The Goings-On

We have had a busy couple of days here. Russ was gone all day Tuesday. He was at the office during the day and in the evening he went to Columbia to speak at Vacation Bible School for a congregation there. Columbia is a pretty long haul from our town so Chloe Jo and I opted to stay home. That was a good decision because Russ didn't end up getting home until 11:00 p.m. Yuck!

Today was exciting because Russ and a friend went to pick up our new dresser!

Chloe Jo is also very excited about the new furniture. I'm so glad to get that ugly dresser out of our room! One thing I love about this town is that you can put anything you don't want out by the side of the road and someone will come get it. So far I've gotten rid of a set of chairs (that were moldy because our water heater leaked on them...someone still wanted them), a Christmas tree, 3 lamps, a junky garden hose and now this dresser. The guy that picked up the dresser even came up to the house to ask if we were getting rid of it. He was really excited and said the dresser was "really nice." I guess he didn't mind the water damage and bad paint job as much as I did. I'm glad he got something that he wanted and I'm very glad we were able to replace it! Our new dresser is gorgeous!

Chloe Jo is so sweet! I love spending my days with her even though she does frustrate me at times. Lately she has become very tenderhearted (ahem...I'm not sure where she gets that from...it couldn't be from me...). We watched Toy story Tuesday night while Daddy was out of town and she cried 3 times at sad parts. She hates to see people or characters cry! We went out to eat last night and Kai Lan was on a TV. We haven't ever even watched Kai Lan, but Chloe Jo was fascinated with it. There was a little blue elephant that was crying and Chloe Jo got so sad. She was on the brink of tears! I stemmed them off by explaining to her that the elephants friends were helping him be happy.

I finished up The Fruit of the Spirit series last night in Wednesday evening Bible Class. I had been having 3 kids for several weeks, but last night I only had Chloe Jo.

She has been doing very good in Bible class. She loves to read out of the Bible and she loves to sing. She usually will refuse to repeat the books of the Bible still, but last night she said Joel and Lamentations without being prompted so I know she is learning them even if she won't repeat them or say them on command. We will be starting a series on the Apostles next Wednesday.

We finally walked to the library Wednesday morning.
We were going once a week before the tree fell on our house. We haven't been since (about 2 months). We are going to start going again. Chloe Jo loves it and I want to start checking out books I can't get for free on my Kindle from the top 100 list.

I whipped up some salsa this afternoon to go with Mexican casserole tonight. I tried freezing salsa the last time I made it and that did not work so good.
Yum! I love Mexican night!

We were in Hobby Lobby last week and Chloe Jo spotted this Dora the Explorer fabric.
It happened to be on sale (always!) so I bought a yard of it. I'm going to try to make her a backpack out of it.
I am using the striped fabric because it is what I had. I didn't think about lining until I got home so we are just going with it. I hope it turns out cute. I used my beloved graph paper to make my own pattern. We shall see.

And there you have it.

Who is the parent here???

Lately, Chloe Jo has been correcting me. This just makes me laugh so hard because she is usually right! The most funniest thing she does is tell me to say "pes" (please). Sometimes I get frustrated with her because I ask her to do something nicely and she won't do it. I'll say something like, "Chloe Jo, please pick up your toys and put them away." After the 2nd time I won't be so polite and it will come out in my sternest Mommy voice, "Chloe Jo! Pick your toys up NOW!" To which she will reply, "Pes?" like I forgot my manners. That is what happened this morning while we were cleaning her room. She had dumped out a puzzle and the pieces were all over the floor. I asked her to put them up at least 3 times and she didn't do it. I finally told her to without a please and she looked at me and said, "pes?" like I needed to say please. Luckily she will usually mind after the stern mommy voice comes out. She is such a silly little thing!

