Part 4: Addie's BIG GIRL Room!

It has taken me 2 weeks to post these because I have been waiting for 2 final details... the turquoise curtains for her closet and the 2 Zebra Euro pillow shams for her bed. Maybe if I go ahead and post her room's final pictures, they will show up tomorrow at the front door!

I wanted to take an opportunity to display all the people that Addie loves in her room so I found this metal string with magnets to display all her friends and family.

I think Addie's hat collection at 2 years old is fun so I hung 9 silver hooks to use them as decoration (there are 3 more over her door.)

I found black and white zebra door knobs for her bookshelf toy drawers.

The highlight of her new room is her very own Reading and Play corner. I remember as a young child loving to make tents so I devised a way for Addie to have one all the time. These 2 white sheer panels close all the way to give her a special place to relax and is plenty big enough to have her brother in there reading with her every night.

I love this "floating bookshelf" I found to hold some of her favorite books and it can also double as a night stand next to her bed.

Where's Addie... there she is!

We love spending time in Addie's new room and know she does to... over the last 2 weeks, it has become the central head quarters for the household! ;) I couldn't be happier (unless I had those shams and curtains!!!)

Part 3: Her Reaction!

Nearly 3 weeks ago, Addie's BIG GIRL BED ARRIVED and it was time for her to see it. In anticipation for the big event we had been talking about for a couple of weeks, she had stayed dry at night for an ENTIRE WEEK for the very first time!

She took a second to take it all in...

Then the smiles came...

She wanted to curl up with her babies and wanted them all by her side!

Knock on wood, Addie has done superbly in her new bed for the 3 weeks. She hasn't gotten out of bed once... let's hope that continues. Soon Addie got to show her BFF her brand new BIG GIRL BED.... I love this picture!

Part 2: Labor of Love!

So when Blake said, "Let's Do It!" I quickly became obsessed with every single detail down to the new knobs on her book shelf drawers. I was spending hours on the Internet until 2AM a couple of nights making final decisions while at the same time trying to sell a ton of stuff in her nursery to break even on this little upgrade! 

For the record, I am not crazy to think that Addie even cares about her room and I know she will think I am crazy when she finds out how much thought, energy and planning went into her room at 2 years of age, when she is a mom one day. But it is one of the things in life like the kids birthday parties and such that I absolutely love and couldn't think of doing half way. Blake and I have an awesome habit of having extremely elaborate things that we do ourselves every time when decorating for the kids and we had fun reminiscing all the painting we have done together in our home the last 5 years. He gives me a hard time that I can't just choose a normal paint color instead every time it is some kind of faux finish or extreme design.

The bed is a $49 dollar unfinished bed from IKEA that I hand painted silver and then crackle painted in turquoise and the silver shows through. I bought about 8 different quilts and duvets and finally found the perfect duo.

We opted to get her a memory foam mattress because she sleeps SO WELL on our Temperpedic but NO WAY is hers a TEMPERPEDIC... I am not that crazy! But what was crazy, was how the mattress showed up at our door...

This is how it unpacked and looked normal all within 90 seconds...

 

The gorgeous sage green chandelier was repainted by Blake at 10 PM at night... now talk about dedication right!?!?!? He knew how obsessed I was with the room and was happy to help me in the evenings.

I am glad we know all our neighbors or they would have thought we were NUTS!!!



The diamonds were one of the many finishing touches and took me about 3 evenings to complete. I would rush home at 5PM and try to get a coat done before Blake would get home with the kids.

I couldn't be happier with the way all the final touches came together and was so excited to show Addie her BIG GIRL BED!!!

Part 1 of 4: Addie's LAST Night In Her Nursery!

At 26-27 months, we were confident Addie was ready for the move to the BIG GIRL bed after sleeping in a regular one dozens of nights all summer while we were traveling. About a month ago, she suddenly started consistently waking up crying in the middle of the night for no reason and Blake was actually the one that said, "let's do it!" He thought she was ready. I put my reservations of her new found freedom and ability to climb out of her bed every night to be suddenly woken up with a 2 year old right in front of my face aside and said OK! So on September 8, 2010 at 27.5 months of age, this beautiful girl spent her very last night in her beautiful crib!

Too bad I wasn't thinking after bath that night when she choose her own pajamas which make the pictures themselves memorable... her brother's Spiderman PJ top and his CARS bottoms!

It was fun looking back tonight on Carter's 2 transitions right when he was 26 months and 29 months into his big boy bed and just pray that it works out just as well for her! :)

Baby Marcie "Turns 1!"

