Happy 4th Birthday Aimee Girl!

Four years ago I started my journey as a mommy. Four years ago I felt my heart grow in an amazing sudden motion. Four years ago my Aimee girl was born. I can't believe that she is soooo OLD! Now I know, four years old is like nothing but to me - she is older than she should be! Now this girl is helping me with the dishes and scrubbing pans in my sink. She knows all of her ABC's (Capital letters anyway!) and the sounds that they make. She answers the phone for me and she can sing her baby sister to sleep. She loves to play computer games and go to the library. She claims everyone as her "new best friend" and knows no strangers. She is my beautiful, wonderful baby girl growing up so very fast. I love you sweetheart!

Come Tour Aimee's Room!

Sooo. . . Time for another tour! And a how to paint a princess castle on your daughter's wall! I'm definitely NOT a professional painter by ANY means soooo I cheated - A LOT! But that's okay because I love the finished product and so does Aimee! What I did was an image search for a castle silhouette and I copied and enlarged and maybe a little bit of editing to make it the size and shape that I wanted. Then I printed it out on a transparency and used the old school projector from our church. You could use a regular projector and a computer but this was what we had available. Then I outlined it - first I made sure it wasn't an evil pencil that would refuse to come off the wall or soak thru the paint. See this post to see why I did that! This actually probably took me about 30 minutes - in mommy time about an hour! That's with interruptions!  Then I grabbed my bucket of white trim paint that was leftover from my kids trim in their rooms and a few sponge brushes, a regular paintbrush, and the small paintbrush from my kids' watercolor set. As I said I am NOT a professional painter and this project would have probably been a little easier if I had spent the money for acrylic paint and actual painters brushes but I was all about only putting time into this project and NO money! So considering the only thing I had to purchase was the transparency screens - I picked a box of those up at a garage sale for 0.50 cents - I'm golden! Considering that you can go to a site like this one and  pick one up similar for $45.00. I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished. Anywho. . . I just painted in the lines with the sponge brush around the edges and the regular brush for the big sections of the castle. All of the detail painting I used the watercolor brush which was HARD! Probably why people use a little better brushes for their painting! The painting itself probably took me about 1 1/2 hours which in mommy times about 6 hours since all of my kiddos kept wanting to help. Except Emily she just wanted mom to hold her! All in all, here is my little princess with her castle. And she is HAPPY. Which makes mom happy! Happy that she LOVES it and happy it's OVER! Yay! 

And of course, we decided to give the castle more of a prominent place in the girls' room so we rearranged the furniture and here is the rest of their room! 

  

And if you missed the post on making a dollhouse which is pictured below - check it out! It's one of my favorite projects! 

And have to show you Emily's bed - isn't it sweet! She hasn't slept in it yet because the girls room is upstairs and that's a long way away for numerous nightly feedings but she'll get there someday! 

Oh and I almost forgot, I am going to be stenciling butterflies along the wall in random spots in their room too but that may have to wait for another day! 

I am linked up with 

DIY Dollhouse! Day 4

Oh my goodness I'm TIRED! I stayed up til 1:00am last night working on the dollhouse last night and was hard at it again this morning. I am soooo close to being DONE! I just had to do another post to show you the (almost) finished product. 

Here's a look at a room-by-room tour of Aimee's Dollhouse! 

Here's a little girl's room! The lamps that you see are made with popsicle sticks glued into wooden beads with a square tile as support on the bottom. The shade is made out of a medicine cup covered with a beaded necklace I had lying around. 

All of the wooden furniture you see I did not make, I found it at a thrift store for $2.50. A COMPLETE steal! I bought it over a year ago knowing I would use it someday and here it is! 

The pictures are made from leather cut outs and the pictures are all from a South Dakota tour guide I had lying around. Worked perfectly! 

This lamp shade is covered with brown fabric and accented with beads.

Here is the dining room. I made the chairs much like I made the living room furniture from yesterday's post. I had the little flowers and I arranged them and poured hot glue into a hairspray cap and now the flowers aren't going anywhere and are also "getting a drink" too! It's hard to see but the "clock" on the back wall is actually a button I found. 

Probably my favorite room, the living room! I made everything in this room so it took the longest to create! But I love it! I'd like to find something for a rug but that will have to wait til later. 

Here's the bathroom. I could probably do more in here with a vanity or something but I stopped after the "Velveeta" cheese box shower complete with "H" and "C" knobs and a drain and a shower curtain! 

