Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Haley's Nursery Reveal

Hello! I am very excited to share Haley's (mostly) completed nursery! I have some finishing touches I want to do and a couple of things I am waiting to come in (such as an art print) but other than that, I am calling her nursery DONEZO!

I have had the best time planning and executing so many ideas and inspirations for her room. It was so fun to do something bright, colorful and girly. I will share more details along with the pictures.



I am in love with how her name wall turned out. My good friend, Amanda helped me by cutting out her name with her Silhouette machine. I knew I wanted to do some embroidery hoops with fabric from the beginning. I had seen that idea and I love fabric anyways. All this fabric is from the same line as the crib bumper. I love the bright colors in it. By the way, the color of the walls is Aqua Glow by Valspar.


We ended up going with a glider (borrowed from a friend) for this corner instead of small bed. I think it will work out well and we will spend lots of time here. The crocheted blanket was a hand-made gift too and it matches her room perfectly.


My talented and crafty Aunt Judy made the subway art and picture frame. I got the shelves from Hobby Lobby. I just love having shelves to display little items.


My Mom made all these tissue pom poms to go over her changing table. It will give her something to look at while she is laying there. I love the bright colors. We have since added a dark teal/aqua one to the lower middle part too.


Here is her dresser/changing table that I bought at a big flea market. It has lots of extra storage. I think I will be adding a colorful art print just below the pom poms too.


This is Pinkie Pony, as Jonah has named it. It was a gift for Haley too. So cute!


I made this bow holder for her room too. Pretty easy and cheap!


This little white bookcase was a fun yard sale find this Spring. It will soon be filled up with books, just like her brother's is, but for now it's being used to display odd and ends.


This is one of those nineties wood shelves that I came across at our local thrift store. I just added a few coats of white chalk paint and distressed it a little. I can't believe it's already full of headbands and she isn't even here yet. I will have to think of another storage option for those.  I got the letter H from Hobby Lobby and I love that little owl that is winking. I found him at the flea market too. Jonah and I named him Winkie. LOL As you can tell he enjoys naming toys and stuffed animals right now.


Here is that little wall all decorated as you walk into her room.


This is a terrible photo but it was the best I could do. I love these frilly curtains I found online from Toys R Us of all places. The are the perfect amount of sheer and darkening. We will be adding some blinds to this window though at some point. Just gotta get the hubby to check that off his to-do list. Or break out the power tools and do it myself. LOL


These crib bumpers are my pride and joy! I just spent a lot of time working on them. I sewed them mostly by myself. My awesome Mother-in-law made all the pink cording/welting and helped me with cutting them out and measuring the cuts. She also helped by finishing up the bottom part of each bumper using her big sewing machine. I sewed all 20 of the ties and sewed the cording to the fronts and backs and then she finished the bottoms. I love how it turned out. I also made the crib skirt.


For the crib skirt I just cheated a little bit. I measured the two sides and the front of the crib and then cut rectangles from my skirt fabric and finished the edges. Then I just clipped them to the metal crib frame with office clips. The mattress lays on top of them and you can't even see them. I saw this neat idea on Pinterest and I knew I could probably handle that. I may try to have a fancier skirt made at some point, but for now, this works!



This picture shows the color of the room in it's truest hue. It's a really bright and sunny color and I love it!


A few months ago I ordered a bunch of bags of scrap fabric from Etsy shops and made up several cloth diaper burp cloths. I just love using cloth diapers for burp cloths!


A close-up of all the headbands we have already. Several were given to me and some I am borrowing from a friend that has a girl that is older and doesn't wear them anymore. Some are a little on the extreme side, so I am not sure how many of these she will end up wearing. I don't see myself being a "big bow" Mom....but I may surprise myself once she is here. LOL

Once again I am so happy with how my "vision" turned into reality. There are still a few things I want to do eventually such as add some big frames and prints of her once we have professional pictures taken. I also have an adorable art print coming that I will add to the changing table wall. I will share that once it's up. Also I would like to add a small, white table or something beside the glider. My Mom is working on spray painting a cute little vintage magazine holder to go beside the glider too. She also is working on a rag rug (made from fabric strips) for her room that is almost done too. I will share more once some of these things are added.


post signature

Monday, July 29, 2013

Jonah's 3rd Birthday Party {Construction Zone}



This is my 200th post on my blog!! How fitting that it's for my little man's 3rd birthday party!


