Friday 5's

One of Caitlin's preschool teachers has the funniest blog and she hosts a Friday Fives where each week is a new topic.  This week is Five things you dont know about me so I thought I would join in.  Feel free to do the same.

1.  I'm extremely shy.  I've tried hard to work on this and force myself out of my comfort zone.  I'm not good at meeting new people - it just doesn't come naturally to me.  One thing that has really helped is my business.  Wedding photography FORCES me to not be shy - you just can't be and get all the pictures done.

2.  I almost drowned as a teenager.  I can't swim but I fake it pretty well.  I was at a friend's pool party as a teenager and a couple of guys who didn't know I couldn't swim threw me in the water.  Now the water wasn't that deep, barely over my head.  All a rational person would have had to do was go the bottom and kick off to come right back up.  But I was NOT rational and was kicking and flailing and drowning.  My friend had to tell them that I couldn't swim and they came and saved me.  They felt really bad afterwards.

3.   In middle school, the school said I could skip a grade if I wanted.  I considered it but didn't want to miss being with my friends.  So instead, in the 8th grade, I took 9th grade English and Math.  So when I started High School, I didn't have to take Freshman English and got ahead in my Math classes.

4.  I was at work in a 15th floor building watching as the tornadoes hit downtown Nashville in 1998.  We were all looking out the big windows at the lightning show.  Before we knew it, the funnel cloud was right by the window and we all ran for the stairwell.  While in there, the lights went out and people were screaming.  You could feel the building sway.  It was pretty scary!

5.  I made the game winning out in a softball tournament, sending us to regionals.  I used to play softball and played about every position.  My two favorites were third base and catcher.  As catcher, in the all star tournament, we were down to the last game and last out.  The other team hit the ball and a runner was coming home.  I stood like any good catcher would and blocked home plate with my body.  The throw came home and I caught it just as the runner ran into me.  I held on to the ball and she was out.  The team lifted me up in celebration.  It was awesome!!

Pinboards

Ever since I did Caitlin's pinboards, I've wanted to do them in Alaina's room too.  While I was at Joann's recently, I found the best material to match her room.

So I bought 3 cheap corkboards and got to work.  These are seriously the easiest things to do.  All you do is use a staple gun to fasten the fabric to the back of the corkboards.  Keep it tight and go all the way around.  Then you attach hardware to the backs and hang them on the wall.  Voila!

I LOVE getting pictures like this while I'm at work!!

Makes me smile!!

What's Happening At Our House

1.  Alaina likes the jumper

2.  Caitlin has a loose tooth

3.  Alaina likes to spit

4.  Alaina is not a fan yet of cereal

4 Months Old

Alaina is 4 months old today.  Here are some things she is doing:

• Sleeping all night YAY
• Sucking on her hands, fingers, my arm, etc.  We think she's starting to teethe.
• Laughs and smiles all the time
• Watches TV - seriously if she is in a room and a TV is on, she will crane her head so she can stare at it
• Tries HARD to sit up

Rusty took her to the doctor for her checkup this morning.  Here are the stats:

• Weight - 15 lbs. 8 oz.   88%
• Length - 24 inches         63%
• Head Size -                   78%

The doctor also said we can start feeding her rice cereal a couple times a day.  Funny videos to come, I'm sure!!

Journaling

I'm trying to be better about my journaling.  It's not something that's easy for me.  I don't like to sit down and write just to be writing.  So I've been keeping it electronically for a while now and that definitely helps.  It still is hard to remember to do it, so I found these journal prompts that give you something to think about and hopefully write about.  Most of them are good for blog entries too, and let's face it, most of my journal entries come from my blog.  So here's the first one. 

Describe a 'sound' from your childhood. What was it?  When did you hear it? What does it bring to mind?

The first thing I thought of was a trumpet.  LOL  I know, weird, right?  We kids weren't always the easiest to wake up so my dad would sometimes pull out his old trumpet and play revelry.  That is sure to wake you up, but probably not in the best of moods.

Another way he would wake us up, and definitely not my favorite, was the cold water dripped on your face.  Not a fan of that one!

So how do you wake up your kids?

With Caitlin, she prefers the back scratching and back rubs.  She definitely likes to be pampered!  I've tried an alarm clock with her and even with it blaring right beside her head, she completely sleeps through it.  It goes off at 6am every morning, and every morning I have to go upstairs at 6:15 to turn it off and wake her up myself.  I WISH I could sleep that hard!!

