the baby girl's dresser

This is something I've always wanted to do... take a piece of furniture from Craigslist and transform it. We bought this dresser for $45 off Craigstlist back in March.

It was really solid wood with this stripey pattern on the tops and sides.

First I removed all the hardware and filled the holes with wood filler.

Then I had to sand. Yay for my new orbital sander I got from my brother and sister-in-law for my birthday! Face mask, eye goggles and ear plugs, oh my!

Here's a sanding-in-progress shot.

The little sander collected a LOT of dust in its little vacuum bag that I emptied into a tin.

Then we had to prime. Two coats of primer. (My mom had to do this part because of the fumes. Used a foam roller and did two coats.)

Priming almost done.

Then onto painting. I used my favorite Benjamin Moore Natura paint because it has zero VOCs and I'm allowed to work with it. The color is Sweet Butter 171. 

Then I positioned these bird wall decals I got for $24 on Amazon. I had extras that I even gave away afterwards. I thought about putting them up on the walls, but I already have plans for the walls and as my mom said, you don't want too much of a good thing.

Bird decals are placed, then we did knobs and...

Ta da!!! The dresser is done and in the nursery. I love how pink looks with yellow.

lots of work in progress

I find myself starting up one project, realizing I have another project to do and starting up another without finishing the first. This week I am trying to tie up some loose ends! Here's a list of some of the works in progress:

• baby girl's refinished dresser (it's all done except for getting drawer dividers! I will take and post pictures soon)
• baby girl's wall art thing (hard to describe, but I think it'll look really cute. it'll definitely look cuter on the wall than on my dining room table!)
• hanging up a coat rack in the hallway to keep my diaper bag and purse
• hanging up a few pictures around the house and moving the rest of the framed artwork to the basement, out of the way from the dining and living rooms
• finishing cleaning out the garage... all we need is one more shelving unit to put a few more things on. it's so nice to have a home for the new mini-van!

My running lists of things to do have definitely been getting a workout. I have about five more weeks of nesting mode to get things done before the baby arrives. And guess what? If it doesn't get done before the baby arrives, I'll still be able to get them done at some point! Shocker... I have to remember that.

telling stories

I think we are entering a really awesome new stage with Levi. Suddenly it seems he's really into recalling memories of events that have happened either earlier during the day or a few days ago. And using his limited little vocabulary, he thoughtfully tells as much as he can. I love it!

We have been enjoying this mostly at dinnertime when daddy is home and we talk about what we did that day. At first, I was doing all the talking.

Me: "So we went to the grocery store..."
Levi pipes up: "Pay!"
Me: "That's right, we did pay at the grocery store! What else did we do there?"
Levi thinks about it and looks around: "'Nack." (Translation: Snack, with no S since he hasn't gotten his S sound yet.)
Me: "That's right, you did eat a snack!"

And yes, I do speak with exclamation points. I think it's my favorite piece of punctuation.

Anyway, we are going through a bathroom remodel project, just in the early phases. Yesterday we had one guy do an estimate. He talked a lot, measured the walls and then took pictures. So today, as we are waiting for another estimate man to come, I begin...

Me: "A man is going to come look at mommy and daddy's bathroom very soon."
Levi: "Wall!"
Me: "That's right, he is probably going to measure the walls. What else is he going to do?"
Levi thinks about it, gets a big grin on his face: "Pictures!"
Me: "That's right! He will take some pictures."

Imagine Levi's delight when the man actually did come, measure the walls and take pictures. He will likely also tell this story to daddy over dinner.

I love that Levi seems to enjoy conversation. One of the very first reasons I fell in love with his daddy was because he liked to talk so much. It's so nice to see this trait develop in our little boy, too.

David and Goliath

One of Levi's favorite stories from his rhyme bible is the one about David, the scrawny guy who defeats Goliath the giant with God's help and a well-aimed rock to the forehead. In fact, ask Levi what Goliath says when David hits him with a rock. "Ohhhhhgggg," he'll say, with a scrunched up face.

Well, Levi has experienced his own encounter with a rock. This rock, in fact:

(rock near Levi's foot)

This rock is one of his friend's favorite rocks to play with from the rock garden. This friend plays gently, spinning the rock around on the pavement. Levi decides the rock needs to go back into the garden, but instead drops it on his big toe. It took a while for the pain of the boo boo to set in and was exacerbated by Mommy's attempts to put Neosporin and an Elmo band-aid on it. Mommy's interference set him to a-hollering.

Apparently this event has really stuck with Levi. He continues to point to his toe and retell the story as only a 22-month-old can.

