Things have been pretty slow for me here in the blog world. That seems to happen when life is being pretty crazy. We had a wonderful Christmas!
I'm super happy that December is coming to a close though. While holidays are nice, they sure bring on the stress. So it is like breathing a sigh of relief when that last present is unwrapped.
Now, I have to throw a birthday party together quick for my little "New Year's Baby". She is not so little anymore though. I cannot believe she will be seven years old. Seriously. Crazy. I know they always say, "it happens so fast!" They meaning everyone. But time still does seem to sneak up on you.
Speaking of, Kason turned six months old this month and with that, he has had many new and fun milestones. Also, that pesky rash has pretty much cleared up! Unfortunately, his biopsy came back inconclusive. What seemed to help was keeping his skin hydrated with a ultra sensitive skin lotion prescribed by the dermatologist, using a free and clear detergent, and a prescription ointment for dermatitis. I have got to be very careful with him because any irritation on his skin will flare up into a rash. I really appreciated all of the feedback on my last post. I tried most of the suggestions including changing my diet, and the coconut oil was also a great moisturizer!
I love this little giggler so much. He is such a cuddly sweet baby. We slowly started him on food mostly because I wanted to make sure of any allergies he might have since his skin has been so sensitive. We are having really good luck so far and he really loves sweet potatoes as you can tell with this picture.
Kason is much further ahead than my other two kids in the crawling department. This little stinker started sitting a 4 months, "army crawling" at only five months which turned into full fledged crawling less then a month later. Now as we are coming to a close on his sixth month he is pulling himself to stand! Crazy kid. You probably don't believe me huh! Good thing I made video proof.
I think I just died of cuteness.
I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and I promise to get back to more fun projects once the new year starts!
So, things have been a bit crazy now that the holidays are in full swing. I'm sure they are for everyone else too. But I will just give a quick recap of what's been going on around here for the last month! I apologize in advance for some of these pictures being poor quality! My phone camera has been way too convenient lately. Oh ya, none of this is in any order. I'm kind of all over the place today!
Kalista got the opportunity to participate in a mini cheer camp with the high school cheerleaders. Boy did she love it. She is such a girly girl so she was super excited to be able to try something like this. I just wish I would have sat on the right side so I could have seen her better!
Kalista's hair is soooo long. I'm told I am not to cut it until it is to her feet.... she loves Rapunzel. Go figure. ;)
The nice thing about having such a girly girl for a daughter is being able to try out new hairstyles on her without complaints. Dress up is her favorite! Would anyone like a tutorial on this particular style? It was super easy and turned out way cute.
Speaking of hair, I finally got my hair highlighted! I was very indecisive on what to do which is why it took me so long to finally pull the trigger. But my fake ombre hair was getting uglier by the day so I decided to play it safe with some highlights. I'm loving them!
Here was Kalista for Halloween. She was Snow White if you can't tell lol. Such a little princess.
Do you see our awesome Angry Birds and vampire teeth pumpkins? Keegan's costume absolutely cracked me up. He was Dracula, but that crazy widow's peak gave him an uncanny resemblence to Paul Ryan. Ha!
My Kason was the cutest little spider-man baby :)
We went to the annual Pumpkin Walk and had a blast! The kids were absolutely amazed at all of the different themed pumpkin scenes.
I had Kalista try to give Kason his first bottle of pumped milk this past month. Ummm... he thought it was just something fun to chew on. I guess I'm not leaving him anytime soon! That's ok, I kind of like having a monopoly on him.
This is what happened when I tried making my very first cheesecake. After all my hard work I went to pull my masterpiece out of the oven and the pie tin folded over in itself dumping cheesecakie goodness all over the bottom of the oven. I may or may not have cried. Don't judge.
On a more serious note, about a week before Halloween Kason had a mysterious rash appear on his face. This is really hard for me to write about because it has been emotionally draining.
I took him to the doctor and he was diagnosed with eczema and given a hydrocortizone cream. The rash continued to spread across his face and inner thigh and diaper area and became very raw. I took him back to the doctor and was then told it looked like yeast so was given medication for that. It wasn't getting better and spreading more so a few days I later took him back into the doctor. My pediatrician was dumbfounded so he brought in a couple other doctors to see if they knew what it was. All of them had never seen a rash like this with a few other random symptoms with no relief with the medications. So he was put on four different medications including an antibiotic to see if all of them combined would get rid of the rash. Finally after three weeks of this nightmare some relief! It was actually clearing up!
Unfortunately it was short lived because right before Thanksgiving he got a bad cold that turned his nose into a faucet. This was taken on Thanksgiving and he was absolutely miserable.
