Busy!

Well, it's not quite 11pm, Monday night. Arianna is asleep (for now) MUCH earlier than normal, so I thought I'd try to write a quick post. Dan is asleep too, so I'm sitting in the hallway on the floor, using the laptop - the keys are loud, and the mouse-click button squeaks. Lol. Strangely enough, Marissa is still wide awake! She took an extra long nap today for some reason (slept til 4:30!), so I'm not too concerned. But we actually have to get up and go somewhere tomorrow morning, so hopefully she falls asleep soon! I'm still amazed that she's completely dry in her underwear every night now. We used to wake her up to go potty before we went to sleep, but I haven't done that in a while, and she's still been fine! It seems so weird to me that she's old enough to be so responsible!

I got up this morning and got ready to go in to work and drop off the work I did over the weekend. While I was getting ready, I got a call from Cheryl at work, asking me if I could come in tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of today. She said they'd be getting a ton more work today, and I could take some home to do Tuesday night, bring it back and get more Wednesday, and then bring that back on Friday to get my usual weekend work. I don't usually do any during the week, but another girl is going to be gone, and it's at the end of one of their deadlines. Hopefully it won't be too much (I can still tell them how much I want).

Before I found out that I was going to be doing work during the week, we had already planned two play dates. Tomorrow we're going over to my friend Susan's house so we can chat and Marissa can play with her 3 year old. They get along so well, and after they left last time, Marissa cried! Anyways, we'll spend the morning there, and then stop by my work to quickly log in/out all my papers. Then Thursday we're going over to Kate's house (married to Aaron who used to work with Dan). She has a 4 year old boy name Trevor, and an 18-month old girl named Shaelyn (and I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong). Trevor is crazy, but I think it's mostly BOY. Lol. He and Marissa have a blast too, but we haven't even seen them since Arianna was tiny and stayed on a blanket all day! (Did she really used to stay in one place??!)

Wednesday we have to go in to my work to log in/out, and then it's Cubbies night at church for Marissa. And today I got a call from a friend from church who just had a baby recently. Friday we are going to watch her 3 year old boy named Cole while she takes the baby to an appointment, and then I'll have to go in to work sometime that afternoon. He's a sweet boy, but also crazy! He and Marissa had a fun time playing the other night when we all got together for pizza before Cubbies, so I think we're going to try to get together more often.

Phew! That wore me out just typing up our week! Today as I realized all the stuff we'd be doing all week, I started to get overwhelmed. So I actually did work while the girls napped today. Usually I reserve that time for ME time. But today I dusted like crazy (NOT my favorite chore), cleaned the downstairs windows, and picked up some of the junk we tend to leave on our entryway table. Then tonight, Dan took the girls grocery shopping (his task, since he's the Coupon King), and I cooked up some baby food for Arianna. I just used canned veggies and fruit, and mashed them to mush in the food processor. It was a whole lot easier than I was expecting, and I realized that it would be helpful if I had more ice cube trays! I got peas, green beans, potatoes, and peaches done. That should last us a while, since I'm still introducing her to things gradually. She's really only had rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, applesauce, and apple/prune juice mixed into her cereal. I just mashed the carrots with a fork on a plate and froze a ton in the ice cube trays a while back. But I tried to mash peas on a plate and it did NOT work. Lol. So now we have tons of new stuff for her to try! It was actually kinda fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she reacts to each new food.

Arianna's been letting go of furniture these days and standing completely unassisted for LONG periods of time. It's so funny to see her standing all by herself, using both hands to play with something! Marissa "cruised" for over 4 straight months, so it's possible Arianna will also take this last "step" slowly. But there are times when it looks like she's about to take off already, and I'm not ready! She's also still had this annoying runny nose and cough for quite a while now. The nose thing comes and goes - some days she doesn't have any problems, and other days I can't keep the snot from running down her face! The cough is pretty consistent though - consistently wakes/keeps her up at night - and it's REALLY getting on my nerves! She's totally happy and doesn't care at all, but I do! I don't particularly want to go in to the doctor's office and expose the girls to all those germs there, but I don't want this cough to keep going either. I'm already worried about going in there for her 9-month check-up at the end of November...speaking of...she's 8 months old! We got the email saying what babies this age are normally doing developmentally, and Dan and I just had to laugh: "As your baby's muscles are becoming stronger, she's apt to lunge forward onto all fours from a sitting position. She may go into a "precrawl" exercise, rocking back and forth on hands and knees with her trunk parallel to the floor. Most babies begin to crawl between 7 and 10 months." She's been crawling since 5 months! Our living room constantly looks like a toy bomb went off in it, and it's mostly from Arianna pulling EVERY SINGLE TOY out of her ottoman/toy box (which she has now fallen into twice - so funny! I got a picture the 2nd time, it's coming, don't worry!). She is a joy, but she is sure a handful!

Well, I really should take advantage of Arianna's early night and go to bed before she wakes up again (she is NOT sleeping well these days, so therefore neither am I!). Although, I'm a little hesitant to go to bed with Marissa still wide awake (it's now 11:13)...

