Pillow Beds

Thanks to Pinterest I made these awesome "pillow beds",  as Olive calls them. They were so easy. I just bought $0.99 pillows from Ikea and then some pillow cases. Then I sewed them all together. They are perfect for the kids and Olive loves watching movies on them with her blanket. I love easy, quick projects like that!

Milo Lately

 In the last three days I have had multiple people tell me how big Milo is getting. I couldn't agree more. The other day Scott was holding him and he just looked so long and tall and grown up. He is changing so much. He does weigh 21 pounds according to his 9 month check up. Someone complimented me that he was such a god baby during sacrament meeting because we didn't have to take him out. He was destroying everything and made a gigantic mess, but he was quite.

He likes to go on walks and look around. We have been doing a lot of that lately and its been wonderful. Olive always insists on pushing him. The other day I was working in the yard for a bit and he just played with a little toddler push scooter the entire time. He was just happy to be outside.

 He loves the mirror and seeing himself. He laughs at himself and likes to bang the mirror. He is very friendly and will smile for most people. He also likes to show strangers his tricks that he can wave bye bye and clap. He is a bit of a daddy's boy. When Scott gets home from work Milo bounces up and down with excitement until Scott picks him up.

 He loves to swing. Olive always cried and Milo squeals with delight.

  Milo is into everything. Literally. He was devastated when we put latches on all the cabinets. He likes to explore and take things out of their containers ie drawers, shelves, bins, purses, garbage cans, or the like. One of his favorite things to do is open and close the doors on the play kitchen. He also really likes screws or hinges and to spin wheels. He is often getting stuck in places. He likes to crawl over things like pillows and boxes, he would love an obstacle course.

 He can crawl the real way now and usually does it most of the time. He does still army crawl on his belly sometimes. We have been doing baby signs with him, I think he can kinda sign more but it basically looks like he is clapping. He also like to dance in his high chair seat.

 

He loves to pull himself up to standing. He cruises the furniture and sometimes balances on his own but he isn't taking any steps. He has had many falls and bruises. In fact all last week he had a black eye because he was standing up by a toy bin and lost his balance. His cheek caught the corner of the bin and it gave him a pretty nice shiner. It was very sad but I just know that there are going to be tons more injuries to come with this boy.

Yeah, we are pretty big fans of him.

Olive Lately

 Olive and I have been doing lots of things for "learning and fun time" I have a jar of different activities and Olive gets to draw out what we do. One of those things is practicing writing so here is the documentation of the first time Olive wrote her name without tracing it. It might be really hard to see but trust me. I was so proud of her!

 Olive doesn't really like to swing. I am not sure why. She never has. Anyway, she did like this swing because it looked extra safe. She only last for about 5 minutes though.

 

This is Olive's new friend. His name is Mr Balloon. She got him at a cousin's birthday party way back in February. He is one high quality balloon and has become part of the family. When we open the door Olive is always sure to warn us "Be careful, Mr Balloon will fly away!"

 We have been doing a fun thing with some kids in the neighborhood called Lunch Bunch. We just meet once a week where we eat lunch and let the kids run around. It has been a life saver in the cold of Feb and March. Olive absolutely loves it. She could hang out and run around with friends all day. In fact, last Saturday she had a friend over to play from 11 am to 4 pm and she couldn't have been happier. Olive knows what day Lunch Bunch is and jumps for joy in the morning.

 Now that Milo is mobile Olive is getting a bit frustrated that he can get all of her stuff. She is very responsible to put small things in her room so he can't get them. She is also very concerned if Milo gets something that he shouldn't have. The other day I was cleaning the bathroom and when I came out this is what I found. It made me so happy.

 

We go to story time at the library almost every week. Here is Olive modeling her spider hat that they made as a craft. She was quite proud of it. 

St Patrick's Day

I know this is late but I'm going to post it anyway.

 After 2 weeks of everyone in our family being sick we are all finally on the mend. Miraculously we were able to keep Milo from getting sick. Well, kinda. I mean he had a cold and coughs at night but he didn't get the 102 fevers and pink eye that Scott and Olive had. That would have been so horrible. I can't even think of where March has gone because I have spent so many days at home. I had made fun plans for St Patrick's Day but then got sick in the afternoon so we only did part of what I planned.

We made an awesome leprechaun trap. We didn't catch anything but that little guy did drop some of his gold coins.

We also had some green themed food. Green pancakes and grapes for breakfast. Then for lunch we had green jello, avocado, kiwi, green pepper, and some green candy.

 

We did lots of St Patty's art projects.