Something else I find hilarious is that her favorite word right now is Nihao. Dora the Explorer taught her this word. It means "Hello" in Chinese. I looked up how to spell it in English in the Chinese-English dictionary. By the way, she is watching me typing and saying nihao like she knows that it what I am talking about. Hilarious! When we go to big town next door, it is about a 40 minute drive. On the way there and back she will sit in the back seat saying, "Nihao, Mommy. Mommy, nihao. Nihao. Nihao. NIHAO! Daddy, nihao. Nihao, Daddy. Daddy, nihao. Nihao. Nihao. Mommy, Daddy, nihao. Nihao, Mommy. Nihao, Daddy. Nihao. NIHAO!..." It gets very old, but it is so cute I can't help but laugh!

Chloe Jo! What did we tell you about that invisibility cloak?

Why is it that when we eat out the servers don't see Chloe Jo??? This happens to us all of the time at several different places. They completely ignore her like she isn't even there. They don't bring her a drink. They don't bring her silverware. And most of the time they don't even ask if she wants anything. I just don't get why servers think she is not going to need a drink or silverware! It really annoys me when I have to ask for either of those things. Maybe they think we are going to share our drink with her, but if they had children of their own they would know better than that. Backwash is disgusting. Especially from a toddler! Just needed to get that out there. It's so irritating!

Bedroom Letter Art

Do you remember this sneaky peaky from several weeks ago? I didn't mean for it to take this long to finish this particular project, but it did after a bit of drama with our local Hobby Lobby.

Russ and I went in about 4 weeks ago. The wall decor was on sale for 50% off. I wanted to get something to go above our bed because the poster that was up there didn't fit once I installed the new headboard. I wanted to change that poster to a more artsy feel anyway. I found these letters and decided to get an R, an L and an ampersand. They had the R and the ampersand, but the L's they had (there were 2) were both broken. Russ went and asked an employee if they had any more and they said no, but they were going to get a truck in and to check back at the end of the week or the next week. We went back the next week and there were still only those two broken L's. I don't understand why they would leave broken products on the shelf after we told them the last week that they were broken. We found a manager and told him about the broken L's and asked if they got any more in. They hadn't. He then told us to ask the cashier to order one for us. So that's what we did and the cashier gave us a rain check. I thought they were going to do a special order, but that's not what happened. The next week we went back again to ask about it again. For three weeks I had been waiting on this L and they have completely ignored the fact that the one's on the shelf were broken. Guess what? Then didn't have it the third week either. I complained to the girl that we had been waiting for 3 weeks and that the one's on the shelf are broken. She said that the lady who orders for home decor probably didn't order one because there were 2 on the shelf and that she didn't notice they were broken. She gave me yet another rain check for the L. At this point I was so annoyed, but there isn't another Hobby Lobby in our area so I wasn't sure what to do. We waited for another week and finally Russ was done dealing with them. They never called with either rain check and they said they would. We had waited over a month for them to get an L in and they never did. Russ called another Hobby Lobby that was a little over an hour from our place and had them hold one. We went last night and picked it up. I would have just scrapped the project if I hadn't already spray painted the R and ampersand. After all that, the project is done and I'm happy with it.

Here are the R and ampersand before I spray painted them. I didn't like the gold color at all.
I spray painted them with Krylon Nickel. It was perfect for what I wanted.

After we get our new dresser in next week, everything will be perfect in our place. Everything is exactly how I want it and I'm happy with our little home.

Felt Roses Bouquet

Awhile back (like before the tornado and flood) I was wanting something springy for my table centerpiece. I have always been interested in all the crafts you can make out of felt, especially felt flowers. I found a site that had a tutorial for felt roses. I loved how the bouquet looked so I picked out the colors of felt I wanted and ran with it!

I love the way it turned out! I have another flower pot that is plain white. I am planning to make another bouquet out of shades of purple soon.
I especially loved that the tutorial I used suggested putting these pearl beads in each. I think they give the roses that extra little pop!
I had it on the table and then my sweet darling daughter saw it. She decided she wanted it in her room so it ended up in there. The next one will definitely stay in the kitchen!
The tutorial I used can be found here. She has several other great projects!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Yay for Wednesday! I have been so depressed and down lately that it is really nice to stop and make myself remember my blessings and all that I'm loving! Link up here if you would like to participate!

I'm loving that the hardware store I buy washing soda for my homemade laundry detergent at is now stocking it on the shelf full time. This is so nice because I don't have to special order it anymore!

