Getting ready for 1

This has really just been the craziest month. Trying to get ready for Lila's birthday has been nuts. Thankfully I started early and got a lot of stuff done. Then came the kitchen mini-remodel.

It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but just never made the decision to go for it. Two years ago when we bought this house, we both loved the idea of staining the cabinets dark. We thought that it would really modernize the kitchen. I knew from previous experience of refinishing my bedroom set that this would be no easy task. But, of course, I was ready to jump in. It was fall and we had just moved in. There were lots of other things going on so we put it off to spring.

Well, in January of that lovely year, we got pregnant. There were other things on our mind than refinishing the kitchen cabinets so they just got put on the back burner. Early this spring, I made the decision to paint our countertops. I absolutely knew that this was something I wanted to do from the moment I found out it could be done. They were an atrocious burgundy/maroon color. It was awful! I got those painted and while I doubted the color that I had chosen for a little bit, I have come to be very thankful that that is what I chose. Because then I made the decision to paint more!

Finally, two weeks before Lila's first birthday party that we were hosting at our house, I went and got the paint and just did it! I had been thinking for a while that instead of stripping, sanding, and staining the cabinets that we would just paint them dark brown. My mom said not to, that I would regret it. Of course, I did it. After all, mom hadn't seen the countless number of blogs that I had of people who remodeled their kitchens for less than $100. I was very "sold" on the idea of painting rather than staining. Plus it was a lot less work for me! :)

I went to Wal-Mart and got some color sheets. Once I found the color that almost exactly matched our new kitchen table, I took it to Barnes Lumber Co. in Harrisburg, IL (There's your shout out. If you had a website, I'd hyperlink this, but ya don't!) and the matched it for me. I found a gorgeous Coral color while I was there and decided that I also needed to paint the walls to brighten up the kitchen. Another point for me, because it totally brought everything together.

So here are the shots starting from the very beginning!

When we moved in. This countertop is just ugly. Oak is just not our style...especially light oak that is apparently cheap! LOL

I found this Rustoleum Countertop Paint and decided to try it. Glad I did.

Looked a little better, but not quite exactly what I wanted yet.

I liked the wall color ok, but it was a little minty for my taste and our old kitchen chairs rubbed marks on the walls that I couldn't get off. So I had to change it.

New kitchen table and chairs. Excuse the mess!

Dunzo! We also ripped the top "detail" off of the cabinets. Neil said that took 10 years off of them immediately...I agreed.

I still need to find some material for a valance and get a new one made. That's next on my list, not only because this one doesn't match, but it WAY to country for our taste!

Once again, please excuse the mess. Arts and crafts for Lila's party going on! I also still need to get some other artwork or decor up on the wall. The south wall is very bare!

If anyone has any suggestions for artwork or an accent color for the valance, let me know. I'm not sure what to do with it! Also, I'm wondering if I should just stick with the valance or do a cafe curtain and valance...I don't know. Whatever I do, I'm sure it will be fine!

Labor Day Weekend

You'll have to forgive me, a few weeks ago I tried to start my blog on our iMac in an application called iWeb. It's really cool how it works and I really enjoyed getting started...then I found out that I had to pay for it. I didn't get deep into the details, but just the word "buy" set me off at the time. I had already written my entire post on our Labor Day weekend festivities and thought to myself, I'll give Lila a bath and come back in and repost it to my blogger account.

That was 3 weeks and 2 days ago. Like I said, I'm sorry. I'll just go ahead and play the "we've been really busy card". Actually if you know me, you'll know that that isn't a lie! :)

So here's my post for Labor Day!!

We had a wonderful day today. We actually got to sleep in a little, with a little bribery to Lila. It was about 9:00 or so when we ended up getting up. We hung out and played this morning. Drank some coffee and ate some breakfast as a family. I got a few things done before Lila got down for a nap.

