Category Archives: Family

07.12.11

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes.

If you don’t know by now, our house is in a constant state of “progress.” It drives my poor husband crazy. We have made some progress on little Lou’s room. Here are some sneak peaks of the work in progress.

When I originally had the nursery painted six years ago, I had my amazingly talented artist Corinne Marlowe paint this Lion over the changing table and a laurel wreath around her chandelier. (More of Corinne’s work on our house to come.) As you can see the big girl bed takes up a bit more room than a crib.

That changing table has now been converted into a dresser, and between the new bed and the shelves that we were installing, the dresser had to be moved a few inches to the left. Here’s the problem with that:

As much as it killed me to paint over that little lion, he had to go. Now the question was, what to put in his place. I knew I wanted a mirror, but couldn’t find anything that was better than what I had in my head… so I took matters into my own hands.

I found this guy at Home Goods. On clearance for $25.

I primed him,

Painted him,

and had a mirror cut for inside.

I should also mention that Corinne replaced the laurel wreath with stripes on the ceiling.

Love them.

(I was actually in her closet taking this picture… You can see the door on the side.)

The left shelving unit is lacking as you can see. We added more drawers to the shelving units than I expected, so I am waiting on more bin pulls. I would also like to work on the styling of the lefthand shelves.

Next up: Pillows, pictures and a new chandelier! Stay tuned.

07.07.11

Family Vacation.

We’re off to Savannah for a little R & R. Grammy and Pop Pop are brave enough to watch the girls for us for two days while we take a little jaunt to Charleston. I’ll be sure to give you the full report!

06.16.11

Movin’ On Up.

It’s official. As of today, I have a First-Grader. I am not sure how time went by so quickly, or how I can slow it down, but my baby graduates Kindergarten today. Holy crap, did this year fly by!

First day of Kindergarten.

Thanksgiving.

God, that look I am giving her reminds me so much of my mother. It’s official, I’ve become my mother, and she has become me– which means Mike is going to have his hands full with both of us. Want to know why she’s getting “the look?”

Well, she just farted on Daddy. Of course, her little sister thinks it’s hilarious.

Flatulence aside, my baby will conquer the world one day. She’s got that “it” factor. She’s an old soul.

Now if we could only get her to channel that energy and stop getting in trouble for talking in class, all would be right with the world.

Seriously, I have never met a kid that talks more than this one. She marches to the beat of her own drum. She will never just “fit in.” And that’s okay by me. Today, we will celebrate her, and her inability to be quiet. Congratulations, E Burger… We love you.

06.08.11

Disaster to Delightful.

Three years ago, I bought this Uttermost Chandelier for E’s room from the Lucketts Store. I left it in my car for a week, and when I took it out the glass cylinder under the crystal strands was shattered to pieces. At first I FREAKED, but what’s funny is that now I like it even more! Let me be clear that I paid $300 for it vs. the $800 retail that it now goes for, so it was a much easier pill to swallow. I think that it now looks much lighter, and more whimsical, perfect for a “Princess” room. (We had to convince E that she had a Princess room to move her out of the nursery when Anna was born.)

Here she is in E’s room today:

Our little Princess was ecstatic with her big girl room. Here she is one week after she was evicted from her nursery (I have since swapped out her lamps.. and am seriously considering redoing her entire room again (the chandelier will stay)… This is the insanity that my husband has to live with..)

I am working really hard on not getting upset when “material items” get ruined, but in this case, I actually did myself a favor. Have any of you ever had a disaster that turned into a delight?

05.16.11

Lou’s Tinker Bell Party

A few weeks ago, I clued you all in on the theme of Lou’s third birthday party.

Courtesy of my friend and neighbor, Amber of Little Moon Photography, we have some amazing pictures to share…

My friend Kristy Patterson of Sweet Nothings worked meticulously on the candy table. Those of you who know me, know how obsessive I am over the details. Kristy is just as detail-oriented and was open to all of my crazy ideas. She was an absolute pleasure to work with.