I'm loving this song by Zac Brown Band. I pretty much like all of their songs! The video for this one, though...not so much.

I'm loving this line from Crazy 8! It is on a great sale right now and I bought a few pieces that will hopefully get CJ through the rest of the summer.

I'm loving this hilarious little girl! She can make me laugh and smile at any time. My heart feels like it is going to burst I love her so much!

I'm loving this picture of a frog that was outside yesterday. He was on my chair, but I ran him off and he jumped up on the brick of our house. CJ was not so excited about him. She wanted to play in the pool.

I'm loving this dress and headband that I finished for my niece, Alli! When she was here she picked out the pattern and the fabric. She originally wanted the whole thing out of the green fabric, but the pattern was screwed up and wouldn't fit on the fabric! When I went back to get more, they had discontinued the line so I had to choose the coordinating pink instead. I hope she likes it.

{front}

{back}

{headband}

I'm loving the book "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins. This is yet another book from the top 100 list. I have really enjoyed reading it the past few weeks!

I'm loving the way this cross stitch turned out. I made it when I was in college and had it in a frame that I got rid of later. So for the last 5 to 10 years it has been folded up in my craft stuff. I came across it when we were unpacking after el tornado/floodo and decided to frame it. I love the way it turned out.

I'm loving Rita's! When we lived in Missouri I loved Andy's Frozen Custard. When we moved out here one of the things I missed most was Andy's. The other day we were in big town next door and passed by Rita's. I'm so glad that we went in the next time we were in big town! It is delicious and it makes me not miss Andy's! They specialize in Italian ice and frozen custard. Their ice is the best ice I have ever had and a lot of it is made with real fruit. YUM!

What are you loving today???

Well, he did make a point...

Motorcyclist crashes in helmet law protest, dies

Not the one he meant to make, though. Oh, the irony.

Happy Independence Day!

We hope you all are having a great holiday!

Alto y flaco

A few weeks ago Russ brought a DVD home for Chloe Jo that had 8 episodes of Dora The Explorer on it. Chloe Jo had 2 Elmo DVD's and 1 Strawberry Shortcake DVD that she watched here and there. We never let her watch a lot of TV...until Dora came along. I kind of wish we had discovered how much she loves Dora a long time ago. I try to work with Chloe Jo on her numbers, letters, colors, etc. but she never was into it. Most of the time she wouldn't repeat anything and she definitely wouldn't say what I wanted her to say! That is, until Dora. I can't believe how much she has been saying since she started watching Dora! She will sing along with the songs. She will yell "map" and "backpack" when Dora needs their help. And...AND...She speaks Spanish with Dora!

So thank you Dora for helping Chloe Jo to speak!

Yesterday I was working on sewing a dress and I was talking to myself. I do that when I'm concentrating really hard to figure something out. I was saying to myself, "now where is the circle? Oh here's one!" and Chloe Jo said to me, "one...two...thwee!" I have been trying to get her to say her numbers for months. Dora got it done! She can also tell me what numbers come after other numbers. I can say, "Chloe Jo, what number comes after five?" and she will say "six" back. I'm so proud of her and I'm ecstatic that she is learning!

I have been feeling like she has been getting much heavier lately so I decided to go ahead and weigh and measure her this morning. I usually do this every few months. I'm just a little early this month.

Chloe Jo is weighing in at 26 pounds! This was lower than I thought it would be. I thought it would be up around 27 to 28 pounds. She just seems so much heavier lately! 26 pounds puts her in the 25th percentile.
Her height is 36 inches putting her into the 75th percentile. I figured it would be somewhere around there. She is getting so tall!
Tall and skinny!

Hope Chest Quilt

First off, the rug from the last post about Chloe Jo's room is from Target. They are sold in stores and online.

Have any of you been over to the KRDL Paper and Fabrics blog? I pretty much love it!

When I passed my hope chest to Chloe Jo, I also passed her the antique cross-stitched fabric that I have been using to cover it. I knew it didn't go in her room, but at the time I wasn't ready to take on the project of finding something the went better to cover it.

