What a week! Sorry I have been missing in action.. My daddio got quite sick earlier in the week and it threw us all for a loop.  He is doing much better, but is still in the hospital.

Daddio is an avid bootsandtotty reader so I thought this post might brighten his day.

{LOVE YOU DADDIO- Feel Better!!}

On that note, thought we could all use something to smile about…

Here is my new front door accessory until it is time to break out my dragon fly for summer!

It was a Home Goods Steal and Deal for $1.39!!!!

Happy Friday!

Wanted to give you guys the update on my parent’s house.

{for any new readers, my parent’s experienced a terrible house fire back in June.  No one was hurt, thankfully, but the entire house was destroyed.  You can check out the progress of the house here.}

Things are coming along slowly but surely.  They are currently working on replacing the roof section by section… hence all the tarps.

Here’s a close up of the windows in one of the front bedrooms.

Look closely through them and you can see blue sky on the other side!  They must have been working on that section the day my mums took the photos.

And the Garage has also being rebuilt.

I think the best part is that my Mums still hung a xmas wreath on the front door.  That makes me smile.  You can burn their house down, but you can’t take away their spirit!

My parents are doing well and are trucking right along with making final decisions on things like the new interior finishes, the kitchen cabinets, and the sound-system.  I asked my dad if he was going to get one of those big remotes that controlled everything in the house, from the lights, to the speakers, to the toilet flushing. {Just like that remote Ozzy Osbourne used on his horrible reality show Meet the Osbournes. He never could figure out which button did what.  And Yes, I am admitting that I use to watch that show.} But the house still has quite a ways to go.  New electircal, HVAC, plumbing, windows, you get my drift.  I think at this point they are just hoping to get back in the house before the start of summer!

Remember how I was “tooting my own horn” about some homemade gifts I had created?  I can finally share them with you!

So Gift #1 was something that had caught my eye in a recent issue of Martha Stewart Home.

I immediately thought this would be a great gift for my Mums.  Her mother, Mary Stuart Ransone aka Granny, was an amazing cook and made everything from scratch.  I had casually asked my mom if she had any old recipes of Granny’s that I could borrow.  I think she knew I was up to something, but obliged my request and found several recipe’s for me that Granny had handwritten.

PERFECT!

Next step was to acquire some Color Fast Printer Fabric and a white apron.

I scanned each recipe and then printed it on the fabric paper.  After the ink dried, I removed the paper backer and ran the fabric through some cold water. I then laid out each piece of fabric to air dry.

Once dry, I trimmed the edges around each recipe and use my iron to create a finished edge.

“Martha” suggested just putting the recipe directly on the apron, but I thought it needed a little more pizazz.  I found this great fabric at a local quilting store that screamed Vintage to me.  My plan was to sew each recipe to the vintage fabric and then the fabric to the apron.

One on , one to go!

WOO-HOO!! I did it!  I was stressing that I was going to mess something up halfway through.  {Disclaimer- my sewing skills are R-O-U-G-H and I tend to jump in head first without thinking it all out.} But I did it!

I also thought it would be a cute touch to add the same fabric to the strap around the neck.

Here’s a close up detail…

And here it is all folded up ready to wrap up for my Mums!  Pretty cute isn’t it?

My Mums loved it and I couldn’t be happier!

and all through the Edwards house, not a creature was stirring, except for the 2 yr old running around in the cutest smocked outfit ever.

My brother and his wife hosted Mr. vB and myself for xmas this year, along with my parents, and Mr. vB’s brother, his wife and their kids.  {Unfortunately the other vB’s came down with a horrible respiratory virus just days before xmas and they all had to stay quarantined.  Don’t worry- we sent them food and presents!} We normally celebrate Christmas at my parents house in Newport News, but since their house is still under construction from the fire, we decided to switch things up this year!  Thanks so much to Travers and Marty for hosting us!  We had such a great time and your new house was the perfect spot to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas Eve

At least he wasn’t putting the crayon in his mouth!

Baby T was quite excited about his new name puzzle from Cece and Honey.

Honey read Twas the night Before Xmas and then it was time for bed!

Next was the fun part! Putting together Santa’s gifts for Baby Travers.

Everyone was in on the fun!

Christmas Day

After a yummy breakfast we opened our Christmas Stockings.

Then we moved all the presents downstairs and tried to get Baby T to come see what Santa had brought.

He seemed to be in a bit of shock when he saw it all!

Santa was very good to me this year and he apparently read my blog post about my dining room face-lift.  My mums has offered to help me sew new dining room drapes and recover the new dining room chair seats.  I’ve got an idea of what I want- now I just need to find it.  No sweat-right?!

