Trip to Oregon in Pics

I have 2 favorites....
*Jax loves his Keira. The pic of the two of them shows that so perfectly, he looks
in complete bliss.
*The one of the girls is super cute, the bridesmaid thinks her "girls" are pretty great, too!

MORE Before & Afters

she may get her big brothers' handmedowns, but she sure won't LOOK like a boy while wearing them!!

half her wardrobe so far is made up of the boys' old clothes!

Ellie's Room Before & Afters

i'll start by saying "tif, you KNOW that once i start a project i can't stop until it's done!"

this is my dad's dresser he had growing up. he was gracious enough to donate it to the cause. that or ma graciously swiped it for me figuring he'd say no (which is more likely).
it was pretty scratched up, so we sanded it all down and removed the old (too big for those drawers) knobs, fretted over whether to paint or stain since it was in such good shape. but i really wanted it to go with the room....


....so we opted for the paint. i'm happy with the way it turned out. jason put blocks behind the drawers so they wouldn't be pushed too far back anymore, and now it's in perfect working order! i painted inside each drawer a different color and modpodged a scrapbook paper heart in each one.
i really wanted clear glass knobs for it, but it turns out they are really expensive and hard to come by, so we settled for painting some really hideous goose knobs that jason found for 50 cents each at the restore, white. then i added a rhinestone over a small white button over a larger blue button. i think it ended up even cuter this way, plus i spent $25 less than the cheapest glass knobs and there is a good stupid pregnancy argument story behind them to tell ellie someday!

this is ellie's room before plain white and boring

and this is the same wall after. we still have to paint the trim out white and touch up the upper white wall, but for the most part the room is done being painted.

i saw these dandelions on etsy in vinyl, but i thought why spend so much money on something i can do for free? so i painted these on her wall and i love them more than if they were bought. plus, i was nervous that the boys would peel them off like stickers! and on the right is a pic of the boys' paintings they made special for baby sister.

i recently had a craft night with my girlies and we made the tissue and tulle poms for above the crib in place of a mobile, i added some crystals to them to make them look more floral. i also modpodged that E from a few posts back with $3 worth of dollar store doilies. i think it looks a bit more nautical than shabby, but it's cute nonetheless. today i made a dust ruffle for the crib, the pics make it look plain white, but it's actually white with raised pink swiss dots all over it. shh... don't tell jason ;) i made some curtains too, but they aren't finished yet and it was super hard to get a good pic while light is shining through them. so you'll just have to use your imagination for that!

this post has been rather long, so i'll post later tonight about all the boys' handmedowns i've refashioned into little girly numbers!!

PS: you can totally click on any of these tiny pics to see them bigger!!

craigslist

can i just say how much i absolutely LOVE craigslist right now?! i'm totally kicking myself for being too lazy to post nearly ALL our baby gear that we just got sick of moving around and dropped off at goodwill!! luckily, we were smart enough to save our big ticket items to sell when we wanted to "deal" with haggling and "thousands" of phone calls.

in the last 2 days we have made $330 for stuff that's been collecting dust in our garage for a year! sold our double jogger, double stroller and our coffee table. and it was SUPER easy, no haggling at all!! now we can use that money to RE-BUY all that baby gear we so stupidly rid ourselves of ;)

we are looking to buy a gently used, great condition girly or black or gray travel system, a papasan bouncy/vibrating seat, and a papasan or cute swing. so if anyone knows anyone who'd like to be rid of those things, we are in the market!

i'm well on my way to clearing our ellie's room so we can start thinking about paint and stuff, and collecting the things we'll need for it. i'm desperately trying to NOT have a garage sale. i REALLY hate having garage sales. but it's looking like we will end up doing one next month, with all the little stuff we have hanging around.

SERIOUSLY?!

i feel like a hoarder!!

2 double strollers and a travel system, 10 shopping bags of clothes and one box of shoes (not including the stuff we figured we'd pass to ellie and girl stuff i had bought when i learned i was prego w/boomer or a few things i set aside for the boys' boys)

we knew we weren't done having babies, but come on. really? what was i thinking? we could clothe and stroll a whole baby army here! and it's only up to 3T, plus i only ever saved the non stained/ super cute stuff!!

anyone ever sold anything through consignment? is it easier to just have a garage sale (please don't answer yes to that one) or sell them in craigslist lots? i plan on selling the strollers on craigslist, but i don't think i'd ever buy a lot of clothes b/c what are the chances you'd actually like everything in the lot? feedback on this would be great!

craft projects and baby loot

for the last 6 months or so, i think since christmas, i haven't felt any kind of intrest in any type of crafting. until we found out we were having a girl, that is. my creative gears are constantly spinning now and i have a LONG list of stuff i want to do.

so far i've made a new boppy cover...



a baby girl can't be nursed on a blue and green construction themed boppy!

i bought this cute giant E for her wall. okay so maybe it's not cute yet, but it will be!



and now that i've finished her quilt (and a matching pillow for the glider rocker) i can get started on figuring out a wall color and decorating that E!



also on the list... hopefully finding and refinishing a dresser in the shabby chic style, tissue poms in place of a mobile, modpodged puzzle blocks with her name, and much more that i just can't remember right now. i'm also inspired to finally make some kind of artwork for the boys' walls, and for christmas i REALLY want to make a play kitchen out of an old entertainment center for them. (it'll make a great hand-me-down, too!) PHEW... i better get movin'!!

i've been REALLY good about not going all out buying girly stuff. the few things i have bought were sale stuff or clearance and must haves. c'mon, what little girl doesn't need at least one tutu or pettiskirt in every size?! the socks are for baby legs that i'm going to make for her. she'll probably have them in every color to match every outfit she'll have!

THE FOURTH

jason was on-call this year for the fourth of july weekend. it turned out fine, though. he was able to participate in all aspects of the weekend, and we really had an overall good time. saturday night we went to the little firework stand at haggen and the boys each got to spend $10. that much money doesn't go very far for fireworks anymore! i remember my grandpa taking me out to the res. when i was little and him haggling like a madman and us making away like bandits with $20 worth!!

all my boys went out to the cul-de-sac and within a few minutes some of the neighbor boys wanted to watch the "show". they were entertained, though and didn't seem to care that the biggest one was a tiny little fountain.



we didn't have enough sparklers for all the neighbor kids, so we took the boys out to the backyard to do them after bathtime.

"airplane traffic director jax"


"boomer potter"



sunday was the big show down by the bay. it's a tradition with our friends to go down to maritime heritage park to watch the show. that park offers a really good view without the traffic getting out aferward. we've been going there for something like 7 years. last year i started thinking about maybe wanting to gather up our crew and find a new venue. it seems like every year gets a little worse with the bums. but this year was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. long story short, there was a whole slew of drunk bums just across from us. we arrived around 7 and they were already loopy. the show started at 10, and in that time, we saw 2 people fall down (one stayed down), "chanting" in the bushes, a makeout session, 2 men swapping shirts, the girl from the bushes came out from the bushes and slapped a man in the face and started cussing at him, a gangbanger hiding his backpack in the bushes just behind us, and boomer found some unmarked pill capsules on the ground. needless to say, we are NOT going back next year!!!

the show was good and thankfully we were surrounded (on our side) by great friends. it only decided to sprinkle on us for the last 10 minutes or so. but luckily it was light and short-lived.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!