an impromptu date night

{via}

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope you have a few moments with your loved ones today.

My sweet hubby drove to the other side of town tonight to pick up a pair of chairs I found on Craigslist.  {they are lovely, by the way.  I'll tell you more about them in another post}

As I was cleaning the kitchen and feeling grateful that he added a long drive to his already full list of things to do, I decided to surprise him with an impromptu date night.

The kids were sound asleep, so I spread an old quilt in front of the fire.

wonderdog kept me company while we waited for B to come home

Made some lemonade.

Turned black eyed peas leftover from dinner into bean dip, and toasted some french bread for dipping.

Brian got home a bit quicker than expected, so I didn't have time to turn on any music.  But, I was intending to play Stereolab's ABC Music.  It was the soundtrack to our honeymoon, and it every time I listen to it, I think about driving through sugarcane fields in Kauai, snorkeling and looking for sea turtles, bouncing around in the pacific, and dreaming about what our life together would be like.

And our life is so much more than we had imagined--more busy and stressful, {ok, there's a lot less sleep than we would have imagined, had we imagined sleep}, more sad and touched by loss, but also more joyful, full of laughter, noisier, more blessed and more intense than we ever could have imagined.  And I am so glad that Brian is my partner and co-parent through it all. 

It is a wonderful {and far too rare} treat to have a few quiet moments to just be together.  We rarely celebrate Valentine's day, but if we did, I'd want it to be just like today, a simple, quiet moment.

Do you love Valentine's day?  What are your traditions?  What do you and your sweet heart have planned this year?

{Brian liked the bean dip and asked where I got the recipe.  I told him I made it up, and he said "I love a good guess-tape"--and a new word was invented}
Black-eyed pea dip

3 cups cooked black eyed peas (I used dried beans, putting them in the pot the night before covered with water, bring them to a boil, turn them off, cover them and let them sit out overnight.  I then boil them again about an hour before dinner until tender)
salt to taste
olive oil
green onion
lemon

Puree cooked, drained black-eyed peas in a food processor or blender until smooth.  Add reserved cooking liquid until beans are silky smooth, but not watery.  Stir in salt to taste.  Spoon into serving dish, drizzle with olive oil, garnish with green onion and lemon.  Serve with toasted bread or crudites.

ribbon and fabric chandelier: a solution to the cfl blahs

I think my favorite room in our house is probably our sunroom.  And, since it is such a great space for reading and hanging out as a family, it is at the top of my list of rooms to finish.  I am very excited to have finished the first project for this room, a ribbon chandelier.

Remember the epic fail I wrote about last week?  The one that was so bad, my camera refused to take a good photo of it?  {what can I say, my camera has good taste}

the hot mess revisited

 {Don't feel bad if you can not remember it, it was pretty terrible non-memorable.}

I fixed some of the problems with that project, and now have a lovely {if I do say so myself} chandelier.  I'd like to think that this light fixture deserves the title "anthropologie inspired" or maybe "anthropologie-esque".  At any rate, it is sweet, feminine, has loads of wonderful texture and so many pretty textiles that make me smile. 

My sunroom, like most of the rooms in my recently finished new construction house, has had a boob light.  Actually, my boob lights are nicer than most I've seen {aren't you glad that the word "lights" was in that sentence?}.  But, they are a bit generic and not-us, so I've been trying to think of a thrifty way to replace them.

What could be more thrifty than hitting up my fabric and ribbon stash for materials to make a new chandelier?  Three embroidery hoops + some hot glue + a bit of wire + plenty of pretty silk + ribbon + tulle + yummy beaded tulle and we have a pretty chandelier in our sunroom.  No rewiring required.

the cheerful blue and yellow pillows will be moving to a different room as more pink and orange get introduced to this room

I love the way that the pink silk {which fits perfectly with our new color scheme} makes the light glow.  This room looks so happy.  Bonus--the pink takes some of the odd-yellow out of the CFL bulbs that are in the fixture.  CFLs are great for the environment and the family budget, but, in my opinion, CFL light color has yet to be perfected.  I wasn't thinking about that issue when I chose the pink, just my color scheme, but the pink adds a really nice glow.

Environmentally friendly + pretty, what more could a girl ask for?

{and a side note, thanks to the CFL bulbs and the fact that the chandelier hangs a ways away from the light fixture, the chandelier is totally cool to the touch.  If it got at all warm, I would take it down, since, I really don't want my house to burn down.  If you make your own light-hack, please, please, please use common sense and keep an eye on the thing to make sure you haven't added a fire hazard to your home}

This project was very tedious. Even if I hadn't torn apart the whole project after the epic fail it would have been tedious.  But, luckily I did the project twice and learned from my mistakes.  I am pretty happy with my results, but still have some tweaking to do.  My plan is to make another ribbon chandelier later this week to cover the ugly fan-light combo. in my bathroom.  I'll be putting together a tutorial and sharing some of the mistakes that I made in versions 1 and 2.

I am joining these link parties:

my first instafriday

One of the many things that I love about my husband is that he is really good about taking pictures of our children on a daily basis.  He gets so many good shots of the daily moments of our lives.  These are some of my very favorite pictures.  I, on the other hand, take too few pictures.

To motivate myself to remember to take photos, I decided to participate in Life Rearranged's InstaFriday.

Popcorn is the #1 favorite food in our house.  Bear kept saying "pop, pop, pop" as the kernels exploded.  He leads me to the shelf where we keep the popcorn maker at least five times a day and begs, "pop, pop, pop".

Brian's sister was in a nearby town for work and got to stop by for a few hours.  We were all so glad to see her.  Buttercup thinks her auntie builds the best block towers.  Bear just likes knocking the towers down.

Buttercup has been dressing herself lately.  Today she wore one skirt, three dresses, a cardigan and a hat.  In this photo she is panicking, thinking that she forgot to put the skirt on.  And a girl can't be fancy without her skirt.

The hat stayed on most of the day.

We thought we had a true disaster on our hands last night.  When I fired up my laptop yesterday, it refused to go online.  I couldn't figure out how to fix the problem.  My tech guy (aka my husband) spent a loooong time trying to fix the issue.  Just as we were ready to declare the wifi card dead, my husband remembered that there is a row of function buttons above the keyboard.  See that blue light?  Not a light at all, it turns the wifi off and on.  Who knew?

The kiddos flocked to the widow today, pulled up chairs and sat there for at least a half hour.

The lot across the street from us sold a while back, and today the workers started grading it.  The kiddos were riveted by the bulldozer.  I see lots of watching construction while eating popcorn in our future.