Need to get something off my chest...

I am crushing majorly on a sofa right now. Is that weird? I came thisclose to committing $2k on my credit card for this beauty and the matching loveseat:

It's the Ella leather sofa from Macy's, and is beautiful, and super long, and relatively inexpensive for such a nice looking leather sofa. BUT it is a closeout, which means that since I'm not buying it now I will never be able to buy it. Insert major sad face here. So, to heal my broken sofa heart, I started searching for others that I liked as much to remind myself that there are other fish in the sea. I came across this one, and I really like it too:

It's the Thomasville Carina sofa. But it does not come in leather, so that stinks. I think it would slip cover nicely though. We plan to move sometime next year, so I am trying to make myself feel better about my crappy sofa by knowing that I won't be sad if it gets messed up in the move. Or better yet, we can sell it right before and not even have to move it at all. We'll see! Anyone else have a furniture obsession? Anyone else have a problem trying to find something cheap that is "close enough" to the thing they REALLY want that is pricier, only to find that you should have just waited and saved your pennies for what you really wanted in the first place? Sigh. I have definitely learned some VERY expensive lessons throughout my experience as a first time home buyer and home furnish-er. 

Oh, and maybe leave me a comment and tell me which one you like better! I'm curious which one would be more popular...

Catch Up Again!

So I am a little behind on posting projects and such because we took a week to visit family back home in Louisiana and to get T Patrick baptized in the same church we got married in, and his sister was baptized in (St. Patrick's in New Orleans). I have read on blog land that you are not supposed to announce that you are leaving your house unattended for a week to the entire world via internet, so I didn't say anything here :-) I am still photography-shy from a childhood full of camera abuse by my mother, so sadly, I didn't bother people for too many pictures. But here are some that I did manage to take:

Here is four generations, Patrick, his grandmother holding little Patrick, and his mom, post baptism. 

Our family with Tpat's God parents, Patrick's little sister Jolie, and his cousin Mathew. 

Abigail and Patrick's cousin Stephen having fun in the pool! She LOVED the pool! She is totally fearless and walked right out to the edge of the diving board at the deep end several times (way to give momma a heart attack Abigial!). She jumped off the side of the pool into my arms for like 10 minutes, loved it when I lifted her up out the water and splashed her back down under it...she was like a fish! 

Overall we had a great trip and the kids did really well flying all day both times. It was nice to get to see family, and to be able to have our little boy baptized into the Church! 

In project news, I have started the tile around our bathtub and it looks awesome! I am so excited! Here is a sneak peak:

This picture was taken with my phone, so the quality's not great. Not that I make great photos with my fancy camera yet either! lol

That is just the back wall, obviously, and I have now done the same thing to the two side walls. All that is left to do is rent a wet saw on the next sunny day to cut down the pieces I need for the corners and edges, and then grout. Yay! This was actually a pretty quick and easy project. So far, anyway...we'll see how my attempt at using the wet saw goes. I made sure to take lots of step-by-step photos and will do a detailed post of how easy it is to do this very soon. 

Today, Patrick is off work and we are taking Abigail to an indoor bouncy house place for her birthday! I am so excited, she LOVES bouncy houses! She had her two year check up at the doctor yesterday, and is 26lbs and 34in tall. To put that in perspective, she weighs only 6lbs more than her 19 months younger brother. He is such a chunky monkey! We also discussed her lack of quality sleep with the doctor, and have an appointment this morning for an Xray of the soft tissue of her neck to see if anything is going on there, maybe causing sleep apnea or something. I am hoping for some answers so I can have my sweet little girl back, instead of this cranky super-tired toddler that drives me crazy!

That is about all the updates I have for now. Stay tuned for more progress on the tile, as well as a revelation I had about painting cabinets, AND some new bathroom storage. Exciting stuff, I know!!

