Live. Laugh. Love.: home

Some (low-key) weekend highlights from September 8th/9th:

Buckeyes football... every Saturday.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Pretty sure this is not even a football stance. More like the cross country starting line that I hail from. Haha! ;) I need my hands out to prepare for tackle, I think?

Just go ahead and overlook this ridiculousness. :)

We harvested several quarts of tomatoes, a bunch of red peppers and still a couple straggling cucumbers.

Craig got a start on tearing off the old house siding. This was supposed to be his "summer project". Nothing like waiting till there are two weeks left in "summer". ;) Now he's down to the wire, working on it in the evenings and on weekend days that he's not working a second job (side work with an electrician).

You can see in this picture that he cut down those God awful bush/trees/whatever-you-call-them that used to line the side of the house. They'd been a horrific eye-sore on the house for years and Craig kept insisting they were "making a come back". Still not sure what we're going to do instead, but it's gonna' have to be above ground because the root system from the old trees is probably pretty extensive and reaching under the driveway... which is why they were just cut off and only dug slightly below ground to remove. Maybe some large potted flowers or decorative rocks?

The kids entertained themselves while I got some cleaning done.

And we tried out our new hot air popcorn popper. Love that thing! We have never been big popcorn eaters, simply because I don't prefer the microwaveable stuff and I'm clueless as to how to do it on the stovetop. But Will requested popcorn last month and I got to thinking I should see what's out there for appliances. This was under $20 and got excellent reviews on Amazon. It's ridiculously easy - enough for the kids to prep themselves - and then I just plug it in and make them scooch back to watch. The inside, as well as the air coming out of the shoot, gets pretty hot, but the outside is not hot touch and they kids didn't even try. Within two to three minutes, it's done! Just like the microwave stuff, except it doesn't use any oil or anything else. They are completely enamored with this new snack that we have readily available now and I love that it's healthy and high in fiber. I definitely want to play around with fun recipes to create both sweet and savory toppings, but the kids are happy to devour it completely plain too! This has been our go-to afterschool snack, paired with a pickle for Will (he's addicted to pickles - we recently had seven different kinds of pickles in our house!) and/or some kind of garden veggie.

More siding work. Craig really dislikes the DEstruction part. He's looking forward to the actual putting on of the new stuff. Poor Sophie was in tears when she first saw him doing this and heard some of the banging and ripping sounds. She said "daddy's breaking our house!" with such a worried little face until I reassured her that he was actually fixing it and making it better.

And that's it! I love when we don't have weekend plans. :)

Sophia made a big transition over the weekend!

She moved into her big bed on Sunday at nap time!

{Isn't that book cute? Casey got for her awhile ago and we just started reading it again this weekend.}
This has actually been a little overdue. For awhile now, she's been crawling out of her crib several times every time we lay her down for sleep. She'd fall asleep on the floor by her door or she'd lay down on the changing pad that we kept beside her dresser. :) So she was clearly ready and it was pointless to keep her in the crib.
This crib has served us well (and matched the furniture we already had) for four years. I remember very clearly the day we put it up and the excitement I felt in seeing our unborn baby's nursery coming together.
Actually, the crib wasn't the only thing to go this day. We also gave our high chair to my mom and officially put Sophie in a travel booster seat at the table (like Will). And, because her new bed is a full and takes up much more room, the glider had to move out too. :( That is the thing I'm saddest about. It's hard to see all the baby gear transitioning out of our house, but I love Sophie's new bed (and she is so excited too) and that helps ease the difficulty of the change. But the glider is not just a piece of furniture. It was "our spot". It's where I knowingly rocked my baby girl for the last time on Saturday night. Now we read books in her bed and I either rock her in my lap or I stand and hold her for a few minutes while singing to her. It's not the same. I think for awhile, the glider will reside in the play room downstairs. So we'll still get to sit and read in it... but I'm not sure how long it will last in there either. The crib is currently in storage and I have no idea what we'll do with it. So if you know anyone that's interested in a crib... ;)

Okay, now onto the good stuff!

Ta da!!! Isn't it so cute?! This was just after getting the bedding on. I hadn't played with the headboard decor yet.