My chair makeover

My $3 garage sale chair (I tested the spray paint at the top. The whole chair was all tan/speckly.)
After I removed the seat, and began taking staples out
Beginning to re-upholster the seat. I used an old sweatshirt of my dad's (from the 70's? It had batting in it - odd) to reinforce the cushion and make it look smoother. (It's sitting on 1 out of 2 of my FREE wingback chairs - with an old sheet over it - that I will also eventually reupholster when I have the money for 14+ yards of gorgeous fabric!)
The final seat. This was the skirt I wore to my college graduation. I CLEARLY do not fit in it anymore. Lol. But I love the colors. I want to eventually buy some cool orange fabric, but for now, this will do (and it was free!)(I LOVE using a staple gun. So much POWER! Lol.)
Cedarville University, May 2005
Close-ups of the original finishStripping and sanding: I used Dan's spray stripper (he used it for the bicycle he re-painted) and scrubbed it with steel wool. There was yellow paint under the spotted finish, then white primer under that. I didn't have the time, energy, or amount of spray stripper to take it completely down to the bare wood on the whole thing, so I made it my goal to at least get most of the yellow off.
Primed with left-over tinted primer from painting the basement dark maroon.
After 2-3 coats of glossy black spray paint. I had some left in a can of Krylon, but it ran out before it was covered, so I had to buy another can. We had a gift card to Home Depot, so it ended up being Rustoleum brand instead.
Screwed the seat back in (When I screwed it into the old holes, it wasn't centered! So I re-screwed my own holes to center it.)
Trying it out in the mudroom, it's original intended location. I couldn't decide if I wanted it on the left wall, the right wall, or in the corner. But I ended up not liking it there at all, especially because it would slide every time someone sat in it, and mark up the wall behind it.

Final location: right inside the front door. I love it here because Dan walks in from work, and doesn't have to walk all over the carpet to remove his shoes in his recliner!

One more time...
BEFORE: ugly, faded seat, speckly finish

AFTER: modern, bold, fun print

Holy heart attack

Last night, I was putting Marissa to bed, and Dan was finishing putting groceries away. He said he only wasn't watching Arianna for a minute, and then he went looking for her around the corner of the entryway, then around by the front door, and then he heard her on the stairs. She had just climbed up 3/4 of our full staircase in about 2 seconds!!! We already have a gate at the bottom of the stairs, so now we need to close it! We hadn't been closing it because I've been watching her try to climb up the stairs, and she couldn't, and also because Marissa can't open it. I'm still freaking out every time I think about it. I had just finished putting Marissa to bed and was walking towards the stairs when I heard Dan calling "Arianna?" and then I heard him freaking out and as I turned the corner I saw him dash up the stairs to her. When he heard her, he poked his head around the corner to look up the stairs, and she turned around to grin at him, and somehow managed not to fall! This child is certainly keeping us on our toes!

In other news, I think I forgot to mention that her first tooth poked through last week, and her second did today (bottom front)! She had a lot harder time with it than Marissa ever did - we didn't even know Marissa was getting teeth when it happened! But Arianna was pretty upset for a few days when it was first popping through.

We also just recently started her on mushy food! We're taking it kinda slow, but she's been eating rice cereal for about a month. I didn't want to introduce too many things at once, so she's only had applesauce and carrots so far. I'm "making" her food, so I'm basically just mushing up adult cooked veggies for now. Eventually I'd like to make a huge batch of them and freeze them. But that just sounds like an ordeal! Anyways, I just mashed up carrots and she LOVES them! She's even able to eat them with chunks in them, which surprises me. I've also been trying to give her applesauce, but she will have NO part in it! It's so weird, because even unsweetened applesauce is sweet! The LOCKDOWN babies manage to do with their mouths is impressive!

Rach was here for her fall break this past weekend. It was loads of fun, and the girls loved every second of it too. Unfortunately, the house suffered. Lol. I still have dishes and picking up to do to catch up from being busy all weekend. We went to a bonfire with our church group Saturday night, and it was really fun too. Marissa ate and ate and ate and still kept whining that she was still hungry. Sometimes she won't eat 2 bites of something, and other times she won't stop! Sunday, around 4-5am, Arianna decided she didn't really need any more sleep. Lol. She wasn't wide awake, and she wasn't upset or anything. She just wouldn't stay asleep! I ended up sleeping in and skipping church, and Arianna and I ended the morning around 11, together in my bed. It was wonderful to cuddle with her, and get that extra sleep! I also managed to do about 5 hours of work this weekend. So I guess I was pretty busy!

Well, I figured I'd do a quick post, since I've been slacking on here lately. I have before, during, and after pictures of a project I've been working on, so that'll be my next post!

*EDIT* I forgot one of my favorite events of the weekend: I got a professional massage! It was a Christmas gift last year when I was hugely pregnant, so obviously I didn't go right away. And then Arianna needed to nurse all the time, so I waited some more. And since my sister was in town, I didn't have to wait to do it on a Saturday when they are usually very busy. It was at the massage place I worked at for a few weeks last summer, and I had no idea their massage tables were heated! I'm glad I waited til it was cold, because that's one feature I wouldn't have wanted to miss! It was the MOST relaxing 45 minutes of my life, and I'm still trying to figure out a way I can go EVERY week, since it's right by the place I pick up/drop off my work on Mondays and Fridays. It was heavenly!

Rach and I also went to a Mark Lowry concert. He's a Christian singer/comedian that we LOVED when we were kids, and he was in town! Granted, he's a little older now, and certainly not quite the same style we like now, but it was still lots of fun!