Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Christmas in July

While trimming our bushes today, I took down our last string of Christmas lights.


We only turned them on once.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Well, We're Riding in the Car

Lila was bugging me in the kitchen yesterday by grabbing important stuff off of the kitchen table.  She got a hold of Johnny's keys, and I said, "Ugh! Just go use them to drive your little car!" Thinking that might get rid of her.

It certainly did.  She even hung them on the plastic key the car came with.


Monday, July 21, 2014

A Threatening Message

Now that Olive is sleeping through the night (knock on wood), we decided to move Lila out of the guest room and back into the girls' shared room.  Tonight was our first attempt, and Lila was not happy about it.  Screaming, kicking, crying, the whole shabang.  She eventually calmed down, but when I went upstairs to get something I noticed that she had slipped something underneath the door.


Why yes that is her play knife from her play food cake.


Message received loud and clear, Lila.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Bunk Beds

Besides the credit card points, one of the great things about buying $798 worth of groceries at Costco for my bulk cooking group is that we have approximately five million boxes to take to the recycling.


Lila decided to take advantage of the situation and build some bunk beds for her doll and her giraffe and her weird circley monster.


Only the giraffe actually got a blanket.


Weird circley monster had to just suck it up in the corner.


And don't worry, the rest of my cooking group paid me back.  Or had their knee caps broken.  Whichever one they chose.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Baby Chloey's Nursery

I've been wanting to do this post for FOREVER.  I was lucky enough to grow up down the street (and around a corner and down another really long, steep street and then up a smaller hill...I mean I probably wouldn't walk there or anything unless I had to...) from my cousin who's a month older than I am.  And now our girls are lucky enough to grow up walking distance from each other too.  Anyway, my cousin Melody is super talented when it comes to decorating, and her daughter's nursery is the most adorable nursery I have ever seen.  I finally got over there to snap a few shots.

The paint color is Lazy Days by Valspar.


The crib was an Ikea purchase. $99 for a super cute crib? Yes please. I hope Olive and Lila like playing in the wooden shoe at Ikea daycare because that's where they're going to be every day when it opens.  Maybe they'll teach them Swedish. 


The polka dots were an Etsy purchase.  I don't know how she got them on so straight.  I definitely would have given up after about two.


These book baskets are one of my favorite things about the room.  I did gutter shelves in Lila's Big Girl Room (which by the way is being changed back into a guest room...wish us luck with convincing Lila to sleep with Olive tomorrow night), and for the amount of books they hold, they are quite pricey and not all that cute.  


These baskets from Hobby Lobby look a lot cuter and hold a similar amount.


The flamingo print is what inspired the room as well as the baby shower our book club threw for Baby Chloey.  The flamingo print as well as the sparkle print were both Etsy purchases, and the sparkle print was an instant download! I would have never thought of that. So cute.


Melody originally painted this piece to be used as a sideboard in her dining room, but then moved it up here for a changing table.  She attached one of the same baskets she used for books to the side for holding diapers.  My favorite part about the room, though, has to be this little door that leads to a secret storage space.  When Chloey is older, Melody plans to put a little ladder up to it and finish it off as a play room.  So fun.  I'm hoping she's also planning to host sleepovers...every weekend.  Between Ikea, my parents on Fridays, and Aunt Melody's house on Saturdays, I might never have to see my children again!


I love how all of the closets in Melody's house have these cute shuttered sliding doors.  Sliding doors are never cool, but these actually look nice.


Now just FYI, Melody decorates for other people too, not just her own adorable baby.


Isn't that a cute card?


 Love it all.


