From Drab to Fab...A New Bookcase!

I have to explain the title of this post. Whenever I talk about repurposing furniture or other stuff, or show Dan something I saw on a blog, etc. He usually makes some joke and says, from drab to fab! in a mocking, cheesy tone of voice. So, kind of as a joke, I decided to make that my title. Hahaha, I know, I'm just soooo funny.

Anyhoo, back to my post. A while ago, I mentioned that I found a bookcase on the curb. It was actually on my way visiting teaching (blessings from doing VT? I think so!). I stopped and tried to put it in the back of our van, but it wouldn't fit. I went back after Dan got home and it was still there and this time I didn't have the kids with me, and was able to fit it in. That was just about two months ago. I'm been DYING to get it done and finally, after what feels like an eternity, it.is.finished!

I forgot to get a good before picture. This is while I'm priming it.

Before

It was just plain old boring wood. The top of it was actually warped and someone had tried to pull it off. So we (by we, I mean Dan) had to take the top off and replace it with a new board.

I didn't bother sanding it down. It had a light finish on it, and I just primed right over it.

And here is the new and improved bookcase!

In addition to adding a new board on top, we (ahem, Dan) added trim around the top and replaced the backing with bead board.

It seems so simple when I type it out-prime it, paint it, put trim and bead board on and done! But this project really just seemed to drag on. My biggest mistake was not using white primer. I know, you're shaking your head in disbelief at my stupidity. When we went to Lowe's to get spray primer, they were out of white, so we got grey. But then a whole month went by before I even got around to priming it, so I could have just gotten white. But once you have two kids, the less trips you make to the store, the easier your life is, so I figured grey would be okay. I was planning on doing a few coats of paint anyways, and I figured the gray would be covered up. My plan would have worked beautifully, if it weren't for the darn corners and crevices. I used a small roller brush and it wouldn't get the corners, so I had to use a brush, but it just was taking forever to be covered up. It didn't help that I was doing this outside and it was cold, so that seemed to affect the paint.

I originally wanted bead board as the backing, but kept going back and forth if I REALLY wanted it and if I would be okay without it. I finally decided I wanted it, after I had painted the rest of it. But getting the bead board was a hassle in and of itself. I went to the gym and then Dan called me and told me Alex was asleep, so if I wanted to get bead board, now was my chance. I went to Lowe's, got an 8'x4' piece and had them cut the size I needed. I was left with a 5' piece to take home. I thought it would fit in the van, but it wouldn't. So I had to go back in the store and have them cut off 12 inches and then go back out to the car again, pushing the extremely large and bulky cart they have for wood. It finally all fit and I was off, all they while thanking the heavens above that Alex was still asleep and that Dan didn't have to try and deal with a hungry baby while I was gone.

Dan's Spring Break was last week and I painted it over a couple of days.

A shot of it in different lighting.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. It's obviously not perfect, but I think it cleaned up pretty nicely.

Cost of Materials:

Paint: already had

Trim: already had

Primer: $5 (two cans, didn't use all of the second)

Bead board: $7 (portion of what I used)

Cost: $12 (give or take)

Not too shabby for a "free" bookcase.

We're still deciding where in Anna's room is the best place for it. We may have to move some things around. I think we'll end up putting a lot of her toys from the family room in it.

Pride and Prejudice...

So, I don't know if this will come as a surprise to anyone. Maybe some of you. I finally read, for the first time, Pride and Prejudice. Gasp! I feel a little behind the times. I remember my best friend, Sarah, reading it in junior high. At the time, I wasn't familiar with the story and honestly, it seemed kind of boring to me. I kept that first impression with me for many years.

Then, for Christmas, my brother bought us a Kindle and we got the book for free. I finally decided to start reading it. It only took me, oh, about 3 months to read it! Mostly, because the only time I can read is after the kids go to bed and for a long time, Alex wouldn't fall asleep until 9:30/10:00-ish and honestly, after that, I would get ready for bed. He finally started going to bed earlier and I would spend about 15-20 minutes a night for a few nights a week reading it.