Hope everyone enjoys the last days of 2009!  2010 is going to be here before we know it!!

Did I tell you that my brother and his wife bought a new house?  They have been busy trying to pack, so Mr. vB and I lent a helping hand by hosting the Baby Bird at our house this past weekend. The 5 of us went out to dinner on Friday night and then Mr. vB and I took Baby Travers back to our house to spend the night.  We (meaning Baby T, and me grudgingly) woke up nice and early Saturday morning and had quite a full day.  It is amazing how much stuff you can fit in on a Saturday when you are up at the crack of dawn!

I have decided though that I am going to have to invest in some kid sized plates, cups and silverware.  Poor Baby T had to eat his breakfast out of a Tupperware bowl using an appetizer spoon.  He didn’t seem to mind though!

Did you notice that little black nose in the right side of the photo?  Bailey was on standby if Baby T needed any help eating those Cheerios.

SCORE for Bailey!

After breakfast, Travers checked some email and then we were off to feed the ducks!

I believe the ducks were quite happy to see us!

Can you read what Travers’ shirt says?  Apparently his father had packed his overnight bag and I know this shirt was packed on purpose.  It reads, “I WILL DEFY YOU.”  Homemade by my brother himself.  Yes- He has a strange sense of humor.

I almost thought this dude was going to follow us home!  I think Travers was thinking the same thing!

Trav was definitely worn out by the time we got home and headed directly to the dog bed for some R&R.

Boots decided to join him shortly thereafter.

I just kept snapping photos because it was so cute..

Next thing I knew Trav rolled off the cushion and onto the floor..

Boots immediately took over the entire cushion.  At least he gave Trav a lick on the hand to make sure he was okay!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the playground, but my hands were too full to take any photos.  On the way to pick up lunch I could see Travers in the rear view mirror nodding off.  I kept talking to him REALLY LOUDLY so he wouldn’t fall asleep.  I needed a nap as bad as he did so I wanted to make sure to feed him first and then get him into bed.  A 5 minute car ride nap wasn’t going to suffice for either of us!

The last stop was Mickey D’s for Trav’s First Happy Meal.  I’m not sure if he liked it or not..

By the look on his face I am thinking that maybe he is more of a Chick-Fil-A connoisseur like his Aunt TT.

We ended our adventure with a nice 3 hour nap before his parents picked him up that afternoon. And when I say we, I mean Baby T, myself, and Mr. vB all snoozed!   We had such a fun time hanging out with the little guy!  Hopefully he says the same thing about us!

LOVE YOU BIRD!

If I had a dollar for every time someone either called me Heidi, Patty, or Polly I would be a very rich woman. And YES even once someone called me Potty. {I’m serious! What parent would name their child Potty? Really??}

Growing up having a unique name can be hard especially when all you want to do is fit in with everyone else.  Remember those cool pencils or license plates that you could get in the grocery store?  Yeah..never once did I find one with my name.

But now that I am older and {so} much wiser I appreciate having a unique name.  Now the back story on my name is that it was my Paternal Great-Great-Grandmother’s last name.  She and her family lived in Petersburg, VA and owned a luggage/trunk company called Totty Trunk and Bag Company. {Now I understand why I have such heart palpitations for a Coach or Kate Spade store.  It runs in my blood!}  Back in middle school, when I was helping my grandmother clean out her attic, we found one of the original suitcases from the Totty Trunk and Bag Co.  Clearly stamped by the handle it read TOTTY . Oh how I wish my mom would have let me keep it, but she said no. {feeling guilty yet Mums??!?}

Through the years, the name Totty has been passed from generation to generation.  Both my aunt and uncle have Totty as their middle names, but my aunt actually goes by it. This explains why I have a North Carolina License plate from 1968 with my name on it.  My awesome Aunt Totty has passed all her  “Totty” things down to me.  Which is why I was inspired to do this post in the first place.

{sidenote}- I refer to my aunt as awesome because she is.  I once met a woman very randomly at my old place of employment that knew my aunt back in college.  Her exact words to me were, “Your Aunt helped me to burn my bra.”  That was probably the last thing I expected out of her mouth- but totally summed up my aunt!  I have always felt a very close bond with her and spent the first ten or so years of my life thinking that I was named after her.

So besides the cool license plate, here are some other things that she passed down over the years.

This may look like a regular size matchbook…

But I used the pencil to give you a sense of scale… Monster Matches!

And this is my favorite…I have a feeling that I may finally be able to put it to use this fall.  (Retro is back right?)

It is a hand embroidered purse with the initials T and E on it.  The fabric is a soft khaki felt with a crazy paisley interior lining.

