Birds and Planes

The other day we met Ben at Gravelly Point after work. I feel like I'm always posting pictures of Gravelly Point but we never seem to grow tired of watching the airplanes there. Elsa didn't seem to mind the loud noise and Amelia loved laying down on the blanket and waiting for the next airplane to appear right over our heads. We walked along the path for awhile and enjoyed the warmer weather. We came to a huge flock of geese and Amelia quickly sent them scattering.










Ben and Amelia chase geese right into rush hour traffic.

Partly sleepy with a chance of showers overnight?

Before I went to bed last night, I went into Amelia's room to check on her. I was not expecting to find this:

It works!

I have never been able to get my stove top as clean as I want. That is until I discovered Fast Orange pumice hand cleaner at the auto parts store. Maybe I'm the last one to discover this cleaning gem, but it worked miracles on my stove top.

I hang my head in shame as I show you the before picture of my stove. Perhaps our family's collective love of bacon is to blame. And the fact that I don't always promptly clean up spills on the stove before they've been sufficiently fossilized.



Ta-da!


(I'm also a fan of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, although I use the cheaper Target brand, which is great for getting scuff marks and all sorts of things off of walls and doors.)

Ben just saw this post and is mocking me for a) being such a dork about cleaning and b) actually taking a picture of the stove before I cleaned it and c) posting about it.

Baltimore for a day.

My favorite thing about Ben's job is that he has every other Friday off. It's nice to go and explore places without the weekend crowds. We headed to Baltimore this last Friday.


Walking around the Inner Harbor. For some reason we always seem to go to Baltimore when it's freezing outside.


Our first stop was the fabulous Children's Museum, Port Discovery...

They had just opened this new "market" for kids to do their own shopping and check out at a real register.




Amelia's favorite part was this huge room full of water activities. Luckily they provided raincoats.





Elsa spent most of her time sucking on my camera bag strap.


Amelia also had fun in the "diner" and took her job as a waitress very seriously.



The only picture of me. Awesome.






Elsa is always up for anything and is content in whatever situation we stick her in.


Did I mention it was freezing outside?

After warming up with some soup and hot chocolate for dinner, we headed to the Baltimore Aquarium. We had never seen the dolphin show there before so we checked that out.


What?!?!

Snow Day Essentials.

#1 Make a fort for a read-a-thon.




#2 Enjoy the scent of fresh baked bread, courtesy of one of my favorite kitchen appliances, the breadmaker.


#3 Play in snow.


The mini snowman. This was our first snowfall of the season, and in true Virginia style, it was a whopping one inch. But we take what we can get.

#4 Sip hot cocoa.

The only way to deal with January...

...is to pretend it's June.

On Saturday we decided to bundle up and head to Great Falls State Park for some hiking, a trip usually reserved for the warm summer months. We enjoyed a picnic in the car and then checked out the falls. They were beautiful with all the ice that had built up on the rocks. We walked around until the cold got to us, and then headed home for some hot chocolate.






Amelia loved walking on all the ice.










Enjoying our car picnic.

Inaugural Crafting...

I decided I would use the Monday and Tuesday holidays to attempt some projects I have wanted to do for awhile. A little while ago, Etsy posted a "top 100 tutorials of the year" list from another craft blog, which had compiled the list from several other craft blogs, and I just decided to pick a few projects from the list and get to work.


The 1-hour bag from Ric Rac. This took me much longer than 1 hour for my first attempt, but it was pretty simple.


The Black Apple doll by Emily Martin. Emily Martin is one of the top sellers on Etsy, and rightly so. I have some of her prints hanging in Amelia's room and they are beautiful. She demonstrated how to make these dolls on Martha Stewart awhile ago so the video makes it very easy to follow along. My cousin Brooke made some of these incredible dolls and when Amelia saw them on her blog, she became obsessed with them and really wanted to make one that matched her bedroom. She refers to them as hair dolls because she is fascinated by the felt hair. She had fun helping me stuff the arms and legs. They are so fun to accessorize that I think we might have to make some more.


Amelia named this one Sally and she enjoys a lovely perch on her shelf.


The Matyroshka doll tooth fairy pillow. This was super easy to make. It's a fun little pillow with a front pocket to store your lost tooth. Bring it to bed with you and hopefully the tooth fairy will leave a lovely surprise for you in the pocket!


The crayon roll. This is super simple and perfect for any extra felt you have laying around.




I made this felt book for Amelia for Christmas. It keeps her entertained for a long time so I cut out more pieces for it during the Lost premiere last night, including the entire alphabet. Not so easy to cut small letters out of felt.



And finally, I must showcase my mom's delicious creation! My mom made these cupcakes over Christmas after I purchased the pattern, hoping to learn to crochet. I never got around to learning...maybe next time. It is obvious that I get my love of creating things by hand from my mom and my Grandmas.