Weekended

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haunted cocoa
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the inevitability of cheerios all over the floor
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Claire is always keen on what Sym is doing
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the one project I worked on this weekend
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twinsies with her dada

True story: I only had one goal this weekend, and that goal was to watch as much Supernatural as possible because the new season starts next week. I started watching the show in August and I’m basically done all eight seasons so like… good job, me.

Lazy Links

Reunited and it tastes so good. Mouse c/o @vallygshow
Reunited with her precious mouse, or rather, its replacement.

Some Halloween crafts: monsters, a haunted house and a little ghost town!

Decorating with star maps, such a great idea.

The end of horse_ebooks. I always thought it was a person, I just never needed to know which person.

Could a burrito bowl party be the new taco night?

Scream-crying over these fat little stuffies. I already have a stash of birthday & Christmas gifts for Gwen but maybe one more wouldn’t hurt?

idk how these don’t have more views, they are so cute!

What Gwen wore, I wanted to share the supremely cute outfit she’s wearing today as well, but she is being SUPREMELY DIFFICULT and rather than sit still for a photograph she’d rather crawl head-first into everything and hurt herself.

Sunday Soup (on a Monday)

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I was feeling to cruddy and morose on the weekend to make soup so I made it for dinner on Monday instead. This week I made a vegetable/quinoa soup. I didn’t really follow a recipe; I looked at this one to get some direction but everything went off the rails pretty quickly! I wanted to have lots of extra to freeze so instead of 4 cups of stock I used like… 8. Plus 8 more cups of water. Two onions, two pounds of potatoes, six carrots, an entire head of celery, 3 cups each of peas and corn. I let it simmer for about a hundred hours and once all the veggies were cooked through I added a cup of quinoa for good measure.
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Don’t let these miserable faces fool you- it was delicious.
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Little Lamb

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Poor little Gwen, she has a cold again (hey that rhymes!). We went for a long walk today to get some fresh air; I was going to stay home with her but it was so nice out, and how many more nice days of funemployment do I have left? NOT MANY.
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Look at these two little lambs! We bought this Mini Sleep Sheep for our trip to San Francisco (a month ago already!) and now it’s the perfect stroller companion BECAUSE IT STRAPS ON. Last time we went out on a Wednesday I stupidly allowed her to have her favourite toy (a $1 mouse from Ikea) in the stroller and she lost it! I retraced our steps for like ten blocks but couldn’t find it, but thankfully my internet friend Valerie went to Ikea and bought three replacement mice for us that arrived today.

Also! The wackest thing happened on our walk: a crow flew into the back of my head! I know crows will come at you if you get too close to their nests or if you attack them (they’ll remember your face and come at you forever) but I wasn’t doing any of those things! I was just walking along the Seawall and BANG! something clobbered me. I was like WTF because I assumed it was a human but when a looked around there was no one near me, just a rude-ass bird. Definitely the weirdest thing that happened to me today.

Baby DIY: Cardboard Cabin

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Idk when this turned into a blog about cardboard, but here’s the cabin tutorial I promised!

To make this cardboard cabin, you need:
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-a corrugated cardboard box
-cutting mat, ruler, pencil, exacto knife/scissors, tape

Use whatever size box is best for the intended occupant. For Gwen’s cabin I used the box a carseat was shipped in, but I didn’t take pictures of its construction so I made a scale model.
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All the techniques I used can be applied to bigger boxes (or smaller ones if you need to house some mice).
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If your box has been used, cut open and/or remove any tape or packing labels that are holding it shut, and open up all the flaps.

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Cut the four flaps off the bottom of the box and set aside. If you are using an exacto knife be sure to do this on a cutting mat so you don’t trash your table/floor.

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Measure the width of the inside of the short flaps on the top of the box and mark outer edge at the midpoint. Draw a line from the two lower corners of the flap to this marked midpoint.

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Cut along the lines so that the short flaps are now triangles. These will form the gables on either side of the cabin.

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Tape the sides of long flaps to the edge of the gables to form the bottom half of the roof.

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To complete the roof, use the long flaps you cut from the bottom of the box. Leaving a 1/8″ gap between them, tape the two flaps together along the length.

