We moved

In April 2015 we packed up our house.

After living in Surprise for 8 years (and loving it!) we moved into my parents (and eventually Jason's parents) before moving to Laveen in a new home.

We moved for a little more space and to be much closer to Jason's work.

A couple pictures of our house mostly packed up:

Now I'm Ready

I am officially ready to have this baby. Why is it official now? Because I finished her room! Yes, I just finished it... at 39-1/2 weeks.

Months ago, Jason painted the walls in the girls room pink... all pink, solid pink. I was pretty, but then we had to find bedding to go with it. We decided on pink and brown. The problem was, most of the pink-and-brown bedding that we found was 90% pink and 10% brown. And since we already had lots of pink going on with the walls, we wanted more brown and less pink.

So I debated for a while, then decided to make the bedding myself. I really debated whether I should or not. I am not great at sewing (though I would love to be much better someday), and so I didn't know if I could do it and be happy with the results.

My grandma took me shopping for the fabric and such as my baby shower present, since she was in Europe at the time of the shower.

I didn't like any of the pink and brown patterned fabric that we found, so I decided to get plain pink and plain brown and make it work.

Here's what I came up with:Plain brown sheet (x2): I thought the sheet was going to be really difficult, but it was actually probably the easiest part.

Pink and Brown Striped Crib Skirt:I made the stripes myself, since I didn't like any of the patterned fabrics available, and I didn't want everything to be too plain.

Quilt: I've worked on quilts before, but they were really basic. So I decided to not go to far from that. Just pink and brown checkers on the front, and a plain brown back.

The crib after I finished the bumper. Again, I wanted to add something so it wouldn't be too plain and boring... so I drew out a flower pattern and transferred it onto the bumper fabric, and then embroidered the flowers.

And a pleasant surprise: Embroidery is not as hard as I thought it would be. Time consuming, yes... difficult, not really.

Here's a little close-up of the embroidery, since you can't really see it clearly in the other picture

Next, the windows. These took me a while to figure out, they weren't actually hard, once I figured out what I was doing, I just struggled to figure out what exactly I needed to do. Tying those bows after we hung them though was actually difficult, It may have been one of the more difficult parts: trying to get them to look nice, and straight and pretty.

Then the mobile. This is what I am least happy with, and it was actually pretty hard compared to the rest of the stuff I made. It could be worse I guess, but I don't really like it. Hopefully our daughter isn't too picky.

Other than the mobile though, I'm happy with it- It wasn't too hard, it turned out nicely and it was good practice so that someday I can hopefully be really good at sewing

Now that I'm finished I still have tons of extra fabric. I'll save it for a later project I suppose. I already used a little bit of the extra pink to try out these frayed flowers that I saw online. Super easy, and cute I think-- these are getting glued onto a couple of hair clips (Katie, one of these is coming your way)

So, with the room complete we're just waiting for the baby to put in it....

Just 3 days until my due date

Curtains

Jason and I are tired of our house being plain, the only room we've painted is Parkers, and we've slowly added decor elsewhere, but it's definitely a work in progress. And progress is slow, since Jason and I disagree somewhat concerning what we want to do with the house. But we have added a little bit more to our home, Curtains!

Neither of us really liked any of the pre-made curtains we were able to find, (so we do agree on some things) So we went to Joanns and picked out some fabric, so I could make curtains.

I made three valances for the living room.

And some basic green curtains for our window in our kitchen, which I'm still not sure about... I think I might want to add a valance across the top, but I can't make up my mind

Done for real

Last May I blogged here that we had finally redone our backyard, and that all it needed was a swingset. Well, Parker got one for Christmas and it's so nice having it in the backyard- and he loves the swing SO much! He constantly walks to the back door and does the sign language for please. He's asking us to take him outside to go on the swing, yesterday we took him out to swing 5 times and he still kept going to the back to door go out again.

Jason put the whole thing together himself and then stained it-I think he did a great job- what a stud!

Seriously, I've heard people say that when you're a homeowner you're never finished fixing stuff up or decorating. Turns out to be true, Now it just needs a small vegetable garden and some backyard furniture, and a firepit, right?

New Office

After we fixed up our backyard, Jason wanted another project in the house.
He definitely wanted and indoor project- because it is just too damn hot outside. We decided to go with the messiest most neglected room in our house.- The Office.


Above you can see the 'before' pictures of the office.

The desk in the office was part of a collection that matched our bedroom furniture, because in our tiny old apartment, that was the only place for the computer. This desk didn't match the hand-me-down- bookshelves we had, and neither the bookshelves nor the desk matched the piano.





We Didn't want to have to move the piano to paint behind it... so we decided to leave the walls white, and paint the cabinets to get some color. We bought 2 new desks to match the piano, and moved the bookcases to the loft.

















I like this much better, everything is much more organized, and I have a real home for my scrap booking and sewing stuff.



















One Side effect of redecorating your house... boxes

Here we have some pictures of Parker Playing around in one of our extra boxes.

Here are Parker and Daddy, doing some more 'construction' work... putting together a new table for our front entry area

Our Backyard

Jason has been working very hard recently (and spending much of our tax refund money) to get our backyard into shape- when we bought our house it had been vacant for something like 9 months- so the backyard was a wreck, all the plants were overgrown, many were dying- except of course for the weeds, they were thriving- there were weeds that were taller than me (I'm 5'7") So it was quite a job but we're happy with it- It will be great when we have kids big enough to play out there.

Our Side Yard

Here's the view from our Balcony- on the right is plain dirt area, but soon it will be filled in and we'll put a swingset there.

FISH!!

So I've been telling Jason forever that I want fish, and so he gave in and gave me a fish tank and fish and stuff for a present. It's awesome I love fish and Parker loves to watch them swim around too.





I named our fish; Albus (the one that's mostly orange), Bink (the grey spotted one), Bella (the larger white with a little orange) and Darcy (the black one on the rock). Yes they're all named after literary characters- It's Albus from the Harry Potter books, Bink from the Xanth novels, Bella from the Twilight series and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice---yes I'm a nerd