Hurray Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-Treating was a success. Taking pictures? Not so much. Girlfriend was not impressed.

After she got into character, though, she lighted up a little bit and we got a few smiles out of her. I thought for sure she'd love waving the pom-poms around but nope! This was the only time she held on to them. Justin was jumping around like a crazy person behind me so I could get a few shots of her with her props. After she was done, she threw them to the ground to go find her baby doll.

After we got home, she immediately started digging through her pumpkin to find the best candy. She didn't waste anytime finding the Smarties and going to town...

And because I can't even handle how much she's grown and changed in one short year...

For kicks, you can find our Halloween 2013 recap here and because that mummy costume was kind of a bust, Halloween 2013 Part Two here!

Big Girl Room {Reveal}

This room. Months in the making. A labor of love. So much paint.

I love it. I'm glad it's done, but I love it.

I had a vision thanks to Pinterest and it turned out better than I could have hoped. That's not to say I didn't hit a few speed bumps along the way - the step-stool itself was painted three times before I got it right and I had a mini meltdown when I couldn't get the damn shelves level. Justin saved me and got them hung up using an actual level (duh) and humored me when I needed wanted to get my list of projects done rightthisminute.

I tried to find a "before" picture of this room but everything I had was of terrible quality. It used to be our "OU Room" with one crimson red wall and Sooner paraphernalia everywhere. It was dark and not suited for a sweet little girl. My solution was to paint everything white and light and pink. But not too pink...

A list of projects, if you dare take a trek down memory lane with me?

• Painted the trim and doors white
• Painted the walls Pastel China by Behr
• Refinished the dresser (so many coats of paint...) + added new hardware
• Painted Jenny Lind bed frame white - a steal off Craigslist!
• Replaced the outlets, light switches and plate covers to white (instead of 1980's yellow)
• Spray painted the ugly gold ceiling fan which is now metallic silver (and turned the blades over so the darker wood was showing)
• Spray painted the step-stool (blue, then green, then coral...)
• Spray painted the Ikea spice racks posing as bookshelves white
• Spray painted black Dollar Store frames white to house the vintage paper dolls. Side note: I may or may not have a thing for spray paint now... Must. Spray. Everything.
• Refinished the old rocking chair
• Painted custom canvasses + played with gold leaf
• Made "sonogram" picture

And the biggest project of all: clean out the 'effing closet. The closet was a hot mess that included boxes, wrapping paper, miscellaneous craft-like items, college textbooks, luggage and my wedding dress hanging front and center. It was our "catch-all" closet and, unfortunately, most of the crap has been moved next door to our other spare bedroom where it will stay until I get the motivation to re-do that room, too.

Any-who, back to G's room. I'm exhausted just reading that little list above. If I had to paint one more thing in order to get this space finished I was going to lose it. It paid off though, it's just so pretty now. My fave room in the house...

Picture Display 

Ainsley Quilt by Laura Ashley via Zulily

Vintage Paper Dolls c/o my mama :: Picture Frames
"Let Her Sleep" Canvas handmade by my mama (inspiration here)

Rocking Chair Seat Cushion :: Custom Pink + Gold Leaf Art (inspiration here)

Step Stool

Sonogram Picture Frame (similar here)

Coral Storage Basket

Book Shelves

Video Baby Monitor via Diapers.com

Lamp Shade :: End Table

Storage Ottoman (similar here)

Now, who can give me suggestions on how to transition Gracyn into this big beautiful room? I'm nervous to move her out of the crib. My goal is to have G in this room and the baby in her own nursery (and everyone sleeping through the night) by the time I go back to work in March. Fingers crossed!

Until then, I'll just sit on the floor in the middle of the room and admire my handiwork. Ha.

Gracyn :: 21 Months

Age: 21 months old. I did an update at 18 months and wasn't going to do another one until she turned two but she's just too cool to not e-brag about her... ;)

Stats: I don't know the official numbers but she feels really heavy when I lug her upstairs, downstairs and when I'm trying to get her loaded into the car. I'm gonna guess 25-27 pounds? But it feels like wayyyy more. Could be my massive pregnant belly and the fact that I get winded walking across the room but still.

And she seems really tall all of a sudden because she can always, always, always reach the forbidden object of her affection - even when I swear I put it in the middle of the table or towards the back of the counter.

