Jumpsuits for Fall

I love Zara's new add campaign. Forget about summer, hello Fall. Are we there yet? I love jumpsuits on toddlers, they seem so comfy. You can just roll out of bed and put on your jumper and voilà, you are dressed. These fancy new options make me thing differently. Below are some of my favorites. (Honestly, I cant quite think about Fall just yet, as we are still experiencing triple digits but I can fantasize about the clothes).

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Kate's Birthday!

This weekend was filled with champagne, cake, great food *special thanks to Stephanie* and decorations. Kate turned 30 and we had a great night celebrating.  It gave me a great excuse to finally paint the wall in our kitchen with chalkboard paint (if I may say so, it turned out pretty well), make some pom poms and break out the birthday cake cook book that has my favorite carrot cake recipe. Happy Birthday pretty lady!

Haus!

What is better than an evening with a friend, sausages, beer and french fries? Not much. Liz and I checked out Haus the other night. They have a great selection of sausages, classic ones or the gourmet kind. I think we both liked the "Pork Thai Chili kaffir lime" sausage the best. It has the right blend of spiciness and freshness.  They are all served on an amazing pretzel bun, however, it will significantly slow down the amount of sausages you can try so if you want to try a variety I would suggest skipping the bun all together.  The beer was great too- they had wittekerke on tap after all. Thanks for a lovely summer evening.

Summer sprinkler fun

Who knew that a small little sprinkler can bring so much happiness.  It is that time of year, where showers and thunderstorms are few and far between and the yard in need of some serious moisture. We decided to "invest" in a sprinkler and low and behold, it is the little baby lady's favorite toy.  Every day after school she asks if she can play with "her own sprinklers". Sure thing babe, why don't you finish your dinner and give yourself a shower.  Her favorite thing is to give us all big wet hugs, since she can't seem to get either of us to run with her through the water, she might as well, get as close as she can and get us wet. Aaaah, summer days are so lovely.

p.s. we do run through the sprinklers on the weekend, just not during the week in business attire ;-)

Inspiration: Dinner at the park

Now that most of our guests have gone home (my parents went back to Holland, my friend just flew home on Sunday and my husband's business partner just flew home tonight) and we have a little less socializing to do, I can start thinking about a new project.  Liz already came up with a brilliant idea to host "an evening at the park" for our friends.  I am sure it is partly inspired by the various pop up dinners that are being hosted all over the continent. I have been dreaming about our little dinner ever since.  I envision a lovely evening with friends at Loose park, right around dusk.  It will be a warm evening with a slight breeze with lovely food and cool libations and twinkly little lights everywhere.  I have no doubt it will be an amazing night.  Here are some of my inspirations for an evening at the park. Who is in?

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First day of school

Say "CHEEESE"

I told you that we went through some big changes around here- so here is a picture to proof it.  Sas started school, and by looking at the picture you can probably tell that it was super early in the morning (she is like her mom, not a morning person). It was a cold and dark morning and she has bags under her eyes to show that she was indeed sleepy but excited.  Her pre-school program is great, close by and with a bunch of fantastic teachers. She is enjoying school and all her new friends. Time sure flies.

Girl with the pearl earring

via webmuseum

I have always loved the Dutch masters. Probably because I grew up in Holland and they were all around me.  Girl with the pearl earring by Vermeer is a classic one in my book, it was painted circa 1665-1666 and when I first saw this pixelated version I was instantly smitten. My mom surprised us and hand delivered it to us all the way from Holland (you can also buy it here if you don't have a nice mom who would do that for you). It was quite a project to put together but that was also part of the fun.  The directions on how to put the art piece together were pretty straight forward. It did however take us about 2 evenings to put together.  See the progress below. I am in love with it. You can see it from all angles of the house, even from outside.  I wonder how many pixelated Vermeers are in the KC metro area.  Also, if Vermeer is not your cup of tea, check out ixxi's many other options or even better- design one of your own.

Hello Friends, it has been a long time

I know, it has been far too long and I apologize for not having left anything on the blog for the past month. BUT, I miss blogging and I am getting back into the saddle. I won't be posting on a daily basis simply because I don't have the time for that anymore but I will try to post something every week.  I will still have to figure out what day works best for that. For now, the day will be tonight.

Here some reasons why I haven't blogged:

-My parents spent 6 weeks with us

-I got a new job

-My little one started preschool.

but, I am back for now :-)

Family outing

We have been busy around here and the blog has been neglected for a while (I am sorry).  I am working on a fun blog post this weekend and I can't wait to show you guys some pictures.  In the meantime, you will have to do with just one family snapshot before our night on the town (without Sas) from last Friday.  We went to the Kauffman center for the performing arts and watched Giuliana Rancic host a fashsion show. We had great fun.

Where I have been..

We have been busy around here getting ready to have Opa & Oma stay with us for a little while.  It will be a beautiful week in Kansas City and we are planning to spent all of our time outside enjoying the sunshine and showing them around town.  It will be quiet here around the blog but I will make sure to post something at the end of the week.

Cinco de mayo

Garland

I was thinking about the next upcoming holiday Cinco de mayo.  Last year, we were invited for margaritas and tacos over at our neighbors home- this kicked of a wonderful friendship between the neighbors in the building of 1820 and I can't believe it has already been a year.  I hope we can all get together again this year, even though most of us have moved out of the building.  Also, I love the tutorial on "Oh happy Day" for the garland.  I like to believe I have time to make something like this but I have a feeling it will all be about margies and guacamole instead. So if any of you feel like being creative, let me know.

Source via Oh Happy Day

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Dreaming about bikes

This summer I hope to be biking around the neighborhood.  I love these Scandinavian bikes.  What color would you pick? Would you add a basket?  I can imagine riding my bike to the farmers market and filling the basket with all my freshly purchased groceries.

Source pictures: Velorbis