dollhouse

i have mentioned our little dollhouse project a time or two.

and guess what folks??

we are done!

and it was quite the fun transformation.

from this...

to this..

here are some in progress pictures.

it took a good amount of goof off and elbow grease to get the big ole sticker off.

then we painted outside and in.

then we mod-podged (in my two previous posts about the dollhouse, i called it modge podge. silly me!). i picked up some new pieces of scrapbook paper for this project and let cece do the picking. i love how she went with the very natural turquoise wood floor. love it.

and we are d.o.n.e.

we were going to paint the furniture. however we decided that might be too much color (if that is possible) and thought the natural wood color looked nice. we can always change our minds.

the best part of this project was working with cece.

she has a creative soul.

she eats this stuff up.

its so fun. we need to do it more.


happy friday.

ellie and maggie

a few weeks ago we switched maggie's coat to a size bigger hand-me-down from ellie jo. i wanted to show ellie that she wore the same hat and coat. we went looking through the photo album and came across these pictures of ellie. 

they took my breathe away. 

the two girls don't look exactly the same. but my oh my. the similarities. it gets me.

i tried to recreate the photos with maggie. 

now you might be thinking where is cece in all this. well, she never wore this coat. partly because we lived in Arizona and partly because the size, her age, and the seasons never lined up right. don't worry i will dig up some pictures to prove they are all three sisters again some time soon. 

hello monday

hello late start. this morning we had our third late start of the year. i love a good snow/cold day. but late starts those are pretty awesome too. a few extra hours. sleeping in. a slower pace. less rushing. it is a little challenging with mags and her morning nap. this morning she went down for nap from 8 to 9:15 so that worked well.

here is mags getting in a little early morning princess play last week.

hello dollhouse project. cece and i have slowly but surely been chipping away at the dollhouse project. the house painting is done. now we have a little modge-podging to do. then to tackle the furniture.

cece has made all the color choices. red roof, pink siding, light pink trim, mint green interior. i like it. 

hello sporty jo. ellie has been busy playing basketball and her volleyball season is about to start. she has been playing basketball on saturdays. sometimes we have to be a little creative between naps and lunch and games.

maggie cheering ellie on at practice. it is hilarious sometimes i am pretty sure maggie has no idea ellie is out there playing and then all of a sudden she sees her and will start screaming and laughing like crazy. its cute. and funny. really funny.

having a little fro-yo during ellie's volleyball practice. maggie was saying cheese.....

maggie is eating cheese and way to into the action to look at the camera. we packed a picnic lunch last saturday to eat during ellie's basketball game. gotta be creative. 

hello mighty monkey magpie. maggie is quickly letting us know there is no place she can't and won't go. emptying the fridge to climbing {repeatedly} on the table to helping make pancakes. she is a goer.

hello meal plan.

monday: sesame noodles
tuesday: chili baked potatoes
wednesday: baked pasta
*our wednesday night is busy so i am going to make this ahead on monday and just bake it up on wednesday night.
thursday: philly cheese steak sloppy joes
friday: breakfast burritos and smoothies

happy monday y'all!

ellie's room inspiration

last fall we started a little makeover project in ellie's room.

so far we have
1. painted a light aqua color
2. built a loft bed
3. hung some pretty awesome bunting

there are still quite a few smaller projects i plan to complete

#1 and #2 curtains. going with long curtains...trying to decide between these two styles. ultimately jojo will make the call.
#3 and #4 corner shelves. she needs some shelves to store all her stuff....legos, books, jewelry, etc...to keep in out of the reach of little hands...

#5 small shelves. like these ikea spice rack shelves along her bed in the loft so she can keep all her stuff organized and not ended up sleeping on it.....
#6 old door headboard. we have one all cut and ready to be painted. she picked a turquoisey-aquaish color.
#7 reading lamp. she really needs a reading lamp. currently she reads with her overhead light on and we go in to find her sound asleep with her light shining bright. gotta fix that!

#8-#11 gallery wall and art. we already have the elephant print. want to add a few more...constellations and maps. she likes that stuff.

#12 lighted letters. so fun! wouldn't that be perfect in a tween's bedroom. yes i just wrote tween. yikes.
#13 and #15 paper flowers. these are cool and i think we could make them.
#14 hanging hearts. those are just neato.

