A prehistoric party!

Grady's been obsessed with dinosaurs for a while now, so it wasn't hard to come up with a theme for his birthday party this year.

He was so excited for all of his friends to come over that he literally waited by the window for a solid hour.  Then he waited on the front steps for another half hour.  :)  I love him so much.

We had originally planned to have the party outside, but the forecast threatened rain, so my mom & I scrambled to get the attic cleaned up, floor painted, & closets curtained over two LATE nights.

We drug a table & our dining room benches up to the bedroom (since it wasn't yet furnished), & set up food & games in there.

We only played a couple of games (the attention span of 3-8 year olds varies!)...one of which was a version of "pin the tail on the donkey" using running Grady's and a T-Rex.

I googled "T-Rex drawing" & sketched out one of the images that popped up in an old frame we had lying around.

Getting ready to make his birthday wish while his friends sing to him!  He's the sweetest boy.  He'll make the best boyfriend someday - no lie!

We got the dinosaur hats at a dollar store in Nebraska.  I searched EVERYWHERE for them.  They were a hit!
 

Rawr!

I said..."RRRRRAAAAAAWWWWRRRRRRRRRRR!"

The party was a blast, but exhausting!  Good thing birthdays only come once a year...

Happy birthday sweet boy.  I'm SO lucky to be your mama.

5 years...

5 years since this little man was born...we began the morning by opening a few presents on the porch.

His "big" gift was a basketball hoop.  It took his dad & I 4 hours to assemble.

I think he played with it for more than four hours that day, though...so it was worth it!

That afternoon, my parents & brother came over for pizza & cake.

It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that this little guy is five & will be going to kindergarten in a couple of months.  In. Sanity.

A few days later, we had 10 of his friends over.  To say he was excited was an understatement.

I'll post some pictures from that party next!

Spring finally came!

***Quick attic update***
You guys...we're almost done with drywall!  You can't imagine how excited I am about that.  This weekend I got the walls on the landing primed, but we still have a couple of touch up coats of mud to put on some spots on the ceiling.  Those sloped ceilings are tricky to mud!  I think we'll be ready to prime the ceiling & paint the whole room by Sunday.  Eek!

In other news, since I don't have enough going on already, I'm also taking Karen Russel's Snapshots of a Good Life photography class over the next couple of months.  I'm only a couple of weeks in, & I already highly recommend it!  No matter what level of your photography skills, you'll come away with something new. 

Our week 1 assignment had to do with composition.  So, I took Grady to the park...which proved to be challenging to say the least.  The kid doesn't stop moving to begin with, but get him outside, at a playground, after the longest, coldest, most cooped-up winter I can remember...& yeah...it was hard for this girl to visualize, much less get a shot with good composition before he was moving on (at warp speed) to something new.  I did manage to get a few shots that I liked though...

I'm really looking forward to the next 8 weeks of Karen's class & am anxious to see where it takes my photography! 

{I'm looking forward even more to spring...& more days at the park!}

Getting Trim...

I didn't have a chance to break out the camera this weekend, but wanted to share a quick Instagram shot of what we were up to yesterday.  Trimming out the master bedroom!  Woohoo!

You can't really tell in the picture, but we put up some pine paneling on the upper half of the window wall (& got it primed & painted), got the window trimmed out, put up 1x2 and 1x3's under the paneling on the window wall, got a lot of the base boards up, & even glued up a few of the 1/4"x2 slats for the board & batten.  Dad was the measurer/cutter/gluer, Grady was the "fitter", & yours truly was the sander/taper.

I can't wait to peel off the tape tonight & start getting everything caulked, primed, & painted.

I'm finally starting to see the light!  ;)

Attic Update

Originally I had hoped to have the attic done (or nearly done) by Christmas - HA!  We seem to always underestimate the amount of time it will actually take to complete things.  I need to remember that we all have full-time jobs, & I have a part-time job.  When you only have a couple of hours a few nights a week, things tend to not happen very quickly!

Throw the holidays into the mix...plus a 4 year old that is very well-behaved (most of the time), but needs to be right in the middle of everything...

We did get the chimney leak under control until we can get up on the roof & check out the flashing.  We tore off all of the drywall around the chimney, dried it out & foamed & caulked around the chimney, then replaced all of the insulation & drywall.  Hopefully we won't have to worry about that anymore...

