From useless stuff to pillow cases!

Among the things my mom made for the crib is this pillow case.

Well, one of the things that makes Natalie actually want to sleep in her bed is the little pillow.  My mom gave it to her one night, and she loves putting her little head on it!  See?

And as precious as I think that is, it bugs me that it doesn’t match her bedding.  :)  I know – silly.

So I got to thinking about if my mom could make a little pillowcase that would match Natalie’s bedding.  We have the bedskirt and bumper pad, but I hate to cannibalize them if we want to use or pass along the whole bedding set.  So I thought about trying to find some fabric that matched, but then I remembered that I have the valance and the diaper stacker that came with the bedding set.  I didn’t take pictures of mine, but you can see them in this photo of the whole “Mulberry” line.  The valance isn’t long enough for our window, and I like what we have better anyway, and the diaper stacker – c’mon that’s totally useless!  (Okay, maybe there are people out there who use theirs, I just never have!)

So I gave them to my mom, and she came back (I’m not kidding, like two hours later) with these!

 

How perfect are they?!

And Natalie loves them too!

Monday Monday

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I love Mondays!  (Most of the time, anyway)  I’m typically fresh from the weekend, and my energy level is usual at it’s highest for the week.  Most of the time we don’t have any agenda so we play catch-up around the house: laundry, cleaning, dishes.  Since it was just Sunday and the Tuesday meeting hasn’t happened yet, there’s no bulletin to work on.  Today we had Natalie’s 18 month well-check at 9:50, but we still managed to get a few things done first.  I hung a couple of loads of laundry outside while the girls played in the dirt.  :)

After Natalie’s last visit to the doctor, I did some prep with Joanna before hand.  There isn’t much to do to prep Natalie; although we did talk about it.  Her sister, Dr. Joanna, is always using her to play doctor too.  Anyway, last time Joanna cried and cried because Natalie cried and cried which made Natalie cry and cry harder.  So Joanna and I talked a lot about how we had to be brave for Natalie and make her feel better, even if she was scared.  I think it was a big help.  Joanna kept her cool and was a big helper.

Natalie weighs 23lbs 6oz and is 30 1/4 inches tall.  Her head circum. is like 18 something inches.  It’s written down but far away.  She’s in about the 15th percentile for height.  Dr. Harper said she’ll never be tall.  :)  And she’s closer to the 50th percentile for weight.  A little chunky monkey!  Her weight jumped between 15 and 18 months.  If you’ll remember, so did Joanna’s!  18 months is when she finally made it on the growth chart.

See the little scrape on her knee in the pictures above?  She’s discovered she can give her “owie” kisses.  And she does anytime it catches her eye.  It’s so precious!

We brought crayons and trains to play with on the table.  Joanna LOVES sitting on Dr. Harper’s chair.

Natalie still cried at this visit (often), but it wasn’t that horrible “you’re killing me” cry, and I was able to calm her down in between things that made her cry.  One thing that made her stop was that I asked her to “give me five” after Dr. Harper messed with her.  She even gave Dr. Harper “five!”

It sure wore her out though; she crashed on the way home.

After the check up, we went to Wal-Mart (for hopefully the last time for awhile!) and got a set of sheets for Joanna’s bed.  I debated between a very pretty blue color and the grey that matches the bed skirt.

 

I opted for the grey.  It was cheaper, and I do so love to match.

I think it looks good on the bed, and this little girl likes it!

Snuggling up under the covers!

She’ll be there for real soon – almost bedtime!

I no more than put the sheets on the bed than my sister called.  She found my quilt!  For whatever reason, it was at her house.  I’m not sure Joanna will give up her little girl quilt (not that Kathryn needs it back anytime soon); my quilt is pretty plain in comparison.  I’m excited she found it though.  It was making me crazy that I couldn’t remember what happened to it!

The big bed!

I was getting antsy, so we got everything together for Joanna’s bigger big girl bed this weekend.

Matt brought in and assembled the frame we had in the garage.  This was Matt’s bed when he was living with his folks after the accident.

We’re using a mattress that I’ve had for too long so we got a cover for it.  Eventually we’ll invest in a new mattress.  Until then, this one’s really comfy and perfectly clean with the cover on it.

