Sweet Ones

Happy Birthday to my dear little nephew. This was his face when we were all singing him "Happy Birthday"!
My little doll of a niece at one week.
Addison in her Easter outfit.

Sweet little Ashtyn in her Easter outfit.

A little twig on a branch of our tree...

Ashtyn Leigh
3-17-08
7 pounds 9 ounces of kissable baby
19 inches of cuteness

This is my darling new niece. Welcome to the world! I can't wait to get to know you!

My little boy is growing up!

Eli at age one & a half.....isn't he darling?

Yes, it is a sad but inevitable fact. Little boys grow up. Mine is hardly grown, four just next month but he is blossoming (to use kind of a girly word) and growing into a little boy that is ready to go out into the world. Well, the preschool world that is.

On Wednesday I will hurry my non-morning behind bright and early to the preschool to register Eli for next fall. I'm actually pretty excited because just a few months ago the thought of having to search for a preschool to enroll my very shy little boy in was terrifying. He has really come out of his shell in the last couple of months though. He now loves going to Adventureland (the nursery at our church). He used to beg and plead with us not to take him and throw screaming fits if we tried to drag him. He has been loving playing with other kids too. We took him to the open house of the preschool a couple of weeks ago and he played in both classrooms and met the teachers. He didn't want to leave that night and is so excited to start school! I feel really good about the school too. It is actually a Christian school preschool to 8th grade. The facilities are really nice as are the teachers and staff we met. Greg and I both feel really good about the place.

We are a little stressed about the enrollment process because it is first come first serve with priority going to kids with siblings already enrolled. We are terrified of finding a place we love and then not being able to get Eli in!

On another note, Greg is heading to the airport this morning to fly to Mississippi and Florida for six days. He will be working but I think he is secretly thrilled to get away to somewhere sunny and play golf a few times! I get to visit my Dad for a few days at the end of the week too. It will be a nice break from being on our own for both of us since my Mom is still with Nicole on the other side of the state. We are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of my beautiful new niece! We can't wait to see her!

One week and twelve stores later......

Well, we did it. We finally bought a bed. After visiting twelve furniture stores and spending way to much time online - we bought a bed. My sister says I spent more time obsessing over this purchase then the purchase of my house. Probably true. We ended up with the very first bed we looked at in the very first furniture store we visited. Figures doesn't it? We actually found the same bed for a better price at a different store though. The first store offered a 200% guarantee that if you bought an item at their store and later found it cheaper somewhere else they would refund you 200% of the purchase price. Well, we did it a little out of order so we didn't get to cash in on that deal! Darn! This is the website...the bed is the Tristan bed. Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to get it right to the bed! Our bedroom is so small we figured an iron bed wouldn't feel as heavy!

Now we need to get a new dresser to replace our falling apart IKEA dresser we have had for six years. It has gone through way too many moves and the drawers are hard to open and close..It is beyond time for a new dresser. We are also going with the first dresser we liked at the first furniture store we were in! This is the dresser we are going to get.....we loved the chest (the longer and lower dresser) but I think we will go with the taller and narrower dresser. We need to save all the space we can in our tiny room! It feels good to have made a decision and so fun to be changing our bedroom up!

Yeah for Dada!

"Dada" as Addison has affectionately started to call Greg is the hero of the week. He was able to help me get some pictures loaded onto the computer so I could put them on my blog!

This is a picture of our room in progress. We have been busy this last week working on our master bedroom. We can hardly call it a master because it is so small and has no bath attached but it is our master nonetheless. We have two tiny bedrooms on our main floor and one attic bedroom. When we bought the house the idea of being on a different level than Eli and the unborn babe was a little terrifying. Our compromise was to take the other little bedroom down the hall. It has worked out fine but I have never loved our bedroom. It always falls last on my decorating list and now that we have a little extra in our pockets thanks to Uncle Sam we get to play a little!

I had seen this great idea on Oprah to paint a little room with horizontal stripes - think three wide stripes in different colors. Actually with three colors from one paint chip. I tried it on two walls and it stunk. I think the technique could work but my choice of paint colors was way off. Too light and too bright of blues. Greg and I chose a new color together and it is more of a grey-blue. It has turned out really pretty. My other grand idea was for Greg to put beadboard up on the lower half of the wall. This is what he started yesterday and of course it is never easy. Our walls are uneven, our floor is uneven.

Greg has had to cut the beadboard twice now and last night when he went to put it up he realized our floor slopes up 3/4' so he has to basically cut each piece to fit. I feel bad I talked him into this "little" project.

Below are some pictures of Addison's birthday party. I made a cute picture banner with a picture from every month. I got this idea from my dear friend Michelle.