The Ences: October 2011

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Nate fun

Picture #1: Nate is a funny boy and makes me laugh a lot! You often find him wearing a cape or having his sword and gun tucked into his pants!

Picture #2: He is in a playgroup with 3 little boys from our neighborhood and we take turns every wednesday having all the boys over to play at our house from 10-12:30! So 3 weeks out of the month I get an extra 2 and 1/2 hours of me and Bailey time (or just me time because Bailey is usually napping!). It's kind nice to be able to have an extra day to get some stuff done around the house or run errands with only one kid! It's amazing what can be done with only one child at the house! I also love having his friends over once a month. It's fun to hear them play together!

The other pictures are of Nate holding a frog that him and his dad found down by the river when they went on an adventure ride on the Ranger! He was so excited to come home and show me the picture dad took of him holding it!

Eating Solids

At Bailey's 4 month appointment the Dr. said we could start feeding her solids. I waited a few weeks and then decided to give it a try. She did pretty good with it. She definitely got more out and around her mouth than in! Now she has been eating them for a little over a week and she does really good. She will open her mouth when she sees the spoon coming. She always tries to grab the spoon and feed herself too. I fed her green beans the other day and she hated them! When I put them in her mouth she would pull the funniest face and then do a shiver and spit it out! So funny! I should have video taped it, but I didn't. I started feeding her squash next and she has been really liking that!

The first feeding

Later that day we went and cheered on Jesse as he played football in the DSC game. Then we went over to my mom's house for a bit to see Aunt Alena's new hair color (so pretty!).

Friday, October 28, 2011

4 month look alike!

Bailey turned 4 months back on Oct 5th (yes it's no surprise I am behind on blogging again!) At her appointment she was 11lbs 2 oz and 23in long. She is in the 10th percentile for height and weight. Much like her brother she is a very active baby!! She doesn't like to sit still! She is always squirming and rolling around. She is getting to big to fast!! She loves to stand rather then sit in my lap and you can tell she just wants to jump out of my hands and go play! She is always so happy and will smile for anyone that gives her attention. She is such a joy to have in our home and we all sure do love our baby girl!

I took pictures of Nate in the nude in front of a blue blanket back when he was 4 months and I wanted to do the same with Bailey and compare and see how much they look alike. They definitely pull some of the same expressions and it makes them look so much alike! I think in a few of the pictures they look very similar! There is no question they are siblings :) It's funny, I think Bailey looks a little bigger and chunkier in these pictures than Nate, but at Nate's 4 month appt. he weighed 14lbs 4oz and was 25.5in long. So he was like 3lbs bigger and 2.5in longer yet she looks like the bigger one to me!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Cousins

Nate loves all his cousins and is lucky that some of them live so close! We had Josie and Dallin over the other day and they were having so much fun playing! Dallin is in love with Bailey and kept asking to hold her! It was so cute! Then when I told them I wanted to take a picture of all 4 of them Josie and Dallin where arguing who got to hold Bailey. I told them that she was just going to sit between them on the couch. They were fine with that but as soon as I sat her down Dallin reached over and put his arm around her! Adorable! Love these kiddos!

Grandparents

My Dad texted me one day and said "I asked mom why it has been awhile (it had only been like a week) since I have seen my grand babies and she didn't have a good reason so you should bring them over" I was at a football game so couldn't at the time, but they ended up coming over to our house the next day. This is Nate showing Grandma and Grandpa all his artwork from preschool.

Siblings

I just love when Nate takes a moment out of his time and notices Bailey! He is always so cute with her when he does!! He wishes so badly she could play with him more so she often gets ignored when he realizes she can play like he wants her to. Here are just some everyday pictures of the two of them over the last few weeks that are completely candid! I had just walked in the room and randomly found him holding her hand, setting up all his toys for her to "play with" and then one day I asked him to hold her for me why I was folding clothes. He started singing to her and kissing her and trying to make her smile so I quickly grabbed the camera and started taking some pictures before he noticed!

Friday, October 7, 2011

Bailey's Baby Nursery

I finally finished! She is now able to enjoy her nursery! All the hard work paid off and I am so happy with the way it turned out!! It is pretty much exactly what I envisioned!

So if you missed the post I did to the start of the room click here and check it out! It started as a completely blank normal off white bedroom. With the help of my AMAZING mother-in-law, we painted the top and bottom half of the room and then installed all the moldings! I then wallpapered the inside of the picture frame molding on the bottom half of the room with a black and white damask wallpaper. And that's where we left off on the last post :)

Once the walls were all painted, molded, and wallpapered I moved all the furniture into the room. Once again my AMAZING mother-in-law helped me out! She painted all the furniture black for me. I don't have before pictures of the furniture :( But I promise they look a hundred times better. The dresser used to be white, the crib and rocking chair were brown. She recovered the rocking chair from a brown suede upholstery to the cute pink!

My WONDERFUL mother had the crib bedding custom made for me as my gift. I went and picked out the pattern and fabric I wanted. I thank Laurie Steiner for doing such a great job on it! I love it!

I then set out on a hunt to find vintage looking frames to make a gallery wall. The big oval frame with the letter in it is from Ikea (best store ever!) My sweet husband surprised me with it one day because I told him I really wanted it! I think it makes the perfect statement piece! The rest of the frames and mirrors I found at garage sales and Thrift stores (I didn't pay more than $3 for any of the frames, except the one from Ikea). It took a few weeks to find them all, but after I got a pretty good collection I spray painted them all black. I went into her room laid them out on the floor and came up with an arrangement I liked. I then traced all the frames out on wrapping paper and parchment paper and hung them all up on the wall in the same arrangement I had laying on the floor. Once the papers looked how I wanted it to, I marked on them where the nail hole should go and started hanging them all up!

I had a print credit from vinylizeit.com and they were so good to work with me on what I wanted! I told them what it was I wanted and they sent me a few proofs of different fonts and sizes and this is the design we came up with!

I really wanted a chandelier for Bailey's room, but they are so expensive! Seeing how everything in her room is DIY. Why shouldn't the chandelier be? I can't afford a new one so I started looking for one I could up-cycle. I found one on craigslist from $20! I got some black spray paint and my awesome sister-in-law, Alyssa, found the crystals at Tai Pan (6 for $8). So my chandelier ended up being roughly $30 compared to the $200 ones at the store! I think it's perfect!

I wanted a nightstand in her room that I would be able to put next to the crib. I had some old barstools that used to be in our kitchen that I decided I could make into a cute nightstand. My wonderful mother had some black and white polka dot fabric she let me have and I covered the barstool with the fabric...so easy! Just used fabric, spray adhesive and exacto knife! Cost= free!

I needed a cute lamp to go on the nightstand I made. My mother-in-law had an old lamp she let me have and I recovered the lamp shade in the same polka-dot fabric I had left over from the night stand. I made a ribbon flower out of ribbon and string I already had! So cost of this cute lamp was also free!

My sister-in-law, Amy, made this cute banner for my baby shower and I loved it so much I had to use it in her room!

I made these tissue paper pom-pom balls to go above the nightstand.

So that's all the components that went into her room! Thanks to all my wonderful family for their help!! I was able to create my vision of this chic space and the best part is, is it was for very little amount of $$!!

The finished product...one chic baby nursery for my sweet baby girl Bailey!

Walking into the room