I will probably create some appliances for the kitchen but I'm probably going to wait til Aimee's birthday to tackle that project. But here's a counter made from cardboard and matchboxes for drawers. Only problem was, I left the drawers in the slots while I glued it together and you guessed it, the drawers are glued in quite nicely. Bummer! But it still looks nice! 

So here it is! The only thing I have left is a pretty curtain that I'm going to attach to the from of the dollhouse and tie back with ribbon. Just a girly factor but I'm tired so I'm done with it for now! Thanks for looking! 

To See Part One and what it looked like BEFORE Click Here! 

To See Part Two Click Here! 

To See Part Three Click Here! 

Update: Here is our family playing with it on Christmas morning! It was a MAJOR success! 

Aimee-isms

Some of the things I've heard or overheard my three-year old daughter saying:

"Daddy, Daddy, Save me! Save me! Mommy is tickling me! Daddy, I'm not kidding you! Save ME!!"

"Dear Lord, Thank you for Mommy and Daddy and Aimee and Cody, and thank you for Nana and Papa and Grammy and Papa and Paul and Chris and Scott and Danny, and Simba and Jojo (Nana and Papa's dogs) and Uncle Chris and please help us to be patient. Oh and for the new baby, Jesus name, 'Men."

"Mom, your tummy is getting really BIG!!!" (You haven't seen anything yet kiddo!) 

"Mom I think we need to get 3 babies, one for mommy and one for Aimee and a purple one!"

"Mom, did you know that God made pizza?"

"Mom! Daddy is a fire!" 

(Excuse me?? Her daddy was lighting the burn pile out the window!)

"Mom, I think we need to go to the library (??) and buy this show (pointing to a movie in a catalog). I'll bring my monies" (she has $2.02 in her purse on her shoulder!).

"Mom, my favorite color is green! Oh nevermind, it's pink! I forgot!"

I said "Aimee do you know what it means to share?" 

Aimee in tears "Yes, it means NO MORE TOYS!!!!" wailing in complete distress! 

"Daddy - you're silly!"

"Mission Toy Room" Accomplished!

It's finished! Most of the toys are now down in the basement and no longer in the kids room. The toys are now occupying nice bookshelves in our family room downstairs. My baby monitor is set up so I can keep an ear on them which makes me feel better. I love it and the kids like the space to spread out their toys! And believe me they do it too! Bedtime had become "Let's be quiet as mouses and play with toys instead of sleeping time" and it needed to be stopped! Several people (including my mom and husband) have told me that I should try splitting up my kids into different rooms. I agree wholeheartedly! I just can't do it! My house is set up with the Master and one other bedroom upstairs and two downstairs. I love having a 4 bedroom house! It's awesome! But I can't do it! I have several reasons:

1. If she wakes up and starts to cry, I may not hear her if the monitor gets turned off.

2. My basement is a walk out basement and she could escape and I'd never know it!

3. My basement is a walk-out basement and someone could take her and I'd never know it!

4. My basement is a walk-out basement and is scary even to me at night!

5. Probably the biggest reason - I'm not ready for her to grow up and be that independent!

Needless to say, I'm hoping our house will have 3 bedrooms all on the same floor so I can be close to my kids and not worry about those things anymore. In the meantime, they're not complaining and I'm the one who deals with the bedtime issues anyway so it's all good!

Loved for generations!

Toys can hold such sweet memories! My sister and I led some very interesting and different lives that were imagined through the "lives" of our Barbies or our Fisher-Price Little People. We traveled to exotic places on our rocking horse. We became architects and built beautiful castles and houses for our Lego people. Our paper dolls were dressed in beautiful and fantastic ways! I even remember how our yellow pom-pom was used for everything from a campfire to a beautiful wig on our head! Making "hamburgers" for mom and dad in our play kitchen holds sweet memories too. My sister and I sometimes take a walk down memory lane and remember times when life was much simpler. Playtimes were some of the most happy memories of our childhood that we have.

Watching my kids begin to develop their own playtimes and being creative with their imaginations is so exciting to me! It's funny too because I've noticed how the toys I really want to get for my kids are the same ones that I have sweet memories about! My kids have Little People, a play kitchen, Legos, and Melissa and Doug dress up girls. Aimee also has Barbies, but I'm somewhat regretting that decision because "her girls" always seem to be a little cold from the lack of clothing, and "mommy" doesn't seem to think it's a big deal!

