Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Day at the Zoo

This past weekend, my mom, sis, Noah and I went to B'ham to visit with my grandparents and my aunt Carol and cousins. On Saturday afternoon, my mom and Carol had to take care of some errands for my g-parents, so Lindsay, Noah and I went to the zoo. It turned out to be warmer than I thought and Noah was pretty hot and fussy at times. However, we had a good time and I feel like it was a good experience for Noah. Here are a few pictures from the day...

A New Profession Perhaps?

Before Noah was born, my mom took a cake decorating class with the intentions of making Noah all kinds of cakes for birthdays, holidays, etc .... well, that never really happened. I think she has decorated 1 cake since she finished those classes... but to her defense, she had been working full time up until recently. Anyways, I decided we needed to put her cake decorating tools to good use and do Noah's birthday cake ourselves this year. Here is our attempt...

We both took turns doing the icing because after awhile your hand starts cramping! But not too shabby, huh? I thought our giraffe turned out pretty good for our first try! Please note, we didn't attach his little antellar things... those have to be made with chocolate and we didn't have any. However, I would like to mention that I'm not sure you save any money going this route ... the cake pan was $12.99, the icing dye was about $3 per color, plus cake mix costs (plus any additional cost, eggs, veg. oil, ingredients to make the icing, etc). But, as my mother pointed out, the cake pan was a one time cost and we will have it to make this cake as many times as we want in the future (the pan is the Wilton Animal Crackers... depending on how you decorate it, it can be a giraffe, pig, cat, or panda bear).

Here's Noah's cake last year... maybe I can work my way up to that, uhhh...yeah right! :)

Do-It-Yourself Lampshade and Lamp

I just re-did Noah's room and have been looking for a lamp to go with the new color scheme, however have had a hard time finding something I like for a reasonable price. So, I decided to make my own and it was SO easy and turned out so cute that I thought I would share with you all, in case someone would like to try it for themselves.

First I bought a plain white lampshade for around $10 at Target. I used painters tape to trim around the area that I wanted to paint... the tape helped keep it neat and in a straight line. I painted red around the bottom of the lampshade. Like so...

Then I used blue ric-rac (found in the fabric dept with the ribbons) purchased at Walmart for around $2 and used a hot glue gun to attach the ric rac around the edge of where I painted. If your lampshade flares out, you will have to use 2 pieces of ric rac so that it lays flat when you are gluing it down.

Then I purchased a lamp base from Walmart for $10 and spray painted it red. To get a good finish, I sanded it, then spray painted until it was smooth and even. Make sure to get the right kind of spray paint for your lamp base (ex. get the paint for plastic if its a plastic lamp base). And wah-lah... the finished product!

My little man

I walked into the den at my parent's house and this is what I find...



Noah is sitting with my dad in his chair (with his feet propped up on the ottoman, just like my dad!), while watching American Idol so intently. Of course, I HAD to take a picture! Dad kept sitting him up in his lap and Noah kept squirming his way back down so his feet were on the ottoman. What a little man!