today's happenings

what a perfect day today.
it was cool in the morning and turned out warm and sunny by mid afternoon.
just absolutely lovely. 
i am having coffee with a sweet friend tomorrow. 
i wanted to take a little something with  me (i love every reason to take a hostess gift!)
so a- thrifting i went this morning,
and i found this coffee pot. 

then stopped off at the garden store and picked up some thyme.
tucked in a stick from the yard to hold my tag and tada...
a lovely little something for my sweet friend.

i also put a few other pots together for may day on friday.

it is the only time i let the boys ring the bell and RUN!

aaahhh...my favorite color of blue...swimming pool blue!
our pool was opened today and that means summer is right around the corner.
i can hardly wait to sip cocktails by the pool all afternoon while my pool boy fans me with a banana tree leaf. (ahem...you know i'm kidding, right?!)

i even had time to mow the lawn for the hubby today.
that should get me a few points!  (he hates taking care of the lawn).
exhausted from the day, this was all i was in the mood for at dinner.
more of an appetizer, but i like appetizer dinners! 

oh, and look who didn't even make it to the dinner table. . .

guess helping mom and playing was too much for today. 
hmmm...this also means one thing.
that someone is going to be up with the sun in the morning!
hope your day was happy, creative, and exhausting!

41st symphony designer's showhouse

if you live in the kansas city area, you won't want to miss the 41st symphony designer's showhouse.

i've set up a booth in the boutique with my friend joan.  check out extra photos of the Burlap JunKtion booth over at our blog. 

the showhouse is open until may 16th.  you do not need a ticket to shop the boutique.  check the sypmphony site for hours and more info.

benefits the kansas city symphony and it's youth programs.

earth day

our family:
uses reusable water bottles,
takes our own bags to the market,
does not use styrofoam plates,
uses reusable containers in daily lunch boxes,
uses cloth napkins at the dinner table & in lunch boxes,
planted a garden,
has a rain barrel,
recycles.

our family needs to work on:
turning off lights when we're not using them,
mulching more yard clippings instead of bagging them,
walking to the store more.

on earth day and every day
what is your family doing
to save the earth?

mom of the year

it is national turn off your t.v. week.

and i am making our family participate.

and because of this,

i just know,

that i will be nominated for

mom of the year. 

i am excited for this challenge,

but know, that for the rest of my family,

this will be a very long week.

are you unplugging?

time flies

it has been a week since my last post.....wow time flies when you're playing in the garden!

just love this time of year.  we are outside just about all day long.

digging in the garden,

planting vegetable seeds,

yard clean up,

reading books in the hammock,

barefeet,

and lots of popcycles.

these little gnomes are hidden in our flower garden. 

the boys love finding them, and rehiding them.

lots of herbs,

several kinds of lettuce,

spinach,

carrots,

peppers

and soon tomatoes.

 

and we noticed today that our lettuce is already sprouting up! 

what's in your garden?

simple enjoyment {white wednesday}

good morning!  i am linking up again this week with faded*charm for white wednesday.
  
WELCOME if you are new to my blog, i hope you will add yourself as a follower and come back often!

i am a stay at home mom to two fantastic, fun and funny boys.  M is in school all day, and C is home with me, with the exceptioin of two mornings a week that he's at preschool.
 
instead of just throwing down the same lunch, on the same counter everyday....
i try to switch things up from time to time (if you know me...this is no surprise to you!)

we do have the traditional quilt on the ground picnic...often.  but sometimes we have lunch at a (as C calls it..) fancy table.  we talk about gross boy stuff,  i answer lots of 'why' questions and we also talk about manners.  because is it not my job to make sure these boys are upstanding citizens?!

for this table we used my large platters for our plates and talked about them being big huge plates for giants.

we also use just regular old clothespins to hold our table cloth down on a windy day.  this is an easy, and enjoyable job for C.

and then probably my favorite simple thing to do after lunch is to crawl up into our fort to read a few books.

we could spend all afternoon reading and chatting. 

so tell me girls . . . what simple enjoyments do you put into your day?

cookies and questions

i was not going to make easter cookies.
but it is cloudy and stormy here today and well...i love to bake when it is raining.
i will deliver most of these to the neighbors because when i have cookies around i eat them.  and i am really trying to be good these days.

while decorating the eggs and rabbit cookies M, my seven year old, comes into the kitchen and surveys what i am doing.  then he simply says "why is it an easter bunny that brings the eggs?  don't you think it should be an easter chicken?  afterall it's the chickens that lay the eggs."  
sometimes being the mommy is hard....i had no answer to his question and just said "do you want a cookie?"
and then there is C, my 3 year old, who doesn't care anything about bunnies, eggs or chickens. 
he just loves his mommy's cookies!

easter blessings to all of you!

hello to my new followers this week and thanks to everyone that has left comments lately...i love reading them!

oh, and if YOU know why its an easter bunny instead of an easter chicken....please leave your answer in my comments.  thanks!  ;)

easter treats

easter treats for preschool.
we can't do homemade treats at our preschool and at times it is difficult to come up with something that is healthy.
with it being easter week we decided on something festive.

eggs filled with cereal and some baby carrots.  easy, healthy and the kids loved it!

