new digs

I’m so delighted to announce that my blog has moved to a lovely new home at www.rachelswartley.com! I’ve been working on designing it and getting it set up for the past month, and it feels really good to be up and running! I feel like I’m still unpacking a bit, and there are still things that I want to tweak, but I’m really excited to finally go ahead and host friends and visitors in this new space.

Now for a little housekeeping…

If you’re following along via Google Reader, be sure to subscribe to the new blog feed so you can keep up with all future posts.

If you’ve been receiving email notifications about new posts, you should soon receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription to the new blog. Updates will arrive daily via Feedburner.

If you arrived via a link to my old blog (r8chel.wordpress.com), you should have been seamlessly redirected to my new blog. However, if you have my old site listed in your blogroll, I’d love it if you could take a moment to update the link.

Lastly, if you see something that looks totally out of whack, please let me know. Nobody wants to walk around with broccoli in their teeth or toilet paper stuck to their shoe.

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Thanks so much for following along as I create a life I love. I’m so glad you’re here!

the summer of more Instagramming

I set one main goal for the summer: Instagram more. And I did. Over the past three months, I shared 80 photos, which is a lot better than the 58 I had posted previously since joining Instagram around Christmas. You can see all of my summer photos here, but these are a few of my favorites.

snapshots from a soccer birthday party

There are plenty of blogs out there that feature birthday parties with creative themes, amazing decorations, exquisite styling, and professional photos of the happy event. This isn’t one of them.

When I host a party, I’m usually so busy getting everything set up that I feel lucky to find a moment to take pictures before the guests arrive. So here are just a few very basic snapshots of the soccer-themed birthday party we hosted in our backyard to celebrate our happy six-year-old.

Doing a photoshoot with a giant number has become a tradition at our kids’ birthday parties. It only costs a couple bucks to make (I stock up on foam core at Michaels when it’s 50% off), and then we use the large number in their bedroom as a big, fun decoration until their next birthday rolls around. They love it and so do I.

The kids always ask me to create a treasure hunt, so I made a photo-based treasure hunt for the gang of energetic little boys who are still learning to read. For the hidden treasure (which doubled as the party favor), I bought a reusable water bottle for each kid, filled it with sweet treats, and strung up a tag with each boy’s name on it so they didn’t accidentally eat each other’s Skittles.

My favorite little detail for the party was the cupcake topper I created — and I was so proud of myself for planning ahead and making them a whole week before the party. Ha! I found a soccer ball graphic on the internet and designed a simple number six in a circle for the opposite side of the cupcake topper. Then I just cut them out with a circle punch and glued them together with a toothpick in between.

Another summer, another round of family birthday parties complete!

capturing the final week of summer

Standing at the end of the driveway waiting for the school bus is a clear sign that summer has come and gone. The kids were ridiculously eager to go back to school today, and not even the rain could dampen their spirits. As I stood waiting for the bus to bring them home this afternoon, I entertained myself by texting Tim and scrolling through my recent Instagram photos. If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you already know that the last week of summer looked something like this.

I bought a new striped tank top at LOFT, which is only notable because I haven’t worn stripes in probably a decade. Maybe not even since college. I was way overdue for such a classic addition to my wardrobe.

I mixed up a batch of puppy chow one evening in a valiant attempt at planning ahead. I stashed it in the freezer for the next couple weeks, but not before some of it disappeared…

We had a family photo taken for our church directory, and of course I picked out a shirt for Magen that needed to be mended. Relocating sequins to replace missing sequins was perhaps my least favorite mending job ever, but it’s hard to be unhappy for long when you’re working with sequins.

It was party central at our house this weekend with three birthdays in three days. I made these mini cupcakes with rainbow nonpareils to celebrate my favorite 40-year-old.

Stripes + chocolate + sequins + sprinkles = a pretty happy way to wrap up the summer.

back-to-school pizza

A brand new school year begins tomorrow morning, and as it often does, Sunday evening found our family gathered around the table eating homemade pizza. As he was chowing down on a slice of cheese pizza, our newly-minted six year old suddenly said, “Wait! You didn’t take a picture of the pizza!” I had already snapped a photo when he wasn’t looking, but I love that he remembered my project of documenting all of my homemade pizzas this year.

a lovely outdoor summer wedding

Our family enjoyed the most lovely outdoor wedding last weekend at a farm in the hills of New Jersey.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a clothesline full of handmade tote bags with treats for each family — trail mix, homemade fruit leather (strawberry rhubarb and apricot lavender!), kazoos for the ceremony recessional, and sparklers for the part of the festivities we missed because we have children who needed to get home to bed.