That cold somehow agitated the rash and it reared its ugly head all over again. I was finally referred to a dermatologist. We went to the dermatologist today and he also had not seen a rash like this and so he scraped it. Kason didn't like it. He looked at it under a microscope and still wasn't sure exactly as to what it was. So the next step was to biopsy. He got the biopsy on a spot in his inner thigh, then he stitched him up. It was physically painful for me to see this happen to my sweet baby. Luckily he said it doesn't look dangerous but the symptoms are just very atypical so he was hoping to get a better idea on a diagnosis and treatment. In the meantime he is on a antifungal cream because it showed some characteristics of something fungal. Here is saying some prayers and crossing some fingers!
On a happier note, Kason has really grown and learned so many new things this last month despite him being miserable a lot of the time.
(This was taken right before the rash started.)
Kason weighs over 17 pounds now and learned how to roll over. He has turned into a tummy sleeper! He has also been sitting up unassisted for a month now. The craziest thing of all is that he is trying to crawl! I couldn't believe it! He is only 5 months old! What the heck?! I looked in my other kids' baby books and they were 7 and 8 months before they started crawling. Looks like I'm going to have to baby proof early! When he started to get up on his hands and knees I grabbed my phone and shot this video. Sorry it's sideways, I can't figure out how to change it!
Sorry this post was so long! I really should post more often. Has anyone else experienced a crazy illness in your kid that not even the doctors know what is going on? It is so scary. On a lighter note, have you ever had an experience like my cheesecake disaster? That was a total bummer.
This was a super easy project that literally took like 15 minutes from start to finish. In my opinion it adds more character and curb appeal to the house.
As we were shopping in Home Depot for a new furnace filter we ran across this awesome product. I always wanted Carriage Style garage doors but it wasn't an option with the program we built with. I always thought it would be a down-the-road upgrade we would have to save our pennies for. Little did I know it was an easy project that would only take a few minutes and a few dollars!
This hardware kit was on sale at The Home Depot for only $6.99. Seriously?! It costs about the same as a combo meal at a fast food restaurant. Definitely affordable. How could we pass it up?
Step One:
Place and measure where you want to situate the brackets, making sure they line up on both sides and are level.
Step Two:
Drill the screws in the brackets in the designated holes.
Step Three:
Figure out where you want your handles situated. There are a few different options, whether you want them closer together or farther apart. Make sure they are level, then mark where you need to pre-drill the holes.
Step Four:
Pre-drill where you marked the holes, put on the handles, then insert the bolts.
Step Five:
Put the bracket in the bolts on the inside of the garage door, then tighten the nut around the bolt.
So I did it! I finally finished a project! Lol I think I may need a party. I probably don't deserve one though because it took me over a month to do it and it was finished back in August and I'm just now posting it. I'm lame I know.
Nevertheless, here it is!
I bought this well built table, two Parson chairs, and a bench off of KSL Classifieds for $60. The lady told me it was built in Alaska, so I tend to think it is better built ;) Probably because of this talented lady.
As you can see, aesthetically it was in definite need of a face-lift. Most of the finish was worn off or scratched and I wanted a deep chocolate color stain instead anyways. It is a beautiful rich color that you can still see the grain through.
Here it is with my 2 mocha brown Parson's chairs, and some chairs my sister gave me.
I'm still planning on recovering the Parson's chairs with some wipe-able white faux leather fabric and then building 4 more just like them so I will have all matching chairs. FYI: My husband is a professional upholsterer who used to do it full time and now does it on the side, so he will be the one doing all that work! Although I will try to watch and pick up some tips when we get to that.
First thing we did was sand the remaining finish off with our palm sander in the direction of the grain
{Make sure to have a little kid wave their hand right in front of the camera as soon as you take the pic ;)}
I didn't manage to get pictures of the next steps, but all I did was:
Vacuum the table of all of the dust.
Wiped down with a wet cloth. Then let fully dry.
Applied a dark brown stain called Kona from Rust-Oleum on all surfaces of the table, let dry.
Put a few coats of poly-urethane on, finely sanding in-between coats.
Make sure to read the instructions on the products you are using and let it cure in a well ventilated area for a few days. The longer the better! You don't want all that hard work to get dinged and scratched up as soon as you bring it back in the house!
I'm so happy with end results. Much better than my last table re-do. I think with the supplies and the cost of the table and chairs this cost me about $80. I have TONS of stain and poly-urethane left too. I maybe used 1/10th of both cans, so there is a lot left for other projects. Also this room is pretty much a blank slate. I still have painting and decorating to do in here... just like pretty much every other room in my house. One day or project at a time :)
While it is true that I love buffet restaurants, that is not what I'm talking about today. Instead, I'm speaking of the furniture variety. Even more specifically, antique or vintage buffet tables or aka sideboards.
