Olive's Nursery

I don't have all the pictures of her nursery yet. I know that is what you were expecting. Sorry. I think I will wait until after she arrives and it is more "lived in." Nonetheless, I do have some nursery-prep pictures to share. We have hung Olive's name on the wall and Lucy helped me paint, as I mentioned in a previous post.

Some of the pictures are a little blurry. She wouldn't sit still for a picture and she blinks! I decided just to click and move on...

We had fun; although, it tested Lucy's ears and mommy's patience. Here is the finished product after we got daddy involved to hang it, and used his measuring skills. :)

 

More nursery pictures to come. Although, I wouldn't believe me. I often promise pictures and don't deliver. :{ I'll try really hard this time!

Gizzards = Fun

I eat chicken gizzards. They are probably the "weirdest" food that you will get me to eat. I'm not big on game, or rocky mountain oysters, or even plain oysters. But, give me fried chicken gizzards dipped in barbecue sauce and yum! About four times a year, my mom indulges me with home-battered chicken gizzards. Most of the time she even sends a bag home with me that I eat cold, straight out of the fridge.

But, that is all beside the point...this time, Lucy asked if she could help. She even pointed to her apron that my mom had hanging on the wall. Little did Lucy know how much she would actually get to "help."

  
Long story short - she made a mess! I guess what they say is true; you get more patience when you get older. I would have probably never allowed Lucy to make such a mess in our house, at least not without a drop-cloth, etc. My mom just let her be and let her play. I mean, "cook." The flour cleaned up rather easily though, although I admit that I just sat and watched. Lucy had such a fun time with that too, even trying to sweep.

During supper, Lucy tried a little bite of her batter gizzards. Not so much. That is okay. When she is older, we will try again. :)

Thank you Mimi for letting Lucy "cook" at your house. The gizzards (and sweet corn) were delicious! :)

Bread Painting

Heath has started up graduate classes again. This time it is a 6 week period, with two classes a week.  So, that leaves Lucy and mommy alone two nights a week. I have used this opportunity to try fun, Pinterest projects. :)

First, we got a paint brush. Now, we really needed those little, cheap, water painting brushes, but didn't have one. So, I found a new, foam one and washed it with dial soap. Then, I got Lucy situated and ready to paint.

Then, we got out four bowls and poured a little milk in each one. Then, I asked Lucy what colors she wanted. Of course, she said purple. I had to remember my color mixing, since I only had four colors of food coloring.

She requested: pink, purple, orange, and blue. I could have gone darker; but, I didn't want to waste the food coloring and it worked!

I laid out two pieces of bread and a napkin for Lucy to blot on.


She picked it up pretty well; however, she kept dabbing all of the milk in the middle of the bread. It was getting too soggy. I kept trying to get her to go around the edges...

 I thought that maybe it was the brush - it was picking up too much milk. So, we tried a basting brush...


It worked MUCH better.

Lucy asked me to do some too, which she enjoyed.

We did four pieces, front and back. She especially liked when I tried to paint around her hand.

Then, we threw the bread in the toaster to dry.

I thought about just buttering them, but decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches out of them instead.

 Lucy thought they were pretty fun. We both had a colorful sandwich. Of course, Lucy had the one with an 'L' on it.

It was fun and she made sure to tell Daddy all about it the next morning. I am sure we will do it again sometime. :)

Big Girl Room: Update

Heath painted Lucy's room! :) He did a really, really good job too. I asked a hard challenge of him, by painting two walls white, one wall purple, and one wall teal. Meeting in the corners was difficult; but, he did awesome! :) I wish I had the pictures gathered to show you.

Disappointingly enough, I haven't gathered any of the photos yet. BUT, we did take a few photos on our phones! :) So, here they are - just a sneak peak until I gather more photos and we completely finish the room.

First of all, I gathered the paint samples, the true colors, for you to see. Hopefully the colors are true on my iphone camera (they are the top, darker ones).

Once Heath painted the walls, I started to paint smaller items that I had collected....

(You can see a teal wall in the top of the photo.)

 Like this candle stick that I have no idea what I'm going to do with...but, I thought it would be cute painted.

Or, this large wood frame that I hope to use on the wall in the room.

