Bed Project

A while ago I saw this really cute idea for toddler beds online where you pretty much make a frame that fits over the bed from PVC pipe, make fabric curtains to fit over the pipe and you end up with a cute little tent over the bed. I thought Bradley and Gracie would love that, so we decided to make them when we moved Gracie into Bradley's room. Then I started thinking about it and didn't want the bed to be just sitting directly on the floor, so we were going to make a little frame for it to sit on. THEN, I was thinking about how I'd love to have some storage space under the beds since space is going to be very limited once they are both in one room together. So, we adjusted the plan again :) After many changes and tweaks, we finally came up with a plan, got material and went to work.

We pretty much wanted little cubes to put baskets or totes in, so they look like 2 bookshelves on their side.

It's really nice how Kevin designed it because once all the kids are out of the toddler beds we can take the two sides apart and use them as bookcases or shelves, or even a bench seat with cushions on top.

Bradley is always eager to help out Daddy any way he can.

Gracie's big thing lately is getting (stealing) wipes and wiping everything in the house down - so that's how she helped out with the beds :)

All put together, with nice trim which happened to make a nice lip on top to keep the bed from sliding off at all.

Then we primed them... (Painting is one of Bradley's very favorite thing to do)

And painted them.

The one thing that's too bad now is we feel like adding the PVC pipe on top would just be too much and too tall now, so we're going to hold off on that for now. We did use some of the PVC pipe to make bed rails for them.
We're putting the final touches on the room right now and are hopefully moving Gracie in there in the next couple days, so I'll take pictures of the new room and let you know how Gracie is doing in the big girl bed - I'm dreading it a little bit :) But, I did that with Bradley too and he was always so great, BUT it's a whole different ball game with the two of them together :)

Zucchini round 1!

We have had several zucchini ready in the garden for a while now, but like I said before, I was scared away by spiders every time I went out to pick them. I finally caved and brought Kevin out there and pointed out which ones I wanted and watched as he carefully, and quickly picked them - all the while pointing out to me how he was not getting attacked. Yes, he survived, he's bigger than I am and the spiders must have ran away. We happened to pick them when it was raining outside, but it was actually really nice because it's been so hot around here lately. We definitely have some massive zucchinis, I've never seen zucchinis this big (granted I don't see that many zucchinis :) ) And Bradley was SO excited about how big they were, he could barely even hold all of them while I took pictures :) Now I just have to figure out how to get my family to eat zucchini :) I am going to make lots of zucchini bread (recipe courtesy of Grandma Mary Ann) and I made fritters the other night that I thought were very tasty but no one else would eat them, darnit.

New Toy

So you know how my camera died? I somehow convinced Kevin to let me buy an SLR camera, something that I've been wanting to do FOREVER but never was able to before. I figured it could be my birthday, and mothers day, and Christmas presents for the next couple years or so :) So YAY, I got a nice new camera!! I'm still trying to learn all about it so that I can take the best pictures I can. I'm reading a lot online, watching videos online and trying to play around with it to teach myself all about aperture, shutter speed, focus modes and all that fun stuff! I'm having a blast with it. I always have taken a lot of pictures of my kids, but now I think they're getting a little annoyed :) I think I took about 200 pictures the first day :) Here are some of my favorite shots so far, experimenting with different modes and effects :)

4th of July

4th of July was a lot different this year. Because of the terrible wildfires that have been out of control around here, all personal fireworks were banned and several cities cancelled their shows - including Fort Collins. At first it was just postponed, which I was upset about, but had comfort in knowing we'd still have our show later - but then they went and cancelled it completely. I have NEVER spent a 4th of July without fireworks at City Park - it's a tradition, and I'm so sad we missed it this year, it just didn't feel the same! I know it's just a precaution and I do understand that. And actually, as much as I hated to admit it, I would totally understand the postponement. But not the cancellation. They could have postponed them one week and we were already in a better place after getting quite a bit of rain right after the 4th. The red flag warning was even lifted in this area 1 week after the 4th. Oh well - enough complaining :) I spent it with my family and that's all that matters :) Luckily we went to the Rockies game a couple nights before and saw their amazing show and the kids loved it!

Then on the 4th we just had a nice, lazy day hanging out and had a little bbq. Then we went to the park to play before heading to Loveland to watch their fireworks.

Since probably most of the people in Fort Collins had the same plan, it was pretty crazy and we didn't feel like parking miles away and walking, so we just found a little spot next to the street and watched from there. Not my favorite spot, not the best view, not City Park :( But we got to see fireworks on the 4th of July and the kids were happy, so I was happy :)

One of Gracie's very favorite things right now are flags, so even seeing all the "Merica Flags" everywhere was a treat :)

Playing Catch

Garden 5 weeks in...

Here's the garden at 5 weeks. My zucchini are taking over! I'm going to have to start cutting off some of the leaves because they are drowning out the peppers. I was sure loving my garden but the more and more it grows the more and more spiders I find :( I'm going to have to get over this spider phobia of mine! I have gone out to pick zucchini 3 times now and I see spiders all over and I get scared to touch anything and I come back inside. Especially those zucchini leaves - the spiders like to hide on the underside and then jump out to get me when I touch the leaf. I have to get over it though because there are several that are definitely ready to be picked, along with quite a few peppers. I see some tiny little green tomatoes starting to grow, so that's exciting. I'm excited to actually be able to eat something from it soon!!!

Sammie's 5 months!

I feel like I JUST posted her 4 month update, these months are just flying by! Sammie is just such a fun little girl and sweet as can be. I did stop swaddling her which I feel might have been a little too early but it's just so hot and she gets SO hot and sweaty, so I figured she'd get used to it and be more comfortable. She is pretty good about it now, she likes to roll over and sleep on her left side and suck on the pacifier. It's pretty cute because if she's on her back and you give it to her she'll just roll to the side automatically. She will roll from front to back and back to front now but doesn't do either a whole lot. She will grab her pacifier now and she likes to hold on it while she chews on it. I KNOW her teeth are moving around in there and hurting her quite a bit, she's had a couple bad days and nights because her gums are hurting her. It's pretty cute I'll start rubbing her gums with my finger and she'll just fall into my hand and lean into it and close her eyes. She is usually very good at naps but she has been waking up more at night. I'm so used to just grabbing her and feeding her so I'll do that over and over and over again but I need to start giving her the pacifier or just waiting a little bit to see if she goes back to sleep without being fed all the time. Originally we were planning on moving Gracie into Bradley's room when Sammie was about 6 months but as I'm writing this that's less than 3 weeks away and I don't think I'm ready :) BUT I do know that getting Sammie into the nursery would help me sleep better, so it should be somewhat soon. Just last night she realized that she could put her foot in her mouth and chew on her toes, and she was very excited about that! She's getting to be such a little girl!!