Happy St. Patty’s Day

Posted on by Amy
We have had amazing weather this week.  We’ve been busy soaking it up.

Swinging and running and climbing.  It’s been wonderful.  Lass wakes up in the morning and one of the first things she says is “‘side?  ‘side?” asking to go out and play.  My girls definitely love to be outside.

I don’t think I really even need to describe how much fun we’ve had in our yard the past few days.  The photos say it better than I could anyway.  But I will say that one of the great things about being outside is that I can often sit in the grass and watch as they get exercise and have a blast running around.  Sitting is my friend right now.  I’m at 39 weeks and large.

We have taken some walks too, as I’m trying to get the ball rolling here, but sitting and blowing bubbles or just watching my girls chase each other, or show off how fast they can run, or play with sticks or whatever. . . Well, it’s nice.  I want to be very lazy right now.  Don’t judge.

We got decked out in green for St. Patty’s day and played outside a lot more today.  It ended up being 80 degrees here.  In mid-March.  Beautiful.

We played with shamrock stickers and ate a special shamrock treat after dinner and took a walk by the lake.

I had purchased a really cute Good Luck Bear Care Bears T shirt for Miss to wear today.  It says, “Hug Me, I’m Irish” and has shamrocks and of course a Care Bear with a shamrock belly badge. I thought she would love it.  She flat out refused to wear it today and instead picked out her own green outfit.

Miss wanted to share a shamrock sticker with her Daddy.

Oh well.  At least the shirt was only $5 from Walmart.  Maybe next year.  And the outfit she picked out almost matched.

We had a fun day.  Nice and lazy and loaded with good family time.  Whether you’re Irish or not (I’m not, but my kids are), I hope you had a great St. Patty’s Day too.

Girls’ Rooms Made Over

Posted on by Amy
As I have mentioned several times, I have been crafting stuff for the girls’ rooms for the past few weeks.  I think it has been my form of nesting.  I am finally near enough to completion that I can reveal what I’ve been working on.  Here’s a look at Lass’s room.

I’ve already posted about how to do the growth chart.  If you want to know how, see the tutorial here.

This is basically what Lass’s room looked like before (check out how tiny Miss is in this pic!).  All of my girls’ rooms had fairly pathetic wall decor, so I decided to use a few ideas from Pinterest, add a few ideas of my own, and make them much more fun and interesting.

I got the idea for the fabric rings from Pinterest.  They are so easy and cheap and really make a big impact I think.  I am not completely happy with the balance of the circles in Lass’s room, so tonight I made a couple more circles and will try adding them tomorrow to make it look better.  But I still love it even as it is right now.

I also spruced up the other side of her room.

This is what it looked like before.  I needed to take this huge rocker and move it to Baby Sis’s room, so I brought Miss’s old reading chair in and added some shelves.

I love the finished product.  My mom made these curtains!

Baby sis’s room still has a bit of work to be done, but the wall above her crib is done.

This used to be Miss’s room.  We were initially going to move Sis into our third bedroom, which was previously a guest room, but at the last minute decided to move Miss in there and put Sis in Miss’s room.  The main reason was because we couldn’t find a good place for the huge rocker pictured above in the other bedroom.

This was Miss’s crib that we converted to a full size bed when she moved into her “big girl bed.”  We converted it back and Miss got a new big girl bed you can check out below.  I made a couple of crib sheets for Sis’s crib and used the bed skirt that my mom and I (mostly my mom) made for Miss’s room before she was born.

The biggest transformation has been in Miss’s room.  We painted it this green originally to match the fabrics for Sis’s room, but the color works just as well with Miss’s new bedding.

In her old room, Miss had rails on the sides of her bed.  She was ready to have those taken off, as the only thing they have been needed to keep in her bed for the past several months have been all the “friends” Miss had been sleeping with.  I got these planter baskets from Hobby Lobby and they have been a perfect way to keep the friends within reach, though not right in the bed.

This was Miss’s reading corner in her old room.  The chair went into Lass’s room, Miss got a bigger chair, and the bookshelf stayed where it is for Baby Sis.  It’s attached to the wall, so Miss got a new book shelf.

