Camping Friday

Another post in our First on Friday series where we try something new!

David and I used to camp together.

We camped across the country:

David outside our old tent in Texas Canyon in 2003 on our way home to New Mexico from the east coast

We camped in our backyard for several nights after our wedding as a mini-honeymoon before the big honeymoon several months later:

With the wedding decorations still up in 2005 (ugh, pardon the blurry photo)

We camped in beautiful places:

At the Great Sand Dues in 2006

And then we had a kid. Since this event we’ve slept in a tent a total of one night IN OUR BACKYARD. LAST YEAR. TO TRY IT OUT. I know, pathetic. To say it was time to try it again was a bit of a understatement.

Yesterday we headed out to a State Park close to home for a one-night trip. Luckily when you live in Northern California you don’t need to go far to find someplace absolutely beautiful. Less than an hour away may not sound terribly exciting, but we’ve been feeling giddy over it and loved our trip.

Here’s how it went down:










All three of us enjoyed being in nature, doing something new together, and getting away from the fray.

Our getaway was so needed, so restful, such fun… and I am so looking forward to doing it again.

The best part though is that it’s Friday and we have the whole weekend ahead of us! Have a good one!

Garden Tour

It may be the end of September, but the weather has finally gotten HOT and our garden is responding! Flowers blooming, vegetables growing and ripening, weeds taking over the place…

First some pictures of the flowers and then a quick video tour of our itty bitty yard bursting with plants.



Before I give you a tour of our garden this year, let me remind you of what our yard looked like last year when we moved in (more info here):


Here it is now, a year and half later:


Movie: Garden Tour from Carrie on Vimeo.

(Sorry if I sound a bit breathless. I had a cold while filming, which we’ll now remember forever. Sigh.)

Toddler Writing

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to make lists.

Shopping lists.
To-do lists.
Book lists.

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to write stories.

She has even been known to say, “I need to do a blog post.”

That was a direct quote. I even twittered it for her.

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to write letters.

“Dear Momma, I’m glad I love you so much!”

“Dear Dadda, I love you so much! I’d like to do this again!”

While I never seem to find the time to write letters, Miss Leyba is very good at making the time for this favorite activity.

Unfortunately she still has to wait on me to mail the letters.

Right now we have two letters to mail internationally (one to France, one to Afghanistan), waiting for me to take them to the post office to get the right postage.

Sigh. I’ll get to it eventually. Sigh. I mean soon.

Organizing the Pantry

For months I’ve been meaning to organize the pantry. To put spices and bulk foods into glass jars. To label everything. To toss the old stuff (like foods containing gluten, which we don’t eat anymore!). To donate our BPA-laced canned goods. To group similar items and reorganize where we keep pretty much everything. It’s such a mess in there.

Step 1: Gathering supplies

I’ve saved glass jam jars and their lids. We’ve bought giant half gallon Mason jars when they were on sale at our local hardware store. David and Miss Leyba picked out two liquid chalk pens at my request so I can easily mark the jars and the labels will easily wash off so I can relabel indefinitely.

Step 2: Getting started

I’m all set to start. What’s stopping me? Evidently I lack is the drive to get going. I still need to wash the mason jars and that’s really holding me back.

Now that I’ve posted about this, the pressure is on.

Ready, set, go!

Laughs. I’m still sitting here. Well, it was worth a try, right?

Stay tuned. I’ll post about my progress. Really.

Play Money for Kids

Miss Leyba loves playing with money and credit cards and quite frankly I got tired of her playing with my wallet and putting my library card who knows where. Something had to be done.

So we made her some play money and credit cards to go in her very own wallet:

We used the cardboard cards that come with those annoying credit card offers in the mail.

On Photoshop I quickly whipped up some 3.370 × 2.125 inch credit cards at a 300 dpi resolution with Miss Leyba’s face and pretend bank and card info.

We cut them out, mod podged them on to the cardboard cards, decorated them with stickers and glitter, let them dry, covered them with mod podge again and voila!


Welcome to the Bank of Spritzer Leyba!

Quite honestly if I could do it again (and I probably will), I would print her pictures out on heaver card stock (not regular printer paper) and would glue it on with regular glue (or a thicker coat of mod podge). Then I would probably laminate the cards instead of covering them with mod podge. That way my daughters beautiful face wouldn’t be covered in brush strokes. She didn’t seem to care at all… that’s one thing I love about toddlers: they’re easy to please!

We also made her some pretend money. I found photos of dollar bills online and made them smaller than real bills so she could hold them more easily in her hand. Then I printed them on heavy cardstock and cut the bills out. Here they are next to real money:

See? Much smaller!

She keeps them in her wallet along with her new credit cards. Miss Leyba’s crazy about shopping and, finally, she can treat me!