Some accomplishments from the past month

I don't know why but August always seems like a busy month. Maybe it's because our anniversary is in August, or maybe it's the ending of summer and moving into Fall and cooler weather or maybe it's the beginnings of football season...I don't really know but this month has been full of firsts for our family. We also have been busy creating and making things happen.
First off, a few weeks ago Arya FINALLY rolled over. I say finally because she had been working on it for the few weeks before that. She was always so close and couldn't quite get over that arm to roll from her back to her tummy(tummy to back is tons easier and she's been doing that for a while now). The moment she figured it out it was a piece of cake for her. It seem like the moment you put her on her back and walk away she is instantly on her tummy. She even like to go from her back to her tummy to her back to her tummy. Pretty soon she'll be all over the place. Believe it or not she's already figuring out how to get around on her tummy. She digs her face into the ground and shoves herself forward with her feet and will do that over and over again until she's moved like a foot! It's so crazy. Audree didn't crawl until she was 10 months old(and walked less then a month after that) but I am thinking Arya is quite the ambitious little girl and catches on really quickly. We'll see but if I were to put money on it I'd guess she'll be crawling a lot sooner then Audree did.

Arya also had her first taste of rice cereal. She did really well for her first time. I remember Audree had really bad tongue thrust and I couldn't even force the spoon into her mouth but Arya willing accepted the food. Of course not very much of it actually stayed in her mouth after that but we are working on it. I offer it to her every few days and I am letting her figure it out and decide if she wants it on her own time. Once she gets it down I will probably start introducing those yummy veggies like squash and sweet potatoes

I finally decided that I needed to get more daring with my sewing machine and I made the girl matching Sunday outfits. I am quite pleased with how they turned out and proud of myself for not totally screwing it up! I've tried them on both of them and they are ADORABLE!! I can't wait for Sunday so they can wear them to church and I can get cute new pictures of them. I still need to make little bloomer panty things to go under Arya's dress and matching bows for the both of them but I still have the rest of the week to do that :)

I have done a lot of new cooking lately. Ever since I have had the opportunity to cook I knew that I loved to cook. I have had quite a few years now to perfect my love for cooking. I have become pretty good at taking recipe's that look good and adjusting them to our own personal tastes and making them, in our opinion, better. Lately I have been thinking about creating recipe's that are my own...obviously there really can't be a recipe invented that somebody hasn't already attempted or in some way done(I mean food has been around for forever and there are millions of people out there who have been professionally trained in food) but I wanted to make a recipe that I didn't find inspiration from anywhere but my own mind. The product:

Apple, Spinach and parmesan rolled pork chops(I know the plating isn't perfect, I am still working on it :)). Me and Mark both liked them but also felt they could be improved upon. So I am going to give it some more pondering and try again when Mark finds more pork chops on sale. We rolled them pork chops instead of stuffed because the thinly sliced pork chops are what happened to be laying around after Mark shopped the sales on meat.

So me and my sister have kind of been playing around with the idea of starting our own cupcake bakery. It may just be a dream but we still decided we'd have fun coming up with ideas for cupcakes. The other day I decided to put one of my ideas into motion but was met with some complications in the baking process. It was just a minor stumbling block and as soon as we've recovered from eating 24 cupcakes all by ourself I will try again. As for the flavors I think they are great and I'm just excited to make it look pretty. When I can make it look pretty enough I will get some pictures up.

Finally we are getting to some interior painting. I have been wanting to do something more with our downstairs but haven't known what to do. The space is so open and the family room, dining room and kitchen all share one long wall so paint that wall just wasn't going to happen. I like my rooms to be seperate spaces when it comes to design with just little things to tie it together. So what's going on in my family room is definitely not what is going on in my kitchen. So I had been struggling with what to do. Finally we came to a conclusion. I love me a red kitchen and without overdoing it we decided to paint just the protruding pantry walls red. I don't know what it is about a red kitchen but it makes me so happy and excited and I am glad we went with the red again. As for the family room, there are moments that I like the color we chose and moments that I don't. I am still not sure if we are going to keep it or not but it's nice to see what having just the back wall painted looks like. We have projects for the distant and not so distant future that I am excited about and hoping will make this place feel more like me and feel more like home. Those projects include, crown molding in the family room/dining room/kitchen area, tile backsplash in the kitchen, curtains for the windows, finishing touches for the family room, finishing touches for the kitchen and dining room, built in desk and bookcases for the living room, leather furniture for the living room, crown molding for living room and in the way way distant future a built in stove top range with five burners. And for the upstairs we have plans to decorate our bedroom and bathroom that I am excited about and wish we had the money to do it NOW. Oh well. Eventually Audree will make the move into Arya's room(the bigger room) and Audree's room will become my craft room until it's time for another little goober to come and then that room will take on the design of whatever the gender may be.

So that's been our past month. I am so excited for the Fall to be here. I am so excited for the already noticeably cooler nights, beautiful Fall colors and football games in moderation(hint hint Mark :)). What do you guys look forward to in the Fall?

have a plan for decorating bedroom

Mark put together frame for our new laundry hamper and I have plans to make the bags