I just love how everything turned out!

I created the tags in MS Word, and all of the glitter ribbon is from Michaels. The backboard fabric is from Heather Bailey.

Once again, Kristy Stone of Tastefully Treated hit a home run with the cake… Kristy is someone who understands and tolerates my OCD. After I decided I wanted a log slice for a cake stand, she went to several different mill yards in the area to find just the right one. She’s a genius!

Many of you had questions on the flowers… I actually special ordered them from Wegmans. I looked a little weathered (you’ll see below) as I was up until 3 am doing the arrangements. So worth it!

The fairies in jars were made from Christmas ornaments, Ikea Rajtan jars, fishing wire and wooden toadstools. The rainbow circles were cut from glitter paper.

The tablecloths were made in this green linen, and sewn by Windows by Melissa . One thing to note.. the linen wasn’t easy to iron. Please excuse my mismatched valance (next on the list to be replaced…)

The large toadstools are from Pier 1.

The Ninja-like fairies on the mantle are from Target. On Friday night as I was arranging them, I called Mike over to take a look (mature, I know) because of the not-so-lady-like positions that they were in. I tried my best to give them some decorum.

We had a mean game of Pixie Tag. I bought the “Pixie Dust” here.

As you can see, someone finally got her Imperial Trellis shades hung in the kitchen… I love them! The wreaths, wood chips and moss rocks are from Save On Crafts.

The goody bags are from Michael’s. I created the iron-ons in Word.

The Peter Pan hats are from Good’s Place, the fairy wings, wands, swords and tutus are from Designed2BSweet.

The moon bounce was a surprise from her Daddy. He was so proud that he found a TINKER BELL moon bounce. It was priceless, when she saw it in the backyard, she gasped and grabbed his hand. I think I may have seen a little tear well up in his eye.

Everyone had a ball, including Bailey.

The kids loved playing Fairy Freeze Dance.

Lou kept thanking us saying “this is the best birthday party ever.”

A week later, our house still sparkles with Pixie dust, I think a little will always remain, but it will always remind of us the magical party that we had for our sweet little Anna Lou.

05.04.11

The Festivus of Lou.

On Saturday we will celebrate Anna’s third birthday. Today, we will take a stroll down memory lane of birthdays past.

I can’t wait to show you all pictures of number three. This is going to be the best one yet!

05.01.11

Happy Birthday to My Baby Girl.

Today my little Anna Lou turns three. I cannot believe it. Where did the time go? On Friday I told her that I was going to cry at her birthday party because she’s not a baby anymore. She stopped what she was doing, came over and took my face in her hands and said “Don’t cry, Mommy, I have to be a big girl now, it’s ok.” Seriously, now I really AM going to cry.

Anna Louise was born on May 1, 2008. She was named after my mom, Anita Louise.. who was named after her grandmother, Anna Louise. An old Italian tradition is to name your children after their paternal grandparents, therefore all of my mother’s cousins were already named Anna by the time she came along. My Nanny tried to switch it up and name her Anita… Well, that went over like a lead balloon. In stubborn-old-Italian-grandmother tradition, she never spoke to my mother. Before Neets died, I told her that if we ever had another girl, we would name in her honor. (She died two weeks before Elizabeth was born, but we had already picked E’s name.) However, (as I also told her) I could not do Anita, so we would revert to Anna. And the rest is history.

She was a big girl, so I had a scheduled C-Section. That being said, on April 30 at 11:00 pm, my water broke. As you may have read about my belief in the significance of dates, I was thrilled that she was picking her own birthday. I believe that this has a lot to do with a person’s make-up. Well, luckily I was able to hold on through the night, but because three other women’s water broke that night who were also scheduled, I had to wait. (Must have been a full moon.) Luckily we were still in time for a C-Section because at one week early, this turkey weighed in at 9 lbs. 14 oz. We brought her home and Elizabeth said that she “wanted to put her baby sister in the trash can.”