More festivities

We dye Easter eggs every year. I've always loved it. This year it was all about Amelia. She was really, really excited about coloring her eggs. It made me so happy! She enjoys all things craft and project. She kept saying "Me want another Easter egg pease!" Ingrid was still a little small to dye eggs. But she was definitely curious about what we were doing. Next year, she'll be all about it! Elise was perfect the whole time. She sat in her bouncy seat smiling and talking.





Lots of gifts were passed around this Easter. Mom got all the girls light-up rubber duckies! They were a huge success. She also got cute new outfits for the girls and Bath and Body wallflower plug-ins for us. She always gets us too much stuff. But I don't complain!! Ingrid got a new monogrammed sippy cup from Aunt Heather. She loves it. I'm figuring out that she likes using the cups without handles so much better. She's becoming quite the sippy cup pro. Amelia got a new bunny cup. She also got an animal matching game and some other goodies. I didn't get a pic of Elise with her gift bag because she was asleep when Amelia "helped" her open it!



We also celebrated mom's birthday over the Easter weekend. Jenn made her traditional bunny cake and it served double duty this year. I can't even begin to express how thankful I am for my mom. She goes above and beyond for every single person in her life. I'm so blessed to be her daughter. And to have her as a Gammy to Ingrid. I never ever have to worry for a single second when I go to work each day and that is a luxury I know a lot of moms don't have. LOVE YOU MOM!

Easter!

Easter weekend was a whirlwind. Friends. Late-night chatting. Filming. Rain. Birthdays. Egg-dying. Rain. Resurrection Sunday. Egg hunts. Rain. Food. Family. We are so blessed to have such full lives. Everything about the weekend was good. Totally exhausting. But so good. I love my family so much. And we had a wonderful Easter. Despite the storms and rain. We even braved the elements and did our annual egg toss and egg hunt. No pics due to weather. The camera would have been damaged I'm afraid. We started Easter morning with Ingrid getting her very first Easter basket from the Easter Bunny! She loved it. Her loot included: Melissa & Doug wooden puzzle, Melissa & Doug wooden animal magnets, Ty Beanie Boo Bunny, Light-up chick toy, Whimsy cat named Ash!!!, jammies, and a fourth of july outfit. Can you believe the Easter Bunny found a tiny grey cat named Ash?? Seriously. I died.





I was so excited about Ingrid's Easter dress. It's a vintage jewel from hartandsew. Since it came in the mail, I've been dying to get it on her. Sunday morning, it fit her perfectly. It was really short (which is necessary for her to crawl around without getting tripped up) so I paired it with monogrammed bloomers from deerpathdesigns. I wasn't planning on adding the leggings, but with the cool rain coming down, they were a last minute add-on. I think they look so cute. As I was looking back at my pics I was really disappointed with the ones we got of Ing. We never even got a shot of the front of her dress. Boo. And one of the reasons I picked this dress was for the color. It perfectly matched Amelia and Elise's pink dresses. But due to nap schedules, the cousins were already changed when we arrived at my parents. So no pics of all three girls. Wahhh. I was sad. But I got over it. Here's the best I've got.




I have tons and tons more pictures from the weekend and if we can keep our computer plugged in for more than an hour each night I will be able to post them! I'm so thankful we haven't gotten any major storm damage. Prayers for everyone around the state who haven't been as fortunate.

Another week's gone by...

How has another week slipped past with no post??? We've been so busy around here. We celebrated Glenda and Granny Lane's birthday. Ingrid's been busy taking a few steps. We're getting ready for Easter weekend and mom's birthday celebration. Not to mention, Derek's documentary is in the final stages.  This weekend will wrap up the shoot.

9 month pics. It's getting harder and harder to get Ingrid to be still for a picture. She's always on the move. This peach dress and bloomers is one of my favorites to date!



Ingrid is really into waving at her red owl...

squatting...

giving her dolls and stuffed animals kisses...

and concentrating really hard!


We had a blast and the joint birthday party. Ingrid looked super-cute sporting her flowery romper Gammy got in Vegas. It was a big hit.