Here’s Miss’s new reading/vanity corner.  I got her this cute little vanity to replace the dresser that was in her old room (which stayed in there to serve as a changing table for Baby Sis).

She has adjusted remarkably well to this move, considering we decided to do it kind of last minute.  She loves her new stuff, especially the vanity.  I also took some fabric flowers (left over from the arrangement I made for her that you can see below) and a few upcycled food cans (I made sure to remove all sharp spots) that I painted in coordinating colors, and I put them in one of the blue boxes on her shelf for her to use to make her own flower arrangements.  This has been a huge hit with her.

After all the shuffling around of rooms and furniture and all the crafting and sewing I’ve done (2 growth charts, tons of fabric circles, two crib sheets, and three large cardboard initials), I’m extremely happy with the results in all the girls’ rooms.  I have to give credit to my husband for all the work he did to help (moving lots of furniture, putting up a chandelier, putting together several pieces of furniture, and many other “Honey-Do” tasks). One of the projects I’ve been really happy with is the cardboard initials I did for each of the girls.  The initials came from Hobby Lobby.  I used Mod Podge to come up with three different looks for them.  They were all very easy.

For Miss’s I used torn pieces of scrap book paper and Mod Podge.  I just put the Mod Podge down before placing each piece of paper, used enough overlapping paper to cover the whole letter, and then put a final coat of Mod Podge over the top when it was all done.

For Lass’s letter I started by painting it green, and then cut out these flowers from the fabric that I had used to make her crib sheet.  The fabric flowers got Mod Podged in place, and then I again put a final coat of MP over the whole thing when it was done.

Baby Sis’s letter was done by just Mod Podging some of the leftover fabric from one of the crib sheets I made onto the cardboard.  This one was a little bit more tricky to figure out the best way to piece the fabric to get the whole letter covered and still looking nice.  I started by cutting strips of fabric as wide as the depth of the letter and covering the inner “V’s” of the N first.  Then I just used one big piece to cover the front of the letter and outer sides.  I had to wrap around a little bit, but it turned out great.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past several weeks.  I still have a few more projects I would like to get done, but they don’t feel as pressing as these did.  Each of my girls has a pretty new look for her room, so I’m satisfied.

Speaking of Messes…

Posted on by Amy
I went to a doctor’s appointment this morning.  As soon as I got home, right after running to me with a yell of “Mama!” and a big hug (which never gets old, by the way), Miss asked if she could paint.  What a coincidence.  I had planned to paint with the girls on Thursday morning, but I figured, “What the heck?” and said, “Sure, we can paint.”  What I should have said was “Not this morning, Honey, we have to go to gymnastics.”  But I completely forgot about Miss’s gymnastics class this morning.  So.  We painted.

This was Lass’s first time painting at the easel.

She seemed to like it okay, but didn’t stick with it for very long.  She didn’t seem to like the paint on her hands and feet.

Apparently mud is cool, but paint, not so much. She was done after making two paintings.

Miss on the other hand was all into the painting and probably would have continued for hours if I hadn’t had her get cleaned up to get ready for lunch.

We had fun, and I have lots of great paintings as a result of their efforts.  I even found some great, cheap frames at Target this afternoon that are just the right size for this paper.  They will work really well for framing the masterpieces of my little artists.

And the mess wasn’t even that bad…

“Muddy Soup” and Other Messes

Posted on by Amy
So, yesterday I mentioned that I was hoping for more messy outdoor time for my girls today.  They are such agreeable and thoughtful girls.  They found the one little remaining spot of standing water/mud, and they really delivered.
They jumped and stomped in the mud.  They splashed with sticks.

Miss got a little on her face, and freaked out momentarily, but recovered well when reminded to just wipe it on her sleeve.

Lass was largely unperturbed by all the mud she was getting on herself.  Once in a while she’d turn around and point, as if to say, “Hey, I think I’ve got something on my face!”

She also held up her hands a few times and said, “Wash?” though when informed that we couldn’t wash without going inside, she happily went right back to her puddle.

Miss was a little concerned by how dirty her sister was getting.  She said, “Let me see your face, Muddy Girl.”

Then Miss declared she was going to make “Muddy Soup.”  Her Daddy requested pepper and garlic in the soup, to which she declared she would add cream, butter, and sugar.  Yum.