Friday, July 18, 2014

Lila Says

Lila: Mama? Where are you? I miss you! I want to let you guys be with me always!
______________

Rachel: So what do you think you want to be for Halloween?
Lila: A Teacher! Or a mommy!  When I grow up.
Rachel: I think you are confused about the difference between Halloween and growing up. For Halloween you could be a ladybug...or a princess...
Lila: I will be a princess.  When I grow up.
______________

Upon playing with Daddy's stud finder for the fourth time.
Rachel: Lila! What did I say!?
Lila: But it's wonderful!
__________________

While playing pretend with Aunt Lauren's roommate's cat's toys.
Lila: You are in time out!
Lila: But we want to be with our Mommy and Daddy!
Lila: No! You are in time out!
_____________________

Lila: I'm Track Star Lila!
______________________

After waking up in a very bad mood from nap time.
Rachel: Don't you want to go to the park with Daddy after he gets home?
Lila:  No! I want him to go back to Army!


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Fort Buildin' Time

In an attempt to be a "cool," "hands on," "involved" mother, I helped Lila build a fort over the weekend, a fort that she promptly decided looked like a bed and commenced playing her favorite game: "Pretend You Are Sleeping."  She never even went in the fort.  She just kept fake snoring.


PS. I saw something a few days ago on Pinterest bemoaning the fact that there are only something like 940 Saturdays between birth and when your kid goes to college and how you should make the most of those days.  Only?! (insert furrowed brow).  That's a lot of unused forts.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Chloey's Pink Lemonade First Birthday Party

This sweet girl turned one a few days ago!


My cousin, Melody, threw her daughter, Chloey, an amazing pink lemonade birthday party.


The decorations were adorable! I loved the display of her monthly photos.


Lila enjoyed the display of candy.


The food was delicious, the usual at Melody's house.


Melody let me contribute some macarons for the occasion.  I did Pink Lemonade Macarons, lemon zested shells with lemon buttercream and lemon curd in the middle, Raspberry Ganache Macarons, chocolate shells with dark chocolate ganache and raspberry in the middle, and Strawberry Macarons, strawberry shells with strawberry buttercream.


The rest of the desserts were absolutely adorable!


Look at Chloey's little cake.


She ate it very daintily.


And remember this pouf from awhile back?  I made a few for Chloey's play room.


Lila generally did a good job and didn't try to steal any of Chloey's awesome presents.  Except for the balloons...and she insisted on wearing two tutus to the party...that are each size 12 months.

 

Even leaving the party was fun because the party favors were super cute: take home pink lemonade.
 

Happy Birthday sweet Chloey! My girls are so lucky to grow up with a cousin just down the street! 


Thursday, July 10, 2014

If I Die in Raleigh At Least I Will Die Free

When we were dating in college, I always went to visit Johnny in North Carolina for the Fourth of July.  We thought we'd continue the tradition and take the girls to visit Grammie and Grampie this year.  Now, for some odd reason there are no direct flights from Kansas City to Raleigh, so we had a connection in Baltimore.  Not a big deal, thought we.  

We got to the Kansas City airport around 10:30am for our noon flight.  Got a nice coffee, a blueberry muffin.  You know, just living the life.  I will interrupt here and say that Johnny told me Olive was dressed like a clown for this flight.


We arrived in Baltimore around 3:00, preparing to get on the quick 45 minute flight around 5:30pm.  Lila and I decided to stand in line at the airport Chipotle while Johnny and Olive held down a table for us, making friends with an elderly couple going to visit their grandkids in California.  While in line, Lila informed me, "Dat yady yooks pretty in her hair brush."  I translated for the woman, "My daughter thinks your hair is pretty."  We ate our dinner, and checked the departure monitors, noticing that our flight was delayed an hour.  Bummer, but no big deal.  We went to find our gate and settled down for a bit.  At this point, it started hailing really hard.  I suppose that should have been a red flag.


Rumors started floating around the gate area that there was a bad hurricane along the East Coast. Fabulous.  Before we knew it, the flight was no longer delayed until 6:30 but was now 8:30.  A girl sitting near us was growing angry and decided that she was going to go rent a car and drive to Raleigh.  "Anyone who wants to can join!" she declared. Johnny and I thought about it briefly, but then decided the five hour drive wasn't worth it; our flight would get in around the same time anyway. Ba ha ha! It's funny, now.