This is the bed Craig slept in during his childhood and goes with the rest of the furniture already in her room. Craig also used the bed Will sleeps in for a short time during college, but it's SO NICE to have two complete bedroom sets to use in our home. We actually have the furniture that goes with Will's bed up in our room because he doesn't need/have room for dressers.

The headboard on this bed is deeper than the average. Behind the big pillows, there are two "cupboards" with pull-down doors on either end and an opening in the center that serves as a shelf. On top, there is another shelf that is approximately 10" deep or so?

Isn't the "S" pillow so cute? I just love this bedding! It's the Brooke set from PBK.

For a long time now, Sophie has loved climbing up into Will's or our bed and pulling the covers up to her chin. She'd pretend to sleep and then pop up with a big grin. I was afraid she'd think this bed was just another place for her to play her sleeping game but she has actually done very, very well with the transition. Sophie is older than Will was by almost five months in making this big bed transition. Soooo, we decided to not even bother with side rails this time.

Oh, I am so thrilled with how these new fabric bins look on her headboard!! I found them on Etsy and my mom got them for Sophie's birthday this year.

When Sophie was a baby, I found some cloth pillow book ends with birds on them on Etsy. I wanted them for this very reason but never ordered. And finally, they disappeared. I was so bummed. So I began a mission of finding some sort of cloth bookends for her future headboard. Nothing was catching my eye... until I saw these. They're sturdy (but collapsible) fabric bins and those round, fabric flower decals reminded me so much of the shape of the trees on her quilt and on the wall decal behind her bed. There were a few color choices, but these looked perfect with her room colors and they sell as a set. To give you an idea of their size, the interior is perfect for storing our Sandra Boynton board books among other small books. And when filled, they work perfectly as bookends!

Books are such an important part of our lives. I want them to be available to our kids in lots of convenient places so that they see them often and always feel that there are comfortable places to sit down and read. I like using books as decor too! Sophie's room doesn't afford us any extra space for a book/toy storage unit like Will's room, so I love that she has this bigger headboard for some of her books.

The bedside table that used to sit beside the glider is now in her closet and storing many of her books in it, but she still can't open that door knob yet... thankfully. We have GOT to finish the playroom before she figures that out or we will have a constant mess in there.

We're also going to start working on a project in the kids' rooms and play room once the play room is finished. (There's been a major stall down there, unfortunately. We've just been putting it off and finding other things to keep us busy.) I'm am ridiculously excited about this project. Like, super duper excited. :) Can't wait to show you. But don't expect it for a little while.

Another thing my mom got for Sophie for her birthday is that Little Hoot book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Such a super, cute book and definitely a good one to display in this naturey/owley bedroom. I decided to stick it up on her dresser though because I'd like to keep it protected till she's a wee bit older. ;)

Books as decor. I love it!

(Oh, and it's driving Craig crazy that I haven't put a picture in that frame yet. I have a lot of frames around the house that need new pictures. Right Casey?)

Here's just a glimpse of the cut-in shelf in the center of the headboard. The owl bank is from Aunt Casey. The turquoise bin is probably not staying there but I love it and I thought it'd be cute to store some of her favorite treasures in.

And her stool is now at the foot of her bed to help her climb up. :)

This is currently how the bed and headboard look. Craig is adding Prudence as a final touch.

I am so in love with her room. It makes me so happy to walk in there and I love that the bedding really helped pull together the two wall colors.

You can see on the floor by her tall dresser is the book bin that used to sit beside the glider. We moved the changing pad to slide right underneath the long dresser (the old changing table) and we just pull it out when we have to change a poopy diaper. Hopefully we move forward with potty training so that we can get rid of that too!

More books.

"Thank you, daddy, for setting up my big girl bed!!"

Oh my gosh - Sophie is soooo excited! She loves her new bed and I'm so pleased with how well she has transitioned. I only removed the books and things for the first nap time. Since then, she leaves them alone. She still gets up and turns on the light a couple times. But she just stands by the door sucking her thumb until I come in and put her back in bed. It's usually only 2-3 times and then she goes to sleep. Sometimes she doesn't get up at all.