Progress

So I painted baby girl's room. It is definitely far from being finished (as in I'm artfully showing you the clean half of the room) but it's still something!

So here's a before:

And here's an... well, not after exactly, but you know.

I ended up choosing paint color number one, which was a custom mix, and then I just used glidden's basic untinted white for the stripes. Both are in eggshell.

Wanna know how to get crisp stripes? 

Google it. 

Just kidding. What I do is paint my base color first, in this case the grey. Then I let that dry completely before putting down my tape. After the tape is down you'll want to paint your base color again over the edges of your tape. I even dig in a little bit with my paint brush to make sure that any gaps between the tape and the wall will be filled with the base. I think this is especially important with textured walls which, as you can see, we have. Then, when that has dried, you can paint the stripe color.

Works like a charm. I didn't have a single spot where I needed to touch up which is the best I've ever done. It takes extra time of course, but so does touching up and that never seems to look as good. 

Slow and steady we're getting this done. The next big project is convincing Logan to give up the crib and try out his big boy bed. 

Should be fun...

And that's the news from Lake Wobegone

It's about to get real up in here.

Sometimes, after you have a baby, there are certain bodily functions which fail to operate in an efficient manner. Luckily I narrowly escaped the need of artificial assistance in that area after Logan was born, but we did have supplies on hand in case of emergency. These supplies, along with feminine products I'm not currently using, are now stored under my sink. A sink that Logan loves to rummage through looking for things to peak his interest while I shower.

And this is how I found Logan gleefully sitting in a sea of tampons squeezing an enema fountain out of his new favorite "watee" bottle.

There are no pictures. Sorry/you're welcome.

Pictures from our week, aka we celebrated Easter too, aka I meant to post these last week

(he fell off the counter a few minutes before egg dying (yikes!) but a little bread dough eased his pain.)

wishing I had an eye for color

I've been looking for the perfect grey for baby girl's room.

7 samples later...

I have to choose from one of these because I'm not searching anymore, darn it! I've been to Home Depot at least 4 times and to two different Ace Hardwares trying to find the right grey.

And don't 3, 5, and 7 look like practically the same color? I went to the Depot twice trying to get a lighter version of number 3 and that's what I ended up with.

I'm pretty sure I'm the one person in the world that would actually save money if I hired an interior designer to do this stuff for me.

Anyway, do you have a favorite? I think I (finally) do but I need to sleep on it before I go buy a gallon or two.

Wax paper chandelier

I made something!!! Are you so impressed? It's been awhile. 

Naturally when I found out that my baby is a girl, my pinterest account exploded with ideas for her. Apparently I was repressing some deep seated (ok, probably not that deep) desire to decorate with feminine frilly things.

Anyway, when I saw this wax paper chandelier from Freshly Picked I had to have it, in a mini version, for her bedroom. 

Immediately. 

But then I got tired and hungry so immediately turned into three weeks and... well, that's what happens when you're pregnant.

But it's finally done!

If you want to see details of how to make your own you can check out Freshly Picked because she does a good job explaining what to do.

Lemme just give you some advice.

Don't use this hole punch.

 Seriously.

Unless you want to hole punch your face in trying to make it work. I'm sure it's fine for regular paper, but for wax paper it is horrible. 

It's possible I chucked it across the room at one point.

It's also possible that I discovered that the more pressure I used the better it worked. So after feeling like I broke a knuckle trying to repeatedly slam it down with both hands, I switched to stomping pressing down on it with my foot. 

5 seconds later it broke.

Many pseudo-curse words were uttered. 

And one real curse word.

Kidding.

Ahem...  So I went out to buy a new hole punch. This one.

Saved the day. And my sanity.

I did do a couple other things different too; instead of taking apart a lampshade I came across a couple metal rings for cheap so I picked those up instead. Then I wrapped them in white ribbon and yarn to cover the gold. 

I also took apart this mini chandelier that I found on the cheap for the hardware to attach the rings together. 

And thus the base of my chandelier was born.

I ironed sheets of wax paper together and sewed them in strips of circles, just like in the tutorial. What I did was a strip of 11 and then I draped it over the ring with 5 on the outside and 6 on the inside so that I could get a tiered effect.

Many many rounds of ironing wax paper, cutting circles, and sewing later I had my finished product!

 I'm going to hang it as a mobile over her crib so I decided not to put a light inside.

And naturally I couldn't let the crystals from my other chandelier go to waste so I hung a few of those throughout with some fishing line. 

To give you an idea of how big it is and to include a shot of my man who held this in 4 different places so I could find the lighting I wanted. 

I can't wait to put her bedroom together so I can hang this above her crib!

Logan says it's a girl...

...

and he's right!

 We've got a beautiful healthy baby sister on the way!

Zoo Day!

A couple weeks ago we had a sunny warm morning so Kelly and I decided to take our boys to the zoo. 

I'm pretty sure I love the zoo more than Logan does but he found a few animals that held his interest. These seals were swimming right up against the glass and he was very impressed. 

Yep, Kelly and I were there.

I love how these boys are standing the exact same way. And you know what they were impressed with down there? I'll give you a clue, it wasn't the zebras. 

The water. 

Boys.

Meanwhile I'm pretty sure I took more pictures of this hippo than my own child. It was actually moving! I forgot that animals in captivity do more than sleep with their bum facing me.

 Still not sure if he was more impressed by the water or the hippo, but does it really matter? The joy is what's important.

Too bad a cold front was coming in while we were there and the joy kinda died a little. He started feeling chilly so he had his sad face on and wasn't feeling the tiger. Which really, compared to the hippopotamus? Lame. So I don't blame him. 

I can't forget to include what he really did most of the time we were there. 

Run off the path into the shrubbery. He probably would have been just as happy spending two hours in a field.

He was happy we went in the end though. He kept telling me on the drive home that he had fun seeing the elephants (which he did not see due to a cranky moment where he only wanted to sit in the stroller with a blanket on) and the ducks (a crow in the parking lot). And of course he mentioned the water several times. 

I was just happy that we went to Pudding on the Rice after, since it's pretty much mandatory that I go there every time I'm in Portland.

The end.