At first, I just thought it was okay, but about halfway through it got more interesting and I really started to get sucked in. To the point, where I would look forward to having some time to myself and be able to read it. One night, it was getting late, but I didn't want to stop reading (I was at the climax!), so I flossed and brushed my teeth while reading it (things you can only do with an e-reader), and as I washed my contacts. Dan came in while I was doing this and said, "Well, someone doesn't want to put her book down!" :)

So, now I can say, along with a million other girls, that I have finally read Pride and Prejudice and I enjoyed it, and overcame my previous inhibitions about it. Am I one of the love-crazed girls? No. Do I think Mr. Darcy is the best thing since sliced bread? Not necessarily. But it was enjoyable.

As I was reading it, I wanted to watch the movie (the new one), which I had seen a couple of times, but it had been a few years. I remember I liked the movie when I first saw it. However, after having read the book and then watching the movie, the movie kind of bugs me. There is so much left out. The plot feels rushed and there are so many small details from the book, but the actors say them so fast, or they're so obscure, that if you hadn't read the books, you miss them completely. So, I'm not really a fan of the movie anymore. I'm kind of curious about the 6 hour version, but at this point in my life, dedicating 6 hours to watching a movie just ain't happening.

So, what are your thoughts on Pride and Prejudice? Love it? Hate it? Don't care?

Has anyone seen the 6 hour version?

A new seat cover!

I bought this little booster seat thing for Anna last summer. I got it off of craigslist for $10 (surprise, surprise). However, the blue polka dot cover for it was pretty ugly. It doesn't look too bad in this picture, but it is. It's old, faded and seriously looked like its prime was in 1985. I've been wanting to recover it for a while and finally got around to doing it. Even though it took me over a week to do it, when normally it should have taken 2 days, 3 at the most. This is what happens when you have two kids, instead of one! :)

I forgot to take a good before picture of it, but believe me, it was pretty ugly. Here is the new cover!

I originally was going to take the seam out between the bottom piece and the top piece, but it was sewn inside and I couldn't get it apart easily, so I took the lazier route and just sewed over the old cover. I took off the original border/edge part. I don't know the real name for it. The border that is now brown.

What I ended up doing was laying the old cover over the new material and just tracing the sizes I needed. I decided to sew it in two pieces, the top and the bottom. I added 1/2 an inch to what I traced, just to make sure I had cut it large enough. I did this for the front and the back. I then sewed the back top piece over the original. Then sewed the bottom piece on. Since I had two pieces, I needed to sew them together, where they met up. I ended up hand sewing them together, since the angle was difficult to get on the sewing machine.

Here is a picture of what I'm talking about.

I just folded each piece over the other and hand stitched them together. This is where the bottom of the top piece and top of the bottom piece meet together. (make sense?)

I had to make holes for where the straps go. All I did was cut slits in the material, then hand stitched the sides to the original slits. It doesn't look very nice, but I figured no one would really be able to see it, since the straps would be there. I wanted to sew a brown border around it, but I didn't want to make it too small, so the straps wouldn't fit in there. It was kind of a tight fit with the original cover and I didn't want to mess it up.

After I sewed the front and back pieces, I attached the back top cover that goes over the back of the chair. I added a green border to that piece, so that it would have a little variety. I then pinned and sewed the brown border around the whole thing. That was the most difficult part because sometimes, depending on the way I had pinned it, it wouldn't sew through the front and back, so I would have to re-do a lot of parts.

The finished product!

In hindsight, I wished I had chosen blue material, so it would match the seat better. I actually found some cute light blue material, but didn't get it because I figured it would get dirty really easily. I didn't see any other blue material that I really liked. I was trying to go for a more gender neutral pattern, so Alex can use it when he gets bigger.

Life With Little Miss Anna Banana

I uploaded some pictures to our computer, then started scrolling through and realized I had some good ones I wanted to share. Anna is such a little character and really such a little monkey. Here are some funny ones of her.

We got home from the grocery store and they gave us paper bags (since parts of the county have now banned plastic bags). I was in the kitchen putting stuff away when I looked in the family room and this is what I saw!

