Photo Hike

July 19th, 2011 by Mollie

Our favorite weekend family activity these days is hiking.  The kids absolutely love it- they  run and climb and throw rocks and chase lizards until they are exhausted and sleep REALLY well that night!  My ulterior motive is turning these “nature walks” into “photography walks”.  I’m trying to scout good locations around Camarillo, since I’m hoping to test the waters of taking on my own photography clients for photo shoots by the end of the year!  The lighting wasn’t perfect since it was a little early in the evening, but I suppose that is good practice for me as well.  What do you think?  Does this place have potential for family photos?







Out takes: just pretend they’re smiling, okay?

P.S.– Natalie would want you to know that those are not tights or leg warmers on her legs, they are “bug protectors” which are very important when hiking!

Summery Stuff

June 9th, 2011 by Mollie

A little bit of what we’ve been up to lately…

{backyard parties with friends}

{running in the sprinklers}

{tidepools}

{walking down the street to play with friends & neighbors}

{coffee + Bible study + pretty plant on my desk}

{hosting BFF dinner party}

{once-a-year treat: a bouquet of peonies over the sink}

{blueberry picking on June-gloomy day}

All that fun, and it’s not even truly summer yet!

 

Weekend Projects: Pillow Covers

June 6th, 2011 by Mollie

I love reading about what other people do on their weekends!  Personally, I love to stay home and work on my never-ending list of “projects” than anything else ( I think this drives Andy crazy sometimes).  This past weekend (yesterday), I got some photography experience at a wine & food festival, which is also awesome…  but here’s what I did the weekend before:

I decided it was time to update my living room’s look for spring and summer.  My favorite and most frugal way to change it up is to sew up some new pillow slipcovers!  I am no seamstress, but they are simple to make and fabric can be found cheap!   This time I got super fancy and attempted some very professional looking piping around the edges (thanks to help from my mom and an Internet tutorial).

I wanted some kind of bold print because my living room has a lot of neutrals, and found this fun and unusual black & white pattern. I am so pleased with how these turned out and ended up LOVING the fabric, which apparently is vaguely reminiscent of animal print… Mom said “zebra”, Hannah said “Dalmatian”, and Natalie threw a scrap over her back and said, “Pretend I’m a cow!”

The yellow rosette pillow was a gift card splurge, and my favorite Target purchase ever. I normally stick to making them myself but I could not resist that happy pillow! The white ruffled pillow hiding in the back is something I made last summer.

After I mastered the piping on the black and white pillows, I tried this one with piping AND a ruffle (the LOVE pillow was an Etsy purchase).  It was not easy, and came out far from perfect, but I am happy with it!  My ultimate goal is to get experienced enough to sew a slipcover for that green wingback chair some day!  As you can see, it is getting quite worn.

I think the living room ended up looking bright and cheerful for the beginning of summer!

 

 

 

Matchy-Matchy

May 27th, 2011 by Mollie

It has been about a month since I blogged… May was a very busy month!  I will try to get up to speed, but next week begins my Spring Cleaning.  I just had a couple funny pictures for you today…

I frequently dress the family in coordinating outfits, completely unintentionally.  Last Sunday we were walking up to church when I realized that both Natalie and I were wearing skinny jeans, silver colored shoes, blue ruffled tops, and cardigans!  When we got home I took a picture to mark the occasion, as I usually try to do when that sort of thing happens.

 
A couple weeks before I snapped this one of the kids on our way out the door to a playdate, wearing complimenting outfits (again, I do not do this on purpose, and usually it is someone else who points it out to me!):

 

 

Going back in the archives to October, Natalie and I wore similar outfits to MOPS one day:

 

Just wanted to share those funnies! Hopefully I’ll be back with more soon.

Ben’s Birthday Recap!

April 29th, 2011 by Mollie

On his actual birthday, Ben got a donut for breakfast (it’s tradition).

That day was pretty normal.  Had a MOPS planning meeting at church, followed by a play date. That evening after dinner, Ben got to open his present. I was trying to get him all pumped up. Hard to tell who was more excited: Ben, or Natalie?

We got Ben a balance bike for his birthday. It doesn’t have any pedals, he is supposed to learn to coast along and balance on it.  He really likes it but is just a little bit too short still to work it properly.  Give him another inch and it will be a lot easier!

The next day was Ben’s party.  We invited his best buddies Isaac, Jack and Will (and their families) for a little lunch and cake.

It’s pretty easy to entertain little boys… some bubbles dumped on the ground are a great thing to play in!

The cake is my favorite part, you may have noticed.  This one was three layers white cake with Swiss meringue buttercream with a touch of lemon juice (quite possibly my favorite frosting ever).  The filling was strawberries, lemon curd, and more frosting.  It turned out very similar to a Bread Basket cake, if you are familiar with that Camarillo bakery.

My friend Katie took pictures so I could concentrate on the party.  This is not the greatest family picture, but at least we tried!  And the birthday boy was happy, that’s what matters, right?