Well... it's been over a year since I posted last - I'm the worst.  Needless to say, things got a little crazy and out of control.  A LOT happened...

So, maybe I'll just try and sum it up with some quick bullet points and snapshots...

• But Matt and I FINALLY were able to dance at the RPI competition!  JP and I danced a 3-person Cha Cha with Rozalyn - toooooooo cute.  And I was able to wear a bunch of new dresses!  I'm completely in love with the green one.  

              (All of these photos are thanks to Jay Zhang, Chris Shake, or Eric Lam!)

I ended my summer with a trip down to Maryland for Labor Day weekend - I went to visit JP, who has an internship down there for the Fall semester.  I didn't take many pictures, but I was able to get a few from our trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore!  We also went out West Coast Swing dancing Friday and Monday nights, had crab cakes in Annapolis Saturday night, and then had a pretty relaxing day on Sunday (grocery shopping, brunch, some pool time, went to the movies to see Guardians of the Galaxy, experimented with pumpkin tomato sauce and tortellini for dinner...).  All in all, a pretty great weekend :)

Whew!  I think that just about sums it up?  Maybe I'll be able to stay more on top of this from now on... Or maybe not...  I'll certainly try though!!!

I can hardly believe my little Rozalyn is three already!! She's getting to be such a big girl... :)

Her birthday gifts have turned into one of my favorite annual crafting adventures, for sure.  This year?  I think I might have just outdone myself.   (A.k.a.?  What the HECK am I going to do next year????)

With a little inspiration from my own childhood, I decided what this girl needed most was a good fort!  Something that will last her for years and can supplement hours and hours of make-believe.  

I knew I wanted it to be sturdy and easy to take down and set up again - that way it could be used outside, inside, brought to Mimi's (Grandma's), etc.  I settled on PVC and canvas and after a little Google search, I came up with this for inspiration!  (In general, I used her instructions really more as just guidelines and kind of made it all up as I went along... perhaps I will have to come up with my own tutorial at some point...)

Ryan was in town the weekend I was set to make it so the two of us made a trip to Lowe's and then set into putting the pieces together!  

Long story short?  The final product:

Yeahhhhhh.... I'm pretty much in love with it... :) 

JP, Luc, Ryan, and I also tested it out briefly.  (For those who were wondering - four adults can comfortably watch TV from it.)  I wanted to cover the entire thing in polka-dots but the boys convinced me that she would have fun making "cave paintings" on the walls so I settled for leaving them blank - who doesn't love a little fingerpaint??

And, as you can see, it breaks down to be a nice little bundle!

Rozalyn's teepee was a HUGE hit with everyone at the party, too!  I managed to get a few pictures of her and I playing in it.  :)  (Someone gave her a doctor's kit so she was very excited to give me a check-up in her new "office".)

P.S. Rozalyn also had a clown at her birthday party.  Daisy had some interesting new "magic words" for us - including, "hocus pocus, chicken bones choke us" - ummmm... boy, have things changed since I was a kid!

I'm not even sure where I saw the baby-stats subway art but as soon as Baby Lucas was born, I knew I wanted to make him something to commemorate, well... him!  I used my scrapbook software (MemoryMixer, FYI) to come up with my own design... 

and then had it printed on glossy paper and framed it in a shadow box!

Adrienne and James loved it! :)

(yes, I've blocked off their last name... just being careful <3)

Big Day!!  EVERYONE came back this weekend for our group's little baby shower for Adrienne and James!

I am SO excited for both of them - due date is January 25th!!  It was great that we were all able to get together this weekend and be with them, too.

Being me, of course, I went with a mostly-homemade gift...

Baby fish hat!!!  I basically followed the tutorial I've used before by Thelma Egberts, found at Knitty.com.  I scaled it down to make it baby sized and it actually worked great!! 

And then I just rolled some onsies around different colored socks and held them with a piece of wide, black elastic to make sushi to go along with my little fish! :)  LOVE how the whole thing turned out!


Congratulations Adrienne and James!!!! <3

Since we already had everyone together this weekend for the baby shower, we decided to also try and pull of the annual Secret Santa!  We matched everyone virtually (thank you Secretsanta.com!) just before Thanksgiving, and then had everyone over to my apartment later in the evening after the baby shower to open gifts!

Earlier that morning, we did a little decorating to get in the Christmas mood.  Remember the Christmas Tree extravaganza from last year?  Well this year I didn't want to just redo the same thing (laaaame!) but didn't really feel like buying anything new... so we improvised!

I had a vision... similar invisible-hang-from-the-ceiling kind of thing but this time using red beaded garland that I had hanging around.  Brian came over early to help us decorate and volunteered to tackle the tree.  I kind of briefly relayed this to him and told him to just go with it.  

The end creation?

Essentially?  It's perfect.  EXACTLY what I was thinking!!  (This photo is at a semi-odd angle.. it's actually super symmetric, etc.)

Added bonus?  It's SUPER resilient!  I can't even count the number of people who have walked through it, thrown pillows at it, put their jacket on into it, Just Danced at it, etc...  

While Brian took care of this, Krista and I worked on the rest of the apartment. (Rob was busy making cookies...)

And here's the final group photo!

(I'm pretty sure this was the largest Secret Santa so far, as well?)

I'm sure we all have our own little version of reminders that we leave for ourselves, particularly in the morning when we're on our way out the door.  

For a while, I was writing lists on scraps of paper and taping them to the back of the door so that there was no way I could miss it on my way out.  Usually it was something along the lines of "start the dishwasher," "take out the recycling," "bring sweatpants for dance," etc...

I figured a dry-erase situation would probably be ideal.  And then I figured I would take it a step further by trying to make it cute! :)  Plus, I wanted to be able to hang my keys near the note as well - that way, there was NO WAY you could miss it!

Verdict thus far? SUPER useful!!! :)  

I found some simple black picture frames from Jo-Ann's  - yay for being on sale!  I picked up some scrapbook paper to act as the background (that's the cute part!) and some little hooks to screw into the bottom of the frames for our keys.  (I added a quick tutorial here, if you're interested but it's pretty straight forward!)

I ended up making three different key reminder boards - Katie and Kaleigh just moved into a new house (Katie) and apartment (Kaliegh) this summer and I knew they would both love this idea, too.  :)


I LOVE how they turned out!  I tried out different DIY flowers for each one - Katie's (far left) has crochet star flowers, Kaleigh's (center) has felt flower bursts, and the one for Krista's and my apartment (far right) has fabric flowers with clear stones glued in for centers!