School is in Session

First day of school today! Here's her "card." And for those of you still laughing from when I made a card for her nursery class at Shandon when she was 1, NO - I did not give this to her teacher!

 

We had a slow morning at home...We're usually out of the door by 7:30 but didn't have to leave to go to school until 8:30 and we still got there a little early. We took advantage of the extra time and took our obligatory "first day" pictures. Here's a few of the outtakes!

I didn't realize how much the chalkboard looked like prison numbers...Especially with this face! Looks like a mugshot! And she smeared the writing, but it gives the picture some flair, so I didn't fret over it.

 

And speaking of prison, you probably could get there by showing a little too much of this attitude to the wrong person!

 

It looks like someone just told her an unbelievable story and she's saying she believes it but doesn't really mean it.

 

And here, in all her southern-ness, is a Bless Your Little Heart!

 

Okay, enough pictures at home...We were off to school to take some more there! Trinity is in Blythewood and this is the first time she's gone anywhere other than our church for any type of childcare. We took just a few pictures outside and then headed on in.

 

Man, a backpack sure does make you look grown up!

 

She did pretty good getting dropped off. I probably stayed a little too long because by the time I was leaving, she had gotten used to me being in there and wanted me to stay. Her eyes started to fill with tears and then her chin trembled, but I quickly redirected her attention to Cole who was playing with dinosaurs. Then I headed on out and prayed for confidence for her and patience for her teachers (and no potty accidents). I picked her up at noon and she ran to me and gave me her signature hug (squeeze til it hurts)! I asked if she had a good time and she said YES! I took her to Wendy's for lunch and interviewed her about the rest of her day. Her favorite part was the playground. They sang songs but when I asked if she remembered the songs, she told me her teachers would remember the songs for her. She had goldfish for snacks and drank water out of a real cup (no sippy). As we were leaving Wendy's, I had to retie the belt on her dress. As I tied it, she said, "My teachers already tied it mommy." Then of course I worried that it came undone several times and I was already "that mom" who sent her child in an annoying outfit.

All in all, I think she had a great first day! She will go on Tuesday and Thursday and I think she's going to love it!

Mommy, WOW!

I'm a BIG KID now!

All the signs are there...we haven't bought diapers in a month. There are toddler toilets and toddler toilet seats all over the house. There are stickers and lollipops given out daily. I think it's safe to say we are potty trained! Obviously not 100% (do you ever really get there???)...but we are close.

The potty training was relatively uneventful. I made a few half-hearted attempts to make her go which resulted in tears or 10 hour stretches of holding it. So I was going to buy stock in Pampers and Depends and never really try again. I had resolved to let her go to her new preschool in diapers and maybe it was my own subconscious way of holding on to her as a baby for just a while longer.

But after Jessica went back to work and Katie and Maddie (potty trained/ing) started staying together again, Katie had an interest all of a sudden. We came home one Friday afternoon and my mom told me Katie was in BGPs (big girl panties - but I hate that word - I can't believe I just typed it) and had been dry all afternoon and had actually gone in the toilet a few times. We were going to Chuck E Cheese that night and I decided I was going to keep her in the BGPs. We haven't looked back since and that was the end of July. She actually has only had a few accidents...one on a long car ride (1 hour), one from me spanking her (scared the pee out of her, I guess), and one because we all just got caught up in doing other things and no one made her go. I'm sure there have been some more - but nothing that has made me super frustrated.

 

Katie doesn't usually tell us she has to go - but she almost always goes when we take her. So she can definitely hold it! She loves to go to public restrooms which totally grosses me out. I've never been a germaphobe - but this could do me in. We are still not great with #2s, we're getting there. But we're far enough along this road that I would call her potty trained.

She wears BGPs all the time - except for nap and bedtime and she's almost always dry after a nap. She's going to her new preschool tomorrow and has a special pair of BGPs with Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck all picked out.

MTV Cribs - Preschool Edition!

Katie has been in a big girl bed for a while now, but her room has been a work in progress. I think I finally have it finished...for now! I'll take you a tour and for documentation purposes, I'm detailing a lot of what's what...Just so I can remember down the road!

Here's the view from the door...Curtains and wall color "recycled" from her nursery. I purposely tried to find stuff so I could keep those the same. The bed, dresser, and night stand are from my first apartment my sophomore year in college.

 

And now a view from a corner...The green chair in the far corner was her present from Santa this past Christmas. She likes to read in it and hide behind it and she knows it came from Santa.

 

The Owl Bench! I love it. It is from Kirkland's and was a Christmas present to me from Grandma Jones! Curious George hangs out here all the time. I covered the bench with a pillow sham because her quilt set accidentally came with 3. I didn't have another pillow so I improvised.

 

This yellow bench and cubbie set was painted by Doug. It holds some of our go-to toys. On top is a blanket my dad had made for me shortly after Katie was born. It's a t-shirt quilt with poems that I wrote in 8th grade.

 

This piece is actually a dining room buffet but I've used it as her changing table. Now it holds some clothes and diapers and wipes. The monogram decal is one of my favorite things in the room!

