Would You Want to Stay in This Room?

I'm thinking about getting this bedding for the guest bedroom. I would probably paint the walls the light blue color that's barely in the duvet cover, and then put the red chair-and-a-half in there since it would match. Is this too bright? Or would you want to stay in a room that's more relaxing?

Games Closet

We have a whole closetful of games in our basement, and Layton had a really great time playing as many of them as he could while he was here.



Here Layton and Heinz put together my dad's old Mouse Trap game from the late 1950s. Not one piece is missing! I love the font on the game. So retro!



Then we attempted to play Don't Miss the Boat.



Then Heinz fixed the motor for Mr. Mouth. The box said that it was from 1976. It was originally my cousin's and then he gave it to me.



We also played Skittles (a really old-fashioned game), Yahtzee, Sequence, table tennis, and Memory.

Monkey Cupcakes for a Little Monkey

Yesterday was Julia and Ryan's son Liam's first birthday. I made monkey cupcakes using Magnolia's vanilla cupcake recipe with the chocolate buttercream. The face is a vanilla wafer, and then the ears are made of Nutter Butters. I wish I had a photo of the chocolate icing that Liam smeared all over his face!

Caramel Apples

Layton and I made caramel apples the other night. I'm pretty sure that the Southern Living recipe was wrong--it said to use more liquid than the bag of caramels did. That might be why all the caramel slid off.

New Living Room Color

I painted the living room Marblehead Gold. I think it's hard to see the differences in colors in these pictures, but it's a big improvement. The first color was very cool and olivey; the new color is much warmer. I was going to paint some high-gloss vertical stripes on the walls but it didn't exactly work out.

Read My Friend Michael's Article

My friend Michael in New York got a gig writing movie reviews for Examiner.com. He gets paid per page hit, so let's help him make some money! Click this link to read his first story.