Bathroom Re-do

When we first bought our house I knew that someday I wanted to put wainscoting in our half bath downstairs. I have always loved the way it looks and figured that would be the cheapest place to do it since it's the smallest room in our house. Finally in March we got around to doing it. My wonderful friend Stephanie, who happens to live 4 houses away, has a husband who is very handy. He has all the tools and know how to do these kinds of projects so I asked him to help and he obliged. It turned out so beautiful! I still walk in there and just smile :) I don't have any before pictures, whoops!. but just imagine white walls. It wasn't ugly, but it wasn't pretty either. But here are the after pics:

 

Personality

Back in February I made some little bubble skirts for the girls. They are cute, and turned out fine, definitely not perfect and I was reminded why I don't make clothes. Evelyn's fit Cassidy better than her, haha, so they were a little small. But with some black tights no one could tell :) I wanted to get some cute pictures of the girls wearing them, but getting a picture of the two of them just smiling is a near impossible task. Here's proof:

 These two girls are FULL of personality! They definitely keep us on our toes and life interesting! Never a dull moment at our house!

I was able to capture a couple of them just smiling.

Catch Up Time!

It has been a LONG time since I posted anything. I figured it was time to doing some catching up!

I left off in December so I'll move on to January...

Not a lot happened in January except Evelyn had a birthday. She turned 5! We took her to dinner at Red Robin and then had presents and cake at home with Grandma and Grandpa Burch.

This girl is beautiful on the inside and out! She brings so much joy to our little family. She is always thinking of others. Evelyn has a big personality and is opinionated, intuitive, remembers everything, and knows what she wants. We love her so much and are so grateful she is part of our family!

Baby Boy Room Reveal!

Our baby boys room is done! I had so much fun dreaming up and creating this room! I don't want to brag, but I am so proud of myself, when I was pregnant with Evelyn five years ago I couldn't sew the simplest thing, literally, it took me a few years after she was born to give sewing another try and I am proud to say that I love sewing now and feel like I can do a decent job. When I couldn't find what I wanted on-line I decided I would give it a go and try sewing the crib set, curtains, etc by myself. And I did! Everything in this room that is made out of fabric, I sewed! And I am even happy with how everything turned out :)

 

For the bumper pads I found that they sell bumper pad inserts at JoAnn's for about $30 and I got them for 50% off. They come with instructions of how to sew the covers and everything. They were super easy to make, the ties were time consuming and you have to hand stitch them shut, but it was all easy work.

 For the banner I made up a pattern. I cut a triangle template that is 6 in on top and has 9 in sides. Cut two pieces for each triangle. Sew them wrong sides together 1/4 in from edge down the long sides (you don't need to sew the top) Cut the long sides with pinking shears (just don't cute your seams!). Make bias tape by cutting your fabric 2 in wide (for the length you will need to determine how long your banner is going to be and sew your 2 in pieces together until it's long enough). Iron the 2 inch strip in half lengthwise then open it up and iron it again so that the raw edges are ironed to the middle. Put your triangles in the bias tape and sew right along the edge.

 

 I used THIS tutorial for the crib sheet. I did end up taking out about 8 inches of elastic after it was all done because it wasn't quite tight enough.

 

 For the crib skirt I used THIS tutorial. To save money on the part that sits under the crib mattress, that no one ever sees, I just used a plain turquoise that was about $3/yard from JoAnn's instead of using my more expensive fabric.

 

 

 For the curtains I used THIS tutorial.

For the pillow is used THIS SUPER simple tutorial.

The basket liners were by far my least favorite thing to sew, and I'm still not really sure why, I love the way they turned out, I just didn't like making them for some reason. I have had these baskets since Evelyn was a baby and back then my wonderful mother had to sew everything for me and she made liners for them. This time I was determined to at least attempt making them myself and then would go to my mom if I couldn't figure it out. I ended up taking apart one of the ones she had made and used that as a pattern to cut out the new pieces and then figured out how to sew them together. I apologize I don't have a tutorial or anything, my suggestion, don't buy trapezoid shaped baskets, they are a pain to cover!

 

Again, back when my mom had to make everything for me she made a beautiful dresser topper for my girls when they used this dresser and I loved it so much I decided to make one for this guy too, it is just strips sewn together, nothing fancy, but I like that it softens the dresser and adds color :)

 

If you are interested, here's a breakdown of the fabrics I used. All of the fabric was either ordered from fabric.com or I bought at JoAnn's.
Curtains/Basket Liners: Premier Prints ZigZag Twill Girly Blue (fabric.com)
Bumper Pads: Riley Blake Life in the Jungle Orange (fabric.com) and Premier Prints Gotcha Chartreuse/White (fabric.com)
Crib Sheet: Riley Blake Life in the Jungle Dots White (fabric.com)
Crib Skirt: Premier Prints Twill Lulu Girly Blue/Chartreuse (fabric.com)
Gray Basket Liners: I don't know the name but it's from JoAnn's
Rug: Ikea ($20!)
Paint: Unfortunately I cannot remember what the gray is, I accidentally threw the paint chip away, but I do know it was Behr. I had Home Depot color match the turquoise to my curtains so that was a custom color.