We had Jonah's 3rd birthday party at our house this year under the carport and by the pool. It was a pretty warm day but at least there was a breeze blowing the whole time. This year I jumped back into having a theme and we did a Construction Zone! He absolutely loves anything with wheels, tracks and diggers so it was perfect. He was really excited about his party this year and knew that his friends were coming to see him and sing Happy Birthday! We had a small gathering of close friends and family and enjoyed some Subway sandwiches, snacks, fruit and chocolate cake of course!

He got lots of great, new toys that I know he will enjoy playing with for months to come. We now have every kind of construction equipment toy there is, I think. LOL

I had a really fun time this year planning his party. The colors were orange, yellow and black for construction. I made his invitations and printed out a bunch of construction signs that I bought the digital file for. Then I just bought some caution tape and traffic cones and party supplies in the colors we did. That was about it this year....pretty easy.

Well enough talk....here are the pictures from Jonah's special day!


The birthday boy!!


Jonah and Emily with their hard hats on.


Jonah ready to party!


Cake table!


Party favors were Lowe's tool belts, plastic sand toys and candy.


The cake! I got a little too big of a cake but it was delicious. Wal-Mart does make good cake!


Michael and my brother, Kyle

Some of our crowd while everyone was getting their plates filled. We did a small table out of concrete blocks and plywood for the kids to sit at.




Getting Happy Birthday sung to him! This is about the only picture of all 3 of us. Oh well!


Blowing out his cone candles!


Loving eating some ice cream.

CHEESIN!



We broke out the sprinkler and blocked off the driveway to deter the kids from the road.


Mailbox decorations


Watching the little ones take turns running through the sprinkler.


Jonah really loved opening his presents this year. He opened them all!

Granny got him a basketball goal. He can almost reach the rim. LOL



His Poppa and Grandma got him a fire truck bed! We hope he will do well moving from the crib to this! We will attempt that after his little sister arrives though. :)

The leaf-blower was the favorite present of the day. After he opened each gift he would ask "can I have my leaf-blower now?" LOL Kyle and Mandy got him that. They win the favorite gift prize. LOL

We got him a sandbox for the yard to run all this construction trucks in and he has been enjoying it a lot already. I think he had a great day and he took a big nap after his party too. It was a fun day for all of us and I am so glad we were able to have his party before his little sis arrives.


post signature

Linking Up Here:

Happy Hostess

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

A BIG UPDATE

I have not been very good about blogging this month but it has just been so busy. I have several things I want to post about separately but I am mostly waiting on pictures and then I will write them. I guess I will start where I left off on my last post. Life was hitting pretty hard and fast with our broken vehicle and then Michael's shoulder dislocation. Well I am happy to report that he is feeling much better and can use his left shoulder/arm more and more each day. He has been doing the exercises the Dr. gave him and building it's strength back up. It still hurts and is sore to the touch but he is not complaining as much anymore and more importantly he is back to doing my heavy lifting around here. LOL

Also, my van is like new again after several dollars, time and parts put on it. Michael had to replace the transmission, motor mounts, power steering pump and a few other little things and now it drives like new. Oh and did I mention we had to put new tires on it just a couple months ago!?....whew....I hope it decides to behave for a while....we don't intend to have to buy something else.

We are in full baby-watch and baby-prep mode around here. I have been packing our various bags and have the car seat installed in the van. I am trying to finish up packing my bag (so hard to just put stuff in there). I just want to be as prepared as I can if we have to go to the hospital in the middle of the night. I have not had any signs of labor yet though. Last week at the Dr. my BP was still great and she checked me and I was only slightly dilated, but nothing to get excited about. I have another Dr. appointment tomorrow and I'm taking my bags just in case. I don't expect anything from it but just want to prepared since the hospital and Dr. office is in another town.

So anyways....back to what's been going on. Well here are some pictures from my sister's wedding that was on July 13th. I didn't take any of these and they all are phone pictures that others took and loaded to their wedding party app online.

Audrey and Jeff after saying their "I dos". She was gorgeous and so radiant!



Jonah before the ceremony. Not looking too happy but there were lots of people in that small room and he just wanted out of there. He was the ring-bearer and he did such a good job! We were so proud of him. He walked perfectly down the aisle, only stopping to see the petals that the girls were throwing, and then he went up on the stage and stood by my brother (groomsman) and was quiet the whole time.



Audrey and Jeff during their sand ceremony. Michael is standing to the right and officiated the ceremony for them. I was so proud of him and he did a great job!



This was a pretty good shot from the back of the church by someone. I am the second on the left (in purple) in the bridesmaids.  Jonah is standing in front of my brother which is the last one of the groomsmen.