I am fortunately lucky to have been given one! About three years ago my Grandpa asked me if I would like his buffet table that had been sitting out in his shed for who knows how long. He told me that when he bought his home over fifty years ago that it was left upstairs by the previous owners. From what I understood, it was old when he acquired it. So I have no idea how old this piece of furniture really is.
I believe it is definitely showing its age though. It's dinged, scratched up, but solidly built. I'm hoping to transform this into something more like this.
I'm so excited but not sure when I will get to this project. I've got to finish 5,642 other projects that I have started and not finished. Am I the only one that does this??!!
It seems like having Ombre hair is all the rage now. With celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, and Jessica Biel sporting the gradient hairstyle. However as you can probably tell, this is no dye job. In fact it is the lack of a dye job. This is what happens when I go 6+ months without dying/high-lighting my hair.
And as much as I wish this was a good look on me because of the zero upkeep... it think it looks like ugly re-growth. I just can't pull it off like those beautiful Hollywood starlets.
Soooo... right now I am contemplating what I actually want to do to my hair. Should I just do high-lights like I have been doing for the past couple of years? Or should I bleach it out like I had in this picture circa. 2009?
Or, there is always the option of going to the dark side like I did in 2008.
Although according to my husband the dark is a no-go because it just didn't "look like me". This is about the only picture of it dark that I have because I just never felt like putting on makeup or getting ready when it was brown. Being pregnant with Keegan and feeling 'blah' all the time probably had a lot to do with it. But, I have to agree with him that it just didn't feel like me.
So, what's a girl to do? My sister Rebecca thinks I should chop it up to my collar bone. But the thought of cutting my hair scares the crap out of me! I have had long hair since 6th grade when I cut it up to my chin. Believe me, it wasn't pretty. I won't even provide photographic proof because of how horrible I looked. haha
I could use some feedback on what to do because as you can see, I'm totally lost. I'm not sure if I want to do something subtle or drastic. Anyways, enough of my ramblings. I guess I'll go scour Pinterest and see if I can find the perfect cut and color!
I am lucky enough to have 3 sisters whom I love to spend time with and have lots of fun. Yesterday I spent part of my afternoon with my older sister Rebecca who is very creative and inventive.
This drink was born out of boredom and quest to find something yummy to quench our thirst. We thought it turned out awesome and loved it so much we decided to share it with everyone! You can thank us later ;)
Ingredients: (Serves 4)
2 Mangos cubed
2 cups of Pineapple soda
1 cup of Unsweetened Coconut Milk
1/4 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 cup of Sugar
1 and 1/2 cups of Ice
1 teaspoon of Vanilla (optional)
Note: We blended the other ingredients before adding the vanilla.
We blended all of the ingredients until smooth and ended up with this creamy tropical concoction. We loved it and can't wait to make it again and we hope you enjoy it just as much!
My girl LOVES pink. Although I think that is normal for about any little girl. Heck, when I was a kid I was obsessed with the color too. Just take a listen at one of my favorite songs from when I was about 10.
Now it is going to be stuck in your head all day! haha! I had this song on replay all the time and just was obsessed with the CD all together. Why doesn't Barbie make music anymore? Anyways, back to the point of this post. Here is the before before before.
Hey, we started out with pink insulation walls!
Drywall up!
The actual white walls before
After
You have got to have some room jewelry!
It's not an in-your-face pink. More like a soft, subdued, light and airy pink. I love it! So does Kalista :) The color is called Satin Sheets and I think I bought it at Lowes. I was so excited to paint something pink, that I bought the paint quite a few months before we even moved in.
Here are our process pictures.
First I layed down plastic to protect our new carpet, then I taped off all of the trim and ceiling with Frog Tape... I love this stuff, no bleed through at all! Then removed the outlet covers and light switch plates.
Then we painted, and painted, and painted some more until it was all covered! The kids even got in on the action too.
She loves it!
Now that the painting is done, I have a whole laundry list of what still needs to be done in this room.
Build/upholster a bed
Accessorize and get artwork to put on the walls
Paint the dresser and get new knobs
Get a nightstand second hand and update it with paint
Put curtains up
Get new bedding
But that will take time with a budget. So it will be some time before this room is all done. That's ok, because as of right now this room is the only one that is even painted in the house. I have a few other before and after projects that I have really got to take the time and post. Here is a preview of one I will post soon!
