Holy moly, this month has flown by!! And if you glance to my previous post, it might help explain why :) This past month included Christmas, New Years, and projects, projects, projects! In addition to the play kitchen project, I also attemped to make Hailey a busy book in time for Christmas. And while I did make some progress on it, I'm sad to report that I did not finish it. Maybe it will be a Valentine's day gift! Here are a couple pics of the work in progress:
The cover
This one will be a 'lift the flap' type page with little animals in the windows
The balloons unsnap so she can do some color matching
Zippers.
I also decided to make 10 "bonus gifts" for the ladies of my family on Christmas. They are 4-inch embroidery hoops with their inital stitched in the middle (or handprints for the grandparents). They really weren't difficult at all and I think they turned out so cute!
For cousin Sammi
Aunt Diane
Hailey's handprint for Grandma Peggy
Collin, Keaton, and Hailey's handprints for Great Grandma Mary
And we can't forget the day of marathon cookie baking!
So, as you can see, I tend to get a little carried away sometimes and take on a million projects at once. But I like being busy, so no complaints here. My latest project is revamping our family diet to include as few processed foods as possible. Inspired by 100 Days of Real Food, I am doing my best to turn our kitchen into a "real foods" kitchen. So I'm in the process of stocking up on nuts, seeds, dried fruits, popcorn, fresh fruits and vegetables, homemade bread, plus snacks like homemade graham crackers, homemade granola, and homemade soups, sauces, hummus, etc. This isn't completely new territory for us, as we have always eaten "healthy" around here, but now I'm going the extra mile to eliminate those lingering chips, crackers, puffs, bread, jarred sauces, etc. There is a lot more to it than that, so head on over to the 100 days site to get inspired yourself!
Don't worry, Hails, I haven't forgotten about you! You have continued to be an angel for mommy and daddy and you had a blast on your second Christmas. You loved opening gifts and saying "ohh nigh (nice)!!" You got tons of new clothes, shoes, toys, books, and play food items for your new kitchen. You have your 4 wonderful grandparents to thank for the majority of your Christmas gifts - they love you so much!
Lots of QT with my grandparents lately!
Up until a couple days ago, your sleeping was great. But for the past few nights you have been putting up quite a fight when going down at night. We hope its just a phase....
As for your eating, it is getting a little better. You will now eat green beans, but not just any green beans, they have to be the fresh, long, skinny ones with a little butter on them. I can also get you to eat fresh spinach {when I hide put it in a smoothie....}!! More current faves are clementines {Cuties}, dried apples/bananas/strawberries, and bananas with peanut butter. You gobble down my homemade graham crackers, too.
Bean Queen
You've picked up another 10-15 single words, but still not too many two-word phrases. You do a great job of communicating though and you hardly ever throw tantrums like you did a couple months ago. Whenever you need help with something you come to me or daddy and say "hep!?" and then bring me to your dolly that is stuck in the stroller or door you need opened, etc. Another wonderful thing you do now is calling out sweetly to me and daddy when you wake up in the morning instead of crying. It's so sweet to wake up to "Mama! Dada!" Instead of ear piercing screams :)
You and daddy have a wonderfully sweet nightime routine these days. Around 6:30 he gives you a bath, puts on your jammies, blow dries your hair, brushes your teeth with "Abby Dab" {Abby Cadabby toothpaste}, reads you story books, then gathers your babies and puts you to bed. The two of you have the most genuine relationship and it melts my heart to watch you two together.
You love playing in your kitchen, with your baby dolls, watching Clifford, playing with your Little People, reading books, making towers with blocks, doing puzzles, doing the Fisher Price apps on my phone {favorite=Itsy Bitsy Spider}, and scribbling with crayons and your Magna Doodle. Your fine motor skills are insanely good for your age. You always have beads around your neck and a purse or bucket on your arm! You are a little busy-body contantly moving from one thing to the next. You are {usually...} well behaved and play great by yourself. Unless you are hungry or tired... and in that case you cling to my leg and whine until I pick you up!
Your attachment to Baby & Hoo Hoo is growing, too. You use Hoo Hoo as a pillow in your crib each night and keep Baby under your arm most of the night. It is so sweet :) You consider your {large} blanket to be one of your babies, too! The other day you insisted on eating lunch with all three of your babies.
Best Buds
You have also started to dance alot recently! It is so funny! Here is an adorable video of your early dancing skills.
My computer has been giving me a little trouble lately, so if the above video doesn't work, go HERE to see it. My favorite part is her little move around 12-14 seconds:)
And now for everyone's favorite part, an over-abundance of adorable pictures! Enjoy!
Picking out a tree at Ted Drewes:
Decorating a cookie at Breakfast with Santa {at Eckerts}:
Decorating our tree:
EarlyChristmas celebration with Daddy's aunts, uncles and cousins:
Christmas Eve with the Buckners:
Do you like my new snow boots?
Look how cute I am! Grandma Marge got me a dolly stroller and light-up tennies!
Christmas Eve with the Garcias:
Cousin Love
I love how tiny she looks next to the tree and presents :)
Christmas Morning at our house:
Apparently I had a "thing" with red and white polka dots this year...
Christmas Morning with the Garcias:
"I don't want to stand next to the tree so you can take my picture in my pretty outfit, I would like to lay on the ground instead."
Thank you for my wagon Gram & Gramp G!
Close as we got to a decent fam pic...
