My "29th" Birthday

My sister threw me a surprise birthday party.



I don't know why she felt like my 29th birthday was special enough to celebrate.



I mean, I could understand 30. 30 is a milestone...but 29?



She did a fabulous job!!! It was so special...all of the attention to detail was so thoughtful.





And the cake was gorgeous!





This is my mom's favorite drink. I was playing around with my new camera, and my brother decided to stick his head in the background:





The food was really good. My brother-in-law grilled burgers.



Doesn't she have the prettiest back-patio?




These are hydrangeas from my sister-in-law's yard. I must be pretty special for her to have cut these babies.




I told her that one day she was going to come home from work and all of the blooms on her bushes were going to be gone..."So don't come knockin' on my door." hehe!

She INSISTED that I bring them home with me. :)

So, here they are Drea! On my night-stand.



And I had to include these pictures. My brother and sister-in-law have new kittens and they brought them to the party for the kids to play with. Caroline would not leave them alone.



Even though it may look like animal abuse, it's not. She's just giving them lots of love. :)

Anyone familiar with the cartoon "Tiny Toons?" Remember Elmira? The little girl who SQUEEZED kittens? LOL She would sing, "I love cats and I love kitties, squeeze them into itty-bitties." And then all of the kittens would start running as fast as they could! LOL



Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Carousel Birthday Party and "Blah" t-shirt make-over

What a title, right?
Okay... so I had no idea that you could book the carousel at the Galleria for a party! What a great idea! And I was so excited for my little girl, because as we all know, Caroline just L-O-V-E-S a carousel. :)
My cousin's little girl was turning two, and apparently fell in love with the carousel at the zoo, so it was a no-brainer to have her birthday party here.
And I thought that this party would be the perfect excuse to finally try my hands at making this and giving it to the birthday girl.
I couldn't think of anything quite right for Caroline to wear to the party, so I dug up a hot-pink Walmart t-shirt from last summer, and gave it a make-over.
I had some pink and white gingham fabric that used to cover a bench in her bedroom. I cut it into strips and made a ruffled collar for her shirt.
See?


And notice I took some of the same fabric, ruffled it up, created a flower, glued it onto a headband, and attached a pink button in the middle of it.

By the way, that single-scoop Haagen Daz ice cream was $5.32.
I'm a little shell-shocked.
But it's a party so who cares? ...and she's an only child.

And these pictures are for Grandma and Pap:




As you can see, the party was a lot of fun! Isn't she adorable?

Co-sleeping

If you would have asked me ten, five, or two years ago, "What do you think about having your child sleep in your bed with you?" I would have quickly replied, "No way!"

Like most of the words I've eaten in my lifetime, I've eaten those as well.

On a hot, June night last summer, Caroline crawled between our sheets, and I said, "Oh, Mike, look at how cute she is! Can she stay for just one night?"

Since then, it's been every night, for nine months...and I think my husband and I need to start seeing a chiropractor for our back problems.

(sigh)

So, last night, I asked Mike to put the safety railings on her "big-girl" bed. No, no, no. Don't feel sorry for her! Have you seen her bedroom? Anyway, he did, and we tried to pump her up about sleeping in her own room. So when it came time to go to bed last night, she runs to my room shouting, "NOOOOOO, I want to sleep in YOUR room in THIS bed!"
I stood by the doorway, calmly telling her, "No sweetie, we are going to your room and I'm going to sleep with you."
Well, that didn't work at all. Long story short, I ended up carrying her up the stairs literally kicking and screaming.
And I know at this point in the story, both grandmothers are shaking their head "no" right now saying, "My Caroline would never act that way!" :)
When we got to her room, and after some correction, we picked out some books, sat on her bed, and I read four stories to her. I told her that after we read some books, then we would go downstairs and she could sleep in our room. She was relaxed and asked for some warm milk. I brought her milk to her, and then asked her if she wanted me to turn out the light. She said, "yes."
I totally wasn't expecting her to WANT to stay in her room. Especially after that fit she pitched!
But I laid with her in her bed, and she went to sleep.
I fell asleep as well.
Then Mike came upstairs at 10:00p.m. and woke me up.
I came downstairs, went into our bedroom, and talk about oddest feeling I've ever had! Where was my baby?
I CRIED.
Mike didn't understand.
I held the monitor up to my ear, trying to listen to her breathing.
I couldn't sleep. I really didn't expect her to stay upstairs. And what upset me the most was the fact that I realized that my baby had probably spent her last night in my bed the night before.
And at 12:44 a.m., my prayers were answered and I heard her crying. "YES!" I think I set a record running up the stairs to pluck her out of her bed. I brought her downstairs, put her in-between Mike and I, and I slept like a baby for the rest of the night.

