olivia's 2nd birthday

Olivia turns 2 next week! We celebrated a little early since my parents were in town visiting. That seems to be the pattern, but Olivia didn't mind.

I decided not to do a big themed party this year and just keep it simple! We had our family over for dinner, there were some balloons, and we had cake and ice cream- easy peasy, as Jillian would say! (Thought I was swooning over some adorable ideas on Pinterest...is it too early to start planning her 3rd birthday? ;-) 

My brother-in-law took all of the pictures- thanks Timmy!

 

She is talking SO much these days! And strings more words into sentences together every day. The other day I walked into the room and she said, "Hi Mama, how's going?" And I answered, "It's going good, how are you?" "I'm good!" she said. Hah! 

On a sassy note, she's also started saying, "Give it back to me, RIGHT NOW!"

She also loves to sing! When she's playing around the house or riding in the car, she'll sing the entire alphabet song, ring around the rosie, baa baa black sheep, and a couple other nursery rhymes.

 It has been eye opening to discover how different Jillian and Olivia are from each other. Jillian was never one to "get into" things, or make messes (weird, right?) but Olivia...man...that girl is forever getting things out of my makeup drawer, pulling out random batteries and chapsticks from places. She keeps me on my toes (and makes me want to lock all the cabinets!) I can't tell you how many times I've had to wash crayon off of the walls and stair banisters because of this one!

 She STILL doesn't sleep through the night. *sigh. She will maybe 3 or 4 nights in the week, but the other times will still wake up for a minute or two until I rock her for a few minutes and lay her back down. (For those wondering, I totally would let her cry but the girls share a room and if Jillian wakes up too, it's game over. We tried moving Jillian into our room for a few nights to let Olivia just cry, but it didn't work..so..yeah..we're just over here, not sleeping.) At least she's cute?

 ^Since my Dad's birthday is the day after Olivia's, we had a cake for him too! Jillian helped him blow out the candles. 

 ^She got a little push trike! Jillian has a scooter already, so Olivia was just beaming when she had something of her own to ride on!

 ^Later that night we did sparklers outside! 

 I had a few mini heart attacks when Olivia kept trying to reach for it. Haha! It's kind of amazing she didn't get burned, because we gave her one to hold and she was swinging it all over the place... #parentsoftheyear

Happy Birthday my sweet, sweet girl! We love you to pieces!

easter

Happy Easter! 

Our morning started off deliciously with bunny bum pancakes! Jillian thought they were fantastic (thank you Pinterest!) and Olivia didn't get it. Not surprising. 

Getting a family picture where everyone is looking and smiling is kind of, well, basically impossible. But this one was preeeety close.

Thank you Target for having matching dresses in little girl AND toddler sizes. I just couldn't help it.

After church we stopped by James' Dad's house for treats, then ate dinner and had an egg hunt with more friends and family. Olivia didn't get the whole thing last year, but she had no problem catching on this year! She loves to pop the eggs open and instantly asks you to close them so she can repeat that about 50 times. It's super fun. ;-)

^Taking a break to see what's in some of those suckers. I'm not even sure how much candy they managed to eat yesterday, but I know it was a LOT.

After that we went to James' aunt's house for another egg hunt! It was kind of like that movie Four Christmases, but Easter--a very full, but fun day (but with way less dysfunctional family members than portrayed in that movie, just to clarify).

Sooooo much candy.

But in all seriousness, I'm grateful for the real reason we have Easter! I especially loved this video! 

tiny dancer

Geeeeeeez I can't keep up with blogging lately (or housework, work work, laundry...but don't worry I'm fully up to speed on my Hulu shows ;-) Priorities...killin' 'em.) 

 (By the way- I took this before she even went into the first class and she came up with the pose all by herself! I about died.)

Jillian started ballet last week! Of course it's something I always wanted her to do since I enjoyed dancing growing up, but I really believe in letting kids choose things they want to do- trying out several things, and finding what they are passionate about. Between soccer, tumbling, and ballet- well, you see which one won! (Though I may sign her up for soccer regardless because I can't imagine anything more hilarious than a bunch of 4 and 5 year-olds running around trying to play an actual game of soccer--wait, is that a bad reason to make your kid do something?).

