Our Long Weekend

So grateful to have had a long weekend! This was the weekend of "getting stuff done" around here. We kicked off the weekend Friday night with an impromptu date night. My parents kept Jonah overnight and we headed to town to eat at our favorite little Italian restaurant in Paris (Paris, TN that is). We had a scrumptious meal and dessert and then we hit the stores. I had to get a gift for my sister's upcoming Bridal Lingerie shower (that I'm helping host) and Michael needed new tennis shoes. Those that don't know him, well lets just say, he is VERY picky and wishy washy with picking out shoes. He is very particular so that one took a good hour to attend to. Grateful we didn't have to entertain a toddler while we did that job.

Lastly we headed to Lowe's to get our baseboards for the office remodel and paint and supplies for Haley's nursery. I am so excited to get her nursery painted so we can start decorating and getting ready for her. This is the paint color we(I) chose. It's called Aqua Glow by Valspar.

So Saturday morning kicked off early with Michael cutting and installing the baseboards for the new office and then painting them and installing our new light fixture. I will share more pictures of all this once it's mostly done.

Jonah and I played all morning long and he was in the best mood. I god some crafting done too. I made a bow holder for Haley and finished up painting and distressing a wooden shelf for her nursery. The pictures aren't great because they are phone ones taken in our basement (where my craft room is). I bought that shelf at our local thrift store for $4 and painted it with chalk paint. I also worked on sewing some on her bedding.

Jonah loves playing in our vehicles rather than any of his hundreds of toys. :)

Sunday was church and just hanging out at home. Finally watched The Lucky One and I have to say it was just ok. I had already read the book and it did follow closely with the book but it just didn't live up to what I had imagined in my head and there was way too much sex scenes for my taste. The chemistry was a little off in my opinion. My favorite Nicolas Sparks book/movies are Dear John and The Notebook. Maybe because I never read those ones before watching the movie??

Monday Jonah and I hung out at home and then met with my sister to take lunch down to our local park for a picnic. Jonah loved having a picnic down by the river and watching all the boats going by. We finished off the day with a get-together at my Granny's house and grilling.

It was a lovely and relaxing, yet productive weekend! So thankful for my hard-working hubby and all he accomplished for us over the weekend!

Potty-Training {For The Record}

This post is mainly for my memory and for a record of how the whole potty-training experience has gone with Jonah. Something that I can look back on when he is older or when our next young'in gets ready for this milestone.

I am going to call it.....Jonah is officially potty-trained!!

I am not gonna lie. I thought this day would come sometime after he turned 3 and that it would take months before he mastered it. So we were all pleasantly surprised that it really only took a good 2 weeks and most of that was not that bad. There are 2 main things that helped us overall with potty-training.

1. We waited to even start pushing it until we KNEW he was ready.

For Jonah, that moment came when he and I were in the bathroom and I was using it and he was standing there (wearing his diaper) and informing me that he was pee peeing in his diaper. My thought process was well if you know you are going pee pee then you know what that means, as in, the pee pee comes out and goes into my diaper. So I thought he was ready to know that pee pee belongs in the toilet. I will say one exception to this is that we had already introduced the potty chair to him and he had been peeing on it BUT it was only right before his bath and only then. So we knew he physically could go on the potty chair but just had not pushed the issue.

2. Lots and lots of positive reinforcement when he went on the potty or even tried.

This came in the form of M&Ms in the beginning. Every time he would pee pee on the potty he got 2 M&Ms. At my Mom's he also had a sticker chart too with stickers of his favorite things. Also we would just praise him and tell him what a big boy he was each time. Now his favorite thing is that when he goes #2 he gets a bag of fruit snacks. He never forgets about that! LOL!


So back to calling him officially potty-trained. I say "officially" because of several reasons.

1. He goes both #1 and #2 on the potty.
2. He knows that all the pee needs to be in the potty
3. He will go on any potty, anywhere we are at.
4. He stays dry through his naps and all night.
5. He knows full well what an accident is.
6. He tells us if he needs to go and has not had an accident in over 2 weeks.

We are so proud of the big boy that Jonah is getting to be! He just amazes me but I am TOTALLY biased! LOL! I feel like I shouldn't have been too surprised at how easily it went since he has followed this pace all of his tiny life. He does things on his own time and when he is ready he aces them. From everything from giving up the bottle, holding his own cup, feeding himself, walking, talking, putting himself to sleep....when I think back it was all a breeze to him as long as we stayed out of his way.

So that is my biggest piece of advice to anyone who even cares or is reading that is in this stage of toddler-hood....you have to wait until they are ready! Not when you think they should be ready but when you know without a doubt that they are ready. It will make your life so much easier. The best advice our pediatrician gave us was to not even THINK about potty-training until he was 2 (his advice for boys). That is exactly what we did and I am glad we listened to him.

Friday Funnies

Jonah's vocabulary grows more and more each day. So there is no shortage of funny things he has come up with lately. Here are a few.