I'm really praying that the rain and storms hold off tomorrow around noon for my kids egg hunt! They are so excited and I can't wait to share it with them...even though it's one of the craziest days of the year! haha. We'll make it. We'll have cupcakes.

Bathtime

Ingrid loves her bath. It's so fun to her. She splashes out tons of water every time. I'm usually soaked by the end of it. She also loves her pink rubber duck. She makes it swim and bites its bill the whole time. Since about 6 months, Ing has sat in her bath really well. But the past two or three bathtimes, she's started trying to stand up. She thinks it's really funny and cracks up every time. I tell her no and sit her back down. Usually I can get her playing with a toy and she forgets about it. But tonight, she kept wanting to stand up. I had intended on getting some really cute pics of her in the bath since I hadn't gotten any in a long time. But tonight I had to watch her like a hawk. I caught a couple of her in the act!


After bathtime, I tried to do a finger curl on Ingrid's hair. I thought it was so funny! I wanted to get a picture of it. But she was too fast. She always tries to squeeze as many minutes of play time as she can before I make her go to bed. This blurry pic is all I got.

And the eyelashes on this one kill me!

I'm SO ready for the weekend. Family time! Dinner with my folks and Derek's folks tomorrow night. Up to Ozark for cousin play time (and sister hang time) on Saturday. And cake and ice cream Sunday for Glenda and Granny Lane's birthdays! Woohoo.

I'm really not a liar...

Many, many moons I ago I told you Derek and I were redoing the office a bit. Some rearranging, decluttering, and a bit of redecorating. I also said I would post pictures of the finished product. And I never did. Derek took some photos of the office way back in February (hence the heart-themed messages on the wall) but I failed to ever post them. But I'm not a liar, so here they are.

A little look-back to July 2009. This is the night we moved into the house. We hung our much-loved clock on one of the thousand nails that were in the wall. But aside from that, it's just dirty white paint, dusty white sheers, and tons of boxes.

We (I) went a little color crazy after living in a dorm for three years and then an apartment with paneling for two years where I could paint nothing. So we (I) chose this color--aquamarine--if I remember the name correctly.

This color drove Derek crazy! So one weekend when I was visiting Heather, he repainted the room.

I agreed that it looked much, much better. But it was still very cluttered and the flow never really quite worked for us. So we changed things up a bit. What made the biggest difference was moving the large bookcase downstairs. It really freed up a lot more space in the room. Here are the "real" after pictures.









1962 sleeper sofa: flea market/reupholstered
Gold velvet chair: hand-me-down from Granny Lane
Round wooden table: flea market
White bookshelf: Ikea
White floating shelves: made by Derek
Desk: flea market
World map: Ikea
Mason jars: flea market
Chair: Ebay/reupholstered cushion
Curtains: Ikea fabric/made by me

Plant Sale

Saturday afternoon, we (Derek) did a bit of yard work in the front. But before I dive into that info, here's the reason I titled this post "Plant Sale." This is mostly nostalgia for my sis.  When Heather and I were younger we absolutely loved The Babysitters Club book series.  We really, really loved the books.  Some of my friends and I even dressed up as the characters for a dress-up day at school in fourth grade.  Eventually, there were some videos made based on the books.  And in one of the videos--mostly about Claudia's handmade jewelry being stolen--they have a huge neighborhood plant sale.  I remember watching that video over and over and wishing a) I could be an artist like Claudia and b) that I could buy tons of plants and have an English inspired garden.  Our front yard is far from a garden, but we are getting there slowly but surely.  Derek worked really hard Saturday planting all the new things we bought.  Ingrid and I watched and helped as much as we could.  She was so good outside.  She played on her quilt with her toys for a while.  Then I carried her around as we helped Derek decide placement of plants.  She also rode around on my hip in her sling while we watered new and old plants.  And of course she crawled all around the front yard.  Ingrid discovered that bear crawling really saved her knees from all the little rocks and sticks in the front.  She looked so cute crawling around stiff-legged with her little bottom sticking up in the air!