Then, she ripped the bag and wanted me to tape it up. I didn't because I knew she would just keep ripping it.

We had the missionaries over for dinner recently and I made cio'bar, which is like a really thick hot chocolate. Anna loved it, can't you tell?!

A few weeks ago, poor little Anna was so tired, she fell asleep in her chair, still holding her spoon. She hasn't done this since she was like 14 months!

Lately, Anna has a new game. Put your legs up on the wall.

We had a brief stint at potty training again. She sat on the potty for at least 10 minutes, just reading. It was really very cute to see her do this.

A new love of Anna's is the laundry basket. Since our washer and dryer are out in the garage, many times I put the basket near the door, before I can actually get a minute to go out there and start the laundry. Anna sees this as an opportunity to play. She loves to bring her toys in too.

(Her hair is pretty crazy here! She looks pretty funny.)

I really didn't want Anna to play in this laundry basket, since it's so tall, but she insisted and I got tired of her asking, so I just let her. Well, she discovered it was fun to tip herself out of it. Then, she would want me to put her and the basket back up. After a couple times of this, I put an end to her shenanigans. :)

And last, but not least is Anna's favorite past time...SINGING TIME!

Anna has really developed a love for singing. She loves to sing and is always singing songs she knows. We sit down at the piano together, and I play the right hand, while she plays where my left hand would play and we sing songs from the Children's Hymnbook. After a song is finished, she immediately says, sing another one! We usually do this for about 20 minutes. I'm very impressed with her memory for a 2 1/2 year old. Here are some of the songs she knows all/most of the words and melody to:

I am a Child of God

I have A Family Here on Earth

Popcorn Popping

I'm so Glad When Daddy Comes Home

I Love to See the Temple

Book of Mormon Stories

I am Like a Star Shining Brightly

In the Leafy Treetops

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

Once There Was a Snowman

There are more, but that's all I can think of at the moment. She kind of knows the song, Pioneer Children Sang, but she gets caught on the walking part and that's all she sings-Pioneer children walked and walked and walked. Repeat. It's kind of funny.

I hope as she gets older, she keeps this love and I can teach her how to play the piano. It's so adorable to hear her sing. Hopefully, when she gets to Primary, she'll already know all the songs! :)

(I obviously didn't do my hair this day, so just excuse the unkept mess)

Anna and Alex

Alex will be 4 months next week! Where does the time go? The last week has been pretty hard, because he decided suddenly he doesn't want to sleep through the night anymore. One night, he woke up 6 times! The last few days have been much better and last night, he only woke up once and it was at 4:30 am, so I got a nice solid chunk of sleep.

He's just such a sweet baby. I really do love him so much. He's getting so good at tummy time. And he is SO close to being able to roll over. He'll turn his head up, and get on his side and all he needs is just a little more and he could roll over. For a little while, Dan would push him to roll over. Then, a few times, without us seeing it, Anna would roll him over! I would turn around and see him on his tummy. I asked Anna if she did it and she said, yes! So now, when I leave the room to wash my hands or something, I make sure to tell her not to roll him over. Who knows what will happen! :)

My sweet little babies!

Anna absolutely loves to do tummy time with Alex. Many times, I'll lay him down on a blanket and she immediately comes over and wants to do tummy time.

He's so big!

Anna was so nice to share her blanket with Alex.

Dan and Alex.

Alex also laughed for the first time last night. Dan was taking off his onesie to bathe him and he started laughing. So Dan tried tickling him a little more and we got a few more laughs. I can't wait till it's a more regularly occurring activity!

Anna is just smart as ever! We went to story time at the library for the first time yesterday. We got there and sat down and she looks at the wall. There were four large dinosaurs and she says, there's a triceratops! Dan loved dinosaurs as a kid and has made sure to instill the love in Anna, as well. She has two stuffed dinosaurs and one of them is a triceratops. I just love how she can recognize things she learns at home in a different setting. The lady who did story time was very impressed with her. We went to the older, 3-5 year old one, and she's only 2 1/2, but she stayed still the whole time and listened well.