Finally . . .A Name

I have searched and searched for a way to put the girl's names up on the wall. I didn't want hanging letters - they are usually expensive and the girls don't have short names. What I wanted was a sticker that I could customize size, color and font. But all I could find on the internet was vinyl graphics. These seem to work well for other people. I see them in everyone's homes and love the way they look. A while back I ordered some but could never get them to work. I am vinylly challenged for some reason. So after looking and looking and googling and googling, I finally decided to make my own thing. I found this blog posting and decided to make my own. So here it is -

Caitlin was very excited to have hers made first. I designed each letter on digital scrapbook paper in Photoshop. Then printed each one out and posted it on pink cardstock. Punch some holes in each one and attached together with cute ribbon. I used hot pink thumbnails to hang it. I love how it turned out.

I'll make Alaina's next.  For hers, I'm going to use fabric and cardsstock together, so that should be interesting.  I've seen it done on craft blogs but have never done it.  But I'm going to use any of the fabric leftover from her pinboards I'm making so they will all coordinate.  Stay tuned!

Facelift

Okay, the blog has needed a new look for a while now. So I found this free template and made some changes. I LOVE IT!!!!!!! What do you think?

Finishing Touches

For a while now, I've been meaning to make a padded headboard for Caitlin's bed.  I knew how to make the headboard part, I just couldn't figure out the best way to connect it to the bed frame.  I didn't want it to be permanent, so bolting it to the wall was not an option.  So one day, I googled it and found Walmart had them for a great price and in the right color.  So when it came in, I was excited to finally finish off her bed.

And yes, I put it together on my own.

While Alaina did this -

But it needed a little something still.  So Caitlin and I covered it with pink tulle tonight and I love how it turned out.

New Creations

When I redid Caitlin's room, the plan was to have a reading corner.  I already had the bookcase that I bought from Target but when we opened it to put together, two of the legs were broken.  So we took it back to Target and began the fight ordeal with customer service.  Because I planned ahead for her room and bought the bookcase months earlier, my receipt had expired and they could not give a refund.  No problem, I didn't want a refund, I just wanted a bookcase with unbroken legs.

So I called ahead and made sure there wasn't going to be a problem with exchanging it for a new bookcase because that thing is heavy and I didn't want to waste a trip.  The girl on the phone said no problem.  They had one in stock and just come to customer service - it would be waiting.

So we went to customer service and one was waiting.  YAY!  I explain everything to the evil nice customer service lady thinking "wow this will be easy".  This was her reply, "I don't know who you talked to but we can't do that.  Your receipt is expired."  WHAT??

All they could do, supposedly, was open the new bookcase and let us take the two unbroken legs out of it.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?  Anyway, we took the two unbroken legs (and lots of other stuff out of it, while the witch lady wasn't looking) and Rusty was able to finish putting it together.

I am very happy with her reading corner (usually it is a little more organized than it is here), but I will NEVER purchase furniture from Target again.  Sorry Target, I love you, but I will not go through that again.  And I will continue to give a certain person at Smyrna Target evil looks whenever I see her!!

On a much brighter note, Caitlin had a school project (yes in Kindergarten) to create a vegetable buddy.  So off we went to Publix to pick out a vegetable we could decorate.  She picked this beautiful eggplant and named her Ella.  Isn't she beautiful?

Outside Fun

We've really been trying to take advantage of the good weather and play outside more.  The Easter Bunny brought some new sidewalk chalk and a kickball game so on Tuesday Caitlin and I played outside.  Here is our fabulous mess artwork.

But this poor, poor child doesn't do well right now outside.  Can you see how red and watery her eyes are?  The  next morning, she woke up and couldn't open her eyes - they were stuck together and totally freaked her out!  We went once again to the doctor and got three perscriptions to make her feel better.  I guess we are staying indoors for the next few days.  :(

Easter Morning

The Easter Bunny came to visit us on Sunday.  Caitlin snuck down and got her basket and took it back up to her room before we woke up.  She didn't even do that on Christmas.  She loved her bunny that laughs (and sounds like her laugh).  She also got some clothes, a kickball game, sidewalk chalk, a Kindergarten workbook, and flarp (makes toot noises - this one really was for Rusty).  Alaina didn't even notice her basket, full of new outfits, pajamas and a frog that "ribbits".  Neither basket had any candy - I figured we already had enough.  I am so glad easter candy is no longer in stores - I do not have the will power to turn away from Cadbury Mini Eggs!!

So here are my angels in matching outfits.  I know I know - you say "why are you dressing them in matching outfits?"  But I have a limited time to do this, so don't judge!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Easter, we went over to Rob and Emily's and the kids had an Easter Egg hunt.  They had such fun trying to find all the eggs and especially the golden egg with the prize in it.  From the beginning, Allison and Caitlin hatched a plan to work together to find the golden egg and split the prize.

And here they are finding the golden egg.