Now we're back to mudding & sanding the bedroom & closets.  I thought taping & mudding was an unfun job before...now, with all of these angles & corners, I'm realizing that it's right up there with stripping paint...almost intolerable.  :)

We should finish up mudding the bedroom & closets this week.  They "should" be ready to prime and paint next week.  Then we'll move all of the tools & furniture into the bedroom & focus on the landing. 

My old softball coach used to tell us, "Inch by inch it's a cinch...yard by yard it's hard".  He'd be happy that we're moving inch by inch.  Me, on the other hand, I wish we could take it by the yard!  I'm so impatient!

We're off to Omaha this weekend to celebrate Christmas with Eli's family.  I'm crossing my fingers that my awesome father will feel like doing some sanding while we're away.  Wouldn't it be nice to come home to a ready-to-paint room?!?  Dad???  :)

Halloween...Lone Ranger Style!

If you remember from my post a few weeks ago, Grady decided to be the Lone Ranger for Halloween.  (The recent Disney movie version.)  It was a blast putting together this costume & he LOVED it.  After picking him up early from daycare & taking a few photos at a maritime museum downtown, we headed out to do a little trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  It was chilly & drizzly, but that didn't slow this little guy down at all!

We've taken a picture by the same lamp post every year we've gone trick-or-treating!  I feel like next year he might be as tall as me!

We didn't stray too far from the mood board I created.  (You can click back to this post for details.)

1. Instead of ordering the "official" hat from the Disney Store, I stumbled across a white cowboy hat at a local thrift store for a buck.  Score!

2. For the mask, I bought a sheet of felt at Ben Franklin for something like 45 cents, cut out the mask shape, & sewed an elastic strap on the back.  We had a red bandanna at home to use, & for the Texas Rangers badge, we actually had a random vending machine necklace that was the same shape, so we sprayed it silver & wrote "Texas Rangers" on it in black Sharpie.

3. We did purchase the gun/holster set off Amazon.  It was the "splurge" of the costume for a whopping $17 (free shipping with Amazon Prime).  The gun was heavy duty & looked just like the picture...Grady was convinced it was real.  The holster/belt combo, not so much.  It was fine for the price though. 

4. We found a suede vest & white shirt at Goodwill.  He had a pair of black pants already.  I couldn't find a black suit coat in Grady's size anywhere, so I ended up buying a women's coat, took it apart, cut it down, & put it back together again...this time smaller.  It was an experiment & I wasn't sure it would actually work, but it did!  I almost made it too small, actually.  I rubbed brown chalk on it to give it a trail-worn look as opposed to 90's librarian.  :)  We borrowed the boots from a friend...they were a tad on the big side, but we were able to fit wool socks inside them on a chilly night!

Hope you all had as great a time as we did!

Grady already has his costumes planned out for the next couple of years...a fox next year & Batman the year after that.  :)

Haunted Halloween Doll House

A week or two ago I saw this Haunted Dolls House on the Mr. Printables website & knew that Grady would love it.  I also knew that I wanted to make one & had a ton of ideas on how to tweak & personalize it!

Mr. Printables has a printable (obviously) template to help you cut out the walls & floors, as well as some paper pieces to use in decorating your house.  (I didn't use the paper pieces on mine.)  They also give you some tips on creating spooky peg dolls.  I found inspiration for the rest of the peg dolls by searching on Pinterest, Google, & Etsy.

Meet this motley crew of spooks & ghouls!  Grady & I both love the kitty best.

I even painted a Grady peg doll dressed up in his Lone Ranger Halloween costume & surprised him with it this morning!  He just giggled when he saw it & asked where I got the pumpkin halloween bucket.  (I have a jar of pumpkin potpourri that I painted & glued a felt handle on.)  He's all ready to go trick-or-treating at the haunted house - if he dares!  Good thing he's got his 6-shooter along!

Some creepy monsters waiting by the rope ladder.

I love the ghost peeking through the window!

The pieces of the house slide easily together so you can take it apart making it simple to store!

A few close-up shots of our motley crew!

Some of the things I tweaked:

• I painted the house with chalkboard paint.  (I thought it would be fun to draw different things on the walls & floors & be able to erase them!)
• We made a whole fireplace instead of just a chimney.
• Added a fence around the porch.
• Added a crooked ladder to get upstairs.
• Added a rope from the 1st to 2nd story (Grady's brilliant idea!).

If any of you have created a Halloween haunted doll house or peg dolls, please share them!  I think I've found a new addiction.  I'm just imagining how fun a "Night before Christmas" house would be...or maybe Santa's workshop???