Baby Room Paintings

My husband and I struggled for a while to come up with a theme for the baby's room that we could agree on, but when we finally decided on sports, I couldn't have been happier. I love sports, especially football, so I was pretty excited to get to work on this room!

After looking at lots of decorations, I decided that I didn't want to use any vintage sports things in the baby's room. I am a more modern girl, so I was on the look out for something different. I wanted to put some art on the walls that would add some color and look modern and would match the other things we wanted to put in his room. When I couldn't find anything that I loved, I suddenly had a thought...I could make something! Now I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I can come up with really good ideas sometimes. We were actually at the beach when I thought this one up and I sketched out my idea to show my husband.

Looks pretty rough, but the idea is there. 4 sports balls on square canvas. 

After getting the ok from my husband, I started looking for supplies. I didn't need too much, since the colors were pretty simple. I purchased 4 square canvases from Hobby Lobby that were 14"x14" and some acrylic paints and a simple set of brushes. Then the taping began!

The football was the easiest! Taped it and painted it brown:) 

The basketball was taped in a giant X from corner to corner and it was pretty simple as well.

The only difficult part on this one was finding a way to make the curved lines. I used a big bowl as a template and then my friend Karen filled in the line.

Baseball was easy too. Same big bowl to make the lines. 

Then filled in the stitches with more red paint. 

The soccer ball was the absolute hardest one to do. If you have ever tried to draw one, you know how tricky it is. It seems easy, but the design is black pentagons with white hexagons and it really only works on a sphere. So putting it on a flat square canvas was really tricky! We tried to simply sketch it on first and it was hideous. Then we Googled images of a soccer ball to use as a template, but even it wasn't correct and the pattern was too small. Finally, after much drawing and erasing and measuring, we came up with something usable. It isn't perfect and I can see every error, but when you look at it, it looks like a soccer ball.

Finally finished! If you look carefully, the middle black piece is a hexagon, not a pentagon, but  it was the best we could do!

Here is the finished product:

Not too shabby!

And here is what it looks like all hung perfectly above Baby Z's dresser:

Crooked pic, but you get the idea:) 

And finally, what it looked like a few days ago when we finished putting things away in his room:

TA DA! 

I am super excited at how this one turned out! And if I ever need to recreate this, there may only be 3 balls. Or the soccer ball can be a volleyball or a bowling ball. Anything is better than that soccer ball!

Nursery curtains

I've been pretty busy this summer working on a few things for the baby's nursery before school starts again. I am pretty excited with how things are working out so far. We have chosen to decorate using sports as a theme. Originally, I wanted a Colts nursery, but I didn't think that was fair for hubby:) So, sports it is.

I'm sure I will share some more of my projects as I either finish them or get them hung up, but this first one was really fun and easy to do. I wanted to find curtains for the room that were dark blue, covered the window (not just a valance), and I wanted them to be cost effective. (That's code for cheap.) I started by looking in all of the usual places, Wal-mart, Target, Amazon, Big Lots, and finally ended up at Bed Bath and Beyond. I wish I would have gone there first! They have such a huge selection!

Curtains are super expensive. I decided to go with a less expensive (also code for cheaper) alternative. I really liked many of the curtains at BB&B, but they were about $20 per panel. I was going to need 4 panels. Crazy, right? Plus, I wanted cute curtain rods to go with the sports theme. Well, I found the curtain rods and they had the perfect ones!! Wait till you see them. SO PERFECT! If I wanted the cute curtain rods, I was going to have to cut costs to get them. I thought about getting some material and making my own. (Using stitch witchery or ultrabond, cause I don't sew.) But then, I remembered seeing something on Pinterest that I could use! Tablecloths! They are thick, durable, and made to be washed often. So, off to that section. I grabbed 2 tablecloths and checked the dimensions. After finding the perfect ones, I decided to get them, cut them in half and use them as my curtains. They were only $15 each, and since I was cutting them, I only needed 2. That alone saved me $50! Gotta love that.

Well, thankfully, my friend K was in town and she brought her sewing machine with her just in case of a sewing emergency. I cut the curtains the moment we got home and she sewed up the ragged edge and then folded and sewed the top down to make a place for the rod to slide through. Then when hubby came home, he hung them up.

This is what it looked like when we were finished. Very boyish! I liked them, but I thought they were missing something.

Here's a close up of the curtain rod ends. I LOVE THEM! 

So, I decided the curtains needed some red on them to jazz them up a bit. Too bad K and her sewing machine were gone. So Ultrabond to the rescue! I got some basic red ribbon and decided 2 stripes would be perfect across the top. 

Stripe one and a stripe of Ultrabond waiting for the second ribbon. 

Second stripe! It looks orange here, but it's red.

Well, I just finished them and I LOVE them even more now. The red is just what they needed. 

TA DA!! 

Project one: Completed. Only a hundred more to go! 

Happy Anniversary!

Goodness, I love this guy so much! 

