Making it Home

We have all stainless steel appliances - just like we did in our old house...It's nice for them to feel familiar, but even nicer to see my little girl's fingerprints smudged onto all of them. I pretend to be bothered by it in front of Doug and make proclaimations like, "I think they make something specifically for those types of appliances." But I like them - they are proof that we are home.

 

I hate those same stainlees steel appliances for a totally different reason. They don't hold magnets. And the refrigerator is fully enclosed by cabinets so you can't use the side to hang up things like christmas cards, invitations, CVS Extra Care bucks, baby announcements - or even funny magnets. So I found this "Works of Art" clip board to hang on the wall and I love it. I have it in the kitchen so it still has the refrigerator magnet feel behind it and I can proudly display Katie's artwork for her Weekday program. (I would've taken the picture closer, but the paper plate clown really scares me.) I also have the pocket style suede-ish bulletin board thing that I hung on the cabinet next to the fridge for all the other things. The other upside is that the aforementioned fingerprint smudges aren't covered up!

 

Katie loves her room - there is a lot of space to actually be able to play in there and not just use the room for sleeping and changing diapers (her 2 least favorite things). Doug painted it the same color as her old nursery and obviously we have all the same furnitre so it doesn't feel much different at first glance. But keep looking...There's no baby in there anymore who is snuggly wrapped into her Snuggle Me Blanket on her Incline to Sleep wedge. The chagning table isn't packed full of cloth diapers and burp cloths and the boppy has been moved to the top of the closet. It's been replaced by Noah's Ark wooden animals, loads of books, stuffed animals, and Snappy Ducks. Oh and there's an almost 15 month old in there learning to dance. This is her pre-Super Bowl-friends are coming over-I'm so excited-routine. It looked a lot like my pre-Super Bowl-friends are coming over-I'm so excited-routine.

I have looked all over the place for a growth chart that matched Katie's room or matched her personality but I just haven't found one. And they can get pretty pricey. So the other night when Doug wanted to start making a record of Katie's height somewhere, I was bummed because I didn't have a growth chart. But we have a laundry room and it has a door. And now it has it's first tick mark and date on it. And it's in permanent marker so we're staying put for a while.

 

Katie just loved it - She kept trying to look up and see what her daddy was doing and wanted to grab the marker too. After he marked where the top of her head met the door, he let her turn around to watch him record it. Then she kept pointing at it like "I'm famous - my height made it to the door." The next morning when we were getting her oatmeal out of the pantry/laundry room, she closed the door behind us to see her mark again...And just to be sure she hadn't grown overnight, I measured her up against it again!