Kayla is 5 months old!

Little Miss Kayla Joy is five months old as of Nov 27th
    She is such a joyful baby and is cute to boot. It's fun going through the baby stages again that we had forgotten about with Sean. You forget just how fast they grow, change and learn.

-Kayla weighs about 12 lbs.
- Eats 3.5 oz every 3 hours
- smiles a lot!
- coos the cutest little sounds
- is beginning to intentionally grab at things
- enjoys bath time, just like Sean
- she eats well in the middle of the night but is a squirming handful during daytime meals

Happy 5 months Kayla!

Pinned It, Did It

With all the Pinterest craze there is always a joke to be found in the fact that we pin 1200 things and only follow through with 3 of them, ha! Well, some pins are just inspirational pictures but a lot are "to do" pins. I am thoroughly enjoying Pinterst and have pinned many to do projects. I'm proud to say I've actually carried out some of those projects! So I thought I'd share. (Please excuse my iPhone quality photos, my camera's auto focus is kaput!)

This project for Sean's play room required very little effort! I thought this would be cute to hold both pictures and Sean's art. I already took down his little pumpkin art. I used an old frame I've been holding onto and the twine and clothes pins we already had. The mirror broke years ago, but I liked the frame so much I didn't want to toss it! There were staples still in the back side of the frame so I just strung the twine through those.
I also bought a cookie jar from Wally world to hold Sean's crayons. I have since moved the crayons into a screw top jar (that he can't open) to prevent the frequent crayon torando that used to occur.

Also in our playroom are these shelves Thomas built out of 1x4s and 1x2s. The pinned photo shows shelves from Ikea, but they truly are simply to make. Look here to see just how easy. We just painted and screwed into the wall studs. We hung them fairly low so Sean could at least reach the bottom shelf.

I thought this birdie art was so cute and would be just right for Kayla's nursery. Already had the frame, wire and ribbon. I found the wooden birds at Michaels along with the scrapbook paper. I modpodged the paper on the birds and hot glued the ribbon to the birds. I'm debating putting a rustic-y coat of white paint on the frame like the other one...what do you think?

We had our Life Group Thanksgiving dinner at our house and I thought this guy would be fun for us all to write our "I'm Thankful for..."s on. I had to give him feet for balance, I guess my turkey was a little heavy in the head area, ha!

The wall in our living room above our couch has needed art since ohh 2008. I had these four canvases  from a previously ditched project. I decided to do a gradient of colors in stead of solid. It works for me!

I hope you are pinning like a mad woman too, and actually finding time to do them!

27 months

    I haven't been consistent at all with doing posts about Sean or Kayla's monthly updates. I enjoy reading other moms posts on their kiddos. Other than just plain lack of time I also have poor writing skills that keep me from posting. And since both of them are premies I have a little paranoia about their lagging behind in the development arena. I know I shouldn't care what people think but what parent doesn't compare their child to another? Regardless I decided to write a bit about Sean at this age, 27 months.
Sean is so fun! Some things I find particularly entertaining these days are...
when he "reads" books (jabbers as he turns pages)
he colors the eyes of people/animals first, sometimes only the eyes
throwing away his diapers
collecting all his stuffed animals in bed
hugging Kayla unprompted
turning non toys into toys... like nail clippers into a car, making it fly around the room with sound effects
using your play screwdriver on any screw looking thing
    Sean does certainly have his toddler moments. He will respond to almost all questions with "no." He falls to the floor in protest a few times a day. He wants what he wants when he wants it. But there are several times when he surprises me with obedience and I am given hope that we are doing this stuff right.
    He loves trains and cars. Specifically Thomas the Train and Cars the movie. They are our goto shows when we just need a break and want him to stay still. He has wooden train tracks he just loves. He would much rather have a partner to play with and often gets upset if you walk away.
    He adores the outdoors. He asks to go "ow-sy" many times a day. It's a struggle to get him back in with out a crying fit. He doesn't even need toys out there with him. He'll just wonder the yard, sometimes following the dogs. But when he does take a toy its usually the little push lawn mower or the giant GI Joe truck which he also pushes around.

Insta-Friday

Sunday

 Monday: Beautiful Cameron Park

baby leggings

Tuesday: Probably watching Cars the movie

Spotting the trash truck

Wednesday

Kayla's Nursery: Painted Changing Table

I was excited to jump into decorating Kayla's nursery. Our pocket books however were not. But that only calls for more creativity!