 

This dresser holds most of her clothes. On the side of the dresser are her bows. Yes, I know that is a crazy amount of bows. They were a dollar each so don't judge me quite as harshly.

 

The Organic Bloom hand and footprint frames. Still can't decide how I like the way they turned out, but I love the frames and love the colors!

 

And finally the canvas. The. Canvas. One of my best friends, Jessica, made this for me. She is uber-talented and previously made one for Katie's nursery too. The scripture is from Proverbs 31, a passage I have always loved. After seeing something similar with this scripture on another website, I personalized and tweaked it a bit in hopes that Katie will feel worthy as a child of God in her heart. She IS worth far more than rubies.

 

Pinning!

Thanks to someone who will remain nameless (in case she needs to hide her addiction), I now have a new web obsession. It's Pinterest. It's a website that lets me bookmark or "pin" things that I like. Until now, most of my web surfing consisted of facebook, blogs, People, MSN, and various links from these main pages. I sort of thought I had reached the end of the internet. Enter Pinterest. Not only can I pin and organize all the things on the internet that I like, but I can look at what other people pin. And man, there are some creative, talented, witty, beautiful people out there pinning until the cows come home. So I steal their pins...which is legal; it's called "re-pinning."

So aside from funny sayings, recipes, fashion, and fitness, I have found myself drawn to DIY crafts. I have pinned many things I want to try one day but in the last few weeks, I have actually put the pedal to the metal and done a few things.

Wreaths! Who doesn't love a good wreath for the front door? I've made a coffee filter wreath and have a few others pinned that I want to try - but I found an easy ribbon wreath that was right up my alley. I used some ribbon leftover from Katie's birthday party and bought some more to fill the wreath. It's about 50-60 pieces of ribbon tied in a double knot to the wreath. That's it. And now I have a perfect wreath ready for the baby shower I am having at my house on Sunday for my sister in law, Lindsay.

 

Monograms! There are so many fun things out there to do with letters and monograms. Stuff I couldn't have thought of in my wildest dreams. Some are way above my skill level and some fit me perfectly. This yarn wrapped letter was easy and looks even cooler because I used multicolored yarn. And the C is another decoration/gift for the baby shower.

 

Wall Art! Yes please! Again - much of what's out there exceeds my abilities. (Can't sew, can barely cut thanks to being left handed in a right handed scissor world, and can't stay in the lines whatsoever.) But this one screamed "Try me, I'm simple!" Two canvases (18x20) and a small jar of sample paint from Home Depot. Tape up the canvas with painter's tape or masking tape in a pattern that pleases your style and then paint the rest! Pull off the tape and you've got Genuine Homemade Wall Art! These are now hanging on either side of our fireplace and add a nice pop to the living room!

 

Different patterns with the tape make each of them unique, yet similar!

 

Lastly, Pinterest could be Doug's worst nightmare. Do you know how many "projects" I've dreamed up in my head for this man?! But this one is actually something he wanted to do a while back and I searched Pinterest for some tutorials and pictures to give us a starting point. We wanted to spruce up the builder's grade mirros throughout the house so we started with the one in the guest bathroom. It's the smallest and is the most visible, so it was easier to tackle and more rewarding since it will get more spectators. Doug bought some crown molding that goes well with the molding around our fireplace (since this bathroom is right off the living room) and framed the mirror! I'm not sure what all went into the process, but he didn't groan too much and seemed pleased with the outcome!

 

Not sure what my next project will be, but I'm feeling a change needed in the decor for the upstairs guest/Katie bathroom...Stay tuned!

Hands (and feet) Down!

I bought some Organic Bloom circle frames in orange and yellow for Katie's room. I honestly couldn't decide what pictures to put in the frames and I was nervous about making things fit into the circle. So I thought about her initials but we already have a monogram decal on one wall. Then I thought about pictures/clip arts of owls - but I thought it was overkill with the owl theme.

So I decided to create some art! Katie and I went and got some scrapbooking paper with coordinating colors/patterns for her bedroom.

Then we mixed up our paint (only had blue, red, yellow, white) and made orange, green, yellow, and pink to match her room.

My idea was to do both hand prints and both foot prints - one for each frame. We bought some extra paper just in case some of them didn't turn out right.

So after mixing the paint, we headed outside to make ART! Doug was assigned the task of painting her hands and feet and helping her place them on the paper. She watched very intently. She was a little confused about getting paint on her hands since we usually try to keep paint on the paper!

 

She did pretty good spreading her fingers out to make the hand print and even held her hands still long enough to make the print turn out!

 

Next up were the feet! She giggle and squirmed through the painting of both feet and really liked STOMPING her footprint onto the paper!

 

The prints only took a few minutes to make and very little paint. So with the time and paint we had leftover, we freestyled on the craft paper taped to the sidewalk!

 

We laid all the pages out to dry and waited to see how they would turn out...

 

So about that...Have I ever mentioned how big Katie's feet are? She's 2 1/2 and wears a 9 1/2. That means her footprint is that of a 9 1/2 size foot. Which didn't exactly fit into the opening of the frame! But - I trimmed it a little and it doesn't look too bad in the frame after all.

