My Birthday!

My birthday was last week. I can't believe I'm 29! Where did the time go? Lol. I better enjoy this last year of my twenties. It's funny how it seemed like my 20's would never end. A lot happened in that almost decade of my life-mission, marriage, graduated college, motherhood, home ownership, etc. It's probably the most action packed decade of my life.

My birthday was pretty fun. The morning was a little rough. Alex ended up breaking a lamp, that had a glass bowl like shade. It really freaked me out. Dan and I were both in the kitchen, getting breakfast ready, when all of a sudden, we hear the crashing of glass. We run into the family room and see the lamp fallen down, with a TON of glass everywhere. LUCKILY, the kids were fine. We put them in Anna's room while we cleaned up. I was starving as I was vacuuming up the glass.

There was glass everywhere! Tiny little pieces that were hard to see.

So after that event, we hung out while Alex napped. He took a late nap, so it kind of threw off our schedule. I got free tickets to a water park in Palmdale. We went there and invited my friend Kim and her kids, since we had an extra ticket and her kids got in for free. Her husband came too. We didn't get there till later, like 2 pm, so we were only there for about 2 hours. They had what's called a lazy river that you can walk in or get an inner tube. It was fun and the kids loved it. I held Alex and he kept splashing. We got an inner tube for Anna and put her on it and she loved it as well. The only downside, is we just kept walking around and later that day,

I was exhausted! I told Dan that the lazy river wasn't so lazy, it wiped me out.

We came home, got cleaned up, then my friend Kristin came over with Logan and they watched the kids while we went to Red Robin. I usually go there on my birthday because I get a free meal. We then came back home and had cake! I usually have a cherry chocolate cake, a recipe I got from my mother-in-law.

A little too excited to blow out the candles. :)

My little family!

The kids were so tired at this point. They needed to go to bed.

Overall, it was a fun birthday. My birthday present from Dan didn't get here till Monday, but it's such a fun gift! Dan got me three books-two cupcake ones and a cake one. They really are a perfect gift and I'm so glad he thought of them. He always teases me about cupcakes and beadboard. He says that's all I talk about. In reality, there was a short period of time that I talked about cupcakes because I went to a cupcake store in town, ONE time and got some good cupcakes. The bead board thing is more constant, but I just throw it out there as decorating ideas.

Here are the books.

My favorite one is the Hello, Cupcake! Everyone should really check it out. It has the CUTEST cupcake ideas. And the best part is all the decorations are made from candy, so it's easy to create. And she tells you how to do each part. I'm really excited to try some of the ideas. Here are some of them.

Love the bunny feet one!

I am so going to make these at xmas time!

Anna has been loving this one penguin show lately, so I think it would be cute to make these for her.

Movie night anyone?

I just looked on Amazon and this book is only $9. There is also another one called, What's New, Cupcake? It has a lot of cute ideas as well. I'll have to get that one too.

The other cupcake book has some really good recipes that I'm excited to try out.

The cake book is good too. It shows you how to make some cakes and how to make flowers and other fondant stuff. There is a castle cake in there, that is actually really simple to make. I may try and make Anna one next year.

Bedroom wall sconces!

We went to Bed Bath and Beyond last week and I got a great deal-these awesome wall sconces, for only $6!!! They were on clearance for $7.50 and I had a 20% off coupon. I really lucked out because I saw them up on the display wall, but there weren't any boxes left. I asked an employee, and they were all gone, so I asked if I could take the display ones and he said yes.

They are just what I'm looking for. The funny thing is, I've been wanting to put something on the wall, above the lamps for a while, but haven't been sure what exactly. I was thinking of some shelves, or picture frames or something like that. The other day, I thought some flowy, metal of some type would look cool. Then, the next day I went to BB&B and lo and behold, there they were! I know it sounds silly and trite, but I consider this one of those nice, tender mercies of the Lord. He knew this would make me happy and helped me find it. I originally wasn't going to look in that area of the store and only did so, as an after thought.

I love how it pulls the room together.

Let's do a little before photo.

This was taken a little over 2 years ago, shortly after we got the bed.

After...

Love the change!

The left wall is kind of bugging me now, so I need to decide what to do there. And I'm in the middle of changing some other pictures on the right, that you currently can't see.

We went to some garage sales yesterday and got some good deals. We got Anna 18 books for only $9! They're in really good condition too. It's also amazing how cheap you can get clothes at garage sales. I got a really cute skirt for $1.

Here are some clothes that I'm going to repurpose and make some clothes for Anna. One blog I follow, www.makeit-loveit.com, is always repurposing clothes and I think it's time I try.

I got the skirt for 50 cents and the dress for a $1. I already took the stitching out of the skirt portion of the dress. I'm planning on making a dress for Anna out of it. Hopefully, I'll get that done soon and Anna can wear a "new" dress. We'll see what I can make with the other skirt.

Speaking of dresses, I love this dress on Anna. It looks so cute with the leggings. I got this at the local consignment store for a few dollars. The camera battery died before I could get one of her looking at me.

Anna loves to paint! She's our budding little artist. :)

Italian Kitchen Progress

Over the past few months, I've been slowly working on updating things in my kitchen. I have an Italian themed kitchen, that I LOVE, but it's still, after 2 years, a work in progress (as is much of my house). The biggest update, is painting another wall red!

Here is a before.

And the After!

