Countertop

Today, they are installing countertops! Kashmir White, for those of you mulling over your own home renovations...

Climbing at PB Teen

Since we own a climbing gym, I was especially interested to see this rock climbing decor on sale at PB Teen! Click here for the wall mural, marked down to $99 from $199. And this Carabiner Rope System, marked down to $19, from $59. Climb on!

Workshop

Now here is a man who is proud of his workshop. He added this area to our basement, complete with cabinets pulled from our old kitchen. Does every man desire his own workshop? Or is it just my husband? This is his favorite area of our house. He has more tools than I have shoes!

Bittaba: If this post doesn't get a comment from you, Lance will be very sad.

Felt Fortune Cookies

Here are the fun little Valentine's Fortune Cookies I made last year, for those who might need a cute idea. Click here for instructions from Martha!

Top 10 Lessons Learned About Insurance Claims

I figure we should pass on what we've learned about insurance over the past 9+ months. If you've had a large claim too, do you have others to add to the list?

Below: A current view of our kitchen, which looked like this a few weeks ago! For those of you new to my blog, here's where our claim started. More updates also found under "Big Mess."1. Insure Yourself - Insurance is Important. As disappointed as we were with our treatment, I can't imagine if we had no homeowners insurance at all. If possible, talk with friends who had large insurance claims to find out how they were treated. Also, check the national reputation of your insurance company. Unfortunately, ours has a national reputation for not settling quickly or fairly.
2. Picture This - First of all, take pictures of your house. Right Now. Inside & Out. Don't take a close up picture of every tiny houseplant, but take shots of each room. When we were burglarized a couple of years ago, I wish I had taken snapshots of things like my CD rack, inside my kitchen cabinet, etc.
3. Every Little Bit - It all adds up. If you have a claim, make sure you account for everything possible. We were burglarized during a renovation, and had no idea what was piled up in our POD & backside of the house. If I had taken pictures, it would have jogged my memory. But instead, months later we would think, "Oh, what happened to that globe we got for our wedding?" (Really, I can't believe they stole that, Liz!) For months we would remember things that added up to several hundreds dollars in the end. We never claimed all of this stuff with our insurance.
4. Document the Process - Right away, get yourself a calendar & write down dates of important phone calls, emails, etc. Who was at meetings, what they said. Take tons and tons and tons of photographs of the incident & repairs. They incorrectly laid some brick on our house, which didn't meet codes, but quickly covered over it. We only got them to redo it because Lance had documented it.
5. Hire The Right Guys (or Girls) - Just pay what it costs to hire someone you trust. We were locked into a decision, because the insurance only approved the guys who low-balled the estimate. We ended up having to fire them & redo a bunch of their work on our own dime.
6. Be Insistent - Unfortunately, we learned that it doesn't always pay to wait around for the guys to do the right thing. We waited about 6 months without a settlement. Finally, Lance made dozens of calls in one week, going over each persons head. Once he got to the highest in command, the issue was resolved that same day.
7. Put Your POD Away - Don't leave a POD in your yard. Ours was broken into. Plus, they are a huge red flag for folks looking to break into a uninhabited house.
8. Get Folks to Back You Up - Hiring a lawyer, engineer, architect may be necessary. Fortunately, we had a structural engineer (and family friend) at our house on Day 1. His documentation & reports were invaluable. We also expect his reports & assessments to help in the eventual resale of our home. And we ended up having a lawyer (and friend) represent us to move our situation along. And since I married an architect, his services were free. :)
9. While You're At It - If there is additional work done to your house, consider doing it now. Depending on the market & how long you plan to stay in the home, it could be a cost-effective time to get other work done that you have been considering. Due to the wreck, we had to install a new staircase going out of our kitchen. We had been talking about adding a deck, so we decided to go ahead and make the upgrade now.
10. Go With It - This one's really a bummer, because it really could mean that the good guy doesn't "win". But in the end, you have to realize that it's just "stuff." Maybe you truly won't get what you are owed (we didn't.) But you have just got to let it go. Otherwise, it will eat you up.

Bean Skirts for Girls

Here's another etsy seller you should really check out before February 10. A friend-of-friend (remember Kate from The Bachelor?) started a line of little girl skirts on etsy called...Bean! How adorable! Hopefully, she'll be able to stay around after February, but who knows what this law might do! Click here for more from Bean.

If you have ever bought a smocked dress, handmade blanket, baby hair bows, embellished burp cloth, etc., you really need to be concerned about this new law! It requires manufacturers to spend upwards of $20,000 to make sure their clothing (100% cotton...Hello!) doesn't have lead. Isn't something wrong here? Have you taken action? Are you tired of hearing me talk about it?

Buy Before February 10!

I meant to share this "I Spy Bag Travel Toy" that I bought for our long Christmas road trip, from etsy seller aebaby. It's fun and very easy to pack away to buy you some quiet time on your travels. There are a variety of different fabrics, we have a dinosaur pattern.

Thanks to that nasty CSPIA law, you will no longer be able to buy awesome gifts like this, or a number of other cute handmade products and clothes for children.

Remember when I told you about these cutie shoes? This etsy seller is already closing up her shop!

If you want to buy handmade clothes, toys, and gifts, do it soon!!!

