Arts & Crafts

I almost forgot to mention all the fun artsy things we did in February!

At the beginning of the month, as I was looking at Pinterest & Etsy (always the beginnings of my many interesting attempts) I kept seeing all this adorable metal stamped items and thought to myself, well that doesn't look so hard, I could totally do that! (& then my next thought was, I could have saved us so much money at Christmas, but that's too late now)

Anywho! So I looked up the tools and techniques and that same week went out and bought all the things I needed.  (I did my homework though and found all the stuff I wanted for a great price too, double score)

I then got some cute vintage looking spoons from the thrift store and kept searching for the perfect shaped frames in my perfect budget. I found some just big enough at Joann's and snatched them up! I painted them cute colors to match all my married siblings' homes or weddings and then the interesting part; the actually metal stamping.

I'd bought some extra spoons to practice on, but found it was much harder than I'd anticipated and had to wait for Kellan to get home and help me.  ... then it kind of turned into one of those projects were I just directed & helped hand things to him while he got it done for me. Metal stamping is tough my friends! But I'm quite thrilled with the results.

You can't quite see, with the flash & all but the spoons are stamped to say "I DO" & "ME TOO"

I also took my new sewing machine out for a spin in a big way. I made an unofficial New Year's resolution to sew something at least every month and so far so good.  In January I made this easy skirt that I'm really liking. I may just splurge on some nice fabric and make another. 

And in February I kept it up with some burp clothes for my sister. They're still not quite done just yet, I want to add some labels to them. 

This first one did NOT turn out like what I was envisioning in my mind. Partially because I couldn't find the fabric and ribbon I was dreaming of, and also because I had no idea what I was really doing; but I learned through trial and error for next time I try. 

Since I was quite a bit bummed about how the first one had turned out, I decided to try again, and this time with a much simpler idea and much more success. Also, I'm a little bit in love with the beautiful pink fleece houndstooth design. So cute!

And that's it for now. I'm currently working on my March sewing project of a cute (hopefully) peplum shirt.  Keep 'em crossed folks! 

The Month of February

So clearly I haven't been the best at keeping this a weekly thing...or even a monthly thing apparently, but I'm going to try to be so much better at this.  But for now we'll just try to catch you all up on most of January & ALL of February.

 But first, January in a few pictures:

Maybe a week after Kellan's birthday, as he came home from work on Tuesday (yes, I know it was a Tuesday because he works super late & it's dark when he gets back & I'm super sad by then) he found this little guy hanging out in our driveway in the cold. 

I felt so sorry for him because it was below freezing so we smuggled him inside even though we're not allowed to have dogs in and gave him some water.  He was only inside for about 5 minutes total and stayed in the foyer so I don't feel like we did anything wrong.  That's me justifying it. 

Anyways, Kellan made a makeshift leash for Doug as I called him and hit the streets and bitter cold to find Doug's home.  

They came right back after like 5 minutes because Doug had led Kellan to the wrong door. 

But Kellan tried again and this time found success.  Apparently Doug, aka Snoopy, often gets out and lives just down the street from us with a family in our ward. 

Later that week I made pulled BBQ, homemade hamburger buns & Jim N' Nick's Cheese Biscuits. That wasn't anything hugely significant about January but I was pretty pleased with myself & Kellan's tummy was pleased too so a win win! 

January also hosted our The Vow inspired date night.  We rented the movie and came back to our own vow setup.  We played Chocolate Russian Roulette (delicious), drank sparkling cider, cuddled up & had the option to write each other our own vows.  

I for one was super exciting about the vow writing part because we never exchanged vows, but Kellan thought it was pointless. He didn't use those words exactly, but that's what he meant.  

Those papers sat on our coffee table for days with nothing on them until I had a particularly rough day and Kellan surprised me by filling his out! It was just perfect...that coupled with the cute, unsolicited things he'd written about me in his journal when we were dating.    ...I was cleaning & found it laying around. 

But in my defense, he clearly knew I'd be reading it one day because he had a line in there that said something to the effect of "maybe one day I'll feel comfortable enough to let Michelia read this." 

We're married, that's as comfortable as you're gonna get! 

 In January I also became obsessed with making homemade thin mint cookies.  Not only are they SUPER delicious, they are so so much easier than trying to make homemade somoas.  Yet another reason why thin mints are superior.  We are currently a house divided, but I'll win over Kellan eventually.

 We ended January with a Hatian Night of food and fun.  My sister & brother-in-law came down for a Hatian extravaganza planned and prepared solely by Kellan.  It was delicious.  We had a bunch of stuff I can neither spell nor pronounce, but boy was it good.

Cue in February.

Our month of love began with a wedding. & not just any wedding, my older brother's wedding!

Here Micah is with his cutest Dollar Dance partner, our niece, or as Kellan likes to say, His niece.

It was beautiful & I got to help do the bride's makeup, & I don't mean to brag, but she was looking quite nice. Also, that weekend was the first time Kellan got to meet my oldest brother, his wife & their five children.  This meeting made Kellan an uncle for the very first time, & boy did he love it.

He couldn't get enough of all the kids and spent half the time trying to get the youngest one to say his name.  Lexi eventually did, but not till they had already arrived home & were looking at pictures haha.

Here's Uncle Kellan with both the girls & you can clearly see how they have him wrapped around their little fingers. They're not our nieces & nephews anymore, they're just His.

Valentine's Day! I had all these plans for fancy dinners & Kellan came home the night before and asked if we could just have pizza. Thankfully I was still able to at least put a cute spin on our simple dinner.

We bought a BEAUTIFUL garden stool that I was drooling over. Yippee!

We went ice skating in the snow for the very first together. It was beautiful & also very very cold. Kellan fell once and he says it was because I was spinning him, but I was really just trying to teach him how to skate backwards. After that it was smooth skating for the both of us.

& just this Saturday (just two days into March) we picked up the cutest little plates for Spring & I made us some adorable little mustache mugs. 

Ah Spring, Provo has warmed up this week to balmy temperatures of 50 degrees.  I'm getting excited!

...to bad this Saturday the forecast is snow. 

I'll just look at my cute plates & dream of warm sunshine.