Sibling love

C is in timeout for not listening, she is to sit quietly for 3 minutes. M is sitting beside her in solidarity.


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The Rooster's Roost

After we finished up M's room, we turned our attention to C's room. C's room was a little bit trickier for a couple of reasons: I knew I wanted to incorporate roosters (each of the girls has a animal nickname, C's is rooster) and I already had a couple of pieces that I wanted to incorporate into the redesigned room, but I didn't have a clear picture in mind for the color scheme or any of the patterns. For awhile I kept going back to a comforter that GG had made for C's toddler bed, but the big picture just wasn't coming together...luckily C decided that week that her favorite color was purple so we used that as a jumping off point and started exploring.

We settled on a shade of 'grape' and a shade of 'lavender' paired with chocolate brown & oatmeal and added in a few red accents. The room was originally a pale yellow, so we knew the walls would change. Brett's parents very sweetly painted the base colors on all of the walls: a creamy tan (oatmeal) for 3 and lavender for the 4th.

Since her room is on the small side, I knew I wanted to do a horizontal stripe on one of the long walls to provide a visual extension. I used the lavender accent wall and added a grape stripe. I am thrilled with the result!



Brett's mom mixed and matched the bedding from Pottery Barn Kids and The Company Store. All stuffies on the bed were preexisting favorites (Brutus from my mom, Sam sock monkey from a friend of mine and Foofa from Memaw)



C shares the initial of her first name with both of her grandmothers and I definitely wanted to incorporate a 'C' somewhere in the design. This awesome painted wooden letter is from etsy. One of the final finishing touches will be to add framed photographs of my mom & Brett's mom to flank the 'C'



Brett's parents very generously passed along this family rocker when C was born. The existing fabrics didn't work with the new concept so Cheryl & I took a trip to a local fabric store where we found a purple ticking and had the rocker reupholstered!



We added this lamp from Brett's parents' house where it was not being used...I I like it a lot, but we may replace it. The framed photos on the wall are ones that Brett's sister took while we were on a family vacation. The rooster figurine is from etsy. The framed pic of my mom will be reframed and relocated to the 'C' wall. The snow globe was a birthday gift to C from my mom and has pictures of our family inside along with a personally recorded message.



Above the chest of drawers we hung a French memo board (etsy) and a shelf from a local consignment shop. Cheryl found the rooster bookends (etsy) and a purple rooster decal (etsy) that I perched above C's door.



C has already found a couple of things to pin to her board!



The rooster & chicken bookends.



Cheryl found this rooster print and had it matted & framed locally. The red flower hooks were something I picked up from Pier 1 last year.



I absolutely love how it all came together and am so grateful for all of Cheryl's help researching and hunting for the perfect pieces. C is very happy with the room and all of her roosters...although her favorite color has changed approximately 12 times since the redecoration! Typical kid.

A Parade of Elephants

For my birthday I asked Brett's mom, Cheryl, if she would help me redecorate the girls' rooms. She accepted the challenge and I shared with her the ideas floating around in my head. M's room is pretty big so we have a twin bed in there in addition to her crib and wanted to coordinate the bedding. M's animal is an elephant so I knew I wanted to incorporate elephants into the design. Playing off of a grey elephant, I thought back to some pictures I had seen of a beautiful wedding done in yellow, white & grey. We brought in some teal accents to add a pop of color.

Brett's parents were kind enough to paint while the girls were at school and Brett & I were at work during the week. We came home one afternoon and the painting was all done! 3 walls in grey and the fourth in a bright and friendly yellow.



Cheryl found a lot of our pieces on etsy - the bedding was a custom request, the throw pillows coordinated perfectly from another etsy vendor and the puppet adds a cute touch of whimsy to the bed post.



I found an awesome vendor on etsy who does painted wooden letters and we ordered a teal 'M' to go on the wall above M's crib. One of the last details I need to take care of will be to find pictures of my maternal grandmother and her mother to place on either side of the 'M' since M is named after them.



The tall dresser is flanked on one side by a floor lamp (Pier 1) with a shade (Shades of Light) that matches the duvet cover on the twin bed, and on the other side by a wall decal of two little elephants (etsy) - I like to think of the elephants as a big sister and a little sister.



This little guy sits on top of the dresser, I'm not sure where Cheryl found him but he's an adorable, personalized Ellie bank!



The adorable little elephant bookends were another etsy find.



Cheryl found this trumpeting elephant print (etsy) and had it matted and framed locally.



There is an odd little corner in M's room that we found all sorts of creative uses for! Cheryl found this cute chair from Urban Outfitters in a yellow chevron that compliments the lamp on top of the Dresser and matches the skirt to the crib. We found a growth chart decal (etsy) and I repurposed a pair of flower wall hangers (Pier 1) as a convenient place to drop sweaters or jackets. The finishing touch in this corner is a trio of pictures taken by Brett's sister while we were all together on a family vacation.



