Kansas City

It has been the most crazy summer! We have been living temporarily in Kansas City for the past five weeks for Joe to work at one of the hospitals here for a rotation. We are living in a teeny tiny corporate apartment that has a parking garage and a balcony and noisy neighbors {what a change from life in Wichita!}. We have a friend watching our house in Wichita and our mail is being held and we are having our lawn mowed by our neighbor. It's like being on a very extended vacation!!

I am loving it!

The first couple weeks we had swimming lessons every day. Swimming lessons with my child has always been one of my "envision yourself with kids" things that I have always, always looked forward to! I just kept thinking to myself that last summer I spent every single day inside because I was either huge pregnant or I had a newborn and now here we are taking swim lessons. It cracked me up because they had the kids try to practice kicking, going under water and even trying to climb out of the pool by themselves! It was really neat that they challenged the kids so much!

carousel at the mall

We have also had a lot of play dates with all of our Kansas City friends and I am hoping to squeeze in some more things before we go home.

We have a big park right by our apartment. We are also within walking distance to the Country Club Plaza and I have eaten at The Cheesecake Factory..well.. I won't tell you how many times. ;-)

blurry 4th of July

It's been such a fun summer so far. I don't think I want to leave! Well.. maybe I do want to sleep in my own bed again..

Landon's First Birthday {Sherlock Holmes Birthday Party}

I am so late in telling you about Landon's first birthday! If you know me in real life at all you know I had been planning his party for months ~ I love party planning and celebrating my little man! I wanted to pick a theme that wasn't too popular so I could really be creative with it. Joe and I both love London - we love the food, the people, the layout of the city, the double decker buses, royalty.. you name it! So I decided to play off that and go for a vintage Sherlock Holmes type party.

We had my friend Sarah {who is seriously a genius} design box invitations for us. She designed the invitation so that the details of the party were in a small font and we mailed a magnifying glass in the box for people to read the invitations with. We got so many compliments on the invitations! I am so sad to say that I didn't get our photographer to get a picture of the invitation all assembled but here is the design. I seriously loved it!

My sister helped us rent a clubhouse in Kansas City for the party. We are here for the summer and our families are here so it was perfect. Plus, I didn't have to get my house all clean for lots of guests. That was a big advantage to renting a room! Sarah also designed banners, bottle labels and signs for the party. Everything was in old fashioned plaids and red and white houndstooth prints.

We catered fish and chips from a local pub and my friend Trish helped us get food baskets to put it in. It was really authentic to London and I loved that. We found newspaper liners for the chips from World Market. I really wanted to serve old fashioned Coke out of the glass bottles so we found some at Wal-Mart of all places! I ordered mustache straws from Etsy. They were a huge HIT the entire party!!

 Landon's cake was done by Sprinkled with Sugar of Kansas City. It looked good and tasted even better. I was so impressed that it even had fingerprints all around the sides and bottom. She nailed the theme perfectly! I ordered his first birthday bib from Etsy too. I am going to keep it in his memory box. :)

 I made little goodie bags for the kids with a notepad for "detective" notes and a crayon shaped mustache I ordered from Etsy. I thought they turned out so cute!

 My friend Audrey came and took professional pictures during the party for us. That was the BEST decision because I could really be "in the moment" and I didn't have to worry about keeping my camera with me to document everything. She takes better pictures than I could ever do and she captured so many moments that I didn't even see on the day of the party!

We had such a fun party! The best part was having everyone we love in the same room at the same time to help us celebrate our little guy.

Happy Birthday Landon!!!!

Dining Room Tour

I thought it would be fun to share a little tour of my dining room because I recently got a new church pew to put at my table and I'm loving it! I know it may not be everyone's cup of tea but I love old furniture and have wanted a church pew for years but could never find one that fit in the budget. And I'll just go ahead and show you around too!

Welcome to my dining room! It's actually kind of like an eat-in kitchen because it's attached by a bar. We try to sit at the table and eat as a family every night because that's a tradition I think is important for families. You can see my church pew in the big window! I found it at a garage sale about a mile from my house for less than $100! The owner said it was from a small town in Kansas and the church board decided to buy new pews with cushions. This was the last and only pew that wasn't sold at auction. Now tell me that's not fate?! I "shopped" my house for some pillows to put on it.

I love how the sides of it are carved. I just wonder how many hundreds of people have sat here??

I have a china hutch I bought when we were still in Oklahoma. I almost painted it but I'm glad I didn't. I keep all my glass vases and dishes on the top. I have a bit of an obsession with old dishes. I am giddy when I can find vintage dishes at garage sales or estate sales. I have a full set from my grandma with historic images on it I keep in a drawer.

And I also have some Barnyard Toile (not vintage but I love it too) that I've been collecting for a while.

And my favorite are these vintage ivy dishes that are super hard to find but they were used on the set of I Love Lucy. It's my favorite show and it is so fun to collect these when I find them here and there! I am going to try to get the entire set before I die! Hah!

This table I found at a flea market for $100 - it's solid wood and had six chairs. It was so nasty but I knew it had lots of potential and I liked the shape of the chairs. Some of my friends call it the Pottery Barn table which cracks me up. It was in a pile of junk when I bought it!

The light fixture was something we got to pick out when we bought the house because it was only partially started. It's from Home Depot.

This rug was one of the first things I bought for our new house and it was a pretty big investment item. It's from Dash & Albert and I still love it.

We have a fireplace on the other end of the room and I love having a fire when we eat dinner in the winter. I usually change my mantle a lot but I've had this up for a couple months. The wreath is from cupcake liners!

My favorite thing about the dining room is the view. It's what sold us on the house! We can look out the windows and not see lots of houses and cars and people - it's got a country feel which we LOVE.

Thanks for touring with me! :)

Happenings

I have been so busy lately with LIFE. I get out of the house every single day and we've been spending a lot of time with friends, having play dates, and just running around. And next week we are re-locating to Kansas City for two months for Joe to work at a specific hospital for a rotation. I am so excited! We have set up someone to watch our house and mow the yard and I've been planning all kinds of fun things to do in KC! The last weekend of the month is Landon's first birthday. I have been getting major help with all the details from my friends Sarah, Audrey and Trish. I am so excited! I enrolled Landon in mom-and-me swimming lessons in KC. I am so nervous. I took him to the pool and he freaked out and wouldn't even let me dip is toe in the water. Speaking of pools, my friend Ashlee made me these adorable monogrammed beach towels. and I love, love, love them! I nearly died when she showed them to me. She even sewed a little ribbon on the side so you can hang them up to dry. Please tell me she should open an Etsy shop!?

Happy Friday!

Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day weekend! Joe had to work a lot but we did get to go out for lunch today. We got him some new flip flops and sandals for this summer and I'm also going to help him pick out a new suit as his gift!

I dressed Landon in this doctor shirt. I think it is so cute! He loved the fake watch on the sleeve!

I did manage to sort through Landon's closet and clear out some clothes that are too small. His closet is a disaster zone and he loves to go in there and throw the clothes out of his laundry basket.

Happy Father's Day Joe! You are an AMAZING dad! You set an example of an honest, hard-working, patient, sensitive man with the best sense of humor! Landon is such a lucky kid! We love you!!