A few of the patterns on the scrapbook paper were too bold and show through the foot/handprint making it hard to tell what the picture is. I think I need to go back and paint the prints a little darker/more opaque.

Nevertheless, they are hanging up in her room now! I'm still deciding if I like the way they turned out and may just eventually break down and put pictures in the frames. But for now - we've got hands and feet of our little girl to adorn her wall and another fun memory in the book!

Some Things DO Change

Just before my maternity leave ended in February 2009, I took Katie to My Gym for some free classes. Lindsay and I met there with our kids who were right around 3 months old.

Here's Katie in the ball pit saying she's going to bust me up if I don't get her out of there pronto.

 

My solution is to ease her fears by plopping her cousin down next to her to make her feel safe. Doesn't seem to work at all, especially because fears aren't eased when the person who is supposed to calm you down is crying too.

 

So she tries her hand at screaming and quickly gets picked up out of the ball pit. I get the idea Katie doesn't really enjoy anything at My Gym and most things where way too advanced for her. So we don't ever go back.

 

Fast forward 2 1/2 years and someone gives me a groupon for a free month of classes and free play. Can't turn down free classes or air conditioned play time so we try our hand at My Gym again...And turns out she likes it!

 

You can't see it - but there are definitely smiles on these faces as they are buried beneath all the balls!

 

This time he's not screaming to get out - but screaming for someone to help him cover up completely!

 

Success! Don't worry - they eventually came up for air!

 

Even a face plant on the trampoline couldn't spoil her fun!

 

Bouncing away - she used to be terrified of trampolines but has recently warmed up to them. Check out all that HAIR!

 

A little hanging bar action too...Hang for a few seconds and then SPLAT on the mat!

 

And finish up the trip with a little quiet reading. Don't they look ready for preschool??

 

Doug took her back to an actual class the following Saturday and she loved that too. We will get 3 more free plays and 3 more classes so that's our strategy at beating the heat for the month of August!

Chicago...all by myself!

Back in July, I got to go to Chicago for a conference for work. I had never been to Chicago before and got to spend a good bit of time doing lots of walking and sightseeing (read: eating). I did get to travel with a co-worker but I was by myself in the sense that I had no husband or child with me. It was the longest I had ever been away from Katie and I was thrilled to see her when I got home. But I did have a good time in Chicago (thanks in part to tips from my Chicago-loving friends, Curtis and Elizabeth).

Here's the John Hancock building on Michigan Avenue. My hotel was very near this building so I used it as a frame of reference most of the time since it was the tallest building around.

 

4th Presbyterian Church - I flew in on a Sunday and had missed church to make my flight. They had a 5pm Jazz service so I went to that. The music was good but it made me miss my home church for sure! The building, however, was absolutely gorgeous!

 

6 floors of Bloomingdales? Yes, please! Don't worry, Doug - I didn't actually buy anything. I was afraid to touch most things there, let alone try anything on!

 

This is more my travel style! I like to spend my money on food! On several people's recommendations, I went to Giordano's Pizza for dinner. The wait was over an hour and by the time we got a table, it was 8pm (9pm my time) and the sole of my shoe would've tasted good at that point. But the pizza was delicious. However - we couldn't finish it. I kept trying to give myself a pep talk and eat more not knowing when/if I'd ever get back to Chicago! But I just couldn't. My 25 year old self is extremely disappointed.

 

We took a boat tour of the skyline. Well worth it. The skyline just goes on and on. Nothing like it.

 

A wrong turn down one street on my way back to the hotel one night let me stumble upon this "artwork." It was quite the tourist attraction, for sure!

 

The Chicago River - at night...Just beautiful!

 

We had lunch at The Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building the day before we left. After lunch, I headed down one flight to the observatory and spent some time looking at the city from above. This is a picture of my hotel. It's in the center of the picture - close to the green patch of trees. I had a great location - just a minute walk from the Lakefront Path and a minute walk from all the shopping too.

 

Proof that I was actually up there. I've never been a fan of "self-portraits" but I also wasn't a fan of asking random people to take a picture of me by myself since my work friend didn't go to the observatory floor.

 

A much longer walk from our hotel was Grant Park and Millennium Park and this other fun piece of art. This "reflective kidney bean" is a magnet for tourists!

 

One final picture...My hotel...The Drake! All lit up at night with the John Hancock Building in the background!

 

It was a great trip and only reminded me of my love for travel. I must've walked 20 miles in the 3 days I was there! I was determined to see as much of the city as possible! I had started reading Devil in the White City before I left to give me some history of Chicago. The book is about the World's Fair in the late 1800s that grew the city into more prominence but also set the stage for a serial killer. It's a true story and I was wrapped up in the history the whole time I was there. I was about 3/4 of the way through the book and was determined to finish it on the plane ride home. But guess who left it in the pocket of her seat on the first leg of the flight. I wish I could blame someone else but I can't. I need to go pick up another copy and finish it!