- Between potty training and taking off his clothes before bath, Jonah has discovered that he loves being naked and running around that way (in the house). One night before bath as soon as I stripped him down, he was off and running down the hall! He kept saying "hiney time, hiney time!" It was hilarious and he totally came up with that on his own. We call his bottom his "hiney" sometimes so that is where it came from. Such a mess!

- He has started to say "yes maam" when we ask him something. It just automatically comes out of his mouth but it sounds like he is saying "yes man" each time. Well we were explaining to him that we say "maam" for Mommies and Nanas and "yes sir" for Daddies and Papaws. Michael explained to him that Daddy was a sir and Mommy was a maam. Well on Saturday when he woke up from his nap he kept saying something but I couldn't figure out what it was. Finally, I figured out he was asking for his Daddy but he was saying "where's sir?" LOL

-Recently we have been asking Jonah who his bestest friend is. At first he would always say "Hootie (his stuffed owl) and Daddy" were his bestest friends. Then I would ask him to number off his other friends in order (not that he really understands the order of numbers yet). So I would say "who is #2 friend?" and he would name another stuffed animal. Finally, we got to number 5 and I asked him and he said "Mommy." So I was thankful to just be on the list. Well, just this week I asked him who his bestest friends were and he said "Daddy, hootie and Mommy!" Yes! I made it to number 1!

Mother's Day

I had a great Mother's Day and we had perfect weather too. We had a busy weekend as well.

Friday I was off and Jonah and I went over to my mother-in-law's to work on the bedding for Haley's nursery. My mother-in-law does upholstery and has for years. So she has a huge table that we used to cut out all the pieces and she helped me make the cording (welting) for the crib bumpers. I am excited to get started on sewing the pieces together. Jonah and I also did some running around town. It rained on us all day but we still had a good time and I got to shop some in Target while he was content in the cart. That is rare these days. LOL

Saturday we had plans to drive down to South West Tennessee to visit my family on my biological father's side. We don't get down to see them very often just because it's about a 3 hours drive and we don't like to have to stay the night. So we left pretty early but when we got into our little town we realized that one of my tires on my van had a huge gash in it. So we went back home and decided to take Michael's daily driver instead. It worked out but was a little cramped on space. We had a great visit and I got to see all 4 of my Dad's siblings. Unfortunately, my grandfather that is still alive had a fainting spell right before we arrived (he was at a funeral at the time) and had to go to the local hospital to be checked out. We managed to get over there and visit him before we headed home and he was doing some better but they were going to watch him overnight. I am so glad though that we got to see him for a little while because you just never know at his age when it will be his "time" to go.

For Mother's Day we went to church and then out to eat at a local place we love. Then we just hung out around the house and Jonah napped. Then we went over to my Mom's house for pizza and gave her some gifts.

It was a nice weekend with lots of catching up! I hope you all had a great day too!

Here is a picture that Michael got of Jonah and I on Sunday. I will have to get another belly shot for the blog as I am now officially in the third trimester!! Crazy how fast this one has gone by!

Below is the rose bush that I got last year for Mother's Day. All this rain has really made it go crazy!

Spring Into Summer Hutch

Edited to Add: I am linking up with Katie for her Table Setting link party. I don't have a formal dining room so I decided to link up my hutch that I decorate for holidays and occasions. You could use ideas for your own dining room if you have a hutch and table. 

Hello all! I have been at it again! I am still loving to update my white hutch for each season. So far I've done Halloween, Valentines, Easter and now Spring/Summer. You can also go to this post to see how I transformed this $25 hutch with paint.

I wanted to add some decor that I could add to or take away from as we progress into Summer, so that I wouldn't have to totally re-think it over the next few months. I may attempt a Fourth of July one...or I might not. We will see. It sure is fun for this crazy gal though. As I've mentioned before, this is the only spot in my home that I decorate for the seasons and I like to keep it contained to one space. I did not set out to go with a flowers theme and a blue, yellow and green color scheme...but that's what ended up happening and now I love it. All the flowers are fake, of course, but man fake flowers sure have come a long way! I will list where I got everything at the end of the post.

Lots of flowers...maybe too many but I love it for Spring.

Simple lemons and limes for added color. Free printable link at bottom.

Loving the vintage Ball jars I snagged and that little candle holder.

My sister gave me this frame for my birthday and I finally got a picture in it.

 

 

Little birdies hanging out at the top. they actually hold tea-light candles. Jonah named the green one Grass and the blue one Sky.

Close up of one of the jars.

There's SKY.

 I feel like something is needed in the white space around my white frame with the printable. Maybe some scrapbook paper along the back of the hutch? I am not sure but open to suggestions.


Source List:

-Free Spring Printable from HERE

-Vintage Ball jars from Fred's store. I found them in the canning section and I've seen them in some other stores too. They come in a pack of 6 for around $10.

-Floral frame was a gift from my sister but it came from the Threshold line at Target.

-Most flowers came from Dollar General Store

-I made the metal vase and flowers bouquet a couple of years ago. I think it was all from Hobby Lobby.

-Plates and green lantern from Big Lots

-Glass vases from Dollar General.

-Blue and green ceramic birds from Fred's also.


Thanks for stopping by to take a look at my Spring Into Summer Hutch! I am linking up to the following places: