Craft Room Update

After painting stripes in my bathroom today, I was kind of on a roll.  I decided to try something completely different in my craft room!  I wasn't sure how I'd like it, but I figured, hey!  It's a craft room.  It doesn't hurt to try something crazy in the room where I'm most creative, right?

Here's the room, pre-paint.  Very beige and very blah.

So, I started putting up painter's tape, pretty much randomly.  I just wanted it to be geometric.

And I kept going...

And going, until the one wall was covered in geometric glory!

I chose a few sections to paint a medium blue, then painted the rest of the wall the same light blue that is my accent wall color upstairs in the living room.

After two coats of paint and some serious patience while waiting for it all to dry, I got to peel off all the tape!

In  the end, I kind of love it! 

It's definitely different.  It's not something I'd necessarily choose for a main room in my house, but it's pretty cool, and I really like it for my craft room!

And one last side-by-side for good measure:

In the end, I spent less than $5 on painter's tape for both of the projects I did today, and all the paint I had was leftover from over projects.  Spending less than $5 to make over 2 rooms is a good day in my book!

Bathroom Update

Before we moved into our house in May, we repainted the entire upstairs.  Between that and totally overhauling the kitchen, I was pretty burned out on projects!  Now that I've had a couple months to rest and recover, I'm ready to get working on my house again!  We painted everything a nice medium grey, so I pretty much have a blank canvas to work with!

As a starting point, just a reminder of what the bathroom looked like when we bought the house:

When we repainted, we left the wall with the door white, like the previous owners had.  I didn't want it to be too dark in there, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it.  

Well, today I decided:  Stripes!!!  So I penciled in the lines I wanted and taped them off:

Then applied the same grey paint that I used on the rest of the walls:

And voila!  Much cuter :)  

This was a super fast, super easy project!  All I had to buy was the painter's tape, and I only used a tiny bit of it!  I love cheap fixes that make a big difference!!!

Now I just need to update my sad counters and oak vanity!

Big Girl Haircut

When Lex was 9 months old, I gave her her very first haircut.  Her hair was crazy long on top and short on the sides, so I took a couple inches off her mohawk and blended it all in.  This was what she looked like the last time I cut her hair:

Since then, I've never even trimmed her hair.  I've been noticing lately that her ends were getting a little yucky, so tonight I gave her her first "Big Girl" hair cut.  It wasn't anything drastic, because we LOVE her long hair!  I love that I have so many options of what I can do to it.  So I trimmed everything up, gave her some layers, trimmed her bangs so we can train them to swoop to the side, and that was it!  Just enough to make it healthy.  She was so excited to sit in my hair cutting chair!  I thought she would get restless or hate having the cape on, but she loved it so much!  The whole time we just talked about princesses and she was happy as can be.  My little girl is getting way too big!  The best part of this experience is when I was texturizing her bangs and she said, "Oooooh!  That's a cool trick!" (Only in her little voice she actually said, "Oooooh!  Das a cool twick!"  Hilarious.)

A mom and Lex picture before the cut!

Before-- she was so happy to be sitting there!

And after!  She was thrilled.  And really-- could she be any cuter???

Ta-daaaaa!

She seriously wouldn't stop looking in the mirror-- she felt so cool!

Here's the side-by-side before and after shots...

To most people it probably looks the same.  But to me, it's way better now!  It's very healthy, it's all evened out, and she looks great!  I can absolutely tell a difference-- such is the life for a cosmetologist!

9 Months!

Somehow, another month has passed, and my baby is 3/4 of a year old!  Here are some updates on my sweetheart, as well as some pictures of what's been happening in our lives this month!

- Mia is SO active.  She is in to pretty much everything.  She is really fast at army crawling, and in the past few days has started to master crawling on her hands and knees.  She can also pull herself to standing and cruise furniture.  She is doing this several months earlier than Lexsi did, and I'm not really prepared for it!  Since she's starting so young, she falls over a lot, and every time she falls she cries so hard, it just breaks her heart that she has bad balance.  Ha!

- She is still a great eater!  She eats pretty much everything we give her, and really loves watermelon and strawberries.

- Otter Pops are her favorite-- If she sees DJ get one out of the freezer, she gets so excited and crawls over to him so he'll share.

- She think Lexsi is the funniest person ever.  Lex will roll her around on the floor and do all sorts of things that I think would be annoying and/or scary, but Mia just laughs.  They are best friends for sure!

- She is a picky sleeper.  We don't have central air right now, but we do have a window AC unit in the master bedroom.  Mia won't sleep in her own room any more because it's hot.  Lex doesn't seem to mind, but Mia has started sleeping in a Pack and Play in our room since it's much cooler there.  I don't blame her for not being able to sleep in heat-- I totally can't either!

- She has been trying to get her top front left tooth for a long time now.  It keeps coming down so we can see the whiteness and see her gums bulging, and then it recedes again.  So frustrating.

- She says "Mama," regularly, but not always when I tell her to.  She also says "Dada" sometimes, but not as often.

-She is such a climber!  She climbs all over DJ and me.  She also climbs stairs, if we let her.  She hasn't learned to go down stairs yet, unfortunately.

- This morning, she stood up by herself for like 7-8 seconds.  She has been sitting on a little rocking chair, and slid off the front of it to standing and stood alone until DJ came to get her.

- She often tries to "bear crawl," and it's hilarious to watch.

- If you let her hold your fingers, she'll totally walk wherever she wants to go.

- She is incredibly happy.  She has the sweetest disposition, and I just love her!

Hailey and Mia at the park:

Lex and Mia at Kate's princess party:

The fam at Costa Vida:

Out for a walk:

"Helping" me with the laundry:

Staying cool in the summer heat:

These girls LOVE Otter Pops!

Mia stole bread right off my plate at my cousin's mission farewell and ate it up!

Four generations:

Mia got to try eating a spoonful of peanut butter.  She loved it:

My early riser.  I usually don't mind getting up with this sweet girl, though!

Happy girl eating watermelon:

My sweethearts:

Fourth of July outfits:

They love each other so so much!

Reading with Keesha:

Bear Lake day trip:

Mia fell asleep on the way up:

She did not mind one bit when her dad buried her in the mud!

Mia and Lex hanging out:

Both girls were way worn out and slept on the way home:

My 9-month-old sweetheart!!!