Today, my husband and I are celebrating 3 years of wedded bliss. How, you ask? Well, he is working all day and I am home doing some stuff around the house. Romantic, right? In our defense, we are going away for the weekend to celebrate. 

Well, since it is our 3 year anniversary, allow me to give you some things in 3's:

3 reasons I love my husband more this year than last year:

1. We are having a baby!
2. He puts ice in all of my drinks, and refills the ice cube trays. (A really big deal, since this mama-to-be is always hot and in need of an icy drink.)
3. He doesn't get upset with me if he comes home and finds me sleeping on the couch instead of making him dinner. 

3 things we love to do together:

1. Watch shows. Right now we are loving Arrested Development, Psych, and Parks and Recreation. (look, I even put 3 shows! See a theme here today?) We love funny shows! 
2. Talk. We are so sappy. Even in our devotion last night, it suggested the importance of small talk with your spouse. We have made it a priority to have some time to just talk with each other before we go to sleep every night. It's my favorite time of the day. 
3. Work on projects together. Hubby and I make a really great team. I like to call myself the brains of the operation. I can come up with amazing ideas, but I struggle with the follow through. I can explain what I want to him, and he can somehow make them work. He is the muscle in our relationship. The heavy-lifter, the hard-worker, the power-tool-user. Currently our big project is baby boy's nursery. 

3 of our favorite dates:

1. Going out to a movie. He loves the movies. I love the popcorn. It's a match made in heaven. 
2. Going to dinner. Our current favorite place is Tokyo. They have yummy food. 
3. Beach dates. These don't happen often, but I love to go to the beach with my husband. He is so much fun to hang out with!

3 things my husband does that make him so perfect for me:

1. He fixes things around the house. Most recently, he fixed the toilet. Have you ever had a toilet that sounded like it was always running? SO ANNOYING. Yeah, he fixed that. He is a superhero. 
2. He lets me decorate. This one is such a big deal to me. I love things a certain way. Minimal and neat and organized and color coordinated. Is that too much to ask? Apparently not, since my husband lets me do all of those things in our place. Now, I am kind in my decorations. I try not to make him feel like he is living in a Barbie house that is all pink and flowery and I always tell him my ideas before I just run with them. 
3. He writes me sweet notes. Not everyday, but often enough to let me know that he is always thinking about me. He is very good about showing me that he loves me and there is nothing better than finding a note that he has thoughtfully written. I have a collection of them. I even keep a couple very dear ones in my wallet. 

3 things I have learned about marriage in 3 years:

1. Communication really IS key! Talking with my husband is the key to resolving conflict. Many times, when we fail to effectively communicate with each other, we have conflict. Also, once we have gotten upset with each other, it is seems easier to bottle all of that up until one of us explodes, but we have learned to just talk about it and get over it. Not only is that MUCH easier, but it saves us lots of time. I don't want to waste time being mad especially when I don't need to be. 
2. The love/respect thing is super important. The Bible talks about the wife's role of submitting to the husband. Is that always easy? Heck no! But by submitting to my husband, I am respecting him. His role is to love me. I always joke that his role is way harder than mine. Loving me is not always easy. We have learned that when I submit to him, or show him respect, it makes it easier for him to love me. When he shows me that he loves me, it is easier for me to submit to him. And the cycle just continues. 
3. Weddings are easy, but marriage is hard. I loved our wedding. Everything was beautiful and things went smoothly. Marriage however is something that must be worked at. I would love to tell you that we have had a perfect 3 years, but we haven't. We have been through financial difficulties, personal struggles, health scares, and more arguments than I care to admit to. But, the good far outweighs the bad. We are not willing to let our circumstances bully us out of a wonderful marriage. So we tackle the big stuff together, work hard to get past it, and focus on having more of the good stuff that marriage has to offer. 

Alright, alright, that's enough sappyness for one day. I will just end it here. Thanks for letting me ramble about my awesome husband. 

I heart Craigslist!

So, I love Craigslist. Like, a whole lot. It feels like a virtual garage sale. I love being able to browse without pressure. I can look and look and look and the seller has no idea I am even there, so I don't feel like I need to hurry to a decision. In the past couple years, I have made 3 purchases from Craigslist and I have been super happy with all 3 of them. The first was a sofa, love seat, chair, and ottoman purchase. It was super fantastic, except for the part where we had to remove the front door to get it inside. That part was pretty terrible. Then, recently my husband and I bought a car from Craigslist as well. At first I was really nervous about this one, but it worked out perfectly. Sometimes sellers are just ready to part with things and the car purchase was one of those times. In both of these purchases, we bought from military families who were relocating and needed to sell quickly. We got great stuff at great prices and met some great people.

Well, now that I am working on Baby Boy's nursery, I again turned to Craigslist for some of the furniture that I want in his room. Specifically a gliding rocking chair and a dresser. Yesterday, I hit the jackpot on a glider. It is spectacular! It is exactly what I wanted, looks brand new, and was way less than half of the retail price. Coordinating a time to meet with this seller was tricky though. So last night at 9:15pm I was in a stranger's garage looking at this thing. Funny now, but only because the people were so nice. If they had been scary people, you may have seen us on the news this morning.

