Tiny Dancer {Six Months}

Halfway to a year!!

This past month has been sooo much fun with our sweet little girl. Definitely my favorite stage so far! It's like her little personality set in. Evie is just such a happy baby. She giggles and laughs and cackles at everything! She loves to talk talk talk, especially first thing in themorning or right after she wakes up from a nap. I just love it. Though we're not quite sure who she got the whole "morning person" trait from.. not mom or dad! Maybe Grandy. :)

Sometimes in the middle of the night I'll hear her wake up but know that she's not hungry. So I just let her settle herself back to sleep, which usually means she's babbling and talking in the dark for 15 or 20 minutes.

It's so precious to hear.

Evie's accomplished some big things this month! Just in the last week she started sitting up on her own for long periods of time. SUCH a big girl! She also loves to stand up and dance around with mom. As soon as you lift her to a standing position she starts laughing. :)

This baby girl has definitely found her voice! Shrieking has been her new thing in the last week.. not necessarily mom and dad's favorite, but it is pretty funny sometimes.

We also started with solids recently. We're still only on bananas,but we're taking it slow since she's had tummy troubles in the past.

At our six month appointment, Evie was measuring in the 22nd percentile for weight. :) No big surprise there, she's our petite, blue-eyed girl!

We love you sweet girl!!

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

What's that mom? You want me to eat something??

Ho, whoa there! What do we have here...

Oh sure, I'll munch on your finger. Just a typical Tuesday.

Mmmmm... finger.

Wait a sec, I'm tasting something new here.

Your fingers aren't usually this sweet.

Let me see this sweet finger- something's different here.

Mhhm, mhhm. Definitely different.

Hey bring that back! I want more!

Oh, yeeeaaaahhhh.

Wait, why is everyone watching me?

Do I look like I'm putting on a free show??

Nom nom nom nom nom.

I could get used to these banana things.

Living Room Redesign

Living Room Redesign.. doesn't that title sound so.. official?? Like I'm all business and professional and on top of it??

HA!

I have been dying to re-do our living room for ages. Basically it's a room that has gone unused the entire time we've lived in our house. (It's our second "living space" and the family room is right off the kitchen, so that's where we spend all our time). I mean, I can probably count the number of times I've actually sat in there on one hand. Sad. But it's the first room you see when you walk into our home, do decorating it was always important to me. Since our family has grown, I find the definite need to make use of all space that we have. Cue the room re-do!

My vision for the room and it's use is really to have as much floor space as possible. Evie will be crawling soon, and I just want space for her to get down on the floor and play. As you can see, this room had a huge sofa and coffee table that was taking up all the floor space.

These pictures are the before the befores. This is right after we moved in 2 1/2 years ago. The feature wall was painted when we bought the house. Basically we stuck whatever we had in here to fill up the space.

Two summers ago I painted the room blue (a Ralph Lauren color.. can't remember the exact name) and that monstrous red couch got a new slipcover/upholstery job that you might remember. I never bothered taking real photos of the room because I wasn't in love.. but here's a picture of the wall color:

This chair will also be getting a (second) makeover somewhere down the line.

So last week Salvation Army came and picked up the sofa and we've loaned my beloved coffee table to some good friends for the time being. This coffee table is arguably my favorite piece of furniture that I've ever owned. The best part about it is that it was completely free! A family I used to work for gave it to me when it didn't sell in their garage sale. And let me just say.. it's a high end piece and I would never have bought it for myself brand new!

So with those large pieces gone, the room immediately felt larger. Progress!

Last fall I posted a few inspiration images I had for the room. I have long loved gray and thought it would be a great paint color choice for the room. I always try to really live in our home and decorate/paint as I want, but in the back of my mind, I do know that we'll move in a few years, so I don't want to do anything too out there that we'll have to undo later. To me, gray is definitely a neutral, so that's what I went with.

Over Mother's Day Weekend, Spectrum Paint was having a Facebook Deal for buy one gallon, get one free on their Benjamin Moore Paint. Total score. After a few samples, I decided on Platinum Gray. Can't find the color on the BM website for some reason.. sorry!

Fast forward another week, and the room is painted!! Ahhh, better already!


A few things about the above picture..