Her other favorite thing is when she sees stop signs, she says, octagon! She has a Sesame Street book where Big Bird and Cookie Monster try and find shapes and Ernie has a stop sign. So now it's octagon!

She has also started to add a "y" to a lot of words. When Alex wakes up, she says, "Alex is a awakey!" She does it to other words, I just can't think of other examples at the moment. It's really cute and funny though.

I know it's still a ways away, but I was just thinking about how sad I'll be when she has to go to school! She's such a little sweetie.

It's a Love Story...

In honor of Valentines Day, I thought I would write about how Dan and I got together. I don't know if I've done this before, so if it's a repeat, sorry!

Dan and I first met in June of 2005. I had recently returned from my mission in Italy and had just arrived back in Utah. I had just moved into a new apartment. A few days after moving in, I came home and there were some people in my kitchen for dinner group. He was one of them. I chatted for a minute with them. I remember Dan saying something, but honestly that was it. He on the other hand, thought I was really cute and thought he said something dumb and had totally blown it with me. He actually started dating another girl for a while and I never really saw him much. Fast forward to January of 2006. Dan had broken up with that girl a few months before. One night, after ward prayer, I started talking to him and his friend Rich. Dan mentioned that he was taking an Italian class that semester. I offered to help him if he ever needed it. This was totally innocent. At this time, I wasn't really interested in him. I thought he was nice, but that was it.

Dan on the other hand, was already scheming. He told me that he was deciding between taking Italian and French. Italian worked better with his schedule and then he told me he thought, "Plus, Rachel is really hot, so I could ask her for help." Ha!

So Dan started coming over often to my apartment on the pretense of needing help. When, in reality, he didn't need help at all. He's so sneaky! I on the other hand, didn't suspect a thing. This went on for the entire semester, 4 months. At then end of the semester, my roommates and I decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. Dan came over, a little before we were going to go, and was going to ask me to dinner as a thank you for helping him with Italian. Well, he never got the chance, since we were already going out to eat. He ended up coming with us and I noticed he made sure to sit next to me.

Then, the next weekend, we ended up making tacos for cinco de mayo and watching a movie. This was a kind of hang out date, that wasn't really meant to be a date. Then, a few days later, Dan asked me out. He told me there was supposed to be wind on Friday and we could make dinner and fly some kites. Turns out there was only supposed to be like 6 mph winds, but he didn't specify how much wind! Once again, trying to be tricky.

So that was our first official date. It was fun and we came back to my apartment and watched a movie. We ended up holding hands and cuddling. The next day we hung out a bit, but I had plans for that night. Then Sunday came and I just wasn't sure about my feelings for Dan. I decided that I didn't want to date him and that we should just be friends. Everything happened kind of fast and I just hadn't really thought of him in a dating way, quite yet. I saw him at church, but then didn't see him till that evening, right before ward prayer. However, when he came to my apartment, he looked so cute and there wasn't really time to tell him. Then, I'm not quite sure what happened, but during ward prayer I changed my mind and decided to give him a chance. I think we started holding hands and I decided I liked it and that maybe we could have fun dating.

So, then we started dating. We dated the whole summer. We both just worked the summer and as soon as we got home in the evening, we hung out together. So we spent a lot of time together. As I got to know Dan better, I realized what a good guy he is. He was so kind and sweet. He really showed me a lot of love. He really just swept me off my feet. :)

We decided to get married after 3 1/2 months of dating. At the time, it didn't seem fast at all. In hindsight, it was pretty fast. Something kind of interesting, is after only about 3 weeks of dating, we went to Salt Lake to see the Joseph Smith movie. During the movie, Dan got the very distinct impression that he was going to marry me. He didn't tell me this until we were engaged, which was probably a good idea. :)

So, here we are, 4 1/2 years later. We have two beautiful children, a house, Dan has a good job. We are very blessed. I love Dan so much!

It's a Hard Knock Life...

