Project COMPLETED!

Pictures to be posted hopefully tonight.

Project Update part 2!

I did the stencilling today. I penciled in a 1-1/2 foot band of randomly placed multi sized dots across the one wall. I have to say, now that that stencilling is complete, I can clearly see this is going to be a LOT of tedious work to paint. I ended up using a lot more dots and 5 different sizes instead of 3. However, when it's finished, it's going to look SO. TOTALLY. AWESOME!!! I'm really excited now, because it's turning out pretty cool. So, now the spare-moment painting phase begins. Anyone who wants to play with Lexi while I paint is MORE than welcome to! Usually I hate being a charity case, but for this I'm ok with it. Anytime anyone feels the need to get some Lexi time in, feel free to stop by anytime. This week is spring break, so no playgroups. Again, pictures will be posted when the project is done, and hopefully everyone will be in awe...

Baby's Room Project Update

Phase one: Complete (pretty much). The light brown base paint is done, with three little touch-up spots needed along the baseboard. After completing taping up about 80% of the room, including the door, window, and closet, I decided to just paint one wall. The color isn't all that dark, but I think on all the walls it would have been a little overwhelming. Sad waste of tape, though. Friday night we put Lexi to bed and got to work! The wall was painted in less than an hour, and Wayne did a quick second coat with the roller this morning. The color is perfect, I'm very happy with how it turned out. The next step is to stencil the outlines of the dots on the wall, which most likely will happen tomorrow (Sunday). The last step is hand-painting in those dots. Ah, there's the rub. That last "step" may take me quite a long time. But I'm determined to get it done, and get it done well. 'Slow and steady wins the race' is my motto. I'll just do a little every day until it's done. I bought the paint for the dots today, and seeing it in real life, I'm really excited for how it's going to look in the end. Look forward to pictures of the finished product, hopefully to be posted before the baby comes...

Save the Date!

Everyone who reads this blog is invited to Lexi's very first birthday party. We're thinking of doing it on Saturday May 3rd, around 11-ish. It'll be low-key, Signing Time themed with Signing Time movies to watch and coloring activities for the kids, and time to hang out and mingle for the adults, pizza and veggies for lunch, that sort of thing. So start saving the date, or let me know if that day is a big bad no-no for anyone, and we may want to change it.

Current Phase: Nesting!

I'm totally and completely in the nesting phase right now. Benefits: I have the motivation to actually to some personalization in our home, instead of leaving it a nearly balnk canvas as I usually do. I've always loved the idea of having our home really "Tomlinson-ized", but never really wanted to spend the time and effort to figure out how to do it, so the hormonal need to make things look nice is a great kick in the pants. Downside: We do not have thousands of dollars lying around, and/or a fulltime nanny to take care of Alexis while I research/shop/paint/sew/whatever. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to be happy doing what I can do when I can do it. The priorities right now are 1) painting Nameless Baby's room, and 2) sewing blackout curtains for the two little windows in Lexi's room. Today I got the paint for the base color in Nameless Baby's room. Turned out I could buy enough paint to cover every wall for the same price as it would cost to buy enough paint to cover just one accent wall, so I may just do that since I've got enough paint (top color in the picture). Then I'm going to paint a bunch of dots of various sizes on one accent wall, the wall with the crib against it (the other three colors). Wayne and I should be able to put up the base paint some night this week, and I'll do the dots little by little, when I have time. I was going to do them during Lexi's naps, but I can't really count on those anymore... Feel free to ask me how the project is going anytime you see me/talk to me. I really don't want to let my motivation die off before it gets done, but I can see that happening...

EDIT: on my monitor, the second color looks black, it's not. It's a dark brown. All these colors come from the baby's bedding.

Click. Scurry.

Sweet Freedom?

Lexi has now mastered opening doors. In our apartment we had handles instead of knobs, and that she had down. But when we moved, the knobs proved too difficult for her, expecially since the doors were new and the knobs sort of stiff. Well, that's no longer a problem, she's got it figured out. Part of me loves that she has learned this new trick; I always felt guilty having her "locked" in her room, especially since sometimes she wakes up from her nap and just lays in bed silently for who knows how long until I happen to check in on her. I love that now she can come out and play when she is done sleeping. But the key word there is "done". Yesterday she concluded that now that she can open the door, staying in her room and falling asleep is optional. There was no nap yesterday, just a cranky mom, a self-satisfied toddler in the afternoon, and eventually a very tired toddler in the evening. This morning she woke up with a cough and a fever, so I was hoping she'd actually want a nap, like I do when I'm sick. So far no luck. At the moment I got her to stay in by giving her a relatively new book to keep her occupied. But I await the inevitable 'click' of the door latch as it releases, followed by the quiet scurry of happy little feet...