#3 Racing Birthday Party!

i felt certain about two things for Ethan's birthday. First: All food there would be E-Safe. Second: Cars would be involved. So I went with the race car theme, embraced the "slanty 3" and the rest is history.
A friend who is an awesome graphic designer owed me a favor, so he threw together the cute party invite with awesome Ethan illustration. Then, I got some great car themed goodies for the bags from Oriental Trading. Other fun racing decorations came either from here or here or here.Sis-in-law Jeanie makes amazing cookies, so she whipped up these cuties, using this vegan cookie recipe. (Last year, I vowed never to attempt this type of cookie ever again.)
Ethan's cars filled a corner as our "race track." Easy enough, right? Toddlers don't stay in one place too long, so they quickly moved on to...The DMV. Where they could make their own license plates, from craft foam, stickers & glitter glue. We also had some of these guys - first drivers license, perhaps?
Next, off for paint jobs & work in the body shop! At the Body Shop, they got to paint & color wooden cars. 
Or color pictures of cars.
For the food, we had bagels (Tires) with flavored cream "cheese." I made strawberry and veggie flavored cream cheeses from using Tofutti brand. Plus bananas and coffee (Fuel!!!). We topped off a good breakfast with some checkered vegan cupcakes.Then, it was off to do some climbing & work off those cupcakes! I have no intention of putting on a party like this every year. I am actually a big advocate of simplicity. But I figure I have it in me to throw a small handful of good parties during their lifetimes. Maybe in another 5 years we'll do it up again!

Birthday Report, Part 1!

More updates to come, but Ethan's 3rd birthday party was such fun! Thanks to our friends for coming!! Now, I think I will take a nap. :) Since we were booted from our home, we had our party at our gym. And since we had the place all to ourselves, we decide to do it up! It was a car birthday, but we had to squeeze in a little climbing!
Happy Birthday!
The kids had fun with car crafts!
I think the belay lesson was a bit over their head. Can you say, "belay on"? (Okay, I love Drew in this picture.)
The mezzanine has never seen this many toddlers!
Running on the bouldering pads is strictly prohibited!

Big Time Celebration

I've been feverishly baking & icing vegan cupcakes for the biggest celebration of all times. Well, not really, but that is alot of cupcakes, right? Stay tuned for the 3rd birthday rundown! My boy turns 3 in just a few hours!

Click here for the dude at birthdays Number 1 and at Number 2!

Fun with Photo Booth

If I had all the money in the world, I would have a photo booth in my house. But we can have fun on the mac instead!!Boo Hoo!
Kiddy Feet (and yes, it's a tatt)
all giving a little katie belle face
roar!

Drywall!

I haven't given you an update in a while, but stuff has been going on. But we are now entering the exciting phase! They just finished repairing all the cracks in the plaster, and put in new drywall. Next week, cabinets will begin to be installed & we'll start painting! Hopefully, we will be able to move back in at the end of next month!!!

Will I Finish?

My favorite craft of the month is Ethan's quilt! I hope I can finish before we move back into our house. For my very first quilt, I'm glad I chose easy stripes. I machine stitched the top, and I'm doing the quilting by hand. I've borrowed Lance's aunt's old quilting frame. It takes up huge part of the room, but it works great!I've even gotten some help from my boys.

Hurting Resale Too!

The same Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that I told you about here will likely hurt the resale of childrens clothes and toys from consignment sales, thrift stores, & garage sales. If you haven't taken the time, please read & take action today! The law goes into effect on February 10!

Read today's article in The Tennessean for more information.

This post at coolmompicks.com has a link to tell you how to write your Congressman, the CPSIA, and more. Picture from here.

More detailed & thorough sample letters can be found online, but here's a copy of mine, if you need a jumping off point: I am very concerned about the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act & the implications on families across the nation. Most families rely greatly on resale items at thrift stores, garage sales & consigment sales in order to provide adequately for their families. Also, many small toy and clothing manufacturers, artisans and craftsmen will no longer be able to do business under such circumstances. I applaud your efforts to keep our children safe, but am very concerned about the effect this will have on products for America's children. Thank you.

More Handmade Christmas

In Mimi's "green basket" (which, in keeping with the theme, was really presented in a reused cardboard box!) included some of what is pictured below. The "Green" Bible (which is simply just a Bible with references to creation, etc. highlighted in green), a handmade draft dog,
Plus several homemade bouquet garnis, some sea salts, energy efficient light bulbs, tumeric, soaps, detergents, snacks, a few books, baking soda, loofah, seeds, agave nectar, and a few more handy items I'm forgetting!
and while I'm posting handmade gifts, i've got to post a picture of the cupcake painting! I hope it's a tradition that we continue!

Homemade Christmas

This year, some of my family members decided to trade homemade gifts, which was so much fun. My favorite part was not stepping into a single mall for any Christmas shopping!! I gave homemade granola and notecards. My mother made us each a "green" gift basket, filled with environmentally friendly (and useful) products. Other gifts given were homemade soaps, paintings, and candied nuts!A few of the notecards are pictured above. The labels for the granola were from myownlabels.com. Anyone else know of a good source?

Christmas Report

Ahh...Finally catching a breath from the whirlwind that was December. Here's some snapshots of our month, which included lots of online shopping, 18 cousins, travel, a Christmas program, several visits to Santa & tons and tons of fun. Here are a few highlights.the balloons are still flying high!
blue ridge parkway, in nc.
"can I squish her face?"
the cutest little handmade bunny for katie belle, bought off etsy!