Cloth Diapers

So a few days ago, we were having some family play time after Patrick got home from work. I was holding Abigail and she laughed really hard about something, the throw-your-head-back-from-laughing-so-hard kind of laugh. Well I turned to look at her, and to my horror, see that one of her beautiful little front teeth HAS A CORNER MISSING. WTF. I know it's a baby tooth, but she won't be able to get fake stuff put on for a couple years at least, I assume, unless it's normal to knock out your two year old to perform a little cosmetic dentistry. WHICH MEANS...every picture I have of my beautiful smiling baby girl for the next couple years will have a large chunk of tooth missing. That's assuming of course that she starts looking/smiling at my camera one day, otherwise, I guess it's not a big deal at all. Has anyone else ever had this happen? What do you do? Does insurance cover things like that, or is she stuck til she loses it?

In other Abigail news, I've decided I really don't like throwing $40ish smackaroos in the garbage every couple weeks, so I decided to try to get Abigail back in cloth diapers. I stopped using cloth on her soon after I found out I was pregnant with baby #2 because my morning sickness couldn't handle scraping poop into the toilet. Although I routinely puked during poopy diaper changes even with disposables. Anyway, now that I am sans morning sickness, and plan not to have it again for a while, I want to get her back in cloth. Why is that a big deal, you ask? Well, I've never really cloth diapered a solid-eating toddler before. Abigail had a slow start with solids, so her poop didn't smell bad til she was about 10 months old, when she really got the hang of eating. Coincidentally, that's about when I got pregnant and stopped using cloth on her. So I asked around on facebook in a mom group I'm part of, and someone mentioned "flushable liners." Duh. So I ordered an $8 roll of 100 flushable liners. These, to be exact. I feel much better about flushing $8/month down the toilet than throwing away $40-60! Plus I won't even have to use them every time, since she generally only poops once a day. What? You don't care how many times a day my daughter poops? Oh, sorry. Anyway, I've never used these before so I am quite curious to see how they turn out! I will be back with an update, and hopefully it will be good news!

Also, now seems like a good time to remind anyone reading that I sell cloth diapers! Check out my website at www.woodlawnlane.com to see what's available for special order. I will be making a post on here soon dedicated to what inventory I actually have in stock for anyone interested in that also. Things are moving along, slowly but surely, as I figure out just how I want to set up my business this time around. Thanks for your patience!

Desk Before & After

It's finally finished! Between the crappy weather here in Washington that makes it impossible to spraypaint outside, to the time I spend running after my two kids and dog, to timing my painting just right so Abigail won't be going in her room for a while {that's where I've been painting this thing, since it has the most space/fewest things to cover up, and don't worry I have all the windows open and the vent on} anyway, all that to say it's been tough to get this thing finished up! But it finally is finished! As a reminder, here is the before, which I had already stained black:

I primed it with Kilz:

 {by the way, that's an awesome price at wayfair, this stuff is about $10 or $12 bucks at wally world!}
Then I let it sit for a couple days to "cure" since apparently you're supposed to do that for increased durability {a.k.a. your paint won't chip off as easily}. Then I coated it in a bunch of thin coats of Krylon Ocean Breeze spray paint. I waited about a day in between for it to "cure" as well, since this is going to be in a kid's room and will probably get beat up on quite a bit. After lots of patience, here is the final product!

I LOVE it. I am obsessed with this color. If you didn't notice, it's the same color I used to paint the frame for Abigail's pin board. I would probably spray paint her walls this color if we weren't moving. Well, and that would probably be crazy expensive. Anyway, I'm really loving how it turned out and and definitely on a furniture painting kick. Also, don't mind the boring white duvet. Her duvet cover is on backorder til August. Sad mommy :-(

Hopefully soon my next project to share will be my friend Lindsey's curtains!

