Dining Room Re-Do ~ Walls & China Hutch

 Installment #2 of the worlds-longest-dining-room-remodel has finally been completed.

Parker was signed up for sports camp at the Y last week, so I sent Cecily to Grandma's house Monday & Tuesday so I could have some time to work on the dining room & the china hutch.  I wasn't really even painting the room so much as creating a coordinating backdrop for the "new" china hutch, I didn't re-paint the white parts or the ceiling, and I think I might have painted over a little of the food stuck to the wall.  The plan was to paint the walls really quickly with the grey that was left-over from Cecily's bedroom.  Unfortunately, I'd grossly over-estimated how much paint we had left over, we actually had exactly this much:

But, after two trips to Home Depot, the walls were done:

I then spent the next two or three days re-doing the china hutch.  I toyed with the idea of using oil paint to make the finish stronger, I'm kind of wishing I'd gone with it, but hopefully the finish will still hold up to our daily battery. ...at least as long as I still like the color anyway.

I was planning to buy new finishes, but decided to try just spray-painting everything silver.  It looks pretty good, but the paint isn't too strong, so we'll see how it lasts.

The end result: 

I'm really happy with it.  Of course, this is the tidiest you'll ever see it since there is no food anywhere and all the china is still in boxes in the basement.  So, enjoy this look while it lasts, at some point we'll have to start using the room again!

Before (September):

Middle Before (January):

After:

Parker & Cecily's Birthday Party

To celebrate Parker & Cecily's birthdays, we invited over the family for hot dogs & cupcakes.

The slip & slide was a hit.  Parker & Beni spent over an hour running & sliding, jumping in the pool, and then doing it again.

Cecily thought it was HILARIOUS.

Although I think she stayed dry the entire time.

It's not a birthday without cupcakes!

As always, the cupcakes were a hit, although I think that next time I'll just make each of the kids a cup of frosting for all the actual cake that was eaten.

Cecily's Birthday

It's not a birthday without cake, so I tried out a new gluten-free cake recipe using quinoia instead of flour.  It was a total disaster, rivaling some of my first attempts in High School.  You can't tell from here, but the cake is actually only half a cake, I stacked the two broken pieces together in an attempt to make something remotely aesthetically appealing...I failed.  But it tasted good and the kids just ate the frosting anyway. 

Yes, she does own clothes, but if the temperature gets much above 65, she always want to be naked.

My Baby is TWO!

I can't believe it, my baby girl is two!

Cecily has come a long way from the tiny, screaming monster she was two years ago.  Although she continues to be extremely stubborn and opinionated, when she's not angry she is an extremely happy kid.  Cecily loves to play with her big brother, and she's even made peace with her Daddy.  She seems to have forgiven Keith for not being Mama and now "Daddy Dinosaur" is well on his way to becoming her favorite parent.

Some funny things Cecily says:

"Daddy Dinosaur" - This came from a game Parker & Keith were playing a few weeks ago, Cecily didn't even like the game but she now calls Keith "Daddy Dinosaur" about 80%  of the time.

"1,2,3,4,5" - She LOVES to count, I've even heard her get to 10 on occasion.  I'm not saying she has the slightest idea how to actually count, but she does like to say the words

"Eyes" - This means she wants to wash her hands, recently this has evolved to "wash-a eyes"

"The green one" - Which translates to "the other one", she's been saying this for months, in the past week, she's also started saying "the blue one", I'm not sure if blue is just replacing green, of it really means the "other, other one"

"Right now" - if she wants anything, she almost always ends the request with "right now".  Not my favorite of her sayings

Cecily still has the most adorable, tiny voice, just about anything she says is adorable, even when she's demanding "ice cream, right now".  (adorable yes, acceptable no)  But her tiny "tank you" is still my favorite.

Cecily loves kitties, she spends much of her days pretending to be a baby kitty cat crawling around and meowing.  I find this especially amusing since she hardly ever crawled when she was a baby.

Cecily loves babies, she also enjoys pretending to be a baby.  Often, at the end of a meal, she will cradle her milk cup and "rockaby baby" her cup.

At bedtime, her current routine involves us holding her cradle-style and singing "Rock-a-bye-baby" to her (without irony) before she will settle down & sleep.

Her current favorite game is ring-around-the-rosies, which she is constantly asking Parker to play with her.  Talk about melting a Mama's heart watching my two babies holding hands and spinning in a circle, so cute.

It's been pretty crazy around this house the past two years, and I don't expect things to slow down any over the next decade; this girl will always keep us on her toes, but I can't imagine life without her.

Happy Birthday baby girl, we love you!

Today's Project ~ Cecily's birthday gifts

This year I decided to make Cecily a quilt for her birthday.  Every time I get one of these half-baked ideas, I get about 3/4's of the way through and ask myself "what exactly was I thinking?!?!"

For this one, it went something like this:

Poor Cecily, she doesn't have any quilts of her own, she's sleeping with Parker's old baby blanket, I should make her a quilt.

I'll just get some purple fabric & some soft minky and make a simple blanket.

...hey, I've been wanting to try out my new hemming & ruffling presser feet, I should add a few ruffles to the quilt.

...maybe I could do every other row ruffles.

...or maybe, I should cover the whole thing with ruffles, that would be so cute.  (note to future-self: it is never a good idea to cover anything with ruffles, don't even think of it, you'll only end up frustrated and angry and throwing both machines out the window)

So, the final result is FAR from perfect, and about 6" narrower than I'd hoped, but Cecily sure seems to like it.  (If you're wondering, the quilt is 50" long and it took FIVE YARDS of fabric to make all those ruffles.

And the ruffles do seem to cover a multitude of sins, maybe my Mom was right and I should wear more ruffles too...although I'm finally married so I'm not sure she'd care either way.  ..whoa, sorry, just went down a rabbit trail that only my sister will appreciate.

Anyway, the quilt did turn out pretty adorable.

And if you're looking for adorable, check out the gift that Keith made for her:

Baby doll's crib got a quilt too:

Every time we go to the toy store or someone else's house, Cecily goes straight for the doll stroller, so I thought she'd love one for her baby.  I found one in our "buy nothing" group that just needed a little repair on the seat.

I had some extra fabric from the quilt fiasco, so with a little fabric & a touch of spray paint, she's got a whole new stroller:

While I was at Fred Meyer the other day, I saw that they had their hoodies buy one get one free, so I decided to pick up a few and make new dinosaur hoodies for the kids.

For Parker: 

And Cecily: 

At $7 each and tons of colors to choose from, I'm considering stocking up and giving dinosaur hoodies for all Christmas and birthday gifts for the next year!

Naptime, Binky

This past week we've been trying to wean Cecily off the binky during the daytime.  It's actually been easier than I thought, after she gets dressed in the morning, I just tell her that it's naptime for binky and she throws it in the crib.  She's hardly even fussed about it, but the cutest part is that binky is truly taking a nap, so we often need to get him a blanket, and then once Cecily has her jammies back on at the end of the day, we have to "wake up binky"!