As you can see, there were some smaller frames that we also painted, and some letters.


 Do you remember in Lucy's nursery, how her name was on the wall?

 

Of course, we had to put her name in her new room too! :) So, we repainted the letters to hang.

Before:

(The picture looks yellowy because of the lighting.)

 

After:

The frame was a fantastic touch! Want to know where we got it? :)

My cousin had her mirror break in her dorm room. So, she was left with just a pink frame. When she asked if I wanted it, I thought, "Sure!" I knew I could do something with it. But, when I framed Lucy's name, it was perfect! :) We didn't have to do anything to the frame either; Heath just hung it! It was already a perfect color!

All I can leave you with now is a shot of the curtain rod we got at Lowe's.

It's pretty cute too! :) It doesn't add a lot to the room; but, it was too cute to pass up.

Hopefully I can show the entire room later this week. Stay tuned!

Doing Our Nails

Lucy has always tried to help me paint my nails.

Oh, alright, she tries to eat the emery boards. In that specific picture she even looks like she is sniffing it, haha, which is ever grosser.

She loves watching me; but, she absolutely hates me doing her nails. Her finger nails always get long enough that the cinnamon from her Maple Syrup & Cinnamon Crunchies gets underneath. Then they look dirty and it looks like we never bathe her. Finally we break down, hold her down, and cut them......It's a vicious cycle.

However, the other day, I had to postpone my pedicure. I still wanted to wear sandals though; so, I decided to re-paint my toe nails pink.

Lucy seemed very interested in what I was doing. I thought to myself, "Cori, this is your chance! It's now or never!"

I put her in my lap, peeked over her shoulder, and started painting her toes. She was mesmerized. Then, I got to toe nine and she started to wiggle. I rushed to get that last little, pinkie toe done. Whew!

Then they needed to dry before she ruined the carpet! I went to our standing fan and held her toes in front of it. Of course she wanted to touch the fan; but, I was able to distract her with my phone. Three minutes later, they were dry! :)

Aren't those just the cutest, chubbiest toes you've ever seen? Alright, so I'm biased! :)

I never thought that she would sit still long enough at just 15 months old. I was pleasantly surprised! I highly recommend pedicures with your little girl, no matter what age! 

Now, if I could just get her to go to the nail boutique with me for the whole pedicure! :) I will just have to wait...

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! :)

Fun-Day Friday

I decided to share, on this Fun Friday, a little project that my Lucy and I did.

I read about the project on BabyCenter.com. I occasionally visit their projects/crafts section to see if there is anything fun to do, or that helps Lucy develop and learn.  Every once in a while I'll actually find one that sounds good and doesn't require a lot of work. Nevertheless, we decided to make bracelets! :) 

Lucy occasionally plays with my bracelets; therefore, I was going to make Lucy her own!

So, I sat her down.

I got some of our Fruity Cheerios (Fruit Loops, AppleJacks, or regular Cheerios would work too).

2 box tops?! :) Heck yeah!

I got some ribbon.

And, then we started stringing the Cheerios on the ribbon. 

I don't know why I have such a "sour" look on my face. I think I was concentrating too hard.  Lucy enjoyed holding the other end for me...and snacking on the Cheerios. :)

Baby Center also suggested using Twizzler ropes or Sour Punch ropes too. I thought they might be too sticky and I didn't particularly want Lucy all sugared up!

I could barely get Lucy to sit still long enough to get a few pictures of her bracelet. She immediately started chewing on it. That is probably my fault, since she was eating them before I even put them on the string!

She played with it a little too.

See the purple Cheerio on her shoulder? :)

It didn't take long before all of her "charms" we gone. She was just left with a bracelet, which I then took off.

It was a lot of fun for Lucy. I thought that she might wear her bracelet around for a while; but, she just immediately started eating it! She didn't even make it out of the highchair. haha.  Perhaps next time...

It may work a little better when she is older. Then she could even help me string the Cherrios! :)

Do you do any fun projects like this with your baby or toddler?

Note: I had a picture post yesterday, "A Box isn't a Box", and it just seemed to disappear! I posted it right before Blogger went down and now it's gone. Sorry!