Catching Up

Last weekend I was lucky enough to talk Patrick into going to the peninsula for a quick hike. We went to Lake Cushman and walked around an "easy" trail that still kicked my butt since I was carrying 18lbs of Bubba in a ring sling. {I dug through the attic to find my mei tai, but it wasn't in any of the boxes I looked in, so ring sling it was...Patrick needed the Ergobaby for Abigail.} Anyway, I survived, but my back may never be the same! We walked about a mile to a rock river bed where Patrick stopped to let Abigail play for a while. The rock bed was at the bottom of a 5ish foot mud cliff...like, almost vertical mud straight down. Not the kind of thing I wanted to slide down with Bubba and not be able to get back up. Ring slings aren't exactly made for scaling muddy cliffs. {If you're completely lost and wondering what a ring sling is, here is Abigail in the same sling-in-question as a teeny baby: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=785081443502&set=a.785081288812.2367144.17112016&type=3&theater} Here is a great one from Maya Wrap, but you can find them cheaper on Etsy:

Anyway, Patrick walked out about half a football field away from me, and started unbuckling the Ergobaby. Well, he unbuckled the waistband FIRST (???) and when he moved his arms to unbuckle the straps Abigail fell straight down onto the river rocks. Poor baby wasn't happy. I screamed like a crazy person when I saw her fall, and then I was so sad when she was crying and I couldn't go make her feel better! I eventually did make my way down there though, and snapped some pictures of Abigail spending some quality time with her dad. Here he is teaching her how to throw rocks with proper form:

 And here she is giving him some smooches:

{OK, so she missed during this particular shot, but she usually gets him right on the lips!}

And here is a picture I really like, even though I didn't really get Abigail in focus, and she's not looking at the camera...

On our walk back from the river bed, we encountered this little guy:

Yep that's right, folks. That there is a slug that someone used as an ashtray. Please forgive the lack of focus on the actual slug, I was in a hurry and forgot I had switched to manual focus while taking pictures of Abigail. Anyway, this poor little slug was just making his way across the path and I have to say it was one of the strangest things I've happened upon in my life. I yelled for Patrick to come back {he is the world's fastest walker, so naturally he was several yards ahead of me} and he actually plucked the cigarette butt out of it's head. It must have been there a while, because there was lots of slug goo that came out stuck to the tip, like it had been healing around the cigarette. It really makes me lose faith in humanity in general to find things like this. Why would you put your cigarette out on a poor little slug? Sigh. 

On a lighter note...

Another bright idea I had recently was to make some homemade playdoh. I got a wild hair up my you-know-what a couple weeks ago and decided to make playdoh with Abigail. I made a special trip to the store to get flour, since we don't keep it in the house {we try to keep a "paleo" pantry so I am not tempted to do things like make a random cake or batch of cookies and eat it all the same day...not that I do that...}. I ended up picking a recipe that needed to be made in a a pot on the stove, so I made it while she was napping and planned for her to help me knead in the food coloring to color the dough. She was a little less than impressed. I should have known, this girl got a tiny tub of playdoh when she was trick or treating and I was so excited to play with it with her when we got home, but she cared more about the container than playing with the squishy good stuff. I guess we are still a ways off from enjoying "bigger" little kid activities like this. I think I've decided I would be OK with just skipping this second year. Nothing good happens during year 2, they throw tantrums, they can't play "for real" yet, you have to potty train...what a bummer! Come on, THREE! Oh wait, she's not even two yet...sigh. I hope this year goes fast. Anywho, here is the best picture I could get while she was pushing a cookie cutter into the dough:

{notice that she is still not looking at me?}

 One "bigger" little kid thing she does like to do is play with puzzles. My mom sent this alphabet puzzle recently and she tried to play with it, but once she took out ALL the letters, she got a little frustrated!

And now, my first DIY project to post on here! We got this pine computer desk from one of my favorite local furniture stores, The Woodshed. They sell unfinished wood furniture. It's super solid and a great little desk. I stained it black, because at the time we were loving espresso colored furniture. {My tastes have since changed, and I am slowly but surely trying to get our furniture to be lighter, and airier (??) feeling} I decided I wanted to paint this desk a fun color and put it in Abigail's room as a nightstand and also for future schoolwork, since we plan to homeschool. Below is a photo of the desk after I sanded it to get it ready to be primed:

So there you have it! That is all that we've been up to lately. I will post a reveal tomorrow to show the finished product of the desk, so stay tuned!