Isn’t that cool? Minor detail that my intials aren’t technically TE anymore…

Now the pressure falls on me to continue the Totty name.  This is the scenario that plays over and over in my head.. I invision Mr. vB and I having 2 kids- of course one boy and one girl.  Mr. vB is actually a 2nd so he would like to pass his name down to his son.  And if I wanted to pass my name down to my daughter, it would go something like this.  Mr. vB would be introducing us to someone and he would say, “My name is David and this is my wife Totty, my son David, and my daughter Totty.”  To which the person we are talking to is going to say, “really- you couldn’t think of any other name to name your kids?!?”

What can I say- I spend a lot of time in my car {alone} and have time to contemplate the really serious things in life.

So don’t get me wrong- I love home improvement and all that goes along with it {dirt, sweat and tears} but sometimes I like to be girlie.  And that’s where I was this weekend.. watching E!’s weekend marathon of Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami not wanting to mess up my manicure.

It all started Friday afternoon when my mums came to town for a Girls Weekend. Our plan was to look for furniture, paint and fabric for her house.  So we started by hitting Williams & Sherrill, a great local fabric house.  We scored some great fabric swatches for windows treatments for her house {and mine} and then we hit our favorite nail salon, ATIR, to get some pedicures.  The nail polish line they carry is called Essie and their Fall colors include a fun gray and brown.  Now normally I am a bright nail polish kinda girl, but I was a sucker for the brown this go round and it looks awesome!

So once our pedi’s were dry we headed back to my house to make a yummy recipe that I had found on Cookinglight.com.  It was a Phyllo Pizza with Feta, Basil, and Tomatoes and it was YUMMO!  Also super easy and quick, I actually impressed myself.

Then on Saturday morning my mums and I got up early and hit the town.  We went to  some local furniture consignment stores and also Lowe’s for some paint samples.  We had no luck at the furniture stores but did get some ideas.  And we took a SLEW of paint chips from Lowe’s and I think we found some winners!  I also made us go back to Atir and get a manicure to match our pedicures from the night before.

For those that were worried that I was neglecting Mr.vB while I was having girl time with my mom- no worries- he was down at the Rivah House doing boy things so he was fine.  But after my mom left I was kinda bored and lonely so I called up my niece Maddy.  I thought it could be fun for her and I to have a Pajama Party Sleep Over.  She agreed, so I was off to pick her up.  I thought I might stay and have dinner with her mom and dad before we came back over to my house, but when I pulled into the their drive way, Maddy was waiting for me at the front door with her bags packed!  She was ready to have fun!

Now fun to a 2.5 year old and fun to a thirty something year old are quite different and considering I have NO toys at at my house we had to get creative.  We first got into our jammie-jams and then turned on Nick Jr..  We painted toenails AND fingernails (no worries it was clear polish) and then drew some pictures for Mr.vB.  By the time all that was done it was bed time for Miss Maddy. (sorry I have no photos of any of this fun- Mr.vB had taken the camera with him to the River.)  She and I both slept in our king size bed.  I slept how most people do, head at pillow, feet at other end.  But Maddy slept side to side.  It’s hard to believe that a little person could take up an entire bed but she managed to do it!

By Sunday morning I figured I had already spent the better portion of the weekend being girlie, so I might as well milk the whole thing for what it was worth.  I will admit that I did want to work on the back yard a bit, so I did break a sweat cutting the grass.  I also dug up all the cucumber and spaghetti squash vines from the garden.  They didn’t appear to be cross pollinating so we weren’t getting any veggies.  Low and behold though, as I was ripping them up, a big fat cucumber fell on my foot! HAHA!  The vB’s are officially farmers!!

But back to my girlie day… Mr. vB came out back as i was putting away the lawn mower and told me he was going to work in the garage a bit and wanted to know if I wanted to help.  I told him I was more in the mood to go shopping and invited him to Jcrew with me… he politely declined and told me I was on my own.  Knowing that I had limited fundage in the old bank account I switched gears away from Jcrew and decided to hit up my local Forever 32 21 store for some fun, new, CHEAP goodies.  How can you say no to a $19 cable knit sweater??  I couldn’t.. it is now in my closet.  I also fell in love with a line of t-shirts they are doing for the World Wildlife Fund. $1 from every shirt purchased goes to the WWF.  Look How cute this panda shirt is…

They didn’t have any mediums left so I ended up getting a cute shirt with 2 Giraffes on it.  I might buy the panda one online. Depends on how much shipping is…we shall see.

Sorry again for all the text and no photos…I will have a talk with Mr. vB about checking out the camera without asking!

