Will This Post Be Another 1/15 Of The Way Done Nursery Post?

Nope! This post is an apology for the last two posts that have mistakenly gone up. I ran out of completed pre-written blog posts and the unfinished ones started going up before I noticed. Sorry about that! 
There will be a legit post on Monday.

How about a couple of very random photos to tide you over? ps If you are not a member of my immediate family or one of my closest friends these photos will not tide you over at all.

We had snow in Davidson 2 days ago! We built the lamest snowman you've ever seen and made some pretty fancy snow angels!

August dressed up like a man. So cute and so funny! 

Australia Day was a few days ago. We celebrated by digging up some of my old Aussie t-shirts from I was little and doing a photoshoot of Cora and August in them. Cora's says "Aussie Champ" and August's says "I'm a Vegemite Kid." 

This little cutie insists that all sunglasses be put on up-side-down. If you try them the other way she thinks you're being crazy. 

Auggie in a fat man suit. Yes, below is a photo of my son looking like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. I did not dress him up like this because I thought it would look hilarious (although I do think it looks hilarious). He is sleeping in something called Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit. It is supposed to be a life-changing sleepsuit that magically gets your baby to sleep by [insert funny comment here... I'm too tired to think of one myself]. The verdict is still out. His first night in it was far from magical. Night 2 was pretty decent. If it ends up being as amazing as it is supposed to be I will certainly let you all know.

I hope to see you back on Monday!

Big Girl Room Updates: Curtains, Organization & Some Art!

I was wayyyy late in doing it but a couple of months ago I finally gave you an introduction to Cora's room. Progress has been made since then so I am here to show it off!

The to do list for her room:

• Reassemble all furniture
• Hang art above day bed
• Hang floating shelves above dresser
• Hang blinds
• Hang curtains
• Hang more art in her room
• Paint
• Maybe paint the back of her tall Ikea Billy bookcase a fun color
• Touch up all furniture (the move was hard on it)
• Organize the bookshelves

Now it is photo time!

You have seen my mother-in-law's handy sewing work a few times. Here is another example of it... look at those beautiful curtains! I had just asked her to add about a foot of extra fabric to the bottom of Cora's old curtains. But she decided that she wanted to fancy them up even more. She changed out the old lining to black out lining (I guess she was sick of seeing our classy looking trash bags covering the blackout blinds we bought). It made a huge difference! Even though we have pull down blackout shades in Cora's room the sun still pours in like you wouldn't believe. There are 1/4" gaps around the window and that sunny sunny sunny sun sneaks on in. She also made the curtains wider. We used the Betydlig brackets and Racka curtain rods from Ikea again and are really happy with them.

Some of the art from Cora's old room went up above her daybed. The illustrations are from The Wild and Woolly Animal Book by Nita Jonas. And, I organized her bookcase a bit better.

A little more organization but still missing some decorations: 

The floating shelves above the dresser still haven't been installed. I think the room will really come together when I finally get around to that. 

Here are a few more views of the room: 

Who knows... the next update may be when Cora and her brother start sharing a room!

Dining Room Update: Curtain Time!

This is just a quick little dining room update for you. A few weeks ago I showed you the curtain magic that my mother-in-law made happen in the living room. Today, you get to see her sewing skills put to work in our dining room.

I picked out the Smaborre fabric from Ikea for the job.

The curtains were even delivered to me on hangers:

I am a big fan of Ikea's easy to use and easy to hang curtain rods and brackets: Betydlig brackets and Racka curtain rods. So far, they are the only curtain rods we have used in this house. I like how minimal they are. There are no fancy scepter-looking things attached to the ends. And, they are pretty darn inexpensive. I'm into it.

Up went the brackets:

Scott had to cut the middle Betydlig bracket with a hack saw so it would fit between the window trim and the molding.

I like the look of floor-length curtains much better than curtains that stop at the windowsill but it made a lot more sense to have them this length. Now, you can easily pull the curtains across the window without having the fabric get stuck behind the bench.

Ikea let me down big time with their Tupplur roller blinds. These things stink. They were very easy to install but they do not do their job. The won't stay in place at all. They just roll straight back up or they stop at a totally random spot. Definitely not what you want in a roller blind. We got them because we knew I would be doing a lot of nursing in the dining room and neighbors have a fantastic view of my nursing chair from the street outside.

It took me forever to get the 2 blinds even for this photo:

Normally, they look something like this:

I made the blinds work by putting a nail at the bottom of the window. 

Whenever I want to use the blinds I just pull them all the way down and hook them onto the nail.

I am really happy with the curtains! Yay for house progress!

ps who likes our dining room view? The close neighbor thing really hasn't been a big deal. We get tons of light in our house and none of our windows line up. So it never feels like you are face to face with your neighbor.

The Holidays Are Over! Let's Talk Christmas Decorating!

It is a sad time in our house. Christmas is over and Cora is letting the world know. The Christmas tree and ornaments are gone and so is her dancing snowman. She talks about this at least 15 times per day and goes over all the Christmas ornaments each time. I am partly writing this post so we can look back at the decorations whenever we want and think about how exciting it will be to see them again in 2014.

Cora also hijacked a number of the ornaments to use in her doll house. We now have one less Strawberry Shortcake ornament and the Grinch is now referred to as "dad" to about 10 of Cora's dolls. 

My mom was in town the weekend after Thanksgiving and she suggested that we put up Christmas decorations while she was there. Sold! She is a master holiday decorator! So we put on some Christmas music, drank some hot chocolate and got to work.

The tree fit perfectly by the front balcony. Next year, we plan to have legitimate outdoor decorations but this year we are getting by on the fact that you could kind of see our tree from the street.

 We picked up a real tree topper this year (unlike last year's DIY action) at the dollar store. Cora picked it out and was quite proud of it.

 ADD INSTA PIC

My Christmas themed paper chains with tinsel inside them were strung from our metal bookcase. Yay! Instant festivity!

Check out that awesome Christmas kangaroo pillow. That pillow and almost all of our other decorations are hand-me-downs from my mom. This pillow is my biggest score to date!

An assortment of random decorations lined the window sill... including a stained glass Fred Flintstone Santa Claus from Kings Dominion and framed notes to and from Santa when Kelly and I were little.

Here's another look at our tree. There is another holiday-themed paper chain on the entertainment center. That one is weaved with silver beads because I'm a fancy lady.

You get the idea!

Here's my snazzy Instragram tree.

About a third of our Christmas book collection is not pictured below. We have a MASSIVE DOSE of Christmas books! I stored them inside the coffee table for easy access. Cora was pretty excited about them.

While we were decorating Cora took the opportunity to put all of the stockings, hats, and other random decorations on and go for a little stroll. Stockings became boots. Santa pants became a scarf. It was good times!

I can't wait for the holidays next year. By then we ought to have two kiddos old enough to dress up in crazy Christmas outfits and get excited about all the random little things that come along with the holiday season!