master redo ~ white wednesday

i am joining in on white wednesday over at Faded*Charm today to show off my master redo.  i used cloud white (benjamin moore) on the walls.  it was just the color i was looking for...white yet warm.  and i used glass of milk (martha stewart) for the trim.
on with the photos shall we?

i played around with moving my bed.  but think it just works best on this wall so that we can both have bedside tables. 

i love the tree branch above the bed.  i wanted something besides a large picture, collage, ect.  so free always works for me.  tucked in a few photos just because.

shouldn't every bed have a coffee bag pillow on it? 

bedside tables unmatched on purpose.  they were both brown before so i just painted the bases and left the tops. 

a super bright and sunny day here today so this photo has quite a glare.  but wanted you to see this side of the room.  this old shoe rack (a garage sale steal at $30!) has always been in my garage.  i use it when i have shows to display my trays.  not sure that i love it here, but at least it is out of the garage.  now her function is to hold books and seems like she's a clothes rack at times too.

a few pretties up on top.  love the large basket that i scored last week for $3.

another view, this one looking into the master bath.

my all time favorite cabinet.  purchased when we lived overseas.  it holds all sorts of things.

i originally was playing around with some lovely fabric for the curtains, but they just seemed to dark.  so i went with white and i think it's ok for now.  come winter though i may have to switch out for something a little cozier.  a grayish velvet maybe?

so that's it.  so glad to have this project to this stage.  love that it is bright,white and oh so clean.  i think it's one of the reasons i am always painting. . . it's the best way to get everything super clean!

now to get some easter decorations out!

oh and if you're new here today for white wednesday please leave me a comment so that i can 'meet' you.  AND if you're feeling crazy today. . . add yourself as a follower! 

for love of the vintage bus rollsign

come june i will have happily been on the same bus for 15 years. 
i have been loving the vintage bus rollsigns that are seen all over these days.
with them being a bit pricey for my taste,
i decided to create my own.
and at the same time, make it a little more personal.

mr. traybella and i are both from kansas city.
we were married on the greek island of santorini.
i realize that our wedding date isn't a destination, but i wanted some numbers on this roll and like i said, i made this a little more personal.
then we lived in brookside, a cute little neighborhood in kansas city.
moved to dhahran, saudi arabia for 6 years.
and reside now in leawood.
.
i love how this turned out.
i created it using my new print shop program.
i think the original font to these bus signs is 'helvetica' but i didn't have that font {and was having trouble finding/downloading one} so i just used one that looked appealing to me. 
then i sent it off to snapfish and had a poster (16x20) made.  easy peasy inexpensive personal ART!

i love a surprise

what a week!  mr. traybella was across the pond last week for business.  which is why i was able to stay up {really} late some nights and get my master bedroom redo complete.  i will have the finished photos posted on wednesday linking up to white wednesday.  it feels so good to have that room done...and might i add beautiful . . . in my opinion anyway.

mr. traybella also brought home surprises with him!
he doesn't always do this, so when he does, it is really a treat.
oh how i love beautifully wrapped packages...

he said i was hard to shop for. 
and that the street he was on was all expensive and fancy . . . with beautiful model like looking girls all over the place.
he was in milan, italy.
i have no doubt that the women are beautiful there...but stick to shopping for your wife will ya!  ;)

he picked this out for me.
all by himself.
and . . . i love it!
but mostly, i love having him back home.
sleeping in our redone master bedroom with me. 
have a great day!

getting closer to finished

still plugging away,
but making some progress.

i am planning to show all the final photos of this project next wednesday by linking up to white wednesday.

stay tuned....

a big shout out

i am throwing out a big THANK YOU to joy at savvy city farmer!
she has kindly featured my wee blog as her scf blog of the month.
her blog is AMAZING please go over and check it out.

{photo from savvy city farmer blog}
thank you so much joy. . . you made my day!

late night decorating

i finally found some inspiration

 and some energy

and i am pulling some late nights . . .

 stay tuned!

look what i found

remember my post from yesterday?
well today i was digging through some old magazines. look what i found in an old country home magazine . . .




that is the exact same piece i found just a few days ago.
strange timing isn't? {pun intended}

occupational hazard

i love that i can hunt for things, put them in a sale and make someone happy.

my mantra is that i only buy what i would put into my own home.

because of that, i am able to quickly move through a garage sale or thrift store.

but occasionally it causes what i call occupational hazard.

take this small wood piece.  i am not sure what its original purpose was, but with the round water mark on the top of it, i assumed it was used to hold a plant.  so i brought it home, sanded it down, restained it and oh my goodness does it look so pretty on a buffet.  i'm calling it a wood cake stand because i think a cake would look prominently beautiful sitting on top of this (a cake on a plate that is).  so now i want to keep it. 

i also found this lovely white platter.  love the scallop edge on it and again want to keep it for myself. 

at this rate, i will have nothing for my upcoming sale.  and a house full of fabulous finds.

like i said . . . occupational hazard. cest la vie! 

too much of a good thing

such beautiful weather here today.

we were outside most of the day.

raking leaves in the garden.

playing basketball.

running.

laughing.

i in my garden boots, the boys in bare feet.

and when we came in to fix dinner.

someone just couldn't make it.

he fell asleep on the couch.

is there such thing as too much of a good thing?

i think {hope} he's out for the night.

good night sweet thing.

let's do it again tomorrow!