We've only been in our house for one week but I'm already itching to make some decor changes! With my daughter's 6th birthday coming in less than a month I decided that redoing her room would not only be a great gift but also a fantastic place to start. So, I sat with her to discuss what she might like. She said she would like purple walls and a unicorn theme. Every inch of my person refuses to paint the walls with purple. I know she will grow to dislike much too soon for my liking and want a room that she can grow with. The same goes for an overly unicorny look. So, I decided to take it to a bit of a sophisticated level with a soft purplish white color for the walls paired with purple curtains and unicorn accessories. The comforter will be fun but easy to transition to an older child and if she decides she's over unicorns in a year it won't require a full re-do.

I found free plans for creating the bed pictured above on pinterest and my awesome father-in-law has agreed to build it for her. The curtains, lamp and bedding were all purchased from the Pillowfort collection at Target. I was also going to buy the side table from there but on a trip to TJMaxx I found a similarly mid-century modern styled piece for $20 less and purchased it instead. I intend to make paper flowers and a unicorn head to mount above her bed using my silhouette machine and a handy free cut file I found for the unicorn. I'm also going to create a graphic text image similar to the one on the board and send it to Walgreens for printing. Finally, I intend to make her an American Girl dollhouse using a bookcase and inspiration from pinterest so her doll stuff looks more organized and takes up less space. There is also plans for a desk in the future but I'm not too worried with it right now. I'll definitely post a follow-up about how the room is coming/comes together so check back soon to see! You can also follow my Unicorn Bedroom Pinterest board by clicking here!

I've made progress since this post was first published. Check out the finished bed here!

We've been a bit crazy with moving into a new house while I'm 7months pregnant and my husband has a recently dislocated shoulder. So, when I realized that my daughter's 6th birthday was less than a month away I quickly kicked into planning mode and created some invites. She has been begging for a mermaid themed party for months so that was one decision that I didn't have to make but, I decided to make the theme more inclusive for all genders by making it a mermaid or shark theme. 

For the invite I created the front using powerpoint and then we had a mini photo session over the weekend and photoshopped a picture of Lilly as a mermaid for the backside of the invite with a few more party details.

After creating the invite I got to making my plan. I find that making a planning or inspiration board helps me to better organize my list of to-do's as well as visualize the party as a whole. When I don't make a planning board I often forget something really cool or realize that I didn't do something important at the very last minute and then find myself scrambling to get it done. You can take a look at my board below.

Now that the planning is done I have to get busy crafting and creating! I'll try to post updates throughout the crafting process but will definitely make a birthday completion post so check back soon!

I don't know about you but I have a VERY hard time finding something that my kids will eat at home other than plain spaghetti noodles. I don't really know how this happened to me. As babies I made my own baby food and always made sure they had balanced meal options but now, they won't even eat macaroni and cheese! Every time I make them a meal I feel like a horrible mom because I either branch out with something new that they won't eat or I serve them the same meal of plain noodles some fruit and a yogurt over and over again! So, I decided to brainstorm and utilize pinterest to get some inspiration. I've come up with a quick reference guide that I plan on taping inside my pantry door. This way, when I go to prepare them something I can mix it up a bit while keeping within their VERY limited range of acceptable options. Hopefully it will help all of us get through the daily horror that is dinner time!

Due to all sorts of things including back to school, moving to a new home, my husband dislocating his shoulder and more, this is the final week of Mommy Camp for this summer! I prepared activities and planned on "visiting" China, India, South Africa and Australia but, things don't always go as planned. So, I will try to get to those countries at different points throughout the year when we find time. So, without further ado I present Russia!

I didn't really set up a dramatic play area for Russia this week because I couldn't think of anything but, I created a mural for decoration and grabbed both of their winter coats, an old Russian style fur hat, a set of Russian nesting dolls, fake currency and the books for the week. I also cut out some (pretty pitiful looking) snowflakes and stuck them on the wall. The mural turned out to be pretty neat looking and the kids had fun helping me color it.
Before we "flew" to Russia, we looked at our map and discussed where it was and their weather. Then we did our normal security check and airplane trip dramatic play.

Once we "arrived" we started off by learning about Fabergé eggs and reading a book called "Rechenka's Eggs". Then we made our own versions using egg shaped paper, glue and plastic gems. Both kids really enjoyed this craft and spent a good thirty minutes or more busily glueing their gems. Afterwards we learned about the Russian dance Kalinka and watched a  video.

For lunch, I cooked pierogi which are one of my all-time favorite foods. But, I cheated and used frozen ones that I sautéed with some butter and herbs. I served it with a mixed greens salad and some pear. Lillian loved them and was a big fan. Arthur refused to even give it a try but, at least one of them liked it! For dessert I made Russian orange cream and it was sooooo good and super simple. You can get the recipe here in my original summer mommy camp post.

Our next activity was learning about the Russian artist Kandinsky and creating our own versions of his art. However, neither kid was super into it and the projects never reached completion. You win some, you lose some. I think with all of our crazy things going on they were preoccupied. We read "The Noisy Paintbox" to go along with the Kandinsky lesson because he suffered from synesthesia. It's a great book and the kids really enjoyed it.

For dinner one of the nights I made borscht and piroshki. Borscht is a beet and vegetable soup and piroshki are basically meat buns. They were both really good and I even made the dough for the meat buns from scratch! The kids wanted absolutely nothing to do with it but Derek and I really enjoyed it.

We ended the week with chocolate filled Russian pancakes. They weren't my favorite recipe for pancakes because they used ricotta cheese and were a bit wet and dense. The kids didn't like them either.

After a somewhat disappointing breakfast we talked about Russian nesting dolls and made our own paper version as well as reading the book, We also talked about the famous Russian ballet, watched a video for a mini dance lesson and read the book "When Stravinsky met Nijinsky"

We had a great final week of Mommy Camp! Check back soon to see the weeks we didn't have time for as well as all sorts of other crazy things that I decide to get into like planning my daughter's 6th birthday. She wants a mermaid theme! Oh and here are my silly photoshopped pics of us in Russia!