I actually painted the larger wall on the side red last summer, I just never blogged about it. I originally wanted the wall with the window red and mentioned it to Dan when we were first painting our kitchen. He didn't like that idea, so I didn't do it. Then a few months ago, I mentioned it to him again, and he said, "yeah, that's a good idea, I think that will look nice." Men...anyway, I had red curtains at the time and didn't think I would change the wall color. The fabric store that I love so much, went out of business and I found some olive green material for like 1.50 a yard. So this update was cheap because I already had the paint from before and just spent a few dollars on making curtains.

Here is the larger wall I painted last summer.

It's hard to get a good view of it, but now that the smaller wall is red, it really pulls together the larger wall and makes it all more cohesive.

The sign above the curtain says, Good Food Good Friends. I love how it contrasts so well against the red. It's been in a few different places in the kitchen, but it was always behind a beige wall, and never looked that good.

The next update is the curtains by the sink. I don't have a good picture of them, but you can kind of see them in the left in this picture. I originally made them from one large curtain panel, but they were always a little too short and just never looked good. Frankly, they always bothered me.

I found this material at that fabric store, a few months ago, for cheap. I don't remember exactly how much I paid. I think it was like $5-6.

I made little curtain tie things, that wrap around them. I sewed some snaps on them, so they're easy to put on and take off when I open and close the curtains.

I made this sign, I think a year or so ago. It was just paper put in a frame, with the wood signs held up with putty stuff. AFter a while the paper was getting dirty, had a few water stains on it and just wasn't looking so great. It was in need of a little redo.

The after.

I found some olive green spray paint and used leftover bead board from Anna's bookcase.

The lighting is dim here, so the color is a little off.

This is probably one of my favorite projects.

I bought this at Goodwill a long time ago for a dollar or two.

It sat around for a long time because I didn't really have anywhere to put it and I had a lot of glass items already. I was looking online at some stuff and I saw a project where a lady spray painted some bottles. That's where I decided to the same with this bottle and another one.

Don't they look cool?

You would never know they are just spray painted glass.

I'm thinking of cutting out some vinyl words, like oil and wine, or something like that, to put on them.

I got this fruit stand at a garage sale a couple of years ago. It was originally yellow, I painted it red. I'm kind of getting tired of red, so I decided to paint it.

Now it's green!

Much better.

I made this sign over a year ago and still love it. I think it will stay here and I have plans to make a sign that says, Buon Appetito and put it above the window by the sink.

Slowly, yet surely, my kitchen is getting to where I want it to be. There are still a few more small projects I have in mind that I hope to get around to.

A is for Alex!

So once again things have been a little crazy. Life just doesn't slow down sometimes. I'm still playing catch up on the blog here.

I do want to update on Alex a bit. He just turned 8 months! Time is really flying by with him. He's just such a little cutie, I love him so much.

He is now, for the most part, a very happy and sweet baby. When he was first born, he was so fussy, would get cranky easily, etc. Now, he has a smile that will melt your heart and a much sweeter and milder temperament.

He started crawling a month ago and it was slow and deliberate. Now, it's like turbo speed. It's the cutest thing if I start going away from him and he starts following me, I turn around and he's just crawling towards me with a smile on his face.

He's really starting to understand more. I'll point to a toy and tell him to go get it, and he will. He's starting to really understand what we're saying. He's learning the layout of the house. He was in our bedroom, by our bathroom and he heard Anna crying in the other bathroom. He started crawling out of our bedroom, down the hall and went into the hallway bathroom to see Anna.

I bought some food puffs for him and he LOVES them. I'll put some on his tray and leave the container on the table. He'll finish his puffs, then start whimpering and leaning forward, trying to get the container of puffs. Which leads me to talk about his pincer grasp. It's getting really good. He can pick up his puffs. He'll drop some in his high chair, and then look down in between his legs and try and pick them up. He loves to pick stuff off the carpet and tile. I don't even need to vacuum anymore! Lol. Actually, I have to sweep more and be careful of what's on the floor, because he will put it in his mouth.

His body coordination is getting better and he's less clumsy. There have been a lot of time sin the past few weeks that he has balanced all by himself for a few seconds. He has also started taking steps, when holding on to the couch or ottoman. I really wouldn't be surprised if he starts walking in the next month or so.

I really am just so thankful for this little guy. He's so sweet and cute and smart. I can't believe in just 4 months he'll be a year old!

So, now for the bad news. I feel so horrible about this:

Dan's best friend got married a few weeks ago in Newport Beach. While we were in the temple, some girls watched the kids. I'm assuming they just walked around the grounds and that Alex was out in the sun the whole time. Then, we were out in the sun for pictures for an hour. I tried to keep Alex in the shade, but there wasn't a lot and it was kind of hard. So after a few hours, I realized he was sun burnt. It wasn't until the next day that I realized just how long he had been out in the sun for. The next day, he got a huge blister on his nose. Then, as the day progressed, he got more and more blisters on his arms and head. I seriously felt SO bad, that I had been a negligent parent and not kept better care of my baby. I know it was an accident and these things happen, but still. Luckily, he healed quickly and was actually still a pretty good baby for how bad his burn was. Now, I've learned my lesson and will be much better about putting sun block on him and being aware of the sun.

However, due to him being sunburnt, he wanted me more, and there were times when I was busy getting stuff ready for Anna's birthday party and couldn't be with him. So he started saying, mama! It was really cute and cool to see how fast he learned that. Usually babies learn dada first, but not this little guy. He actually first said it in Utah. He hasn't said it much since then, but at least I know he can say it!

Boxes are always a good source of fun.

Peas anyone?

Me and my little baby.

I'm such a lucky mom!