Finished Bed...

So our mattress came and the bed is completely assembled in our bedroom. I realized, after I shelved all of the books that we had hiding in the garage, that we really didn't have THAT many books. So now I have plenty of extra storage space to buy more!

The next batch of pictures will be little girls' room makeover...

New Painting...

...that's it. I painted this last month. Just thought I'd share.

Oh, and I got my new mattress, so I will post pictures of our finished bed soon.

New bed and bedroom changes.

I spent my Saturday cleaning out my garage to make space to build a platform bed for our new king sized mattress that will (hopefully) be delivered this week. Now we don't live the in the biggest house, so with a family this size, I am ALWAYS trying to make things that serve multiple functions. I scoured the internet looking for free platform bed plans (because I'm cheap like that), but didn't really find anything that I liked. Plus, I really wanted somewhere that I could store all of the books that had been taking up space in my garage. So after hours of Google searches, I decided to just design my own. I wanted something really simple with ample storage.

The great thing about this is I could have the lumber cut to size at the hardware store (because, as you know, I do not own power tools) and I put it all together in about an hour and a half. The total cost of the bed with lumber, cuts, sandpaper and wood glue (I had nails already) was about $95. (I will post more pictures when we actually get our mattress and move it into our bedroom)

Our house is going through some sort of spring transformation right now. My mother is moving back to St. Louis to be closer to my older brother, so the girls are separating into two rooms (bigger girls in one room, smaller girls in the other). There are a lot of redecorating projects in the works (which means my entire house in a disaster area at the moment). Here are the bones of my ideas for each room:

Smaller girls room has beige walls and a bare wood bunk bed. They will get their own pretend little town. They will have the play kitchen, the doll crib and clothes in their walk in closet to play house. They will also have a book shelf and the old modern doll house and barn. I just found (for crazy cheap at a church yard sale) a Melissa & Doug wooden mailbox (pretend post office) and a wooden work bench. I am turning the workbench into a farm stand that will be stocked with felt produce. There are a couple of other things that will happen in there.

The Bigger girls' room is green. They will get twin beds and the new modern dollhouse (I haven't taken pictures of it yet). We have a red, antique drop leaf table (that belonged to a relative of my grandmother) that will become their writing table (pen pal letters and such). I also found a vintage, turquoise typewriter (YEEEEE!!!!) at the thrift store in perfect condition. It will go on their writing table. I'm not sure what else I'll come up with as I start putting things together, but I promise to share pictures as I go.

What the fock??

I've mentioned before that Zion has her own little language. Generally, she is full of very sweet little speech impediments and mispronunciations. But sometime I really need her to get some words right. Case in point, she has a REALLY hard time pronouncing the word frog. Not a big deal, right? I mean, how often does a two year old really need to use the word frog in a sentence? Honestly, not often. The problem, you might ask? Well...she says "fock"(Yes, I know we all loved Ben Stiller's quirky name in the movie). Compounded with the fock problem is the random addition of "a" at the end of words (i.e. "me lika juice." or "I'ma back." I think Super Mario had a huge influence on her vocabulary, but I digress). Where is all of this going? I guess I'm pretty used to all the fock talk around here (apparently EVERY picture book has a frog in it somewhere. Who knew?). Well, a couple of days ago, Zion was crouching on the dining room table (naked, but that little issue is a post for another day), and my mother called her a little frog baby - because of the position she was in. Zion thought this was hilarious and figured she would say back (loud and proud) to her grandmother, " ME FOCKA BABY!!" Yep. That's what she said.

Spy vs Spy

Another birthday party is upon me. The youngest three girls are born the end of December, beginning of February and end of March so I feel like I am constantly thinking about birthday for about four months. Ashni's eight birthday is March 26th. (I know I've said it before, but I really can't believe how fast they are all growing up). She asked me a few months back if she could have a spy birthday. Actually, she says she doesn't remember asking me that, but "it sounds like a good idea anyway." So, the pre-party planning is underway. I try to start thinking about things early (although I typically procrastinate on the actual work) and this is what I have on my to do list so far:

1. find some cool Spy vs. Spy imagery on the net

2. print out invitation in a secret code (with decoder) and enclose in mini manila folder and sealed in "top secret" envelopes.

3. create id tags with space for fingerprints for spy kid party guests

4. come up with a secret code scavenger hunt

5. think of some other spy-like games (suggestions welcome)

6. fingerprint cupcake toppers

That's it so far. I will post as things start coming together.

Jena's newest obsession

I know that a few years ago (and still today) there was a HUGE American Girl craze sweeping the country. Fortunately, we lived on an island then and our girls were still pretty little so they A) had never even heard of American Girl and B) were too young to care. Besides, I am not a fan of most dolls because I think they are creepy (that's my secret phobia). On top of the dolls being insanely expensive (to me), they did not resemble any part of my daughters, so we skipped the whole thing. Until recently. A couple of months ago, we came across a doll at Tuesday Morning that Jena fell in love with. She'd saved up some money so we let her get it. It's from a brand called Karito Kids. It's along the same lines as American Girl (they come with a book, and some other things), but each doll is from a different country and actually LOOKS like she would be from that country!! Jena's first doll is named Ling and she is from China. She loves her, but really wanted to get Lulu, the doll from Kenya (which really resembles her). So on our last trip to Tuesday Morning, guess what we found. So, my mom shelled out $30 to bring Lulu home. Now, I still think that these dolls are CRAZY expensive (they retail for $99), but Tuesday Morning is an awesome place to get stuff for a bargain. Of course, now Jena is busy everyday sewing clothes and making furniture for her dolls. Soon, she's going to have to build them a house in the backyard because I don't know where to plans to put all of this stuff.

Happy Birthday Zion

While others elsewhere were waiting on pins and needles to find out whether we will have six more weeks of winter, the David clan was celebrating the second birthday of its youngest member. Yes, today is Zion's second birthday. I really can't believe it. It seems like just a couple of months ago I was posting about her first birthday and how bittersweet it was. This one is equally bittersweet as we have seemingly left behind all things baby. Instead of her chunky, cloth diapered rear end toddling around the house, we have her extremely slimmed down rear end running at top speed in underwear and jeans. Instead of sweet little baby babbling, she's been saying for days now "ater tomorrow and ater tomorrow, my birtday". Well, it is after tomorrow and after tomorrow kiddo. Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet Zion Sage!

The girlies at Holly's Sweet Tooth (the local candy shop and ice cream parlor) enjoying mini ice cream cones.

A VERY happy ice cream face.

Notice the fresh birthday haircut. I thought cutting it the first time would make it all grow back evenly. I was wrong. It just grows weird, I guess.

We took a trip to Square Books Jr. (the local children's book store and all around fun place to hang out) to play and read books, but was quickly reminded that Zion had not had a nap. So she slept through her play time.