Clothes: Mostly 24 month stuff

Favorite Foods: She's become a little more picky the last few months but she's still a pretty good eater for the most part so I can't complain. She loves yogurt via the go-gurt tubes she can squirt into her mouth on her own. Half the time it ends up on her shirt instead but she still loves it. And if she eats a french fry before she eats any other item on her plate, she will only eat french fries for the duration of the meal.

Favorite Toys: Gracyn is still a little mama - always taking care of her babies. Rocking them "nigh-nigh", feeding them their bottles (botters), changing their diapers.

Words: Pretty much all the words. Seriously. She talks so much and I'm so amazed that we can understand most of what she's saying.

She'll string 3 or 4 words together and she will for sure tell you what she wants or what she wants to do. We've also hit an independent streak - who needs mom and dad these days when you can do everything by herself?!

"I hold (hode) it", "I get it" , "I do it" , "I walk" , "I hiding" , "I running"

She minds her manners for the most part and I'm so proud when she'll say "please" (peeeez) , "thank you" (tank-you) and, most recently, "you're welcome" (you we-come) on her own.

Oh, and my heart literally exploded the first time she said "bless you, mama" (ach-oo, mama) after I sneezed.

The biggest development as of late, though, has been her interest in the potty. Our daycare provider has Gracyn and two other kiddos that are all ready to start potty training so they've been working on it a little bit here and there. A couple of weekends ago, she randomly came up to us saying she had to go potty. "I go pot-teee!" and sure enough, she went. She had a dry diaper all afternoon after coming to us every 45 minutes or so asking to go potty. I have big girl undies ready to go whenever we get brave enough to ditch the diapers during the day. I'm sure she'll do great. She's pretty much a rockstar, after all.

My sweet girl, you are truly the best. Daddy and I love you more than words. Sissy does too and she's  already so lucky to have a big sister like you.

Nursery {Revamp}

I took the day off today to get some of my projects checked off my never-ending "To Do" list. One of those things included revamping the nursery now that Gracyn's new room is all put together. Don't you worry, a blog post dedicated fully to that transformation will be coming soon. 

G is still sleeping in here because I'm a chicken and haven't attempted moving her to a big girl bed yet but the rest of her stuff has been moved down the hall. 

I wanted to change up this room a little bit to make it feel like it belonged to the new baby. She's already getting the shaft with all of the hand-me-down furniture and clothing (hello, second child!) I love the color of the walls and the trim had already been painted so I didn't have to do any cosmetic changes but here is what's different for bebe #2..

{ONE :: Musical Furniture}

I rearranged layout of the room's furniture. I love rearranging rooms and don't get to do it often enough. A little change-up is good for the soul every once in a while.

{TWO :: Color Scheme}

If you can even call it that. G's nursery was supposed to be gray + yellow. It really turned out to be more gray + a mashup of all the other colors and that was OK. For this baby, I wanted to add purple in with the gray for some reason. Again, mix it up a little bit and make it feel like "her" room. It's still mostly gray and even though that blanket looks pink, I assure you it's leaning towards the purple side in person.

It's a work in progress, I suppose. I still want to get a light purple changing pad cover and light purple sheets for the crib too.

{THREE :: Custom Artwork}

I'm basically a professional artist now. After I painted a few canvasses for G's new room, I had the itch to make something for the new baby too. You can see my p-inspiration here...

I love how they turned out even though making the flowers out of yarn with my hot glue gun was a major pain in the ass...

{FOUR :: Sonogram Pictures}

I made one of these for each girl. Pardon my sloppy edges but I went the fast, cheap and easy route with these and just made copies of my sonogram pics on my printer at home. I cut them free hand and glued them to scrapbooking paper, threw it in a frame and called it good.

I have a profile and a picture of a foot for both Gracyn and this baby so I thought it'd be fun to frame 'em and hang 'em in their rooms.

{FIVE :: Lullabies}

Another pinterest project from back in the day... These sweet lullabies have been hanging in the nursery since before Gracyn was born but they used to be mounted on pink paper. A quick change-out for purple paper and these were good to go.

I suppose this can qualify as my "Five on Friday" post? In that case, I'm linking up with April, Christina, Natasha and Darci and the rest of the gang...

Happy Weekend!

Painting Pumpkins

We're getting into the Halloween spirit over here. I'm addicted to spray paint these days and decided to paint the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch last weekend. Then I decided to be brave and let Gracyn help me. She did surprisingly well with her first go-around with a paint brush.

Maybe she will be my crafty little sidekick after all!