A Couple Things

Cute things first...I have been meaning to write about this for a couple days now, but Abigail has started tickling Bubba while he is standing in his exersaucer, and saying "tickle tickle tickle!" It is SO darn CUTE! She sounds more like "teegull" and I just love that she likes to play with him. She is also obsessed with giving him things. She will hand him anything and everything, and say "here go, baby." When he doesn't grab whatever she is trying to give him, she will grab his hand and try to force him to hold whatever toy/thing she has. It's great. {Side note, she says "baby" after just about everything. I call her baby a lot of the time, so whenever she falls, or knocks something over she says "s'OK baby" ("it's OK in abby-speak) or "sorry baby"} She is also really enjoying pretending to sleep everywhere. She grabs her blanket, lays down, and says "night night momma" then squeezes her eyes shut.

"night night mom. Blanket???"

 She is really getting to be a fun age, aside from the terrible twos attitude that creeps out sometimes...I can't wait til she is a bit older and can really start doing fun activities like painting, coloring, playing with playdoh, playing with barbies...I seriously can't wait to PLAY again!


In Bubba news, he is seriously trying HARD to crawl. He is really strong and can lift up his chest easily during tummy time, and today he even lifted up his belly off the floor. Like I totally saw daylight under his tummy. My big strong boy is definitely following in his daddy's footsteps. He is also wearing 12m size clothes. At four months. Crazy. Speaking of four months, he had his check-up on the 5th, and weighed in at a whopping 18lb 5oz! He will be 20lbs before we know it! He was also 26.5in long, and his head was 43.5cm around. Both of those put him in the 85th percentile, but he is off the charts for his weight! Basically the 99th percentile, since I'm sure he isn't the heaviest 4 month old in the world. He is one big dude! Daddy is proud. {And mommy, too.}


I am also really excited to say that two days ago I got my first Etsy order for the monthly onesie iron on designs!! I am so excited! OK, it's not THAT big of a deal. But it kind of is. Anyone else want month by month onesie iron ons for their babies?! Visit my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/WoodlawnLane.

Baby Weight

I am still working on ditching my baby weight (from BOTH babies) and just wanted to share that I made it back down to 142 this morning! This is exciting for me because I've been here twice before, since Bubba was born, and this time I am determined not to go above it again!! A little background, I came home from the hospital weighing 150 after having Abigail, got down to 137 on a good day, usually 140ish then I got knocked up again! Came home from the hospital at about 150 again after losing 9lb 12oz in St. Joe's Emergency Room. So I'm officially 12lbs from my goal of 130 as of today. I know this isn't that exciting to most people, but it's exciting to me and this is MY blog so I'm sharing :-) Maybe if anyone is interested I will do a post about how I lost weight once I hit my goal.

New Wheels

We have two beasty vehicles. We had a bouncing baby girl in June of 2010, and quickly figured out that having her in her carseat in the back of my beautiful 2-door brand new Accord would not be fun. Keeping in mind the fact that we want about 4 kids, we went out and bought the biggest vehicle we could find after selling my Accord. We found my 2006 Expedition all the way in Aberdeen, took it home and have had a love/hate relationship with it ever since. I loved having an Expedition, but this particular one came with some problems that we didn't see before purchasing, like a stupid air conditioner that according to Patrick only has two settings, "off and hurricane." And a power window motor about to poop out any second on the driver's side window. I go on Ft. Lewis a lot, so a working driver's side window is a must! And last but not least, the GAS. We have two gas guzzling vehicles, one of which is driving 18 miles to Fort Lewis and 18 miles home every.single.day. Well, except weekends. Most of the time. Anyway, with gas being over $4/gallon, we decided it was time to get something smaller and spend less money on gas since we don't have enough kids to necessitate our actually having the Expedition. I did lots of shopping around online, and settled on the Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner (same car). We finally came home with this lovely 2009 Mariner with only 39,000 miles (as opposed to my 85,500 mile Expedition!):

 

The power windows work great, and it has FOUR actual air conditioning settings that do indeed each feel different! It's a 4cyl so we are hoping to cut our gas bill down significantly!