Earlier this week I decided to make a special breakfast for the kids before they woke up. They were so excited about Cinnamon Streusel Muffins a.k.a CUPCAKES that I had to think fast to come up with a reason as to why they got this special unhealthy breakfast randomly that morning (as not to make it a normal request every single morning in the future.)

Addie was holding her baby named Marcie, who has quickly become a full fledged member of the Brown family, jumping up and down at the thought of CUPCAKES at 7:30 in the morning and I found my out... it suddenly became "Baby Marcie's 1st Birthday Party" and since we all get big special breakfasts complete with hats and decorations, we had to do the same for Marcie! So Happy Birthday Baby Marcie on your new birthday of September 22! I am anxious to see how much you grow over the next year....

New Monteray Oak - 2010

Since our enormous back yard came with only 1 tree 5 years ago, we have had the intentions of planting some good, long living Oaks.  While I was pulling some weeds today in the front, I found this Monterrey Oak seedling and we decided to plant it in the far back corner since this old "junk" tree won't be around forever.

We thought it would be yet another cool thing for the kids to watch grow for their rest of their lives and perhaps bring their children back to see it... maybe at that time it will be big enough for a tree house.

2010 will have been a great year for the Brown Family with plenty of things to remember so we thought we would mark this monumental year with this tree and together we can watch the kids and it grow.

Hard Work DOES pay off!

I'll never forget the day I arrived home in early March, after being out of town for 7 days, to find this....

With a "hard" winter for South Texas coming to an end... Spring had sprung THE WORST WEEDS I HAD EVER SEEN and all in just 7 days! Crazy! Blake is proud that he is amongst the 4 home owners on our street of around 45 that does not have a "lawn care" service to take care of our lawn. Although I look forward to that "perk" in a few years, we really do enjoy the satisfaction of caring for our yard ourselves right now. I am doing this post mainly for Blake and I to remember in 20 years. I am strong believer in LOVING the home you live in and when I saw this front yard in early March, it made me sick pulling out of my driveway every single morning. Blake doesn't know I have taken "before" and "after" pictures of our efforts and it really has been a lot of the BOTH - teamwork and effort! Immediately, I invested 6 hours researching our options for weed control and prevention. I spent a few hours on the Internet and a few hours at major nurseries around town. I decided that we were going to do this weed control organically.  The funny thing was that I don't really even care about eating organically or all the other hype about organic clothing and such but I suddenly decided that I was going to not use a single chemical on my yard and instead pull by hand every single week in our yard. I am a pretty extremely driven person and for almost a week straight, I spent 2-3 hours in the yard pulling these....

..bucket after bucket after large industrial strength black garbage bag after garbage bag of weeds. It was so bad that I had 6 different neighbors come talk to me about other options that are on the market. Our amazing neighbors Jack and Nancy even went to Lowe's one day and purchased a huge bottle of weed killer for me and brought it over and said they don't want to see me on my hands and knees another day. As hard headed and determined as I am, I admitted that I needed to get the millions of weeds under control first and from that point forward I could attempt organic weed control!!! One of the other major recommendations was investing in a high quality top dressing/compost to be put down. Well, I guess, it happened to be the BUSIEST 2 weeks in the WORLD for lawn care companies because I couldn't even get them to return my calls. Once I finally got an estimate and found out it was going to be nearly $1000 to do compost our massive front and back yard... I remembered that Blake had a few vacation days he needed to use before he lost them and threw out the idea of him and I having a bonding day to compost our yard. My amazing husband was immediately on board and that was in LATE MARCH we worked so incredibly hard and yet STILL had the ugliest yard on the street.

 We watered religiously, had a sprinkler company come and spend 7 hours at our house with me over seeing their every move (I know... poor guys but we had been burned my some sprinkler guys a couple years back) to fix 60 plus heads in our yard and ensure we had perfect water coverage. We have sprayed the weeds 2-3 times and I have even hand fertilized the weaker sections of the grass with miracle grow. Blake got several new zoysia sod squares and planted them in the bare spots in the back yard. I seeded new Bermuda grass in the bare areas in the front. Like I said, this has been a major effort but one we both felt strongly about achieving together for our home we LOVE so much. So I just took some after shots last week and I think it will be most impactful to show the before and afters together. Blake, I am so proud of your efforts and every day as we pull out of our driveway, the kids say, "Bye beautiful house and yard!" I love you and thank you for being simply amazing and SO hardworking and patient with me when I have these perfectionist moments and goals.

Group 1: Before and After

2 group: Before and After

Group 3: Before and After

Group 4: Before and After

It is truly so lush now that Maverick got his own photo shoot in it...

This just reconfirms what Blake and I can accomplish working together. We laugh about our first and last "10 YARDS (entire dump truck) of composting day" together but it is ALL WORTH IT when we look at the results. :)