Very excited about her cute new purse!
Great Grandma likes her bonus gift!
Christmas with the Sollmann's:
For some reason I really like this picture... its just "so Hailey" :)
tiny genius
Toys. Everywhere.
Miscellaneous Sweetness:
I love their faces
Besties
First time playing in the snow!
My little helper
She loved the hand-blower-thing at the bowling alley
Playing at daddy's office!
New Years Eve - mommy and daddy had a bonfire in the backyard while you slept sweetly in your cozy, warm bed :)
my little bookworm fell asleep while reading :)
Who's hungry??
And I'll leave you with with cute video of Stevie Wonder, I mean, Hailey :)
Here is a how-to on the entertainment-center-turned-play-kitchen that my husband and I (and my dad and sister...) made! All in all it wasn't too expensive and didn't take too much time (about 5 weeks start to finish, but we definitely did not work on it every day).
We started by purchasing an entertainment center off Craigslist ($25). After a little surgery, it fit perfectly into my dad's van!
Surgery
This was no small task
Before I go any further, I should say that the idea for this project came from, of course, Pinterest. And after looking at a billion of them, I decided that this one was my inspiration.
So we planted her in our "dining room/play room" and there she will stay until the day we try to sell the house! This puppy is too big to fit down the basement steps :)
Next, we removed the doors and shelves that came with it and started priming. Then we went to Lowe's and bought a big sheet of MDF (fiberboard - about $20) which eventually got cut down into each door. There we also purchased hinges, magnetic clasps, and door knobs. And I knew early on that I wanted to do aqua and red for the colors so I picked up some paint swatches as well.
Here my dad is working on putting on the doors, hinges, and knobs.
The above pictures proved to be the most difficult part of this endeavor. God Bless you, daddy! Getting the boards cut to the exact size needed to fit into the space was very difficult. But as it turns out, fiberboard sands pretty well so I spent a lot of time sanding them down until they fit perfectly, keeping in mind that the paint would eventually add some more layers to them as well. {Disclaimer: this part of the project was done in November which was when Rian was out of town, so he was unable to help}
While the "hard stuff" was taking place, my sister and I worked on some of the fun detail-y type things. I found some cute red and white paisley fabric at Hancock Fabric and my sister the seamstress sewed them into adorable curtains:
I also worked on the "window project". I took a photo looking out my parents kitchen window and printed it as an 11x14. Then I got a $3 picture frame from Wal-Mart and spray painted it white. I got some white trim and cut it into window panes and hot glued them onto the glass. Cute, huh?
The basket below came about in a funny way, but it ended up being my favorite part of the finished product! Originally we were going to put two doors there at the bottom (to look like the original), but my dad accidentally took a big chunk out of the door as he was cutting it down to size. To stay stress free, I said "no worries, I'll just put a cute basket there!" So my mom and I went to Hobby Lobby and found this cutie 50% off and the exact size we needed!
She eventually ended up looking like this:
I used this tutorial to make the adorable fabric flower. Just some fabric scraps, hot glue, and a cute button are all you need!
Another side project I created for myself was putting together the little doo-dad below during one of Hailey's naps. Again just fabric and felt scraps and a $2 embroidery ring. I did free-hand the letters though :) But it's not as hard as you would think!
Rian came home mid-December and we started the final parts of the project. First up was the counter top. Rian was very excited about this part :) I was all for something simple (well, I was going to hand paint each tile like they did here....) but Rian wanted real tile, so real tile we did! This portion of the project was about $25 for 4 12"x12" sheets of small white tiles and some white grout. Rian cut them to fit and grouted away!
It ends up looking like this:
Which leads me to the sink and faucet. The sink is a dog dish ($10ish) and the faucet is the cheapest one I could find ($9 from Walmart).
And then, just about 6 days before Christmas, we started painting!! White on the fridge, freezer, stove, and oven, and aqua everywhere else. Two coats and some touch ups later, we were ready for the final details!
I just thought of 3 more details when looking at this picture!
1) The backing is white bead board from Lowe's ($20)
2) The burners are wooden discs from Michaels ($1.30 each) which I spray painted silver and mod podged on a photo of a real burner that I found on a Google Image search
3) We cut a hole in the oven door and added a clear piece of acrylic so she can look in and see what's cookin'!
Once we started putting in the final details and accents, it really started coming together :)
The above black knobs are wooden discs from Hobby Lobby that we spray painted black and wrote on with a paint pen. I mod podged over the top of everything so the paint doesn't chip off. Then Rian screwed them in, but not too tight because, yes, they turn! :)
The oven rack came from Lowe's ($6) as did the white hooks in the photo above it (also $6). We added chains to the oven door so it doesn't slam to the ground when she opens it. And the cute wooden cookies came from the dollar section at Target!
I love this part :) The shelf I found at Goodwill ($3) and spray painted it red. The flower pot is from Michaels, the potholder is from the south county Antique Mall ($5), and my sister made the super cute and tiny potholder! The flowers, picture frame, basket, and wax fruit are from the dollar store. That's Hailey's bff Bucky in the picture frame :)
I think that's it for the tiny details! So, here she is all finished!!
And this post wouldn't be complete without pics of H enjoying her gift!
Christmas morning!
Try these nummies, daddy!
Baking cupcakes to take to Grandma's house!
She's got some pretty good knife skills for 19 months old!
Goin' for that ice cream - she must be my daughter!
