Mini Vacation: Dutch Wonderland

Posted on May 8, 2012 by jesseesuem

CT has been watching a lot of Phineas and Ferb, and now really wanted to ride a roller coaster!! She’s 2.5 years old, so it’s kind of an impossible request, unless I want to be voted “worst mom of the year”!
We are already planning a trip to Disney World in December, but to hold CT over until then we decided to take a mini vacation. We chose Lancaster, PA because they have this adorable little amusement park there called Dutch Wonderland. It is pretty much made for little kids. About half the rides there CT could ride either on her own, or with us. It also nice for us since it’s only a 2.5 hour drive from our house. Though, we stopped at so many shops on the way up it ended up taking about 5 hours… I’ll write a whole other post about that tomorrow.

We were a little worried the trip would be a bust since CT has been scared of pretty much everything lately. To get her excited we watched YouTube videos about the park the whole week beforehand. She watched them so carefully that when we saw a billboard on the way up she got excited. She even knew what the front of the park looked like!
Her first ride to try out was the carousel! She loved it, so much so she wanted to “go again”! That was a great sign!

CT enjoyed every single ride she went on, she even tried a few twice! We asked which ones were her favorite and she liked the horsey ride (carousel) and the train.
Oh and she was even tall enough to ride the log flume, accompanied by an adult of course. My husband and my father in law went with her and she wasn’t scared at all. Soooo AWESOME! Now we know our Disney trip won’t be a waste and CT got to ride roller-coasters! Sorta, we told her the log flume was a roller-coaster. It worked. It was an awesome weekend, and if any of you have little ones and live near Lancaster I highly recommend taking a day/weekend trip!

Purple Macarons

Posted on April 25, 2012 by jesseesuem

I just thought I’d share some photos of the cinnamon and vanilla buttercream macarons from the previous post! I’m so excited they actually worked again! I thought the first try was a fluke.

I want to make more this weekend to get even more comfortable making them, but I can’t decide on a flavor combo. Any suggestions?

Adventures In Hanging Plates

Posted on April 18, 2012 by jesseesuem

Awhile back I commented on the fact that I was going to be painting my dining room very soon. I had painted the swatches on the wall, chose the perfect color, bought the paint and all the other supplies. I was ready, but then the holidays came, then my Fab sale, and a bunch of other little things.

I had mentioned to my brother in law, Trey, that I really wanted it painted and that I would totally pay him to do it when he had free time, since I didn’t have any myself. His response…

“Sweetie, I’ll come over tomorrow night and do it!” and HE DID! It took two nights and a second trip to Sherwin Williams, but in the end it looks AWESOME!

I LOVE the color! and I think it really makes the room feel more special and unique.

Before we painted I had a bunch of stuff on the walls… a huge Batman print, a few shelves for my Dunnys, a mirror and bunch of plates. I think the only traditional thing in this room was the wall of plates. I couldn’t wait to put them back up on a new, much darker, wall.

Since I decided to paint this room, months ago, I had accumulated a few more plates in my collection. A couple I picked up at thrift shops and major retailer, and a few my grandmother gave me. Those are all on the right side of the table above. They were all from her very own plate collection! How neat is that? apparently plate walls run in my family. ha. Anyway, since I had new pieces I couldn’t just put them all up the way they were! My plan of attack was to arrange them on the table until I found an arrangement I liked.

That didn’t work, so instead I chose my favorite plate (the white one with the black branches and bird) and placed it in the middle of the wall. I then just chose a random plate here and there, making sure not to have colors too similar next to each other, and hung them up. As you can sorta see from above, I changed my mind every so often. Like with the periwinkle colored plate. It moved all over the place. I ended up having the wrong plate hanger size for a few, which I plan to buy very soon, but for now it is DONE!

It’s one of my favorite walls in the house. I love that it combines new and old, and plastic and glass. Each plate shows a little of my personality and life! Like the plate CT painted during her first vacation last year, or the plate from the set we got as a wedding gift, or the plate we ate off of all the time in our first apartment!

I hope to keep adding more pieces, which I plan to share with you guys along the way.

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I Made Macarons…

Posted on April 11, 2012 by jesseesuem

I have been dying to try my hand at baking French Macarons! I viewed them as the perfect hostess gift. Something special I could bring to get togethers.

I was about to start my adventure using a book, that I will not name, when I was very kindly sent a recipe instead! The very nice Alison Garnett, who saw my post on Instagram, knew the recipe I was about to try didn’t work too well. The recipe she sent was by the Brave Tart and can be found here!!! It’s very easy to read and awesome!

They didn’t come out 100% perfect, but their close enough that I’ll continue trying. They had the little feet, they didn’t crack, were glossy on top, they were light, airy, and just plain awesome to eat.

I had a slight mishap with the piping bag. I’m not too coordinated, and I lost a huge chunk of the batter. So I didn’t make a full batch of the cookie side. I only had about eight sets that came out, so instead of making an entire batch of buttercream, I just filled them with Biscoff Spread! It ended up tasting great.

Ha, I go all out fancy and just fill them with Biscoff Spread!! Yeah, my husband says it was “very me”.

I can’t wait to try more flavors! Be on the lookout for my experiments.
Oh and if you ever invite me to a get together, I may just bring some of these.

Hmmm. Maybe this will entice more people to send me invites…

Glitter Shoes Party

Posted on February 29, 2012 by jesseesuem

We were invited to another one of Heidi’s awesome craft parties this past weekend! I made sure to work super hard the week beforehand so I had time to go.

I knew I wouldn’t ever wear glitter shoes, I’m a sneakers type of girl, but I KNEW CT would love them! So we got a cheap pair of black slip-ons and headed over.

As always, Heidi made everything awesome and we all had a great time! CT has insisted on wearing her “fancy shoes” everyday since. The glitter is sticking very well too!!!

I wish I had more time to tell you everything about it, but instead I will link you over to the other THREE blog post written about this by Heidi, Amanda and Tasha.

Oh, What A Busy Month…

Posted on February 28, 2012 by jesseesuem

February has really kicked my butt! I have done nothing but work and sleep since my last post… Well, that’s not 100% true, I did get to leave the house TWO times. I’ll talk about that later.

Since I still have three more weeks of non stop work, and every minute seems to count, I decided I’m just going to show some of the photos I’ve been taking.

As you can tell, I’m still LOVING Instagram!

I also noticed I never showed my username in the last post, so if you would like to follow me and see what I’m doing everyday, my username is jesseesuem.