So about three hours into our layover, Lila was really doing an excellent job.  She traded off her time between playing on the iPad, pretending with her Disney princess dolls, watching cartoons, and running around in circles.  Johnny decided to take Olive on a walk to see if he could get her to take a nap.  While he was gone, Lila was squatting on the floor, looking at something, and then whined to me, "I have to go tinkle!"  Now this was odd because Lila is not totally/anywhere near being potty trained yet, and she had a diaper on.  So I kind of said, "Ok well just go," but I looked at her and realized that she had just gone and it had somehow come out the side of her diaper and completely soaked her leg.

I asked some nice ladies to watch our stuff, and I ran Lila into the bathroom.  Johnny had taken the diaper bag and the stroller, so I literally had nothing to cover Lila's butt with.  I stripped her down and held her as covered as a could and waited at the entrance of the bathroom in order to flag Johnny down.  He showed up pretty quickly and handed off a new Pull-Up.  Unfortunately, all of Lila's clothes were in a checked bag getting rained on outside (Fast-forward: I'm OCD about packing and put all of the girls clothes in labeled Ziploc gallon bags, so even though their suitcase was COMPLETELY soaked, all of their clothes were dry.  Take that Southwest...and the hurricane.), so Lila had no clothes.  Johnny then went on another walk around the airport with the new mission of finding child pants.

Meanwhile, Lila ran around the airport in just a Pull-Up.



After about 30 minutes, Johnny finally returned with the only child pants in the entire airport.


"Crabby in the Morning"


Though happy with our new pants, our happiness was soon dashed when we realized that our flight was being pushed back to 10:30 and then 11:00.  We continued to hang out at our gate which was conveniently located by one of the airport bars.  This location provided interesting companionship in the form of old people who had had too much to drink.  Remember the old couple from dinner?  Well that man sauntered over from his Bud Light at one point to check on Olive and actually kissed her on the head.  Now I'm not overprotective of my kids with strangers, but I think that might have been a step too far.  There was also an older woman who insisted on holding Olive for a few minutes while regaling Johnny with tales of her bad back and bronchitis. 

By 10:00, we had one diaper left between the two girls, Olive still hadn't slept, and I was entertaining Lila by walking up one moving walkway and back on the other one ("Tick tock it's yike a clock Mama!").  It was at this point we realized that if we had rented a car at 4:30 we would have been in Raleigh already.

We FINALLY got on the plane at 11:00 and took off around 11:30.  Both girls slept on the short flight, thankfully, and I was patting myself on the back for surviving a harrowing layover without a single meltdown, Lila or Mommy.  As we landed and I was pridefully unclipping my little angel from her carseat, Lila totally lost it.  I mean went bananas. It was almost one in the morning, and she was completely hysterical.  She sobbed from the airplane to the baggage claim to the car, "I don't want to get in dat white car! No fank you! No fank you!", to Grammie and Grampie's house.  It was almost two in the morning by the time I got her in her bed.  At this point Johnny and I are whisper yelling at each other about where the other one put the diaper bag and so on.

Long story short: we survived.  So if you ever have a two year old and a baby on a flight that connects in Baltimore, I suggest you bring an extra pair of pants.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Celebrating Olive and America

Olive loves America! And she thought she would show it off in her five month photo!


Olive is rolling around and chewing on anything she can get a hold of.  She smiles at everyone and laughs particularly at her big sister.  She also knows when the United States became the United States.


I wanted to make matching 4th of July outfits for the girls this year, and I also wanted to practice my new found applique skills.  But who wants a lame old firecracker shirt that says "Baby's First Fourth"? Certainly not the Hutsons.  And fabric with Hello Kitty dressed as the Statue of Liberty? Excuse me? Definitely not American.  So we decided to go as American as we could possibly go.  George Washington.


1776.


Happy Fourth!