The saga of my kitchen’s transformation from meh to yay continues with…

WALL DECALS!!

After hanging up the new curtains a couple of months ago, I couldn’t help but think it needed just a little bit more of something…so I wrote Melody an email suggesting that if she were, say, to create some wall decals of the happy dishes for Spoonflower and put them in the Melody Miller Spoonflower shop, I would have no choice but to buy them and hang them on my kitchen wall. She happily obliged me. I’m sure it helps that we are BFFs IRL* (Melody will be one of the teachers along with me at Camp Stitchalot…

Overslept this morning, completely forgot to set my alarm. Missed Elliot’s bus and had to drive him to school, making him eat a banana in the car. He made it a few minutes after the bell rang, and then I had to bring Clementine to preschool. I was ten minutes late for yoga. Does the way your morning starts out influence your whole day? I hope not, but suspect so.

Why am I the only person who falls over and giggles in yoga class? Everyone is so serious. Also: It is never not funny how yoga makes people fart.

I mention yoga only because I am v. proud of self for finally signing up for a class that will (hopefully) get me back into…

We put up the Christmas tree last weekend. It was such a great weekend. We didn’t go ANYWHERE. We did NO SHOPPING. We just stayed at home. We didn’t even make a turkey for Thanksgiving Day, just a roasted chicken because it was the four of us. Though I did make little mini-apple pies, that was fun.

Every year gets better and better with kids, I tell you. They are more fun, more verbal (though being more opinionated goes right along with that). Their excitement over putting up the Christmas decorations was amazing this year. We put on the Christmas carols, some Herb Alpert (this version of Winter Wonderland is my all-time favorite, by the way. YOU’RE WELCOME!), and…

It’s been awhile since I talked your ear off, so guess what? You’re in for a bit of blahdeeblahdeeblah today! Yay!!

I am embarrassed to admit how many times I’ve written and then deleted this post. It’s hard to write about your life without sounding really cheesy, and mostly I would think to myself, “why write about life and blogging and balance when it’s been written about SO many times before?” Then I realized, duh, you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t care about what I have to say in some small way, so why not give it a try? I want to talk a little first about how blogging turned into sort of a job for me, and then how on…

I had a truly wonderful weekend, mostly due to the fact that we didn’t go anywhere. I’d been out of town two weekends in a row and sometimes you just want to stay home, you know? Do laundry, clean the bathrooms, make the rest of the house look semi-clean. I even found a little time to start on some new projects. A rainbow quilt for Clementine (above), a doll quilt for her doll with some of the scraps (below), and those colorful pom-poms. I love pom-poms so much, don’t you? I cranked out that little pile while Mr Rae and I watched a movie Saturday night. Not sure exactly what they will turn into yet, but I do know that Christmas is coming!!!

Kindergarten. Waaaaaaaaaaah! *weeps into coffee cup*

(Notably absent: a handmade backpack, which his mother did not make for him, having been distracted this weekend by her Heather Ross stash instead. I’d rather not say which licensed character appears on the back of this backpack)

We had a party yesterday for our sweet little stinker Clementine, who turns 3 today!!! She requested a Lowly Worm cake, and I was more than happy to take on the challenge.

If you follow me on Instagram (madebyrae) you got to see the “magic” unfold yesterday…hee:

I have to say this is definitely the most “involved” cake design I have ever attempted. It required a bit of creativity because I wanted to avoid piping any frosting: cocoa powder for Lowly’s body, marshmallow and chocolate chip for his eye, marshmallow rolled in red sugar for his bow tie. I have to say I was v. proud of self after the birthday girl expressed her satisfaction with it.

I also finished a special…

image via

Elliot: What happened to her?

Clementine: Owie?

Me: I don’t think so. I think she’s just resting.

Clementine: Boo-boo?

Me: No, I think she’s just fine.

Elliot: She’s going to fall in the water and drown and get eaten by sharks.