Dress Up Station

Charlotte is OBSESSED with "costumes". She specifically asked for Santa to bring her a "Let it Go  pretty dress and shoes" for Christmas in exchange for her pacifiers. I may have had to search high and low but I finally found one in her size. She also left out all her pacifiers for Santa that night and hasn't asked for one since! But I digress. She ended up with so many dress up items, it left Tim and I looking for a storage solution.

I took to Pinterest to look for ideas. I really loved this fun blue one by Rain on a tin roof.  But the cost of the Billy bookshelf was a bit more than I wanted to spend. Plus it required a trip to Ikea, where I always spend more than planned!

I also really liked the dress up "cart" by Shanty 2 Chic.  I didn't need it to be a cart as we just planned to leave it out in the playroom. and I wanted to use the side cubbies for shoes. But it wasn't anything that couldn't be adapted. Plus they give FREE plans on their website, Looks like we had a winner!

We made a family trip to Lowe's to purchase supplies. We followed the plans provided for the most part. The exception is that we did not use plywood mentioned, we used pine boards cut to size. While we have access to a saw, our Christmas stuff was still in our garage and we wanted to avoid it being covered in saw just. I simply provided the cut list to Lowe's and had everything cut to size for me. I did however ask for them to cut additional 9 3/4 X 11 1/4 squares, as I knew I wanted to add more cubbies. We also chose not to add casters. I had left over paint from our Ikea Kitchen Makeover so that was one less cost as well. We walked out of Lowe's spending just under $39!

Tim set to work assembling the unit. It same together pretty quickly and was looking like this the next day!

We spaced out our "cubbies" 7 inches apart from the top of the bottom trim. The top one is slightly smaller but its perfect for open storage. I filled all the pocket holes with wood filler and sanded everything down. I used the leftover paint from the Kitchen on the inside and white paint on the outside. I also had some Benjamin Moore Advanced Paint leftover from another project and we had JUST enough to cover this. It took two coats.  I then made a trip back to Lowe's for two knobs. Charlotte picked out these pink ones.

And then I grabbed a mirror at TJ Maxx. I lucked out that there happened to be one the right size in the first store I went to! The mirror was $9.99. Once the paint dried, we attached the knobs and mirror and added felt pads to the bottom instead of the casters. We hung up all her "dress up" outfits and moved all over her shoes and jewelry.

She LOVES it. Although I will admit it has contributed to an increase in costume changing throughout the day!

Brayden: Month 6

+He is such a happy baby.

+ He can sit unassisted.

+ Trying so hard to crawl.

+Wears 9 month clothes already.

+Started sampling real food this week, avocado and sweet potato, but so far just prefers breast milk.

Brayden: Month 5

+ Smiles and "Chats" constantly.

+ Wants to move constantly. I definitely think he will be an early crawler/walker.

+  Favorite Toys are his jumper and Sophie the Giraffe.

+ Still toothless but drooling constantly and chewing on everything.

+ LOVES his sister. When he is fussing we will say " Charlotte can you read your brother a book" and he immediately calms down.

Playground

Last Christmas (as in 2014), my family chipped in to buy a playground for Charlotte. We purchased The Brookside set on Black Friday from Sam's Club and it was delivered to our house by a freight truck. ( The exact set we bought is no longer available but this one is similar both in design and price). Well let me tell you that thing sat, and sat, and sat in our garage until this summer when Tim was on break.

While I was at work one day on a Thursday in June (very pregnant I might add), I get a text from Tim with this picture...

 

While Charlotte was napping, he had taken it upon himself to start assembling the playground. Being almost 8 months pregnant, I was super nervous about him starting this and not being able to finish without my help. Especially after the instructions recommended 2-3 people for assembly. However, I was pleasantly surprised that Tim was actually able to do 95% of the assembly by himself.  

 

The next day, we realized before we could really continue with the assembly, we had to clear the grass out. Tim attempted to do this by hand but we quickly realized that we needed a sod cutter. We rented one from Home Depot for a few hours so he could cut out the grass. After it was all cleaned out and leveled, he laid two layers of weedguard down. This is to prevent weeds from growing through the mulch. We have this in all the plant beds around the house and while it isn't 100% effective, it does greatly reduce the number of weeds that are able to pop through.  This is what things were looking like by the end of day two!

 

Next, we had to pick out what type of border we wanted. This was probably the hardest part for us. We didn't want stone as we were afraid the kids would trip on in. We wanted something with a lower profile that would hold up well in the sun and also wouldn't break the bank. We also wanted something that we could "shape"... not a traditional rectangle. We ended up coming across Dreamscapes on Pinterest and after a lot of debating, we decided to give it a go. We ended up ordering their decorative stone edging in sandstone.

