a playroom and a man cave

Now that Lily is a speed racer on all fours we can no longer put off converting the front room from an office into a playroom.  Earlier this winter we redid the guest room on a whim.

We painted the entire room white, added a mossy green accent wall, new linens, new sconces, and a few decorative pieces. I was so proud of how it turned out! I forgot to take any before pics (sorry) but for those of you who have been upstairs or stayed in that room, it hadn't changed since we painted it mauve when we first moved in three years ago :)

Now we are taking on the office. OH MY! The office had become the dumping ground for everything that lacked a home. Junk mail from 2007, check! A giant stuffed dog that colby used to get "friendly" with, check! Swing Lily hasn't used since September, check! Nine million pieces of scrap paper with "a beautiful mind"-esque doodles all over them, check! Ugh, it was getting really bad. So bad that I swear I saw an actual dust dinosaur run by while we were moving the bookshelf. Again, I forgot to take full on before pics...but I remembered half way through. Behold!

most of the stuff from the office
now in the living room!

the desk still has to go!

The plan is to banish Matt and his crap, I mean office supplies, to the basement. He has been down there for the past two hours doing god knows what. What happens in the man cave stays in the man cave. Now he can watch Battle Star Galactica all day under the ruse that he is "working". I am just so happy that Coo Coo will have a room of her own and we get our sunroom back! Another plus, no TV for the tot :)

The office is painted baby blue and we are going to leave it. The design all started with this fantastic rug. It is perfect and exactly what I had in mind! We are going with blue, purple and green...with a few pink accents here and there. While Matt feels that we are destined to have all girls, I am trying to rein in the girly girlness of it all!

We bought this bookshelf and plan to turn it on it's side so that Lil can reach all the cubbies.

Add a few pink bins from ikea... two green and a purple from thecompanystore.com

        

We bought this at Millstores with a really old store credit (read: we considered it free), my dad is toiling away painting it white in time for Lily's birthday next weekend. 

The best part, and I still can't believe Matt agreed to this...we are painting a tree on the wall!! I am so excited!! I completely stole the idea, and might have to delete my account with thecompanystore.com because I want everything I see, but I am in love! 

We only have four days to get everything done before Lily's parties this weekend! I will post pics as soon as we are finished! 

out like a lamb?

It snowed last night and on and off all day today, nothing accumulated but that doesn't mean I liked it.

So, we are back from Florida! The trip down was effortless. We ended up with the whole row to ourselves (a trick I will use again in the future!) on the plane and Lily flew like a seasoned traveler. Speaking of, if you were curios as to the median age of travelers on a non-stop flight to West Palm Beach on an Sunday afternoon in March, it is 85 years young.

We had great weather the entire trip. We did a lot of visiting with Matt's family, many of whom met Lily for the first time. I am especially grateful that Matt's grandmother was able to meet Lily, and that Lily didn't cry hysterically or hit her in the face (a new and not so charming trick).

Lily liked the zoo. Mostly she liked the stray birds that wander around the zoo. She was less than impressed by the bears, which Matt and I thought were great! We got to see a Kookaburra (some crazy bird), which is where Lily gets the name Coo Coo from. Have I not mentioned that here...90% of the time we call our baby Coo Coo. (Short Aside: Our second night in the hospital when Lily was born she had to sleep in a light box because she was jaundiced. She cried and cried. When I finally got to hold her the only kids song I could think of was "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree..." I couldn't remember more than half the words but I just kept singing it over and over. Hence the nickname.) I think it is only fitting that Lily loves birds :)

The highlight of the trip was definitely the days we spent at Aunt Cindy and Uncle Randy's. We bought a 7 dollar inflatable pool at Wal-Mart and set it up in the backyard. Lily would have napped in that thing if I had let her. We got some great pictures.

So some not so great parts. 1) None of us slept very much. Which was ok for the first week, but by the end of the trip Lily was kind of a basket case. 2) Lily had a nasty slip at Cindy's and bruised her left cheek. For most of the vacation we got sideways glances from strangers. 3) Lily hated the beach. No wait, she H-A-T-E-D it. The sand, obviously the texture of broken glass and the temperature of molten lava. The water, clearly flesh eating and the temperature of dry ice. If people didn't think the bruise was proof enough, Lily made sure to alert every single person on the beach to the obvious child abuse taking place.

My biggest regret is that we didn't take many family photos. I think that is the biggest downside to the fancy camera, people are reluctant to take a quick pic for us. From now on we will bring the little point and shoot for just such occasions. We did get these great pictures in Cindy and Randy's backyard one evening, my favorites of the whole trip. 

Oh and guess what? I remembered my flip flops :)

away we go!

Did I mention that having a baby changes everything?

I was on the phone with a friend last night trying to arrange rides to and from the airport. Turns out I am not a huge fan of the idea of putting Lily's car seat in the back of a cab. So my friend says, "Have you chosen and packed all of your outfits yet?" Haha. For years when Matt and I went to Florida we would shop together for new clothes. I would bring 20 outfits, complete with no less than 10 pairs of shoes for a 7 day trip. EVERY day I had to wear more than one outfit just to make sure I wore almost everything I packed. This time Lily and I are sharing my suitcase and I hope I don't forget to bring myself one pair of flip flops. Don't be surprised if I am wearing sneakers on the beach in every picture. 

Next she says, "Have you guys been going tanning?" Haha. Anothing pre-vaca activity we used to do together. Yes, my husband used to go tanning...one year we jogged to and from the tanning place together every other day, but that was a million years ago.  I am SCARY pale and I apologize in advance for my blindingly white legs in our vacation photos. Maybe you should just focus your attention on the sneakers. 

For the past week Lil and I have been sick with colds and pink eye so packing and planning our trip has seemed like a ton of work. I have made lists. You know the kind where you have already done some of the stuff so that you can cross stuff off before you start. Some list items are important: get cat sitter. Some items are just plain stupid: pack diapers. Do they not sell diapers in Florida?? 

Yesterday I set out to buy some things for Lily to have on the plane. I am bracing myself for the worst hell imaginable. You guys, we are totally going to be those people on the plane. Those people that you hate and give dirty looks even though you feel bad for them. Matt and I did something a little risky and booked a window seat and an aisle seat, praying that no one would chose the middle seat in between us. I know. I know. We figured worse case scenario we would offer the window or the aisle to whoever gets stuck with that middle seat. Well, as of last night we were still in the clear. As of 5 minutes ago, someone has booked that seat. Crap. 

I still have some cleaning and laundry to finish...and all of the packing. We will be gone until the 17th. At the very least we will have some good stories to tell.