Covered with the quilt from Auntie Kathryn, it’s perfect!

We picked up a mattress pad and a bed skirt today.  The quilt’s not really white so we opted for a grey bed skirt.  The point of it is to cover up the ugly box spring and blend in.  I think it does that.  We also picked up a set of sheets, but we didn’t have the quilt with us.  The sheets are going back tomorrow.  They’re a very pretty color but do not go with the quilt.

Joanna LOVES sleeping in her big bed.  She also loves reading there and playing there.  And it fits way more babies and blankets than the little bed did.  :)

Almost Moved Back In

Before I head to bed, I thought I’d post what the room looks like as of quitting time.

From the doorway:

 

Joanna’s new bed will be against that wall (not the window wall).  You can see her “new” quilt laying on the floor.  It looks wonderful with the blue.  The quilt was Kathryn’s when we were younger.  I can’t find mine.  I’m a little worried I don’t have it anymore.  I’m still hoping I may run across it at some point, but Kathryn said Joanna could use hers for the time being.  In a perfect world, I see myself making (or maybe just commissioning) a quilt for each of the kiddos as they grow out of baby beds.  But maybe not…

Natalie’s spot for now, soon to be left behind for the toddler bed.

The toddler bed (which Joanna is sleeping in at this moment in the playroom) will go under the window, back where it was.  I joked with Matt that I wanted to try and move her while she was sleeping, bed and all, back into her room.  We decided against it.  :)  It would be good for the room to air out a little bit more anyway.  I actually opened the window in there for about an hour and that really helped with the smell.  It probably did not help our energy bill though.

Good night!  I’m hoping to get the room pretty much all the way back together tomorrow.  I don’t have Joanna’s new bed yet, but I want to tackle everything else.  I do want to get her moved over the the “big” bed pretty soon though.  Then we’ll work on Miss Natalie.  I wonder if she’ll transition to the toddler bed as easily as Joanna did?

Day 5 (Hopefully the last) of Painting and Father’s Day

I didn’t take any painting pictures today, but there wasn’t much to it, either.

I touched up some around the ceiling where I thought the paint looked a little streaky and Matt did a second coat on two of the walls.  The other walls looked pretty good, which is fortunate because we ran out of paint!  We have a tiny bit left for touch ups in a jam jar (and of course we can always go get another gallon if we decide to recoat the other two walls), but the can is now empty!  I really like how it turned out, and I’m excited to get the room put back together.  I’m hoping Matt will help me move furniture back into the room tonight so I just have to scootch it tomorrow while he’s at work.  Or maybe I can call him in sick and hide his keys.  :)

I’ll post more pictures when the furniture is back in and the window dressings are up and maybe even some stuff is hung back on the walls.

Today of course was also Father’s Day!  Happy Father’s Day to my Dad and Matt’s Dad and to Matt!

We went to church this morning before heading to Mamma and Pop’s to celebrate Father’s Day with the family.  We had BBQ – yummo!  And chips and queso and cake and tea.  Ahhhhhhh…

This morning before church were the only pictures I took today (unless you count the picture of the paint label I took since we’re not keeping the can).

The girls and I gave Matt a few treats for Father’s Day.  Really, everything’s from the girls, but since they can’t drive, I had to help.  :)

 

They gave him some of his favorite coffee (super extra dark plus or something) and some shaving gel.  :)  Natalie also gave him a new picture insert for his coffee mug.  The last one didn’t have any pictures of her on it, so she had me help her make a new collage.  Joanna gave her Daddy a gift card to the new movie theatre to they can go see Toy Story 3 together on a date!

We love you very much Matt!  I sure am glad my girls have you.  And I’m glad you’ll have testosterone reinforcements soon.  :)

Painting Day 3 and 4

I didn’t take any pictures yesterday (Friday), but we prepped the kids’ room for blue paint.  Matt and I decided we liked the splotch on the wall enough to head to Sherwin Williams for a gallon of “Upward” in the Harmony paint (no VOC), flat finish.  I thought about going Satin/Semigloss, but our walls are so bad that any shine shows all the imperfections.  That’s not really what I want to dwell on in my babies’ room.

