Nursery Paintings

This is another very long overdue post. When we moved into our condo I wanted to have decorations to hang above Lindy's crib. I was thinking I wanted wall hangings that matched her crib bedding, but it didn't come with any. So I decided to paint my own. I got canvases from JoAnns that were already stretched (and 50% off! Woot!), paint from WalMart and freehanded them. I really love how they turned out.

Lindy's bumper pad complete w/ Lindy's ear in the picture

I actually only got one shade of pink, green and purple for all of these. I just used white and black to change the shade. It worked out very nicely.

Lindy sat in her bumbo on the table the whole time I did these. She hadn't yet learned to crawl (like I said, LONG overdue) so she didn't know she was confined in her seat and was SO good. She just sat, watched & babbled at me. It was wonderful.

Now to paint her bedroom walls...I seriously need to get my house all painted before my sister leaves on her mission and I don't have an all-day free babysitter.

Spaghetti

Tonight my mom texted me and told me that Lindy loves spaghetti. She's watching her since I'm sick. Anyway, it reminded me of the first time Lindy had spaghetti. I just had to share. I was feeding her while trying to do a million other things so Allan told me that he'd feed her. Apparently Allan's definition of feeding Lindy is putting the bowl on her high chair tray and walking away. *rolling eyes* I returned to see this:


Sadly I'd already stripped her clothes off before this picture. At first I was angry with Allan for not feeding her, but another look at Lindy and all I could do was laugh. It was worth the mess for a picture of her face. It's even in her hair and on her eyelids! I put her in the tub and after I drained it, there were red floaties in a ring around the tub. HAHAHA! The joys of parenting.

Sick

I've been so sick for the last couple of days. Last night I had a fever of 102. I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a fever. Granted, I also can't remember the last time I felt this sick - it was probably the last time I had a fever. Go figure.

Luckily for me, my family lives close and my wonderful little sister came down today and watched Lindy all day long so I could rest (and keep my distance from her). When she had to go to work, she took Lindy so my family could watch her until Allan gets out of school. So basically, I have had nothing more important to do than lie around all day. It's driving me crazy.

I think the 2nd worst thing about being sick (2nd only to the fever, chills, congestion, headache, body aches and fatigue) is having to rest. While I do love to sleep, lying around all day drives me insane. I can only pray that I'll never be on bed rest for anything. I think I would die. I'm too much of a busybody. My mom (whom I get the trait from) knows this and has been texting me all day reminding me to rest, even pleading occasionally. I've been on the couch for the last 3 hours and so now I'm going to blog like crazy to keep me occupied. Beware.

P.S. Lindy was really sick a couple of weeks ago. She was throwing up and had diarrhea. Let me tell you, at least 3 diarrhea blowouts a day is NOT fun. We finally had to give her baths everytime instead of wiping her because her little bum was so raw. Poor thing. She lost quite a bit of weight. Check this out:


So sad! Her eyes look so hollow and her face is so thin in this pictures. She'd also had blow outs in all the extra outfits I had packed that day (2) so she was wearing one of Chelsea's tanktops. It took a week to get over. Luckily she's put all her weight back on and looks great now.

Miranda's Quilt

Back when we first moved back from Texas in fall of 2009 (Yep, this is a very long overdue post), I was despairing over my lack of fabric because I wanted to quilt so badly. Miranda gave me a bunch of fabric she'd had for a couple of years because she knew she'd never use it. I remember when she got it. She LOVED the fabric and yet was giving it to me. (Have I mentioned what a GREAT friend she is?) I couldn't dream of taking it until I had a very clever idea. I would take it and pretend that I was using it for a baby quilt for Lindy (who wasn't born yet) and then make a quilt for her instead, since that's what she originally wanted. Brilliant!

I used the Slide Show pattern from Atkinson Designs. I think it worked perfectly. I kept texting her pictures of my progress (until it got too big & she'd know it wasn't a baby quilt) to see what she thought. Before Christmas I took it to her. She looked so confused when she opened it. She thought it was for my baby. It took her a little while to figure out that it was actually for her and that I'd tricked her. Ha ha! I wanted to quilt it for her, but my machine went all wonky so I couldn't. I gave it to her unfinished & then Brad took it in to be quilted several months later (because I'm a loser & never actually did it). I don't have pictures of it all finished & quilted (hint, hint Miranda - I'd love a finished picture) but I do have pictures from the day I gave it to her.


The squares are from the Freckles line by Free Spirit. So cute! The rest is just white on white and an aqua small floral pattern for the border. None of them are solids like they appear. I love how it turned out.

Oh ya, I forgot to mention that Brad was totally in on this with me. He payed for all the extra fabric & batting I needed and I made it. We make a great team.

"New" Kitchen Table

A long time ago, (does this sound like a storybook beginning?) I got a table off of KSL for super cheap. It was super ugly (hence it being cheap), but it was solid wood, had a leaf in the middle and had 6 chairs. The plan was to sand it, paint it black and then reupholster the chairs. It sat in storage for many, many months - first at Allan's mom's house and then in our extra bedroom.