We had a grand time and sure did make a mess today.  I have no problem with outside messes.  Outside, my girls can get as dirty as they want.  Who cares if the yard gets dirty or messy?  The only thing I have to bother with, generally, is their clothes, and those wash (yes, these did all come miraculously clean).  So I find it kind of odd that I struggle a little bit with indoor messes. I have to regularly remind myself to lighten up when we are doing things that are a bit messy inside.  Now, I don’t care about toys getting messy.  Our house looks like a tornado hit it every day until bedtime when Miss does her chores, one of which is cleaning up toys.  No.  Toy messes don’t bother me.  I tend to get a bit uptight about other kinds of messes.  Play Doh.  Paint. Glitter.  Etc.  I make myself tolerate these things and try really hard to embrace them.  And typically I find that when I do, I have tons of fun and realize the mess is no big deal.  Like tonight.

Miss tested me with indoor messy tonight before bed.  She decided to play with the plastic eggs that I have in an Easter basket on our counter.  Yes, I have Easter decor up in our house already.  I was afraid I wouldn’t put it out if I waited too long and Baby Sis arrived before I got it out.  So anyway, we have an assortment of Easter decorations around the house, one of which is a fairly large basket with plastic eggs in it.  Under the eggs is a whole bunch of that paper Easter grass stuff.  Miss decided to dump the whole basket out on the floor, multiple times.  That grass stuff was everywhere.  I started getting all antsy about it, but I took a deep breath and told myself to chill out.  Then Miss brought the “grass” up on the couch where I was sitting.  It was in my hair and her hair, stuck to our clothes, in my couch cushions, all over my rug in the family room and the floor in the kitchen.  But you know, once I started really playing with it with her, I stopped caring about the mess we were making.  Miss made “hair” and “hats” out of the grass.  We used strands of the grass to make mustaches and giggled while we tried to arrange our mouths so they would stay in place.  She made lots of “toys” for her Baby Sissy, which she lovingly constructed, described to me (“tiny ball,” “snake,” “thing to put her thumb through,” “headband,” “mustache,” etc.), and then placed on my belly.  It was precious.
I sometimes wish I could be like those moms who are totally laid back about all the different types of messes of childhood.  That I could get out the really good crafty stuff, like finger paints and glitter projects several times a week, instead of my more boring stuff like stickers and crayons.  But, I yam what I yam, and I do always try to grow and to stretch myself, like by telling myself to chill out when a relatively minor mess starts to make my heart flutter, my hands sweat, and my face flush (just kidding, I don’t get quite that freaked out about it).  I’m getting out the Play Doh and the dot markers more and getting ready for another painting day.  I’m really enjoying the girls’ increased interest in helping in the kitchen in spite of the increased messiness it brings.  Childhood is messy.  I love the outdoor messiness.  I’m working on bringing my outdoor attitude about it into the house.

I’m getting there.

The Little Photographer

Posted on by Amy
Quickie post tonight:
As foreshadowed yesterday, my girls got to get outside and play today.

And play they did.

They ran and ran around the yard, especially through the last patch of snow.

Lass fell and got snow on her hands.  She did not like that one bit, and Daddy warmed them up for her. 

They got beautifully wet and dirty and had fits when it was time to come in for lunch and naps.  Hopefully we will have more of the same tomorrow.

Miss got a little camera today.  She has been asking for one.  She was so excited and get right to taking photos of everything.

Her sister.

Herself.

Her Yo Gabba Friends.

And various other artistic subjects.

This one was quite puzzling to us until we realized she had taken a picture of the cover of her Daddy’s “Whitetail” magazine.

I love this one.  She took it while spinning around dancing.

I didn’t edit any of these photos other than to enhance the color on them a bit, as this kid’s camera doesn’t take the best quality photos.  No cropping or otherwise changing the pics.  I love them!  What a wonderful way to see the world through her eyes.  I’m so proud of my little photographer.

The Beginnings of Warm

Posted on by Amy
One week ago, we had this:

Six inches of wet, heavy snow.  Though it was beautiful, it was not really all that welcome.

