Well, I guess I got a long enough break from remodeling.  I am getting the urge again, so I decided to do a few finishing touches on our beautiful purple bedroom.  I told Eric all about them one morning, but evidently he didn’t take me seriously because he was somewhat surprised when I came home with new curtains and frames that day, and then he came home to a stinky closet (paint smell) and a box with a new fan. I love how it has turned out! Here are before and afters =)

Before... no curtains, tacky ugly fan, and no crown molding...but pretty walls.

After!!! Pretty new curtains and a nice new fan! It has amber glass that matches the curtains and bedding perfectly =)

Before... just a desk

After... new pictures and the silk orchid in the pretty silver vase Andy gave us for our wedding. Plus I switched the scrapbooks for matching ones.

I moved our pretty picture of lavender fields to this wall so we could see it from the bed... originally it was on the wall with the window but the curtains hid part of it.

I repainted the inside of the closet because we ALWAYS leave it open (Eric tried to fix this by getting up and shutting the doors when I mentioned the problem, but they didn't stay shut long. The new fresh paint helped a lot! Also, we underutilized this shelving, so I put some pretty pictures on it to make me even a bit happier for the doors to be open. We don't have a lot of space to display stuff so this is actually really nice!

So those are the things that were most pressing to me… I’m still considering buying a chair to go on the other side of the bed that I can use for a nightstand/desk chair… but I’m in no rush as I can use the little stool we have as a nightstand for that if I’m doing enough on that computer to want it.

Also under consideration… a colorful pillow for the bed, and new hardware for the doors.  (I hate the gold people, I won’t stop till it’s all gone =)  But that will probably wait and be done all at once, probably after Serenity learns to open this kind of doorknob so there’s no keeping her out of anything.  But that’s it for now!!!

(Next to get a few additions… possibly Serenity’s ceiling!)

2/25/10

Serenity loves to snuggle in Mama’s bed.  Whenever she wakes up she always asks for “Mama Bed!”  Recently she’s enjoying snuggling with her face mashed right up next to mine, which is really very cozy =)  She’s been very clingy with Mama this week, which may be a result of my working crazy hours for Valentine’s Day, or it could just be a new phase.  She runs to me when the doorbell rings and wants to be picked up, in case the newcomer might try to steal her =)  She still loves to lean her head against me and say hugs, and now she asks for both hugs and kisses when we’re snuggling and watching SuperWhy.

On Monday, Serenity woke up in a very fun mood. She went down to her window, and said, “shopping, shopping, shopping!”  I asked her what she wanted to go shopping for, and she said “clothes!”  Then I asked her if she wanted new pants, or a new dress, and she said, “new dress!”  It was soo cute.  Then she started asking for Aunt Jennifer, who she knows instinctively is her best shopping ally.  We called her up and went shopping!  We got her two dresses, a purple butterfly shirt, a pair of jeans, and a purple batman shirt!  And, I got two new pairs of jeans too!  It was exciting, and so much fun to enjoy the girlie time together.  She always asks to wear dresses when I ask her what she wants to wear, and usually has an opinion on which of her dresses she’d like to wear as well.

9/9

Serenity is 20 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  I have loved every minute of getting to know this amazing little girl.  She surprises and delights me every day.

Some of her current favorite phrases:

*oopsie-daisy  (she got this from her Daddy I believe =)

*crash! (She seems to like to fall down, and finds it extremely funny)

*yeah! I love that she is generally so agreeable.  She responds to nearly every question, and usually it’s with a yeah!  Did you have fun with Mama?  Yeah!  Do you want some pretzels? Yeah!  Did you get a good nap?  Yeah!

Serenity has so much fun with Daddy! This is one of the outfits we got on our shopping trip!

She is starting to throw minor fits occasionally when she doesn’t get her way.  Usually I have to hide my smile though, because she just kind of flops or collapses on her bottom.  She doesn’t really cry, scream, or yell, it’s more like a dainty little swoon.  Usually she’ll sit there for a minute and then get over it, but if I’m holding her when I say something she really doesn’t want to do (usually diaper time) she’ll try to slip out of my arms.

Eric took Serenity to his boss’s land for a wilderness hike while I was building raised garden beds with Dad last Saturday.  They had a blast, and Serenity walked for an hour and a half!  She loved throwing sticks and rocks in the mud.  After traveling on the path for a while, she happened upon a very cool stick, and she promptly turned back around and said “stick in water!” and walked back to a mud puddle she remembered passing earlier.  The only way to talk her into going home was to say they were going to see Mama.  Serenity was interested in the new beds on our RV pad, and promptly climbed in and said “Daddy too… Mama too… Papa too” until everyone was in the boxes with her.

She often speaks in short sentences now, four or five words long.  She’s still loving the letters, and can now regularly identify about twenty words.  I’m not sure if she quite understands sounding it out, but she’s getting there.  She really likes the Talking Words Factory dvd and they work on that a lot.

Serenity loves to have letters written on this board. She'll say "Mama do it" and then take the board and intently mark over what I wrote like she's tracing it =)

She loves music class, and loves music more all the time.  Her favorite song is clearly Honey, Honey, from Mamma Mia, and she can listen to that song on repeat for a whole 15 minute car ride.  Zippity doo da is in second place.  Lately we’ve been turning on her music class cd and singing and dancing to it, and playing our instruments.  She asks for “more!” after every song =)  Her favorite song from music class is probably the Carmen Cat, which is a song from the opera Carmen, where all the words are changed to “Meow Meow Meow” and then “Ruff Ruff Ruff” for the guys part.

I am so happy to note that we are finally really using our local library!  We go there at least once a week, and check out five or six books for Serenity at a time.  She loves to climb on all the chairs in the kid section, and she picks books for herself sometimes, although mostly I choose things I know she likes, like Biscuit books.  I’ve started getting her the I can read books, because even though they’re like 25 pages the text is simple enough she enjoys it, and I can point out words that repeat a lot.  I’ve been using the library for myself as well, although I usually request the books rather than browse so that it’s easier.

We’ve been spending lots of time with various cousins and friends lately!  One weekend we had playdates three days in a row!  Two with friends from Eric’s work, and one evening with Mike, Kelly, Rae and Carson.  Serenity had a blast!  And I keep Ethan and Kiley one day each week as well.  She likes to greet kids with big hugs now.  It’s so cute, as long as the kid is prepared for it and it doesn’t turn into a tackle.

Serenity playing her board game with Daddy

Serenity loves it when Eric gets in the playhouse with her =)

I made this felt board with shapes as a new game for Serenity. Eventually we'll use it to practice patterns. She already knows all the shapes, except the rectangle is new =)

An activity I saw on a blog, where you let them use straws to blow water around. Serenity loved it, although she had a little trouble controlling the straw. It was fun to make them float too!

2/14/10

Serenity’s Valentine!  I saw a fun Valentine activity online that Eric and I decided to do with Serenity.  We cut out hearts in red and pink paper, and wrote names of people that love Serenity on them.  (Just a few, we certainly couldn’t have done all of them =)  We made a little path so she could find them as she came downstairs in the morning, and they led her to her Valentine, a little red heart full of Skittles (they have an S for Serenity on them, which she loved!) She liked sorting her Skittles into the appropriately colored bowl.  We didn’t have purple so we gave them to her purple horse.    She enjoyed playing with the hearts, and later would run and find the one that said Mama, Daddy, Papa, and Tina when I asked for them.  She could recognize those names!  =)

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!