 

The class she's in is fairy tale ballet- it's perfectly girly and frilly, two things we're pretty good at doing in this family. They start by reading a portion of a fairy tale, then dress up as a character from the story and practice technique by acting as that character. Yes, it's adorable. 

I love that at all of the studio rooms have two way mirrors, so you can watch them the whole time! Sometimes Olivia bangs on the glass to try to get Jillian's attention...so that may blow our cover at some point.

 I made this little video of her first class that I shared on my Instagram page:

She just glows the entire time. It's been so fun to watch her enjoy this so much! 

the time I realized they're growing up

Earlier this week James got home much later than usual, so I was flying solo on parent duty getting the girls dinner, cleaned up, bathed and in bed. Quite the process let me tell you- and one I rely on James heavily for.

 

As I was getting them bathed, something James normally does while I clean up dinner, I realized it had actually been several weeks since I was the one to do that. While they were splashing around and I was trying to explain why splashing lots of water on bathroom floor was actually not a good idea (despite their best counter arguments), my thoughts nearly stopped dead in their tracks as I realized they are getting so BIG. 

Today while shopping for Easter dresses I found that 5T dresses will no longer cut it for Jillian, so we moseyed over from the toddler section to the girls department. The same department where a group of tweens actually said the words "oh em gee" out loud while looking at swimsuits. 

Kill me now.

 I also registered Jillian for her first ballet class today at a dance studio near our house- Fairy tale ballet. I'm probably going to tear up during the first class when I watch her in her little black leotard and pink shoes enthralled in her little world of make-believe, magic, and girlyness. I'm already prepared for it.

There's a kindergarten registration packet sitting on my counter with checklists and forms and pamphlets on "preparing your child for school." I'm so emotionally unprepared to even deal with that.

Olivia is growing in her own right as well. She's no longer a baby. She talks in broken sentences, "Look-ah me, Mama!" and "Lion Keem! (Lion King)- I love it!" We're full on toddler stage. She wants to do everything her sister does and I'm amazed at how much she learns from just watching Jillian.

Sometimes when I rock her before bedtime with her bottle (clearly I'm still pretending she's a baby), I'm in awe that not even 2 years ago she was the tiniest little baby snuggled up in one crook of my arm. Now her limbs sprawl off on all sides of the chair and she's heavy in my lap.

When in the HECK did all of this HAPPEN? 

Despite my best efforts to freeze time, it's actually passing at a remarkable rate. 

The days are long, but the years are fast.

So fast.

 

life as of late!

I realized I haven't blogged about what we've been up to in a while. Admittedly it isn't anything too exciting- just ordinary, regular day-to-day life. Sometimes that's where the best stuff happens! The stuff I want to remember anyway.

^As much as I hate the snow, they love it! What kid doesn't though, really? 

 ^A couple weeks ago we took the girls bowling for the first time! They both really loved it. Olivia had a hard time understanding the concept of taking a turn, and they both pretty much lost interest around the 7th frame. Jillian actually got the highest score...which isn't embarrassing at all.

^I love my expression in this picture realizing Olivia is getting yet another spare. I mean they DID get to use the gator and the gutter rails, so it was somewhat of an unfair advantage...but still...getting beat by a 4 year-old doesn't do much for the ego!

 

^Jillian went to one of her good friend's birthday parties recently where they were pampered at a hair salon. She told her stylist she wanted to look like Aurora. I texted my Mom a picture and she said, "Before you know it she'll be getting ready for prom!"And then I wanted to cry. Haha! It was fun watching them get dolled over though!

 ^My friend Kristen bravely invited us to her Valentine's party with her joy-schoolers at her house. There were 18 kids altogether! Surprisingly it wasn't as crazy as you may have thought. Give kids some balloons and Sweethearts and they'll be happy no matter what.

 ^We met my cousin and her kiddos for a play date at the dinosaur museum. They moved back from Indiana a few months ago and it has been the best thing ever!! Her oldest and Jillian will both be starting kindergarten this fall so I'm glad I'll have her to call and sob to after drop off on the first day of school. ;-)

 ^Olivia is cracking me up lately. She's such a ham and is talking so much. She loves being goofy and will follow anything and everything Jillian does. She's recently figured out how to scurry up the bar stools and get onto the counter, which is basically driving us nuts.