Today, this is what my front yard looks like.  Hooray.  I’m ready for spring (notice the big sticks still in the ground to mark the driveway when we get lots of snow though…).

It was still pretty cold today, and we still have some snow in our shady backyard, but I think it’s going to warm up this weekend.

I’m not getting my hopes up that spring is here just yet.  It’s not unlikely that we’ll have another snow.  But I am loving the beginnings of warm, with longer days and more sunshine.  I’m hoping that winter will be largely behind us by the time Baby Sis arrives.  These girls are ready to start getting outside again.

The “Bumblebee Hat” 

And I’m a little nervous that I will never get out of the house again once Baby arrives, so I’m thinking that having somewhat warmer weather will at least help in my quest to not be stuck in my house forevermore.

The girls are excited to plant vegetables and flowers in the yard with their Daddy.  I can’t wait to watch them play together outside now that Lass is bigger.  I love this time of year.  So much to look forward to.

38 weeks and Baby Sis is still facing the right direction.  We’re getting so excited to meet her soon!

Lucky

Posted on by Amy
I have neglected my blog terribly the past few days.  Sorry.  I think I’m nesting.  Unfortunately (though fortunate for me, I suppose) nesting during this pregnancy has not taken the form of feeling the overwhelming urge to clean my grout with a toothbrush or take everything out and wash the insides of my cabinets or anything crazy like that.  Okay, let’s be honest here.  I’ve never actually felt an overwhelming urge to do either of those things, even during prior pregnancies (though for the record, I have cleaned my grout with a toothbrush when necessary, but not out of a huge desire to do so).  But back to the point.  Right now for me, nesting = crafting.  I’m going slightly nuts crafting and sewing stuff for my girls’ rooms.  Pinterest is partly to blame, because I’ve gotten some really cute and easy and cheap ideas from things I’ve seen there.  But I’ve run a little wild and have sort of ended up redoing each of my girls’ rooms.  I’ve gotten a lot done, but my craft area (aka dining room table) is a mess of partially finished projects and equipment/supplies just waiting for the next project to start.  I can’t stop myself.

Happily I will have lots of photos to show when it’s all said and done.  If it ever gets all said and done…

The crafting craze has taken place when girls are sleeping.  When they’re awake, I’ve been trying especially to spend as much quality time with my two big girls as possible as we await the arrival of Baby Sis.

I tried to take Miss out on Saturday for a special “date,” just the two of us.  We got all dressed, coats and boots on, ready to head out the door, and she decided she didn’t want to go.  She wanted to stay home with her Daddy and Lass.  I had even mentioned “ice cream” to her in trying to get her to understand that we were going to spend some special fun time together.  Apparently Daddy and Sister rate above Mom and ice cream.  Ouch.  After his past week at home, she is really into Daddy right now.  When we got out the Play Doh the other day she was very excited to make a special piece for him.  We took this picture and emailed it to him.  Then she made him another item that we put in a ziploc so she could give it to him when he got home from work.  She was so proud.

I think the girls are missing him now that he’s back at work this week.  They still love their Daddy time at night though.

Somebody was hiding…

And now to the big news of the day…  I had my version this morning and it was successful!  I am still a little bit nervous that Sis could flip herself back to head up, but for now she is facing the right way and ready to come out any day now. Or in about 3 more weeks, if she’s anything like her sisters.  I have felt like she is getting wedged down into my pelvis, so hopefully that’s a good sign that she’s enjoying her new orientation and planning to remain head down.  I was fearful that I couldn’t be lucky enough to have two versions be successful, but I guess I am.  Of course, I’m lucky in so many wonderful ways, that’s just the tip of the ice berg.  Tonight, I’m remembering just how lucky I am.

Sisters With Style

Posted on by Amy

I love how the differences in my girls’ personalities are really starting to shine.  Lass tends to be more laid back, though she is very feisty and can assert herself very effectively when she wants to.  Miss is a bit more demanding in general, though some of that may certainly be her age.  Miss tends to hang back and observe things, where Lass is more likely to jump right in.  Both my girls are very loving, but Lass tends to be my little snuggler.  And so on.  They are both so funny.

