An Update on Natalie's Big Girl Room

Kristin has once again pointed out that my blog is a little too boring for her liking.  So here I am.

The only thing I can think to possibly update on is the status of Natalie's room.  Or just Natalie in general, but we'll go for her room this time since I just took pictures of that mess.

Here is a pile of her bedding waiting to get put on the bed, which will happen later today!  I'm pretty excited about that.

The sheets are from Target.  They also have a ''mint confetti'' version that I almost got, but as you will see in the rest of the pictures there is already a lot of mint going on in this room. More than I really planned on originally.  It just sort of happened, but it will work.  I am hoping to get more of the other colors I had in mind worked in there too once all of the furniture is set up the way I want it.

 

The comforter is just one we already had laying around here.  I got it from Urban Outfitters a couple of years ago.  It is for an extra long twin bed, but it will work for now.

 

The afghan is one I made/finished a few months ago.   

This banner is most likely not staying here, or I'm at least going to re-hang it somehow.  I hate the way I did it the first time, but I haven't felt like taking it down and starting over yet.  I bought the doilies on Etsy.  They are cute.

 

 The frame in the background leaning against the wall was another Goodwill find/project.  I only painted the parts that are now green.  I liked the gold that was on it, but not the gross old dirty beige color.  Then I bought a piece of pre-cut aluminum at Menards for $5 that was just the right size for this frame and made a little magnet board for her.  She has one in her room now, but I like this one better.

The buffet is one I found at Goodwill. 

 

Here is a little before and after:

 

It was not in great shape, but we sanded it, used wood filler on all of the crappy parts, added new molding to the bottom below the doors (only one was broken but we replaced them both so they would match) and painted it.  And... I'm kind of in love. 

 

 

I like her little nook with the cushions and curtains I made.  I don't have much of a plan for this area yet, but I want it to be really cute... I'm still thinking.  The IKEA shelf will go in there though.  The curtains are definitely nothing too exciting, but they work.  She already goes and sits on the cushion and looks at books while I sit and stare at her room trying to figure out what to do about the whole situation... Which explains all of the books scattered around the floor.  The random pile of pillows on the floor on the left of the picture have no reason to be in here... they just haven't found a better place to be apparently.

We forgot to buy the bed slats at IKEA, so we had to buy boards for Michael to cut and put in place.  We are also making a headboard for the bed... just an upholstered board. Possibly tufted.  I don't know what color yet... We'll see.

A view from the nook.

Ok well, the mattress showed up before I got this post together, so yay!  I put the bedding on, then realized we were still going to have to make the headboard... so I probably should have waited, but oh well.  It entertained me for about 5 minutes.  And now I can make a better decision about what color I want the headboard to be.

 

It looks like such a little grandma's guest room at the moment... It might look like that when it's done too, but I think it will get much cuter when more decorations get added.  You can see the magnet board much better in this picture though.  I think it's cute.

The colors of the curtain fabric in real life are kind of a mix between what they look like in the picture above and the picture below.  I realllly like this fabric though.

Amy Butler Love Water Bouquet Mint

 

The IKEA shelf all set up and put in place.  Now I need to figure out the rest of this little area.

 

OH!  Totally forgot.  I ordered this rug from Urban Outfitters to go in the nook... it will be here on Monday. 

 

 

 I'm excited.

 

Ok, well that's all of the updating I have to do for now.  It's coming together and I'm pretty happy about that, but it's not turning out ANYTHING like I imagined... which is ok, but kind of weird... I just need all of the furniture in place and the room cleaned out and then I can start adding the cuter decorations and accents.  That will be the most fun part for me.

 

Alright, well this post seriously took like 4 hours, so I need to just be done with it.

 

Hopefully next time I have an update on her room it will be finished! Woo hoo!

 



Fortunate

I have some pregnancy complaints this time around that I did not have with Natalie.  Or maybe I've just tricked myself into forgetting them, but I don't think that's true for most of them... Want to hear? 

Too bad.

1. My legs and feet are swollen and hurt.  A lot.  I still have slightly less than 4 months to go.  And it's going to get hot outside... AND I'm a little afraid of how large and hurt-y they are going to get.  This definitely did not happen with Natalie, and for sure not at only 5 months pregnant.  I walk on our treadmill every day and it's getting harder and harder already.  I basically go pant-less around the house because nothing fits.  Thank goodness it's still chilly enough to wear my awesome robe.
2.  My back. is. killing. me.  I know my back hurt with Natalie, and I think it is actually hurting in the exact same spot, but I didn't have a toddler to carry around last time... Ouchy.  
3. I'm gaining a lot more weight.  Buuuut I am also eating sweets like a crazy person, so I suppose that is to be expected/deserved.
4. I'm a little terrified of being heavily pregnant during the summer.  If my feet and legs are already swelling, how bad are they going to get when it's hot outside?  Yikes.  
5. We are taking a parent/child swim class called "Shrimps" starting next week, and I'm taking a ''Fit for Two'' class on my own also starting next week.  That in itself is not a complaint at all and I'm really excited to get in the water, but me being in a swimsuit??? It's going to be scary, people.  
6. Not necessarily a complaint, but how in the world do you even begin to love another baby as much as you loved your first?  Really?  Michael and I are trying to figure this out and not coming up with any answers :)

Despite all of those silly complaints (and whatever others float through my head throughout the day) I'm pretty freaking happy to be pregnant again.  Also pretty freaking happy to have Michael and Natalie and everything else that I have and don't deserve.  I've got a little tiny girl kicking my belly right now (and another little girl who gets in trouble when she kicks my belly), and I'm finally relaxing for the first time today while watching Scrubs on Netflix and icing my cankles.