Flappers and Fedoras

As you may know, I liked dressing up for the 40's but for years I have been obsessed with the 20's (I blame thank my mom). For some reason, recently, there have been lots these things that I love and they are all set around that time period. First, we saw Midnight in Paris and I really liked the movie,  I usually like Woody Allen and I always like Marion Cotillard.  I loved that F Scott Fitzgerald and all these other huge influences from that time were portrayed in it. That got me thinking that I needed to reread Great Gastby, especially because I saw that a new movie version is coming out later this year. I read it in high school and really liked it, but it was so much better now, at this stage of my life. I am so fascinated that Gastby is working so hard and long at one goal, that he never actually thinks about what it will be like when he gets there. Anyway, then Downton Abbey (which I am obsessed with) ends on New Years Eve 1919 just getting ready to enter the roaring 20's. And finally to top it all off, the Artist. Oh how I loved that movie. The costuming! Actually watching a silent movie!  The houses! I loved it. I started spending hours online looking, and drooling over the gorgeous vintage 20's dresses and wondering if I could fork over the major bucks and actually justify it, if I had a good reason for such a dress.

 Well, Scott's work threw a big party and everyone came in theme costume for the 20's. It was really fun and some people went all out! Unfortunately, for some reason I was not feeling very well that night. When we left for the party I was feeling a bit nauseous so I didn't even eat any of the food. Then, when it moved from dinner into this big hall to "gamble" and dance and such, I was freezing cold and could not get warm. So although it looked way fun and we looked way awesome, we left the party at 8:30. I came home with a temperature of 102 and went straight to bed. I was extremely bummed because I was so excited for this party. I even rented a costume and everything! It was very sad! It might be hard to tell but we looked dang good.

Maybe there will be another party someday where I can dress as the 20's and actually get to enjoy it!

The Family Room Revised

 The last time you saw our family room is looked like this. I don't know why I posted pictures of it in this condition, but I did. I know everyone's rooms look like this sometimes so I guess I don't care that I showed the whole world. 

 

The family room has probably gone through the most transformations than any room in the house. It seems that for 2 years it is in a constant state of trying to figure out the best way to have multiple functions for this one room. It has had so many variations I can't even think of them all. Well, now our downstairs looks like this:

 

 We gave away or sold almost every piece of furniture in this room just for the one purpose that Scott could set up a theater. He figured out some clever ways of selling this to buy that or upgrade this. I was skeptical but the way he sold me on it was that it would take up less space than a couch and tv (which ended up being true) so there would be more area to use as a play space, which is what I wanted. Before, every time we got some now toy or train table or kitchen or whatever,  he would say "where is that going to go?" Now that he has his theater, he let's me organize the toys however I want. It is much more of a shared space.

 We also inherited this adorable play kitchen (it pays to know awesome people that will give you things!) We just barely got a table for it and that has actually made a huge difference in how much Olive uses it.

 

Our toys situation was getting out of control. Not so much with Olive but when friends would come over they would want to get every single toy we own out and it was too overwhelming. So I adopted this method that one of my friends does. She rotates the toys that are out to play with and the other toys are, as we say "taking a rest". 

This is our toy shelf, and it is just about time to rotate some new toys in. 

 

This screen is Scott's pride and joy. He made it! I can't tell you the hours of work, planning, and more importantly, thinking about this theater that has gone into making it all happen. For a good 4 months he was basically obsessed with his theater. I will admit that it turned out awesome, especially if you love movies like we do. We use it a lot actually. I love when Olive asks if she can watch a movie "on the big screen". That is our Friday night tradition with her, movie and popcorn on the big screen.

 

 The biggest obstacle of the whole home theater situation was the seating. The couch that we had was too big and it was nearly impossible to find something that would fit in this odd sized space that we had. After hours of going to every furniture store we could think of we were almost out of options. Scott went out to a scratch and dent place to see if they had any weird pieces that might work. What he ended up finding were actual theater chairs that were alone and not part of a set, so nobody wanted them. He matched two chairs and an armrest and it turned out to be the exact size of our little space. It was a miracle. Plus we got the whole thing for less than the price of one regular theater chair, those things are expensive! It is pretty sweet, I have to admit! I will also say, that after seeing Scott's theater he inspired 2 other theater rooms. Sorry those men's wives!

 Here are the rest of the angles from the room:

Yeah, it has been awesome this winter to be able to play down there. I love that Olive can go down and play for hours. I can't wait until I can tell the kids "Go play downstairs".  I think I will feel like a real mom when that happens.

Milo's Room

 We moved Milo into our old room. For the most part it has worked great. If people are over late, we usually wake him up, which is why we put the kids at the back of the house originally. Fortunately, he always goes back to sleep. Now that he is mobile it is perfect to have his room here because I just close one door and put up a gate to the kitchen and he can basically crawl and explore around the whole upstairs safely.

 Since part of this room is a pass through from the two doors it works much better to have his changing table there. We tried to put a dresser there when it was our room and it just didn't work. Because the changing table is smaller it isn't so obtrusive. The other good thing is that now I can use his entire closet to store all of our baby stuff. It is basically packed to the brim. Babies have a lot of stuff, especially when you save all of their clothes!

 Here is the view from the opposite corner. You can see Olive in the front room on the couch. See, it is literally right off of the front room, but it is ok so far. We inherited the awesome train table. I am so excited about it that I already bought Milo trains to play on it even though he is way too little. I love our rocker too because we sit and read stories there before nap time.

