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! 

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A Baby Story: Emily Noelle

I know I've already told you all about our sweet little Emily's arrival and all of that but I haven't told you the birth story yet! You may not be interested in this AT ALL but I love hearing birth stories and I especially love sharing my own baby's stories. 

On April 4th, I had a doctor's appointment to find out how my blood pressure was doing. It wasn't good and my doctor said those words "Let's have this baby tomorrow!" I was a little disappointed by this since I've been induced with all of my babies and was hoping for the natural process to happen at some point. But after false labor and contractions almost constantly, I was only a little disappointed. Pregnancy is always hard on me and never enjoyed it at all. I thank God for the process and how He sustained me but I really DON'T enjoy being pregnant. But seeing that little face when it's all over. . . but now I'm getting ahead of myself! 

My hubbie and I set off for the hospital at 4am and after quite the LONG drawn out process of everything being started they FINALLY started the pitocin at 7am. I TOLD you it was drawn out! By 7:30 the contractions were alive and well. By 8:30 my hubbie was helping me with my breathing and the nurses were pushing for an epidural. I told them that it was a last resort if I felt I couldn't do it anymore I would get the epidural.  I had delivered my daughter naturally so I could this baby too. At 11:30 I needed motivation so I asked the nurses to check me. I was still at only 4cm. This was NOT the news I wanted to hear. I hadn't made ANY progress and the contractions were pretty terrible. I asked for the epidural. But I wasn't hydrated enough or something so they said they would have to wait another hour. So I persisted through the hour and I finally got my epidural. As soon as I laid down after getting my epidural, the nurse wanted to check me. Sure enough I was at 10 cm. Oh brother.  If ONLY I had persisted! I wasn't very happy with myself but it was time for baby! 

My doctor got there pretty quickly and since I had just gotten the epi - It was much harder to feel baby and contractions than it had been with my son. But my doctor was AMAZING and we did practice pushes until she could tell me exactly when I was doing it right. After I figured it out, I pushed about 4 sets of contractions and there she was - sunny side up! Which in case you didn't know, that means she was facing up which makes for terrible back labor and a much harder time pushing. Hence, God had it all figured out and asking for the epidural was probably a very good decision after all. It was kind of funny though because as I was pushing my doctor kept making comments that this was a big baby and would probably be bigger than her siblings. We were ALL amazed when she came out and weighed in at 7 pounds and 15 ounces. She was a pound smaller than Cody and didn't even come close to Aimee's 9 lbs 3 oz. 

Emily was incredible! She cried for a little bit but then was all eyes looking EVERYWHERE she could! AND she was smiling! Ok, not exactly smiling but she looked as though she was! Her face was so content and peaceful and her face naturally looks as though she is smiling oh so softly! She just looked at everyone around her until they wanted to clean her up - then she wasn't a very happy camper but even then her little cries were nothing compared to her older siblings cries!

After scoring 2 9s on the Apgar scale I tried to nurse her but she would have nothing to do with it. I was a little worried about it but never fear! Within 10 minutes she started looking for food and nursed a full feeding within 5 minutes and is still nursing and getting FULL tummy in about 5-10 minutes! Yay! 

Emily - taken today! 10 days old

When we left the hospital she weighed 7 lbs and 8 ounces but 6 days after at the doctor she weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs and 3 ounces. I had been a little concerned about her quick feedings but apparently she's got that covered! 

So there we go - Emily Noelle's birth story. We're all doing really well and I'm TRYING to take it easy and sleep when I can but I'm feeling really really well once again compared to my other little one's recovery times. Daddy is all ready to have another baby because he likes having a baby around again. To which I am just saying, calm down there mister, we'll talk about it LATER - MUCH LATER! :0) 

Emily Noelle Stringer

Announcing! A very special little girl! 

Emily Noelle Stringer

She made her appearance April 5th, 2011

She weighed 7 pounds and 15 ounces which makes her the smallest Stringer baby so far!

Mommy is doing fantastic and feels great (compared to the fact of just having a baby!)

Emily is soooo sweet! God has blessed us with a happy and content and easy to figure out little bundle! 

AND she's beautiful in every little part! 

Thanks for the prayers and well-wishes! We have been so blessed by friends and family who have loved on all of us!