I don't think it's bad per se, but it just doesn't go with her decor. While we were out of our home during the flood I was pretty bored. I was looking at a post on KRDL and I was inspired to make a quilt to cover Chloe Jo's hope chest. I first drew it on graph paper (graph paper is my best friend when it comes to designing things. Every square is an inch so you know exactly what the measurements of everything are!). Russ took me to big town next door to pick out some fabric and when we got moved back in, I went to work. I love the result! It goes perfectly in Chloe Jo's room and now I can say that her room is complete!
I decided to "quilt" it with my sewing machine. I had originally planned to tie it, but I am so glad I changed my mind. I think sewing it on the machine was easier and it looks great!
I even love how the back turned out with all the rectangles and squares. The machine sewing part was also inspired by the post on KRDL.

And here is the after. It matches perfectly!

Chloe Jo's New Room!

Since Chloe Jo's bed (crib converted into a toddler bed) sat in water for 2+ days after the flood, Russ and I decided to go ahead and replace it with a big girl bed. Chloe was soooooo excited about her bed and still is! She loves sleeping in it and playing on it during the day. She was also excited about her pink walls. She ran into her room and shouted, "it's pink!" one day when we came by to check out the work that was being done. I love that she loves her room so much!

This is a view of her room from the main door. I love how everything looks with the pink walls. Some of you may say it is a little too much, but Chloe Jo and I both love it! The rug is the same one that was in there before, just new. The old one didn't survive the water.

This is her Princess Hair Bow Holder and hope chest. My dad made the hope chest for me when I was younger and I passed it to Chloe Jo when she was born. I made the quilt on top of the hope chest last week. I'll do a separate post all about that tomorrow.
This is a view of her room from the bathroom door. Our full bath is a Jack and Jill so it opens to both rooms of our place. My dad made the kitchen for my niece and she passed it down to Chloe Jo. Dad made a few modifications and painted it for Chloe Jo before it was put in her room. We bought her bed frame from Target. They have a good selection of metal beds and this particular one had 100% satisfactory feedback. I love it because it will grow with her until she is ready to go to college (ugh, I don't even want to think about that...).
This is the dresser that Grampy (my dad) made for Chloe Jo after she was born. He makes each grandchild a piece of furniture (usually a desk or a dresser). I made the cross stitch, the mobile and the felt flower bouquet. I will do a separate post about the flowers, also.
This is the Cabbage Patch Kid corner. My dad and I made the wagon to use in Russ and I's wedding. I wanted both our baby nieces in our wedding (my older niece was a junior bridesmaid). My niece has spina bifida and couldn't walk at the time and Russ' niece wasn't quite old enough to trust to walk down the aisle so they rode in this wagon that was pulled by my oldest nephew. The Cabbage Patch Kids are all mine, but they look so cute in Chloe Jo's room that I let them live there. Believe it or not, I know all of their names without looking at birth certificates!
And there you have it! Chloe Jo's new big girl room that she loves!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I think it's been about 4 weeks since I participated in WILW! That's way too long! Go on over to Jamie's and link up to tell us what you're loving, too!

I'm loving that we are finally moved back in and settled again after the tornado/flood. There have been a few minor issues that we've had to have fixed, but over all we are so glad to have a home again!

I'm loving a few wall letters/symbols that I bought from the craft store the other day. They were a gold guilt color and I spray painted them with a nickel finish. Here's a sneak peak!

I'm loving that we cleaned out the kiddie pool and filled it back up for Chloe Jo. She loves to play in the water so her pool was sorely missed for the last several weeks!

I'm loving wind chimes and pretties that you can hang outside around your house!

I'm loving these planters. They were in the ugly hanging baskets they came in and I finally transferred them into something a little more appealing. I'm so glad I did! They look great!

I'm loving these pretty flowers Russ brought me yesterday!

I'm really loving Chloe Jo's room! I love the new paint color and her new bed is gawgeous, dahling, gawgeous. And another sneak peak!

I'm loving the headboard I made to replace our other headboard that was ruined by the tornado/flood! Tutorial here!

I'm loving my sweet, sweet family!

Happy Wednesday, ya'll!