What makes this purchase unique though is the funny thing that happened when we got there. I should have known something was weird when I got an email that said the glider came with a DVD. I thought that was odd. I know I am a first-time mom, but I think I can get the hang of rocking a baby in a chair designed to rock. Anyway, when we got there, the lady led us through her house to a back room and said she knew we would be so happy with this glider. Well she led us straight to an Ab Glider. A piece of exercise equipment! I am sure when she saw my big pregnant belly, she was thinking that surely I needed the Ab Glider. I turned and gave my husband a look and I could feel my heart sinking. My heart was set on the glider for my nursery. I told the lady that I thought I was here to look at the rocking chair and we had a good laugh. Turns out, she is selling both items on Craigslist! So, we went to her garage, looked at the amazing chair and immediately loaded it our car and headed home.

I feel super victorious this morning! I am now 3 for 3 in my purchases from Craigslist, and I am hoping to find a 4th victory in the coming weeks. On to purchasing a dresser!

A Life Without Cheese

Can you even imagine the horror of a life without cheese? Pizza would just be bread with sauce. Mac and cheese would just be lonely old mac. A cheeseburger would only be an inferior burger. Gooey, melty, creamy, delicious cheese. 

You may be wondering where this pondering is coming from. Allow me to enlighten you. My husband alleges that he "doesn't like cheese". This is the same person who likes Mac and Cheese, pizza, cheeseburgers, and a plethora of other cheese-filled wonders. So the other night, he was rambling about not liking cheese, so I said, "I'll bet you couldn't go a few days without eating cheese." To which he replied, "I could go a week, a month, 3 months without eating cheese."

LIES! I tell you! FILTHY LIES!! Guess who had pizza for lunch today? Yup, my husband. Guess who agreed to Mexican food for dinner? Yup, my "cheese-hating" husband. When will the lies end and the embracing of cheese begin?

There is no shame in liking or even loving cheese. Cheese is the bacon of the dairy world. Everything becomes infinitely better when cheese is melted on it. And if you really want to experience cheese at its finest, eat it in the pool. You will not be disappointed!

IT'S A BOY!

My husband and I are thrilled to announce that we are having a baby boy! He will be loved my many and spoiled by a few. I am really excited and the excitement doesn't feel like it has sunk in fully yet. But my shopping gene kicked in, so if you need me, you can find me shopping for this little guy.

At our anatomy scan today, he was rolling around and moving so much. It was precious. At one point the ultrasound tech slapped my belly and said, "bad baby!". She couldn't get all the pictures she needed because he is so squirmy, so we get another ultrasound next month.

I am happy beyond words. God has been so good to us, and we can't wait to meet our little man.

This week's cravings

Everyone keeps asking me what I am craving while expecting. I know they are secretly hoping to hear something absurd like chocolate covered grilled cheese sandwiches or pickles and ice cream drizzled with barbecue sauce (eww! That one made me gag a little.) Sadly for them and luckily for me, I haven't had any off-the-wall cravings as of yet. I have experienced more of the food I can't eat than the ones I can. I can't eat chicken, eggs, or anything spicy (and if you know me very well, you know I love the spicy food!). Anything with strong flavor, the hint of spice, or red sauce gives me heartburn from my nose to my knees. So, I feel a little limited. However, someone recently asked me if I was having cravings, and I said no, but then I told them what I had been eating over the past few days, and it was confirmed. I am having some not-so-unusual food cravings. And here they are:)

• Peaches--not just any peaches. They must be locally grown. They just taste better. And since I live in peach country, they are easy to find.  In a 2 day period, I ate 5 of them. Apparently, that constitutes a craving:)

• Buttermilk Ranch Dressing--and of course, it is a very specific kind as well. It must be the Hidden Valley Ranch powder pack made with real buttermilk. SO DELICIOUS! I have had it almost every day this week. This one is not really my fault. While I was in Indianapolis, we had it at a lunch and it changed my life. 

• Salads--big ones. Lettuce, cucumber, tomato, cheese, turkey, radishes, carrots, cabbage....mmmmm! Super healthy and a super effective method of getting the buttermilk ranch into my belly:)

• Lemonade--I have been drinking what feels like gallons of water over the past few months, but recently, all I want is lemonade. Chick-fil-a has awesome lemonade and I really like Simply Lemonade too. But to be more cost effective, I got some of the powdered stuff I can mix up myself. So yummy, and I like the tartness. 

• Bagels--I know you were thinking that there must be some intensely bad food on this list of cravings, but bagels are about as bad as it gets. I like it toasted with butter. Or toasted with peanut butter. Or toasted with honey nut cream cheese. This morning I had one half with peanut butter and one half with honey nut cream cheese. Deeee-lightful!

That is really it for now. Maybe I will post these from time to time to see how it changes from now till October. Thankfully, this baby likes fruits and veggies and mostly healthy foods. It sure beats needing giant burritos or pizzas.