drop everything

I mostly dropped the ball at home this week in order to do the makeover for Chandee Childress's room. I'm sad I forgot to take a before picture. But before, it had all-white walls, a bed with a lime green bedspread, and a short walmart-quality bookshelf in it. There was nothing hanging on the walls, and she had a $5 mirror leaned against her closet. So imagine a before of the room before you look at the after pictures, k? Thanks. :)

I spent a good six hours on Monday cutting wood to the size of her half-wall. I went up Tuesday evening and sewed an oversized duvet to the right size and stained and installed the wood (shiplap-style) on the wall in her room. The next day, I sewed and painted a saying pillow; broke her mirror trying to remove the old frame, shopped for a replacement, and cut/painted wood to reframe the new one. Then for 10 hours on Friday, I moved furniture, made and shopped for last-minute pieces, and decorated her room. I think it turned out well. And she loved it.

I taped of a section of my garage floor to the dimensions of the wall she gave me and cut wood to fit. It was a puzzle using all the old crate wood to find ones that laid flat and were the same size/color.

my list of things to bring with me

I found this globe, already painted over at a garage sale for $1, so I spray painted it white and gray and used acrylics to add the words I wanted and some leaves. It says, "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin" on one side and "Love makes the world go round" on the other.

The final product (I did not choose the wall color, or I would have picked something lighter for a basement room, but I tried to work with it):

I did the math, and I spent about $100 on this makeover. I didn't buy the wall paint, but I bought or made everything else.

I also helped Julia this week, hung out with my friend Gina one night, and most important of all, had my ultrasound! We're having another girl! (Nobody is surprised, right.) ;) I'm a little disappointed that I will not have the opportunity to mother a boy. But a healthy baby girl is a joy and a blessing and I'm excited to shop for clothes for her. Steve made me give away all our old baby clothes, so I get to start from scratch. Woot woot! :D

While I was painting my pillow, the girls all painted pictures of their own. This is Emilia's.

(upside down) Cecily's

(upside down) Mira's (yes, she wrote her name backwards on it). And those red things at the bottom are a row of flowers. I told Cecily that I had to pour her paint so she didn't waste it, so when Mira poured too much yellow paint, she used it up by making the sky "shiny" even though I told her she didn't have to. :) She's a very conscientious girl.

On Monday, I did ask the girls what they wanted to do with the last week of their summer vacation. They only asked for two things--going swimming one more time, and having s'mores one more time. I'd already set up a get together with a widow in our ward to make s'mores at her house Monday evening, so that item was easy to check off. The lady is really sweet and she invites us once every summer, so it was fun that it worked out so well this week. I didn't want to take them swimming by myself, so we waited until yesterday to check that off so Steve could go too. We all enjoyed it and everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. I did also get them Sno Cones one more time, they attended our ward ice cream social, and they had a lot of time to play outside. All-in-all I think was a good way to end their summer, even if I wasn't around for much of the week.

I washed my hair right before s'mores night and didn't want to make it smell like smoke, so I put it in a scarf. Worked like a charm.

Cecily saw me take a selfie and *had to* take a few of her own.