Yard Sale Time…

We made about $175 buck-a-roos! Not shabby!

Birthday Party Time…

Baby Travers’s 2nd birthday party at Romp-n-Roll

Baby Shower Time…

We had an Ice Cream Social/TomBoy Party.  Our buddy K-RO is having a baby girl, but NO PINK allowed, hence the tomboy theme.

Congrats Kathryn and Phil on the pending Bundle of Joy!! We can’t wait to meet her!

(but in the meantime we are going to continue to take bets on what her name is going to be!)

So Mr. vB and I finally got to meet our newest nephew on Friday evening and boy he is a cutie!

The jury is still out on who Philip most resembles.  Some people say he looks like Mr. vB, but I think he looks a lot like his big sister did at this age.

Mr. vB has already started to play football with him- literally!

And Big Sister Maddy is being extremely helpful and gentle with her new baby bro!

Mr. Philip ended up being about a week early, but is healthy and happy!  His Momma and Poppa are doing well too, just lacking in the sleep department!  Mr. vB and I are VERY excited that he is here and can’t wait to start spoiling him rotten.

Mr. vB and I have spent the last week down in the Outer Banks of North Carolina playing in the sun with my parents, brother, sister in law, nephew, and Grandmother.  Oh and I can’t forget Boots and Bailey!

We had an amazing cottage right on the ocean and like that wasn’t enough, we also had a pool in the back yard!

The hardest decision we had to make every morning was if we wanted to go to the the pool first or to the beach first?!?

And thankfully we also had WIFI so I could keep up with my bloggin’.  Bet you guys didn’t even notice that I was blogging away with a drink in one hand and a pool float in the other.  Gotta love technology!

Here’s a breakdown of our fabulous week:

Day One… Let the relaxing begin!

Baby Travers had his pool routine down.  He would jump in, swim to the edge and then do it AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN...It made me tried just watching him.

Day Two…Hurricane Bill came though town.  Luckily he was far enough off the coast and all we got were some cool looking waves and clouds.  We weren’t allowed to go swimming in the ocean due to the rip tides, so we spent most of the time in the pool, which was fine with us.

Other people, not naming names, Mr.vB played on their computers!

But everyone was happy and relaxed no matter what we were doing!

These crazy clouds rolled in later in the afternoon.  You couldn’t tell where the ocean ended and the clouds began.  I almost thought Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze were going to jump out of a helicopter and start surfing.

We decided to play if safe and go inside for a game of Scrabble.

Day Three and Four were much of the same (minus the hurricane part).   We played in the pool, the ocean, read books, took naps, pretty much whatever you wanted to do!  We also hit up the pizza shop where my brother worked one summer during college.

We kept pushing Travers to throw around his name and see if we could score some free pizza.  I mean who wouldn’t remember the name of that amazing dishwasher they had back in the summer of ‘97.

We capped the night off by sitting outside to see the sunset.

Day Five… The “young” adults went on a Jeep excursion and then had a rib eating contest.

These are the wild Spanish Mustangs that have inhabited the most northern part of the Outer Banks for almost 500 years!  They roam freely and are protected by local laws.  My brother wanted to lasso one and ride it home for the Baby T to see.  I told him I would not pick him up from jail, so he opted to take a photo instead.

We worked up an appetite sitting in a jeep for 2.5 hours.  Luckily it was the vB’s turn to cook that night.  We made our famous baby back ribs and Travers bet us that he would eat 2 racks all by himself…

I don’t think he made through a full 2 racks- but he got darn close.  Here you go Travers, bask in the limelight.

The Winner of the Rib Eating Contest- Travers Edwards

Day Six.. more beach and pool time.

The Dolphin came out to play that afternoon as well.  They were riding in the waves and jumping through the air.  It was so neat to watch. (Now why couldn’t they do that when we went to visit them with the Eubanks?)

Later in the evening once it cooled off we went to Jockey’s Ridge.  Did you know it is the largest “living” sand dune on the East Coast?  I think I read that it contained 350 million gallons of sand.

No wonder Baby T needed some help from his momma to get to the top!

I love this photo because Travers is like, “Now that you got me here, what do you want me to do?”

Day Seven.. back to the real world.  Uncle vB and Baby T watched Sesame Street while we packed up the cars.

A BIG THANKS to Honey and Cece for making this vacation happen.  I do believe it was the first Edwards’ Family vacation in about 15 years!  We are looking forward to keeping this tradition going!

**Thanks for sticking with me to the end.  It was hard to condense a week’s work of activities and photos into a post.  If you are a glutton for pain interested in seeing the rest of the photos from the week- click HERE.**