Anyway, then after the girls went to bed (still camping in the playroom), I layed drop cloths, spackled some, taped the baseboards, moved out the furniture, took down the window coverings, dusted some cobwebs, and covered the crib with plastic.  So right now the girls’ dressers are in the middle of the living room. :)  I also decided that drop cloths are kind of like scrapbooks.  It’s neat to look back at the different colors and think of all the things you’ve painted.

This morning I let myself sleep in and have a pretty leisurely morning.  Then we decided Matt should start painting first.  He’s the roller-man.  The girls and I ran to the store and fixed lunch while he painted and painted.

Matt multitasking:

 

Isn’t he cute?  Just watching him roller makes my arms hurt.

Then after the girls and I ate lunch, Matt ate lunch, and the girls ate second lunch while I did some cutting-in. 

Dude, I almost didn’t post these pics.  The sweatpants are very bad for my figure.  And yes, I know that’s pretty vain.  :)

I like using the dining chairs as my step-stools.  They’re very sturdy, I don’t mind if I get a little paint on them, and I can line them all up and walk from one to the other all the way down the room.  For painting, though, I wish they were about two inches taller.

Matt finished his rollering, and I cut in all the way around the room.  I layed on the floor some to do the baseboards.  There’s really not a good position to paint along the bottom of the wall while pregnant.

I can tell I’ll need to do some touching up, and I may have Matt do a second coat.  It does look really good though.  I was thinking we’d need a second coat, but looking at it this evening, I’m not sure.  I think we have enough paint to, so we might as well, but it dried really nicely.  We’ll look at it in the daylight tomorrow.  I know I have some streaking along the ceiling where I just didn’t quite have enough paint on my brush, but that should be easy to fix.

I think the room is going to be so calm and beautiful once all the furniture is back inside and everything’s redressed.  Yay!

I was downloading pictures, and I saw these next two, but I didn’t remember taking them!  Then I realized Matt must have had my camera when I was showering off all the blue paint.

Isn’t she AMAZING?!

I could just eat this child up.  But then I wouldn’t have her anymore, and I would be very sad.  But still…  Look at this face!  (And ignore the dirty paint clothes and books all over the floor).  :)

Painting Day 2

This isn’t a painting picture, but she’s so cute!  And no, she’s not sitting in a pile of trash, that’s some recycling that isn’t in the bin.  She was fussing until I pulled out the camera.  Then she said “cheese!”  Love that girl.

This morning I decided I really did not like the “Honest Blue” we painted yesterday.  It’s a pretty color, very baby blue-ish, but it’s really not what I want for the space.  It came out much bluer than the color sample card thingie.  so I headed back to Sherwin Williams with my trusty helper Joanna to try and find something greyer and dustier.

I came back with a ton more cards and a sample can of “Upward.”

Here it is next to the other blue:

And by the green valance:

 

And all by itself: 

The pics of the paint aren’t great – oh well.  We definitely like it better than the first blue, enough even to paint a huge section of wall.   Pics at the end of the post.

This evening before she went to bed, I let Joanna get in on the painting action.  She’d been wanting to so badly.  She’s in her panties because she’s three and holding paint.  I’m posting a lot of pictures because she just had so much fun!

Then I made her get her jammies back on to take a picture by her work.  She kept moving.

“Don’t touch the wall!”  She’s checking to make sure she doesn’t have paint on her fingers.

“Point to your stripes.”

Then a preggo pose by the blue.  I thought it would give you a better idea of the color if you could look at skin and clothes and stuff.  It was dark outside by this time so the light’s not great.

 

Here it is with the quilts in the view.  The color doesn’t really look quite like itself in this picture.

 

A wider shot.

I put another coat of primer on the boxes.  You can’t tell from the picture, but they’re still peeking through.  If it was a solid color wall I was covering, I’d leave it at this, but I really don’t want those boxes showing through so I’ll do one more coat tomorrow.

Nobody’s showed up to look at the paint on the wall.  What’s up, people?  I really won’t make you pick up toys or clean the kitchen.  Really.  I’ll even give you a slice of homemade bread.  I just made a couple of loaves using my new Kitchen Aid mixer today!