About 20 minutes after she crashed, unwilling mind you, we got a semi-surprise visit from Aunt Megan and little cousins Nicolas and Halle. They were quite disappointed that L was sleeping when they got here, but she must have known they were sad because about 30 min after they arrived, she started stirring! It’s so fun to watch her with kids. She just loves being around them. The looks that cross her face crack me up. It’s almost like she looking at me saying, “Mom, do you see what they’re doing? It’s so cool.” or “Mom, can I do that too?”. It’ll only be a matter of time before I don’t even get a look anymore....excuse me while I wipe my tears.

We made it over to Grandma Jane and Grandpa Jacks for the “Cardboard Boat Rigatta” contest. This was supposed to be on July 4th, but we had a date change. Neil and I didn’t get to make a boat, but we thoroughly enjoyed watching the success of everyone else’s boats.

Lila will be 1 year old two weeks from tomorrow. I look at the list of things that I still need to do for her birthday and thank God that I started about 3 weeks ago. I would’ve never gotten anything done. I just got off the phone with our cake lady. She did our wedding cake and L’s baptism cake...both of which were so cute! I just can’t wait to see what she has in store for this special occasion. I did give her a picture of something that I liked. We’ll see what she does with it!

I’m trying out this new webpage/blog thing with our new Mac. I’m not completely sure how it’s going to work out, but hopefully everything will turn out ok! Go easy on me while I’m making these changes to my blog. Let me know how you like it and if I should stick with it or go back to my blogger account. Have a wonderful short work week!

You can see how it turned out....I'm going to make a few more posts on the events of the month!

Football Season has arrived

We are so excited in the Atkins household. Why you ask? It's time for FOOTBALL!!! Last year we started football season with no baby and finished with Miss Lila. This year, she is getting to enjoy it too. I have to say she likes the band more than anything right now, but she'll catch a glimpse of the boys on the field and oohhh and ahhhh. I think she's gonna fit right in this fall. :) We have been enjoying high school football thus far, but next week will start Saturday morning college football and Sunday/Monday night football. I would say Neil is pretty lucky. For the past couple years he has asked me if I wanted to have my own fantasy team. I reluctantly declined because there's no way I could keep up with my own. I told him I would just help co-manage his. Together, we make a pretty good couple. This year is gonna be even better! I think we might even win!

Lila got some new kicks this week. I'm trying to put her in shoes more often so she will feel more comfortable walking. She can stand on her own, but completely freaks out when you let go of her hands and she just sits down, screaming, like "how could you let go of me like that?". It's pathetic. She crawled at 9 months and from some of the articles that I've read, babies usually crawl for about 3 months before they walk. If that's the case, we're looking at right around her birthday. We'll see. I'm being kinda selfish here, but if she would start walking, it would make football games a lot easier for us. Right now, we either have to hold her and pass her around or sit her on the track and then she crawls and picks up rubber pieces off the track then eating them. I'm not saying that the walking thing will keep her from eating the track, but being off the ground more may help a little. Don't get me wrong; I don't want my baby to grow up any faster than she it, but it's time for her to get brave and walk!

In my last post, I shared that we had gotten a new dog. She is a weim, which is what I have been wanting. I used to have one (he was NUTS), but had to end up giving him away because I moved into an apartment and just didn't have enough room for him. I'm sure he's happier now! The newest addition to our family is Emma. She is very sweet and very active. She and Jasper fight over who gets to fetch more! We have discovered that she may be a bit of a digger, but we're hoping that we can fix that. I tried to snap some pics of sweet Emma, but she was following me around everywhere. This is the best I could get!

A little busy...

I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe I've waited a month to update my blog. I have never gone this long before. So much has been going on and time has just gotten away from me. Lila was 11 months old on Saturday and I just can't believe how time flies. I've already been working on stuff for her birthday and thank God, because if I would have waited, I would have never gotten all of it done.

I'm making a very cute ribbon topiary (3 actually; an idea that I stole from another mommy friend) and so far they are turning out very cute! I'll have to post some pictures soon. I didn't really pick a theme for Lila's birthday party; it's just colorful polka dots and stripes. Totally cute, if I do say so myself! More to come on the birthday front...

