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Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Lilly Pulitzer Week

Every year, on the first day of summer, Lilly Pulitzer has National Wear Your Lilly Day (yes, its a real thing!). Since we just love Lilly so much around here, Ella has a whole week of wearing her Lilly! 

 

Ok, so...Ella is out of preschool for the summer and is starting to get bored. And I have an attic full of teaching supplies that I never use (but I refuse to get rid of in case I ever go back to the classroom!). I decided to do some thematic art and educational stuff with Ella each morning during Lucas's morning nap (because yes we are still stuck in nap jail! Ugh! When will it end?!?!). 
Since this first week fell during National Wear Your Lilly Day (or week in our case!), I thought we would do some Lilly Pulitzer-themed activities, with lots of flamingos and palm trees! 

I wanted to share with you all in case anyone else out there is stuck in nap jail and/or looking for some fun, easy things to do with your preschooler this summer!

First, we looked for some books around our house and got some at the library:

 


Then we did some educational games:

After reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, we did a little palm tree letter matching. 

 

 

You can find the printable here. This can be adapted so many ways. I chose to write the same capital letters on the dot stickers, but you could also write lowercase letters, or if you're really artistic, a picture of something that begins with each letter. You can also skip the dot stickers altogether and have your child use a dot marker to cover the letters as you call them out. 

We also did this shape coloring page

 


Moving on to art projects!

First, we made a handprint flamingo!


Confession: the first time I did Ella's handprints for this, I did them the wrong way! (See above picture) Make sure their fingers are pointing out towards the edges of the paper, not in! Good thing it was an easy fix :)



We also made flamingos out of paper plates and popsicle sticks!




Last but not least, I had this grandiose idea to make a flamingo sun catcher. We used to make sun catchers for all of our different themes/seasons when I taught kindergarten and it is such an easy, yet time-consuming activity! 


First, cut a large piece of clear contact paper and peel off the back. Put down already-cut squares of different colored tissue paper until you have covered the entire piece of contact paper.


You can also spray it with water at this point to get the colors to run a little bit, but I opted not to do that this time.

Then, put another piece of clear contact paper on top and cut out whatever shape you want. 

This is when I realized there was no way in hell I would be able to cut out a freaking flamingo. Ha! So we made a flower instead! 


For sensory play (and something Lucas could do, too!), I made lemon-scented play dough, following this recipe. I just added some lemon extract right before the kneading stage. 
I really love making play dough vs. buying it because I like the texture of it better, I don't worry as much if Lucas eats a little bit (not like that happens...) and it's super cheap so I can just throw it away after a few months without feeling guilty!


And last but not least, we had to have some sort of fun snack!


Ella really enjoyed our "Lilly Pulitzer" activities, so I decided to plan some more thematic weeks! I just can't help myself. 

I'll try to share each of our fun weeks' activities with you throughout the summer. 
Here's my schedule:

This week (June 26-30): Beach/Ocean 
July 3-7: Red White and Blue
July 10-14: Break (Ella has camp again!)
July 17-21: Zoo
July 24-28: Transportation
July 31-August 4: Break (Ella has VBS!)
August 7-11: Fruits
August 14-18: Ice Cream/Popsicles
August 21-25: Camping/Nature
August 28-September 1: Back to School

I am probably a big loser for planning all of this out...and watch, Lucas drops his morning nap next week and we don't end up doing any of this fun stuff! We shall see...!
Stay tuned friends! :)

Monday, June 26, 2017

Half Bathroom Makeover

Our downstairs half bath was easily the ugliest room in our entire house, dare I even say the whole neighborhood?! 

Here's a look at the "before" in all of its 1987 glory...



Are you wondering what exactly is on that wallpaper? We were too. YUCK.

Anyways, since we spent a small fortune redoing our {almost as ugly} master bathroom last fall, I decided to tackle this project on my own. I started the week after Ella's birthday...February 10 to be exact, and finished just before Lucas's birthday, on May 16. So yes this took me 3 months. And it is the smallest room ever. Welcome to getting things done with 2 kids! (Let's not even discuss that it took me another 5 weeks to blog about it!)

The thing that took the longest? Peeling all of that wallpaper!!! I'm absolutely positive it had been up on the walls since the house was built in the 80s. 


This is how much I peeled in 20 minutes. Yeah...
Thankfully, I found this wallpaper steamer on Amazon and it worked wonders! It still took me a while to peel the wallpaper, but at least I was able to peel pieces larger than the size of my thumbnail at a time.

Anyway, here is the finished product!


It is a very small room, and professional photographer I am not, so please excuse the awkward angles and subpar photos! 


I had our contractor who oversaw our master bath remodel come in and install new light fixtures and a new faucet. He also took out (and then later put back) the toilet so I could peel the wallpaper and paint behind it!


What all did I do in here? So glad you asked!

-Peeled wallpaper
-"Mudded" the walls to fill in holes from peeling wallpaper
-Sanded the putty on the walls to make it smooth
-Installed new sconces and faucet
-Painted vanity
-Got new drawer pulls on vanity
-Painted mirror
-Spray painted picture frames and vanity hinges to match faucet
-Installed new towel ring and toilet paper holder

Whew, I think that's it!