#16 letters. i like letters. ellie likes letters too. i have brainwashed her. yes its true. we think her room needs a few Es for sure.
#17 jars. ellie has a few interesting collections--rocks, empty bubble tapes dispensers, bouncy balls-- that would be super fun to put on display. plus the jars would be a good way to store her growing finger nail polish and lip balm/gloss supply.
#18 stuffy jail. jojo has some stuffed animals. this would be a fun way to store them and keep them off the floor. i also see magpie ending up in there........

i am planning to work on some project for ellie's room over the next few months. i try not to rush these types of projects and enjoy the process. plus we have many other fun things to do like basketball and volleyball and cheering for the cyclones and jaguars and birthday parties..... those fun things tend to take priority and that is fine by me. and other projects may come up too. it is just fun to sit with her and look at things she likes and put together a plan for her room. i want it to be a room that works well for her and is made of things she likes. slowly but surely it will come together and i think it will end up pretty cool.

Links
#1 Curtains
#2 More Curtains
#6 headboard
#14 Hearts
#11 Map
#10 Wall
#9 elephant print
#8 constellations
#12 Letters
#16 Fabric Letters
#13 Paper Flowers
#15 Paper Flower DIY
#3 corner shelves
#4 floating corner shelves
#17 Collection Jars
#5 spice rack shelves
#7 reading lamp
#18Stuffy Cage

family goals 2014

you see what i am doing here.

last week i shared  my word of the year. still.

today i am going to share some goals for our family.

so i am avoiding setting resolutions but picking a word and setting goals. so really i am setting resolutions but yet i am not. tricky. i know.

back to the goals.

goal #1: manners

so when i started to think about setting a few goals for our family i started by thinking about any changes i wanted to make. then i realized we were perfect. ha. just kidding. we are far from it. i wanted to think of things that would be meaningful for our whole family. some things we could work on together.

and then our first goal hit me.

manners

we need to work on our manners. now i wouldn't same we are rude and impolite people. i just think this is one area that can always be improved. and it is even more pronounced to me right now because of miss magpie. every time she wants or needs something we have her say please and then when we give it to her we have her say thank you. we do this to build manners and to have her communicate with us. we have done this with all our girls.

but are our other girls doing this when the want or need things? is tim doing this? am i doing this?

i took a nice long look in the mirror.

nope.

we are some of the time, we are not all of the time. i am guilty. not that we are rude. but we are just not always saying our pleases and thank yous. sometimes our (my) words sound down right demanding. ugh.

and our big girls are getting old enough to work on manners beyond please and thank you. holding doors, saying excuse me, etc.

how:

1. learning about manners

one way we are going to work on our manners is by learning about manners, the importance of manners, what manners to use when, etc. pinterest only has like a gazillion ideas. here is a list of just a few of the ideas i like.

books about manners
manners kids should know
manners match up
good manners
manners print 

2. thankful jar
giving thanks is not just for thanksgiving. it is great all year long. we are going to start a thankful jar based on this idea.

3. setting a good example

this one falls on tim and i. we need to use our manners, specifically by using please and thank you when talking to the girls and each other.


goal #2: active

our second goal came a little easier. this goal is based on ideas from our girls and our desire to take good care of our bodies.

we want to be more active as individuals (specifically tim and i) and even more so as a family. we understand the power of modeling. we want to model good health behaviors for our girls. which includes exercising to stay healthy. but we also want to be active together as a family.

how:

1. play at the park.

late last fall i shared this article with my girls about a family who visited 100 parks last summer. they loved the idea. we decided it might be a little tough for us to accomplish in one summer but that we could probably get it done over the course of an entire year.

our goal is to visit 100 different parks during 2014.

should be fun.

2. family walks

another thing we wan to do is to take more family walks. our neighborhood is growing so there are now more sidewalks to make this much safer.

3. family bike rides

our girls girls really want to take bike rides as a family. like really really want to. like ask all the time. this is a little complicated because we do not have bikes for everyone. tim specifically does not have a bike. cece even put it on her christmas list for santa to bring him one. this year we want to get our family outfitted with bikes and be able to bike ride as a family.

4. be outside

this is something we do pretty well. play outside as a family. work in our yard. garden.

5. exercise

this one is for tim and i. we are both working to make exercise a priority in our lives. getting into a routine of exercising consistently.




so there you have it our family goals for 2014. i think it will be fun to work on these together as a family. we will keep you posted on our progress!

bathtime with magpie

maggie loves bathtime.

if we mention the "b-word" she drops what she is doing and makes a bee line for the stairs.

in maggie's world baths are all good.

happy tuesday.