Some day down the road, when I am knocked up with baby number 4, this snazzy little number will join our family: 

The redesigned Nissan Quest is the first minivan I have seen that has a body style that is somewhat acceptable to me, and has all the convenience and functionality of a minivan! I am not gonna lie, I'm kind of excited about it....Does that make me a loser? A mom? A little of both? I never in my life thought I would be excited about a minivan...

More Big Changes!

Well this has just been a big week for my BIG little Abigail. After a couple nights of failed story time, I decided to get her a real TWIN bed! When I tried to put her in her bed, tuck her in and read her a story while kneeling next to her toddler bed, she would always want to climb out to sit on my lap for story time.  Then one afternoon, we were in her room cleaning when Patrick got home from work and he came upstairs to find us. He thought he would lay on her bed with her and hang out for a bit. Well, the board under the mattress on her toddler bed bowed down so badly, it practically touched the floor. Clearly it was not made to be supporting huge men! That was when I decided we needed a twin bed. 

So we got this one: 

It definitely does not look white in the photo, but I called the manufacturer and they assured me that it was indeed true white. So I ordered it, and it came OVERNIGHT because wayfair.com is awesome. It took no time to put together, and looks so cute! I will post real pictures later when I get her bedding situation figured out. So far, Abigail loves being able to cuddle in bed at bedtime/naptime! 

Our next big change: forward facing in the car!! She is a couple weeks shy of her 2nd birthday, and starting to get annoyed a lot more in the car. So I decided it was time. Patrick and I are looking for a new, smaller car {more about that soon!} and were planning on driving about 45min up north to look at some, and I thought it would be the perfect time to try her out forward facing. I brought her out to the car, set her down in the seat, and she sat there looking around, then whispered, "woooooow!" It was so cute! She was VERY excited to be able to see a whole new view from the car! Plus, we can finally see eachother in the rear view mirror. {I never could get her little mirror to line up with my mirror in order to be able to see her face when she faced backwards}. So far she is having a great time facing the world, but she hasn't figured out yet that she needs to hold onto her blankets better because she can't reach them when they fall she throws them on the floor! Cause and effect, baby. Maybe one day she will learn. 

In Bubba news, he had his four month check up yesterday afternoon. My huge little man was 18lb 5oz, which is around the 99th %ile. My son is bigger than 99% of four month old babies! Crazy! {Abigail was consistently 50% for weight} He has remained steady on his 99% curve since birth, and is exclusively breastfed so the doctor isn't worried. She said he will just be a HUGE man! Which we knew already. Anywho, he was 26in long, which puts him around the 85th percentile. And his head circumference is also in the 85th percentile, but I don't remember how big it was. Possibly 43.5cm. Basically our Bubba is one big dude. And will probably continue to be that way. 

She gave me the go ahead to work on night weaning, and start introducing solids to help him make up the calories if he doesn't nurse more during the day. {He wakes up to eat A LOT in the very early morning after I bring him in our bed for his first night-time snack around 1 or 2}. My new goal for now is to start putting him back in his own bed after he eats, so as not to be tempting him by having him sleep next to the all-night open bar! We will see. I don't plan to do anything serious until we get home from our trip to Louisiana because it would be silly to make progress then shake it up by going out of town. I am looking forward to getting more sleep in the very near future though! But I am sad for all of the crying to come, as well as the fact that my little baby is already growing up on me! Slow down babies!!