 At the reception cutting and eating their cake. I loved how the decorations turned out and will share many more pictures of that once I get them from my Dad. I didn't take ANY pictures of anything and I feel awful but I was so busy with Jonah that I just didn't have time.



Then, this past weekend we celebrated Jonah's third birthday. He had a great party here at the house and I have lots of pictures but I will do a separate post on all that hopefully later this week. here is a picture of him on the morning of his birthday part. He kept asking "it time for my friends to come?" over and over. He really got into and understood so much more this year about what was going on. He also got lots of presents and totally spoiled. He has lots of new toys to play with now. It's kind of nice having his birthday in the middle of the year since some of his toys from Christmas start to lose their favor to him and so he gets a new influx of toys mid-year that tie him until Christmas. We are not big into buying toys in between holidays.


Finally, I want to also do a full post on Haley's nursery. I am just waiting on my crib bumpers to get finished by my mother-in-law. She has to finish sewing them closed for me on her big machine and it broke down last week and she had to order a special part for it. I feel bad for her because she can't do her upholstery work either until she gets it. The nursery is basically done though. My Mom made some tissue pom poms for above the changing table and we are going to get those up this week and maybe a couple of extra touches but all the big stuff is done. Here is a little sneak peak though of the wall above her crib with her name. The color is wonky in the phone pic but you get the idea. My wonderful friend, Amanda, cut her name out for me and helped me design the wording and even helped us install it. She is the sweetest! I love how it turned out!


Sorry for such a long post but I just had to get all these little details down until I can do bigger posts.



post signature

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Monday, July 8, 2013

Jonah's Third Year Scrapbook

I got a big item checked off my list and finally ordered Jonah's Third Year book!!


Create your own custom photo books at Shutterfly.com.


I always wait until I can get a lot of discounts at once before I order. This time I got a great deal with Shutterfly, who I always use. I had a $20 off coupon in my account and they were running a 40% off special on 12X12 books along with free shipping over $30. So I ended up also adding a coffee mug to my order to get the free shipping and then those were on sale too. I got the whole book (27 pages) and mug for $37!! I thought that was a great deal. I just love Shutterfly and they always, always have a sale going on or special codes you can get. I can't wait to hold this book in my hands and see it all for real!!



 post signature

Sometimes Life Happens

So did you have a good long, holiday weekend? Yes? Well that's great!! (I truly mean it)

We did not have a great one but it was just one of those "life happens" kind of weeks, last week. It all started last week when I went for my regular OB check-up (all was fine) and my van's transmission finally pooped out on me (we had been having some issues here and there). It just would not go at a stop light and so I had to call the good ol' hubs to come rescue me. We got it home and ordered a new transmission. (Cha-Ching $$$)

Thankful that we had the money for that saved but we ended up having to buy more parts than just the tranny. Small things that needed to be fixed along with it. Also, thankful that I'm married to a backyard mechanic that can handle doing the transmission job himself (with his awesome brother's help). So that saved us a lot too.

So the fourth and fifth were spent with them working on my van and me and Jonah just hung out and got some chores done around the house. I got to do some big errand running on Friday too all by myself while my Mom watched Jonah for me. I got a lot of items checked off my huge to-get list for the wedding and Jonah's birthday. Got his presents ordered/bought and finished up buying decorations. I got all our last-minute wedding needs done too.

Then on Saturday I had plans to spend the day in Nashville with my sister (the bride-to-be) and the other bridesmaids and we were going to go to Opry Mills and shop and get pedicures and go out to eat at The Melting Pot. I had really been looking forward to it but at the same time I hated to be spending any more money with all the repairs we just had to do on the van.

Well as luck (or lack of luck?) would have it I got a call on the way out of town that Michael had fell at his parent's house and dislocated his shoulder. He and Jonah had left earlier than me to go up to their house to do a few things and then they were going to come back home and play in the pool. So I had to run and get him and take him to the ER to get his shoulder put back in place. I am so thankful that he is ok and wasn't hurt other than his shoulder but it was hard to see him in so much pain. And also having to coordinate how we would get Jonah back home (I had been riding with another bridesmaid to Nashville). We all made it back home in one piece though by the end of the day, I just did not get to partake in the pre-wedding festivities. I really hated to miss it all but I felt I needed to be there for Michael since he only had the one good arm. LOL

We ended up having really bad storms Saturday night though and so I was glad I wasn't out and having to drive through any of that anyways.

Sunday was just church and resting for Michael and he is on the mend. Hopefully by the end of the week he will be out of the sling and back to using that arm again.

Ya'll just say a prayer for us to make it through this week and wedding! :)



post signature