18 Months!

Bailey turned 18 months on June 18th… boy how time has flown!

Here’s a picture of her this time last year…

…and here’s a picture of her now!

She’s changing and growing so fast. Sometimes Craig and I literally see her changing day-to-day… it’s absolutely amazing to watch!

At her 18 month pediatrician visit Bailey weighed 20lbs. 11oz. (5th percentile) and measured 31-3/4 in. long (50th percentile).  I, of course, was disappointed that she had yet another drop in the weight percentiles (at her 1 year visit she was in the 15th percentile), but Dr. Marlow was very kind to reassure me that she’s perfectly healthy.  So I guess we’ve got a healthy and happy little little girl!

A New-To-Us Mirror!

I found this old mirror at Salvation Army a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t wait to bring it home.

 

 

The mirror was in pretty good shape, but the frame definitely needed some sprucing up.  I figured that I would clean it off and paint it just like I did our entry hall mirror that was a Salvation Army find a couple of years ago (the only picture I could find of it was from Bailey’s 1st birthday party, so don’t worry… we don’t normally greet guests to our house with balloons and a rhyming fish).

 

 

So I cleaned off the dust and grime and then covered the mirror with cardboard to prevent it from accidentally being spray painted (all of our newspaper went out with the recycling a few days earlier, so I used a couple of empty cereal boxes instead).

 

 

Then I grabbed the spray paint and got busy.  I chose to paint it orange… a color we don’t have much of in our house (aside from all of the orange touches in Bailey’s room).  I guess I was feeling adventurous?  Or maybe it was just the only can of spray paint I found that seemed to have enough paint left in it to do the job?  Who knows!  The point is that this is what I ended up with.

 

 

And after removing the cardboard and cleaning off a couple of stray orange speckles on the glass, this is what it looks like in our new kitchen!

 

Definitely a big change from what we usually have… but I think I like it!  Apparently change really can be good!

Weekend Visitors!

As is tradition for the month of June, our wonderful friends Laura and Travis came to visit us for the weekend (you can look back at their last two June visits to Kingsport here and here).  They had the honor of being the first non-family overnight guests at our house since we began our renovation 3 months ago, and we were more than happy to have an excuse to not work the weekend away!

We spent the weekend doing a few of the old favorites, such as eating dinner at TK’s Big Dogs Too and enjoying the Bluegrass on Broad concert…

…paying a visit (okay… maybe two visits) to Dairy Queen…

…and checking out the local farmer’s market.  We also spent some time trying something new.  Saturday we went to Johnson City for the Little City Roller Girls roller derby!  I loved the movie Whip It, so I was very interested to see what roller derby is really like… and let me tell you, it wasn’t quite like the movie, but it was still really a lot of fun to watch! 

Definitely a fun visit with Laura and Travis… as usual!

Old Wooden Caddies

I decided to spruce up two old wooden caddies to be used in Bailey’s room.

The first caddy I bought  at Goodwill for $0.99 (originally $1.97, but marked 50% off).  I thought that with a little TLC it would be perfect for holding some of Bailey’s books, CD’s, or small toys. 

So I quickly got to work sanding and spray painting.

And here’s what I ended up with!  Just perfect!

The second wooden caddy we had already been using in Bailey’s room to hold her diapers and lotions.  And I decided that I may as well freshen it up with a little paint too.

This one I decided to paint red.

Definitely an improvement! (sorry the picture is so dark… not sure what was going on with the camera)

Repurposing a Metal Basket

I found this metal basket at a church rummage sale a couple of months ago.  I’m not quite sure what it’s original use was, but for just $1.00 I figured “what the heck… I can find something to do with it.”

So I took it home and gave it a quick coat of red spray paint.

Then I added four cylinder vases (bought at 50% off from Hobby Lobby) and some fresh flowers.  And voila… a flower arrangement that’s sure to brighten anyone’s day!

Back to Square One

So, it looks like I completely jinxed things with my previous post about converting Bailey’s crib to a toddler bed. 

Long story short… the last few nights have been horrible! 

With the side rail of her crib removed Bailey could easily climb down from her bed in the middle of the night and walk next door to our room.  Which she did over and over the last four nights!  And every time we’d take her back to her bed it would only be a matter of minutes before she’d sneak back over to our room.  And I hate to admit it, but after battling with her for an hour or more on more than one occasion at 2:30 a.m. we totally gave in and took her into the bed with us.  I know… we’re completely to blame for all of this and we totally deserve what we get!  But at some point exhaustion just takes over and you begin to operate on auto-pilot… and I guess that’s what was going on!

So, I’m very frustrated to say that we’ve had to convert her toddler bed back to a crib.  Well… not really frustrated… more like upset with myself.  She had so much trouble sleeping when she was younger and we worked really hard with her to get those problems fixed… and now it’s all out the window.

She obviously wasn’t ready for this transition and I was the one really pushing for it.  She had been sleeping so well before this transition.  She was going down for bed so easily.  She wasn’t crying out at night anymore and was always able to put herself back to sleep.  I was so wrapped up in prepping her for our summer travels (where we would be without access to a crib) that I totally overlooked the fact that she simply wasn’t ready for this big step! 

But, in our defense she really was getting better with it at first. Then something happened and she started waking up every night at 2:30! And it has been all down hill from there.

And, I mean, I knew we were trying to transition her to a toddler bed really early, but I seriously thought she could handle it.  Well I was certainly wrong… and Bailey didn’t waste any time in showing me that!

So now we're left with a baby who’s totally confused and out of her sleeping routine.  Looks like we may be back to square one.

So consider this a cautionary tale… just because you may be ready for your child to reach a certain milestone or transition to a certain thing doesn’t mean that your child is ready.  Definitely let the baby be in the driver’s seat when it comes to these things… otherwise you’ll be paying for it like we are!

Take Out the Papers and the Trash!

We finally have our new garbage cans installed (thanks Craig… you’re the best honey-do ever)!  We were tired of having to walk to the opposite end of the kitchen to throw anything away or into the laundry room anytime we had anything to recycle, so we decided to get a roll-out garbage can system that would fit in to the base cabinet next to the sink.

We considered purchasing a system from the company that manufactured our new cabinets, but it turned out to be two or more times as expensive as buying a similar system from a home improvement store and installing it ourselves.  After reviewing our in-store options we settled on this system by Rev-A-Shelf.  We also sprung an extra $10 for a door kit so that the cabinet door could be attached directly to the front of the sliding track.

We figured that this would be perfect because it would give us a bin for the garbage and a separate bin for the recycling, which in turn would free up some much needed space in the kitchen and laundry room.  So, in true form, Craig got right to work installing the sliding track and then attaching the cabinet door using the door mounting kit we bought.

And in no time flat he was done!  Definitely a much better solution for us!