M's room is now one of my favorite places in the house and I am so grateful for all of the help from Cheryl in pulling it all together!

17 Months, A Mash-up

Marielle is 17 months old!  She has transitioned from an Infant room to a Toddler room at school.  It was very difficult so say goodbye to her teachers T, A & J, but we are getting to know her new teachers S & K.  I guess this means that my baby isn't a baby anymore.  Bah!  My babies will always be my babies.
Hair: still a blondie and I refuse to cut her hair so it's getting pretty long - down to about her chin.  It is starting to thicken up with new growth that is all wispy on her forehead when I pull her hair up into a topknot or pigtails. 
Teeth: she's up to 9! She has all four of her central incisors one lonely little lateral incisor on the lower left, then she has all four of (what I think are) her second molars!  I was shocked when those started coming in, and even more surprised when all four of them started peeking out within about a week.  She is a hard-core, tough little teether though - no fever, no complaints!  Just a fist constantly in her mouth and buckets of sloppy drooly wetness.  
Spoken Words: Mama, Daddy, bye-bye, uh-oh, diaper, bubble, please, thank you, all done, ball, bath
Signed Words: more, please, thank you, all done, dog, squirrel (except she uses the sign for bird), she waves bye-bye and when she is ready for a diaper change she will come over to me, get my attention & pat her bottom
Favorite Song: Row, Row, Row Your Boat - M will prompt you with "whoa, whoa..." and she will wait for you to start signing, if you don't start within about 10 seconds she will repeat "whoa, whoa..." ad nauseum until you sign or she gets distracted by something else
Favorite Foods: milk, cottage cheese, chicken, steak, salmon, yogurt, mandarin oranges, cheese, rice
Pacifier: She still takes a pacifier, but only at naptime and at bedtime for overnight
Marielle is getting much more reliable with correctly matching the names of body parts (eyes, nose, chin, hands, feet, belly, etc). 
A couple of weeks ago I must have been getting ready to drop her off or leave her for a few minutes...I don't really remember, but I was holding her and I asked her "Kisses for Mama?" to which she got a michevious gleam in her eye and shook her head "no" so I started tickling her and she squealled with delight.  Now I fear that I am never going to receive kisses from either of my girls ever again because they both love to play the Kisses for Mama game and I never end up getting any kisses!

Snug as a Bug

For the last several days I have discovered that Corinne is scooting all the way to the end of her bed, dragging her pillow about halfway down and curling up in a cozy little ball to sleep - cuteness!!!

Play with your Food

Today I asked Brett to help me get lunch ready for Corinne while I got a bag together so that we could go to the pool this afternoon. He made her lunch, but he also made her art.
I give you a very hungry caterpillar:



I love my family.

Flip It Good

C has always been a pretty physical kid, she has plenty of options when it comes to rough housing - both her father and her uncle Scott have fun flipping her upside down, throwing her in the air and spinning her around. She loves to climb and swing and roll and spin.




So, when and opportunity came up for us to enroll her in an 8-week gymnastics class at a local gym we "jumped" at the chance! Her first class was last week and, although she had fun, she wasn't quite as excited about it as I had expected...but I had decided that we weren't going to put any pressure on her - she's only 3 after all and this should be for fun! Well, I discovered the reason for her low energy when we got home for the evening and learned that the poor girl had a fever.




This week she was feeling much better and when I told her it was the day of her gymnastics class, she was very excited. She did a great job of listening to her teachers, taking turns on the different apparatus, and trying each activity. After her class was over she wanted to sit for a bit to watch the older girls out in the big gym. They were practicing some tumbling and even though they didn't know it, they were providing inspiration for at least one little girl. I think she's hooked.




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Happy Birthday Brett! You are my best friend, a wonderful father to our beautiful girls and a good man. I am proud to be your wife and love the life we are building together.


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Always prepared for Ohio weather

95 degrees today and C decides she wants to wear a skirt, t-shirt... and snow boots! I love this kid. Took a spare pair of shoes to school just in case she decided her boots were too hot or too heavy. She was wearing the spare when I picked her up, but she got lots of positive feedback from the receptionist, M's teachers and her teachers.
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Mugs

C makes some awesome faces when she's willing to play to the camera. She's been a bit grumpy in front of the camera lately, but here are a few that I snagged recently when we were being goofy at lunch (love the light from our picture window):










Such a ham and always on the move. Pushing the boundaries and exploring without fear. Such a physical kid.

M has finally started playing to the camera and seems to love the lens:









I refuse to cut her hair. I usually have it up in a top knot, but I love that she has it hanging down in her face for this series. I also love that it's still so BLONDE (although not white-blonde like it was last summer). Sigh, methinks she will eventually grow out of the blonde and in to a brunette.

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