Spring cleaning/organizing puts me in a good mood, and I'm feeling really blessed today.

Life is pretty great, so just ignore me when I complain about anything.

Check out Natalie perfecting her new smile:

This is what she does now when you ask her to smile.  It's not so much a ''show me your teeth'' smile as it used to be, and she looks so precious when she does it.  Like she's really trying to pose and knows she's adorable.  Oh man I like her. 

Happy Easter!

We had a pretty great Easter with our little family of 3.5!

We got up and got Natalie dressed in her Easter outfit right away and let her dig into her basket.  Her dress is from Zara that I bought last Winter when it was on sale and it's so stinking cute I can't stand it. The sweater she was going to wear for the day was in the basket, so don't worry we didn't leave her in a sleeveless dress :)

 

She had fun opening all of the eggs, even though there wasn't anything too extremely exciting in any of them.  She did really like the gummy bunnies, her new Elmo Easter book and the light up rings! Oh, and she loves the shoes... I'm happy.

 

 

So happy!

 

 

We played a little bit with her Alex lacing toys, but they are pretty hard for her.  She loves to look at all of the "treats" that came with it though.  She can spot a heart a mile away and there is a heart on a couple of the wooden treats.  She yelled ''heart!'' and it took me a minute to even find it.  She's so stinking adorable, really hilarious and a pretty big smarty pants (only bragging a little bit...).

My lovely ''oooh you got socks!'' face.

She was obsessed with touching my teeth for a while...

 

 

After church, Michael went out and hid a few eggs and she got to run around the yard and find them.  It was pretty cute.  It will be really fun next year when she's a little more into it, but she definitely knew that we were looking for eggs and would say ''egg'' whenever we'd point her towards one.  She did good putting them in her basket too. 

 Her post church outfit... I can't get over how cute she is... Even with her wild hair.

Then she took a nap and we relaxed for a little bit then I made an early Easter dinner that turned out pretty delicious, thank goodness... 

We didn't go all out like this last year, so it was fun for me to get to cook for us all (even though Natalie hardly ate, of course... we'll try again later) and go to church and really celebrate.  And I was so excited for her to open her basket and look for eggs today.  

Dinner/Lunch:

 

Next year will be even more fun with another little girl here to enjoy it with!

Yay Easter! 

He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,  and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. - Luke 24:46-47

Painting with Yogurt

We had a little fun with ''snack'' today and painted with some yogurt.  We did it right after she had decided she was done eating snack actually, but I left her crackers there in case she changed her mind :) I am trying to get Natalie over her picky eating/sensory issues with food or whatever it is... The kid only eats about 5 different foods and it is driving.me.insane.

I bought her finger paints which we haven't tried yet, but today I wanted to see if she'd actually eat some yogurt if I let her play in it. She will never ever eat it from a spoon (or anything from a spoon...) when we try to offer it to her, so today I separated one of her yogurt containers out into 3 different ones and added a drop of yellow, green and blue food coloring to it.

And away she went.

 (I made a comment about her hair being crazy, so she said ''hair'' and had to run her fingers through it with her yogurty fingers)

I didn't have any paintbrushes here that I wanted her chewing on, so we used straws.  I should have just given her spoons I suppose but I thought straws might be more fun.  She definitely did had fun with them AND she even tried some yogurt!  Amazing.  Seriously.  I took about 100 pictures of it because I wanted proof for Michael that she had tried some :)

 

 Her hair is just ridiculous.

I either told her to say ''cheese'' or asked to see her teeth.  They both get this ridiculous face in response.

 Pretty blue hair.

Luckily he made it home in time to see her painting and covered in yogurt.  I actually took this one when he was walking in the door and she was yelling ''oh yeah!'' like she does every day when he comes home.  Adorable.

So it was mostly a success I'd say!  She had fun and she tried some bites of it off of her straw.  PLUS, she even let Michael and I give her a bite of it off of a spoon.  She changed her mind as soon as it was in her mouth so she only got about half of what was on it, but I was impressed she even opened her mouth for us!

She goes to her 15 month check up tomorrow and has finally gained a little bit of weight recently!  We'll see what the doctor's scale says tomorrow.  I know she's still wayyyyy on the low end of the charts, but up until a couple of weeks ago I'm pretty sure she was below 0%.  Crazy girl.

Anyways, we kinda like her.  Here are a few more pictures I took of her on her 15 month birthday on the 17th :)

 (where are your teeth?)

I'm obsessed with this one.  She is the freaking cutest.