Random things from December

Here are just some very random things from December in our house.

 

Whenever Cassidy wakes up she asks if Daddy is still home, on one particular day he was not and she wasn't very happy so I called him and she got to talk to him, made for one happy little girl!

 As soon as we were done eating Thanksgiving dinner Evelyn asked "Can we decorate the tree now?!" Considering we were in Lacey she had to wait a few days. As soon as we got home she begged and begged to put the tree up. She loved decorting it and helping to find places for all the other decorations.

 

She wanted to be an angel to put the star on top :)

Sometimes my girls don't get a long and make me and each other crazy. But sometimes they get along SO well it's adorable! Whenever I sweep they rush to the chairs and play on them as long as I will let them. 

 

 

These are a few of my favorite pictures of the girls :)

 

Preschool Christmas Program

We had the preschool Christmas program at our house this year. There is an older single lady in our ward that lives down the street from us who my girls affectionatly call Grandma Britton and I asked her to help me out with the program she willingly accepted and even made these super yummy treats with the kids before the program. We dipped vanilla wafers in almond bark then put sprinkles on them. They are super kid friendly and even taste really yummy, bonus!

 

Because we had been practicing for the program for the last three weeks at our house naturally Cassidy thought she needed to be a part of it. Since I knew there was no way to keep her out of it I figured I would at least put her in a costume so she looked like she belonged in the pictures :)

 

Here is Evelyn's preschool group (plus Cassidy)

 

Silly faces!

 

Evelyn was the Innkeeper and the Wiseman. All the kids did SO great. The story we followed was great because I read it and the kids just had to move to different spots so they didn't even have to talk! After they sang some songs and gave cards to their parents they made for them.

Ward Chrismas Party

We had fun at our ward Christmas party this year. They had a program and all the different auxileries and some families performed then we had yummy dessert and drinks. I love these pictures of Cassidy because they are totally her uncensored lol

 

 Evelyn loved going on stage and singing with the primary.

Sister love :)

 I am so lucky to be the mom of these two beautiful girls!

 

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We went to Lacey for Thanksgiving this year. We had a ton of fun! Kelly and Chris hosted it at their house and they made the best turkey ever! I'm not the biggest fan of turkey because it usually dry and not much flavor, not theirs, it was so moist and has so much flavor mmm...my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

 

Evelyn loves playing outside at my parents and when I tried to get her to just smile for me this is what she did before she gave me a nice smile, silly girl.

I roped my dad into making several wood projects for me. He's the best. :)

I painted them after he cut, glued and nailed everything together for me. When I have them all completed and hung up I'll post pictures.

My sister Kelly and I had some fun doing a little bit of Black Friday shopping. We didn't head out until about 6 and by then there were no lines anywhere and we still found some sweet deals and got what we wanted. Then both my sisters and I went to the new Twilight movie. Such a fun day with my sisters! I didn't get one with Kelly, but here's me and my beautiful sister Carie.

 

We had lots of fun playing games. Our new favorite is Qwirkle. If you've never played it, you need to :)

Chase and my dad had other ideas of how to use the Qwirkle pieces.

 Chases favorite person in the WHOLE world is my dad and Chases favorite thing to do is be outside. My dad was multi-tasking by mowing and watching Chase. I looked out the window and saw that Chase had decided to help my dad mow the lawn. It was pretty sweet. I think he actually helped him mow the whole thing! Evelyn saw what Chase was doing and decided she needed a turn too. She didn't last very long though before she went back to riding bikes.

 

Just a silly picture of Cassidy :)

I have curled Cassidy's hair several times and each time I do Evelyn asks when it's her turn. Cassidy has thick hair that has a little bit of natural wave to it so it curls easily, Evelyn on the other hand has hair just like me: thin and stick straight. My hair does not curl easily so I figured Evelyn's wouldn't either. But I gave it a try anyways because she wanted me to so bad. It actually turned out really well! Now she asks me to curl her hair every day!

 

 One of my favorite things about Lacey in the fall/winter is the fog. I don't like driving in it but I love the way it looks. Cameron snapped this beautiful picture of it for me :)

While there we also got to visit a long time family friend, Pam. She gave me a beautful nativity scene for me and my family to enjoy. We love her and hope to be able to see her again when we visit :)