It was only after she was born that I finally pinned down a theme and colors. Her room was already painted a tannish brown on the lower half with a white chair rail. I would love to paint over all the walls and rip out the chair rail. But Thomas is pretty sure he glued those suckers on there and no telling what damage we'll do trying to take them off. Since we are the kind of folk that don't like extra work (oh you too?) we decided to stick with what we had.  Including the deer head? He now wears a bow, you know, so it'll fit in the girl nursery;Thomas' idea.

On to the furniture. Kayla has inherited Sean's crib which is dark wood and I thought about painting it yellow or white. But we were given a honey oak changing table that didn't fit in and begged to be painted! Given to us by a college boy at our church...odd, but we'll take it!

 I disassembled the changing table with Sean's help.

 oh and a little Veggie Tales entertainment

This little project took FOREVER. First I sanded the wood and decided a primer coat would be best to help the spray paint stick. Don't want paint chips lying around the nursery now do we? I used Kilz brand spray paint primer. I ended up sanding that primer coat so so so much. There was a lot of texture due to my poor spray painting skills. I guess I ran with the wrong crowd in HS, should have spent more time with punks to get my graffiti experience. I have no patience so working with spray paint and letting it dry was killer. It got to a point where I just wanted it done and was being sloppy. I'm thinking no one is going to notice the imperfections, only I will. Eventually got it finished!

When I took this pic I was in the middle of another little project.  I decided to cover diaper boxes for storage baskets instead of buying new ones. Those fancy baskets are so expensive and it was hard to find ones that fit just so. When choosing which material to cover them I had to implement my new open mind decor philosophy. I was so tempted to go with solid or dotted material in either red yellow or blue, but knew I needed to have a pattern. I eventually settled on that print, I think I like it.

Covering the boxes was super easy and I'd like to show you how I did it in another post. I'm sure there are other tutorials out there but it's always great to see a different way.

So in conclusion painting furniture is definitely a great option. Just don't work too hard.

Kayla 4 month stats

Kayla had her 4 month appointment on October 31st. 

I was able to take Sean to a friends to make the visit easier. 

Sorry Sean but you are a hand-full. 

Weight: 11 lbs 2 oz

Length: 21.5 inches

    Since she was born two months early she was evaluated as if she were 2 months old. All aspects of her development, except some social skills, are like a 2 month old. Social skills like eye contact and smiling are a little more advanced than a two month old cause she's been here longer and been able to practice those skills!

She finally got released from her monitor after two full months of no issues. So back it went to the medical store. Woohoo! Sean had one also so it was the same ol-same ol with this gadget. It served its purpose well, but we're glad to not be woken at 3am by the many false alarms. Oh, but we still wake at 3am to feed her...("we" meaning "I")

She got two shots and was given neon band-aides, so trendy!

Other Kayla Stats include...

• size 2 disposable diaper and x-small Fuzzibunz, and she can now fit in Sean's one size diapers on a super small setting. She's starting to leak out of the x-smalls!
• fits in some NB things like pants and skirts, 3 month or 3-6 for all else
• She eats 3-3.5 ozs every 3 hours. Still wakes through the night.
• smiling like a champ
• her eyes are still dark brown and I think they'll stay that way
• cooing and making shapes with her mouth
• brings her hands to her mouth but not too controlled yet
• she has good head control and a strong torso
• no rolling over yet
• loves being in the Moby wrap. I wear her to my bible study weekly and the older ladies always comment that they wish they had one in their day. (I really don't know how I'd do it other wise)
• Sleeps on her tummy (yes I know, but she sleeps so well this way)

She is doing so well and it is fun seeing Sean and Kayla interact. I'm excited for when she can move around and they can play together more. Grow Kayla grow...but not too fast!!

October Review III

Yet another trip to the zoo. Wow, I think we've gotten our money's worth now! We also continued the tradition of going Trick or Treating with friends on a flat bed of hay pulled by a truck...

 

Sean the skeleton

Kayla the salmon roll.
Note the wasabi and ginger on her head band.

 Sean basically went up to each home owner and took candy out of their bowl.

we got glow-stick happy

Both Thomas and I did trick or treating as kids. I wouldn't say we celebrated Halloween, but we observed it, ha. We didn't grow up associating evil with the holiday so we think its fine to let our kids trick or treat. We just treat it as a day to dress up like weird things and take candy from strangers!

October Review II

Mid October we made another trip to the Zoo. We want to squeeze in as many trips as possible while the weather is bearable! We also made a visit to a train station. Sean loves trains. And also had to go to the pumpkin patch to find a perfect carving pumpkin.

inside the train

Super distracted by his sucker

Glow sticks for bath time