• The mantle is being painted as we speak.. er, type. It will be a crisp white, which I think will look fab against the gray.
• Sorry for the mess, the entire room is in disarray.
• You can see a sneak peek of our new rug!! More on that to come!!

I'm loving the color so far and am so excited about getting to decorate the whole room! Of course, everything will be done on a pretty tight budget. No major furniture purchases in my future.

Who knows when I'll be completely done with the room... But I'm hoping to share projects with you as I go along.

Have you painted anything lately?? Hope you all have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Batter Up!

On Sunday we took Evie to her very first baseball game!

I have a feeling this will only be one of many that she attends with her daddy.

We had a lot of fun, but it was hot hot hot! I know it's already almost June, but I feel like this was the first time this year that we had really been out in the sun and hot weather.

Summer is coming!!

We walked around the stadium quite a bit to get some relief from the sun and to take advantage of the nice breeze.

Evie just loved people-watching.. and this was prime people-watching territory. :)

She definitely gets that trait from both of her parents!

Peek-a-boo

Looks like it's time to lower the crib!!

Peek-a-boo, I see you!

This is what we see now when we go in to get Evie up in the morning or from her nap.

A happy girl, twisting around to see her mama or daddy. :)

Our little munchkin has gotten so strong and good at lifting herself up. She definitely can't pull herself up yet, but I don't want to wait until she can!

Munching on the crib bumper

Come on mom, enough with the pictures! Let's go play!

Evie's Quilt

Finally! Evie's quilt is nearly a year in the making and finally finished!

I ordered the fabric last summer on Etsy. I LOVE the colors and patterns. Not too baby pink or sticky sweet, but still girly. I added two brown/neutral fabrics that I picked up from JoAnn's to the mix to stretch my fabric and break up all the color.

This was my very first attempt at a quilt or anything like it. I totally winged it. (Wong it? Wang it? Whatever.) Big surprise. I browsed a few tutorials online and then just started cutting squares. The front has been done for oh, months now, but I was kind of stuck on what to do with the backing. Plus I had birthed a baby in the meantime, who liked to be held for 23 hours of the day and didn't care for my sewing machine.

Fast forward a few months and I now have a giggling, bubbly baby who smiles and laughs 23 hours of the day and I'm back on the sewing wagon.

Life is good.

I ended up using a solid wine/raspberry colored cotton for the back of the quilt and a border around the front. I wanted to make it just a little bit bigger and this did the trick. Then I went with a mauvy-pink binding for contrast.

If I had to start all over again I might do it a little differently and would definitely plan things out a little better, but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out.

And so is this little jay bird. :)

Mother's Day

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Mine was very special, since this is my first year to celebrate! I am over-the-moon excited, blessed and happy to be this little Sweet Pea's mama. Nothing could make me happier.

She brings me such joy.. I can't even begin to describe it.

I am feeling very thankful for my wonderful family and all that God has blessed us with.

Happy Mother's Day to all of our moms and grandmas!! We have a bunch in this family! :)

This crazy little trio is missing every one of you!!

Cha-cha-cha Changes!

I've been doing a little tweaking on the 'ol blog tonight. What do you think?

I'm not 100% satisfied, but I've been sitting in front of the computer messing with it for most of the night, so I'm done for now. I'm thinking I'll switch up the header.. I love that sweet little face, but I'm going to play around with some other ideas.

Have a great night! And happy Cinco de Mayo!! ;)

Car Seat Strap Covers

Take note!! I finished a project!
Mark the day on the calendar or something, cause man, it's been a while.

I made these cute little car seat strap covers for my blue-eyed girl a week or so ago. I wanted her to have them before our first little road trip to my hometown last weekend. I used this tutorial and I think they turned out great!
If I do say so myself. :)

As our pediatrician says, blue is bound to be her signature color.. ;)>

Three Years

It's hard to believe that today is our third wedding anniversary!

It feels like we've been married forever.. and it also feels like the past three years have flown by. And I mean both of those in the best possible way! :)

If I had to do it all over again, I would probably do the exact same thing: destination wedding with close family and friends. I loved every minute of it. Well, except for the overbooked resort (who knew Cinco de Mayo was a big deal in Mexico??? Duh.) and the hounding paparazzi that crashed the ceremony.

That's a story for another day.

Happy Anniversary Baby!

I love you very much!!