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Fold the taped-together flaps over the top of the cabin so that they overlap the lower half of the roof. The gap between the two pieces of cardboard allows it to fold easily and form the ridge. Tape the sides of the roof piece to the gables. For the big cabin I used the cut off short flaps to make a third roof piece but it was purely for aesthetic reasons (I wanted each roof tier to be the same size) and isn’t necessary.

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To make a door (or windows), mark where you want them to be on the inside of the box and cut them out.

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Now that you’ve built your cabin, you can decorate it! Im an idiot so I used an ultra-fine sharpie to draw woodgrain all over Gwen’s, which took a million years and is basically invisible, so maybe don’t do that. But you could draw a less pointless pattern with markers, paint it, or cover it with paper.
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I tried to lure Gwen into the cabin for pictures by staging it all nice with fur rugs and pillows and toys but NO DICE. She still doesn’t care to go inside and it doesn’t help that she has a cold today that is making her very grumpy. Someday though. SOMEDAY.
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Weekended

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I had big plans for this weekend. Big, secret, whimsical plans. I was going to go for a walk down a tree-lined street drinking apple cider and maybe do some window shopping in cute shops. I was going to wear tights and a sweater and so was my baby. It was going to be a perfect fall weekend, except lol no.

Instead on Saturday I felt sick and on Sunday it poured with rain. The only walking around I did outside involved raincoats, rainpants and a broken umbrella that closed on my head. So instead I spent most of my weekend on PROJECTS!

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Started painting these two canvases for Gwen’s room. The smaller one will go above her change table, the larger one is going behind her crib so she can’t drop her binkies down there anymore.

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I bought some cheap poster frames on clearance at Michael’s (for $5 & $7) and painted them white (originally they were bright green) and framed the alphabet poster and Little Paper Forest Map of Canada print in Gwen’s room. I also bought a red one for this signed poster Taylor got as a perk for funding some Kickstarter or another. This frame was a little scuffed at the corners so I put a coat of the same red paint as the dining room table.
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I also finally put more cupboard inserts in that shelf. They are a total pain to install so I’ve been putting it off forever, but I only have one left to do, thank god.
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The most tedious thing I did this weekend was finished faux-boising Gwen’s cardboard cabin. Or at least I think I’m finished; I might do the roof as well.
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And yet she still won’t go in it. Babies! So rude!

The Unlinkable Has Happened

Regramming this precious moment from @blame_simian because she rarely does this anymore
You guysssssssss omg. The worst thing happened! Normally I keep a draft going all week for my links post, but this week I was just too lazy. Instead I left tabs open with all the cool articles and blogs and things I wanted to include in this week’s post. I had over a dozen, it was going to be a great post! THEN yesterday afternoon I had a shower, and when I got out my computer was turned off? HOW. Ghosts or something, I guess. ANYWAY by the time I realized that of course my computer shutting off also closed all those tabs it was TOO LATE to shift-command-tab them back and now I’ve forgotten what they all were. Because of this the only link I have this week is Gwen’s outfit post.

Instead of links, here are some instagrams from this week.
Attitude problems
Gwen and I met Sym after school.
I'm living vicariously through @blame_simian's hair #longhairdontcare #merman
Really jealous of Taylor’s hair you guys. REALLY. JEALOUS.
:D #tinybuttonsblog
this babyyyyyyyyyyyyyy omg
Feet/fort
She only went in because Sym lured her in. Kichou likes it though! I’ll be posting a tutorial on how to make your very own cardboard cabin for babies, kids and dogs next week.
Let me in
She does not appreciate being trapped behind the gate.
One of about fifty projects I have on the go rnThings I did instead of working today: made a new print for Gwen's room #123456789
Two of my many projects from this week, a forest in progress and a finished number print, both for Gwen’s room.

Catch Me If You Can

Gwen is a great little crawler these days. She now longer belly-crawls; now she does full hand-and-knees crawling like one of these wind-up babies.

she’s much faster than this baby though

One of her new favourite games is Chase. When she spots a hole in our defences (ie a baby gate left open) she makes a break for the foyer (where the dog food is), hallway (where the cat’s litterbox is) or front bathroom (where Kichou’s puppy pad is). I say “Gwennieeeeeee, where are you going?” she sits up and looks at me with the most mischievous expression, and turns and starts crawling away from me, as fast as she can, giggling her little face off.
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