Another way I love to watch their differences is in the ways they express themselves through their style.  Big Sister is pretty much happy as long as she is in a “ballerina costume.”  She is nothing if not consistent, and she would wear a leotard and tights all day every day if I would let her.

She loves to have her finger and toenails polished.  Right now they’re blue.  And up until yesterday, her style included a pony tail.  Every. day.  This kind of makes me sad, because I love her hair and would love to do something different with it, but she doesn’t want anything to do with having her hair down or any other way.  Except yesterday and today.  Right now, she’s letting her hair down, and I’m loving it.

When I insist that she wear real clothes, she doesn’t usually have too much of an opinion about what she wears.  Sometimes she’ll insist on a particular pair of socks, which never match the rest of her outfit.  Sometimes she just requests or picks something blue, which is her favorite color right now.  Sometimes she asks to wear a “pretty dress,” mostly just because she likes to wear tights, I think.

And then sometimes this girl shakes it up entirely.  A chef’s hat and heels?  Naturally.  That’s how I cook dinner every night…
Little Sister’s style is a bit more eclectic.  She loves funky shoes.
She doesn’t really love pajamas in general.  Every morning as soon as she wakes up, she says, “Pants?  Shirt?”  The girls doesn’t want to waste any time lounging in jammies, and of course it’s easier to get into her fun shoes without those bulky footie jammies on.  I got her a pair of two-piece jammies to see if that would curb her demands to get dressed immediately upon waking.  It has worked so far.  She loves her jammies with “pants and shirt.”  This morning she donned some fun footwear right away.
These boots have been the favorite of the last few days.

And she also has a fondness for a great “hat.”

Sister style, side by side.

It will be so fun to go shopping for school clothes and prom dresses with these two someday!

DIY Growth Charts

Posted on by Amy
I have been trying to get a lot of stuff done for the girls’ rooms before Baby comes.  This week was my target week to get things done.  For various reasons, I haven’t gotten as much done so far as I was hoping, but I did manage to finish growth charts for both Lass and new Baby Sis.  
Here is the one I made for Miss about a year and a half ago.  

I made this because I wanted a growth chart for her room, but I could never find one I liked or that would even remotely coordinate with her decor.  Frankly, I thought that most of the growth charts available for purchase were kind of gaudy.  At least those I looked at were.  I didn’t find any kind of tutorial for making my own growth chart, so I pretty much winged it when I did this one.  It turned out quite well, so I just used the same process with the two new ones.  Read on if you’d like to know how to do it.

Here’s what I used to make them:

Two yards of canvas duck fabric. For Miss’s I used white.  For Lass’s and Sis’s I got the natural unbleached color.  This type of fabric comes in various colors, so you can use whatever color you like.

Gesso and a gesso brush (or maybe a roller?) – For Miss’s, because I used the white canvas and wanted the background of the chart to be white, I obviously used white gesso.  You can also buy clear gesso, and that’s what I used for the two I just made to keep the natural color of the fabric (you would of course use clear on a colored canvas too).  I think you can also tint gesso if you wanted a custom color, but I didn’t try this.

Acrylic paint and paint markers to do the actual design, letters, and measuring “ruler” along the side.  Also a set of brushes.

12-inch wooden dowels – 1/2 inch in diameter (2 per chart).

Paint for the dowels – I used off white paint to match the canvas.

Ribbon for hanging the chart – I used 7/8-inch gros grain ribbon.

Two-inch stencils for doing the lettering of the girls’ names.

I got all of the above items at our local Hobby Lobby, so none of it is that hard to find.  For equipment, I used a sewing machine, staple gun, measuring tape, large cutting mat, straight edge, and rotary cutter.

Iron the canvas and then cover an area with gesso about 52-53 inches long and 13-14 inches wide.  The canvas below has two gessoed strips around the same size.

Paint your dowels.  Let the gesso dry overnight and then use your cutting mat, straight edge, and rotary cutter to trim it to 12 inches wide and about 51 inches long.  You might want to make it a bit longer if you think your child will be taller than about 5’10”.  That’s the maximum measurement on each of my girls’ charts, and the extra inches are to allow for folding over the edges to make pockets to slide the dowels in.

