The Bed is Complete (Basically)

Today, Grandpa Roger and I finished making Vivienne's toddler bed! I wanted to make her a toddler bed for her birthday (May 6, next week!). Before you ask, yes, I did much of the work. Grandpa Roger is quite the handy man and I learned a lot about measuring twice (or four times) and only cutting once, how to fix nails that I bent while hammering, etc. The only thing I didn't do at all was cut the boards because the power saw scares me; I'm more of a hand saw kind of girl. It still needs some wood putty to cover the screws/nails/chips completely and a nice paint job, but it's DONE and I think it looks pretty awesome. Check it out!

In grandpa Roger's garage where the bed was built. Vivi was giving him pointers on the drill. He was also really handy when it came to making adjustments to the design, which we got from www.ana-white.com (thanks Anna Krey for exposing me to it!). It's a great web site with plans for all sorts of things. I bought all the necessary materials (minus the tools, which grandpa had) for $40. This bed only cost $40 and took about 10-12 hours to build (over the course of 3 weeks).

Assembled in our room! We (and by we, I mean grandpa) changed the design to include some strategic screws so the bed comes apart into three pieces: headboard, body and footboard. It fit in the car and I only had to put in 10 screws to assemble it in the bed room. Note: easier said than done. Despite our best efforts to make sure there were no snaffus, I ended up making a hole with the screw by hand because for some reason it just wasn't lining up. I think I have callouses :) We added extra slat support for bed jumping.

I LOVE this headboard! And I pretty much did it all...under the expert guidance of grandpa...but a lot of by myself, too.

The footboard is also super cute and I pretty much did that part by myself (after getting started by grandpa). I made a couple boo boos, but it's still functional...and you can't see them from the pics (or unless I point them out), so who cares?!

With the mattress and covers! She loved it! Don't worry, it didn't stay in the middle of the floor. I pushed it against the bed and we have about as much walking space as we did before.

First fit on the bed. :)

Great Aunt Elizabeth got the honor of first bed time story in the new bed! Vivi also loved her 'pretty' earrings.

Happy to report she went right to sleep in her new bed! It also might have had something to do with the fact that it was almost 10pm by the time she got in it.

Home Makeover...bedroom edition

This week was Spring Break, which meant Vivi had a couple days where she had a playmate in her 12 year old (2nd) cousin Olivia. This worked out great for me because as they entertained each other, I got some projects completed. Earlier in the week, Doug had made the comment that all the rooms in the house were looking good since I'd been home more...except the bedroom. So, I took the bedroom on all day Thursday.

Here are some before pics (it was a little messier than it normally it is, but this is how it really looked the morning I started):

Stuff all over the dressers...

The walls looked...icky. Full disclosure, we had more stuff on the walls, but took it down when we started locking Vivi in the room at bed time. And no, we're not bed makers; I guess we never got in the habit since Doug worked graves so one of us was always in the bed.

That's Doug's overflowing closet, dresser (right) and basically a dump space where he used to keep our bills, broken fan/hat holder (left).









It took all day (with a nap/shopping trip break) and a trip to Michael's (so I could spend some birthday money) to transform my our bedroom into this:

Tulip Fun...Without the Tulips

Today we woke up early to go up to Mount Vernon so Doug could ride in the Tulip Pedal bike ride and Vivi and I could have some fun! Unfortunately, our friends Miles and Janetta who were going to come with us couldn't come because Miles got sick, but my sister Celeste and her kids (Wyatt is 3 and Hailey is 10) were great substitutes!

We had so much fun at the YMCA Health Kids Day where Wyatt and Vivi were hilarious going through the obstacle course (running through hoola hoops, crashing the tunnel, knocking down the bowling pins they should have been running around, and picking off the balloons on the finish line) and had fun with the soccer balls on the indoor field. Vivi even tried Yoga!

 Superman!

 She didn't quite get the idea of grabbing her feet...

She had a good time watching Stefanie and Ada do the snake :) I think she gets a kick out of getting adults to do silly things. Right after this, she sucker-punched the yoga instructor (sorry, Ada).

Afterward, we took what we learned and went out the play ground...where Celeste ate the biggest hot dog I've ever seen and the kids got their healthy on playing. Vivi just loves the swing...and you can tell Hailey is super engaged while she's pushing her (and talking on the phone).

THEN Celeste, Wyatt, Vivi and I went to the Tulip Festival Street Fair. We had to bribe the kids to leave the playground with candy and went to the fair for fair food (I had a disappointingly expensive gyro that was not worth the wait in the rain); yeah, we learned a lot at Healthy Kids Day :) At least by then Vivi would hold Wyatt's hand (something she refused to do earlier in the day); they're so cute!

THEN we went to Nana Anne's and Grandpa Roger's where these two cousins actually played together! It was so much fun to see them interact, talk, respond, and play with one another because Vivi doesn't really do that with too many other kids (she just plays around them...or hits them). But there was little crying and no hitting. Celeste had gotten a pedicure and they got a kick out of playing with the toe separators. First Nana put them on Vivi and she walked around and then she wanted to put them on Wyatt...and he let her pull off his socks and try to put them on. He was too ticklish to let her do it, so Nana helped :)

Doug had a great race with Andrew (Janetta's hubby) and we are all pooped at the end of this day. But we never actually got out to the see the flowers. We'll just have to do it a different weekend...

Getting Better...

So I've been trying to work a lot hard at diversifying our meals (ok, just dinner). For example, tonight we had homemade scalloped potatoes with ham bits. Afterward, I made cake-brownies (because I needed to feel better).

Last week a potato-spinach bake (yes, we eat lots of potatoes because they're cheap and versatile), pork shoulder ribs (bought in bulk a couple weeks ago and frozen) wrapped in bacon, pork chops with a super yummy sauce made of worchestire(sp?)/soup/onion/ketchup, and more! We also have a couple back-up staples like an egg-potato mash (lots of potatoes).

I think we're making progress!!

My (Kind of) Mom

I realize in more ways every day that I am a mom in many ways like my mom was when we were growing up, which is great, but not exactly something I set out to do on purpose, you know? I just find myself falling into it or saying things and thinking "Oh, my mom did that all the time."

Of course this makes sense, but earlier this week I realized I may do something my mom did that I swore I'd never do.

When we were growing up, I hesitated to invite friends over to play on Saturdays because Saturdays at my house were work/chore days and my mom did not hesitate to put my friends to work. Usually they didn't mind, but I hate it when she would say things like 'Girls, I need you to take out the garbage' or 'Girls, why don't you clean the windows' etc.

Yesterday, though, Vivi's cousin (really 2nd cousin) who is 12(?) was over playing with her outside and having a great time. As soon as Olivia left I thought 'Shoot, I should've had them take out the recycling because tomorrow's garbage day.' Vivi regularly helps us carry out the recycles (milk jugs are easy for her to carry), so it would've been easy for them to do and I was bummed I didn't think of it earlier.

But that's when it occurred to me: 'That's why my mom did it! You can get twice as much done half as fast when there's two and it makes it more fun for the kid than doing it by themselves, I get to keep what I need to be doing (and it gets them outta the house). Oh my gosh, that totally makes sense to me. I am my mom.'

I don't know if I'll stick with this one, but it's kind of funny to realize why your mom did certain things you just couldn't understand (or mortified you) as a child :)