Autumn at the Draper's

Today we have been celebrating autumn's early arrival in our kitchen!
We got 2 bushels of apples and stayed up until 1:15am last night/this morning making and freezing applesauce!
We were at it again by 8am canning the rest of our tart and tangy applesauce
AND making some yummy desserts:
1. Apple butter
2. Pumpkin pie dip
3. Cinnamon and pumpkin cheesecake
crescent rolls layed out on bottom of 13x9, topped with pumpkin, cream cheese, and sugar mixture w/ cinnamon chips.  Top that with more crescent rolls and then cinnamon sugary butter goodness.  Bake at 350 until golden brown :)

Also, it is 2pm while I type this...everyone is napping in the house but me, and we still haven't showered...

I LOVE these kind of days :)

And so this blog isn't too dull and boring - a photo shoot I took with the babes in August... :)

 

What are you favorite foods to make when the weather turns colder?!

The nursery project

I am so thankful to be putting all my hours of pinterest obsession into good use!

So far I have done lots of recipe posts, a pinterest inspired decorating post for our living room, one for our bedroom, and a homemade learning activity for Mylin post (which happens to be her current favorite activity to do!)

Today my pinterest post is all about the new baby!

I have a nursery board on pinterest that has inspired some unique and simple decor in baby's room:

I am in love with how it turned out!!!

We use to have a few pictures and LOTS of shelves hung in here when Mylin was an infant

Well...the shelves didn't end up being all that safe and the pictures didn't really end up going with the room...

So we decided to simplify and take everything off the walls, repaint the room and begin anew!

While we have all the same colors and stuff for this baby (mostly browns, creams, and greens with a little orange too...) we decided to try something new that could be versatile in the future

Isn't the tree so fun?!

The colored dots are wall stickers that will easily come off

They also come with letters so we can put the baby's name (once we've decided on one...) on the wall as well, like we did when Mylin was in there

We will probably hang 1 or 2 sentimental pictures of us and baby after Wee One's arrival - and other than that we'll keep it simply decorated!!!

What are your decorating suggestions?

What theme did you have when you had a nursery?!

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Our latest home project (inspired by a pin on pinterest)

Take one blank, freshly painted wall....

Have a huge mirror you got for free like 5 years ago when the Bohemian Bean moved locations PLUS some fun thin fabric your mom helped you pick out (p.s. note that you might get twice as much as you actually need...)

Use hot glue, a husband to help you lift and spin the heavy mirror on the fabric, and make some cute little 'flower' clusters

Have your husband invite a friend over since you're pregnant and can't lift heavy things...and hang the mirror back up!

It may not look like much...but the mirror was scratched and yucky around the edge and it only took about 4 years of hanging in our house for us to find some inspiration and buy the products to make it over :)

We LOVE the finished product!!!

Pinterest-inspired learning activity!

I love all the fun and inspiring homeschool/preschool projects on pinterest!

A few weeks ago I picked up the supplies to make one at home - and this week I finally did it!

I started with this pile of stuff

And these two eager helpers :)

And in a few minutes we had made a color learning activity for Little Miss!

Ethan enjoyed helping her learn how to say colors 

But poor Mylin still isn't strong enough to open the closepins to put the right dot with the right pin!  However, she really likes stacking all the circles in a pile :)

This project was fun, simple, and CHEAP!

The paint color samples are free at any hardware store - and we found a bag of 100 closepins at Wal-Mart for a whopping $1...get some scissors and glue and you're all set!

I was inspired by these 2 pinterest pins (closepins & color samples) to create this project - and am so excited for her and her sibling(s) to grow and get to enjoy all the other ones I'm anxious to make!

What other preschool/homeschool ideas do you have using either closepines, paint samples, or both?!