this. I didn't realize they were real markers when we first got it and marker almost ended up on our white rug!

Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Cake

Melissa & Doug Pizza Party

Melissa & Doug Felt Food - Sandwich Set

If you'd like to purchase any of these products, please click on the links above or the image in the carousel below to purchase directly from Amazon.

I couldn't be happier with the final product!

And most importantly Sophie approves! (These pictures are from March 2012 when we gave it to her! Look how tiny she is!)

I hope it brings her as many sweet memories as it did me!

Linking to these parties!