Archive for March, 2010

Things I got checkmarks for today!!! =)

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

After a week of beautiful spring weather, we got snowed in this weekend!  Yesterday we did nothing but vegetate all day, but today I got motivated to accomplish all sorts of little things that I’d been thinking about for a while!!  So here’s my list of checkmarks!

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First off, it was a pajama day for everyone!  Here Serenity and I are snuggling in front of the mountain of laundry, some of which had been there for half the week.  It’s all folded and put away, one checkmark!

I had been wanting to change the stuff in my collage frame, and I saw this cute idea online to put your child’s onesie in a frame with a pic and a letter, or shoes and a footprint.  So I decided to display her little green dress and her red shoes, two of my very favorite of Serenity’s wardrobe items from the first year.  Luckily, I’d printed a bunch of random pictures just to have hard copies of some of my favorites, so I had a cute picture to go in there too!!

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That was soo exciting, I decided it was time to finally hang the beautiful scrapbook page frame Abbey gave me.  At the last wii/crop I made this page to go in it.  Isn’t it cute in the office!

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I made some scrapbook pages specifically to go in the scrapbook frame Dad and I built, so I could finally get all of Serenity’s baby book together and in one finished book.  She actually likes to look at these sometimes now so I wanted the book to be bound properly. =)

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I made this banner and two flags to decorate Serenity’s castle at Dad’s house (last night actually).

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Oh, and in addition to this, I made curry soup for dinner and blueberry pancakes for breakfast.  The pancakes have letters spelled out in blueberries.  Serenity thought this was wonderful… but she just pulled all the blueberries out so she could “eat a c!  eat a w!”  Then we refilled them with more berries.  =)  So maybe it was good practice for forming letters… tasty at any rate =)

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I made a place to hang up Serenity’s artwork.  I think eventually I’ll paint or do something fun with the clothespins, but this is just stuff I had on hand to work with =)  This is the wall you see as you come in the door.

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The big accomplishment just now got finished… I finally covered all the brown pillows on our “couch” in the living room.  We’re using this mattress (and eventually hopefully a second one) as a couch/guest bed.  The pillows are actually heavy floor pillows that were covered in a nice dark brown fabric, but Eric has issues with brown and blue together, and I think this looks better with the fabric covered pillows.

Here's a pic of the couch before the new pillowcases... and this is Serenity, who has fallen asleep with no prompting in a place other than her bed or a person for the first time.

Here's a pic of the couch before the new pillowcases... and this is Serenity, who has fallen asleep with no prompting in a place other than her bed or a person for the first time.

Oh!  And I scotch-guarded the “couch” too!

What a good day =)  None of these things took that long (with the exception of putting the stupid zippers in the pillows) but I’d been just thinking about doing them for so long it felt good to take action!!!IMG_8980

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Fun activities =)

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

I’m completely addicted to reading blogs and websites looking for ideas for new activities that Serenity and I can enjoy!  Here are a few of our current favorites!

Our Felt Board:  Eventually I plan to make a more permanent version of this, but just to get started I took a big piece of felt that I had and wrapped it around a canvas.  Then I cut out a whole bunch of shapes for Serenity to play with!  Hearts, circles, stars, squares, etc.  Eventually we’ll use this to make patterns, and stories!  But for now we just talk about the shapes and colors and make pretty designs.  She’s learning a few new shapes… oval and rectangle!  (She surprised me by remembering what an oval is, from her Christmas stickers I believe.  Rectangle is still new though =)

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Yesterday, I finally got some googly eyes and glued them to a circle so we could make The Very Hungry Caterpillar!  I cut out circles in all different colors, and then we put the face on a butterfly that I cut out too =)  Serenity can count how long her caterpillar gets.  =)

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The face can move to the butterfly when the caterpillar grows up =)

The face can move to the butterfly when the caterpillar grows up =)

Ethan and Kiley come every Thursday now, so I try to have activities for us to all do together!  One of the most popular ones was making these suncatchers out of tissue paper that I cut out, and contact paper.  Just give them the sticky paper to decorate, then cover with another piece of clear contact paper to finish.  All the kids loved holding them up to the window to appreciate their creations =)

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Serenity had even more fun later.  I had cut out waaaay too much tissue paper, and she found the box that I’d put it in.  She played with it and asked Eric to “make it rain!”  So she discovered the joy of confetti =)

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I love her serious face here.  She alternated between helpless giggling and a very serious little look as she "made it rain"

I love her serious face here. She alternated between helpless giggling and a very serious little look as she "made it rain"

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Finishing Touches…

Friday, March 12th, 2010

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.

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 =)

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

Before... just a desk

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.

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 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!

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!)