WHEW! Don't think I'll be doing that again. I'd rather live with back-pain for the rest of my life. However, we will be needing to get a king-sized bed soon. :)

"I'll take this Caroline"

Yesterday morning, Caroline decided to get up at 5:30 with her daddy and me. The three of us were sitting on the couch watching the Fox News Channel (she was in between us), and out of no-where, she taps Mike and I on our arms and says, "I'll take this daddy and I'll take this mommy."
Mike said, "Good thing you chose us!"
I said, "And I'll take this Caroline!"

Why does she have to say the CUTEST things?

And sometimes she conveniently says these "cute" things right after she's done something wrong. :) LOL

It's never boring around our house!

Leopard Print Tutu

We are headed to a "Carousel Birthday Party" this weekend for a sweet two-year-old little girl. So, I decided to try to make a tutu for this little princess. When I saw this pink and black leopard-print ribbon, I fell in love!
So here it is. I am quite pleased, and I hope the birthday girl will be as well.

I found this tutu tutorial on tomkat's website.


...and don't forget, a hair-bow to match!

I'm linking this to:

The Front Porch

My porch gets a tremendous amount of heat in the summer months.

You see, we have no trees in our front yard.

Someone had the genius idea to put our septic tank and lines in the front yard, therefore I can not have any trees in the yard to protect the front of my house from the heat.

And in July, my front porch thermometer reads 120 degrees. No lie!

So, I have been thinking of hanging curtains on my porch. Some curtains that I can tie back and then release to provide some shade.

After reading and researching ways to do this, I decided the best way would be to buy some cheap, white, king-sized sheets and hang them with clips and nails.

So for the last two days, here's what I've been working on...





And here is my sweet, little girl watering my flowers while I take pictures.
...except now that I look...she's watering my porch. :) She loves getting to use the hose-pipe.



So now I need to know what all of you think about the curtains. Leave a comment and please be honest. Love it or hate it?
Thanks so much!

You can see this project featured on tidy mom.
I'm linking up to:
http://thediyshowoff.blogspot.com/

Living room. Before and After.

Okay... so those of you who have been keeping up with me, know that I have re-arranged my living room no less than 15 times in the past three weeks!
So, tell me what you think.

BEFORE?:



So,I've really been sick of all of the red and green going on in there. I was in the process of re-arranging yesterday morning when my sister walked in and graciously helped me out tremendously! Thank you, thank you, thank you! She quickly removed the six fake flower arrangements I had going on in there, :) and removed a lot of the red accents. It looks so much better. ...or at least that's my opinion.

AFTER:

So tell me what you think!

Master bedroom update

Okay...so here are a few more pictures of the bedroom that I made-over when Mike was out-of-town. In my opinion, the room looks so much better in person. I just can't get a good picture of it. Oh well!
Here is the first picture that I want to show you. I replaced the chair from the last post, with this brown recliner. The pillow that you are looking at is something that I made last-minute. The fabric came from a panel I had hanging in my bathroom. I never really liked the curtains in the bathroom. But, the brown matched my new room, so I decided to cut up the curtains and make pillow slip-covers out of them. I had a little bit of trim left from the new curtains, so I glued it on. I really like how it turned out.


And here is the other pillow that I made from the bathroom curtains. It's on the bed.


I added another panel to the front window:


And bought a new rug. One that actually matches:


And here is a better picture of the new lamps. You can see the blue and the detailing in this picture (Unfortunately, you can also see the dust and the water rings on the nightstand too):


And here it is with the matching rug. Now all I have left to do is replace the hardware on the dresser. ...and maybe that will mean that I'm done. We'll see. :)