You could hear a pin drop...

Rob was out of town for work for 5 days.  5 DAYS!  While he was in Atlanta going out to dinner every night and sleeping in one of those overly-comfortable hotel beds (I'm actually more jealous about the comfy hotel bed then the restaurants) I was at home doing double-parent duty.  No seriously, Rob works really long tough days when he has to go out of town...but my days were really long, too!  And I didn't have a hotel staff to pick up my bath towels and make my bed. 

I'm not the cook in the family...so after working all day, picking Mia up at school, getting home at 5:30 and then having to make dinner is like the worst thing EVER for me.  I seriously hate to cook.  Before we had Mia and Rob would go out of town for work I would live off of cereal and maybe an occasional grilled cheese if I wasn't too lazy to turn the stove on.  I'm not exaggerating.  At all.  I hate to cook.  I think it stems from my lack of interest in food in general.  I'd just rather have dessert! 

some proof that my child did, in fact, eat this weekend.
It kinda looks like she liked my cooking??

So I managed to make tacos, ziti, chicken something-or-other that I just threw in a casserole dish and baked, and on the last night...grilled cheese!  LOL.  "Best mom ever award", I know.  After dinner came clean-up time.  Rob doesn't mind hand-washing dishes....I am a professional dishwasher loader...I can seriously fit anything in there.  The other morning I caught myself daydreaming about taking apart Mia's highchair and putting all of the pieces in the dishwasher.  I bet I could do it.  Anyway, I think I ran the dishwasher 8 times in 5 days and I didn't hand-wash a single thing.  It was awesome. 

I did take on some cookie orders for while Rob was gone...and that kinda scared me because by Mia's 7 pm bedtime I was exhausted!  I didn't really have time to plan out my baking/decorating schedule...so i just managed to get things done when I had time.  I sat down to decorate on Thursday night around 8 pm and my house was silent.  No...like really silent.  The tv was off, I didn't have any music on, Mia was fast asleep and the monitor was absolutely quiet, and even Layla was nowhere to be seen.  She was probably on Rob's pillow crying herself to sleep because she goes into a deep depression when he leaves.  If it wasn't for Mia reminding me to feed the dog I'd probably totally forget because I barely see her when Rob's gone.

So back to the silence....it was weird!  I could hear a clock ticking all the way from my family room to the dining room.  I haven't heard a clock tick in a long time.  I could hear the hummmm of the refrigerator and the furnace kicking on and off.  There was no Sports Center "dun na na  dun na na", no elmo voice coming from some toy, no barking, or screaming....nothing!  You could probably hear a pin drop!  That saying is real!

I do tend to have trouble sleeping when Rob's gone.  I find myself staying up really late and that only makes it worse because the later you stay up the scarier your house gets.  The sliding glass door freaks me out because I can't see out of it at night and I convince myself that someone is standing there looking in.  So I watched some lifetime movies (not the scary ones where some creepy guy is staring at you through the sliding glass door, the happy ones like when a bunch of teenage girls have a pregnancy pact). And while I was watching I decided to do some Pinterest crafts!  I know so many of you are sick of hearing about Pinterest...but it's really amazing.  I have vowed to not only pin things...but really try to follow through on doing some of the things I've pinned.  Except the cooking pins....those are for Rob.

So I made some Valentine decor and it was really fun!  And easy!  This first heart wreath was made from cutting circles and circles....and more circles of felt and then pinning them into a 9 inch styrofoam wreath.  So simple...and when Mia saw it hanging on the door the next day she said "ooooo pretty!"  So that just about made my day :)

just beginning....my hand hurt from cutting out all of those circles!

...so I rewarded myself with some ice cream!

OOOOO....pretty!

My original plan was to make this 12 inch wreath the same way to hang above my fireplace...but I just couldn't. cut. any. more. circles.  So I found some yarn and starting wrapping it around the foam wreath.  Then I went outside and broke some tiny branches off of my dogwood tree and then added three little artificial roses that I found in a random drawer in my living room.  I kind of really like the final product!  And I didn't even need pinterest for the idea. 

So those were my late-night projects and here were the cookies from last week...some Mickey cookies for a 1st birthday, some winter wonderland cookies for a 1st birthday, and some "Thank You" cookies for a friend that has been giving me hand-me-down clothes for Mia.

And maybe you noticed that my blog page has been Valentine-ified.  I am SO excited to work on Valentine cookies over the next few weeks.  I heart Valentine's day!  XO, Katie