 ^Cubby's! I went there for the first time with James for our Valentine's date and it was probably one of the best burgers I've ever had. If you've never been, get the Houdini burger. And those sweet potato fries?! Let's just say I already have plans to go back this week. 

 ^Over the weekend we had plans to take the girls to the indoor trampoline gym. We knew it would be a little crazy with Monday being a holiday, but the wait to even pay to get in was at least 30 minutes long! No thanks. So we opted for an arcade instead. Jillian had a hard time understanding how to execute an underhand throw in skee ball (and was thus a little dangerous)...but it was fun playing games together! Plus we had a delicious Dole whip!

^We went for pizza Saturday night and it was deeeelicious! Nicolitalias was a place we went to often when we were first married, but realized we hadn't been in years! Taking the kids out to eat with us for dinner is always risky...you know, melt downs, spills, general rambunctiousness..but they did pretty well. The free suckers they passed out at the cash register definitely helped. There was only one spill and it was my fault. Oops!  

^In October I started Weight Watchers! I have been working my tail off and have lost 20 pounds with 5 more to go until my goal. It has been stinkin' hard, but so worth it! I think what I love most is how much stronger I feel- physically and mentally!

February was a pretty ordinary, but pretty wonderful month! It's starting to warm up now and has made me SO excited for spring. As much as I hate winter, it makes me appreciate the other three seasons a thousand times more!!

master bedroom makeover

 

I'm finally done updating our bedroom! It took a bit longer than expected, because you know...life! 

When we moved into our place (almost) 4 years ago (four years?!), I put up the things I had from our apartment and didn't really think much about our room since I was focused on updating the main floor of the house. Once that was done, our room started to bug me more and more! Plus we'd had the same lamps since we'd been married 7 years ago- time to move on. Haha! Yes, fortunately ruffle lamp shades are no longer my thing.  

Some lovely before pictures:

 

I will never miss that wall color.

 

^Once the curtains came down (well, fell down because I didn't use drywall anchors the first time and Jillian gave them a tug and whoops! Lesson learned. Drywall anchors are actually really important). But take note of how tiny the window looks!

And now some afters:

I wanted to keep it light, airy and color neutral, as well as really punching up the textures. It's a thousand times more interesting than it was before! I think one of the biggest impacts is the DIY plank wall-she's a beaut! 

I'll link all of the sources at the bottom.

^Remember the tiny window? Tiny no more! I took down the random corner shelf that served no purpose other than to remind me how much I don't dust. I hung the curtain rods almost all the way to the ceiling and hung the curtains on the outsides of the actual window, to make it look a lot bigger than it actually is. We also took down the blinds and opted for a pull down shade, made prettier by some matchstick blinds.

 

I really wanted to get a fiddle leaf fig plant, but those are really hard to find (apparently), and had reports of being difficult to keep alive- no bueno. I found this one at Home Depot that looks somewhat similar and is hopefully a little more durable! I put rocks in the bottom to detour the kids from pulling dirt out- and if they start messing with those I have every intention of hot gluing all of the rocks together. Yep. 

The headboard was an $80 DIY project that is still working beautifully! 

The jute runner was sort of a last minute addition, but I love the way it anchors the bed and makes the bench stand out. And adds to my whole texture spiel. 

The mid-century bench was another cheap DIY! One of my favorite projects to date, actually. (And yeah I just noticed my sheet is awkwardly pinched into the mattress- oops ;-) bed wedgie!)

I can't get over how much bigger it looks!! And I'm really glad I decided to do white paint instead of some of those blues I was playing around with...

 It was so much fun to find and add all of the elements I wanted to in this room- I'm sort of sad it's all finished! All of the rooms in our house are pretty much done. I'm still dabbling with the playroom and James won't let me touch his office, so we're basically there. :-p

Next up is a furniture refinishing project- love those!

 Sources:

Captains mirrors: Hobby Lobby

Lamps: Ikea

Night stands: Ikea

Headboard: DIY

Bench: DIY

Curtains: Ikea

Matchstick blinds: Lowe's 

Runner: Ikea

Yellow & leather pillow: Target

Monogrammed pillow: So Vintage Chic 

Alarm Clock: Target

Plant basket: Hobby Lobby

Square photos: Parabo prints  

"Prayers come true" sign: Salty Bison