 

Here is the view from the other corner. It is basically the same but I thought I would post it anyway to give a complete view. 

This is his shelf. We have another one to hang, in case you were wondering why it is off center. Milo got the vintage toy robots for Christmas. If you remember Scott painted some paintings for above his crib that we tried to make look old and vintage as well. I love tin robots. The blue one winds up and walks, and the rocket actually drives that then stands upright to open its landing gear. It's pretty cool.

PS Milo is 10 months old today! 

Olive's New Room

She still calls it that even though it has been awhile that she has been in this room. The last time you saw it, it looked like this. Look at those picture to get an idea of what it is like in the daylight. I took all of these pictures in the evening and so they are dark, funny colors, and I'm too lazy to put a lot of effort into them. So just know it isn't always as dark down there. It has worked great for Olive to be down there. She isn't too far away and will come up at night if she needs to. Plus all of our toys can stay more or less contained to the downstairs area. Here is a tour of her "new" room.

 I love her little coat hanger area. Something about tiny coats and backpacks is wonderful. I have to brag that Olive is super awesome because when we get home and I ask her to go put her stuff away, meaning her coat and shoes, she always gets them hung up and shoes put away. It's amazing and it makes me love her even more.

 The closet is rather odd since this room was a funny project that they finished sometime in the 70's. Thankfully her dresser fit in there saving wall space and her dresses are little enough to the fit in the crazy closet space.

 I love that she has all this shelf space because she has a lot of things to put up there.

 Her monkeys might be her most prized possessions. She loves those things!

 I included this picture because it might be my favorite doll from her/our collection. Olive's middle name is Mae after my paternal grandmother. When I was a young women we had a project to make a doll of one of our ancestors. I chose my grandma Mae and now Olive has the doll of her namesake. I don't know why I love that so much but I do. Plus she's a cute doll and I made her, so that probably helps. See her dress? My mom helped me make it out of material that was my grandma's and I included things she "likes" in her basket.

 Since Scott lost his office I thought I would show you what he has been banished to for an office space. It is technically a hallway, but it kinda works. It is rather dark and we use 2 long extension cords  as the only way to get power over there. Fortunately, now that he isn't working from home as much, he doesn't need such a functional space. It has worked so far and he is a trooper.

The New Master Bedroom Decor

I have been meaning for months to  show some updates of our house since we have switched them all around.  I'm not exactly sure why I want to post them. Everyone (if anyone) who reads this blog has probably already been to my house and seen the changes. Maybe I'm posting for myself sometime in the future. Or also because I love seeing other people's homes and how they decorate. I love reading blogs of people that I actually know and what their houses look like. In any case, it's been nearly six months, but finally last Saturday our rooms were clean, and I remembered to take pictures of them. 

This all started when we needed Milo to start sleeping in his own bed and not in a basket in the office. Because of his reflux (among other things) it wasn't working out for them to share a room. They didn't actually sleep one full night together. We decided that if we were going to move them around, we might as well move everyone. We didn't paint anything or even get new curtains anywhere, just moved furniture around. Let's start with our new master bedroom. The last time you saw it, it looked like this:

 

We took over the old nursery for a couple of reasons. 1) We thought it was bigger than the room we were currently in, and 2) by having our master right off of our front room it caused some guests to feel like they were invading our private space. I never felt uncomfortable if their kids went in there, Olive played in there all the time. But I often noticed that when other people came over, it was an issue. So to solve it we moved out. Now the room looks like this:

 

It wasn't actually bigger than our original master, it just looked bigger because it had lots of tiny, child sized furniture in it. Although it is actually a few inches smaller, the layout makes is much more functional and so it seems bigger because the space is used better. Plus we upgraded our closet big time and we got lots more windows. 

This lamp was basically the inspiration for all of the design. I found the lamps and then tried to find things to coordinate with them. I love the color, they are a bright aqua (although this picture doesn't show how vibrant they are), the geometric shapes. and the simplicity of design.

Then I found the bedding. I really liked it at the time and there are still things that I do like about it. I love that I was able to find the matching pillows for the color of the lamp shade (it might be hard to tell but there is a big aqua pillow in there and the gray one in front has the same color stitching). It was a kinda cheap comforter set and so it is just cheap, scratchy material. I am already kind of sick of it. When I picked it out at the store I thought it was black, but it is actually dark blue, so I don't love that about it either.

  

The opposite wall looks like this.

 Scott's dad has found him some old antique camera's. So Scott has started a collection and he has some pretty cool ones, some of which actually still work. Since we were looking for a place to store them all we thought it would be a great detail for our room. And since Scott lost his office (you will see what it is now another day) he needed a place to store his instruments. I think the way it all came together looks great. Scott doesn't think it looks like a girls lives in this room, but I just remind him about the aqua lamp shades.

  

This is a close up so you can see some of the cool cameras.

Overall we are really love being in this room and I am so happy with how everything turned out.