My mom did a great job of saving some of our precious toys for us as we have our own children. Crazy thing is, they were her toys too! I received a little rocking chair where I rocked my "babies," attached stuffed animals up to it like a dogsled, and became a paralytic for my sister to push around in my "wheelchair." Now my kids have it and that is so precious to me! My niece just turned two years old and it was time for her to receive her special toy from Grammy. Mom had me go to storage and grab our old rocking horse and clean it up for her. I decided to bring it home first and let my kids rock away and boy did they love it! Especially my horse-loving Cody! Precious times.

What toys did you love as a child and do your kids play with them or something like them now?

Books Under My Pillow

I love to read! From the time I was a little girl I have loved to read. I have tons of precious books that I have read over and over. I have many favorites! Since becoming a mom and taking on other responsibilities, my reading has included books like "I'll Love You Forever," "The Cat in the Hat," and "The Best Dressed Doll." I'm not complaining, in fact I love sharing my love of reading with my kids! A couple of days ago I sat on my daughter's bed and realized that there was something under her pillow. I lifted it up and lo and behold, there is a STACK of books! I asked Aimee why her books were under her pillow. She replied by saying "So I can read them to go to sleep!" I said "Ok, but why are they under your pillow and not in the book box?" Aimee looks at me like I'm crazy and said "So I don't get out of my bed mom!" I laughed so hard because she was right! If she got out of her bed to get the books she would have disobeyed mom and dad. The girl was simply planning ahead! If my mom is reading this I'm sure she is laughing because of another little girl who used to read books and hide them in unusual places for that perfect opportunity to have a good read! Well mom, it's payback time! But you know what? I don't mind it a bit!

Introducing: BIG BEDS!

So I'm really excited! My kids are going to be shedding their baby beds (actually their beds shed them!) and we are bringing in the twin beds! Since the cribs were recalled we decided to go ahead and sell the toddler bed that we bought and plunge the kids into BIG BEDDOM. Ha ha - craziness I know. But I have no bedding for twin size beds soooo I got to go shopping with the in store credit I received from WalMart for the cribs! Works for me! Since Cody is fascinated with cars and trucks. . . TA DA! 

Way cute I know!

Aimee was a little harder. She loves Princesses and all that but i'm not a huge fan of promoting movies all over my house so I gave her some options and she picked this one out (much to the delight of mom!) 

Yay!! I love them and they will be really fun to decorate themes around when God presents "The Church" and we move again! Oh yea, and by the way I only spent $80.12 total! For a complete bedding set I think this is great! 

Pretty in Pink Chore Chart Craft

Aimee (and probably Mommy too!) needed a reminder chore chart. I wanted to make her something that would be cute and fun and something she could use as a reminder for a looong time. My mom suggested using a cookie sheet with magnets. I took the idea a little bit farther!

 I took a well worn round cookie sheet and covered the front with cream fabric using a hot glue gun. Then I trimmed the edges with this floofy pink trim I had lying around.

Wala - You can't tell it was ever a cookie sheet! I used pink puff paint to spell Aimee's name.

I searched the net for pictures that Aimee could "read" to tell her what her chores are. One for Bed Making, Picking up her books, Going Poopy in the Potty (yes, we're still working on it!), Brushing her teeth, Getting dressed, and being nice to her brother. I cut them out and used magnet strips on the back so they can be moved or changed with new chore cards as she grows older.

But here's the incentive, when she gets a chore finished she gets one of these pretty magnetic buttons to put in the chores place. I figure that will be enough incentive for a few days but when that wears off she will get a penny for each button she gets to put on at the end of the day. 

I bought the buttons, put magnetic strips on the back, laced ribbon through them and hot glued the bows so they would stay tied. 

An added plus, the chore cards or the button can be stuck on the back until they need to be swapped! Yay! She hasn't seen it yet and we're going to try it in the morning - I can't wait! 

The "4th" of July!

The third of July has never really meant anything to me. However, you say 4th of July and memories abound!! You see the 4th of July is my dad's birthday and we always go all out in celebrating with family reunions and get-togethers! It's awesome. Here are some pics of the day!

Oh yea, and my hubbie shaved his head - It's taking me a while but I think I kinda like it! But he's sexy to me no matter how much hair he has on his head! :-) 

It's always fun when your Papa is in the parade! (My dad is driving this ambulance!)

The kids and their "loot" 

My thoughts - This is a TON of corn syrup!

And we can't forget the celebration of my dad's birthday! 

 Not one of my favorites - mainly because I pulled it off start to finish in less than 2 hours but I think Dad liked it nonetheless!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband! This Father's Day he will have been a father for 3 years, 3 weeks and 5 days. Here is the story of Sam's fatherhood in pictures! I love you Sweetheart! 

It's been wonderful being a parent alongside of you! Happy Father's Day!