After I got my piano, I realized I needed to get the table out of the bedrooms so the piano could fit in there. I got to work!...and made a complete mess of the extra bedroom.


Never had I been so motivated...until I started sanding the chairs. I grossly underestimated the work in sanding chairs. It was such a pain. I got discouraged and stopped. Even now, if I never sand again, it will be too soon.

But alas, a friend was coming into town and staying at our house so the table had to be finished so she could stay in the extra bedroom. That's when my wonderful mom told me that she & my sister were coming to help me with it. Aren't the great?! It was just the jump start I needed. My sister & her friend finished sanding the chairs (I just couldn't bring myself to do it) in the bedroom and my mom and I painted in the kitchen. It was a full house project!


After all the painting was finished, I went to Home Fabrics (LOVE that store!) and got this to reupholster the chairs:

So pretty!

When I pulled off the ugly fabric from the seats, I found an even uglier fabric! The seats had already been reupholstered once before! I can see why!

EWWWW!

But the seats are now reupholstered (did I mention that I also LOVE my new staple gun?) and look fantastic!

And after a couple coats of polyeurethane...

VOILA!

A beautiful, high-end looking table...for cheap!

You may be wondering why the leaf is not in the table and why there are only 4 chairs when I said I got 6. Well, like I said earlier, I really, truly HATE dislike sanding the chairs. Therefore, there are only 4 chairs for now. Maybe someday I'll tackle the other 2. I still consider this completed.

Yes, I know it totally clashes with my blue walls, but that is my NEXT project.

To be continued...

Ow!

I just had to share a funny story about Lindy. These are the things I want to remember. Today I was using the bathroom and Lindy crawled in and came up to me. She saw my pump site in my thigh, grabbed it, and pulled. I wasn't expecting it so I yelled, "Ow!" She then grabbed it again and said, "Ow!" She did this numerous times until I could finish my business & get my pants up & my site covered. I swear, the girl grows more arms while I'm trying to restrain her two! It hurt, but it was so funny that I couldn't be angry. Babies really are like sponges. Good thing all I said was "ow!" :)

Chocolate

Miranda, being the bestest best friend that she is, got me some gluten free chocolate dipped wafer cookies this week. Not thinking, I left them on the floor in the living room when I went to...do something around the house. Lindy found them & figure out how to pull them out. She obviously enjoyed them.


I love the "Mommy, I didn't eat your chocolate" face. Once again, I couldn't be mad. All I could do was laugh.

Scalped!

As we were getting ready to leave Colorado, I told Allan that I was going to to upstairs and get a wet washcloth to get the bow out of Lindy's hair. (I stick it in with Elmer's glue. All you need is H2O to get it out.) Allan decided that using the "band-aid method" would be much faster. Lindy looked totally shocked for about 2 seconds and then started screaming. Looking at the picture below, I don't blame her.


At first I was totally horrified. Then on the way home, when I was texting my mom about it, I couldn't stop laughing. I literally laughed until I cried. Allan scalped Lindy. See?

Can you tell where the bow was? HAHAHA!

Trip to Colorado

At the end of January, we went out to Colorado Springs to surprise Mike & Megan. We called Meg's dad beforehand to see if they'd be around. We were a bit nervous that the secret would be let out, but they were definitely surprised!

We had so much fun! Allan and Mike played video games all week long. Allan was in heaven. Meg and I made lots of new hair bows for Lindy (see next post about one of them) and talked about how we need to live closer together so we can be crafting buddies. We also went to Meg's brother's and sister's basketball games (Mike is the asst. coach for her brother's HS team so that was even better) and played Ticket to Ride and Bohnanza (we just had to teach them!) over and over. In all the times we played, I think I only lost once, maybe twice. It was awesome! And of course, I had to do some coupon shopping out there since they doubled the value of coupons. I scored some AWESOME deals!

Lindy was SO good for the whole trip, even the long drives. We're really lucky. She loved everyone and was very social. It was a nice break for me because everyone loved her and took her so I didn't have to for the most part.

And of course, Allan and I just had to go dancing out in Denver. It was so great! We got to see our wonderful friend, Nate. We miss him so much. And Denver dancing is fantastic. I think my favorite part was when I was dancing with a guy who was really good and we were having a fantastic dance and I was feeling all cool...then my knee gave out (happens all the time - stupid joints) and I totally fell on my butt. Yeah, not so cool after that. Talk about a lesson in humility! LOL! All I could do was laugh.

We ended up staying for almost 1 1/2 weeks. It wasn't our intention, but a big storm hit. Sadly, when we left, we ended up driving in it anyway. What is normally about an 8-9 hour drive was a 13 hour drive. But we made it home safely and were happy to be able to spend so much time with them.

We played so much and had so much fun that I completely forgot to take pictures. Hey Meg, will you send me whatever pictures your family took on your phones? :)