Lila is now standing on her own, but only if she chooses to and if there is something close by that she knows she can grab. She's not yet brave enough to take those first steps. BUT she is getting braver by the day so I'm thinking at any time, she could just take off. Then things will really get interesting! She crawls everywhere right now, so it probably won't be much different as far as getting places. It's hilarious. She can't sneak up on anyone. She sounds like a herd of elephants going down the hallway when she's on a mission.

We also got another dog! I know, we're nuts....Neil will say I'm nuts, but she's just adorable and we love her to pieces. Pics to come for that too! I know it's not the longest post, especially after being gone for over a month, but I promise I'm going to try to get more postings!

10 Months Old (sniff sniff)

My little baby girl is 10 months old today. Time is just going by so fast. I just know that I'm going to turn around and she'll be 1. Then the next time I turn around, she'll be going to kindergarten. It makes me want to cry!

She is getting fast with her crawling. I can walk in the kitchen and 15 seconds later come back in the living room and she'll be all the way across the room and into something else. I have to say, I love it though. I don't mind picking up her toys 22 times a day. I just love watching her get into them and explore what they all do. She pick up a toy and it will make whatever noise it makes, then she will look at me with those beautiful blue eyes like, "Mom, did you see what I made it do?".

We have this baby doll that is supposed to be life-like. I got it when we were going to baby classes when I was pregnant. We had to bring a doll to a couple of them for demonstration purposes. I knew that since we were having a girl, the baby doll would get used a lot. But I never thought it'd be this soon. She pulls that baby towards her and hugs her and loves on her. She's so motherly already. LOL :)

Super Saturday

As we speak, little Lila Jane is snoozin' away. I'm sitting on our patio enjoying this beautiful day. I am pleased to say that this morning Lila slept until 7:15 and only woke up because I went in to check on her to make sure everything was okay. She heard me and woke up. BUT that was just fine, because she woke up in a great mood. This is the first time in about a week that she woke up in a good mood and stayed in a good mood. She's back to her normal self; that is, until her next tooth decides to come in. :)

Aunt Hannah was kind enough to come over and watch Lila while I mowed and weedeated. It needed to be done SOOO bad that the mower died seriously 15 times. I think the grass was a little high. :) Then Aunt Hannah left and Lila fought me for a nap, which is another indication that she is back feeling better. LOL

Tonight Neil and I are going to see.....HARRY POTTER! I have to adit, I'm kinda exctied. There was a time two years ago when he dragged me to see the Half-Blood Prince and I feel asleep in the movie. Now, even though I need me sleep and the movie doesn't even start until 10:00 PM, I think I can manage to stay awake.

I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the weekend! GOOD DAY!

Mr. T: TALL Teeth

The last few days have been plagued by the teething monster. This has been absolutely dreadful for us. It has been days of no-stop fussing, fighting, screaming, tantrums, loving on momma and dada, more screaming, etc.

All babies go through teething, but I feel like this has been extra hard for us because Lila hardly ever cries. She has been throwing more fits lately before bedtime, but really, she is a very happy baby. Not so much since about Thursday night. At some point in the middle of the night, the teething monster broke into our house (we didn't hear him) and sneaked into Lila's room and held her hostage. He's still holding the poor girl hostage until we can make this tooth pop through. Hopefully, this will be soon because we keep telling him he's not welcome in our house.

It seems to be coming in a little more everyday, but just not quick enough. After a fabulous 4 day weekend, Mom and Dad were not ready to go back to work, let alone have to struggle to stay awake at work. I decided today that it is like having a newborn again. Up every couple hours, the thing about the newborn is, usually they just want to eat and then go back to sleep again.

I think this post was really more like a venting place as I really haven't given you any good information. The next post (hopefully) will be that a tooth has come through and maybe that will be tomorrow. We can only hope. Thanks for you ears! Y'all are too kind!