Sorry, not the best pic of the sconces, but it was hard to see them when they were on, and the room has no windows, so it gets dark easily! 



{2 of my favorite places from our Italy trip: Venice and Capri!}


Sources:

-Paint color: Sherwin Williams Sea Salt (I actually had a bunch left over from our master bathroom project, and was too lazy to decide on another paint color!)
-Vanity and mirror paint: Annie Sloan in Old White
-Sconces: theLightShop.com
-Faucet: Hayneedle
-Cabinet knobs: Home Depot
-Towel ring: Target
-Toilet paper holder: Amazon (Another thing we had left over from our master bathroom reno!)
-Picture frames: Ikea
-Spray paint for hinges and frames: Home Depot

I still really want to replace that vanity top, but that's another project for another day!!
I'm done with DIY-ing (and let's face it, home projects in general) for a while now!
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Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Anniversary and Father's Day Weekend

Any time Father's Day and our anniversary fall on the same weekend (which is like, basically almost every year), we know it is going to be a busy few days! This year was no exception!

We kicked off our weekend on Friday by going to Ella's show celebrating her last day of gymnastics camp!

 

She had the best time at this camp, and even got to pick out her newest leotard...purple and leopard print, of course.

 

Friday night, my best girl helped me get ready for dinner by trying on my wedding shoes!

 

We celebrated 5 years at Bentley's...as always, our table had a fabulous view of the city!

 

After a yummy appetizer and drinks, I had a filet with shrimp and oh my goodness, it was delicious! 

 

They also brought us out a complimentary dessert for our anniversary!

 

 

Saturday, Ella got to go to a birthday party at her favorite place ever, the cupcake shop!

 

As if decorating cupcakes (and eating them too, duh) wasn't exciting enough, Anna and Elsa showed up!

 

Ella was so excited to see her favorite Frozen gals!
She even managed to sneak on to Anna's lap during story time...

 

They also had a little dance party and played some fun games!

 

Thanks to Gigi and Sarah for an amazing party!! We had the best time!!

 

Sunday was Father's Day. We got off to a rocky start when I somehow broke our treadmill less than 1 mile into my run. It's getting fixed Friday, so we've been running outside in the gross, muggy weather until then! Anyway, Sunday: Trav's 2 requests were to watch golf and grill ribs. 

 
{Please excuse my husband's clothes. It was his day, so I wasn't about to tell him he had to wear something nicer to lounge around the house in!}

He LOVED his "lion plate" that the kids made for him with their handprints (well, Lucas used his feet because we were worried he would eat the paint). 

 

He also made us these delicious ribs and I made the cucumber salad. So, so good. 

 

After dinner, Trav proudly displayed his new lion plate on our kitchen counter. And guess what? It slid down and broke into a million (ok, really like 8) pieces on our granite countertops. Poor guy looked like he was about to cry when that happened! So yesterday, the kids and I went back to Dish It Out where they glued the plate back together. We also made him a new lion plate just for good measure. Trust me when I say it will be kept far away from the countertops...or anything else that may cause it to break! 

Hope you had a good weekend and hopefully you broke fewer things than we did (oh and I didn't even mention my broken vacuum that is in the shop getting fixed...)!!! 

Friday, June 16, 2017

5 on Friday {Our 5th Anniversary!}

Happy Friday!
It's also our FIFTH wedding anniversary today!!!



I thought I'd do 5 fun facts about our wedding/marriage for this week's 5 on Friday!

1. We have celebrated 5 anniversaries together, and I have been pregnant or nursing for every single one, except for 2015! (Nope, not pregnant this year! Just still nursing Lucas...)


{2013: 6 weeks pregnant with Ella; 2014: Had 4 month old Ella at home; 2015: FREEDOM! 2016: Lucas was 4 weeks old!}

2. The only show Trav and I really watch together is Big Brother. I think we are pretty much the only people left in America who still watch this show, but we are sucked in every summer without fail. Trav tends to like more crime-type shows (that give me nightmares), while I like more reality type stuff (hello, Bravo tv), so that's why we don't watch a lot of tv together! We will watch an occasional sporting event together, too...but if its a big UNC game, I will not be anywhere near him! (i.e. National Championship for basketball this year, I watched it upstairs while he was downstairs hollering and freaking out, lol). 

3. I was looking back at my wedding folder in my old email, and I thought you would get a kick out of what songs we had on our "Do not play" and "Must play" lists!


Here is Trav doing the Souja Boy. I can't...



4. Yesterday I was cleaning out the closet in our bonus room and found this gem:



Yes that would be my list of things I was looking for in a guy! Ha! 
Oh and there's also a back side to the paper...


Pretty sure I made this late high school or early college. I was such a dork! 
But, I'm proud to say Trav fits most of my requirements. 😉

5.  Every year for our anniversary, we go to Bentley's on 27, which is where we had our wedding reception. I'm already sitting here, looking at the menu, deciding what I want to eat! I also always wear my wedding shoes.


Two kids later, they are realllllly tight and a little uncomfortable, but its only for a few hours, right?! Hopefully they never go out of style (although they are probably out of style already now...oh well)!

Have a great weekend, and Happy Father's Day on Sunday to all the dads out there!!