Thursday, July 31, 2014

Great grandma

A 24 hour trip up to visit great grandma earlier this week with the girls. A lot of work - packing and unpacking, 10 hours in the car in just over 24 - but it was worth it. 

Rest stop smiles.
Grandma P came to help, and to snuggle, of course. Miss A was thrilled to see Winnie. :)
Morning G-G conversations.
Selfie. :)
A long drive along two-lane roads is easier when the weather and the countryside are so beautiful. Grandma said the corn this year is higher than she's ever remembered it.

Nothing on the agenda this weekend. Just the way we like it. :)

Xoxo.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Glaze fun

I completed A's table and chair set up last week by finally finishing the table. Here is what it looked like before:
And here it is now. The chair desperately needed painting, but the table was in okay condition and a nice black color, so I wasn't as sure about taking a brush to it. What pushed me over the edge were the other furniture pieces in A's room. Her biggest, darkest piece is the crib, and I wanted that to stand out. Not an old black cheap side table. I like how the set now blends in while still looking fresh and new.
I used a glaze for the first time, which turned out well. I had read about and seen examples of how a glaze can give a painted piece of furniture a little depth, so i thought this would be a good time to try it. Here is the table top after prime and paint. Pretty basic.
And here is the top after I glazed it with a pre-tinted glaze (it was labeled mocha in color). It kind if muddies up the finish and settles into the lines and imperfections. 
It's not a big difference, but I really like the way it turned out. Glazing was super easy - brush it on all messy and willy nilly, wait a minute or two, then wipe off 90% of it with paper towels until you get the look that you want. A few times I wiped off too much, so I just glopped on more glaze and started again.
A exclaimed "taybuh! Yay!" when I brought it back upstairs, and N said it looked like a piece of fancy furniture from a store. Considering we already had the paint and the table, I'll take those compliments and run with them for the cost of a $15 bottle of glaze.

Another little project checked off the list. :)

Photos from this morning of the princesses...

Happy Monday. :) Off to Great Grandma's house tomorrow!

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Say cheese, mama

I suppose I hold my phone up in front of her often enough that it was only a matter of time until she returned the favor.
After about ten shots like this:
And a handful like this:
She finally got my face in the frame:
I obeyed her repeated SAY CHEESE MAMA requests, until the fine folks in the lighting aisle at Lowe's started giving us odd looks.

This was several days ago, and I had forgotten about it until I just ran into the photos. Gotta love our phones for reminding us about (and documenting) fun little moments in life we might have otherwise lost to mommybrain/busybrain.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Wednesday

Smiles in Tarjay this morning.
And a foray into cookie decorating this afternoon. (She took the job *very* seriously.)
Say cheese! Or, cookie!
She dipped the cookie in the mountain of sprinkles she spilled on the table. Double the sprinkly goodness. :)

Farmstead visit tomorrow with a few new friends from our neighborhood play group. Haven't been since her bday!

Xoxoxo.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Pics lately

A few photos from the past week or so...
Sweatshirt weather! Testing out a neighbors awesome swing. We have visited it almost every day now that she has "found" it. She will swing on her own for a minute or so, then wants to sit on my lap. The tree it's attached to is tucked into the yard, but on a corner...it makes the greatest perch to point out the birds and trees and flowers and big trucks and doggies and walkers. Also, everyone smiles at a mom and child on an old fashioned swing on a beautiful evening, so that's fun too. :)
We are nearing the end of for this round of the bouncy chair and swing. Sigh. Somebunny is getting too strong and rollie pollie.
But she's not big enough yet to escape the allure of Naptime On Mama's Shoulder. Score one for mommy.
A's new favorite naughty: food in the water bowl and water in the food bowl. Juta loves it. ;)
Stretching and looking out the window.
Fish face!
The real reason I go to brunch all the time: the girls steal my babies and I get to eat eggs that are actually warm. Shhh don't tell. :)

Great weekend. Uncle Ryan in town, cool weather, last minute babysitter last night and a fun dinner party with friends, walk and park time this afternoon.
As I type this, I asked her to say cheese. I should have clarified that she say cheese AND stop buzzing around so fast. :)
Xoxoxo!

Monday, July 14, 2014

Finally making progress again

We crossed off House To Do list items like crazy last weekend. In addition to boring-but-important things like fertilizing and de-bugging the yard, buying parts for our broken fence gate, and slowly replacing the 748 can lightbulbs in our home with LED's, I've been working on a couple things in the girls rooms.

Like, making over A's thrift store chair. It looked like this originally,
and after a few coats of paint and new fabric, now looks like this:
She exclaimed "pretty!" when I brought it back up into her room. Sounds like the stamp of approval to me.

Also, her furry friends have new homes, off the floor and out of the way, thanks to three wall-mounted garden baskets. #thankspinterest
She thinks that it's a game that they are up there, so they have all come down and back up again several times in the past 24 hours. Every time she does so, I gasp, thinking that the baskets are going to rip right out of the wall. They are secured with four big wall anchors each, so they aren't going anywhere...I guess we both need to calm down about them. :)
(Colors are off in these pics, took them at night w the flash.)
Me thinks the amnuls look pretty cute up there.

Finally, not related to the girls rooms, but our front door already looks different than it does in these Before pics, and will be even more so after tonight. Dun dun dun.
Can you handle the suspense? ;) #worriedeyes

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Weekend

A lovely weekend at home full of brunching and friends and family time and house projects.

We kicked off the weekend with Friday afternoon coffee. Chocolate milk is chocolate milk at home, but at Starbucks chocolate milk is coffee. And she pronounces the word perfectly, which cracks me up.

Piggie jammies! Amen.

Little fast asleep with Auntie Jamie at girls brunch. Sis just can't hang.

Standin' around with Daddy.

Sunday trip to see amnuls. Rainy day means Cabelas to the rescue.
We laughed later about how we promised our daughter animals and took her to see...dead ones.
The fish were alive, though, so I say that totally counts. ;)

Right before bedtime we let A go to town on the top of a small table we're painting for her room. She noticed right away when I removed it on Friday, and had asked several times since then, "Pent table? Pent table?" Sister wanted to help. It needed to be primed first, and I thought she would really feel like she was painting it with the big contrast in colors. She had the dot dot dot thing down pat (as you can see), so N taught her how to brush in long lines. From then on she repeated bwuss bwuss bwuuuuussssss as she painted.
Sister was having a ball, until...
Daddy started working on the spinny wheel things that she's not supposed to touch but always wants to. And that tooootally beat out mommy's art project. She literally chucked the brush and ran.
Lol.
Happy start to the new week! A few house project updates coming soon. Side tables and wall storage and front doors, oh my! Xoxoxo.