Levi, while pointing to toe: "Toe."
Mommy: "What happened to your toe?"
Levi: "Boo boo."
Mommy: "You got a boo boo on your toe?"
Levi: "Rock."
Mommy: "A rock gave you a boo boo on your toe?"
Levi: "Uh huh."
Levi, thinking about it a moment: "Ahh-mohh." (Translation: Then you put that stupid Elmo band-aid on me and made it worse.)

I'm not sure if this ordeal makes him David or Goliath, but I love my son.

meal planning

There was a time in my life when Andy and I would make dinner plans practically every night on the fly. We'd call each other on the way home from work, figure out what we wanted, then execute on our plan. It probably wasn't the most cost effective way to do things, or the most time efficient, but it worked for a young married couple with no kids.

Fast forward to Levi at 10 months old. We could still mostly get away with this plan because baby food is ridiculously easy to plan for, even when you are making it yourself. Every week or two, I'd make up a big batch of baby food (veggie purees and Levi's favorite, baby bolognese which was basically spaghetti and meat sauce with veggies, also pureed). I'd freeze it into ice cube trays, pop them into a freezer bag and we'd be set for our quick and easy baby food.

Fast forward to today. Now we actually have to plan. Levi eats dinner at 6:00 and I really try to keep him eating a variety of foods. Of course, he'd eat lasagna for a whole week straight (and has been known to do so), but I want to keep his food preferences as varied as possible. Plus, I know that one of the things that stresses my hubby out more than any other household chore is food planning. He doesn't like to make those last minute decisions when there are hungry people to deal with. He likes to know what's coming to him, know that we already have the food in the house. Of course he doesn't complain if there are no plans, but I can almost visibly see him relax when I tell him "we are having chili for dinner" and he walks home to a house smelling like chili ready to eat. As a homemaker, it makes me feel good to provide this sense of stability to him as he provides our family with our financial stability.

All that to say, I have just meal planned ourselves from here until Move Day!! I have a plan for every night between now and the new house. I have to go food shopping again next Monday to get the next round of fresh ingredients, but that'll be easy. Usually I handwrite my meal plan for the week, but this time I typed it. Each day I noted if there was a special evening activity (of which we have many coming up... church events, a wedding for me to run, etc.). Then I wrote the meal. If it was a planned leftover, "Repeat: lasagna". If Levi was going to eat something different than us, I wrote that in parenthesis. I also accounted for take-out plans, like for the day before we move. Boston Market will be preparing our dinner for us.

Phew! That's one more thing taken care of before we move!

thou shalt not judge

We all do it, no matter how much we hate it. We, as mothers and even before as non-parents, tend to judge the actions of other parents, non-parents, kids, etc. Maybe it's not always a bad thing, more of a comparative thing, but it generally gives us the wrong results. I continue to learn this more and more as I encounter different parenting styles and different kid personalities, and it all makes you realize that every situation is different and we're all going after the same goals --- survival, enrichment, growth and hopefully some fun in there, too.

Today's lesson from the playground. Levi and I are enjoying a lovely playdate with our other friends from MOPS at a playground. It's not too crowded, the sun in shining, everything is great. A yellow school bus pulls up and begins to offload a swarm of bigger, louder kids. Oh great, here some these big kids who are going to overrun the park and trample our little kids. Why do they have to ruin our day?

I was wrong! These kids, while older and faster, were all very well behaved and so considerate of the little kids. Levi actually spent a good half hour befriending a few older boys, maybe first graders, and following them around. They not only tolerated Levi, they embraced him as another kid to play with. The oldest kid patiently let Levi scoop mulch into his hands, let him kick their soccer ball around, even picked him up a few times he fell down and brushed off the mulch. The big kid even took Levi to the small slides and helped him up the stairs and down the slides a few times. It was such a sweet thing to witness, and I regretted my initial negative reaction to this bus of kids. After all, one day Levi will be a big, loud kid riding a school bus and I can only hope that he acts kindly toward those smaller than him.

in a month

Actually, in less than a month, the Simpsons will have moved into their new home. I'm so very excited that this is happening, but I'm also overwhelmed at all the things that need to get done (or the things I want to get done). Among them:

1) Pack. Obviously. We haven't packed in six years.

2) Choose paint colors. I want Levi's room painted in almost the same blue, but something a little lighter/gray that is more sophisticated for a sophisticated almost-two-year-old boy. Hah. Do you have any idea how many blues there are? And how easy it is to go too gray, too purple or too green? We also want to have the baby girl's paint color picked so they don't clash. And we want to paint the master bedroom. I think we'll stick with the color we have now since it's just so soothing to look at.

3) Think about packing. This goes back to item #1, but I seriously think I'll spend more time THINKING about packing than actually packing. I mentally tally up how much stuff we have in various places around the house and how many boxes will it take.

Well, I guess that's my short list. Short, but big! I'm so glad we are hiring professional movers...