What we'll be doing...

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again. ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Here's to a nice, long holiday weekend...

...with no plans or agendas...

...just lots of "doing nothing" and loving every minute of it.

Note: Please forgive the extra grainy picture quality. My camera settings were all off and I didn’t even realize. My excuse is twofold: 1.) I’m an admitted crappy picture-taker 2.) I was too excited to get some down time in the sun that I neglected a thorough review of my pictures. So, I’ll pretend that this is my attempt at some artsy/trendy camera work and I meant to do it (or something!).

All things girly...

The baby girl clothes collecting has commenced! I was very lucky and blessed to receive 4 boxes of baby clothes from a SIL of a friend (I call her my fairy Godmother of girly clothes!). I bought 50 hangers and ran out with a box and a half to still hang! Seriously! It was insanely generous and I’m 100% obsessed with everything.

Friday night as the boys were watching the game, I was going through piece by piece and “Ooooh-ing” and “Ahhh-ing” over everything. I’d hold something up and say, “Oh isn’t this just the cutest!” and Jim was nearly oblivious to the adorability of each dress and romper. Luckily, Jack caught on quickly and began saying, “Dat’s cute, Mommy,” and “I wear dat tomorrow?!”

I seriously feel SO fortunate and am beyond excited to play dress up in real life. A MA-JOR thanks to Kelli for all of the clothes, and for having adorable taste. I think Laura’s exact words were, “She’s always been pretty good about dressing the girls like human beings instead of stuffed animals.” Thanks also to Laura (my ex-co-worker bestie) for the hookup.

I’m loving this onesie with embroidered flowers and cap sleeves! And the bloomers…don’t even get me started! Note: I’m sure these will look so much better ON Lila Grace (tentative name) rather than on the hanger!

I also thought it was appropriate to show off our little girl’s first Cardinals outfit (a gift from Mom and Aunt CC). We know she’s a Cards fan (it’s kinda genetic)…the real question is will she be a Rams or Chiefs fan…

Nursery (part 3)

More nursery advancements! It’s coming together, and with around 11 weeks to go, I’m glad to be finally making progress!

Color…check! Transformed into Meadow Mist! This was such a relief. A relief that it’s #1: done, and #2: I like/love it (my opinion changes depending on time of day, mood, lighting, etc). And fyi, the pics aren’t great examples of the true color because I’m a crappy picture taker and I they are taken at different times of the day…so if it looks too “In-Your-Face-Blue”, it’s not! *Refer to example below :-)

When Jim first brushed it on, I said “OMG I LOVE it! Don’t you LOVE it?”

…then I went back into the room 5 minutes later and complained, “I hate it. It’s too green or blue, or something. UGH!” and immediately wished I would have gotten sample colors.

Jim asked if I wanted to go get another color before he painted the whole room and I said, “No, paint everything and if I don’t like it we’ll just repaint it.” We did this with Jack’s room and I know that with enough paint, you’ll eventually find something you can live with!

Luckily, it’s growing on my everyday. And just like I did when the room was freshly cleaned out, I poke my head in every time I walk past it…and sometimes I walk past it just to poke my head in!

First DIY project…check!

A while back, I fell in love with Amy Butler’s LOVE Heart fabric collection. But seeing as I’m not a seamstress or anything close, I thought THIS project was 100% do-able for me. So I bought my fabric on Etsy. And after some careful/sloppy placement, glue, and patience, mission accomplished!

My fabric rings are done and I love them, but you can never see the backs of these because I’m too cheap to invest in a pair of good quality scissors, so it basically looks like it’s been chewed on by a dog. ;-) But that dog was me!

*Notice how different the wall color looks in the 3 pictures below...as noted above, don't trust my picture taking skills! Focus on the project at hand!
Taken in the early evening:

Taken in the afternoon light:

Taken in the morning light:

Two more checks off the list. Yeah!

This weekend I hope to paint the dresser/armoire and rocking chair…oh I’m getting so ready for this baby girl to come visit me! Lila Grace? I’m just throwing it out there and thinking about it…I have the urge to start having things monogrammed!

Jack's going to be...

... a good big brother. I practically hold my breath in anticipation when he starts a sentence with, "My baby sister..."

He's been talking more and more about his "baby sister"...just last night he said he wanted to give his baby sister a pink motorcycle helmet. As random as that is, it makes me smile!