Ahhh, a few brief moments have found their way into my life. Alex is asleep and Anna is in her room for quiet time. Lately, these moments have been few and far between. I wish I could blog more, but honestly, I rarely gets moments where I can just sit down at the computer and not be interrupted.

I can't believe it's February already! Alex is 3 months today. He's so big! He is in the 3/6 month clothing and actually fits into some just 6 month clothing. He's extremely long and has the cutest little chubby arms and legs. He loves to smile and coo back at you when you start smiling and talking to him. He's getting much better at tummy time and can hold his head up pretty high, even though tummy time doesn't last long because he starts getting mad. I love my little boy so much.

However, can I just say that he is an extremely FUSSY baby! There are so many times where we just have to walk around with him for him to be happy. The second we sit down, he starts crying. If I stop to take a drink of water while I'm holding him, he gets fussy. If things are not exactly to his liking, he gets fussy. Sometimes it's just a little fussing, while other times it's the all out screaming and he actually has tears in his eyes because he's so upset.

There is still the car seat issue as well. He still doesn't like it and will cry all the time in the car. This is extremely hard on me because I honestly feel like I can't go anywhere, or would rather just stay home, rather than deal with a fussy, crying baby out in public. It's really hard when you feel like the only times you can leave the house are to go grocery shopping and to the gym. And taking him anywhere else feels more like a chore, rather than just running an errand. The few times I have taken him out, I have to be in constant motion in order for him to be happy.

Also, because he's so big and heavy, carrying him around, especially in his car seat, is really hard on me. I have tons of knots in my back and neck and right now, my neck feels more like a rock. So, hence another reason, not to want to go places with him.

I love my little guy, but I really hope that things get better soon! As for the bottle, well that just didn't work out. He wouldn't take it. We kept trying and trying. I did buy another bottle the other day, that's supposed to be more like nursing, in its design. We're going to try it out soon and hopefully it will work!

I didn't mean for this to be a Debbie Downer blog post. Ha! I do love being a mother, but going from one to two, has been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. And I didn't expect to get such a fussy baby. Maybe this means, he'll be more mellow when he gets older??? Maybe? Hopefully? :)

Alex doing tummy time!

Alex in his cute little church outfit.

Anna on the other hand is doing so well. She hasn't really been taking naps during quiet time, but it doesn't affect her like it used to. She's still happy whether she gets one or not. And actually, we almost don't want her to take one, because then when we put her down at night, she falls asleep right away, rather than it taking a while.

She's been really cute lately. She's starting to say sorry for things that she does. If she hurts me and I tell her, "Ow, that really hurt mommy." She then says, "Sorry, mommy." And gives me a kiss. She's also been asking me if I'm okay. If I'm doing something and I hurt myself, or there's a loud sound, etc. She asks, "You okay, mommy?" It's really so cute.

She also learned the song, Do as I'm Doing, in nursery. So for over a week now, she'll do something with her hands and say, "Please, do this I'm doing." And want me to imitate her. It's really cute.

She also has been going up to Alex and saying stuff that I say to him, in the tone of voice that I use. Things like, you're so cute, you're such a big boy, did you have a good nap?, etc. It's really cute to see.

She still isn't potty trained. I asked her the other day, while she was sitting on her potty, if she wanted to start using it. I then asked her if she wanted to wear underwear or diapers. Her response? Diapers! Hmmm...not quite what I wanted to hear, but whatever. I'm sure she'll be ready soon.

Last Friday, as I was doing my visiting teaching, I drove by some free stuff on the sidewalk. There was a bookshelf there. Dan and I had just been talking about getting one for Anna and all her books. So I stopped to put it in our van and it wouldn't fit. I was able to go back later without the kids and get it in there. It's real wood, so that's a plus. I'm going to paint it white and try and put bead board where the backing is. Hopefully, I'll be able to do this soon. I've had it for a week and haven't even touched it.

I meant to post these pictures earlier. Back at the end of December when we got some snow, Anna and Dan made a snowman.

Anna looking so cute in her pikachu hat. She loves it. Anytime we're going outside and it's cold, she says, I need my pikachu hat! I then have to run back inside and get it for her.