Speaking of which, fold the ends over about 1-1/2 inches at top and bottom and sew in place 1/4-inch from the end, leaving two pockets (one at the top, and one at the bottom).  Then slide the dowels into the pockets.  Cut 2 lengths of ribbon long enough to tie at the top and staple them to the back of the top dowel.  Make sure to staple them on an angle so they will be easy to bring together and tie.  Now your chart is assembled and ready to paint.

Use the measuring tape and a paint marker to mark the measurements along the side of the chart.  I started with 2 feet at the bottom and mark 1/4-inch intervals up to the top.  

Then I use the stencils to put the girls’ names at the top of their charts.  I just eyeball the placement of the letters, starting in the middle of each name to get them approximately centered.  Be careful to not use too much paint so it doesn’t bleed under the stencil and make sloppy letters.  I am no artist, but I added my version of “shading” by putting a bit of darker color in a few spots.

After that, the rest is just painting what you like.  As I said above, I am no artist, so I kept it simple with each chart and just did flowers in slightly different shapes and colors to match each girl’s room decor.  Here’s Lass’s:

And Sis’s.

None of them are perfect, but I’m okay with that.  Though I wouldn’t be satisfied with a sloppy end result, I’m okay with some slight imperfections.  That’s what I call “character” and it’s all part of making things yourself for your kids, in my opinion.  If you make a mistake, just gesso over it and try again.  Of if you’re using clear gesso, just find another way to paint over your error.  Lass’s chart has a bumble bee in one spot where I accidentally slipped with some blue paint.  Sis’s has a leaf strategically placed to cover a drip of dark pink.  When I made Miss’s chart, I gessoed some extra canvas so I could practice what I was going to paint.  Do whatever works for you.

My next project was supposed to be making crib sheets for Sis’s crib.  I found these beautiful fabrics when visiting my parents before Christmas.

The whole color scheme of Sis’s room is planned around these fabrics.  Unfortunately, when I went to lay out the fabric to cut it for the sheets, I realized that this fabric is 44″ wide, and the pattern requires at least 45″ wide.  I’m quite annoyed with myself for this mistake.  I did the same thing with the first fabrics I bought to make Miss’s crib sheets, so you’d think I would have checked the measurements before buying this time.  Oh well.  I’ll get it worked out.  I found a few coordinating fabrics at JoAnn’s to use for some other wall decor for the room, so I will head back there and to a local quilting store to see if I can find some fabric that will work with the color scheme and be wide enough.

I’ll use the original, inspiration fabrics for window treatments or something.  Lots to do still with only three weeks until my due date!

Cookies

Posted on by Amy
Recently, Miss has been showing a real interest in helping me in the kitchen.  Every night she comes in and asks to help me make dinner.  I love this.

Not only does she learn some good stuff, about cooking and measuring and following a recipe (or not), but also about the joy of cooking and spending time together in the kitchen.  That’s my favorite part.

That, and the pride she shows in the finished product, hearing her family tell her how delicious her dinner is and being able to taste a yummy dish she helped create.  Her proud smile is priceless.

Tonight, before making dinner, we got decked out in our aprons and baked cookies.

The girls helped measure and stir the dry ingredients,

then the wet ingredients,

Miss painted my finger nails this afternoon 

Lass is smelling the combination of maple syrup and vanilla 

This was her first time cracking eggs.  She loved the feeling of the shell and just kept squeezing and crumbling it.  I had to pry it out of her fingers, very carefully to keep the whole shell from going into the bowl.  I couldn’t stop laughing as she just kept squeezing and squeezing it. 

Miss is a pro at the eggs now and just needs a little bit of help. 

And finally, the chocolate chips get added.  Of course, they have to be sampled first.

Lass was not pleased at having to wait her turn to stir the cookie dough once the chips were added.

Not happy at all.  Don’t worry, she didn’t draw blood.

And she did eventually get her turn.

Her face when she realized we had to bake the cookies before she could eat them:

Dessert after a yummy dinner.

Spending time in the kitchen with my girls is so fulfilling.  Admittedly, I am kind of neurotic about my kitchen, but I really do try to push myself to not worry about stuff and just let them have fun.  I want them to have great memories of cooking.  I certainly have some wonderful memories from today.