Apparently, he's been taking care of the baby dolls at school (even though when I ask him what he did with the dolls he says he played trucks with them...). Here's a note from one of his daily reports:

Jack's baby sister is a mover and a shaker! It's hands down my favorite part of pregnancy. She seems most active at night (or maybe I'm just more attuned then: aka, not completely preoccupied with life!). I'm 29 weeks, which according to TheBump is the size of a squash! That means only 11 more weeks to go!

I think for the next few months (or the rest of my life) I will have THIS song stuck in my head...

my new(ish) chair!

Remember my chair?! The chair I rescued from the garbage and hauled down my street in the middle of the night because I saw potential?! Well, it’s finally done! It only took me like 3 months to slowly, but surely, finish the job!

So without further ado (3+ months is “ado” enough!), here’s my new(ish) chair…

It was rusty and in need of a fresh coat of paint, so my first step was to sand it down to a nice smooth finish and give it a coat of Rustoleum (in Almond). (Refer to “Funny Story” below.) Here's the rusty mess...

And now, after $16 worth of fabric and paint, I am perfectly happy with my new chair!

Now all I need is some spare time to relax and enjoy it...lol: spare time! :-)

Funny story: I bought the brush-on Rustoleum paint rather than the spray. I painted it one day during Jack’s nap, so needless to say, I was up against the clock.

When I finished, I went inside to clean my brushes as I usually would: with water in the sink. As I squeezed my hand through the brush to remove the paint, I begin to realize that the paint wasn’t washing off as my interior latex would. I rubbed more and slowly began to recall that this is oil.based.paint! SH*T. I had no mineral spirits, my hand (and wedding rings), sink, and anything else I might touch are covered in Rustoleum, Jack would be waking up at any moment, and Jim was golfing so I was stuck, literally.

After minor panic, I grabbed a bottle of nail polish remover and doused myself made the best of it. And although I smelled as if I was combustible, I was mostly paint free.

Moral of the story: Read directions (ironic that I didn’t seeing as my profession is WRITING directions!)…know what kind of paint you’re using…always have mineral spirits…and steal your neighbors discarded junk!

The end

funny faces

I had the most satisfactory of childhoods because my mother…turned out to be exactly my age. Kay Boyle

Nursery (Part 2)

This weekend we made nursery progress! And by progress, I mean basically we cleaned out the bedroom. It was a disaster! Since we moved in, it has been used as a Computer room/Extra large storage closet/"If you don’t know what to do with it, throw it in that room" Room.

I am proud to say that the room is now (mostly) a clean slate! I love a clean slate. I’ve poked my head in the room every time I’ve passed it since it’s been overhauled because I’m so excited about the new beginning!

Side note: the peonies (poached from my Mom's) in my antique blue jar is the exact color scheme I'm going for in the nursery: light turquoise, pink, green...obsessed!

I gave the boys one job which was to reassemble the crib. They set to work, and for some reason doing a project for the boys means to do it without a shirt on (I don’t ask anymore…it’s just a boy thing). At this point, whatever gets the job done…and they did!

Yes, Jim is making the "Are you seriously taking a picture right now" face... : )

Crib setup…check!

I had the girls help me pick out the paint…hello Meadow Mist with an accent of Positively Pink from Lowes! I love it (right now). I’m an impulse buyer so I didn’t bother with buying multiple samples and testing (too many decisions is nerve-racking for an indecisive person), so I just took the plunge and bought me a gallon! (Note: I am fully aware I may regret this decision and end up repainting the room…)

Paint…check!

So two "checks" down...about 100 more to go...that's progress right?!

'cation

We’re back from ‘cation, as Jack called it. It was fun, but much-too-short! We mostly stayed at the pool and enjoyed the 90 degree weather…which was ahhh-mazing.

Once I get my bearings back (i.e., unpack everything, replenish the food supply in our house, tackle the mound of laundry, clean, finish mourning the loss of the pool and summer weather) more details and pictures to come! :)

Orlando!

It’s been a busy week of packing, listing, checking off, double checking, writing hand-notes, stressing, triple checking…and I can fairly confidently say, that we are ready for vacation!

Bring on Orlando, the sun, the pool, h-o-t weather, and relaxing…I’m in need of a vaca! And it’s the perfect time for me: 26 weeks, so next week I will officially be in my third trimester! Crap, I need to start getting baby stuff done! But for now...just the relaxing part!
I’m hoping that Jack will be okay on the flight and not be nervous or scared…I think we’ve prepared as much as we can, and the rest is just out of our control, so C’est la vie!

I’m almost positive I’ll come back with a bazillion pics…and hopefully a nice tan! Until then, here’s a few pictures from our last trip to Orlando (back in the olden days of 2007)…