 

The product came in about a weeks time. It is very light-weight and easy to install. We have had it installed for 6+ months now and it is still in perfect condition. None of the pieces have moved or popped up. So we are really pleased with both the look and the quality so far! We decided to use traditional mulch for now. Rubber mulch got a bad rap recently. In addition to that, we didn't want to spend any more money on this project while we were still working on the house addition as well. Here is the final product:

Our swing set actually came with two traditional yellow swings but we purchased a "baby" swing in a coordinating color on Amazon, knowing that we would need at least one baby swing for the next few years. Charlotte LOVES her playground. While we do have a neighborhood park, it is so nice to be able to sit outside and let her play freely in the backyard. Well worth the 6 month wait! :)

How do you know when your family is complete?

This is something I have been asking myself, almost daily, since Brayden was born in August. It seems like so many of my friends "knew" that they were done and I feel so uncertain. It doesn't help that I get asked almost daily " Are you guys planing on more children"?

Before we had Charlotte, Tim and I honestly thought we only wanted one child. Literally, the day we came home from the hospital with her we both declared we wanted another baby within the next two years. Brayden fell exactly into that time frame, fitting our plan perfectly. When I was pregnant with Brayden, I started to think "Is this my last time being pregnant? Will I know after he is born that our family is complete?' The answer: I still don't know!

At first Tim was adamant about only having two kids, after all three is a game changer. But then the night before my C-section we had a noncommittal talk about not being sure that this was the last time we would get to experience all the emotions that come with a new bundle of joy! Now here I sit, 4.5 months postpartum, honestly thinking about another baby. Is this hormones? Am I crazy? Or are three kids in the cards for us?

There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to each. This is a little bit that goes through my head almost every day:
+ If we have more kids, will we have to move? I love my house and don't want to move.
+Is is OK if kids share rooms?
+ I'll have to get a minivan (I have actually already accepted this as my fate with two)
+ Will we be able to vacation/ do fun things as easily with three?
+ I really love the idea of having a big family.
+ I want to be pregnant and snuggle one more newborn.
+ I have two amazing kids, why stop there?
+ Some days I feel overwhelmed by 2, will I be able to handle three?
+ If we do have a third, should we have them close together or wait till Charlotte is in Kindergarten?
+ Are the grandmas up for watching three kids?

I keep telling myself, I don't NEED an answer now. I don't have to know NOW... I am still young (enough). After all, I have an infant still. But my type A personality gets the best of me! So I guess my question is: Did you know when your family was complete? If so, how?

Brayden: Month 4

 

+ Weighs 17lbs, 1oz and is 27.25 inches long. He is a BIG boy!

+ Can roll from tummy-to-back and back-to- tummy.

+ Has started sleeping in his crib at night but LOVES our bed. If I want him to take a long nap, I let him sleep in our bed in his "zippy" and I usually get 3 hours out of him.

+ Has the best belly laughs. My heart melts when he is laughing at his sister.

+ Has outgrown the swing and Rock-N- Play.. slow down little boy!

Share Meal Ideas

I am late in writing this considering our last produce share is gone and we are picking up again this Friday. But we tried some new meals this go round- one of the best things about the share it makes me think outside the box and come up with new meals to incorporate the produce. This was our last share:

Apples: It is hard to tell from the picture but we got a bad of the smallest apples EVER. I am talking 3 bites and its gone small. While I had no idea how we were going to use these, Charlotte has been loving them. I washed them all and put them in the fruit bin in the fridge and she helps herself. They are perfect for a toddler!

Cauliflower: We used it to make Cauliflower rice fish taco bowls. This is a meal we have had before but it has been SO long that I had forgotten about it. Our cauliflower made quite a bit of rice so we actually had enough to make beans and "rice" for lunch the next day.

Broccoli: Although not healthy AT ALL we added broccoli to this recipe for Crockpot Pierogi casserole. I knew I was going to have a late night at work and needed something that would be ready when I walked in.

Kale, tomatoes and mushrooms- I had a butternut squash at home that needed to be used which I roasted. I also had some cooked sausage crumbles leftover. I sautéed the kale, mushrooms and tomatoes with onions and garlic. Scooped out and mixed in the cooked squash and sausage crumbles. Loaded everything back into the squash, topped with cheese and broiled for a few minutes. Tim and I both loved this meal. Its weird that often the most "thrown together" meals turn out the best. I will definitely be making this again!

Pears and grapefruit: Breakfast staples for me. I have been obsessed with pear and brie quesadillas. I use whole wheat tortillas, a pear, some brie and a dash of cinnamon. I press it together and eat it with one of the grapefruits from the share for an easy breakfast.

Red Peppers: One of my "easy" go meals is chicken fajita bake. I don't follow the spices exactly as listed here ( we like more kick) but here is a general idea. The nice things it is we typically both get dinner and a lunch for the next day out of this meal. Lunch is usually served over a salad versus on a tortilla.

The persimmons STILL are not ripe! I have been reading up on them and they are supposed to be delicious but the key is to wait till they are ripe. I have them stored properly and am waiting for them to soften!

Looking forward to a new week of ideas to plan out!