Each tote bag was stamped with a chicken and was strung up with a tag that featured the same motif and the names of the guests. I was especially eager to see the tote bags, because I made the tags… but when I gave them to the bride, they didn’t have any farm animals on them yet!

For the wedding ceremony, we sat on hay bales that were covered with white cloths. It was a warm summer afternoon, so there were baskets of woven fans available for all the guests.

The aisle was lined with simple wildflower bouquets in blue mason jars tied to sticks with twine.

Between the ceremony and the reception, we made sure to visit the do-it-yourself photobooth. The white curtains and the woods made a lovely backdrop.

We used the camera provided, but also took some shots with my camera. Not pictured: our kids + my expanding baby bump.

Most people don’t take pictures of the bathroom facilities at a wedding, but the setup was just too unusual not to share! As you may have noticed, the bride and groom planned a very green wedding… right down to the toilets. This sign greeted you at the edge of the meadow near the entrance to the woods.

At the end of a short dirt path, guests could use one of two toilets. They were carefully angled away from guests and each other, because the third side of the toilet stall was completely open. It looks pretty primitive, but there was actually a regular toilet seat built in to the structure on top of some kind of container with wood shavings. It was much better than a port-a-potty (no smell! no icky door handle to touch! no claustrophobia!), but it was especially important to remember to flip that sign from vacant to occupied before entering.

In spite of the rain that fell during the reception (good thing we were under a tent!), it was a lovely day celebrating a lovely couple. Congrats, Ben and Ashley!

a purple birthday party

Stars, sparkles, and purple all came together for a fun birthday party for our sweet nine-year-old. Magen’s favorite cake is angel food, which means I didn’t have to attempt any fancy cake decorating (hooray!), but it did add the challenge of coming up with an interesting cake topper. Last year I just used tall spiral candles, but this year I made some sparkly stars with her name (which should have been higher up).

That’s not a custom metal topper — I just cut her name out of card stock with my X-Acto knife and painted it silver. (The font is Japan, which is a nice thick cursive font.)

Magen wanted to do some of the same activities this year that I had planned for her party last year, including a photoshoot with a giant number and a water balloon fight.

She also requested another treasure hunt, so this year I came up with various activities that would each reveal a clue about where to look for the next clue. It was somewhat complicated to get it all planned out, but also very fun. The girls played charades, Wheel of Fortune, balloon darts, and other games. I didn’t have a Wheel of Fortune game, and couldn’t seem to track one down among any of my friends, so I made my own (of course). I just taped little pieces of paper over the letters written on a chalkboard, and the girls took turns spinning a little spinner to win another Starburst before they guessed a letter.

The girls also enjoyed hitting water balloon piñatas, an idea from Scrap Happy Heather that I discovered via Pinterest. I hung the balloons from a rope tied between two trees, and the girls took turns whacking the balloons with a bat. With a camera in my hand, I made sure I stayed out of the splash zone!

At the end of the treasure hunt, the girls found drawstring goody bags full of fun little trinkets that almost made me wish I were a nine-year-old again.

2012 homemade pizza tally: 15

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been neglecting as much as I reasonably can in favor of two main pursuits — watching the Olympics and designing a brand new look for my blog. It’s undergoing a major renovation, and I can’t wait to show you the new layout when it’s ready!

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to keep up with the essentials like laundry, soccer games, shopping for maternity clothes, and eating homemade pizza. The kids were away at “Cousin Camp” on Sunday evening, so I made a slightly smaller pizza for just Tim and me. One half had pineapple; the other did not.

A few years ago, I almost made Hawaiian pizza for Tim for our second date. (My favorite must be everyone’s favorite, right?) Thank goodness I asked what toppings he liked!

I’m curious. What pizza toppings are your favorites? Which ones would you pick off if they crossed the line onto your side of the pizza?

pizza number 14

Our summer weekends have been filled with so many things that I hadn’t made pizza since the first weekend in June! Last evening we enjoyed pizza #14 before settling in to watch more Olympics… which, of course, is what I’m doing right now. Go Team USA!

stitched photo note cards

Call me old fashioned, but I still believe in the value of a handwritten thank you note, whether it’s for a gift or a kind deed. Friends who celebrate your 9th birthday in the backyard and grandparents who send gifts from a distance all deserve to be thanked for their generosity.

During Magen’s birthday party, we snapped a photo of her with each of her friends just before she opened their gift. Then I printed out the photos, trimmed them, and stitched each one to a piece of cardstock printed with a simple “thank you.” Inside Magen wrote a sweet little note of appreciation.

Family members who live at a distance received cards with our family photo, but the cards with colorful pictures from her party are my favorites. By the way, I made that great big number 9 Magen is holding in the same way I made the giant number 8 last year. It’s just foam core and acrylic paint. So fun!